You will eventually play all classes, as each class grant boni through their titles.

Even if you like to start with Paladin (e.g.) it is worth to create a character for each class right away, so that you benefit right from the start from their level 1 benefits.


Press default "G" to access the Statistics / Accomplishments / Titles / Trinkets menu



By mouse-overing the stats you can see how it is calculated, including equipment, Accomplishments, Titles and Trinkets.

Here you can see that even the starting level is already giving a bonus towards your characters.
So even if you do not plan to play the other classes anytime soon, take the level 1 bonus with you.

Warrior: 3 Health per level
Wizard: 3 Spell Power per level
Paladin: 3 Armour per level
Ranger: 3 Attack Power per level
Rogue: 0,75% Trap Damage Reduction per level *
Warlock: 3 Resistance per level
Sorcerer: 0,1 Mana Regeneration per level

* it used to be 1,5% More Gold per level at game's release; changed with Third Patch - Build 118

It will also become easier to level them once you accumulate resources.

Attribute and Skill Points you not only get from leveling up your character but also from accomplishments.

Press default "G" to access the Statistics / Accomplishments / Titles / Trinkets menu


Do not think too hard about Accomplishments - just know they are there.

Basically: the more you play the more boni you get over time.
Making you getting closer to endgame challenges, no matter how often you have to restart a run.

You can make the game easier by using Quality of Life-settings.
That involves mostly visual settings the game does not tell you about.

• make enemies health bars always visible - it makes it easier to spot them
  
• XRay
  
• your own & allies health bar, in a different colour (I use purple for allies & minions)
  
• overlay & minimap opacity, scale and size
  
• larger crosshair
  
• disable trinket & equipment pickups preview for a better gameflow

XRay turn units and objects alike more visible when they are hidden behind another layer.
Thanks to this I never miss out on gold which is covered by walls etc.

While the default controls are great, I found myself liking a few changes.

I disabled the default "C" for character menu, as it was redundant with "I" and proved fatal when I accidentally hit it when I meant to hit "V".

And I swapped the skill triggers for "E" and "V" as I tend to use the third one more often/put the second one on the thumb button for easier access.

In general, whether you play with a mouse and keyboard or a gamepad, tweak it to your liking.

Steam Cloud savegames were not available at launch, as the developers added them a few days later with the third patch - Build 118 on 21.01.2025. To use Steam Cloud savegames, see here:
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3412821375

Everyone has their own preferences.
However, this is a beginner's guide, and it just so happens that the Paladin is the best beginner's class.

Thanks to its armour, standard shield and self-healing skills, it is the easiest way to learn the basics of the game, gain resources to build your town and develop your other characters with skills, attributes and equipment.

Accomplishments gained with ANY of your characters apply to all of them. So even if you prefer to play as a Wizard or Ranger, starting with a Paladin will benefit your other classes early on.



Putting the general skills use aside (stun with right click, smite with default "Q", repeat while keep hitting enemies etc.) focus on learning the following points

• how your mouse cursor affects what way your character is looking/aiming/holding their shield towards
  
  
• how skills develope depending on your choices at skill orbs
  
  
• getting a feeling for the skills timings and costs
  
  
• getting a feeling for enemies' attacks telegraps
  
  
• not to be overconfident, especially traps are deadly at the beginning before you got enough armour, health and figured out how they work - never risk it in multiplayer when learning them, as you cannot be picked up when dying in a deadly place
  
  
• how gameplay changes depending on weapon choices; you can equip equipment from any other classes provided you have the right attributes - allowing you for a much broader approach of tactics and gameplay - e.g. I like to keep a shield on every character ready for trap rooms with projectiles
  
  
• make yourself comfortable with using overlay map/different settings

You will quickly see, that with every playthrough you become stronger - with all of your classes. Even if you feel that the Paladin is not your cup of tea, it is still a great beginners experience to have an easy entry towards the Hammerwatch series.

You might have heard of players who manage to win a game on their very first try with a class. It is unbelievable, almost impossible even, because at the very start you have not unlocked anything as you are missing the resources for advanced Potion Charges, Dash Charges and so much more.

