Waywalker kerrilian, hagbane bow or longbow ?

[Mae HatsuMiku]

I just got a legendary of both type of bow, same power.

I was wondering, does her F apply the poison from the hagbane bow ? And what is even the damage on the poison ? The dummy doesn't show it

[iQew]

hagbane works pretty good against bosses but because of the low ammo i always feel that i get little value out of it.

specially with the amount of special mobs the game tend to throw at you

[Abomination713]

Swift > Longbow > Hagbane.

[AnaLoGMunKy]

I love the swiftbow. Headshots are a must tho.

[HereticVoid]

Longbow deals with both bosses and specials and has enoufgh ammo to last. Hagbane always runs the risk of running out and ff

[Sandro]

Everyone hates hagbane elves.

[kekkuli]

Haven't tried hagbane because it friendly fires a lot. But if i was to choose swift or longbow, longbow is easily the winner for me. I feel it's much more potent against stormvermin, 1 shots norscan guys with quick shots, and has enough ammo. I guess people just like the spammy nature of swiftbow more.

[All Thriller No Philler]

Longbow > Swiftbow > Hagbane

My reasoning is the awesome penetration of the Longbow means you're mowing down 5-6 trash per charged shot in hordes, it does WAY better damage vs armored (it's quick shot is equal to the Swiftbow's charged shot for all damage and has triple the damage (and almost double the penetration) for charged shots, making it a great special killer or ranged armor support. When you're in melee range you should be using melee weapons, and if you're in mid range you should be repositioning or setting up for a flank to skim the edges with your melee weapons.

Swiftbow is good, though. Especially with Barrage, or a crit-based build. Just gotta nail your headshots or it's not worth it, but with a higher dodge range and double the dodge count (6 vs Longbow's 3), you should be able to set up and get the angles you need to rip out headshots with it. I still feel it's inferior to the Longbow, but it definitely has its uses for the play styles people like to use it for (and it IS just fun).

Hagbane I just don't really like. The DoT is nice vs bosses if you land those headshots, and with barrage you can really make a target eat some punishment. But for the rest of the time it's not very viable, unless you're a shade and using it to spray into a horde to soften them up for your melee. People DO love the Hagbane though, and I think it's just for the DoT gimmick but it's still viable. That said, I prefer the repeater crossbow for the Shade due to the burst-damage nature of it and fitting well with the roll Shade plays in the party.

[old Charlie]

Hagbane is the best. Honestly its the best on every elf if you know what you are doing. Most people tend to spam the hagbane like a swiftbow and are disapointed that it doesn't work.
FF is also an overrated problem. Longbow is better if you are missing some ranged-special-snipers in your team.

Why do you guys advice to go with swiftbow? Do you play legendary? Is this advice for champion and below?

[Ursarcadius]

Before I type anything I'm going to leave this explanation of Hagbane here from reddit

There are two factors that make Hagbane damage highly variable.

Firstly, it is affected by weapon swapping, as other posters have said. The damage is calculated separately for each tick using the current Power values.

Secondly, all DOTs (damage over time effects) in Vermintide 1 and 2 have a significant chance to do 1 less damage tick than they should, and a very small chance to do 1 more damage tick than they should. Some clever people tried to explain the reason for that to me, but I'm dumb. (It has something to do with "frames".) As far as I understand, it is tied to fundamental workings of the game's engine and is something that is near impossible to fix.

Also, when you hit a target with a Hagbane charged shot, you apply 4 sources of damage:

Arrow direct hit damage (instant, very small, affected by crits and headshots)

Area damage (instant, extremely small, not affected by crits and headshots, falls off with distance)

Direct hit poison damage (damage over time, high damage, not affected by crits and headshots)

Area poison damage (damage over time, smaller than direct damage, not affected by crits and headshots)

(If you hit something indirectly (with the poison cloud but not the arrow itself), you only apply the area damage and the area poison damage.)

So the most significant damage sources are DOTs that do variable damage because of the inconsistent amount of damage ticks.



Here are some useful breakpoints for Hagbane charged attacks on Legend difficulty that I established purely through testing, with no theory:

+10% Skaven/Monster to almost always 1-shot Packmasters

+20% Chaos/Inf to reliably 2-shot Sorcerers

+20% Chaos/Inf to reliably 3-shot Maulers

+20% Skaven/Inf to reliably 1-shot Skaven Slaves with AOE (an indirect hit)

+30% Skaven/Armor to almost always 2-shot Rattlings/Warpfire Throwers

+40% Skaven/Armor to almost always 2-shot Stormvermin

All these breakpoints assume that your Power stays the same throughout the duration of the DOT (you don't swap out your weapon), and you don't have any extra damage bonuses (such as from talents or traits). Keep in mind that I've done this testing at least half a year ago, so things might have changed.



Also, a curious thing: a Gas Rat has the same HP as a Chaos Sorcerer (60 on Legend), but +20% power vs Chaos/Infantry is not enough to 2-shot it at all. Even with +40% power it still survives 2 hits quite often. I have no idea why.


/u/Malacarr on Reddit

[CopperBack]

Different options for different folks, play game, figure it out yourself, have fun doing it!

[Bones]

Nice necro there guys.

Longbow pretty well outperforms the other options in just about every way if you can aim. If you can't aim, pick hagbane but be sure to learn to finger roll.

