There is actually another way to switch styles which is to dodge and then hold the attack button, this will do the sprinting attack of the style that is not active and switch.
Personally what I like to do is go in with power style, whirl slash + 1~2 swings towards the warrior while mowing the gaunts, then back dodge > hold attack button to transit into a speed style Air Thrust as mentioned by OP. The warrior will usually be readying an attack by this point, so parry or dodge depending on the color, Gun Strike, then finish up the warrior with a few speed light attacks, mix in a power rake if needed. Deals with the swarming gaunts much better as compared to just going in with speed style.
Yeah this is how i do my weapon style switching, especially since i have the perk for +20% damage after switching modes so this is the best way to actually get any use out of it. :)
IS has become one of my favorite TH-camrs. As a 35 year old gamer that has been stuck in casual games for the last decade, he is making me want to try more difficult games and dive into different universes. Love this guy.
I'm of that old original doom/diablo generation too so 30+ and i generally am bad at twitch reaction requiring games, but space marine 2 is something beautiful. I just love it, and I do great at it if i do say so myself. I guess it has to do that it doesn't rely on twitch mechanics as much as understanding the mechanics of the game and playing in way that uses them to your advantage... and i guess since a common comment is that it reminds them of "old games" is why i feel so comfortable with it. :)
I gotta say your 2 minute summary is THE BEST feature for your channel. I still watch the rest of the video but that summary gives me a quick answer for what I need. Thank you
it's such a simple, but effective way of delivering the information. Give me a quick hit of "don't hold forward." That's great, I can hop into a game right now and be mindful of it. By the time I'm done, I feel like I've already gotten better and now I'll watch the rest of the video to improve even more. 👍
Something you didn't mention was that you can change your STYLE but doing a dodge then charge attack right after, When you do that it will use the opposite style charge attack and switch you over to it
I'm of the opinion that they handled power sword pretty poorly. You can eventually work around it, but almost everything about its controls works contrary to what you want to do on gamepad.
Yeah I'd much rather use the power fist 10 times out of 10. I prefer the mobility, attack pattern, and the cannon punch over the sword. It just feels underwhelming considering its place in tabletop
I think the implementation of the shield is pretty crappy aswell, it feels really cumbersome mid-fight, shield bashing, blocking and parrying mechanics seem to clash with each other when youre in the thick of it, it feels super slow and unresponsive switching between actions.
I was in the middle of todays equivalent of reading the newspaper when TH-cam showed me this and as a Bulwark main who has had questions about things the game doesn't tell you I immediately switched.
OMG....that is why I can't seem to get this thing to combo to save my life?! I spent 30 mins yesterday getting the most inconsistent inputs and I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Subscribed
The biggest crime of the power sword is having the “switch style” button be the SAME BUTTON AS THE NORMAL MELEE. JUST LET ME BIND IT TO A DIFFERENT INPUT.
My favorite way to style switch is using the dodge + attack(hold). This allows for you to switch styles while pushing foes back for potential gun strikes or to create space.
Yeah I donty know if I missed it but I dont think this was mentioned. Switching styles like this is a life saver when you need to fight a different target type
My tldr for teaching my friends who just tried bulwark up: always start in power stance, light attack into gun strike for your armor sustain and keep your finger on the button for parries when warriors swing at you. After the chaff are cleared and just a warrior remains, throw out a power rake but look to dodge it's next attack and do a heavy to swap to speed stance. That should as well give you another gun strike as additional follow up since the window can be pretty generous. That's why I recommend top path perks to start since you are switching stance into speed form you can get that damage buff in the most applicable window. Then same perks you recommended for majoris damage.
Something I've found to be really useful is block cancelling, using block to cancel any animation barring parry and dodge to be more optimal with timing. Like when doing a power style light attack and wanting to gunstrike after, u can do it faster by holding block soon as theyre hit and spamming gunstrike. This is also helpful cuz part of the weakness of dodge is u cant cancel into it as freely as u can with parry, but u can dodge out of blocking. So if ure mid swing and wanna instantly roll cuz an orange attack is coming, can hold block and spam dodge to effectively cancel into dodge from any attack like u can with parry. Also u can press block after manually stance switching to do a shield bash, which u can then either cancel into another block or dodge. Helpful with the bulwark perks that give u buffs after sheild bash & stance switch
Well explained! I also had a hard time to learn this myself. Something that may help you out: you can switch the power sword style in fight by dash+attack. With this it's more easy to clear waves and then jump to the next sniper or the next warrior.
I just wanted to send your channel some love. I found your channel looking up BG3 builds when that game dropped. I had no clue at that time you had so much WH40K content on here, and now that I am playing SM2, it's like finding a hidden vault of all this lore and information. Keep it up! I am getting caught up on your old WH40K videos now.
For the combo interuption, I think it's a bug that happens more often with slower versions of the weapon in PVE, noticed that with one of the versions with a really low Speed (2 or 3 tops). It didnt happen often with faster versions, tho this should be fixed. Slow version makes it that there is so much time between attacks that you can break the combo by moving
Yeah this is only a problem with the slower weapons. The purple tier is gonna be a pain for anyone leveling power sword but once you get to relic tier it's great.
