Warhammer Vermintide 2 Markus Kruber Weapon Stats & Combos

In the beginning of the guide, you will find explanations on how you read the weapon cheat sheets, and what all the attack property icons mean. As an example, you will also find the Torch’s moveset here. After that, you will find the remaining melee weapons, ordered by hero Markus Kruber.

Warhammer Vermintide 2 Markus Kruber Weapon Stats & Combos

Explanations

Attack boxes

This is the most common type of attack, a slash. The arrow indicates the direction in which the weapon is swung. Naturally, downward slashes are suited for landing headshots. Horizontal slashes are useful for cleaving through multiple enemies, if the attack is able to. Upward slashes seem impractical at first, but they often have better effects to make up for it (higher damage, increased crit chance, bonus damage-over-time effects, etc). Also, with proper practice, headshots can even be landed with upward slashes. Refer to the further resources section for a tutorial that covers this.

This represents a stabbing attack. Stabs are always directed towards the center of your screen. Stabs are typically single-target attacks that can damage armored enemies. Many of them also deal increased headshot damage. The dotted line indicates from where your character stabs their weapon, but this direction makes no noticeable difference in combat. It is only included so that you can tell different stabbing attacks apart.

This represents a bash, which can normally only be performed with shield weapons. Since all shield bashes work the same, I will spoil their properties already: They always hit every enemy in front of you, dealing low damage but good knockback, especially to enemies directly in front of you. A valuable self-defense tool for dense horde situations.

Combo Structure

After performing any attack, you can follow up with either a light attack (green) or a heavy attack (red). Colored arrows point towards the attacks that will be performed as a follow-up. So every attack box will have both an outgoing green and red arrow. You can also block after attacking, which resets your combo. From there you can start over or perform the push attack (blue).

For visual clarity, arrows going back to the first light and heavy attacks are not drawn. Instead, you will see an outgoing arrow that ends in a circle. This does not mean that your combo ends, it’s as fast as going to any other attack. So the weapon in this example could perform the following loop: [Heavy 1 > Light 2 > Heavy 1 > …] forever, without stopping or slowing down.

Rarely, a weapon has a special attack that can be performed with a different keybind (the game calls it Weapon Special). You will find its box next to the push attack, indicated by a purple arrow.

Icon Glossary

Attack boxes will be accompanied by all kinds of icons, summarizing what this attack is good at. Use this information to plan your combos: If you want to fight hordes, try to find cleaving attacks that link into each other. And to fight armored elites, look for armor-piercing attacks linking into each other.

On the left side of the attack name, you will generally find icons telling you how well the attack cleaves. On the right side, you will find icons telling you what type of damage it deals. And if a heavy attack has special mechanics related to charging it, you will find icons below its name.

If only a single weapon uses a unique icon, it will be skipped here, and only explained in that weapon’s details text.

Cleave Properties

This attack is able to cleave through multiple non-armored units, but gets stuck on armored enemies (Including maulers, the elite chaos enemy with a huge axe and head armor). Note that there is still a cleave limit: If a group of enemies is too densely packed, you will only hit some of them.
This attack is realistically able to cleave through at least one armored unit and continue hitting more enemies after it. This is an uncommon but amazing property. Usually these swings still get stuck on chaos warriors, monsters and lords.
This attack itself may only hit one enemy, but it causes an explosion centered on that enemy, which hits all other enemies around it. The explosion can hit an infinite number of enemies, since it has nothing like a cleave limit.

Damage Properties

This attack deals damage to armored units. If the icon is grey, the damage is so small that it is clearly overshadowed by other attacks from the same weapon, so you might want to use those instead.
This attack completely bypasses shields held by enemies. Naturally, if the attack also happens to deal armor damage, this is great for dealing with shielded stormvermin.

This attack applies a burn damage-over-time effect. Sienna’s careers may have talents synergizing with these. Note that damage-over-time effects fully stack, so you can use multiple of these without losing any of their damage.
This attack applies a bleed damage-over-time effect. There is not much synergy here. Again, note that you can stack as many of these as you like.

Heavy Charging Properties

Holding this heavy attack increases its damage to an even larger value than usual. Keep in mind that any heavy attack without this icon does not do this: Normally, their damage is always the same, no matter if you release them directly or keep the button pressed for a while.
This heavy attack can be charged forever, since your character will never let go of it automatically.

This heavy attack can be charged forever, and while doing so your character will be in a blocking state. This block works as usual, meaning that it uses your amounts of stamina and block cost reduction, synergizes with class talents related to blocking, and the parry trait.

Blocking Infographic

Lastly, every cheat sheet summarizes the defensive ability of the weapon: The center number is the amount of stamina shields that it has (Note: 3 stamina shields = 6.0 stamina). Every weapon has a frontal block angle, typically 90°, as displayed in light blue. Enemy attacks coming from this angle cost way less stamina to block than attacks outside of it. The numbers in the top and bottom show how the block cost is modified in- and outside of the weapon’s effective blocking angle, so lower is always better. Keep in mind that you can improve the available stamina shields, the block costs, and the effective blocking angle with properties on your equipment.

Some weapons only lose half a stamina shield when pushing, instead of a full shield like all the others. This greatly improves your defense by allowing you to dig your way out of otherwise fatal situations. These weapons will be marked with this icon.

