The Last Stand Guide

Overview

Complete last stand heroic wave spreadsheet and additional information.

Heroic Wave Spreadsheet

Full list of waves for Heroic Last Stand[docs.google.com] [Google Spreadsheet]
Note: Whilst in game, you might have to right click -> open in new Tab as the steam overlay browser will otherwise cause problems not opening it properly.

Feel free to open this spreadsheet in your in game browser to quickly gain information about upcoming waves.

Short description to all keywords used in the spreadsheet listed above as well as a list of all possible wave types. For more information please refer to the dedicated section “Wave Types” further down below in this guide.

Trash wave
only Slaverats and Clanrats, no specials

3 special wave
3 specials spawn at the first horn blow. On later waves spawns can also be scattered across the entire wave.

4 special wave
4 specials of the same type or 2 Gunner + 2 Gasrats spawn at the second horn blow

6 special wave
6 specials of the same type spawn at the second horn blow

Ogre waves / storm rush
The so called “Ogre waves” after wave 13 (heroic) are basically a coin flip between two different wave types: Ogres or Stormrush. Since it’s randomized it’s not possible to determine which of those two options occurs until the typical Ogre roar can be heard (or can’t).

6 and 4 special waves have an indicator based on where Slaverats spawn from:

• On Town Meeting Slaverats climb out of the manholes placed at the outer circle of the statue
• On The Fall Slaverats climb out of the hole between the single bridge and item cage

For more information regarding this, check Map Specifics – 6 Wave

Table of Contents

These sections provide information regarding generally useful facts about Last Stand. This section is mainly focused on players new to Last Stand as it lists the basics as well as do’s and don’ts.

This part of the guide is all about the different character roles, trinket choices and traits. Most of it will probably be considered common knowledge but it might be worth a look and give a new point of view on how to evaluate weapons, trinkets and traits.

The weapon section dives into the specifics of all kinds of weapons, evaluates them and gives insights on why it’s rated accordingly. These recommendations should be taken with a grain of salt as your opinion might vary depending on your groups playstyle and experience.

This section points out differences between both available maps. Supply drops as well as map specific hold out spots are shown here.

This section is aimed towards advanced and expert players seeking for more insights on waves and how to approach them. All information in this part of the guide heavily relies on the Heroic Wave Spreadsheet linked at the top of this guide.

Getting started

This guide is aimed towards Last Stand beginners as well as advanced Last Stand players looking to refine their knowledge and tactics on the subject.
Last stand builds upon your skills and knowledge in game mechanics developed from playing adventures at the highest difficulties.
Basic mechanics such as block reviving, kiting and dodging are very important and should be learned beforehand.

While this guide primarily aims towards mastering heroic Last Stand, the same recommendations and rules can also be applied to lower difficulties.

General – Last Stand Etiquette

Last Stand has a few unspoken rules you should be aware of and following. Make sure to keep them in mind or at least ask your team about their stance on the matter. This will greatly improve teamwork and leaves one less reason for your team to be angry upon you.

This tip is mainly for those joining already running games. It is highly recommended to check your loadout before joining. Luck stones and grim trinkets are of no use in Last Stand and people wielding those are often asked to rejoin or kicked without further ado.

If your desired character is not available and you haven’t equipped the free character accordingly, cancel joining! Last Stand is not that popular and more often than not you have enough time to equip said character and still join the running game!

This starts at the inn – ask your teammates what they need and tell them what you play best / have the most fitting equipment for.
Don’t insist on a certain loadout if the majority of your team wants you to play something different. Just because your loadout is great by itself doesn’t mean it works in every team setup. Your trinket selection should also be coordinated with your teammates.
Last Stand also heavily relies on voice communication for big Ogre waves and other situations where you have to warn your teammates while in action. So if you are comfortable talking to others, ask your teammates if you can join them on TeamSpeak / discord or vice versa.

This includes bombs, healing items and ammunition. Talk to your team on their stance on using healing supplies. Very often it’s better to die in the middle of the wave to be revived before the next wave starts. This preserves both your healing items as well as ammunition if you were to run out of it.
You shouldn’t use any supplies to kill Ogres most of the time. Using ammunition and bombs on them will often be rendered useless when they get instant killed by Heroic Killing Blow weapons anyways. Both bombs as well as ammunition are very valuable when it comes to saving runs. Bombs can be used to deal with Stormvermin when they get close to overwhelming you and ammunition is key when it comes to killing specials. Stormvermin are not considered specials and should only be killed with ammunition if your team lacks other means to deal with them (which should make you reconsider your team setup as well).

