[4.4] Bardin's weapons and talents

A quick and dirty overview of Bardin's weapons and talents, explaining their strengths and weaknesses to help you make your own builds.

Introduction

I've played Vermintide 2 for a little over 600 hours, almost all of which have been spent on Bardin (to be fair, I tried Kruber once. Didn't like it, camera was too far off the ground.) I put this together to help intermediate players understand the roles of different weapons and talents, to help you make your own builds. This is all based on my personal experience with the game, and others may disagree with my assessments. This guide does not contain any specific builds or detailed information on breakpoints and optimal stats, just a quick overview so you can easily look up how different weapons and talents play in practice.

Melee Weapons

Greataxe
The greataxe has decent alpha damage and very good damage output against unarmored single targets. That said, it's slow, has poor dodge, and struggles against hordes and armor. Slayer can make good use of it thanks to getting a second melee to deal with hordes, but on other classes you'll probably want either a versatile or anti-horde melee weapon.
Kerillian has a direct upgrade of the greataxe in the form of her glaive.

1h Axe
The one-handed axe is a faster and more versatile alternative to the greataxe. It has worse alpha damage, but better dodge and attack speed. It can fill the same role of killing elites/monsters while also being usable against low density hordes, but is still primarily a slayer weapon.

Dual Axes
Dual axes have very high attack speed, damage output, and dodge, but lack stamina and do not cleave or stagger, ever. It's good for killing monsters and unarmored elites, but struggles with hordes and armor. Hard to use, but a good player can do some impressive dodge dancing with it.

Axe/Hammer and Shield
Shields are Bardin's safest weapons. They have immense block, amazing crowd control, and farm THP at an insane rate. Both axe and hammer fare well against all targets, but kill slowly and suffer from poor dodge. Kill speed isn't much of an issue until Cata, so it's arguably overpowered for Legend and below. For Cata, shields mean your melee is purely for crowd control, and you'll need to rely on your ranged weapons and/or your teammates to deal damage.

1h Hammer
The one-handed hammer is a solid jack of all trades. It will perform decently well in any situation, but fails to excel at anything. I would argue you're usually better off with a more specialized weapon, but it's also hard to go wrong with the hammer.

Greathammer
The greathammer has great single target damage against armor, and its high stagger allows it to keep hordes at bay in a pinch (though its slow speed and poor dodge means this is not something it will excel at). Mediocre crowd control and damage against non-armored enemies means it will generally only see use on slayer, whose extra attack speed and damage make the weapon much more reliable.

Coghammer
The coghammer is a faster greathammer with better single target damage. It deals slightly less armor damage on a body hit and doesn't staggercleave as much, but is pretty much a direct upgrade on anything but slayer (who can take advantage of greathammer's greater stagger and anti-armor and take a dedicated weapon for unarmored damage and/or hordes).
I would argue that the coghammer's ability to reliably deal with hordes and elites and monsters makes it Bardin's strongest melee weapon overall.

Dual Hammers
Dual hammers are Bardin's best weapon for killing hordes. They have high stagger, good dodge, and their combination of high stagger-cleave, wide arc, and good attack speed means you're essentially putting up a wall in front of yourself that only very dense hordes break through. It's very safe and still pretty killy, and has decent alpha damage against armor to boot. Its single target damage output is lacking and it doesn't have the best block, but it's hard to go wrong with dual hammers on any class.

War Pick
The war pick is painfully slow, but has fantastic alpha damage with the right breakpoints, and doesn't really care how much armor the baddies are wearing. Decent cleave and stagger means it can be used against hordes in a pinch, but requires a lot of attack speed to do so. It also struggles with mobility even more than other two-handers. The coghammer has made the war pick even less relevant, since that weapon also offers great single target alpha damage, but attacks much faster and is more than capable of dealing with hordes to boot.

Ranged Weapons

Crossbow
The crossbow is a jack-of-all-trades with good ammo capacity, the ability to pierce through enemies, and a fast reload. It's not terribly accurate from the hip, but can become pinpoint if you spend a moment ADSing. One-shot breakpoints aren't the best, so you're gonna need headshots, which can be tough given that it's a physical projectile with travel time, and a bit of drop over range. If you're able to consistently land headshots it becomes an amazing weapon, but in the heat of battle you might need two shots to do what other weapons can do in one. On the upside, the crossbow lends itself very well to making quick flickshots, and ranger can deal okayish damage to hordes and monsters with it thanks to the snappy reload and high ammo capacity.