This helped improve my Bulwark by a considerable amount! I immediately jumped into operations with my Bulwark and found him considerably more consistent! Thanks!!
This video helps immensely! I kept wondering why my combos weren’t working! Not to mention I completely agree with running the fencing sword, just feels more fluid and consistent than the most powerful yet slow sword. Only other gripe I had was parrying was also a learning curve.
My fav thing to do is use the perk that gives 25% dmg reduction when all armor drops so ill get hit, swipe horde, gun strike for armor which resets the perk, then rinse and repeat for essentially a never ending 25% dmg resistance and horde cc.
This input style reminds me heavily of fighting games, which makes me love SM2 even more! You have to be mindful and press directions with purpose or else suffer the consequences. Great content, thank you!
Great tips. As a bulwark pressing forward is a hinderance in a lot of things, like shield bash for instance can’t shield bash if you are pressing forward.
You can also get a infinite combo in power style were every attack has that blue wave effect to it. For example, light combo attack 1 (looks normal), light attack 2 (has wave), light attack 3 (has wave), power rake (has wave), light attack again and itll skip the initial light attack 1 normal swipe and go right into light attack 2. At that you just repeat
Pro Tip: You can change styles faster by doing a dodge and holding Melee. Example if your in speed style the normal sprint attack is the superman stab air jab thing. But if you dodge your sword will switch styles to the charged up form and do the spinning arc attack. Vice versa for heavy to speed. Also a great way to activate the perks for switching styles so you get the most bang for your buck entering a fight.
Thanks for the vid! Even though I'm already pretty experienced with the sword, it's nice to see something in-depth and have ideas confirmed (I also hadn't noticed the wave projectile myself from AoE-mode-hit-3, which is pretty nice). Doing some testing myself via trial 3, it almost feels like the combo will persist through movement if you're within range of an enemy that the game does its "soft lock on" thing (where it kind of tracks that you're attacking something in front of you, without the hard lock of pressing X or whatever it is on controller). That said, the moment you get out of that soft lock range, it goes wonk again. Also, it will almost definitely screw with the Power Whirl given that any movement means you're not pausing momentarily. You definitely get used to it but a very minor tweak would be nice, where the combo straight up doesn't get interrupted by movement would be great. I do think the Power Whirl has to remain as a stop completely (incl movement) thing - it would create more problems if you were trying to do something else and wanted to straight up stop attacking for a moment, but the game forced you to do a Whirl. In terms of things I'll add from my own experience, I find dodge into hold to change stances is the most reliable thing to do if you need to swap in or near combat, especially if you've already been attacking - if you try to just stand and change stance, there's a chance you'll do something like a Power Rake instead, whereas dodge into hold is pretty consistent, plus you get the dash attack of the new style for your troubles (though ofc, you also need to factor that in as you may not be in a position where it's safe to dash attack). In terms of "which style to have out by default" - I think typically you want power/AoE style out, as generally you want to be ready to deal with a horde of gaunts and zangors at a moment's notice, rather than majoris (which you'll feel more comfortable swapping to speed style on the fly).
Not going to lie, I thought I was the issue since I couldn't do any combos with this sword. I was so frustrated before finding this video. As you may have guessed, I was trying to move/direct myself while performing combos on PC. Thanks for figuring out that issue and sharing it!
Dude you are a legend. I’ve been loving my power sword but this is gonna take me next level with it! The move forward is such a pain but this info helps as well as the new perk tree build!
I may be wrong but combo reset may be due to the slower speed of some of the swords. My relic with speed 7 doesn't reset and I'm always on the movement stick to keep my attacks flowing where I need them because lock on feels restrictive. Just tapped out Lvl20 on Bulwark loving getting in there and shredding. Keep up the good work!
Another clutch video, thank you. Love Bulwark so much, the sword felt like it only worked sometimes though for me though. This fixed it. Great video 👍 🙏
I love your explanations for every detail, thank you! I am truly struggling with my Bulwark combos, and I think it's because I'm pressing forward on on the joystick which as you stated interrupts the combo. Thanks again!
So first of all: Your Bullwark videos have been a game changer for me. This one, too. But as a request, please show me your fight against the Hive Tyrant in op2 with one or two bot team mates, because I am desperate when it comes to that. The Boss itself is not the problem (I survived Malenia) but the swarms of adds mid phase 1 and 2 are making the experience a living hell, although I am already lvl 25 and have relic gear. Especially with bots at my side. Would be highly appreciated. 🤜🤛
"tl;dr stop holding W" Which is counter intuitive to 90% of any hack and slash or adjacent type of gameplay. xD I'm a baby to Warhammer. Jumped in with SM2 due to a few buddies and I've enjoyed these breakdowns to help me not be a scrublord. Very useful.
"You might be too high 😂" Good video, very informative. I wonder if they will fix the forward pressing bug on the input that interferes with combos soon, I think it was mentioned in a recent Q&A
Nice vid, i really need a lesson for the power sword or i will just slash things with the saw. Tho would you share your chapter colors? Your marine look dope!
One thing a friend of mine taught me from Monster Hunter; "there is no such thing as a bad weapon, you just gotta learn how to use it right. Be versitle and don't be a one trick pony"
attention all chad bullwarks if you wanna up your aggressiveness go all in on the top perks for the sword this will allow your speed style to heal any contested health. I have done full solo rutheless runs with almost full health the whole time with this because it bridges the gap for when you need to heal in between banners.