Very often your team will select a certain place to build its line of defense upon. Supplies, whether they come in form of chests or drops, are often scattered around the map and hard to reach mid wave and while kiting Ogres – this can be a problem. If you want to respawn because you are in bleed out or low on health and ammunition, it’s heavily advised to die close to your “base” and pick supplies from far away upon respawn.
Don’t collect supplies which are close to your defensive position and easy to reach if there are still supplies scattered in the outskirts! This is generally considered bad behaviour unless your team decides otherwise.

As discussed before, depending on your team you will find other players respawning for ammunition or health very often. There are two ways to delay the end of a wave indefinitely:

• Leaving one Stormvermin alive
• Leaving three normal rats (slave or Clanrats) alive

So if a teammate of yours decides to die close to the end of the wave, don’t kill the last Stormvermin / last three rats yourself. Use the extra time to search for supplies or take a toilet break (tell your teammates beforehand!). Consider telling your teammate about this tactic once if they happen to be unaware of it (no need to repeat yourself too often though).

Coordinating Ogre waves is the most challenging aspect of Last Stand and needs a lot of practice. In general we can divide Ogre waves into three categories:

• 1 Ogre and Slaverats
• 2 Ogres
• more Ogres and specials

Regardless of how many Ogres you face, you should always get rid of the specials first (and then trash rats). You can look up the heroic wave spreadsheet for information about that. High priority specials are Packmasters and Assassins as they stunlock players and make them easy targets for Ogres.

If you are facing one Ogre and trash rats, one player should kite the Ogre while the rest deals with the trash rats. The character with the highest block movement speed is best suited for kiting as he must outmaneuver the scattered Slaverats as well. Keep an eye out for the Ogre in case he changes his target.

If you are facing 2 Ogres, the best way to approach Ogres is in teams of two if you have enough space. The two players are then standing on the opposite side of the Ogre and pass the Ogre back and forth. One player of each “Ogre team” should always have an eye out for the other Ogre. If both teams get too close to each other you should consider kiting it further away before attacking it again.

If you are facing more than two Ogres (which would be four or six then) your best bet is trying to get all Ogres to focus on a single player who kites them around. If you managed to do that you can carefully pick one Ogre out of the pack and lead it to the 3 remaining players to be beaten up. Repeat this until no Ogres are left. Do not, under any circumstance aggro multiple Ogres for no reason.

On higher waves (4 or 6 Ogre waves) you will find your teammates dying on Ogres eventually. At some point you might not be aggroed by any Ogres yourself. If that’s the case, don’t pull aggro again and instead prioritize reviving teammates! Very often players new to Last Stand forget about this important aspect and instantaneously pull aggro again thus ruining the run potentially.

General – Difficulties and Rewards

Last Stand comes in 3 difficulties: Veteran, Champion and Heroic. The system can be compared to adventures. For more information regarding rat damage and health please visit the Breed Tab in Kyrials spreadsheet[docs.google.com] (Google Spreadsheet)

This difficulty equals Hard in terms of rat health and damage.
Endurance badges (called footman badges) collected on this difficulty yield the following:

• 9 Green tokens
• 150 Experience points

This difficulty equals Nightmare in terms of rat health and damage.
Endurance badges (called sergeant badges) collected on this difficulty yield the following:

• 9 Blue tokens
• 200 Experience points

This difficulty equals Cataclysm in terms of rat health and damage.
The biggest difference to cataclysm is that players in Heroic Last Stand have 150 health instead of 100 health. You can read more about that and what it means for players in the next section of this guide.

Other than the previous difficulties, Heroic has a second type of collectable bages called Lord Badges. These reward more tokens as well as more experience points.

Endurance badges (called general badges) collected on this difficulty yield the following:

• 6 Orange tokens
• 400 Experience points

Lord badges collected on Heroic yield the following:

• 13 Orange tokens
• 500 Experience points

General – Damage and Health System

In Cataclysm the health is reduced to a maximum of 100, this is not the case for Heroic as you can reach Heroic after beating Champion (on the same run). Fatshark probably didn’t want to change your health mid-run so instead they increased the rat damage by 33.3% on top of Cataclysm values.
While this change isn’t directly visible to the average player (rats still hit as Hard as on Cataclysm) it has a big impact on the effectiveness of the healing draught.

