Sister of the Thorn DLC Guide

Guide for Sister of the Thorn mechanic/talent, two DLC weapons, and some build theory.

Career General Overview

Career Orientation

A melee focus career with consistent team buff and strong crowd control ability.

Pros: High health sustain for the whole team and more for herself. Can provide one of the best crowd control career skills and best elite control weapon in the game. Passive with talents can be one of the strongest buffs in the game.
Cons: Low burst damage. Fairly low mobility.

Basic Stats

Base HP: 125
Career Skill Cooldown: 40 sec
Unusable Weapons: Spear and Shield, Volley Crossbow

Perks

Blackvenom Blades	Melee attacks apply a Poison that deals damage and increasing damage suffered by 12% for 10 seconds. The poison has a base tickrate of per 0.8 sec. Deal 0.25 damage per tick to most units. Deal 0 damage to Chaos Warrior and Boss/Lord. Drinking Strength potion enables the poison damage to Chaos Warrior and Boss/Lord. Damage increase effect always works, no matter if the poison is dealing damage or not. Damage increase effect works on the attack that applies Blackvenom. Damage increase effect stacks with other sources of damage increase and works for the whole team. Only Blackvenom poison inflicts the damage increase. Hagbane Shortbow poison does not. Unlike Hagbane Shortbow poison DoT, does not require the original attack to deal damage to apply the bleed.
A Sustenance of Leechlings	Whenever another party member receives temporary health while at full health, Kerillian gains temporary health instead. 'Full health' means Permanent HP + Temporary HP is full. The effect range is huge but not global.
An Attendance of Munificents	All healing received by the party is increased by 25%. All Sister of the Thorn healing related talents do not include this perk when listing numbers.

Career Skill & Passive

Thornwake	Kerillian conjures a Thorn Wall that hinders enemy movement. The Thorn Wall lasts for 6 seconds.	The default Thorn Wall direction is horizontal, you can change its direction to vertical by holding Career Skill(default key: F) and click mouse left click. The Thorn Wall does some little eruption damage. For enemies, they cannot path through the Thorn Wall(including Storm from the Blight Stormer). They either have to change their routes or try to attack the wall(though it can't be broken by enemies). The Thorn Wall blocks all enemy attacks, including range attacks like Ratling Gunner and Ungor Archer. For players, you can walk through the Thorn Wall, but your movement speed is reduced. The Thorn Wall also blocks your melee and range attacks too, and your weapon also deals damage to the Thorn Wall. Should try to either completely block enemies, for them to reroute/break wall to buy your team some breathing room, or creating a choke point for better DPS opportunity.
A Cluster of Radiant	Kerillian is granted Radiance (a free use of her career skill) every 60 seconds.	When using a career skill with both base skill recharge and Radiance ready, Kerillian will consume your natural recharged career ability first, and then the Radiance charge.

Talent Mechanic & General Usage (Part I)

LeveL 5 Row

Weavebond	Melee critical strikes and headshots restore 2 temporary health. Critical headshots restores twice as much.	Should be used most of the time.
Martial Blessing	Melee killing blows restore temporary health based on the health of the slain enemy.	Should be used if you melee weapon is extremely hard to land headshot.
Eternal Blossom	Healing yourself with a First Aid Kit or a Healing Draught also heals your nearby allies for 20.0% of their maximum health. Clears any wounds.	With the perk A Sustenance of Leechlings and An Attendance of Munificents , Sister of the Thorn is the best heal share user. If you have multiple teammates that can farm THP easily(e.g Mercenary, Zealot), this talent is very viable. However, it is not recommended in most of the pub games, since it requires your team to be able to maintain at full HP most of the time, and in that case heal share ability doesn't matter too much.

