How does competitive Vermintide work? 

Good point, that's something I overlooked.

Those are some good thoughts and not something I've put too much attention towards. I'm unsure about the best way to improve at Vermintide since a lot of habits/skills are formed out of just experience tackling the higher difficulties, which I understand is not a satisfying answer or all that helpful either. In general I've found a good way to improve at a difficulty is to attempt the difficulty above it. You'll most likely die and wipe fairly consistently, but that's the best way to figure out what actually works if you've got the willpower to push through something as demoralising as defeat. Lots of wisdom to be found within failure after all. Here are some pointers I can give for melee combat: 1. Avoid moving around with normal movement (WASD) and try to prioritise using dodges. Side dodges are preferential, back dodges should only be used when absolutely necessary. This is because if you move away from enemies rather than trying to keep them in place they are far more likely to perform running attacks. Running attacks are quite difficult to block and dodge, and they are also the type of attack that will likely catch any of your teammates off-guard as well. If you are playing as a frontliner for your team then you need to be the brick wall preventing the horde from moving past you, generally a lot of players coming from the official realm (and even those that are doing low-level modded stuff) give up way too much ground and things tend to snowball. If there's a group of elites at the front of the horde and they open with running attacks it's usually desirable to meet those running attacks head on and block them in order to slow down the horde. After those initial attacks you should be able to hold them in place far more reliably and also have an easier time doing damage. 2. Opening with a push can be desirable against a horde, but something most people don't think about is doing multiple pushes in a row. Pushing twice can open up a shield immediately, and pushing twice can offer a little bit more crowd control if you find the horde is getting a bit dense and you're having a harder time squeezing hits in without hit-trading. 3. Know your melee weapon's optimal damage combos. There's usually a couple of combos you'll alternate between with each weapon, so knowing what's best for Hordes, Single Target Unarmoured and Single Target Armoured is generally all you need to get by. Once you get familiar with those you'll naturally start flowing between each of the combos. You can find resources to help with this on the Onslaught Series discord, otherwise just look up Royale w/ Cheese's guides on Steam since they're very useful. 4. A good way to practice your combat mechanics and familiarise yourself with how enemy attacks work is to use the Modded Realm. I recommend checking out some of the mods in this Collection (steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2832582861). Use the Helpers mod to make yourself invincible (/invincible_toggle), use VerminTrainer to disable enemy spawns (/training), open up Against the Grain on Cataclysm (or any modded difficulty) and start spawning enemies in the first field with Creature Spawner. Using Hitbox Debugger is incredibly helpful too, because it will show you exactly how Elite and Monster attacks work. You'll be surprised with how aggressive you can play if you time your dodges properly, and occasionally mix in some blocks. 5. Just believe that you won't get hit, and you won't get hit. As absurd as this advice sounds, it actually does work. Especially when paired with my previous point you'll see exactly what I mean, because there's a lot more leeway than you think you have when it comes to avoiding attacks. (Except Stormvermin, their horizontal slashes and running attacks have one of the largest hitboxes in the game. Never underestimate Stormvermin.) 6. Aim for the head, that's one of the biggest DPS increases you can make in the (relatively) short term. There's a mod called Headshot Counter that will tell you your headshot percentage with melee weapons after every run (even failed attempts). A good percentage varies depending on the weapon, but a good rule of thumb is that if you're getting upwards of 40-45% then that's reasonable. Hopefully some of that advice helps out. I will say that point 4 is what helped me improve in the shortest period of time. Knowing exactly how elite attack hitboxes work gave me a lot more confidence in speeding up my gameplay.

@@TrixMelee There is a lot to unpack and try out here but it sounds promising. Thanks a lot for taking the time writing all of this down, I will try it out and see if I can make this stuff work.

This document might not be up to date but it should give you something to look at: docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vQiYDGzAlUkTlxi-jx_r2ikF87l6vIez0javsiiSvgJpHN_k3-UJRinKybb25Pev2zgvTkzMzC05mf7/pubhtml# I'm sure if you asked around on the Onslaught Series or Modded Vermintide Discord servers people would be more than happy to answer any questions you have.

Jepicus

Jepicus