Things currently being worked on.

1. Some True Solos with Bounty Hunter builds.
2. Adding more builds, especially ones from other people.
3. Gameplay examples on various difficulties.
4. Demonstration of projectile versus hitscan cleave.

Introduction

 

Hello. I’m Jaysea, I have 1800 hours in Vermintide 2 and usually play high level content such as Modded Cataclysm 3 Deathwish Onslaught / Onslaught+ or Cataclysm Twitch 200% mode on official realm. Bounty Hunter is my favorite career in the game, alongside Witch Hunter Captain and I have 310+ levels on Saltzpyre.

I made this guide because I wanted to make something all-encompassing for Bounty Hunter that goes over pretty much everything you could think of for this career. Other existing guides are either mediocre or are straight up incorrect, and I hope to be better than that.

Hopefully you learn something from this guide. Feel free to correct me of any mistakes I make or make a comment about something interesting or useful about Bounty Hunter. If you have any questions, ask away in the comments or message me on Discord:
Jaysea#2311

I want to give special thanks to Dame Arstor, Combine00, and Royale w/ Cheese with their help with this guide. They provided invaluable advice, knowledge, and insight into Bounty Hunter. I spent about 3 months on and off working on this guide. There is a lot of information to unpack, and I have my own opinions about the game, and you may not agree with everything I say when it comes to viability or builds, but that’s okay, because Bounty Hunter has tons of build flexibility and you can make many many different builds work with him.

Bounty Hunter Stats (Passives, Perks, Career Skill)

 

Perks

1. Ammo Pouches: 50% more ammo.
This is based off your total ammo rounded up, so if you have a Repeater Pistol that normally has 8 / 32 (40 total) ammo, with Bounty Hunter you will have 8 / 52 (60 total) ammo.

2. Quick Release: 15% faster reload.
15. faster reload speed. Speed potions do not affect reload speed.

Career Skill: Locked and Loaded

Victor fires a powerful shot that pierces enemies and ten weaker shots in a cone.

The base ult, without any level 30 talent augments, has a 70 second cooldown. It has two parts:
1. A sniper bullet projectile that deals heavy damage to armor, monsters, and lords. Great for single target damage. It will pierce through very few enemies surprisingly. This is because it has cleave equivalent to a crossbow bolt. The sniper bullet’s cleave will be instantly stopped if it hits an armored enemy or monster. Monster means hookrats as well, because they have monster armor type.
2. 10 shotgun pellets, great for dealing with unarmored enemies, shields, and berserkers. These pellets ignore shields, including Stormvermin shields. They are hitscan, meaning they will instantly hit their target the moment you click. They have very low damage against monster and armor. The shotgun pellets’ cleave will be instantly stopped if it hits an armored enemy or a Mauler’s head.

Locked and Loaded is unaffected by bloom AKA aim punch, meaning that if you’re getting shot at you will not lose accuracy. The crosshair will get bigger while aiming Locked and Loaded, but this is purely visual. Your ult always goes exactly where you are aiming unless you’re jumping / moving around.

Attack speed / speed potions will affect the draw speed of Locked and Loaded.

Hidden Mechanic: Locked and Loaded AoE Stagger

Locked and Loaded will stagger enemies that are in front of you and in close proximity. The ult uses the hitbox of a shield bash, which is a sphere in front of you. The stagger power of the ult is the same as a normal weapon’s push. A “normal weapon’s push” means anything that isn’t something like Rapier or Dual Daggers which have weaker pushing strength, or shields which have stronger pushing strength.

Strength potions will increase the stagger power of the AoE.

Unique Passive: Blessed Shots

Guaranteed ranged critical hit every 10 seconds.

Your ranged weapon, Locked and Loaded, the rapier’s side pistol, and bombs will consume Blessed Shots. I don’t recommend using bombs just for Blessed Shots, as they don’t receive extra damage from critical hits.

Why Bounty Hunter? And Your Role in a Team.

First and foremost, Bounty Hunter is a ranged career. You only have a base health of 100, so you’re very squishy and poor in melee combat. As a ranged career, it is YOUR job to deal with specials and elites in order to make space for your teammates and protect them from threats they are otherwise too preoccupied in dealing with.

Focus on your positioning when you play Bounty Hunter. Frontline careers like Footknight, Ironbreaker, etc. will be busy dealing with the horde head on. You need to be in a safe spot to deal damage, so put yourself a little bit behind your team so you can do your job.

Bounty Hunter brings what any other ranged career brings to a team which is consistent damage. You should be getting a lot of green circles most of the time. With certain talent setups, you can become one of the best boss killers in the game as well.

There are alternate hybrid melee / ranged setups with Bounty Hunter which are effective, but the most optimal way to play Bounty Hunter is to focus on ranged play. Even though personally, I find the hybrid builds to be the most fun.

Bounty Hunter is a ton of fun to play and is a very strong career in all difficulties in official realm. In modded difficulties he struggles to keep up but is still useful nonetheless.

Talents

 

Here, I discuss how every Bounty Hunter talent functions and interacts with each other. If there is anything noteworthy or interesting about how something works that I did not say, please feel free to comment below.

Level 5

Overall, Bounty Hunter has poor temp health generation and you will be struggling to get temp health without a career on your team like Merc or Unchained to help you out. The rapier pistol currently does not work with any temporary health talents.

Blood for Money: Melee critical strikes and headshots restore 2 temporary health. Critical headshots restore 4 temporary health.

The best overall temp health option for Bounty Hunter. Since your melee killing power with Bounty Hunter is usually very bad, temp on crits and headshots is a good option for consistency. You will get the most value out of Bounty Hunter when you spend more time doing DPS with your ranged loadout, and trying to kill stuff like Stormvermin and Chaos Warriors will just waste your time trying to get health if your melee killing power is low. When you have crits / headshots for temp health, you can walk towards the horde, stab a couple of trash units, then back up and keep doing your thing. Overall, it’s a lot safer than trying to duel elites with temp on kill and it’s more consistent. It also helps a lot if you’re trying to fight a boss one on one because you’ll be constantly getting temp health while fighting it, rather than only getting the temp health when you kill the boss, and it won’t be as punishing if you take a hit from the boss.

Tithetaker: Melee killing blows restore temporary health based on the health of the slain enemy.

Temp on kill generally isn’t a good option for Bounty Hunter. It is inconsistent, and you have to hope that the map throws Chaos at you if you want any temp health. Otherwise you will be starving in skaven hordes. The rapier pistol used to work with Bounty Hunter’s temp health options, but now that is no longer the case. Being able to pistol berserkers and maulers easily for 15 health was a decent and safe option for temp, but now you have to melee enemies to get temp health. In general, crits and headshots temp is more consistent and you spend less time in melee combat.

On legend and below, temp on kill can be a decent option since enemies aren’t as beefy as in Cataclysm. Temp on kill is also an option if you have a low headshot rate.

Paymaster: Healing yourself with a First Aid Kit or a Healing Draught also heals your nearby allies for 20.0% of their maximum health. Clears any wounds.

Healshare is an option if you find that you never have space to farm any temp health. On high difficulties(Cata Twitch, C3DWONS), it’s difficult for Bounty Hunter to make back the lost health because he struggles so much with farming temp. It’s a niche talent, but it could find some use, especially if you want to go with a pure ranged playstyle.

Generally, Healshare is not recommended on Bounty Hunter.

Level 10

Open Wounds: Critical hits cause enemies to take 20.0% increased damage for a short duration. Does not stack with similar effects.

Several things to discuss about this talent. The description is extremely vague.
1. The damage bonus is also applied to the critical hit that triggers Open Wounds. Open Wounds can be triggered by both ranged and melee crits.
2. Open Wounds lasts 15 seconds.
3. The volley crossbow and regular crossbow can apply Open Wounds to multiple enemies at once.
4. The repeater pistol’s alt fire and Griffinfoot pistols operate weirdly with Open Wounds. Only one pellet will receive the damage buff and apply open wounds to any enemies that it hits. This is likely the center pellet, but since spread is random, it is hard to predict.
5. Stacks with shrapnel. Does not stack with talents like Make ‘Em Bleed or Off Balance.
6. Your entire team benefits from enemies that you apply Open Wounds to.

Overall, Open Wounds is a very good talent. It can be used to help debuff big enemies like Chaos Warriors or Monsters and provide DPS for the rest of your team. You can make good use of it on any ranged Saltzpyre weapon, but it works best with the Crossbow.

Steel Crescendo: Upon firing his last shot, Victor gains 15.0% attack speed and 15.0% power for 15 seconds.

The 15.0% power applies to the hit that triggers Steel Crescendo. In general, I believe this talent is very difficult to use efficiently since your “last shot” is literally the last shot of all of your ammunition, not just your clip / magazine. Unless you have a Ranger Veteran with ammo to keep you sustained or the Salvaged Ammunition talent to chain Steel Crescendo, I would not recommend it.

Anyway, here’s a Cataclysm True Solo by Velsix using Steel Crescendo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au6epgE2nvI

Weight of Fire: Ranged weapon magazine size increases ranged power level by 1.0% for each ammunition available.