Handgun
The handgun is the "I use my ranged weapon to kill specials" gun, able to one-shot specials on a single bodyshot with the right setup. Some careful aim nets you a one-shot on a headshot against just about anything short of a mauler. Ammo capacity is good enough to last, assuming you stick to the weapon's intended use. It doesn't reload particularly quickly, and is very inaccurate when firing from the hip, meaning you'll want to spend some time ADSing before you take a shot. With good aim you can deal with threats at any range, but the poor hipfire and reload time means it can struggle in panic situations.

Masterwork Pistol
The masterwork pistol is a smaller, more gimmicky handgun. Up close it does the same damage, but at long range it's less accurate and has hefty damage falloff, in addition to firing on a delay. At close range you can fan the hammer and spam out six fantastically inaccurate shots, giving you brutal damage against monsters, and the potential to clear out berserkers/monks/stormvermin up close in a pinch. You'll typically need two or three shots to kill specials at range. It's good on any class, but ranger veteran's ammo drops allow him to make the best use of its high damage spammability. Is that a word? It is now.

Grudge-Raker
The grudge-raker kills hordes good, and can take out unarmored specials at close range with one to three shots. It'll chew through ammo like a rat in a cheese shop, so you'll realistically only take this on ranger. The value of the grudge-raker scales directly with horde density, which means it's very underwhelming on lower difficulties, but decent on legend, and impressive on cataclysm - assuming you're content with relegating your ranged weapon to horde-killing and little else.

Drakefire Pistols
Drakefire pistols are a jack-of-all-trades weapon with okay range and mediocre accuracy. The primary fire can deal with specials and elites, and the alt fire acts like a shotgun letting you keep hordes at bay. The main draws are endless ammo (with the usual overheat mechanic), and general versatility. Problem is, the damage output is so low that this is realistically just a mediocre cc tool.
Kerillian has a direct upgrade of drakefire pistols in the form of the moonbow.

Drakegun
The drakegun literally melts hordes up close, but leaves you with no way to kill specials - or anything else, for that matter - at range. Engineer is better off just using his minigun, but it can work on ironbreaker if your team is willing to build around you.

Throwing Axes
Throwing axes are a meme. They fire on a delay, have very low velocity, are impressively inaccurate, have strong projectile drop, take forever to "reload", and I swear they deal more damage in friendly fire than to the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ rats. Their one and only upside is endless ammo.
Kerillian has a direct upgrade of throwing axes in the form of the javelin.

Salt aside, the throwing axes can be fun to use precisely because of their unreasonable difficulty - I just wish said difficulty would be rewarded with some degree of effectiveness, instead of just being a joke weapon.

Trollhammer Torpedo
The trollhammer torpedo is in practice a very big grenade launcher with respectable alpha damage and a painfully slow reload. The trollhammer can also deal with specials at medium range, but its heavy drop makes it hard to use for specials at long range, and its AoE makes it unviable to use at short range without needlessly hurting yourself and your team. I think the trollhammer takes on a similar role to the mwk pistol, the difference being that the trollhammer is a little harder to use and struggles against specials at anything other than midrange, in return for being able to deal with super armor and stunlocking bosses. Arguably the best pick on both engineer and ironbreaker.

Ranger Veteran

Regular player / weaves
Ranger veteran is a squishy (by dwarf standards) but versatile class that offers solid team support.



Level 5
Ranger Veteran has THP on stagger, THP on cleave, and healshare. Either THP option is good depending on your melee weapon. Healshare is crap, but ever so slightly less crap on Ranger Veteran due to his 10% chance not to consume healing items when used. Still not worth taking over the THP talents.

Level 10
Master of Improvisation helps reduce the sometimes painfully long cooldown on your career skill, and works well with every weapon except the mwk pistol. Foe-Feller gives you a small flat boost to attack speed - not a terribly interesting or impactful talent, but it's the best you can get if you're running mwk pistol, and it also helps enable the greataxe, handaxe, and greathammer. Last Resort can be used for a gimmicky throwing axe build, and precious little else.
Master of Improvisation is the go-to talent for most builds.

Level 15
You're pretty much always gonna take Enhanced Power on a ranged class, since it's the only option that helps your ranged weapon. Enhanced Power is also decent for melee in all situations, so sacrificing 7% ranged power for slightly better melee isn't worth it.

