Warhammer Vermintide 2: Outcast Engineer DLC Guide

Steam-Assisted Crank Gun (Mk II):
Unleash the fearsome firepower of Bardin’s custom creation. Shots reduce the Ability Bar. Any accumulated Pressure is lost upon firing.
The base version of the Crankgun is similar to the Shotgun pellet. High Infantry/Berserker damage, low armour damage, cannon damage Chaos Warrior without crit or headshot. The difference is it does decent Monster DPS while sacrificing some of the cleave.
When you are holding the Crank Gun, you have 1 dodge count and 110% dodge distance. Any attack speed bonus also increase your firerate.

Build Pressure:
Holding reload with the Steam-Assisted Crank Gun (Mk II) equipped builds Pressure. Each stack of Pressure lasts for 12 seconds and gradually restores the Ability Bar. Stacks up to 5 times.
If you over-crank your gun(keep pressing reload key after 5 stacks of Pressure), you will be burned and receive a debuff that prevents you from cranking for a short period of time. It does not deal damage, however, only causes an animation, and the animation can be cancelled by weapon switching or firing the crankgun.

Choose THP talent according to your weapon choice. In general THP on cleave is better for most weapons, THP on stagger is used for shield weapons. And as a squishy career with no sustain besides Level 5 talent, Heal Share is no recommended.

Leading Shots

Range Utility talent with small amount of damage increase
Removes the random crit on range weapon, no longer affected by Crit Chance, and making it a guaranteed crit every 4 shots(25% Crit Chance). Also works on Career Skill – Crank Gun. It can be used to proc Hunter trait consistently, or generate ammo with Scrounger, or just increase your range weapon & Crank Gun damage by a bit since it’s a crit chance increase to your range arsenal.

Armour Piercing Slugs

Huge DPS boost on horde clear weapons/Utility tool on sniping weapons
Guaranteed cleave through one extra unit, doesn’t matter if the first unit has armour or has a shield. For a horde clear weapon your DPS will increase a lot thanks to the extra cleave & bullets won’t be stopped by armour/shield. On special sniping weapon like Handgun, you will no longer worry about killing a hook rat behind a Mauler, or one-shot multiple Storm Vermin in a patrol fight.

Scavenged Shot

Decent Melee boost & ammo sustain for a melee/range switch build
Increase your Melee Power by 10%, which increases your melee weapon cleave & damage, with no stagger power bonus. It should be pair with a range weapon with consistent power single-shot fire, like Handgun or Grudge Raker. Or use it on a melee Engineer build.

As a mostly range-focus career, Engineer should use Enhanced Power most of the time to boost his huge range arsenal.

Full Head of Steam

Highiest Pressure Micromanagement with Power boost
As a power boost, it increases your damage/stagger/cleave. Every time you reached 5 stacks of pressure, you get 15% power for 10 sec. You can maintain it by cranking at 5 stacks of Pressure before the previous Pressure stacks expired. Using this talent requires you to pay attention to your Pressure stacks and power buff very carefully since you want to crank every time previous Pressure stacks almost disappeared to reduce your total cranking time.

Experimental Steam Capacitors

Highest Cran Gun uptime
Making you generate Career Skill(Crank Gun firing time) even you are firing it. Full charge no longer removes Pressure also makes it easier to maintain your stacks. If you use this talent, try to crank the Crank Gun every 12 sec to make sure you are always generating the Career Skill bar.

Superior Gaskets

Lowest Pressure Micromanagement with melee only boost
Increase your attack speeds up to 10%. Since the Pressure lasts indefinitely, crank once and you can be guaranteed to get your Career Skill bar filled, requiring very little attention compared to other talents. However, you will still lose your attack speed & stacks when it’s fully charged or when you start firing, so try to switch to firing your Crank Gun when you have your Career Skill bar fully filled.

Ablative Armour

Fairly consistent Damage Reduction
Provides up to 25% damage reduction. This is mostly useful to reduce the trash hit you took accidentally or survive one elite overhead. For multi-instance damage source (gas, blight storm, surrounded by horde etc.) this talent is almost useless.

Bombardier

Specialized damage boost
Making every bomb useful in all situations. Combine with your passive Utility Belt, three full bombs can easily delete a patrol, or kill a boss super fast, or making some hard end of map event way easier. However, you need to remember to collect bombs on the map and from your teammates, especially firebombs so they can deal with more dangerous elites.

Piston Power

Melee build utility tool
The stagger can stun boss and put everything that is not a boss into heavy stagger, similar to Foot Knight Career Skill. However, it only works on a melee weapon and limited to your weapon’s cleave, ie. you still need to be able to cleave them in order to stagger. Should be used on a build that you use your melee fairly often to increase its uptime.

Gromril-Plated Shot

Storm Vermin/Bestigor/Armored Specials
Reduce your fire rate significantly but gain a lot more armour damage. You can also damage Chaos Warrior with this version of Crank Gun, but the damage is not great. Your ability to deal with normal armour units & specials increase by a huge margin by trading a good chunk of horde/Monster damage.