A pretty simple talent. If you have a volley crossbow, which has 15 ammo in the magazine, you will gain 15.0% ranged power. This applies to Locked and Loaded as well. The ranged power stays the same regardless of how much ammo you have. The only thing that matters is how much ammo you can hold in a clip.

I would only really recommend taking this with the volley crossbow or brace of pistols. For me personally, I find the utility from Open Wounds to be hard to pass up.

Level 15

Smiter: The first enemy hit always counts as staggered.Deal 20% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Bonus damage is increased to 40% against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.

Smiter is inferior to Assassin. I suppose if you struggle at getting headshots then Smiter could be better than Assassin, but otherwise I never take this talent.

Smiter does not increase your damage with the Rapier pistol.

Assassin: Deal 20% more damage to staggered enemies. Each hit against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger. Headshots and critical hits instead inflict 40% bonus damage, as do strikes against enemies afflicted by more than one stagger effect.

Assassin essentially just gives you 40% melee critical hit damage and 40% headshot damage, regardless of whether or not the enemy is staggered. This is a huge melee DPS boost and can synergize quite well with other Bounty Hunter talents that rely on melee kills, like Blessed Combat and Salvaged Ammunition. I take Assassin 90% of the time.

Assassin does not increase your damage with the Rapier pistol.

Enhanced Power: Increases total Power Level by 7.5%. This is calculated before other buffs are applied.

Increases your damage, stagger, and cleave across the board by 7.5%. Enhanced Power is generally used just to reach specific ranged breakpoints or going for a pure ranged build.

Enhanced Power will increase your damage with the Rapier pistol.

Level 20

Blessed Combat: Melee strikes make up to the next 6 ranged shots deal 15.0% more damage. Ranged hits makes up to the next 6 melee strikes deal 15.0% more damage. Melee kills reset the cooldown for Blessed Shots.

Many many things to talk about for Blessed Combat. I’ll talk about how it functions first. When you hit an enemy, whether you deal damage or not, you will build a stack of Blessed Combat. You do not build stacks when hitting shielded enemies. A melee hit will give you 15.0% ranged power to the next ranged shot, and a ranged hit will give you 15.0% melee power to the next melee strike. The stacks are not consumed if you miss. You can build up to six stacks of either melee or ranged stacks. When you kill an enemy with a melee attack, you will refresh Blessed Shots.

The talent says 15.0% “damage” for melee and ranged stacks, but this is actually 15.0% ranged / melee power. Ranged power only affects damage, and melee power affects damage and cleave.

You can have stacks of both ranged and melee power at the same time. Suppose you have 3 stacks of both melee power and ranged power. If you hit an enemy with a ranged attack, you will now have 2 stacks of ranged power and 4 stacks of melee power.

For hitscan weapons, or cleaving multiple enemies with melee, you will only consume one stack.

For projectile weapons, it is a bit inconsistent. If enemies are clumped up, you will likely only consume one stack when you hit multiple enemies. If there is a lot of distance between the enemies you hit, then you will most likely consume multiple stacks, one per enemy hit.

The rapier pistol counts as a ranged hit, and will build melee power stacks. However, it will benefit from the melee power stacks, meaning that Blessed Combat can essentially be a 15.0% damage increase to your rapier pistol.

Bombs are unaffected by Blessed Combat.

———————————————————————————————————————————-
Overall, Blessed Combat is a great option for Bounty Hunter. It is a very good boost to DPS and can help with ranged breakpoints. It promotes a hybrid melee / ranged playstyle, although you should still be using ranged most of the time. If you take blessed combat, you almost need to take Assassin since your melee power is really mediocre otherwise. The only downside is by going into melee all the time you’re losing DPS and putting yourself at risk.

Cruel Fortune: Reduces cooldown on Blessed Shots to 6 seconds.

Straightforward talent choice, a very good option if you want to play safely without having to worry about getting crit resets with Blessed Combat. It also helps with ammo sustain if you run Scrounger.

Prize Bounty: Shots affected by Blessed Shots consume no ammunition.

Prize Bounty is a decent choice for Repeater Pistol or Crossbow. With crossbow, you can have a double shot build to help with sniping multiple elites / specials at once. With repeater pistol, you should use the free shot from Prize Bounty for the alt-fire, since no ammo is consumed. Prize Bounty will also give you the best option for ammo regeneration / sustain if you don’t use Salvaged Ammunition or Scrounger.

Level 25

Rile the Mob: Ranged critical hits grant Victor and his allies 10.0% movement speed for 10 seconds.

This talent is decent if you have melee only careers on your team like Grail Knight or Slayer. It also helps if you are trying to reload and reposition. Otherwise it’s not very useful, and outshined by the other two talents in this row.

Salvaged Ammunition: Killing an Elite while out of ammunition restores 20.0% of max ammunition. Melee kills reload Victor’s ranged weapon.

You can kill an elite on your last shot and still get the 20% max ammunition refill, which is great for ammo sustain when using a ranged trait like Hunter.

Melee / rapier pistol kills will reload 1 ammo into your ranged weapon, not the entire magazine.

If you use both Salvaged Ammunition and Blessed Combat together, a melee kill will refill your ammo and refresh the cooldown on Blessed Shots. You can use this to farm ammo with Scrounger easily. Get a melee kill > shoot your ranged weapon to crit > repeat.

Salvaged Ammunition is a great choice if you want to go on the offensive, and makes Bounty Hunter’s gameplay loop feel very fluid, as you will spend a lot less time reloading and getting melee kills instead to refresh your ammo.

There is an interesting bug with Salvaged Ammunition explained in this video.

Job Well Done: Killing an elite or special enemy grants 1.0% damage reduction buff, stacking up to 30 times. Lasts until end of mission or death.

30. damage reduction at max stacks, stacking multiplicatively with other forms of damage reduction.
You can eat an overhead with 21 or more stacks at 120 health on Cataclysm.
Unlike other taggable enemies, Ungor archers do not count towards Job Well Done stacks.

Job Well Done allows Bounty Hunter to be quite tanky. I wouldn’t recommend this talent on anything below Legend, because there’s just not enough elites or specials to justify taking this. With Job Well Done, you have the option to go with Boon of Shallya to help with temp health generation since Barkskin can be sort of overkill. Choose this talent if you want to be more defensive or find yourself getting hit a lot.

Level 30

Just Reward: Ranged critical hits reduces the cooldown of Locked and Loaded by 20%. Can only trigger once every 10 seconds.

Another straight-forward talent. It doesn’t change anything damage-wise about Locked and Loaded. The cooldown can be procced with the Rapier Pistol or Locked and Loaded itself as well. Generally, Just Reward is a worse option than Double-Shotted if you can consistently hit headshots. It may also be a better choice for a true solo or melee-focused Bounty Hunter build.

Just Reward will proc on hitting shielded enemies.

Double-Shotted: Modifies Victor’s sidearm to fire two powerful bullets in a straight line. Scoring a headshot with this attack reduces the cooldown of Locked and Loaded by 40%.

Another talent that has a lot to discuss. Double-Shotted changes Locked and Loaded to be two sniper bullets. No more shotgun pellets.

Double-Shotted can reduce the cooldown of Locked and Loaded by 80%. It is not as simple as having both bullets hit an enemy’s head. The ult works differently depending on if you are host or client.

If you are host, in order to get 80% cooldown back, you must:
1. Have both bullets score a headshot on an enemy, and
2. the first bullet must not kill the enemy.

On Cataclysm, one way to consistently get 80% refund back on host is to headshot a Chaos Warrior with Locked and Loaded without a crit. The first sniper bullet will not kill the Chaos Warrior, and the second sniper bullet will kill him, thus giving you 80% of your ult back.

If you are playing as client, in order to get 80% cooldown back, you only need to have both bullets score a headshot on an enemy. So you can ult a single trash enemy and get the full 80% if you feel like it.

If you put 10% cooldown reduction on your trinket, it will stack up to 90% cooldown upon scoring a headshot with Double-Shotted, meaning you can get a 7 second ult cooldown. With a Potion of Concentration and Double-Shotted, you can become one of the best boss killers in the game by chain-headshotting bosses.

There’s a lot of skill involved in headshotting bosses. It takes a lot of practice but good aim is not as important as being familiar with the animations / attack patterns of enemies and waiting for an easy headshot opportunity. (Will talk about headshotting enemies with Double-Shotted later on in the guide.)

Indiscriminate Blast: Modifies Victor’s pistol to fire two blasts of shield-penetrating shot in a devastating cone. Each kill with the blast increases the amount of pellets in the next blast.

Another weird talent description. Indiscriminate Blast changes Locked and Loaded to have 20 shotgun pellets, so no sniper bullet. It also has an unlisted 25% cooldown reduction.

Upon killing an enemy with the ult, you will add a stack that will apply to the next use of Locked and Loaded. This stack will give you an extra pellet, up to 20 extra pellets. When you fire the next ult, all stacks are consumed(unless you miss the ult entirely)and then the game checks to see how many enemies you kill with this ult, and adds the pellets to the next one.