A fully upgraded power sword on the bottom tree can just face tank ruthless horde with just normal power style attacks spam. It's enough to get all your contested health back even when being swarmed.
In my experience the Power Style is a trap in 90% of situations because a) the animation is too slow and b) it knocks enemies away from you when you want them to be right next to you. Your best add clear tool is the perfect parry perk that deals aoe damage and the one that drops the shock grenade, so it's better to be focusing the majoris with the single target attacks even while the minoris swarm around you, because they just get eaten up by the parry damage. However, this does only apply if you're using a fencing weapon, and you probably should be. The power sword is easily the best Bulwark weapon because it has the highest single target damage with the fastest attacks - you simply don't need any aoe because of the parry perks. I know this is a video more about the sword than the Bulwark, but there are a couple of tricks to getting the parries down - you can actually cancel a parry into another parry if you double tap the button, this only works with fencing weapons, but it allows very generous timing of the parry. You can also use parry to animation cancel out of an attack into a dodge, which allows you to get perfect dodges if the attack is not parryable, the timing is very tight, you basically have to spam the parry and dodge buttons at the same time.
Funny enough, to my experience speed style is the trap. It just doesn't kill fast enough regardless. For killing you will use whirl strike and power rake and power style keeps you alive well better. Shock grenades perks aren't best in their categories as first one is just worse on higher difficulties then the one that lets you recover armor even on gunstrikes that don kill. Other cap stone perk is just worse then the instant incapacitation every 2 min on perfect parry. You would be surprised how easy it gets to maintain armor (which also won't trigger the other shock nade perk). I still use aoe perks for blocking range and parry melee. In general, if you can choose between perk that is always useful vs perk with internal cooldown, always ready perk is usually better. Power style animation isn't slow. Maybe you are just canceling the combo as it is insane how mobile you are with it. You can carry Ruthless difficulty even against chaos.
What about the last perk on the powersword that heals your contested health while in power stance?? Dont you think a lil survival ability is worth it or is the power trade off still better
The combo not completing is a bug with the speed of the purple sword. Any of the other fencing power swords do not have the issue. It's a speed bug, not related to movement
Now it makes sense about the combo not working for me. xD I was pressing "Z"-Key on PC. Thanks for the info! About the styles, they're really cool and has their uses. Also watching you using that banner before execution is really well played. I do that too and doesn't matter minoris or Majoris, any execution gives you contested health back. :D I can almost do runs on highest and one lower difficulty with 1 or 0 stimms. It allows more survivability for your teammates if you know what you're doing. Great video, great guide, thanks for the input! ^^
One thing you failed to mention about the versions: Fencing is easier to parry and u attack faster however a huge caviot is that your heavy stance attacks won't cleave as many enemies. If ur used to balanced parry timing pick that it also has better stats. If ur missing parry pick fencing
Thank you for this video it's very helpful. One question: What's the important of consecutive combination hits? Does it gain more damage for each hit? Just trying to gain a better understanding of the system.
In the intro you have voice over in top of random cinematic clips which is counterintuitive people need to see what your referencing. In the future if you could record your voice over and add gameplay exampling what your referencing that'd help.😊
TL;DR: Artificer level fenching sword is bad because movement resets combos. Use the balanced one. I just wanted to add to the "stop holding down W while doing combos" observation. I noticed that my combos were being reset using the artificer level sword with the lower speed rating. When I switched to the final relic form, it has a higher speed rating and I could hold down W to do my combos again. I have read in other places that players made similar observations about their power swords. In either stance, you can hold down W and don't have your combos interrupted. The culprit, I think, is the speed 2+ rating. If you go from Master-Crafted to Artificer, your fencing sword goes down in speed rating. Which makes it so that its combo is interrupted by your movement inputs. The fencing relic version of the sword fixes that again and you can continue to hold W for victory. Thank you for the video, it has improved my playstyle by a lot!
Yo. For anyone who struggles with parrying, dont sleep on the "Block" defense type power swords. YOU WILL STILL BE ABLE TO PARRY THE LEAPING SMALLER ENEMIES FOR THOSE EASY EXECUTIONS. and the higher damage helps you get larger xenos down to execution time before you would need to parry them.
I have a problem, maybe you can give some advice. For some reason I can't perfect parry at all. On Vanguard and Tactical I do it almost always even on balanced sword, But on Bastion even of fencing sword I just cant parry to a gun strike. It always either block, either damage to me. I tried different timings, but it just not working. Is there a possibility that its working on release of block button? at the time when attack connects, or just block press when blue circle appears? Second option just wont work or Im terribly missing he timings (which not happens on other classes)
Light combo into block cancel shield bash and parrying. I have been maining Bulwark since day 1 and easily solo clearing ruthless. The only annoying thing is the Neurothrope because the AI deal literally 0 damage to it and my pistol is not doing that much damage. Massive waves/hordes are just fun gorefest
Also instead of pressing parry use hold blocking instead on bulwark, block is better at animation canceling attacks, your mobility will skyrocket as u can turn an attack into a dodge a lot faster
Power Style is pretty much universally better for PvE. Even against Majors or up you just power rake them. You can usually only get 3 attacks in against major anyways before they break stagger and counter attack so you want to Light>Heavy( Power Rake)>Heavy them for single target damage then get ready to parry their counter swing. Power Whirl (any light attack, pause for a second and the sword glows, attack again) is what you want to use on groups or things like Carns/hellbrutes because you become stagger proof with the bottom tree. You can essentially just trade with them outside of their biggest attacks. With how contested up works the biggest threat is getting staggered and losing your bar, Power Whirl lets you attack back with impunity.