Level 20
Drunken Brawler provides a decent buff for you and your team, but the drinking animation means you'll only want to pick up the ale it drops when you're between encounters, which can mean doubling back or having to stop and check with your teammates regarding who ought to drink, making it difficult to make the most of.
Scavenger is incredibly unreliable at a 20% base chance for a drop, and the drop itself being a 1/5 shot at getting what you want. If you use potions and bombs responsibly your team will often be at full or near full capacity anyway, so Scavenger isn't even that useful when it procs.
Grungni's Cunning increases the ammo drop from specials from 10% to 30%, giving your team virtually unlimited ammo.
Grungni's Cunning is the go-to choice if you're running grudge raker or you know you'll be playing with ammo-hungry teammates. If you're unsure of your team's builds or if you prefer a more aggressive melee-oriented ranger, Drunken Brawler is a solid alternative. In the current meta of grail knights, moonfire bows, javelins and zharrins, most quickplay teams won't actually go through enough ammo to warrant Grungni's Cunning.

Level 25
Exuberance procs off of both ranged and melee hits, effectively giving you a flat 30% damage reduction in all situations. Firing Fury increases your ranged dps when firing through hordes, which is just about mandatory on grudge raker. No Dawdling increases your movement speed, and looks very underwhelming compared to the other two. I think people sleep on this talent - the extra movement speed gives you a big boost to survivability and utility, and almost single-handedly enables weapons like the greataxe which would otherwise be too risky to bring on ranger.
Exuberance is the go-to choice for most builds as it's useful in all situations and makes you notably less squishy. Firing Fury is a solid if risky alternative if you spend most of your time with your ranged weapon hanging out for killing things through the horde. No Dawdling is more difficult to make good use of, but it really shines at higher skill levels.

Level 30
Exhilirating Vapours provides some attack speed and THP in a small AoE around you, making it both a decent team buff and giving you somewhat more reliable THP farm. It's good for playing up the "panic button" aspect of your ult, and giving you better staying power.
Surprise Guest lets you be more mobile in ult to kill specials and elites. Ranger's Parting Gift can help clear patrols or to break you out of a corner against the horde.

Ironbreaker talents

Ironbreaker is easily Bardin's tankiest career. Gromril Armor allows you to ignore a hit every 20 seconds, which in practice means it will eat up almost all damage you take. Even when your Gromril is down, you still have a flat 30% damage reduction, 150 base health, and your ult reducing your damage by a further 50% (stacking multiplicatively, not additively). Thanks to your incredible ability to shrug off damage, THP generation becomes less important, letting you safely take Barkskin instead of Boon, making you very hard to kill once down, and protecting you further against disablers and blightstorms. The only real downside to Ironbreaker is a lack of damage bonuses, but on Legend and below this doesn't matter.



Level 5
Ironbreaker gets THP on stagger, THP on kill, and healshare. Because of his low damage output, Ironbreaker is usually better off doing crowd control with a high stagger weapon than chasing elite kills in melee, making THP on stagger the superior choice. THP on kill does more for you if for some reason you run handaxe or greataxe. Healshare is crap, don't use it.

Level 10
Under Pressure gives you slightly higher damage output with drakefire weapons, Blood of Grimnir helps you reach some breakpoints when the team is clustered together, and Rune-Etched Shield gives you and your team a little extra oomph for clutch situations. All three are viable options, depending on your weapons, team, and playstyle.

Level 15
Ironbreakers will typically take Bulwark since it synergizes very well with high stagger weapons, especially shields and dual hammers. That said, Enhanced Power can help you reach some ranged breakpoints you otherwise wouldn't have, and doesn't noticeably decrease your melee effectiveness, making it in my opinion a better option. Smiter is usually a poor choice, since Ironbreaker is not the kind of killy class that wants to invest into breakpoints.

Bulwark synergizes well with ironbreaker's penchant for stagger weapons, but does precious little for your single-target damage unless you're using a shield and staggering elites for your team to kill. Smiter lets you hit some single-target breakpoints and increases your single target damage in all situations. Enhanced Power helps you hit some ranged breakpoints, but is usually made obsolete by his level 10 talent Blood of Grimnir. All three talents are viable options.

Level 20
Vengeance is a lot of fun, turning Ironbreaker into an angry grudge-fuelled little killing machine for a short time. That said, it's vastly overshadowed by Gromril Curse, since that lets you escape from disablers when your Gromril is up. Tunnel Fighter looks good at first glance, but it's only useful on the rare occasion that you get hit more than ten seconds but less than twenty seconds after your Gromril went down. Gromril Curse is the go-to choice for all builds.