Do not get demotivated by such stories if you do not not manage it on first try.

However, once you accumulated enough resources to upgrade freshly made character you can actually make it from level 1 to boss and win. That is a testament not only to your acquired skills with the game but also to your efforts in saving up all the equipment, money for upgrades, Titles boni, Attribute Points and Skill Points from Accomplishments from other characters you played before.

While pondering the skills of the classes keep in mind that during your runs you will come across sources of skill modifications and upgrades. Depending on the skill modifications you get, the gameplay of a class can change greatly.



Lay on Hands of the Paladin for example looks like a simple healing skill. But with the right modification it can become so much more. Example given: an undead killer





The more often you play, the better you get an idea of what modifications are available and what to aim for. Test them all out and find the combination which works best for your preferred playstyle!

A list of all skills modifications can be found here.
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3418158923

Not actually a tip - just something I know as a beginner that you would want to know.

You unlock your class promotion, and with it your third skill at level 10
Also, your Guild Hall has to be at least level 3

You can change it once you unlocked the Library building.
To unlock combos, make sure not to miss the drop at the first boss.

I recommend changing the combo trigger to Dash simply because it is easier to control and trigger it often. Take for example boss fights: how are you supposed to trigger it by kills if there is only one enemy available? Dashing can be done anytime and it will be easier to do so once you unlocked extra Dash Charges via athletics upgrades and/or equipment.

The Fifth Patch - Build 121, introduced the option to disable combos entirely. This can be used if you prefer getting class skills instead of combo mechanics at Skill Orbs.

As a beginner it is easy to miss out on them. At first armour is all you need, especially if you play a Paladin. But the longer it goes, the more enemies use magical attacks. That you can only get via Elemental Resistances at the Magic Shop building which you unlock.



The Magic Stone resource is something you get in exchange for every Trinket you picked up during your runs. You will soon learn that it is one of your most used resources.

Bring some alternate weapons and especially a shield.
As I said before, swapping your weapons can be a great way to adapt to any situation.

Last time, my NG+ run almost ended on the final level, as I watched my warrior lose 25% of his 1000+ health every second, I was sure I was done for if I kept going. I switched from greataxe to sword and shield and suddenly I was barely losing health to the enemy.

I cannot stress enough how much of a difference using different weapons against different enemies can make.

Another example: As a sorceress, I rarely use my wand or staff because I can always spam skills (high % mana regeneration). So why should I not benefit from using a shield and sword for extra parry and projectile blocking?

The right tool at the right time makes all the difference!

It is also great fun playing spellblade ~

Remember to make good use of the Info tab you can find in the character menu to figure out how the stats work.



In doubt you forgot what the symbols mean, you always get an info box at the bottom left.



That way you can tell that in the example above 391 armour results in a 66,16% Physical Damage reduction. My level 20 Warrior can sure take a lot in - except for magic.

Negates one instance of damage, no matter the source.

Negates one instance of non-spell-melee-attack damage in a 180-degree arc in the direction your character is facing.

Reduces projectile damage by up to X in a 180-degree arc in the direction your character is facing. The amount varies depending on the shield.



Projectile damage reduced to 0 does no damage at all. Projectiles are attacks that deal damage on hit - not to be confused with telegraphed attacks, which deal area of effect damage.

For example: arrows that cause damage on hit are projectiles, while arrows that cause an explosion to damage you do not count as projectile damage.

Affects the time it takes for spells to activate and cooldown. While Casting Speed Increase and Spell Cooldown Reduction are two different status effects, the effects are multiplicative.

For example: 120% Cast Speed will make your spell activate 20% faster, but also reduce the cooldown by 20%, while Spell Cooldown Reduction will only affect the cooldown - but they can be used together.

Reduces Attack Power by 20%

Increases Damage Taken by 20%

Prevents the usage of Spells

Prevents the usage of weapons / non-spell-attacks



Make sure to avoid taking mali - instead dish them out!