I'm pretty sure the "combo interruption" issue happens almost entirely on the slower power swords. I never had the issue starting out, it wasn't until I had upgraded a bit and was using a speed 2 power sword that I started having the issue. I think the delay between strikes at speed 2 is shorter than the "end combat and start moving" delay, if that makes sense. It almost never happens on the speed 4 power swords for instance.
I main power sword. I typically stay in speed style. Using the dodge hold attack only if I’m going into a massive horde of minoris enemies. When I a see a major I do the same to switch back. If there is one on the screen I’m speed style all the way. For progression I used balanced until relic and just worked on my parries. Since I was so used to it by the time I had the crusade for fencing style I feel like a demon
Been leveling the relic tier weapons for Bulwark rather evenly, chainsword is basically max first though, not sure how I feel about the 2nd stomp perk on it. Gunna work on power sword or fist next.
wanted to add that if you activate the power whirl at the same time as you do movement you can adjust the direction, but the timing is very tight on it
My favorite combo for power sword is the dash attack three stabs to power rake or two stabs and two power rake. After 4 hits the enemy counters so ready your parry then he be dead after your gun strike and finisher
It should also be pointed out that the Power Rake, aka the PS heavy attack, can also hit from behind sometimes. I’ve experienced that a few times myself when comboing a majoris level enemy in the middle of a horde.
this game perfectly mixed my Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order experience with my Warhammer Darktide experience. Love all your videos, the best in depth coverage of the game alongside @truevanguard . Would love to see a collab 🙌🏻
Very helpful video. In tje ingame help, why does it show 3 and 4 mouse clicks respectively for the speed / power combos, when in the video, you are doing 5 clicks for both?
Oh man, I REALLY hope they fix that so that movement doesn't interrupt the combo in PvE. I've been noticing it acts abit oddly but never realized that's what it was. I do love the sword, so I've been using it alot anyway.
if u do the "shock build" as a Bulwark u sure do not need the wave-clear from the sword. That takes care of itself just by being the class I feel. So Majoris dmg for sure gotta be the play!
Is it possible that the reason it's different on PVP versus PVE is attack speed of weapon you're using? Like maybe the attack speed needs to be above a certain point to stop the weird moving forward canceling thing?
I never understood why people dog the power sword I guess I just instinctually stop moving to fight on my bulwark so the power sword has always felt very strong, and it was kind of implied that the power rake and whirl were meant to be your main source of damage. I noticed during the campaign that charged mode was knocking back minor enemies. Hope more people pick it up now and enjoy the flexibility
![the Eastern defenses failed time to panic!! El Dorado [They are Billions Campaign] 43](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LzfNMmyFb08/mqdefault.jpg)
There is actually another way to switch styles which is to dodge and then hold the attack button, this will do the sprinting attack of the style that is not active and switch.
Pin this person's comment.
Confirmed
Personally what I like to do is go in with power style, whirl slash + 1~2 swings towards the warrior while mowing the gaunts, then back dodge > hold attack button to transit into a speed style Air Thrust as mentioned by OP. The warrior will usually be readying an attack by this point, so parry or dodge depending on the color, Gun Strike, then finish up the warrior with a few speed light attacks, mix in a power rake if needed.
Deals with the swarming gaunts much better as compared to just going in with speed style.
Thanks for the tip, brother.
Yeah this is how i do my weapon style switching, especially since i have the perk for +20% damage after switching modes so this is the best way to actually get any use out of it. :)
The fact that you made your beginning of the video the way you did is the work of a hero
It’s how TH-cam content used to be. Mana from the gods.
He got an instant sub from me for this
IS has become one of my favorite TH-camrs. As a 35 year old gamer that has been stuck in casual games for the last decade, he is making me want to try more difficult games and dive into different universes. Love this guy.
@@benleeper332 I just found him when I got space marine 2. I've been watching a lot of lore vids now too.
I'm of that old original doom/diablo generation too so 30+ and i generally am bad at twitch reaction requiring games, but space marine 2 is something beautiful. I just love it, and I do great at it if i do say so myself. I guess it has to do that it doesn't rely on twitch mechanics as much as understanding the mechanics of the game and playing in way that uses them to your advantage... and i guess since a common comment is that it reminds them of "old games" is why i feel so comfortable with it. :)
@@nihilnovum5034 I loved the first one. So I was sold.
@@nihilnovum5034 What are "twitch reaction requiring games" ?
Im in the exact same position brother!