Indiscriminate Blast vs. Just Reward

Indiscriminate Blast ends up actually being less horde clear than Just Reward over time. In base Cataclysm and below, the density of enemies will hardly ever reach a point where Indiscriminate Blast is necessary. Granted, it is amusing to witness an entire horde disappear, but Just Reward can do the same thing while still having the sniper bullet to deal with armored enemies.

We can also compare the uptime of Locked and Loaded when using Just Reward versus Indiscriminate Blast.

Suppose you had 10% Cooldown Reduction on your Trinket with Indiscriminate Blast, which has an unlisted 25% Cooldown Reduction. This is 35% Cooldown Reduction, therefore giving you an ult every 45 seconds.

With Just Reward, and no Cooldown Reduction, you are able to reduce the cooldown of Locked and Loaded by 20% every 10 seconds. If you proc Just Reward every 10 seconds, your average cooldown ends up being around 30 seconds. Remember that Just Reward can be procced with Locked and Loaded itself if you get a crit, so it is not difficult to manage.

Overall, Indiscriminate Blast makes you more one-dimensional as a career. The versatility of Just Reward allows you to be able to deal with hordes and armored enemies if you want to, while having more uptime on Locked and Loaded. If you want to go the horde-clear route with Bounty Hunter, the Griffinfoot shotguns are a much, much more consistent and better choice.

Gear

 

 

Melee Weapons and Traits

Consider this guide made by Royale w/ Cheese to help with your melee gameplay:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821186836

As well as a movement tech guide by Novality. You may reference this if you want to know what combo is the fastest way to move with various melee weapons.
docs.google.com – https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821186836″ target=”_blank”>https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1y7CSzMPlliMTsTjSoxdg4UhOQtu3lRd_E2ju8Tn7zqQ/edit#gid=1772327800″ target=”_blank”>docs.google.com – https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1821186836

As well as a movement tech guide by Novality. You may reference this if you want to know what combo is the fastest way to move with various melee weapons.

Rapier

Rapier is Bounty Hunter’s best defensive melee option. It is very mobile, having a dodge count of 6 and a dodge range of 125%. It also has half cost pushes and an inner block cost modifier of 0.25, compared to most weapons which have 0.5. The rapier’s side pistol can be used while still keeping your block up, providing more defense and utility. The attacks are very easy to get headshots with if you know where to aim, so it synergizes well with crits and headshot temp health.

Parry
The rapier is the best weapon in the entire game to use Parry with. The rapier side pistol will proc parry, as well as pushing. So if you need to kite a massive amount of elites, which happens a lot during Cata Twitch games, Parry is a lifesaver. Note that attack speed affects Parry indirectly – with more attack speed, you can block sooner which allows you to be more reactive with Parry blocks.

Swift-Slaying
Swift Slaying is always a good option for the rapier. You can proc swift slaying with the rapier side pistol, and since you have Blessed Shots giving you a guaranteed crit every 10 seconds, your swift-slaying uptime can be quite high with Bounty Hunter. Although, in practice, there’s a lot of micromanagement involved, so it’s not that great, but it’s still the best choice for more melee DPS and temp health.

Resourceful Combatant
Resourceful Combatant is currently bugged and literally does not work with melee critical hits, but luckily the Rapier side pistol is counted as a ranged attack for this Trait and will give you cooldown for Locked and Loaded. This trait can be useful on niche builds.

Swift-slaying is all you should be taking on other melee weapons for Bounty Hunter in my opinion.

Axe and Falchion

Axe and Falchion is a decent melee option by itself, but unfortunately it doesn’t do much to synergize with Bounty Hunter’s options. Axe and Falchion needs some form of extra attack speed or stamina regen to be useful, like how Zealot has all his attack speed and Witch Hunter Captain has Cast Away. Bounty Hunter neither has good attack speed nor stamina regen. With the heavy attacks, you can get easy headshots and potentially get double the temp health of normal weapons since each melee can get temp on its own.

Falchion

The falchion serves as a more aggressive option for Bounty Hunter. All attacks have the Linesman modifier, meaning it has decent cleave against hordes. The Falchion also has good armor damage. The attacks have good headshot angles and the third light / heavy attacks even breaks shields, which provides some nice utility. If you don’t hit a headshot, bodyshots do respectable damage as well.

Parry
Parry can work with the falchion since you can instantly block during any of the light attacks. You don’t have to wait for an attack’s animation to finish playing in order to block.

Billhook

Billhook is a very strong melee weapon with great utility. It has a long reach which provides safety for you if you want to get temp health out of range from the horde. It also has the unique special attack which will stagger literally any enemy out of literally any attack except bosses and lords. For Chaos Warriors specifically, using the billhook’s special gives a very nice animation for easy headshots if you’re using double-shotted.

However on Bounty Hunter it’s sort of meh. The slow attack speed and low block speed makes it a bit difficult to get into position to do ranged stuff, and your swift slaying uptime is almost non existent.

Axe

The one-handed Axe works decently with a Griffinfoot build. You don’t have to worry about crit chance since the light attacks have +10% crit on them already. The 10% crit helps a lot with farming temp health with crits and headshots. You will need to push a lot with this weapon or else you will get hit a lot trying to get temp health.

Greatsword

The greatsword is too slow to work with Bounty Hunter’s loadout and doesn’t synergize with anything he has. This melee is more for frontliners, which is something you are not.

Flail

I have literally never tried the Flail with Bounty Hunter and I never will.

Ranged Weapons and Traits

 

Crossbow

Crossbow is Bounty Hunter’s best option for sniping. It is very ammo efficient and has amazing breakpoints. It does take a bit of skill to use, and is reliant on headshots to do most of its damage. However, with Bounty Hunter, you can take advantage of Blessed Shots and build for crits. Depending on the setup, you can basically have infinite ammo.

The crossbow has an 10% extra crit chance when you aim down sights. It also has a high finesse, meaning that it benefits a lot from headshots and crits, which work perfectly with a Bounty Hunter.

Get into the habit of pressing your reload button right after you shoot the crossbow as it reloads faster, compared to just letting the Crossbow reload itself.

Brace of Pistols

The Brace of Pistols (or BoP for short) are very easy to use under pressure and can excel at dealing with multiple threats at the same time. They are extremely mobile, having a dodge count of 100, which is basically infinite. The alt-fire for the Brace of Pistols gives you a very fast fire rate at the cost of accuracy.

The Brace of Pistols is nearly unaffected by aim punch, so getting shot at shouldn’t mess up your aim at all.

There is an interesting tech with the Brace of Pistols which is sort of like finger-rolling. It will give you two accurate shots. This tech is extremely helpful to learn for sniping specials with BoP.

Griffinfoot Pistols

The Griffinfoots (or Duckfoot) is Saltzpyre’s best horde clear option. The reload functions identically to the Brace of Pistols, reloading 2 ammo at a time and alternate the weapon you fire from. It is also the best shield breaking ranged weapon in the entire game, providing great utility for your team.

The Griffinfoot has 18 pellets per blast, and is able to reach decent breakpoints even against armor.

The alt-fire for the duckfoot is a shotgun bash, identical to the blunderbuss or grudge-raker. It provides some decent stagger. You can use the alt-fire in between shots with the duckfoot to animation cancel and fire the duckfoot faster than normal. You can also use a QQ cancel which is even faster than the alt-fire animation cancel, although it is harder to pull off.

Volley Crossbow

Volley Crossbow is a fun option for Bounty Hunter. It lets you spam ranged until the end of time, having the highest ammo capacity. The alt-fire will shoot 3 arrows at once, and they can all proc Scrounger. Landing all 3 arrows will give you 9 ammo back. It also has the best burst boss DPS out of all of Bounty Hunter’s ranged weapons. The horde clear is okay, but on Cataclysm and above there are lots of shielded enemies and marauders, and volley crossbow suffers.

Overall its a fun option but the long reload time can be a pain.

Repeater Pistol

The Repeater Pistol is pretty awful in anything above Legend, and has terrible breakpoints. The alt-fire is a shotgun blast, and is the best part of the weapon. Unlike other shotguns however, it has great armor and monster damage. With Prize Bounty, you can build for a right click spam build. This can one shot Chaos Warriors on legend easily and even on Cataclysm with the right setup.

Overall, it’s a mediocre weapon with low damage and poor utility. The right click won’t give you ammo back for all 8 bullets with Scrounger, which really hurts the ammo sustain. Hunter is probably your best option for the Repeater Pistol.

Traits

 

Conservative Shooter
While conservative shooter is an amazing option on Witch Hunter Captain and Zealot with weapons like the Crossbow, Bounty Hunter can sustain his own ammo with Scrounger or Salvaged Ammunition. I would not recommend using this trait on Bounty Hunter simply because it is unnecessary.

Scrounger
Scrounger is a great option for ammo sustain. With blessed combat, you can fire off a crit to gain ammo back, get a melee kill to refresh the crit, and repeat until the end of time, essentially giving you infinite ammo.

Scrounger is able to proc multiple times. These conditions must be met:
1. You must not be host.
2. You must cleave multiple enemies.
3. You must be using a projectile weapon. (Brace of Pistols, Volley Crossbow, Crossbow.)
4. The projectile cleaving must not kill the enemy.

With this, you can potentially get large amounts of ammo back in one shot. Scrounger works best with Volley Crossbow since each individual arrow doesn’t do a large amount of damage, like the normal Crossbow.