The Sixth Patch - Build 123, added the ability to customize the appearance of your existing character. The Magic Mirror can be found in the Guild Hall, where you can change your character's name, appearance, and voice for a small fee.

Since Trinket Attunement and Weapon Mastery also use Skill Points , keep them for last to pay attention to.


You want to maximise your skills output first, before finetuning.

While Trinket Attunement sure sounds nice, e.g. Book of Enlightment gives attuned 40% more experience points, there is no guarantee that you will come across the Trinkets you actually want.

You can still try your luck and respec as necessary, though respecs cost Magic Stones which you might want to use to upgrade your town / increase Elemental Resistances first.

Spent all your gold for upgrades and now you are lacking for pre-run-meal-preps?
You get there later, with unlocking the Tavern etc.

Trade materials for gold!



I often tend up with more wood than any other material for town upgrades. Selling a few stacks can help you getting gold quickly and exchange it for more needed materials, such as iron for weapon upgrades.

While the effects of green equipment is still not that good, they are great for "crafting" as upgrading them is fairly cheap. Do not trash them right away, especially when they have a high ilvl.





Comparing the cost for upgrading, using already enchanted items can seem cheaper as the cost for changing the enchantment is far less than the upgrade cost.

I make use of my stash with multiple tabs - that way I can easily switch equipment between my characters and have a good overview of the equipment I collected over time.



This is what I am using myself from top to bottom / left to right

Head
Chest
Arms
Legs
Capes
Wands, Grimoires, Staffs
Swords, Axes, Maces, Shields
Daggers, Bows, Crossbows
Crafting
Temp

Yes, I have an additional "Temp"-tab. In multiplayer sometimes you lack time to decide before jumping into the run. So it happens that I just dump all my looted equipment there and check them later which to keep and which to sell - before I run into troubles having to destroy loot because I am full (that too already happened).

I got my best equipment from enchanting, such as +1 Dash Carge on boots which also give me Strength, or shields with parry chance and weapon power and much more. Later on, once you are used to the game you will definitely spend more time on it.

Either use the overlay map (default TAB), or open the dedicated map (default M) to keep track of things.





With the tip from above regarding Accomplishments, make sure not to miss out on anything. Whether it is killing enemies, or picking up health/mana items despite you do not need them. Everything you do while playing will help you gain accomplishments.

You can still skip health and mana pickups if you do not need them.
But do you want to skip on the Accomplishment bonus?

They are incredibly hard to spot. No matter what some veterans try to tell you.

But you will get the hang of it.

My tip: pay attention to the map - the map patterns may seem random at first, but you will eventually get the hang of it and be able to tell where a secret room is most likely to be. They tend to appear at crossroads where there is plenty of unused space on the map, and in rooms where there appears to be nothing of interest.





I like to look at the map (default "M") before proceeding to the next level. In every secret room there is a chance of finding a nice trinket that will make your run smoother.

If you see a notification that an imp is nearby, make haste!

They bring gifts for you, like a secret Santa. Like Santa they will not stay for long.



They can be difficult to spot - fortunately their position is marked on the map. After a while (two minutes) they will disappear, whether you have made it to them or not.

When you see it for the first time, you will ask yourself: what does Shadow Curse do?

Check the effects tab in your character menu to find out that each stack of Shadow Curse gives you -4 to armour and resistances.

Be careful, as high reward comes with high risk.
Example: Shadow Curse stack by 50 = -200 armour which is circa 33% more damage you take

If you are lucky, a Shadow Orb will not only give you two additional useful items, but also an additional debuff that will mitigate the armour reduction by giving you more attack/spell power.

Find pyres and activate those to reduce the curse.



Each pyre reduce the Shadow Curse stacks by half, minimum eight.

And if you are lucky, you end up with two awesome items and no debuff curse at all!



Shadow Curse not only gives you a significant debuff on armour and resistances, but it also limits your visibility strongly. You have to be much more aware/ready for what lies ahead as enemies are effectively hidden.

As a beginner it is best to keep Shadow Curse to a minimum until you got better equipment. Veteran players on the other hand can turn the Shadow Curse into a blessing, making runs easier later on...