Dear God, that explains so much about why Bulwark has felt so anemic
I gotta say your 2 minute summary is THE BEST feature for your channel. I still watch the rest of the video but that summary gives me a quick answer for what I need. Thank you
Absolutely dude! I want you back in the mix!! hahaha
it's such a simple, but effective way of delivering the information. Give me a quick hit of "don't hold forward." That's great, I can hop into a game right now and be mindful of it. By the time I'm done, I feel like I've already gotten better and now I'll watch the rest of the video to improve even more. 👍
Something you didn't mention was that you can change your STYLE but doing a dodge then charge attack right after, When you do that it will use the opposite style charge attack and switch you over to it
way easier than trying to change style with a block cancel. He does do it at around 18:55 in the video
I'm of the opinion that they handled power sword pretty poorly. You can eventually work around it, but almost everything about its controls works contrary to what you want to do on gamepad.
Yeah I'd much rather use the power fist 10 times out of 10. I prefer the mobility, attack pattern, and the cannon punch over the sword. It just feels underwhelming considering its place in tabletop
I think the implementation of the shield is pretty crappy aswell, it feels really cumbersome mid-fight, shield bashing, blocking and parrying mechanics seem to clash with each other when youre in the thick of it, it feels super slow and unresponsive switching between actions.
I was in the middle of todays equivalent of reading the newspaper when TH-cam showed me this and as a Bulwark main who has had questions about things the game doesn't tell you I immediately switched.
OMG....that is why I can't seem to get this thing to combo to save my life?! I spent 30 mins yesterday getting the most inconsistent inputs and I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. Subscribed
The biggest crime of the power sword is having the “switch style” button be the SAME BUTTON AS THE NORMAL MELEE. JUST LET ME BIND IT TO A DIFFERENT INPUT.
Is right
My favorite way to style switch is using the dodge + attack(hold). This allows for you to switch styles while pushing foes back for potential gun strikes or to create space.
Yeah I donty know if I missed it but I dont think this was mentioned. Switching styles like this is a life saver when you need to fight a different target type
Really enjoy this guys humor weaved in to a mellow, smooth delivery.
My tldr for teaching my friends who just tried bulwark up: always start in power stance, light attack into gun strike for your armor sustain and keep your finger on the button for parries when warriors swing at you. After the chaff are cleared and just a warrior remains, throw out a power rake but look to dodge it's next attack and do a heavy to swap to speed stance. That should as well give you another gun strike as additional follow up since the window can be pretty generous. That's why I recommend top path perks to start since you are switching stance into speed form you can get that damage buff in the most applicable window. Then same perks you recommended for majoris damage.
"Rippin' and Gripin' " I say that all the time in reference to almost anything, I'm glad I'm not the only one who uses that term.
I needed this guide. I LOVE the combat knife, probably my favorite one, but god damn is the Power Sword STYLISH.
Something I've found to be really useful is block cancelling, using block to cancel any animation barring parry and dodge to be more optimal with timing.
Like when doing a power style light attack and wanting to gunstrike after, u can do it faster by holding block soon as theyre hit and spamming gunstrike.
This is also helpful cuz part of the weakness of dodge is u cant cancel into it as freely as u can with parry, but u can dodge out of blocking. So if ure mid swing and wanna instantly roll cuz an orange attack is coming, can hold block and spam dodge to effectively cancel into dodge from any attack like u can with parry.
Also u can press block after manually stance switching to do a shield bash, which u can then either cancel into another block or dodge. Helpful with the bulwark perks that give u buffs after sheild bash & stance switch
Well explained! I also had a hard time to learn this myself.
Something that may help you out: you can switch the power sword style in fight by dash+attack. With this it's more easy to clear waves and then jump to the next sniper or the next warrior.
I just wanted to send your channel some love. I found your channel looking up BG3 builds when that game dropped. I had no clue at that time you had so much WH40K content on here, and now that I am playing SM2, it's like finding a hidden vault of all this lore and information. Keep it up! I am getting caught up on your old WH40K videos now.
For the combo interuption, I think it's a bug that happens more often with slower versions of the weapon in PVE, noticed that with one of the versions with a really low Speed (2 or 3 tops). It didnt happen often with faster versions, tho this should be fixed.
Slow version makes it that there is so much time between attacks that you can break the combo by moving
Yeah this is only a problem with the slower weapons. The purple tier is gonna be a pain for anyone leveling power sword but once you get to relic tier it's great.
yes you are correct
Agreed, first two versions of the sword is fine, but the purple damaged my brain to understand what i'm doing wrong. It is a bug for sure.
Fun tip, backward dodge allows you to quickly change stance during air time. Looks cool and allows more up time while being evasive
This helped improve my Bulwark by a considerable amount! I immediately jumped into operations with my Bulwark and found him considerably more consistent! Thanks!!
This video helps immensely! I kept wondering why my combos weren’t working! Not to mention I completely agree with running the fencing sword, just feels more fluid and consistent than the most powerful yet slow sword. Only other gripe I had was parrying was also a learning curve.
My fav thing to do is use the perk that gives 25% dmg reduction when all armor drops so ill get hit, swipe horde, gun strike for armor which resets the perk, then rinse and repeat for essentially a never ending 25% dmg resistance and horde cc.
This input style reminds me heavily of fighting games, which makes me love SM2 even more! You have to be mindful and press directions with purpose or else suffer the consequences. Great content, thank you!