Hunter
Hunter is another good option, but if you take Hunter I recommend taking the Salvaged Ammunition talent, because otherwise you will run out of ammo very quickly. Hunter is also a very good option if you want more boss DPS with Locked and Loaded. Note that Hunter is Power vs, so it increases damage and stagger, but not cleave.

Barrage
Barrage is a straight power increase, so would give you more cleave/stagger/damage, but it is hard to make use of Barrage when you don’t have any form of ammo sustain. Scrounger and Hunter are better options.

Inspirational Shot
Next…

Resourceful Sharpshooter
Use the Rapier pistol with Resourceful Combatant and proc cooldown with your pistol instead of this.

Necklace Traits / Properties

 

Properties

 

This is the necklace I run most often:

If you don’t have any form of damage reduction like Barkskin or Job Well Done, then I recommend always always always running Health. Even with damage reduction I run Health 99% of the time.

Push/Block Angle could potentially be useful with the Rapier’s small block angle, but it is less useful than Stamina or Block Cost Reduction which overall provide better utility.

Damage reduction vs skaven/chaos/area are way too situational.

Health and Block Cost Reduction is the gold standard for most necklaces, but sometimes you can run Stamina + Health if you don’t need the Block Cost Reduction. With the rapier’s half cost pushes, 2.0 Stamina will give you an extra two pushes.

Traits

 

Barkskin
Barkskin is a decent option for any career. It helps mitigate the damage against multiple hits from a horde, gas, ratling gunners, warpfires, etc. It also makes helps when you go down so you don’t die instantly from a couple of hits.

Boon of Shallya
Personally, I would only take Boon of Shallya if I have Job Well Done. You’re too squishy otherwise, and if you get downed then you will die very very quickly compared to if you had Barkskin.

Hand of Shallya
Hand of Shallya is useful to supplement a Healshare build. It can actually work with BH since you struggle with building temp health usually. However, it’s more of a niche setup that I would only recommend if you had another temp health career on your team like Merc.

Healer’s Touch
All the dupe traits aren’t really useful on Bounty Hunter.

Natural Bond
Bounty Hunter has the worst temp health generation in the whole game. Additionally, if you would like to play a pure ranged build, you likely won’t be taking a lot of hits throughout the game. Because of this, natural bond can be a decent choice on Bounty Hunter. If you take natural bond, you would almost certainly be taking Job Well Done since you don’t have barkskin. Boon of shallya is probably a better option because you actually get permanent health from healing and medkits, and if you have a merc on your team boon of shallya helps more.

Charm Traits / Properties

 

Properties

Since you’re mainly a ranged career, focus on Power vs. whatever to get proper breakpoints. If you don’t know how to calculate breakpoints, there’s a handy spreadsheet by Orangechris here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/cojve1/damage_calculator/

Crit power is useful in niche scenarios. Mainly you’ll want to use it with the crossbow since it has high finesse, and benefits from crit power a lot.

Attack speed is useful if you can’t hit any extra breakpoints on your charm. It helps with farming temp health and faster blocking.

Traits

 

Proxy
Bounty Hunter gets more value out of Decanter or Concoction. Proxy isn’t a good choice on him. Mercenary is a great career to pair with Bounty Hunter, so you could make the argument that a purple Proxy to merc would be a great choice, and it would be, but the merc should be proxying to YOU in that scenario. This trait is simply outshined by the other choices.

Home Brewer
All the dupe traits aren’t useful on Bounty Hunter. I guess if you wanted to try a 25% chance to get 20 seconds of a Potion of Concentration, go for it. Decanter is way better anyway.

The Double-Shotted Concoction vs. Decanter Debate –

 

Legend and Base Cataclysm
If you are newer to trying out double-shotted with Bounty Hunter, Decanter is recommended as it is more forgiving than Concoction. With Concoction, you are only able to get one ult off if you miss the headshot. With Decanter, you can get four ults off. Worst case scenario, if you miss all your headshots, you still do a huge amount of damage to the boss. Even if you miss two ults, you can still delete the boss, provided you hit all of your headshots.

Additionally, Decanter gives you more efficiency versus patrols. You have the potential to completely wipe out a patrol if you hit multiple headshots. One could argue that a strength potion + bomb does the same, but only using one potion rather than a potion and a bomb is better for your team as it saves on resources.

Twitch Mode Cataclysm
With Twitch, bosses can show up at any point in time, so concoction is the best choice here. You can’t really rely on getting a purple potion. Bosses that show up from a Twitch vote have 85% normal HP, so they are weaker and easier to delete.

Cataclysm 3 Deathwish Onslaught (C3DWONS)
In C3DWONS, all enemies’ HP, including bosses, are greatly increased. In theory, decanter would seem like the best pick since you can delete a boss with one purple potion, but in practice you have to rely on:
1. Having enough space to take a boss without any interruptions for 15 seconds. This can be quite difficult with the amount of spawns that happen on Onslaught.
2. Getting a purple potion before a trigger.

The best time to use a potion on the boss would be in between hordes, since that’s when you don’t have to worry about extra stuff spawning and messing up your chain headshots. However, in DWONS, your team is going to be helping you burst down the boss in between hordes. With a concoction potion and double-shotted, you can deal enough damage to the boss (about 50-70% of their HP, depending on the build) and your team can finish off the boss. So decanter doesn’t really achieve anything that concoction can’t already do.

There are a few scenarios where I would consider Decanter.

Decanter could be an option on certain Lord maps like Into the Nest, but I still would take concoction since having enough space is the main issue here.
Here’s a video example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1XKw2TxBy0

In the video, I get poked while using my ult and have to move to the safe spot because I didn’t have any space to keep headshotting Skarrik. Even with concoction, I still nearly killed Skarrik with one potion. Decanter wouldn’t have provided much value here.

You could also argue that Decanter gives you more value against patrols with Bounty Hunter, but in Onslaught you generally want to avoid patrols rather than take them head on.

Concoction also provides you some burst DPS options with Griffinfoot against Onslaught hordes that have armor in it, like Stormvermin waves. You can take the potion and delete the armor with the shotguns, since Strength potions increase their armor damage significantly.

Conclusion
If you are not confident in your ability to hit headshots, use Decanter as it is more forgiving. However, Concoction ends up being the better option 99% of the time.

Trinket Traits / Properties

 

Properties

 

Respawn Speed / Revive Speed
Respawn speed is completely useless. Revive speed is somewhat useful, but outshined by other options.

Crit Chance
Always a decent choice if you want more swift slaying uptime or if you want to proc Scrounger more with ranged. If you take melee crits and headshots for temp, this could help as well.

Cooldown Reduction
If you’re using Double-Shotted, you should always take this. Otherwise you will not be able to chain-headshot bosses. The exception for this is if you’re using Decanter. In that case, it will work just fine. On Just Reward and Indiscriminate Blast, it provides a little bit of value but not much. Stamina recovery or crit chance with those Level 30 choices are better.

Stamina Recovery
Stamina recovery helps with offense and defense. Your stamina will charge faster while you try to get revives off, your block will recover faster from being broken, and you can push into hordes more often, which is especially useful with weapons that rely on push attacks in their combos like Billhook and Rapier.

Movement Speed
Could be potentially funny with a Rile the Mob build. Movement speed stacks multiplicatively meaning you get 1.05 * 1.1 = 15.5% extra movespeed instead of 15%. Otherwise I don’t think it’s particularly useful.

Curse Resistance
A non-negotiable choice for players doing book runs on Legend and such.

Traits

 

Shrapnel
I find myself taking Shrapnel in DWONS since I’m not always able to delete bosses with Double-Shotted. It helps the rest of your team as well with bursting down bosses. It also stacks with Open-Wounds, which is super useful.

Explosive Ordnance
If you don’t need Shrapnel for the extra boss damage, Explosive Ordnance is a good option for deleting patrols. With concoction on your charm, you can drink any potion and throw a strength bomb. Strength bombs do a ton of damage and can deal with mass elites easily.

Grenadier
Grenadier can potentially be useful if you need to clutch out a Twitch vote of something like Chaos Warriors and you aren’t getting a lot of potions. It could also be useful if you have a Ranger Veteran on your team with Scavenger so you can spam bombs.

Double-Shotted In-Depth

 

Being able to delete bosses with Bounty Hunter’s Double-Shotted talent is what makes him such a great boss killer. However, on Cataclysm and above, you need to hit your headshots, otherwise you won’t be able to kill him. This takes a fair amount of skill and practice, and I’m going to break down how you should practice headshotting enemies with Double-Shotted as well as good mods to use.

Getting Started

The only way you will get consistent at headshotting bosses is in the Modded Realm with Spawn Tweaks and Creature Spawner. You can find the two mods here:

Spawn Tweaks
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1395132559

Before you go and try hitting bosses, you need to be able to know how to kite them. Use Royale w/ Cheese’s guide to understand and learn all the different boss’s attack patterns:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1393694530″ target=”_blank”>https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1723437775″ target=”_blank”>https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1393694530
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1395132559

Before you go and try hitting bosses, you need to be able to know how to kite them. Use Royale w/ Cheese’s guide to understand and learn all the different boss’s attack patterns:

Consistency and Hitting Headshots

Bounty Hunter with Double-Shotted is all about consistency. It’s not super important on normal difficulties, but on Cataclysm Twitch specifically your team relies upon you to get rid of bosses quickly with a potion. You don’t have to have good aim to play Bounty Hunter, you just need to be familiar with the animations of enemies, recognize when a good time to shoot is, and shoot.