LeveL 10 Row

Surge of Malice	While above 90% health Kerillian gains 15% Attack Speed.	Very consistent boost suited for heavy weapons When your Permanent HP + Temporary HP is over 90% of your max health, you gain 15% Attack Speed. And thanks to her perks A Sustenance of Leechlings and An Attendance of Munificents , it is very easy to maintain this buff. Suits some heavy weapons like glaive/2h sword very well.
Atharti's Delight	Melee strikes against Poisoned targets make them bleed.	Strong damage boost for melee focus combat The bleed last 5 sec, can stacked up to 3 times, has a base tickrate of per 0.75 sec(average tickrate). Melee attacks can apply bleed to targets affected by either Blackvenom or Hagbane Shortbow poison. Unlike other bleed DoT, does not require the original melee attack to deal damage to apply the bleed. Extremely strong against Infantry units and good against Berzerker/normal Armoured units. And since it can be applied by any melee attacks without worrying about if the original attack can go through armour or not.
Briar's Malice	Casting Thornwake grants Kerillian 2 critical strikes.	Damage boost that requires picking other Talent/Trait for good result Can be stacked beyond 2 stacks. Whenever you use a career skill, your next 2 attacks are guaranteed Critical Strikes. Although if your attack missed, it will still consume the stack. With a base Career Skill Cooldown of 40 sec/base Radiance Cooldown of 60 sec, the extra damage this talent provides is not huge. Taking Bonded Spirit is almost mandatory if you want to utilize this talent.

LeveL 15 Row

Smiter	The first enemy hit always counts as staggered. Deal 20% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Bonus damage is increased to 40% against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.	Increases your single target DPS. Should be picked most of time.
Mainstay	Deal 40% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Bonus damage is increased to 60% against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.	Increases your horde clear DPS. However, Sister of the Thorn already has strong area denial ability but lacks single target burst. Should avoided most of time.
Enhanced Power	Increases total Power Level by 7%. This is calculated before other buffs are applied.	Increase both your melee/range/DoT damage. For certain Sister of the Thorn build, DoT takes a big portion in terms of the total damage dealt. However, Smiter gives better results in terms of single target DPS, which is Sister of the Thorn lacks. And she can already reach important range breakpoints. Should be avoided most of time.

Talent Mechanic & General Usage (Part II)

LeveL 20 Row

Incandescence	Radiance can stack 2 times.	Low use case Utility Allows you to cast up to 3 career skills in a short period. However, this talent only starts to work after 120 seconds into the game and requires the player to play very conservatively, which is very inefficient in a fast pace game like Vermintide in general. The Sister of Thorn's career ability also doesn't have that huge amount of impact to make the conservative playstyle very good. Though if you can/want to save your career skill to only Patrol/Boss fight, this talent is fairly powerful.
Bonded Spirit	Reduce the cooldown of Radiance by 50%, taking damage sets the cooldown back 2 seconds.	High use case Utility Reduce Radiance cooldown to 30 sec. You need to take 15 hits before Radiance is fully recharged to have a longer cooldown than the base version. The cooldown set-back effect can only be triggered every 0.8 sec. Cannot be triggered by friendly fire or self damage. Once Radiance is fully charged, it cannot lose cooldown by taking damage. To utilize this low cooldown version of Radiance, it is recommended to take Blackvenom Thicket with it, as this version of Thornwake can be spammed without worrying about disrupting your teammates.
Radiant Inheritance	Consuming Radiance grants Kerillian and nearby allies 15% power and 5% critical strike chance for 10 seconds.	Short duration powerful team damage boost Apply the buff to all teammates within 20 units(double the range of Ironbreaker/Witch Hunter Captain career skill). Very powerful teamwide DPS buff. Especially when the whole team is actively fighting high threat target like Boss/Lord/Patrol. The only small downside is that in order to maximize its efficiency, the player needs to have some ability to predict tough situations, like patrol trigger and boss trigger, since it requires you to have your Radiance charge activated at the time you need it.