Great tips. As a bulwark pressing forward is a hinderance in a lot of things, like shield bash for instance can’t shield bash if you are pressing forward.
You can also get a infinite combo in power style were every attack has that blue wave effect to it. For example, light combo attack 1 (looks normal), light attack 2 (has wave), light attack 3 (has wave), power rake (has wave), light attack again and itll skip the initial light attack 1 normal swipe and go right into light attack 2. At that you just repeat
Hats off to you, your videos have made my SM2 experience so much easier
We finna be Sigismund with this one. Changing direction mid swing.
Dude this guide is gold! i would never figure out that moving forward messes combos
I never noticed the thing with the movement and trying to swing. That is solid knowledge all on its own.
Pro Tip: You can change styles faster by doing a dodge and holding Melee. Example if your in speed style the normal sprint attack is the superman stab air jab thing. But if you dodge your sword will switch styles to the charged up form and do the spinning arc attack. Vice versa for heavy to speed. Also a great way to activate the perks for switching styles so you get the most bang for your buck entering a fight.
Dude, the upfront info...just you are awesome. Respect.
Thanks for the vid! Even though I'm already pretty experienced with the sword, it's nice to see something in-depth and have ideas confirmed (I also hadn't noticed the wave projectile myself from AoE-mode-hit-3, which is pretty nice).
Doing some testing myself via trial 3, it almost feels like the combo will persist through movement if you're within range of an enemy that the game does its "soft lock on" thing (where it kind of tracks that you're attacking something in front of you, without the hard lock of pressing X or whatever it is on controller). That said, the moment you get out of that soft lock range, it goes wonk again. Also, it will almost definitely screw with the Power Whirl given that any movement means you're not pausing momentarily.
You definitely get used to it but a very minor tweak would be nice, where the combo straight up doesn't get interrupted by movement would be great. I do think the Power Whirl has to remain as a stop completely (incl movement) thing - it would create more problems if you were trying to do something else and wanted to straight up stop attacking for a moment, but the game forced you to do a Whirl.
In terms of things I'll add from my own experience, I find dodge into hold to change stances is the most reliable thing to do if you need to swap in or near combat, especially if you've already been attacking - if you try to just stand and change stance, there's a chance you'll do something like a Power Rake instead, whereas dodge into hold is pretty consistent, plus you get the dash attack of the new style for your troubles (though ofc, you also need to factor that in as you may not be in a position where it's safe to dash attack). In terms of "which style to have out by default" - I think typically you want power/AoE style out, as generally you want to be ready to deal with a horde of gaunts and zangors at a moment's notice, rather than majoris (which you'll feel more comfortable swapping to speed style on the fly).
Not going to lie, I thought I was the issue since I couldn't do any combos with this sword. I was so frustrated before finding this video. As you may have guessed, I was trying to move/direct myself while performing combos on PC. Thanks for figuring out that issue and sharing it!
Dude you are a legend. I’ve been loving my power sword but this is gonna take me next level with it! The move forward is such a pain but this info helps as well as the new perk tree build!
I love this game but it really needs the training room update they have promised. Thanks for the movement tip
Should be this week! It's definitely before October!
Great video mate. I really understood things i've never found in any others. now it's time ti practise.
FOR THE EMPEROR!
I may be wrong but combo reset may be due to the slower speed of some of the swords. My relic with speed 7 doesn't reset and I'm always on the movement stick to keep my attacks flowing where I need them because lock on feels restrictive. Just tapped out Lvl20 on Bulwark loving getting in there and shredding. Keep up the good work!
Another clutch video, thank you. Love Bulwark so much, the sword felt like it only worked sometimes though for me though. This fixed it.
Great video 👍 🙏
I love your explanations for every detail, thank you! I am truly struggling with my Bulwark combos, and I think it's because I'm pressing forward on on the joystick which as you stated interrupts the combo. Thanks again!
I don't have the issue of movement keys cancelling combos with the power sword at all. Some really useful info in this though. Good stuff, thanks.
Great guide. I feel this class is so complex to the others but want to master it
So first of all: Your Bullwark videos have been a game changer for me. This one, too. But as a request, please show me your fight against the Hive Tyrant in op2 with one or two bot team mates, because I am desperate when it comes to that. The Boss itself is not the problem (I survived Malenia) but the swarms of adds mid phase 1 and 2 are making the experience a living hell, although I am already lvl 25 and have relic gear. Especially with bots at my side. Would be highly appreciated. 🤜🤛
"tl;dr stop holding W" Which is counter intuitive to 90% of any hack and slash or adjacent type of gameplay. xD
I'm a baby to Warhammer. Jumped in with SM2 due to a few buddies and I've enjoyed these breakdowns to help me not be a scrublord. Very useful.
Tysm this helped so much for my bulwark main
level 14 and i just learned to do combos from this video xD. big thank you
Something I learned recently is if you dash attack and hold the attack button it will switch your style for you great video
I don't know if I've ever laughed so hard at a video game guide like it's a comedy before. The way you handle your slips in speech is comical gold.
thanks for this vid, bro! started to enjoy sword playing from this day on^^
"You might be too high 😂"
Good video, very informative. I wonder if they will fix the forward pressing bug on the input that interferes with combos soon, I think it was mentioned in a recent Q&A
Nice vid, i really need a lesson for the power sword or i will just slash things with the saw. Tho would you share your chapter colors? Your marine look dope!
