Jump Links

  • Career Overview
  • Weapons
  • Talents

The Slayer is Bardin Goreksson's third unlockable Career, unlocked at level 12. This Warhammer: Vermintide 2 class is all about fast, rampaging melee attacks, as Bardin leaps into battle, staying alive only by killing the enemy faster than they kill him.

Related: Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - Ranger Veteran Build Guide

The Slayer is an easy-to-use, difficult-to-master Career for players who want to mow down hordes of enemies and monsters on the frontline. Let's take a look at each of the Slayer's weapons, talents, and the best ones to use for each type of build.

Career Overview

Ability

Description

Career Skill - Leap

  • Bardin leaps forward, stunning enemies in the area where he lands and gaining 30% increased attack speed for 10 seconds.

Passive Ability- Trophy Hunter

  • Damaging an enemy grants a stacking buff that provides 10% increased damage. This buff can be stacked 3 times and lasts 2 seconds.

Perk - Path of Carnage

  • Increases attack speed by 7.5%.

Perk - Drengi Grit

  • Bardin can not be interrupted by damage when using a charged attack.

General Gameplay

The Slayer is a melee-only career that leaps into battle, cutting down waves of enemies while relying on its Doomseeker and Grimnir's Focus talents to stay alive. This Career requires quick thinking and situational awareness, as you'll need to keep track of where enemies are and where you need to be next.

Because the Slayer can't equip ranged weapons (except for the DLC weapon, Throwing Axes), this Career is at a severe disadvantage against long-range special enemies like Warpfire Throwers and Ratling Gunners. Typically, you should leave these enemies for your allies to handle, instead focusing on cleaving through hordes and close-range specials.

Overall, Slayer is a one-stop shop for wave clearing and monster-melting. Because of the high attack speed provided by Trophy Hunter stacks, you can rapidly slash at monsters and easily take them down before they are a threat to your team.

Weapons

Melee Weapons

Slayer has access to the following melee weapons.

  • Great Hammer
  • Great Axe
  • War Pick
  • Hammer
  • Axe
  • Dual Axes
  • Cog Hammer (Outcast Engineer DLC)
  • Dual Hammers (Back to Ubersreik DLC)

Because of the high emphasis on offense over defense with this class, Slayer does not have any of Bardin's usual shield-type weapons. Instead, this Career gains access to the Dual Axes weapon, offering fast chopping attacks.

When deciding on your weapon, keep in mind the level ten talents A Thousand Cuts and Skull-Splitter. These provide substantial bonuses if you equip the same type of weapons in both slots, and are too good to overlook.

In general, dual weapons like the Dual Axes and Dual Hammers have the fastest attacks, while two-handed weapons like the Great Hammer or Great Axe have slower attacks but higher damage. Choose the weapon you like to use the most, as you can't really go wrong.

Instead of typical ranged weapons, Bardin can use Throwing Axes, provided you have the Winds of Magic DLC. These weapons can be extremely handy for dealing with long-range enemies, and count as dual weapons for use with A Thousand Cuts. Throwing Axes can be recalled by holding the reload button, meaning you won't have to worry about picking up ammo.

Talents

An example Slayer build for dual-weapon playstyles.

Level 5 Talent

Doomseeker

Slayer's Fury

Infectious Fortitude

  • Striking multiple enemies with a single hit generates temporary health, up to a maximum of 5 enemies.
  • Killing an enemy with a melee attack generates temporary health, proportional to the health of the enemy.
  • Healing yourself with medical supplies also heals nearby allies for 20% of their maximum health.

Doomseeker is the most valuable level five trait, as the Slayer's high overall attack speed when paired with strong cleaving weapons like the Great Axe can generate lots of temporary health, which is essential for survival.

Slayer's Fury can be useful in lower-level content where enemies die faster, making it a better pick in lower-difficulty situations. Infectious Fortitude, on the other hand, isn't nearly as useful, as you should typically worry about your own health before your allies'.

Level 10 Talent

A Thousand Cuts

Skull-Splitter

Hack and Slash

  • Increase attack speed by 10% if one-handed weapons are equipped in both weapon slots.
  • Increase power by 15% if two-handed weapons are equipped in both weapon slots.
  • Increase critical hit chance by 5%.

Your level 10 talent choice depends entirely on which weapons you are using. Ideally, you will want to equip either two one-handed weapons or two two-handed weapons to take advantage of A Thousand Cuts or Skull-Splitter, respectively. However, if you prefer not to use two of the same weapon type, Hack and Slash is a viable option, as well.

Level 15 Talent

Smiter

Mainstay

Enhanced Power

  • The first enemy hit with an attack is always staggered. Staggered enemies take 20% more damage. Staggering an enemy that is already staggered adds a count of stagger, increasing the damage they take to 40%.
  • Staggered enemies take 40% more damage. Staggering an enemy that is already staggered adds a count of stagger, increasing the bonus damage to 60%.
  • Increases power by 7.5%

Smiter provides the most damage increase against enemies, as the first hit always counts as a stagger, meaning that the first enemy you hit always takes 20 percent increased damage.

Enhanced Power can be useful for increasing your overall power, but does not provide any additional bonuses for staggering, making Smiter or Mainstay better picks for overall utility.

Level 20 Talent

Impatience

High Tally

Adrenaline Surge

  • Gain 10% increased movement speed for each stack of Trophy Hunter.
  • Trophy Hunter can be stacked 1 additional time.
  • Leap's cooldown recharges three times faster if Trophy Hunter is at maximum stacks.

Because you will almost always be at maximum Trophy Hunter stacks while attacking groups of enemies, Adrenaline Surge is the best option here. This will allow you to repeatedly use Leap, which can be especially useful for dealing with high-health enemies, monsters, and bosses.

Level 25 Talent

Oblivious to Pain

Grimnir's Focus

Barge

  • Reduce damage taken from Elite enemies to no more than 10.
  • Reduce damage taken by 40% for 5 seconds after striking an enemy with a charged attack.
  • Dodging pushes small enemies out of the way.

As long as you are able to use a charged attack every five seconds, Grimnir's Focus provides a massive flat 40 percent damage reduction. Although you will need to weave charged attacks into your rotation, you will take significantly less damage than the other two talent options at this level.

Barge can be useful in certain scenarios to control crowds of enemies, but doesn't provide anywhere near the massive damage reduction of Grimnir's Focus.

Level 30 Talent

Crunch!

Dawi-Drop

No Escape

  • Landing on enemies with Leap increases the effectiveness of stagger on them by 100%.
  • Damage during Leap is increased by 150%.
  • Increase movement speed by 25% for 10 seconds after using Leap.

Crunch! is an incredibly strong talent that can be used offensively or defensively when Leaping on enemies. Crunch! will stagger almost every single enemy type in the game. Paired with the faster recharge of Leap with Adrenaline Surge, you can continuously leap on high-health enemies and monsters to repeatedly stagger and damage them.

The other level 30 talents aren't nearly as useful as Crunch!, but No Escape can be fun to use if you want to dart around the map while swinging wildly.

Next: Warhammer Vermintide 2: The Best Engineer Build