Good to know: having 100 Shadow Curse is currently the maximum.
On higher difficulties the Shadow Curse becomes more dangerous. High risk, high reward.

Since the sorcerer class was hardest for me to find, here is your chance to get spoiled:

Use the shortcut in the forest to enter the citadel.

Taking into account the earlier tip about not missing anything, this was probably the hardest part, as you have to miss things in order to find something new.

If you are new to the game and jump straight into multiplayer, you may never come across key events that you need to unlock new classes and/or buildings if the host has already unlocked them.

If you are missing a certain building/class, try hosting yourself or play singleplayer to find the key NPCs to unlock the missing building/class.

Some Tavern food & drinks options are only available at higher difficulties.
Should you feel something is missing, despite you own the blueprint, make sure to check if you have selected the correct difficulty for you run.


For example: left the available selection on normal difficulty, right the selection on NG+

This is subject to change as the developers are aware of the confusion it can cause.
It may be replaced with a system where the food is shown in normal difficulty but then greyed out with a note that it is only available with NG+.

Once you have completed a run by defeating the final boss, you can redo the difficulty and take a shortcut into the Dark Citadel to shorten your run time. The Architect will open this shortcut for you.

Inside you will find a trial room with four candles. Lighting the candles will determine which level of the Dark Citadel you will be teleported to, and how many Trinkets and skill orbs you will receive to compensate for skipping levels.



The more candles you light before triggering the pedestal in the middle, the harder the test will be. Be prepared.

The shortcut must be unlocked for each level before you can use it for that level.

You will always get fewer Trinkets and Skill Orbs from the compensation than you could get by playing through all the levels. You will not receive any experience or resource compensation.

On average, when using the shortcut you will have 15%~40% less Trinkets compared to not using the shortcut by the time you reach the first boss after using the shortcut. In definite numbers its around 10~20 less Trinkets, depending on your luck finding Trinkets as drops.

If, for whatever reason, you need to take an emergency break that cannot be handled by pausing (e.g. in multiplayer), use ALT+F4 / kill the game's task via the task manager.

This will kick you and your character out of the game, and the next time you start the game and select the same character to play with, you will be asked if you want to pick up where you left off.



One time, while we were in a multiplayer run, a player had to quit without delay, just before the final boss. ALT+F4 allowed us to continue the run, each on our own - and even the player who had to leave was able to finish their run the next time they loaded the game.

The Emergency Break: ALT+F4 tip will also work to "unstuck" yourself.

Currently with Patch 4 - Build 119 - it can happen on rare occasions that enemies will push you out of simple level boundaries. For example, decorative elements within the walled sections.

Quitting and re-entering the game with the same character will generally return you to the beginning of the level, with no loss of progression.

This will also work if the affected player is the host of a multiplayer session. Depending on who the host is playing with, they may choose to have the players rejoin and continue the run together, or they may choose to continue individually, continuing their progress from the current run.

Enjoying the game in multiplayer is much easier than playing alone by several factors. For example, enemies have more health, and it can take longer to deal with them unless you work closely together. Even though they have more health, you can finish runs much more faster due to the multiplied damage output of the heroes party.

A few points worth to know about multiplayer gameplay of Heroes of Hammerwatch II:

• the town you will start from is the host's town; that means you will be able to use everything the host has unlocked, making sense that the player with the most town upgrades is hosting
  
  
• Architect options can only be selected - and will only be paid - by the host
  
  
• Trinkets and equipment drops are for each player on their own, no need to fear stealing of dropped loot
  
  
• Enemy health and attack scale with number of players in the run, it will still remain easier than playing solo - provided no one dies
  
  
• if a player dies they can be picked up by another player - both will get a health points penalty, reducing their maximum health points for the rest of the run; make sure to help each other
  
  
• Use default "T" for chat and default CTRL for emotes and ping
  
  
• If a player has suddenly to go for reasons, use the mentioned above ALT+F4 "trick"
  