Make sure to tag the boss when you’re going for chain-headshots! Bounty Hunter’s ult produces smoke when you shoot it, and it’s impossible to see through, so make sure you tag bosses to help you with headshotting.

I cannot stress this enough: PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE

Here’s a little inspiration for you:

How I like to Practice

 

Rat Ogre

Bile Troll

Chaos Spawn

Minotaur

Stormfiend

Correction: In the video I say the Stormfiend is the only boss you cannot kill from full health to zero on Cataclysm with Concoction but I forgot that you also cannot do that with a Bile Troll.

Why in the world does the Stormfiend Belt count as a headshot?

 

Before I explain this, I need to explain how the game decides to refund your ult with Double-Shotted or not. If you hit the head or neck area, the game will give you the cooldown.

You can probably see where this is going, but the Stormfiend’s belt area is considered the “neck”. So the game considers this a “headshot”, and gives you cooldown for Double-Shotted.

If you want to read more into mechanics of headshot hitboxes, read this guide:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2436880241

The “Catapult”

Other Enemies

Fighting Lords

 

This section assumes you’re using Double-Shotted. If you aren’t bringing Double-Shotted to a Lord map as Bounty Hunter, you shouldn’t bring Bounty Hunter.

Halescourge

Skarrik Spingemangler

Bödvarr Ribspreader

Gatekeeper Naglfahr

Deathrattler and Rasknitt

Nurgloth the Eternal

—–Builds—————

 

Here is a collection of all the builds that I enjoy using. I will also show off some builds from other people as well. You can usually swap out the melee weapon for whatever you want on Legend and Cataclysm/Twitch, but on C3DWONS I think it’s non-negotiable that you always take Rapier. If you have any questions about the build or talents that I took, feel free to ask or correct a mistake.

Any of the builds here can definitely be used on lower difficulties, although breakpoints may be different.

I will be adding more builds every so often.

 

 

Legend

 

Just because a build isn’t shown here, doesn’t mean it’s not viable. You can make literally anything work on Legend, but these builds are just the ones that I enjoy playing or think are good for Legend overall. Royale w/ Cheese already has a guide on Legend with every ranged + melee so I won’t bother with putting more than a couple of builds here.

Rapier + Repeater Pistol – One Shot Chaos Warrior

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/112332/32-4-3-6/66-3-2-3/3-2-5/2-4-2/3-2-1

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots is the most consistent option for Bounty Hunter. On kill is also a decent option but with this build, but you have 15% crit chance and Boon of Shallya, so your temp with crits and headshots is not too bad.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps reach your ranged breakpoints, as well as providing utility for your team for monster damage.
(Level 15)
Assassin is a huge boost to melee DPS. Enhanced Power can be an option too but this isn’t a build where you spam your ranged weapon, so you get more value out of Assassin.
(Level 20)
Prize Bounty is the core talent of this build. When Blessed Shots is up, use the alt-fire of the Repeater Pistol to delete everything in front of you. Just be wary because the Repeater Pistol alt-fire does not affect shielded enemies.
(Level 25)
Job Well Done is your best option for a build without Barkskin. You also don’t get much value out of Salvaged Ammunition.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted helps with dealing with very far away specials like Blightstormers that the Repeater Pistol struggles with. It is also another option to delete Chaos Warriors when you don’t have Prize Bounty active. With a purple potion and decanter, use the alt-fire of the Repeater to first get Hunter and Open Wounds then press F on the boss until he dies.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime as well as temp health generation, and the Rapier benefits a lot from critical hits. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense since you spend a decent amount of time using melee with this build.
(Ranged)
Repeater Pistol’s alt-fire will one shot crit bodyshot all elites and specials, including a Chaos Warrior. However with a Chaos Warrior, all 8 pellets need to land. So wait for your crit with Prize Bounty, and fire away. With the left click, you can one shot crit bodyshot all specials at close to medium range.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Boon of Shallya helps with getting temp health.
(Charm)
20. Crit Power and 10% Power vs Chaos helps reach the ranged breakpoints. Decanter lets you delete a boss, even without hitting any headshots with Double-Shotted. However you need to proc Hunter and Open Wounds from the Repeater Pistol first.
(Trinket)
Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime and temp health generation. Curse Resistance is the obvious choice if you are doing book runs. If you don’t need the crit chance, you can run 10% cooldown reduction for more uptime on Double-Shotted. Shrapnel is unnecessary since bosses die very quickly on Legend. Explosive Ordnance helps more when your team gets surrounded or you need to delete a patrol. Grenadier is an option too but I don’t consider myself lucky.

Notes

This is my personal favorite build on Legend. You get to delete a Chaos Warrior every 10 seconds with the alt-fire of the Repeater and your melee power is really decent with this setup. You can take stamina recovery or cooldown reduction on your trinket instead of crit chance if you want.

Falchion + Brace of Pistols – John Wick Build

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/232122/30-4-3-6/63-6-3-3/3-2-1/4-6-2/3-2-1

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Either crits and headshots or temp on kill work just fine with this build. Temp on kill works great when you proc Hunter often with the Brace of Pistols.
(Level 10)
Weight of Fire is a more consistent damage increase compared to Open Wounds on the Brace of Pistols. Remember that Weight of Fire is a 12.0% Ranged Power increase with Brace of Pistols that is always active, and affects Locked and Loaded.
(Level 15)
Assassin is a huge boost to melee DPS. Enhanced Power could let you one shot crit bodyshot Bestigors, but it’s too niche of a breakpoint to go for and lose out on Assassin. Also, John Wick is an Assassin.
(Level 20)
Blessed Combat is perfect for the Brace of Pistols. Prize Bounty and Cruel Fortune don’t get much value.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition is the best option for a hybrid melee / ranged build and is your only form of ammo sustain with Hunter.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted is an option to delete Chaos Warriors or far-away specials when you don’t have much ammo. You can also-use Double-Shotted to kill an elite to give you some Brace of Pistols ammo. With Decanter and a purple potion, proc Hunter with the Brace of Pistols first then press F on the boss until he dies.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Hunter + 10% Power vs Armored lets you one shot SV with a headshot on Light 3 / Heavy Attacks.
(Ranged)
Hunter + 20% Power vs Armored + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Skaven + Weight of Fire
One-shot crit bodyshot all specials
With Blessed Combat
One-shot crit bodyshot all specials / SV / Mauler. Go for headshots on Bestigor and Wargor to one-shot.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime and overall DPS. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense since you spend a decent amount of time using melee with this build.
(Ranged)
The Brace of Pistols are a very strong option for Legend. You can deal with multiple elites / special threats at the same time, and they are most importantly really fun to use. They have a dodge count of 100 so you can dodge while reloading very easily with them and still be safe. 10% Power vs Armored + 10% Power vs Skaven + Hunter to reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
10. Power vs Chaos and 10% Power vs Armored to reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Decanter lets you yeet bosses out of existence with a purple potion.
(Trinket)
Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime and temp health generation. Curse Resistance is the obvious choice if you are doing book runs. If you don’t need the crit chance, you can run 10% cooldown reduction for more uptime on Double-Shotted. Shrapnel is unnecessary since bosses die very quickly on Legend. Explosive Ordnance helps more when your team gets surrounded or you need to delete a patrol. Grenadier is an option too but I don’t consider myself lucky.

Notes

Another very fun build. You get to easily deal with any amount of specials or elites thrown your way. With a strength potion, you can one-shot Stormvermin with BoP, so if you run across a Skaven patrol, get rid of the Shielded Stormvermin first then start blasting.

Other Bounty Hunter Legend Builds

Royale w/ Cheese has a good collection of legend builds with all heroes, Bounty Hunter included:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2034609078

Cataclysm

 

Here a couple Cataclysm builds. These are the most effective builds for Bounty Hunter at this difficulty. If you want to be less of a tryhard, check out the off-meta builds.

