Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - Pyromancer Build Guide

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Career Overview

Weapons

Talents

Sienna's second unlockable Career is the Pyromancer. This is one of the strongest ranged-focused classes in Vermintide 2, allowing you to quickly and consistently deal high damage from afar with blazing fire bolts and explosions.

The Pyromancer is a very straightforward Career compared to others in the game, but gains immense power through her weapons and Talents. Let's take a look at each of the Pyromancer's abilities, weapon options, and Talents, and some tips for building this class.

Career Overview

Ability	Description
Career Skill – The Burning Head	Fire a projectile that seeks out enemies.
Passive Ability – Critical Mass	Gain 6% critical strike chance for every 6 Overcharge, stacking up to 5 times (30% max critical strike chance).
Perk – Searing Focus	Increase ranged damage by 10%.

General Gameplay

The Pyromancer specializes in using powerful single-target and damage-over-time abilities to kill elites, specials, and monsters, while remaining safe by staying at range. In general, you will be spell-casting more than melee attacking, relying on the Bonded Flame and Spark Smith Talents to generate temporary health for manual Overcharge venting, while keeping the gauge high enough to retain the passive effects of Critical Mass and One with the Flame.

The Pyromancer's Career Skill, The Burning Head, can be tricky to use due to its sometimes finicky targeting system. However, by holding down the Ultimate button, you can manually aim the first hit of the ability, outlining the enemy targeted in red. Outside of the first hit, where The Burning Head's flame goes is RNG-dependant, which can make killing specific enemies difficult, but this ability becomes much better with the level 30 Talent, Bonded Flame, which we will take a deeper look at below.

Weapons

Melee Weapons

The Pyromancer can use the following melee weapons.

Sword
Flame Sword
Dagger
Mace
Crowbill (Back to Ubersreik DLC)
Flaming Flail (Winds of Magic DLC)

Although the Pyromancer prefers ranged weapons over melee weapons, you will still be relying on a melee weapon to generate temporary health in between Bonded Flame activations. In general, the Pyromancer is best at killing enemies with large health pools, like specials, elites, and armored enemies. Choose a melee with high single-target damage or damage-over-time effects, like the Dagger, Flame Sword, or Crowbill.

Ranged Weapons

The following ranged weapons can be used on Pyromancer.

Fireball Staff
Flamestorm Staff
Bolt Staff
Beam Staff
Conflagration Staff
Coruscation Staff (Forgotten Relics DLC)

Your ranged weapon choice will dictate how you play the Pyromancer, so choosing the right weapon for you is important. For single-target damage, the Fireball Staff and Bolt Staff are good options that have longer range on their basic attacks, perfect for taking out enemies from far away.

For AoE weapons, the Conflagration Staff and Coruscation Staff are both good choices. The Coruscation Staff in particular can create large damage-over-time flame pillars, which can devastate entire groups of enemies and deal high damage to monsters.

Talents

Level 5 Talents

Spark Smith	Spirit-Binding	Fiery Fortitude
Dealing damage to multiple enemies with a single melee attack generates temporary health.	Generate temporary health upon killing an enemy with a melee attack, proportional to the health of the slain enemy.	Using medical supplies on yourself also heals nearby allies for 20% of their maximum health.

For your first Talent, the choice between Spark Smith and Spirit-Binding comes down to your weapon choice. For melee weapons with high cleave damage that can hit multiple enemies at once, Spark Smith will be better. For higher damage weapons that are better against single-targets, Spirit-Binding will provide more temporary health.

Level 10 Talents

Ride the Fire Wind	Martial Study	Spirit-Casting
Every 1 second, gain 1% increased ranged power, stacking 20 times. At 20 stacks, this effect decays until you have 0 stacks, then starts again.	Increase attack speed by 5%.	While health is above 80%, increase critical strike chance by 10%.

Similar to the first Talent, this Talent choice will depend on your ranged weapon. Ride the Fire Wind is a good overall option that can enable burst windows where your ranged power is extremely high, but these short windows can be difficult to use and sometimes don't line up when you need them.

Martial Study is another good overall option, and works best with higher attack speed weapons to make them even faster, or slow weapons to bring them up to speed.

Spirit-Casting can be harder to maintain at higher difficulty levels, but works very well in lower-level content.

Level 15 Talents

Smiter	Mainstay	Enhanced Power
The first enemy hit with an attack always counts as a stagger. Staggered enemies take 20% more damage, and each attack against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger, increasing the damage they take to 40%.	Staggered enemies take 40% more damage, and each attack against a staggered enemy adds another count of stagger, increasing the damage they take to 60%.	Increase power by 7.5%.

In ranged-focused Pyromancer playstyles, Enhanced Power will provide the highest damage increase, as you will be using your ranged weapon more than your melee weapon. However, in mixed playstyles that use both weapons equally, Smiter will provide a high and consistent damage bonus against low and high-health enemies.

Level 20 Talents

Deathly Dissipation	On the Precipice	One with the Flame
For 10 seconds after killing a special, your spells do not generate Overcharge.	While above 75% overcharge, your ranged power is increased by 15%.	Critical Mass also increases attack speed by 2% per stack.

Deathly Dissipation can pair well with Ride the Fire Wind, allowing you to unleash staff attacks without worrying about Overcharge. However, similar to Ride the Fire Wind, this Talent can be difficult to use effectively. On the Precipice works best with the Flamestorm Staff in a high-risk, high-reward playstyle, as you will want your Overcharge gauge to be as high as possible at all times.

One with the Flame is great for high attack speed builds, and pairs best with Martial Study. At higher Overcharge levels, you will have high critical strike chance and attack speed, allowing you to quickly kill specials and elites with just a few attacks.

Level 25 Talents

Soul Siphon	The Volans Doctrine	Fleetflame
For 10 seconds after killing an elite enemy, take 10% reduced damage, stacking up to 3 times.	Overcharge no longer reduces movement speed.	Dealing a critical strike increases movement speed by 5% for 10 seconds, stacking up to 3 times.

The Volans Doctrine is the best level 25 Talent for Pyromancer, as it will completely remove its biggest weakness, being slowed down at high Overcharge. This Talent will keep you mobile, allowing you to evade enemies while remaining at high Overcharge levels with no penalty.

Level 30 Talents

Exhaust	Bonded Flame	Blazing Echo
The Burning Head removes all Overcharge.	The Burning Head generates 35 temporary health when cast.	Critically striking with The Burning Head resets its cooldown.

While all three of the Pyromancer's level 30 Talents sound good, Bonded Flame provides too much utility to pass up. With Bonded Flame, you can quickly gain a ton of temporary health to help you survive enemy attacks, or burn through it to manually vent your staff and get back to spell-casting.

Exhaust provides a similar benefit, completely removing your Overcharge, but isn't as versatile as Bonded Flame. Blazing Echo can be useful in critical strike-focused builds, but the unreliability of The Burning Head in general makes this Talent less appealing.

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