Level 25
Dawi Defiance can save you in some clutch situations, but just about demands you run stamina recovery, and is somewhat unreliable thanks to its RNG nature. The Rolling Mountain is great on dual hammers and coghammer, but on other weapons you'll usually want to use pushes very actively against both hordes and elites. Miner's Rhythm allows you to endlessly shield bash with a shield. All three are viable options depending on your build.

Level 30
Drenbarazi Oath and Oi! Wazzok! are both too situational to measure up to the might of Booming Taunt, which increases your taunt radius by 50% and your Impenetrable duration by 5 seconds. This means you can activate Impenetrable as soon as your Gromril is down, and have it last almost all the way until Gromril is back up. Good players get hit rarely enough that they can therefore almost always have either Gromril or Impenetrable to protect them.

Drengbarazi Oath gives you and your team a big 20% power increase whenever you ult, giving you some sorely needed damage and helping your team deal with big threats. Booming Taunt lets you taunt more enemies and be nigh invincible for longer at a time. Oi! Wazzok! lets you taunt bosses, which is very rarely something you'll need to do, and absolutely does not measure up to the other two. Drengbarazi Oath is the go-to choice for most builds, but Booming Taunt is a solid alternative.

Slayer Talents

Regular play / weaves
Slayer has the potential to do very solid melee damage, but his lack of versatility and range really hurts him. In order to get the most out of Slayer you need to play risky and rely heavily on your team to deal with threats, which can be rewarding but requires above average skill from both you and your teammates to pull off.

Chaos wastes expeditions
Slayer doesn't benefit as much from expedition traits as other classes, since he tends to rely on specific weapon setups for his build, and some of his talents don't really complement each other to any meaningful degree. He's certainly playable in expeditions, but not to the extent of Bardin's other classes.



Level 5
Slayer gets THP on cleave, THP on kill, and healshare. THP on cleave is reliable in all situations, and is the go-to choice for most builds. THP on kill is almost worthless against skaven hordes, but fares better against chaos. It will also make you hate your teammates for killing all the things you could have killed. Healshare is crap, don't use it.

Level 10
A Thousand Cuts and Skullsplitter complement specific weapon setups, and Hack and Slash gives you a small flat bonus for setups that can't take either of the aforementioned talents. All three are viable choices.

Level 15
Smiter helps you hit breakpoints and increases your single-target damage in all situations. Mainstay gives you more damage against things that are suffering from multiple stagger effects at once, which is a very rare situation to be in as most enemies will either be dead by the time they're triple staggered, or will be so resistant to stagger as to not get triple staggered in the first place (and even if they do, they won't stay staggered for more than a brief moment). Enhanced Power helps you reach breakpoints with the throwing axe, but otherwise does nothing for you.
Smiter is the go-to choice for all builds except throwing axes.

Level 20
Adrenaline Surge keeps your Leap up when using slower weapons, and still provides extra crowd control and consistency with faster weapons, making it the go-to choice for all builds. High Tally can potentially increase your damage output on faster weapons so long as your Leap uptime doesn't suffer, but is noticeably less consistent than using Adrenaline Surge. Impatience is overshadowed by Adrenaline Surge and High Tally, and I find it really jarring to have constant changes to movement speed.

Level 25
Grimnir's Focus is theoretically the best talent for any build, since it gives you a flat 40% damage reduction so long as you're willing to deal with the micro of having to do a heavy attack every five seconds or more. I'd argue this looks more appealing than it really is, for two reasons. First, slayer generally doesn't want to do a lot of heavy attacks. It's much safer to have one weapon whose light attacks are good against hordes and another whose light attacks are good against elites/specials/monsters. This is one of Slayer's primary strengths which Bardin's other classes can't take advantage of, being limited to only one melee weapon. Second, doing heavy attacks in situations where you ordinarily wouldn't want to do so is both sub-optimal for damage, and potentially risky.
Oblivious to Pain gives you slightly better permanent damage reduction, but only against monsters and elites. Barge gives a very small boost to your crowd control, but can hurt your damage output. Grimnir's Focus is strictly the best choice here, but can be annoying to play with in practice. If you don't want the micro of Grimnir's Focus, run Oblivious to Pain. Barge doesn't really measure up to the other two.