Linked Compression Chamber

High instant burst/Short Term Monster DPS
Crank Gun no longer has a speed wind up period. You can switch to your Crank Gun and delete a Mauler/Berserker/Unarmoured special very quickly. On Monster, the fast ammo dump can help you switch between shoot & kite more easily while giving you a good initial DPS boost.

Innovative Ammo Hoppers

High sustain/Horde clear/Long Term Monster damage
A longer Career Skill bar means you can utilize potions/Pressure stacks more. You can also kill the horde with one shooting section without cranking easier. For Monster, if you have a safe position this version of Crank Gun can deal the highest damage. The free shooting from killing a special is mostly a small bonus since it’s inconsistent and only last few second, but on higher difficulty it could be game changing.

Career Accessibility
All Bardin careers
Basic Stats
Stamina:
6 stamina/3 shields
Dodge:
100% dodge distance, 2 dodge count
Block/Push ability:
Same as normal weapons.
Crit chance:
No extra crit chance.
Mass modifier:
Light attacks/push attack have Tank.
Heavy attacks have Heavy Linesman.
Additional notes:
Light attack 1/4 has extra stagger power & distance.

Cog Hammer is basically a heavier version of Dual Hammers, the new king of two-handed all-rounded weapon. The attack pattern is simple; the attack speed in general is very fast; has great crowd control and single target damage. Its heavy attack has the same damage/headshot multiplier as Executioner Sword, meaning with a headshot you can deal devastating single target damage. Only siginificent downside is being a two-handed weapon you won’t have amazing dodge ability.

Pros: Good cleave. Good crowd control. Heavy attack has very high headshot damage.
Cons: Low dodge(though same as other two-handed weapon). Monster DPS is fairly low.

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

Against elite:
When fighting elites, use chain heavy attacks.

Against monster:
When fighting monster, use chain heavy attacks.

Career Accessibility
Ranger Veteran, Iron Breaker, Outcast Engineer
Basic Stats
Dodge:
125% dodge distance, 100 dodge count
Armour Piercing:
Pierce normal armour. Does not pierce Super Armour without headshot/crit.
Crit chance:
No extra crit chance.
Mass modifier:
No mass modifier.
Additional notes:
Long-range damage drops off very early.

Default mode(left-click):
Hold left click, charge up and fire.
Should be used for long-range single target kill.
Alt-fire mode(right-click):
Hold right-click into alt-fire mode. Then click left-click to instantly fire once, or hold left-click to spray your bullets.
Should be used for close-range single target kill. Or used for close/mid-range multi targets spray. Or used for close/mid-range Monster burst.

Masterwork Pistol is a close-range bodyshot focus weapon. Its base damage is the same as Handgun, meaning you would be able to oneshot bodyshot all specials(except Wargor) and a lot of elites with correct breakpoints. The alt-fire mode can also shoot very fast, doing some high Monster damage in a short section. Plus the huge ammo clip and fast reload, on paper it seems a very good all-rounded weapon for all careers. However, the long charge time of left-click/low accuracy of right-click means you cannot react to situations as fast as Handgun or Crossbow. And the early damage drop off on both attacks often make you spend more than 1 ammo to kill the special, let alone tankier elites. This requires Masterwork Pistol to be used on career that has high ammo sustain shot more & can always maintain a good position to charge the pistol to compete with Handgun/Crossbow.

Pros: High close range damage. High short term Boss DPS. High ammo clip and capacity. Fast reload. High dodge.
Cons: Early range damage fall off. The default mode has wind up and alt-fire mode has lower accuracy. No Super Armour damage without headshot/crit.

LVL 5
Depends on your melee weapon, choose different talent.
Dual Hammers: THP on cleave gives the more consistent regen. Your melee weapon won’t stagger elites constantly, plus you can farm THP on single target, like Monster/Lord.
Hammer & Shield: With shield bash and shield push, THP on Stagger gives you loads of health from horde and elites.
LVL 10
Increase your Crank Gun horde clear efficiency significantly, and partially ignore shield and armour elites. For handgun, it’s very helpful to kill specials hiding behind high mass enemies or delete SV/Bestigor patrol since you can kill two units with one shot.
LVL 15
Enhanced Power boost your damage output on all situation. It is also essential for some range weapon breakpoints.
LVL 20
With this build, ideally you would use your Crank Gun to kill all the horde and \non-armoured elites. Experimental Steam Capacitors provides the best Crank Gun uptime.
LVL 25
Ablative Armour gives you the most consistent benefit. As a squishy range career, any damage reduction is good for Engineer.
LVL 30
Best horde clear and long term boss damage version of Crank Gun. The extra duration + your lvl20 talent increases the Crank Gun uptime by an absurd amount. And with the high amount of specials on Cataclysm + your insane special killing ability, the free shot from killing them provide an extra bit of shooting time.

Dual Hammer is an all rounded weapon for Bardin with good dodge and high block. Its wide high stagger sweep, providing great crowd control. Benefits a lot from the stagger system.

Hammer & Shield at current patch has great balance between stagger, cleave, horde damage and elites damage for a shield weapon. A good weapon focus on stagger/defence while does not lose too much damage.