It's a black Templar! One of their sword brethren!
love your videos! will you eventually do one for the power fist?
The animation interruptions i could not figure out ty so much.
One thing a friend of mine taught me from Monster Hunter; "there is no such thing as a bad weapon, you just gotta learn how to use it right. Be versitle and don't be a one trick pony"
Its weird how artificer vs relic fencer variants are so drastically different the relic fencer feels so good to use
Dude your videos are top tier ! Wonderful work
attention all chad bullwarks if you wanna up your aggressiveness go all in on the top perks for the sword this will allow your speed style to heal any contested health. I have done full solo rutheless runs with almost full health the whole time with this because it bridges the gap for when you need to heal in between banners.
A fully upgraded power sword on the bottom tree can just face tank ruthless horde with just normal power style attacks spam. It's enough to get all your contested health back even when being swarmed.
Holding forward movement is only an issue with the versions with Speed 2/2+ and I believe that is a bug
In my experience the Power Style is a trap in 90% of situations because a) the animation is too slow and b) it knocks enemies away from you when you want them to be right next to you. Your best add clear tool is the perfect parry perk that deals aoe damage and the one that drops the shock grenade, so it's better to be focusing the majoris with the single target attacks even while the minoris swarm around you, because they just get eaten up by the parry damage. However, this does only apply if you're using a fencing weapon, and you probably should be. The power sword is easily the best Bulwark weapon because it has the highest single target damage with the fastest attacks - you simply don't need any aoe because of the parry perks. I know this is a video more about the sword than the Bulwark, but there are a couple of tricks to getting the parries down - you can actually cancel a parry into another parry if you double tap the button, this only works with fencing weapons, but it allows very generous timing of the parry. You can also use parry to animation cancel out of an attack into a dodge, which allows you to get perfect dodges if the attack is not parryable, the timing is very tight, you basically have to spam the parry and dodge buttons at the same time.
Funny enough, to my experience speed style is the trap. It just doesn't kill fast enough regardless. For killing you will use whirl strike and power rake and power style keeps you alive well better. Shock grenades perks aren't best in their categories as first one is just worse on higher difficulties then the one that lets you recover armor even on gunstrikes that don kill. Other cap stone perk is just worse then the instant incapacitation every 2 min on perfect parry. You would be surprised how easy it gets to maintain armor (which also won't trigger the other shock nade perk). I still use aoe perks for blocking range and parry melee. In general, if you can choose between perk that is always useful vs perk with internal cooldown, always ready perk is usually better.
Power style animation isn't slow. Maybe you are just canceling the combo as it is insane how mobile you are with it. You can carry Ruthless difficulty even against chaos.
@@Mithguar In my experience, the power sword is the trap - chainsword master race!!!
What about the last perk on the powersword that heals your contested health while in power stance?? Dont you think a lil survival ability is worth it or is the power trade off still better
I don't think he actually plays this class
The combo not completing is a bug with the speed of the purple sword. Any of the other fencing power swords do not have the issue.
It's a speed bug, not related to movement
Pls Tell if its fix asap my friend
Thank you, I never realized it was bc I was holding "W". I thought it had something to do with the Block-Fencing-Balance status
Now it makes sense about the combo not working for me. xD I was pressing "Z"-Key on PC. Thanks for the info!
About the styles, they're really cool and has their uses. Also watching you using that banner before execution is really well played. I do that too and doesn't matter minoris or Majoris, any execution gives you contested health back. :D
I can almost do runs on highest and one lower difficulty with 1 or 0 stimms. It allows more survivability for your teammates if you know what you're doing.
Great video, great guide, thanks for the input! ^^
One thing you failed to mention about the versions:
Fencing is easier to parry and u attack faster however a huge caviot is that your heavy stance attacks won't cleave as many enemies.
If ur used to balanced parry timing pick that it also has better stats. If ur missing parry pick fencing
Man i knew something was sus about the sword. But its so cool i want to make it work so bad. Thanks for this video bro.
Thank you for this video it's very helpful.
One question: What's the important of consecutive combination hits? Does it gain more damage for each hit?
Just trying to gain a better understanding of the system.
In the intro you have voice over in top of random cinematic clips which is counterintuitive people need to see what your referencing. In the future if you could record your voice over and add gameplay exampling what your referencing that'd help.😊
TL;DR: Artificer level fenching sword is bad because movement resets combos. Use the balanced one.
I just wanted to add to the "stop holding down W while doing combos" observation. I noticed that my combos were being reset using the artificer level sword with the lower speed rating. When I switched to the final relic form, it has a higher speed rating and I could hold down W to do my combos again. I have read in other places that players made similar observations about their power swords. In either stance, you can hold down W and don't have your combos interrupted.
The culprit, I think, is the speed 2+ rating. If you go from Master-Crafted to Artificer, your fencing sword goes down in speed rating. Which makes it so that its combo is interrupted by your movement inputs. The fencing relic version of the sword fixes that again and you can continue to hold W for victory.
Thank you for the video, it has improved my playstyle by a lot!