Level 30
No Escape helps your dodge dancing and is therefore a boon to your survivability, and also helps for saving allies from being downed or getting caught by disablers, and keeping up with a moving monster to maintain your damage output. Crunch doesn't help your mobility, but gives you notably better crowd control and allows you to stagger monks and the like when the need arises. It also synergizes great with Adrenaline Surge. Dawi-Drop is a fun gimmick, but not particularly useful. Both No Escape and Crunch are viable options that help your survivability, depending on whether you prefer mobility/versatility or frontline staying power / crowd control.

Outcast Engineer Talents

Outcast Engineer is a surprisingly versatile class, thanks to effectively having three weapons. He can deal great damage against hordes and monsters with his minigun, and kill armor, elites, and specials at range. He's also okay-ish at melee. The downside to Engineer is how team reliant you are - most bots and quickplay players will mindlessly run at the enemy all day every day, placing themselves firmly between your gun and what you want to shoot. A lot of players will also seem hell-bent on dodging into your line of fire as you try to kill the horde. Sadly, that's just something you're gonna have to deal with if you intend to work with elves and manlings. If you want to get value out of engineer, you need your whole team to play around you.



Level 5
Engineer gets THP on stagger, THP on cleave, and healshare. Both THP options are great, depending on your weapon. Healshare is crap, don't use it.

Level 10
Armour Piercing Slugs drastically improves your horde clear, and can help take out specials in a crowd. You'll need to be a little more careful to avoid friendly fire, but it's absolutely worth it. Leading Shots is good for expeditions with crit synergies, and also notably increases your damage output with drakegun. Scavenged Shot is interesting, but very underwhelming for what it does. Armour Piercing Slugs is the go-to for most builds.

Level 15
Enhanced Power makes your minigun stronger, and helps you reach ranged breakpoints. If you'd rather sacrifice ranged power for slightly better melee, you may want to play a different class.

Level 20
Experimental Steam Capacitors gives you the highest uptime on your minigun, allowing for more damage. However, it means you'll have to constantly stop what you're doing to fiddle with your gun, and the lack of Superior Gaskets' attack speed will leave you vulnerable in melee. Superior Gaskets gets rid of the constant fiddling (and if you're like me, that's the difference between Engineer being fun or straight up annoying to play), and improves your melee. It's theoretically worse than Experimental Steam Capacitors, but not by much. Full Head of Steam is much too specific and gimmicky to be worth taking over the other two.

Level 25
Ablative Armour gives you a much needed 25% damage reduction, and vastly outshines both other options, making it the go-to choice for all builds.

Level 30
Innovative Ammo Hoppers is far better than both other options on all builds except drakegun (where you'll want Gromril-Plated Shots to deal with armor and long range specials). Even with that specific build, you're really just doing what you could be doing with Innovative Ammo Hoppers and either a handgun or mwk pistol, but worse.

[Phát Dong]

@Ni(NO3)2
Throwing axes deal equivalent damage to crossbows with lower rate of fire, way more arc, and longer reloads. On Cataclysm you're gonna be pulling your hair out comparing them to literally any other weapon.

[Ni(NO3)2]

joke weapon? throwing axes are cracked lmao, it's not super hard to get consistent at hitting them and they do a shit ton of damage

[Phát Dong]

cheers mate

[BeanieCrab]

@Wodazbjorn Ah thanks, Ive never heard of it talked about like that before.

[Phát Dong]

@BeanieCrab Alpha damage refers to how much damage you deal in one hit. Weapons like the war pick have fantastic alpha damage, but because it swings so slowly your damage output over time will be lower compared to weapons that deal less damage per strike but attack much faster. Generally speaking, fast weapons with low alpha damage give you a more reliable stream of incoming damage, whereas slow weapons with high alpha damage deal damage in chunks, and are more reliant on hitting good breakpoints to stay competitive.

[BeanieCrab]

wtf is alpha damage?

[ඞ]

Great guide! Easy to read and offered some good ideas that I'll experiment with! Keep it up!

[Phát Dong]

@Gruzz the Grizz
Then I'd suggest you write a guide of your own.

[Gruz the Griz]

jfc three weapons in and I can't read any more. About what I would expect from someone who thinks 300 hours in makes them an expert giving advice to intermediate players. You don't understand the weapons you're describing at all. Just delete this crap.

[Peenar]

The literal only way to play Bardin is to go Quad-axes Slayer with talents mostly comprised of movement speed. Taking damage? Bah, only noobs get hit. True Slayers master the art of going so fast, enemies can't keep up and thus can't hit you.