LeveL 25 Row

Recursive Toxin	Blackvenom can now stack 2 times.	Strong damage boost for melee focus combat Allows Backvenom to stack twice, double its poison DoT DPS and enemy damage taken debuff increase to 24%. For dual-wielded attacks, each individual attack themselves can apply a Blackvenom stack. Since the main application method of Blackvenom is melee attacks, picking this talent requires the player to participate in melee combat more in order to fully utilize it.
Lingering Blackvenom	Critical Strikes apply Blackvenom to enemies near the target.	Weak AoE stagger and some damage/damage boost Both melee and range Critical Strikes can trigger this talent. Release an AoE explosion that applies Blackvenom. The AoE can stagger trash mobs. Cannot apply Blackvenom to shield units with the explosion. A very good talent to provide some extra crowd control and AoE DoT. It is recommended to pair this talent with Briar's Malice and put crit chance on your weapons if possible.
Repel	Pushing at full stamina increases the strength and range of the push by 100%.	Crowd control/defence tool The full stamina push will knock down all trash units and push them quite far away. With 10% power vs, it can interrupt Stormvermin overhead on Cataclysm. WIth 20% power vs, it can interrupt Mauler/Bestigor overhead on Cataclysm. Unfortunately, it still can’t one-hit open shield. The downside of this talent is that you might push trash units too far away from you so you can’t hit them after the control.

LeveL 30 Row

Ironbark Thicket	Increase the width of the Thorn Wall and its duration to 10 seconds.	Crowd control enhance that requires skill Allows Thorn Wall to block enemies for longer duration and in a wider area. With good wall placement, this talent can provides even more damage opportunity. However, bad timing/wall position can actually harm your teammates even more with this talent, slow down pace and wasting time.
Tanglegrasp Thicket	Thorny vines now erupt from Kerillian and travel towards the targeted area. Enemies hit are dragged towards the target area.	Crowd control that is less gameplay disruptive The wall will grab all trash mobs/most specials/Plague Monk/Savage along with it. Cannot grab Blightstormer/Boss/Lord. Cannot grab Stormvermin/Bestigor/Mauler/Chaos Warrior/Life Leech/Firerat, but can push them back and put them into long stagger. It is similar to Footknight career skill Valiant Charge without sacrificing your own position and can leave peal elites away from horde units so you can focus them down easily.
Blackvenom Thicket	Thornwake instead causes roots to burst from the ground, staggering enemies and applying Blackvenom to them.	Strong AoE stagger and some damage/damage boost Has no eruption damage. Can stagger all units in the game. Very good talent if you prefer some easy to control damage over crowd control, or want to spam your career skill over looking out for better timing/terrain.

New Weapons Overview - Briar Javelin

Career Accessibility
Waystalker, Handmaiden, Shade, Sister of the Thorn
Basic Stats
Dodge:
120% dodge distance, 6 dodge count
Armor Piercing:
Pierce Super Armour with all attacks.
Crit chance:
No extra crit chance.
Mass modifier:
No mass modifier.
Additional notes:
Only melee attacks can trigger LVL5/LVL15 talents. Only ranged attacks can trigger Traits/ranged attack specific talents.
The last light melee attack applies bleed, the bleed last 4 sec, cannot be stacked, has a base tickrate of per 0.5 sec(above average).
Cannot be picked up like Throwing Axe, have to recall with reload key.
Recall is affected by attack speed.

Briar Javelin provides a very interesting range choice for Kerillian. It is an infinite ammo mid range special sniping weapon while compensating some of the melee DPS. The range part is similar to Throwing Axe charge attack, has infinite ammo and good stagger(can even stagger all elites moves except Chaos Warrior overhead on Cataclysm), but has better parabola than Throwing Axe and less bodyshot/higher crit and headshot damage in comparison. The melee attack is very similar to Elven Spear poke attacks. The light chain has some of the highest monster DPS and unarmoured elites damage in the game, while armoured damage mostly comes from heavy attack headshot/crit and even with a decent headshot rate it is still lacklustre, so you would want to pair it with a melee weapon that can clear horde and kill armoured elites decently well but lacks fast attacks and lacks monster damage(like Glaive). Its low ammo count and bodyshot damage, however, means you need decent headshot rate to be able to kill multiple specials in a short session. Unable to block with this weapon may also trick you into some dangerous position when you just start learning this weapon.

Pros: High dodge ability, infinite ammo, melee light chain has high monster DPS, ranged attack has strong stagger, versatile.
Cons: Low bodyshot damage, cannot block, ranged attack has its own parabola to learn.

