Warhammer Vermintide 2 doesn’t do the greatest job of explaining how to get better weapons or gear. The game has a number of confusing metrics you need to keep track of, and it all gets a little bit convoluted.
We’re going to go over how to get better weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2, including what makes a weapon “better” than another, why you should wait until your max level to farm for better weapons, and how to ensure you’re getting the best possible odds at high-stat gear.
How to Earn Better Weapons and Gear
There’s one, and only one, way to earn weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2 – loot boxes. The loot boxes you get at the end of missions and in Chaos Wastes are the only source of weapons and gear in the entire game. Provided your gear is below the max power threshold, the gear you get out of these loot boxes will almost always be better than the stuff you already have equipped.
So, to earn better weapons and gear in Vermintide 2, all you have to do is play the game. Keep playing, complete missions, and you’ll gradually keep getting better and better gear.
There’s obviously more to Vermintide 2’s loot system, though. It’s possible to maximize the strength and power of the gear you get while completing missions, and we’re going to show you how.
Weapon Qualities and Power
Weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2 have a few qualities that determine how good they are. Weapons have characteristics, properties, and traits. These three, generally, determine what makes a weapon “better” than another. But there is one more factor to consider – power.
The power of any item, or piece of gear for that matter, directly translates to how much damage, cleave, and stagger you do in combat. The combined power of your gear contributes to your overall gear score.
Power Cap
The power of your weapons and gear tends to be tied quite heavily to your general-level progression. Gear has a power cap of 300, and every piece of gear you earn will be in-around the highest level piece of gear you have in that relevant slot.
So, as you play and earn more loot, your gear’s average power level will increase until it’s 300, at which point every weapon you get will also be 300. This is when you can start thinking about all the extra stats that weapons have.
Every difficulty except Recruit can drop weapons up to 300 power. Recruit caps out at 100. So, you can run the game on Veteran if you want, you’ll still be able to hit that 300 power limit.
How to Earn The Best Weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2
Once you’ve hit 300 power and your max level, you can start thinking about maximizing the quality of the gear you obtain. Up until now, it’s all been about quantity – so now it’s about quality.
In terms of the actual quality of the gear, the main thing you’ll want to be on the lookout for is its rarity. There are five regular rarities in Vermintide 2:
- White
- Green
- Blue
- Orange
- Red
At this point, chances are the highest of the bunch you’ve seen is orange. We’re going to explain why that is soon enough. For now, just remember that the higher the rarity, the better the gear.
Factors that Affect Gear Quality in Warhammer Vermintide 2
Tomes and Grimoires
If you’re at the point in your playthrough where you’re ready to start looking for high-quality weapons, then you should already know how important it is to be grabbing Tomes and Grimoires.
Not only do they increase the amount of xp you gain per mission, but they impact the quality of the loot you gain at the end, too.
While other factors also impact this – such as playing quickplay, Ranald’s Gift, and how many Loot Dice you obtain, these are by far the biggest modifiers. So, make sure you’re always collecting all of them.
The tiers that the loot boxes you earn at the end of missions are:
- Peasant.
- Commoner
- Merchant
- Soldier
- General
- Emperor
So, needless to say, the higher the tier – the higher the quality of the gear inside.
Difficulty
Beyond that, the difficulty of the missions you play impacts the gear you get – and in a massive way, too. While Tomes and Grimoires will increase the quality of the loot box you get at the end of a mission, the type of loot box is determined by the difficulty:
- Recruit – Strongbox
- Veteran – Coffer
- Champion – Chest
- Legend/Cataclysm – Vault
So, when you’re trying to get better quality weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2, you want to be aiming for Emperor’s Vaults – meaning you’ll want to be maxing out your points on Legend difficulty missions.
This is by no means an easy feat. You’ll need an experienced and skilled team to do this efficiently. However, you’ll be well rewarded as it’s the only difficulty with a decent drop-rate of red items. Every difficulty below Legend has a remarkably low red-rarity drop rate.
Crafting High-Quality Gear
Vermintide 2 has an admittedly over-complicated crafting system. It’s clunky, cluttered, and should be avoided as much as possible – especially since it’s not all that useful for getting high-quality gear.
Sure, you can upgrade your weapons, but the resources that costs are far too steep to make it a viable strategy. Instead, I would recommend only using crafting for re-rolling your already red-rarity loot. If you get a piece of gear you’re particularly fond of, you can re-roll its traits and properties through the crafting system.
This can let you properly min-max out your gear if you want to, but it should be the last step in the entire process.
Warhammer Vermintide 2 – How to Farm Better Weapons
So, with all of that out of the way, how do you farm better weapons in Warhammer Vermintide 2? Simple – farm The Screaming Bell on Legend difficulty.
The Screaming Bell is easily the shorted mission in the entire game. You can complete it in around ten minutes or so if you’re fast enough and skip all the enemies – that includes collecting the Tomes and Grimoires, too.
Obviously, this isn’t easy to do, especially if you’re relatively new to Vermintide. However, it can be done solo if you practice, although it is easier with a team.
Of course, you could just complete any other mission on Legend. As long as you collect all the books, you should get at least a General’s Vault at the end of the mission – although you should be aiming for Emporer’s Vaults.
The only way to get better gear in Vermintide 2 is to get these Vaults – so get out there and get farming.