Rapier + Crossbow: Meta Tryhard

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/113332/32-4-3-6/64-2-3-6/3-2-5/2-4-1/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots work best with a ranged build with low melee killing power.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for monster and chaos warrior damage, as well as helping you hit crossbow breakpoints.
(Level 15)
Enhanced Power for 7.5% stagger, cleave, damage. Necessary for crossbow breakpoints.
(Level 20)
Prize Bounty is the best option for Scrounger ammo sustain if you aren’t able to reset the crit with the combination of Blessed Combat + Salvaged Ammunition.
(Level 25)
Job Well Done works best on a pure ranged build that has basically infinite ammo. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc. Boon of Shallya is perfectly fine as well, you can make either Trait work.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted is your answer for delete Chaos Warriors and monsters. If you have trouble using concoction, Decanter works just fine.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Mostly irrelevant.
(Ranged)
40% Crit Power + Open Wounds + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Skaven + Enhanced Power
One-shot crit bodyshot all elites and specials except CW / Wargor. If you really want to one shot Wargor, you can go for Blessed Combat.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime and temp health generation. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense and is useful on Cataclysm with elites in hordes.
(Ranged)
The Crossbow is the best sniping weapon for Bounty Hunter. You can deal with specials and elites easily with this build and have very good ammo sustain with Scrounger. 20% crit power and Power vs Skaven to reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Boon of Shallya helps with temp health generation. Barkskin is an option but you already have Job Well Done.
(Charm)
20. Crit Power and 10% Power vs Chaos to reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Concoction is your best option for deleting bosses, but Decanter works just fine if you aren’t confident in your ability to headshot.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown Reduction is necessary to be able to chain-headshot bosses with Concoction. If you’re running Decanter, 5% Crit Chance is just fine. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Any of the bomb traits work fine, but Shrapnel helps your team with bursting down monsters if you mess up your double-shotted chain.

Notes

One of the most effective builds on Bounty Hunter for Cataclysm. You have passive damage reduction, more temp health generation from Boon of Shallya or extra tankiness from Barkskin, special sniping and elite killing with Crossbow, good ammo sustain from Prize Bounty and Scrounger, and boss killing with Double-Shotted.

1H Axe + Griffinfoot: Infinite Ammo

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/212122/29-1-3-6/72-4-5-6/3-2-1/6-1-1/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Temp on kill is the only decent option for one-handed Axe.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for monster and chaos warrior damage, and is necessary for Griffinfoot breakpoints.
(Level 15)
Assassin is the obvious choice for a crit reset hybrid ranged / melee playstyle.
(Level 20)
Blessed combat refreshes your crit on a melee kill, providing you with a free Scrounger proc. It is also necessary for some ranged breakpoints, and overall gives decent damage buffs.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition + Blessed Combat will give you a crit and ammo on a melee kill. If you somehow manage to run out of ammo, you can still kill an elite to get 20% ammo back.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted helps with dealing with very far away specials like Blightstormers that the Griffinfoot struggles with. It is also your answer for Chaos Warriors and boss damage. If you have trouble using concoction, Decanter works just fine.

Breakpoints

Melee
Mostly irrelevant.
Ranged
10% Power vs Armored + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Infantry + Open Wounds
One-shot crit bodyshot all enemies, elites, and specials except Bestigor / CW / Wargor.

With Blessed Combat
One-shot crit bodyshot all enemies, elites, and specials except CW / Wargor. Go for headshots on Wargors. For Bestigors, you need to land 17 out of 18 pellets to hit the breakpoint, so only use this at extreme close range.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Attack speed + Block Cost Reduction is best for one-handed Axe. It has 10% crit on all light attacks so crit chance is unnecessary. Swift slaying helps with overall melee DPS as well.
(Ranged)
The Griffinfoot is the strongest horde clear option for Bounty Hunter. With this build, you have the gameplay loop of getting a melee kill to give ammo and a crit, then shoot the Griffinfoot, and repeat.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Axe. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
10. Power vs Armored to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above. 5% Attack Speed to help with Axe. It needs a lot of help. Concoction not only helps you delete-bosses but with a potion, the Griffinfoot shreds Stormvermin because of the damage bonus coming from Strength.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown Reduction is necessary to be able to chain-headshot bosses with Concoction. If you’re running Decanter, 5% Crit Chance is just fine. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Pushing is absolutely necessary with the one-handed Axe, as it has zero cleave. Any of the bomb traits work fine, but Shrapnel helps your team with bursting down monsters if you mess up your double-shotted chain.

Notes

A pretty fun build, and the only scenario in which I would take one-handed Axe on Bounty Hunter. You should never have any troubles with this build when played correctly.

Other Bounty Hunter Cataclysm Builds

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1833338040

Cataclysm Twitch

 

Cataclysm Twitch is where Bounty Hunter truly shines. Give him a potion and concoction, and he can delete any boss thrown at the team. He is also extraordinarily useful for dealing with mass amounts of specials and elites.

Parry Rapier + Hunter Crossbow: DPS Sniper

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/112122/32-2-3-4/64-2-3-3/3-2-1/4-2-1/1-7-1

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Temp on crits and headshots is more consistent, but temp on kill works fine with the high amount of elites on Cata Twitch. Either is a fine choice.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for monster and chaos warrior damage, and is necessary for Crossbow breakpoints.
(Level 15)
Enhanced Power is unnecessary as Crossbow already kills all enemies except Chaos Warriors in one crit shot. Assassin synergizes best with Blessed Combat and Salvaged Ammunition, giving you an easier time to farm ammo from elites.
(Level 20)
Blessed combat + Salvaged Ammunition gives you infinite Crossbow crits, as long as you get a melee kill. Spamming crit crossbow bolts on monsters is also respectable damage if you don’t have Double-Shotted available.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition is necessary for a Hunter build without any ammo sustain.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted is a must-have for Cataclysm Twitch. Your team relies on you to deal with bosses with a potion. It’s also useful if you have no crossbow ammo and need to kill an elite safely to proc Salvaged Ammunition.

Breakpoints

Melee
Mostly irrelevant.
Ranged
40% Crit Power + 10% Power vs Skaven + 10% Power vs Chaos + Hunter + Open Wounds
One-shot crit bodyshot all enemies except CW.
Two-shot crit headshot Chaos Warriors.
Gives you the most possible monster damage when Double-Shotted isn’t available.

(Melee)
Stamina + Block Cost Reduction + Parry is the safest, most defensive option possible for Bounty Hunter. You’ll need this in Cataclysm Twitch when elites spawn in big waves, forcing you to block.
(Ranged)
The Crossbow has amazing breakpoints, able to delete anything with a crit shot. A crit-headshot with Blessed Combat deals about 180 damage to a Chaos Warrior, meaning you can stab him in the head a couple times with the Rapier to easily kill him. 20% Crit Power + 10% Power vs Skaven + Hunter to reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
20. Crit Power + 10% Power vs Chaos to reach the breakpoints mentinoed above. Concoction is necessary for Cataclysm Twitch when bosses can spawn at any moment.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown Reduction is necessary to be able to chain-headshot bosses with Concoction 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Shrapnel is unnecessary on a build with ridiculously high boss killing potential. Explosive Ordnance works well for deleting Chaos Warrior / Stormvermin Twitch Votes with a strength potion. Grenadier is also useful, but I don’t consider myself lucky.

Notes

One of the strongest builds on Twitch, I personally use this for Twitch 200%. You can deal with all the specials, elites, and bosses that the game throws at you. The one downside is your temp health generation is absolutely terrible. But you have a Rapier with Parry so it shouldn’t be a problem.

Other Bounty Hunter Cataclysm Twitch Builds

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/build/12s5Kzfppj9LWiXYGOJ7/view

Cata3 DWONS

 

These are the builds for Deathwish Onslaught (DWONS). Bounty Hunter struggles to keep up in DWONS but I enjoy playing him. Crossbow and Griffinfoot are going to be your only choices at this difficulty really.

Rapier + Griffinfoot

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/112122/32-4-3-6/72-4-5-3/3-2-1/4-5-1/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots is the most consistent option for Bounty Hunter. On kill is quite difficult to make use of on C3DWONS when enemy health is so high.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for your team for monster and Chaos Warrior damage.
(Level 15)
Assassin is a huge boost to melee DPS, and is extremely helpful when you take blessed combat. It is difficult to make use of Blessed Combat with only Enhanced Power on C3DWONS.
(Level 20)
Blessed Combat is the best choice for Griffinfoot when you take Hunter. You can use your melee to reset Blessed Shots and increase your damage a lot against a single unarmored target like a mauler. You want to make sure that your last shot does as much damage as possible so you get ammo back from Salvaged Ammunition. The 15.0% power also helps with overall DPS. If you can save 6 ranged stacks, it is a huge increase to boss damage with a concoction pot and double-shotted.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition is the only option for a Hunter build without a Ranger Veteran on the team. It ensures that you have some form of ammo sustain and not run out of shotgun ammo from just a couple hordes. It also is a perfect choice to go along with Blessed Combat, giving you ammo and a crit on melee kill.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted helps with dealing with very far away specials like Blightstormers that the Griffinfoot struggles with. It is also your answer for Chaos Warriors and boss damage, or saving teammates that are disabled.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Irrelevant.
(Ranged)
With 20% Chaos + 20% Infantry + Hunter + Open Wounds + 1 stack of Blessed Combat, you can one shot crit bodyshot all enemies except SV / Wargor / CW.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime as well as temp health generation, and the Rapier benefits a lot from critical hits. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense as well, which is beneficial in DWONS when there are a massive amounts of elites being thrown at you. Stamina + Block Cost Reduction and Parry is also a solid option if you aren’t concerned about melee.
(Ranged)
The Griffinfoots are the core of this build – you will be spamming them into hordes most of the time. However, be aware of your team as they need temp health as well. Focus on elites and shields first, then let your team get temp health from trash.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
10. Chaos + 10% Infantry to reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Concoction is the best option for Bounty Hunter on C3DWONS. Refer to the section above for the Concoction vs. Decanter debate.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown reduction ensures that you are able to chain-headshot bosses with concoction and deal huge damage. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Since bosses have a massive amount of health on C3DWONS, Shrapnel is helpful for bursting down the boss. If you don’t need the extra boss damage, (usually means you have a GK / pistol RV on the team) Explosive Ordnance works perfectly to help with dealing with dense hordes or mass elites, especially with a strength potion.