Recommended Weapon Combo:
Melee Attacks:
Against horde:
When fighting horde, use chain light attacks.

Against elites:
When fighting unarmoured elites, use chain light attacks.

When fighting armoured elites, use chain heavy attacks.

Against elites:
When fighting unarmoured monster, use chain light attacks.

When fighting armoured monster, use chain heavy attacks.

Ranged Attack:
Use Ranged Attack to snipe long range elites/specials, clean lined up horde from distance.

New Weapons Overview - Deepwood Staff

Career Accessibility
Sister of the Thorn
Basic Stats
Dodge:
100% dodge distance, 2 dodge count
Armor Piercing:
Pierce normal armour. Does not pierce Super Armor without headshot/crit.
Crit chance:
No extra crit chance.
Mass modifier:
No mass modifier.
Additional notes:
Has no overheat slow down. Overheat explosion deals 40% of your max hp, then Deepwood Staff starts cooling automatically, and lock you out of using Deepwood Staff until the heat bar is grey or lower(below 25%).
Primary attack release 4 fast projectile darts with low damage drop off.
Holding right click then click special attack(default key: Mouse 5) can zoom in.
Alternative attack lifts and disables one enemy you select for 8 sec, 4 sec if it's a Chaos Warrior. All enemies that are not Monster can be lifted and disabled.
During the lifted duration, the enemy cannot move or attack, but they do not gain Stagger State automatically.
During the lifted duration, if the enemy has a shield the shield will drop automatically.

Deepwood Staff is a unique magic weapon that only Sister of the Thorn has access to it. The staff can be treated as a shield weapon in range form. Its primary attack has a decent fire rate and unarmoured damage, performing fine at killing roaming enemies and a couple unarmoured specials/elites quickly, but it struggles very hard at killing armoured enemies. The alternative attack is where its true functionality comes from. It can lift and disable all enemies in the game except mini boss monsters(e.g Rat Ogre) and lord(e.g Nurgloth). You can only select and disable one unit per cast, but the disable lasts 8 sec(4 sec on Chaos Warrior) and has no max target limit. You can use this ability to disable and kill elites enemies during pacing super easy or pick up specials you cannot easily bring down like Ratling Gunner. Most importantly, it makes fighting patrols and elites inside horde situations way smoother. Although your damage to the Patrol from the staff is very low, you can just keep using your alternative attack to lift elites and then vent, disabling most of them so the team can take them down one by one, divide and conquer.

Pros: Accurate, fast react, easy to use, strong disable.
Cons: Low armour damage.

Primary Attack(left-click):
Left click and release 4 darts with small delays.
Each dart count towards cooldown on hit. They are all pinpoint accurate and all darts land on the same spot.
Should be used to damage unarmoured elites or specials.

Alternative Attack(right-click):
Right click to select a target with the outline, left click to lift and disable the target. Holding right click then click special attack(default key: Mouse 5) can zoom in.
No limitation on how many enemies you can disable.
Should be used on elites or specials that you cannot kill quickly.

Sample Builds - Legend

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2034609078

Sample Builds - Cataclysm

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1833337461

[Royale w/ Cheese]

Fixed thanks

[oh1no]

捉个虫 大招描述那里"or try to attack the war"这里应该是 war→wall 吧

[Royale w/ Cheese]

That guide is up-to-date.

[Botasky]

Thank you, I've read that guide but I'm not sure yet.
Many talents have changed, and not mentioned to Repel with Opportunist.
Still, it's looks about 50% bonus is needed for that.

[Royale w/ Cheese]

You can check this guide by Ars0n: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2200946092

[Botasky]

That's nice! So is there any chance to interrupt plague monk's attack?

[Royale w/ Cheese]

yeah, opportunist affects all actions' stagger power.

[Botasky]

Does Repel is affected by Opportunist?

[Meowsers]

a VERY important thing, The Briar Javelin is also affected by the Waystalker ammo boost, letting you have 6 javelins at a time.

[Royale w/ Cheese]

Still decent weapon on HM/Shade/Sott, and I did update forgotten relic guide.