On Engineer both these two weapons can provide a lot of space for you so you can crank your gun safely. If you really can’t go full range burst mode in some cases, these two also have decent horde clear. And on top of that, you generate a lot THP with them.

Hammer & Shield Stagger Breakpoints: 20% skaven, Enhanced Power, Opportunist
Push stagger Stormvermin/Bestigor/Mauler/Monk/Savage all attacks

Handgun can reach all the important one-shot breakpoints for specials on Cataclysm. Plus the fast reload speed and fairly large ammo capacity, it is one of the best special sniping weapon in the game right now.
The extra piercing talent with handgun breakpoints can let you delete SV/Bestigor patrol easily.
Use handgun to kill long range and armoured specials. Use Crank Gun to kill close range nonarmour specials.

Handgun Breakpoints: 10% infantry, 10% chaos, 10% skaven, Spotter(passive), Enhanced Power
One shot-body all specials(except War Gor), SV and Beastgor
Two shot-bodyshot Savage/Monk

BCR is way superior to stamina if you have enough shield to perform push. Extra health is critical.
With high THP farm speed and high constant damage reduction from talent, Barkskin is very decent for tanking unavoidable damage. If you struggle with farming THP or hit trade a lot, use Boon of Shallya.

To reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
All potion effects benefit Crank Gun greatly. Concentration increases your firing time, Strength increases your damage, Speed increases your fire rate. Concoction can give you very good DPS boost and guarantee some ult charge with any potion.

Due to the massively increased damage from enemies, reviving become crucial in a lot of situations even with invisibility. Revive speed + Stamina regen can basically guarantee a successful revive against horde. You can switch revive speed to crit chance for more damage.
Due to the massive increase in Monster health, Sharpnel works best on monster burst down. It also the best option for Patrol kill if a team can focus their fire.

LVL 5
Depends on your melee weapon, choose different talent.
Dual Hammers: THP on cleave gives the more consistent regen. Your melee weapon won’t stagger elites constantly, plus you can farm THP on single target, like Monster/Lord.
Hammer & Shield: With shield bash and shield push, THP on Stagger gives you loads of health from horde and elites.
LVL 10
Increase your Crank Gun DPS on Monster and effectiveness on Chaos Warrior. Also easy damage boost for your Drakegun since it can proc Hunter almost instantly with this talent.
LVL 15
Enhanced Power boost your damage output on all situation. It is also essential for some range weapon breakpoints.
LVL 20
Superior Gaskets let you put least amount of attention to the Pressure stacks since you need to use Drakgun and take care of heat with this build most of time. The attack speed also counters the high heat slow down from Drakefire weapon when you need to use mlee.
LVL 25
Ablative Armour gives you the most consistent benefit. As a squishy range career, any damage reduction is good for Engineer. Especially for the Drakegun build, 25% damage reduction also reduces the amount of damage you take from venting.
LVL 30
Covers the downside of no special sniping ability of Drakegun. With a potion, you can also deal a considerable amount of boss damage, or kill SV/Bestigor patrol very easily.

Dual Hammer is an all rounded weapon for Bardin with good dodge and high block. Its wide high stagger sweep, providing great crowd control. Benefits a lot from the stagger system.

Hammer & Shield at current patch has great balance between stagger, cleave, horde damage and elites damage for a shield weapon. A good weapon focus on stagger/defence while does not lose too much damage.

On Engineer both these two weapons can provide a lot of space for you so you can crank your gun safely. If you really can’t go full range burst mode in some cases, these two also have decent horde clear. And on top of that, you generate a lot THP with them.

Hammer & Shield Stagger Breakpoints: 20% skaven, Enhanced Power, Opportunist
Push stagger Stormvermin/Bestigor/Mauler/Monk/Savage all attacks

Drakegun is the most efficient horde clear weapon in the game. The old problem being you cannot deal with long-range/armoured specials. This changed with the Engineer’s armour piecing version of Crank Gun, making this build way more rounded than Iron Breaker.
With the guaranteed crit talent, you can proc Hunter very easily. Hunter last longer than Barrage, so you can get extra duration buff for your melee and Crank Gun, very good if you have to switch to melee and when you need to switch weapon to damage Boss.

BCR is way superior to stamina if you have enough shield to perform push. Extra health is critical.
With high THP farm speed and high constant damage reduction from talent, Barkskin is very decent for tanking unavoidable damage. If you struggle with farming THP or hit trade a lot, use Boon of Shallya.

To reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
All potion effects benefit Crank Gun greatly. Concentration increases your firing time, Strength increases your damage, Speed increases your fire rate. Concoction can give you very good DPS boost and guarantee some ult charge with any potion.

Crank Gun Breakpoint: 10% Skaven, 10% Infantry, Enhanced Power, Spotter(passive)
Two shot bodyshot SV/Assassin/Gas rat/Fire rat/Gun rat
Three shot-bodyshot rest of specials

Due to the massively increased damage from enemies, reviving become crucial in a lot of situations even with invisibility. Revive speed + Stamina regen can basically guarantee a successful revive against horde. You can switch revive speed to crit chance for more damage.
Due to the massive increase in Monster health, Sharpnel works best on monster burst down. It also the best option for Patrol kill if a team can focus their fire.