And on the topic of blocking, here is what’s special about shield weapons: Obviously, they generally have improved blocking stats as you will see in their infographics, and are the only type of weapon that may have shield bashes in their moveset. Furthermore, unlike all other weapons, they also allow you to block ratling gun bullets and the rat ogre’s overhead attacks. And their push strength is also improved, being able to stagger a lot of elite enemies that otherwise wouldn’t care. And lastly, the delay until your stamina recovers after pushing is halved when using a shield weapon.

Example Weapon: The Torch

The Torch can only be equipped temporarily by finding it on certain levels. You can protect yourself with it, as it can block like an average weapon and has reasonable cleave and stagger. And while its damage is laughably low, it at least applies burns on every hit. On its light attacks, the burn only ticks once, but on the push and heavy attacks it is stronger. The weapon special key can be used to drop the Torch, switching back to your actual melee weapon.

Markus Kruber Weapon Stats & Combos

Greatsword

Greatswords trade attack speed for cleaving ability. If you can spare the stamina, use push attacks against armored enemies: They deal twice the armor damage as your heavy attacks, so without push attacking it’ll take a while.

Same as: Saltzpyre’s Greatsword

Halberd

The halberd has high range and damage, but is awkward to use without practice, since its attack properties are so wildly mixed. For a single-target attack, Light 2 has low damage, so try to avoid it whenever possible. The Halberd’s push attack has the unique mechanic of letting you choose which light attack to follow up with, by varying how soon you input it.

Sword

With an extra stamina shield and good cleave, this weapon will make you feel well-protected. You might yearn for faster armor damage, however.

Same as: Sienna’s Sword

Executioner Sword

A fan favorite due to its straightforward attack pattern and high damage. Barely any weapon in the game can compete with the armor damage on its heavy attacks, and they even come with 20% bonus crit chance. Plus, the Executioner Sword has an increased damage modifier for headshots. What’s not to love? Well, maybe the fact that it attacks even slower than the Greatsword. But still, there is a trick to help you land these heavy attacks: You can stand far back, because while releasing a heavy attack, Kruber sprints forward.

Note on armor cleaving: The lights can just barely cleave through an armored enemy. The push attack usually can’t, unless you increase your cleave (e.g. Mercenary’s Limb-Splitter talent).

Great Hammer

Here comes another slow heavy-hitter! This one’s heavy attacks don’t only cleave armored enemies, but even knock them around quite well, buying you a lot of space. And while everything is tumbling around, weaving in a light attack can make short work of an important target.

Same as: Bardin’s Great Hammer

Mace

A well-rounded weapon with a lot of stamina. It bears similarities to the Sword, but the key difference is that it trades the cleaving heavy attacks for single-target strikes with much higher armor damage.

Same as: Bardin’s Hammer, Saltzpyre’s Skull-Splitter Hammer

Sword and Shield

A standard shield weapon. Its anti-armor combo is hidden behind the push attack, but with 5 shields you probably have the stamina to spare.

Note: You will find useful movement speed tech for the Sword and Shield in the further resources.

Mace and Shield

Compared to the Sword and Shield, this one’s cleaving attacks are better at staggering, but worse at actually killing groups. This one has an even larger effective block angle. Again, its armor damage is mostly hidden behind the push attack. And its push attack also has the unique mechanic of letting you choose which heavy attack to follow up with, by varying how long you hold it.

Same as: Bardin’s Hammer and Shield, Saltzpyre’s Skull-Splitter & Shield

Mace and Sword

DLC: Back to Ubersreik

If you felt like all previous weapons were too slow, you will be happy about this addition. Its heavy and push attacks using both weapons are outstanding, whenever you have the time or stamina to use them.

Note: You will find useful movement speed tech for the Mace and Sword in the further resources.

Tuskgor Spear

DLC: Winds of Magic

Very strong on the defense, due to its extra stamina shield, 180° effective block angle, and good stagger on its cleave attacks. Its armor damage is rather low, and its horde clearing speed suffers from being unable to chain many cleave attacks. This weapon is quite mobile while attacking however, and while holding its Heavy 1, Kruber even has 10% increased run speed.

Spear and Shield

DLC: Forgotten Relics

This shield weapon has the unique ability to attack while keeping its guard up. Landing these special attacks costs half a stamina shield, but can be especially useful against dangerous enemies such as berserkers. Its cleave attacks have good base damage, but keep in mind that Heavy 2’s direction makes it unsuitable for cleaving.

Note: You will find useful movement speed tech for the Spear and Shield in the further resources.

Bretonnian Longsword

DLC: Grail Knight Career

A high-damage all-round weapon that requires some getting used to. To get infinite cleave or single-target attack loops, alternating light and heavy attack inputs is required. This can feel odd at first, but produces opportunities to use the weapon’s charge-block ability frequently.

Bretonnian Sword and Shield

DLC: Grail Knight Career

Compared to the Sword and Shield, this one has an easier time accessing its armor-piercing attacks, but ends up with a weird horde combo: Light 1, a sword attack, followed by two shield bashes knocking the horde everywhere. With this weapon you also have the unique option to use Light 3 quickly instead of your push attack, which can be done by releasing left click after pushing with it, and then tapping it again.

Note: You will find useful movement speed tech for the Bretonnian Sword and Shield in the further resources.