Notes

Probably the most consistent form of damage for Bounty Hunter in high-level play. It doesn’t change the fact that your temp health generation is very poor, but shotgunning massive hordes of elites is pretty satisfying. I have experimented with Scrounger and going for a hybrid melee / ranged build on C3DWONS but it isn’t as effective as going all in with Hunter and focusing on pure damage.

Rapier + Crossbow

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/112122/32-4-3-6/64-2-3-3/3-2-1/2-4-1/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots is the most consistent option for Bounty Hunter. On kill is quite difficult to make use of on C3DWONS when enemy health is so high.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for your team for monster and Chaos Warrior damage.
(Level 15)
Assassin is a huge boost to melee DPS, and is extremely helpful when you take blessed combat. It is difficult to make use of Blessed Combat with only Enhanced Power on C3DWONS.
(Level 20)
Blessed Combat helps with ranged breakpoints with Crossbow and ensures that you always have a crit up to deal with specials or elites. The Crossbow’s breakpoints without a crit are awful on C3DWONS. Prize Bounty and Cruel Fortune are decent choices but are simply outshined by the utility of Blessed Combat. You want to make sure that your last shot does as much damage as possible so you get ammo back from Salvaged Ammunition. The 15.0% power also helps with overall DPS. If you can save 6 ranged stacks, it is a huge increase to boss damage with a concoction pot and double-shotted.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition is the only option for a Hunter build without a Ranger Veteran on the team. It ensures that you have some form of ammo sustain and not run out of shotgun ammo from just a couple hordes. It also is a perfect choice to go along with Blessed Combat, giving you ammo and a crit on melee kill.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted helps with dealing with very far away specials like Blightstormers that the Griffinfoot struggles with. It is also your answer for Chaos Warriors and boss damage, or saving teammates that are disabled.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Irrelevant.
(Ranged)
40. crit power + Hunter + Open Wounds + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Skaven to one shot crit bodyshot all elites and specials except CW / Wargor / Berserkers. You can go with Enhanced Power to reach the berserker breakpoint, but you also need a stack of Blessed Combat, and giving up Assassin means you lose the value of Blessed Combat. The better option is to have a Grail Knight with the 10% Power quest and get a stack of Blessed Combat. You can use the “Choose Grail Knight Quests” mod to make sure you get 10% power.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime as well as temp health generation, and the Rapier benefits a lot from critical hits. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense as well, which is beneficial in DWONS when there are a massive amounts of elites being thrown at you. Stamina + Block Cost Reduction and Parry is also a solid option if you aren’t concerned about melee.
(Ranged)
The Crossbow is the best weapon for sniping and special killing on Bounty Hunter.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
20. crit power + 10% power vs Chaos to reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Concoction is the best option for Bounty Hunter on C3DWONS. Refer to the section above for the Concoction vs. Decanter debate.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown reduction ensures that you are able to chain-headshot bosses with concoction and deal huge damage. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Since bosses have a massive amount of health on C3DWONS, Shrapnel is helpful for bursting down the boss. If you don’t need the extra boss damage, (usually means you have a GK / pistol RV on the team) Explosive Ordnance works perfectly to help with dealing with dense hordes or mass elites, especially with a strength potion.

Notes

Bounty Hunter overall is quite weak in C3DWONS and there are better careers for special sniping than a Crossbow BH. However, it works, and it’s fun to play.

Other Bounty Hunter Cata3 Dwons Builds

docs.google.com – https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16CKsCBl2ZUvEfXsp0RsloVnZILJlShNBBNzBFv9fJjM/edit#gid=1757664451 I don’t really agree with Core taking Proxy on his Bounty Hunter builds, as I think concoction is a better option, but otherwise his builds are very solid and he is overall a much better player than me.

Off-Meta Cata Builds

 

Here is a collection of builds that are either unpopular, underutilized, or wacky.
These builds are meant for base Cataclysm. I suppose you could also run them on Legend, but then they aren’t really memes since they’re still decent on Legend.

Parry Falchion + Volley Crossbow – Just Reward

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/133331/30-2-3-4/65-5-1-6/3-2-5/6-1-2/2-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots work best with a ranged build with low melee killing power.
(Level 10)
Weight of Fire is the best option with Volley Crossbow. Remember that Weight of Fire is a 15.0% Ranged Power increase with Volley Crossbow that is always active, and affects Locked and Loaded.
(Level 15)
Enhanced Power for 7.5% stagger, cleave, damage. Works best on a pure ranged build.
(Level 20)
Prize Bounty works surprisingly well with Volley Crossbow. It also refreshes every 10 seconds, which matches the cooldown of Just Reward.
(Level 25)
Job Well Done gives you much needed damage reduction on a build without Barkskin. You will be spending most of the game just spamming volley crossbow and ulting, so you want to spend as little time in melee as possible and getting hit once is very punishing on Bounty Hunter.
(Level 30)
Just-Reward deals with whatever the volley crossbow can’t handle – usually this means Chaos Warriors and shielded enemies. On its own, it has very good horde clear. You don’t get much value out of concoction with this build, so Decanter is the choice here. It is also a free stagger on bosses and respectable damage if you hit a crit headshot.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Mostly irrelevant.
(Ranged)
10% Power vs Infantry + 10% Power vs Armored + Weight of Fire + Enhanced Power

Single Arrow.
One-shot bodyshot all trash enemies.

Volley
One-shot bodyshot volley all trash enemies, Gor / Marauder, and all specials except Wargor.

Crit Volley
One-shot bodyshot most enemies except Bestigor / CW / Berserkers / Wargor.

Locked and Loaded – 10% Power vs Armored + Weight of Fire + Enhanced Power
One-shot crit bodyshot Chaos Warriors with the Sniper bullet.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Stamina + Block Cost Reduction and Parry lets you play very defensively, which is important with volley crossbow, as it takes a very long time to reload.
(Ranged)
Volley Crossbow with Scrounger and 15% crit chance lets you spam arrows until the universe collapses upon itself. It has the highest burst boss DPS out of any of Saltzpyre’s ranged weapons. 10% Power vs Infantry helps reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Falchion. Boon of Shallya helps with temp health generation. Barkskin is an option but you already have Job Well Done.
(Charm)
5. attack speed since you can’t reach any significant ranged breakpoints with anything else on the charm. Attack speed lets you fire volley slightly faster and block sooner. 10% Power vs Armored to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Decanter is the best option for Just Reward, you are still able to do a decent amount of boss damage or delete several elites.
(Trinket)
5. Crit Chance helps with proccing Scrounger and ammo sustain with Volley Crossbow. It also helps with farming temp health. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Shrapnel helps your team burst down monsters.

Notes

Probably the best build you can get without using Double-Shotted. Just Reward ends up having more horde clear than Indiscriminate Blast because of how often your ult is up. With this build, most of your boss damage actually comes from Volley Crossbow unless you have a purple potion with Decanter. You can spam the Volley Crossbow the entire game without having to worry about ammo.

Resourceful Combatant Build: 20 Second Ult Without Double-Shotted.

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/113221/32-2-3-5/65-6-3-3/3-2-1/4-5-2/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
With this build, both temp health options are mediocre, but crits and headshots will be more consistent.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds provides utility for your team in taking down big enemies like monsters and chaos warriors. It also is necessary for ranged breakpoints. With Volley Crossbow specifically, all three arrows can apply Open Wounds to any enemies they hit and cleave through, so you are able to weaken large groups of enemies at once.
(Level 15)
Enhanced Power is 7.5% more stagger, damage, and cleave. It is more useful than Assassin on a pure ranged playstyle. It is also necessary for ranged breakpoints.
(Level 20)
Cruel Fortune will ensure that you can keep Hunter up and proc Resourceful Combatant often. You want to stay in the backline as often as possible, so Blessed Combat doesn’t provide much value, and Prize Bounty will give you trouble choosing between whether to proc Hunter or Resourceful Combatant.
(Level 25)
Salvaged Ammunition is necessary for a Hunter build without any ammo sustain. Your elite killing power is very high with this build, so you should have no problems with ammo.
(Level 30)
Just-Reward deals with whatever the Volley Crossbow can’t handle – usually this means Chaos Warriors and shielded enemies. On its own, it has very good horde clear. You don’t get much value out of concoction with this build, so Decanter is the choice here. It is also a free stagger on bosses and respectable damage if you hit a crit headshot.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Irrelevant.