  
• If a player disconnects, either via ALT+F4 or connectivity, they can continue their progress of the run, either by rejoining host or continuing the game in singleplayer
  
  
• If the player decides to continue the run in singleplayer, enemy health and attack power scale back to singleplayer
  
  
• Dead players who are not picked up can continue to spectate the game; they will not get experience points or items, but they can still get gold, scrolls and valuable drops

-- these are the confirmed numbers as of 31.01.2025

Scenario A
A player has so much health penalty that it is not worth it anymore for them to be picked up.
If the host uses ALT+F4 and reopen the lobby, those who are still good to go can rejoin to continue the run with scaled down enemy health and attack power.

Scenario B
Enemies are becoming too strong due to scaling.
If that point is reached and it seems troublesome to continue due to lack of power output (e.g. due to bad skill choices), it can be taken into consideration that host ALT+F4 and let everyone continue the game in singleplayer to finish the run.

In any scenario of "tactical disconnect" it is utmost important to communicate such properly with your party to avoid ruining everyone's Heroes of Hammerwatch II game experience.

Make sure to checkout the official Heroes of Hammerwatch II discord to meet cool people to team up with for awesome runs!

http://discord.gg/hammerwatch

It is actually quite easy to adjust your game to allow to play with more than four players.

This configuration is also achievements-friendly. That means you will still get achievements, even if you are playing multiplayer with more than four players.

Press the key which is above your TAB key and left to your "1" key - for me it is "^", for others maybe "`" and so on - to open the game's console.



there enter


Confirm with Enter-key and close the console with the same key you opened it - and it is done.

The game makes an entry in its configuration file, that now the lobby is allowed for up to six players. Of course you can adjust that number to your liking and increase/decrease it to your needs.

With this no one needs to be left out if you have more than three friends to play together.

To revert that specific setting to vanilla, you can simply delete the line "g_multiplayer_limit 6" from the game's HWR2.exe.cfg configuration file, which you can find in the game's folder.

To access your game's folder simply

Right-click on the game's entry in your Steam Library -> Manage -> Browse local files





You can edit the file with Notepad/Editor if needed.

Press the key which is above your TAB key and left to your "1" key - for me it is "^", for others maybe "`" and so on - to open the game's console.

Enter


into the console to disable players' markers and directional arrows in multiplayer.

If you need to revert that use


Personally I like it more with the markers disabled, as it reduces distraction from the unneeded markers for me.

Heroes of Hammerwatch II automatically changes the layout of the buttons according to the controller you are using. If you are using a generic no-name controller, it will use the Xbox layout by default, as this is the PC standard.

You can change that by entering into the game's console

Press the key which is above your TAB key and left to your "1" key - for me it is "^", for others maybe "`" and so on - to open the game's console.


or add the line


into the game's configuration file to change it - in the example above the Playstation gamepad design will be used. Make sure to restart the game for the change to take effect.



I prefer the Nintendo controller design ~

In the game's folder you see also the folder for the savegames. You can make backups if you ever need them. I am not telling you that you can use those backups to e.g. try crafting good equipment and reset that savegame if you fail achieving to get what you want...
More for ~ backup purposes, like what if you accidently deleted your character and such stuff.

This tip used to be much more important at release, before Steam Cloud savegames and additional savegame profiles were added to the game. Copying the savegame manually between multiple PCs / handhelds / SteamDeck was the only way to synchronise back then.

You can also make use of duplicating your savegame profile - just in case.



Before closing the game you can also access your Steam Cloud savegames by using
https://steamhost.cn/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=619820

Use


to disable the console for your current game session.

E.g. to prevent from accidently opening the console (and dying from that... true story...)

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3412936865
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3416137956
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3412297530

For more about Heroes of Hammerwatch II I recommend joining the official discord

http://discord.gg/hammerwatch
Discord is a free of charge community tool for voice chat, chat, and so much more

That is the best place to meet other players, chat about the game, builds, and team up for awesome party runs together!

There is also the Heroes of Hammerwatch II wiki which is maintained by the community
https://wiki.heroesofhammerwatch2.com/