Ah so that's where I was going wrong. I presumed charged mode would be better for Warrriors and other big targets.
I love power sword. Once I learned the combos, power whirl and how to change mode during motion I was flying all over the place.
Praise you for that unhold W tip
Commenting for the algorithm, love your videos man!
Yo. For anyone who struggles with parrying, dont sleep on the "Block" defense type power swords. YOU WILL STILL BE ABLE TO PARRY THE LEAPING SMALLER ENEMIES FOR THOSE EASY EXECUTIONS. and the higher damage helps you get larger xenos down to execution time before you would need to parry them.
Thanks. Great explanation.
Wow! What a difference!! Thank you!!
Power just next please! I love the power fist
I feel so dumb, I thought my game was bugging when I couldn't perform a combo. Thanks this helped a lot
I have a problem, maybe you can give some advice. For some reason I can't perfect parry at all. On Vanguard and Tactical I do it almost always even on balanced sword, But on Bastion even of fencing sword I just cant parry to a gun strike. It always either block, either damage to me. I tried different timings, but it just not working. Is there a possibility that its working on release of block button? at the time when attack connects, or just block press when blue circle appears? Second option just wont work or Im terribly missing he timings (which not happens on other classes)
Light combo into block cancel shield bash and parrying. I have been maining Bulwark since day 1 and easily solo clearing ruthless. The only annoying thing is the Neurothrope because the AI deal literally 0 damage to it and my pistol is not doing that much damage. Massive waves/hordes are just fun gorefest
Also instead of pressing parry use hold blocking instead on bulwark, block is better at animation canceling attacks, your mobility will skyrocket as u can turn an attack into a dodge a lot faster
Power Style is pretty much universally better for PvE. Even against Majors or up you just power rake them. You can usually only get 3 attacks in against major anyways before they break stagger and counter attack so you want to Light>Heavy( Power Rake)>Heavy them for single target damage then get ready to parry their counter swing.
Power Whirl (any light attack, pause for a second and the sword glows, attack again) is what you want to use on groups or things like Carns/hellbrutes because you become stagger proof with the bottom tree. You can essentially just trade with them outside of their biggest attacks. With how contested up works the biggest threat is getting staggered and losing your bar, Power Whirl lets you attack back with impunity.
I'm pretty sure the "combo interruption" issue happens almost entirely on the slower power swords. I never had the issue starting out, it wasn't until I had upgraded a bit and was using a speed 2 power sword that I started having the issue. I think the delay between strikes at speed 2 is shorter than the "end combat and start moving" delay, if that makes sense. It almost never happens on the speed 4 power swords for instance.
I main power sword. I typically stay in speed style. Using the dodge hold attack only if I’m going into a massive horde of minoris enemies. When I a see a major I do the same to switch back. If there is one on the screen I’m speed style all the way. For progression I used balanced until relic and just worked on my parries. Since I was so used to it by the time I had the crusade for fencing style I feel like a demon
You should do a guide like this on how to play each class in PvE
Been leveling the relic tier weapons for Bulwark rather evenly, chainsword is basically max first though, not sure how I feel about the 2nd stomp perk on it.
Gunna work on power sword or fist next.
wanted to add that if you activate the power whirl at the same time as you do movement you can adjust the direction, but the timing is very tight on it
God I hope they fix the movement + sword combo bug.
My favorite combo for power sword is the dash attack three stabs to power rake or two stabs and two power rake. After 4 hits the enemy counters so ready your parry then he be dead after your gun strike and finisher
It should also be pointed out that the Power Rake, aka the PS heavy attack, can also hit from behind sometimes. I’ve experienced that a few times myself when comboing a majoris level enemy in the middle of a horde.
this game perfectly mixed my Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order experience with my Warhammer Darktide experience. Love all your videos, the best in depth coverage of the game alongside @truevanguard . Would love to see a collab 🙌🏻
I wish it did switch style. That would be awesome. Especially with those early perks.
Very helpful video. In tje ingame help, why does it show 3 and 4 mouse clicks respectively for the speed / power combos, when in the video, you are doing 5 clicks for both?
is it better experience to play on controller or mouse/keyboard ?
Oh man, I REALLY hope they fix that so that movement doesn't interrupt the combo in PvE. I've been noticing it acts abit oddly but never realized that's what it was. I do love the sword, so I've been using it alot anyway.
if u do the "shock build" as a Bulwark u sure do not need the wave-clear from the sword. That takes care of itself just by being the class I feel. So Majoris dmg for sure gotta be the play!
Before the patch those shielded zangors would tank my entire power whirl combo
Don't worry! The final hit at the end would break the chain just in time to die hahahah
Is it possible that the reason it's different on PVP versus PVE is attack speed of weapon you're using?
Like maybe the attack speed needs to be above a certain point to stop the weird moving forward canceling thing?
I never understood why people dog the power sword I guess I just instinctually stop moving to fight on my bulwark so the power sword has always felt very strong, and it was kind of implied that the power rake and whirl were meant to be your main source of damage. I noticed during the campaign that charged mode was knocking back minor enemies.
Hope more people pick it up now and enjoy the flexibility
For some reason I am having the hardest time wrapping my head around the power whirl move at the end of the 1 2 combo in speed style