[Ursarcadius]

Now onto my own explanation, I'm going to tell you something that I think no one else will:

All 3 bows are pretty good, all 3 are legend viable, and all 3 do something a bit different than others

Longbow: This is the one I see people use the most, and I understand why. If you land a headshot, it kills most anything you need to, and it doesn't do a bad job of killing specials or elites either. I personally feel it's overrated on Waystalker specifically, only because she has much more she can get out of Hagbane.

Hagbane: This thing is really nuts once you understand how it works. It melts hordes, can manipulate mob AI, absolutely melts bosses/elites with finger roll (and strength pot in the case of bosses), gets interesting power spikes with barrage, and can efficiently kill specials if you know your breakpoints. Now, is it worth the trouble of learning/mastering? That's for you to decide, but personally I think so.

Swiftbow: People seem to hate this thing, and I'm not entirely sure why. My best guess is all the legolas wannabe swift spammers you see when you are newer to the game. Swift bow has it's pros, and can actually be a better option than longbow if you play to its strengths. If you have trouble landing headshots consistently, it'll often drop things with bodyshots faster than longbow can. On top of that, it's way better at thinning out hordes. You'll struggle with Storm Vermin and Chaos Warriors though, so you'll need your career ability or melee weapon to help out with those.

[old Charlie]

Originally posted by Ethereal Seraphim:

Now onto my own explanation, I'm going to tell you something that I think no one else will:

All 3 bows are pretty good, all 3 are legend viable, and all 3 do something a bit different than others

Longbow: This is the one I see people use the most, and I understand why. If you land a headshot, it kills most anything you need to, and it doesn't do a bad job of killing specials or elites either. I personally feel it's overrated on Waystalker specifically, only because she has much more she can get out of Hagbane.

Hagbane: This thing is really nuts once you understand how it works. It melts hordes, can manipulate mob AI, absolutely melts bosses/elites with finger roll (and strength pot in the case of bosses), gets interesting power spikes with barrage, and can efficiently kill specials if you know your breakpoints. Now, is it worth the trouble of learning/mastering? That's for you to decide, but personally I think so.

Swiftbow: People seem to hate this thing, and I'm not entirely sure why. My best guess is all the legolas wannabe swift spammers you see when you are newer to the game. Swift bow has it's pros, and can actually be a better option than longbow if you play to its strengths. If you have trouble landing headshots consistently, it'll often drop things with bodyshots faster than longbow can. On top of that, it's way better at thinning out hordes. You'll struggle with Storm Vermin and Chaos Warriors though, so you'll need your career ability or melee weapon to help out with those.

Sounds accurate to me. I'll rate swiftbow the lowest but it is viable if you know what you are doing. Its a shame that it doesn't even stagger ratling guns or flamerats anymore.

[Blur]

longbow for specials sniping, hagbane for bosses. swiftbow if you came to play some fps, also its trash

[All Thriller No Philler]

Originally posted by Ethereal Seraphim:

Now onto my own explanation, I'm going to tell you something that I think no one else will:

All 3 bows are pretty good, all 3 are legend viable, and all 3 do something a bit different than others

Longbow: This is the one I see people use the most, and I understand why. If you land a headshot, it kills most anything you need to, and it doesn't do a bad job of killing specials or elites either. I personally feel it's overrated on Waystalker specifically, only because she has much more she can get out of Hagbane.

Hagbane: This thing is really nuts once you understand how it works. It melts hordes, can manipulate mob AI, absolutely melts bosses/elites with finger roll (and strength pot in the case of bosses), gets interesting power spikes with barrage, and can efficiently kill specials if you know your breakpoints. Now, is it worth the trouble of learning/mastering? That's for you to decide, but personally I think so.

Swiftbow: People seem to hate this thing, and I'm not entirely sure why. My best guess is all the legolas wannabe swift spammers you see when you are newer to the game. Swift bow has it's pros, and can actually be a better option than longbow if you play to its strengths. If you have trouble landing headshots consistently, it'll often drop things with bodyshots faster than longbow can. On top of that, it's way better at thinning out hordes. You'll struggle with Storm Vermin and Chaos Warriors though, so you'll need your career ability or melee weapon to help out with those.

lol but I said all three were viable, and only ranked them in order of my personal opinion :P

Longbow is a beast because of it's insane penetration and armored damage. As a Waystalker, that's what you use to finish off anything your F career ability doesn't nuke on its own, or to rip the hearts out of a line of a horde. You actually have a much more efficient TTK ratio than with a swiftbow, because your penetration means you can kill 5 in one shot, and even more if you're nailing head shots lined up. Swiftbow even charged has mediocre penetration at BEST.

That said, Swiftbow has a faster charged shot than Longbow does normal shot, and waaay more ammo, making it better if you've got your head shot or reactionary shot game on point. Still lacks penetration, still lacks Armored damage, but the 6-step dodge count and +25% dodge speed/range is really, really nice for if you want to play mid-ranged support.

Hagbane is great for controlling horde movement or softening them up, ESPECIALLY when paired with a Sienna. But unless you're charged head-shot stacking a boss (which if that's what you're using it for, you should just be bringing a Shade to fill that niche instead), it's only really good as a support role ranged weapon. However, for a support role ranged weapon, it is great! Group stagger, DoT application, resets immediate aggro so you can swap out tanks if you have endless hordes or heavy-hitters like Plague Monks or Stormvermin smashing someone's shields...these are all very, very useful tools.

Hell, even the Repeater is great, as it has the highest burst potential and just ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ MELTS trolls and totally ♥♥♥♥♥ up most bosses' days.