(Ranged)
10% Power vs Skaven + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Armored + 10% Power vs Infantry + Hunter + Open Wounds + Enhanced Power
One-shot crit volley all enemies with a bodyshot except CW.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Stamina + Block Cost Reduction is the most defensive option you can have on Rapier. With Resourceful Combatant, wait until you have a free crit from Blessed Shots, then use the rapier pistol to proc your cooldown.
(Ranged)
Volley Crossbow has the highest monster burst DPS out of all Saltzpyre’s ranged weapons, and with this setup you have amazing breakpoints. With Open Wounds, you can apply the 20% debuff to several enemies at once. 10% Power vs Armored + 10% Power vs Skaven + Hunter to reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Hunter also helps with overall boss DPS.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 60% Block Cost Reduction from both the Rapier and Necklace lets you play very defensively. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc.
(Charm)
10. Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Infantry to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Decanter is the best option for Just Reward, you are still able to do a decent amount of boss damage or delete several elites.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown Reduction isn’t meta or optimal, but the purpose of this build is to have as low of a cooldown as possible without using Double-Shotted. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. Stamina recovery is also necessary for a melee focused build. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Shrapnel helps your team burst down monsters.

Notes

With Resourceful Combatant, Just Reward, and 10% Cooldown Reduction, you should be using your ultimate about every 20 seconds if you play correctly. The Volley Crossbow shouldn’t be spammed with this build, but rather used together with Just Reward to keep up consistent ranged DPS.

Frontline Bounty Hunter (Ranger Veteran only)

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/122121/32-1-4-6/63-5-3-3/3-2-1/1-4-2/7-2-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots are the most consistent option for a Frontline playstyle. You have very high attack speed and 15% crit chance to keep your health up.
(Level 10)
Steel Crescendo is the core talent of this build. When you use up all your ammo, you get 15% attack speed and 15% power for 15 seconds. You have to make sure that your Ranger Veteran buddy lets you pick up ammo often so you have high uptime with Steel Crescendo.
(Level 15)
Assassin is a huge boost to melee DPS, and is the best option for a Frontliner.
(Level 20)
Blessed Combat ensures that you always have a crit so you can proc Hunter with Brace of Pistols. It also gives you free damage on ranged and melee. The Brace of Pistols can provide you with a lot of melee Blessed Combat stacks, so use them as often as you can.
(Level 25)
Job Well Done gives you much needed damage reduction. You also have Barkskin, so you become quite tanky with 30 stacks and can really solidify your position as a Frontliner.
(Level 30)
Just-Reward deals with whatever the Brace of Pistols can’t handle – usually this means Chaos Warriors and shielded enemies. On its own, it has very good horde clear. You don’t get much value out of concoction with this build, so Decanter is the choice here. It is also a free stagger on bosses and respectable damage if you hit a crit headshot.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Rapier breakpoints get complicated.
10% Power vs Chaos + Hunter + Assassin + Steel Crescendo + Blessed Combat
One-shot crit headshot all enemies except CW with a partially charged heavy attack.

(Ranged)
Brace of Pistols breakpoints also get really complicated.
10% Power vs Skaven + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Infantry + Hunter + Blessed Combat or Steel Crescendo

1-shot bodyshot Gutter Runner
2-shot bodyshot Globadier / Lifeleech / Blightstormer / Packmaster
3-shot bodyshot SV / Mauler / Berserkers
4-shot bodyshot Bestigor

Crits or Headshots
1-shot Globadier / Lifeleech / Blightstormer

Crit Headshot
1-shot Warpfire Thrower / Ratling Gunner

10% Power vs Skaven + 10% Power vs Chaos + 10% Power vs Infantry + Hunter + Blessed Combat + Steel Crescendo
1-shot crit headshot Packmaster / Wargor

These breakpoints are way too much to remember and keep track of in a real game, so just keep in mind that you can, at worst, 2 shot all specials except Wargor with bodyshots, and you need a crit headshot to 1-shot all specials with either Steel Crescendo or Blessed Combat up.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Attack Speed and Crit Chance gives you the most DPS on the Rapier. With the inner block cost modifier of 0.25, 30% Block Cost Reduction on the Necklace is sufficient for defense. Swift slaying helps with temp health and overall melee DPS.
(Ranged)
Brace of Pistols is the best option for keeping Hunter uptime up on Bounty Hunter, and you spend way less time reloading mid horde. They are great to use under pressure. 10% Power vs Infantry + 10% Power vs Skaven + Hunter to reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction helps Rapier be a little bit defensive. Barkskin helps reduce the damage taken from gas, assassins, ratling gunners, etc. Barkskin is especially important as a Frontliner since you will be taking hits more often than a ranged playstyle.
(Charm)
5. Attack Speed helps with overall melee DPS as well as letting you shoot the Brace of Pistols faster. 10% Power vs Chaos to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above. Decanter is the best option for Just Reward, you are still able to do a decent amount of boss damage or delete several elites.
(Trinket)
5. Crit Chance helps with farming temp health and melee DPS. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. Stamina recovery is also necessary for a melee focused build. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Shrapnel helps your team burst down monsters.

Notes

A really fun build once it gets going. With Steel Crescendo, melee, charm, and swift slaying, you can get 45% attack speed with the Rapier. The downside is you have to rely on a Ranger Veteran for ammo drops.

One Shot Chaos Warrior Build

www.ranalds.gift – https://www.ranalds.gift/heroes/11/113332/32-4-3-6/66-2-4-3/3-2-5/2-4-1/1-7-3

Talents

 

(Level 5)
Crits and headshots is the most consistent option for a build without Assassin and weak melee power.
(Level 10)
Open Wounds helps provide utility for your team for monster and Chaos Warrior damage. It is also necessary for ranged breakpoints.
(Level 15)
Enhanced Power provides 7.5% stagger, melee, and cleave. It is also necessary for ranged breakpoints.
(Level 20)
Since you will want to be alt-firing elites often with this setup and proccing Hunter, Prize Bounty is the best option for ammo sustain. Otherwise you will run out of ammo very quickly with the Repeater Pistol.
(Level 25)
Both Salvaged Ammunition and Job Well Done work decently with this build, but I prefer Job Well Done + Boon of Shallya to help with temp health issues. The Repeater Pistol alt-fire can easily get you stacks of Job Well Done very quickly.
(Level 30)
Double-Shotted helps with dealing with very far away specials like Blightstormers that the Repeater Pistol sort-of struggles with. It is also your answer for boss damage.

Breakpoints

(Melee)
Irrelevant.
(Ranged)
Open Wounds + Enhanced Power + 40% Crit Power + 20% Power vs Chaos + Hunter
One-shot crit bodyshot Chaos berserkers, Ratling/Warpfires, Leech/Blightstormers.
Crit bodyshot + another shot for Hookrat / Globadier / Plague Monks

One-shot crit bodyshot all specials and elites with alt-fire, including Chaos Warrior.

For Chaos Warriors, all pellets must hit the head, so only use this at extreme close range if you’re concerned with one-shotting them. If you don’t land a headshot, it will still do about 200 damage to the Chaos Warrior, which your teammates can easily clean up.

Gear

 

(Melee)
Crit chance + Block Cost Reduction is standard for most melee weapons. Crit chance helps with swift slaying uptime as well as temp health generation, and the Rapier benefits a lot from critical hits. Block Cost Reduction provides more defense as well, which is beneficial in when there are a massive amounts of elites being thrown at you.
(Ranged)
20. Crit Power + 10% Power vs Chaos + Hunter to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Necklace)
20. Health and 30% Block Cost Reduction is the best option. 20% Health will let you take more hits, and 30% Block Cost Reduction on both Necklace and Melee will give you 60% Block Cost Reduction, letting you be very defensive with the Rapier. Boon of Shallya helps with temp health generation.
(Charm)
20. Crit Power + 10% Power vs Chaos to help reach the breakpoints mentioned above.
(Trinket)
10. Cooldown reduction ensures that you are able to chain-headshot bosses with concoction and deal huge damage. 30% stamina recovery gives you an easier time going for revives. You can also push more often into a horde and have a safer time getting temp health. Shrapnel helps with bursting down bosses, but Explosive Ordnance works just fine as well if you don’t need the extra boss damage.

Notes

More of a meme build than anything, since it struggles to keep up on Cataclysm, but nevertheless quite fun to use. The Repeater Pistol is great at dealing with maulers and berserkers especially, but unfortunately the alt-fire doesn’t break shields like every other shotgun in the game. Also unlike other shotguns, it has great monster and armor damage. I honestly don’t bother with left-clicking much since the alt-fire is way better 90% of the time unless you’re trying to deal with some far away special when you don’t have your ult available.

True Solos

 

Here are some showcases of True Solos that I’ve done. I’m not the best true soloist by any means, so bear with me.

Screaming Bell Legend Rapier + BoP

Appendix

 

Extra stuff here that doesn’t belong in the guide.

References / Resources.

[1] docs.google.com – https://steamcommunity.com/id/dylanrong/myworkshopfiles/?section=guides&appid=552500
[4] docs.google.com – https://www.reddit.com/r/Vermintide/comments/j94ssl/outofgame_vt2_armory_mod_reference/

 

This is all for Warhammer: Vermintide 2 Useful Guide for Saltzpyre’s Bounty Hunter + Gameplay Mechanics hope you enjoy the post. If you believe we forget or we should update the post please let us know via comment, we will try our best to fix how fast is possible! Have a great day!