As a reminder:

• The healing draught heals for 75 health which equals to total life gain of 50% (Heroic) and 75% (Cataclysm)
• The medical aid pack restores 80% of your missing health (Heroic and Cataclysm)

In Cataclysm draughts are better as you would need to be at 6HP (or below) to restore equally much health points when using a medical aid pack instead.
In Heroic Last Stand, med packs are more efficient as soon as you drop below 55 HP (about ⅓ of your total hp). Keep that in mind when selecting your healing item.

Last Stand also does not have friendly fire at any difficulty in the game. This may also be a result of the transition between difficulties.

General – Last Stand Seals

The last stand “shields” are located to both sides of the quest board and indicate that the player has “beaten” a specific number of waves. The maximal number of available seals for a shield is 10.

All badges and the waves after they are unlocked:

• Completing the map on veteran (wave 13)
• Completing the map on champion (wave 13)
• Completing the map on heroic (wave 13)
• Successfully completing wave 20
• Successfully completing wave 26
• Successfully completing wave 33
• Successfully completing wave 39
• Successfully completing wave 52
• Successfully completing wave 65
• Successfully completing wave 78

General – Chests and Supply drops

Last Stand offers two ways for your party to replenish supplies. Both are tied to completing certain waves.

Each map contains 4 chest spots with 2 individual chests each. These chests are unlocked after reaching a particular amount of waves.

It should be noted that the content and wave to reach is independent from the difficulty. After the last chest is opened, no additional ones will be unlocked nor will any of the existing chests be refilled at any given time.

When starting on lower difficulties than Heroic, unlocked chests will stay unlocked.

Supply drops spawn in a regular interval during your Last Stand run. They will be dropped at predetermined spots around the map and contain two to three items.

Even though the waves at which supply drops spawn are always the same, the content of them is not. Supply drop spots are fixed to certain locations and items they can contain. Most spots only have a single set of “item slots” (e.g. bomb + Strength pot) but that’s not true for all of them.

If a supply drop location has multiple possible “item slot combinations” (e.g. bomb + Ammunition + Strength pot OR Strength + Ammunition + Strength), one is chosen at the start of the map and all items spawning at this very spot will only contain items of this combination (warning: the result is true, the process how the combination is determined remains unknown currently).

Items can “stack” upon each other if they don’t get retrieved by the group therefore supplies never go to waste if a second drop occurs on the same location.

Town meeting supply drop

• Strength
• Strength
• Ammunition

Another Town meeting supply drop

• Strength
• Bomb
• Ammunition

The Fall supply drop

• Strength
• Speed

Another The Fall supply drop

• Strength
• Healing Draught

General – Ogre Mechanics

Disclaimer: Information in this section may not be 100% accurate. It’s based on data provided and evaluated by Kyrial and is ultimately based on the interpretation of the underlying code.

Rat ogres determine their target based on two factors:

• Damage: Damage taken from an individual hero. Additive effect and increases by dealing damage to the ogre (duh).
• Proximity: This factor is based on the shortest possible path to an individual hero. It’s not a straight line between the ogre and the hero and instead follows allowed paths/routes.

These two factors are the basis for calculating the final aggro score for each player. This score is held in an “aggro_table” for each individual rat ogre and has a value between 0 and 100.

Rat ogres appear to check this table for their target every second and choose the hero with the highest score on this list as their target.

There are several ways to reduce the aggro score:

• Since proximity has a big impact, gaining distance to the ogre will decrease the aggro score of a hero – especially if the ogre has to take a longer route to reach the player.
• Aggro decays over time. At the time of writing this, it is believed that the aggro score decreases by 1 per second if the ogre isn’t attacked, meaning a hero should lose aggro after 100 seconds if another hero is closer to the ogre.
• Aggro is also decreased by 10 points (on all ogres) if a special focuses the player. It’s not clear if this effect is cumulative with additional specials but it’s very likely.
• Ogres pushing heroes away will also reduce the aggro score by applying a target_catapulted* multiplier to the player. This will reduce the aggro on all ogres and can only trigger every 5 seconds.

*The status target_catapulted is applied when an attack pushes the player and temporarily hides his weapons from the screen. It’s the source of the commonly heard ogre attack sound as well.

Additional Notes:

Initially, ogres choose their target solely based on proximity since no damage has been dealt to them.

The aggro_table of a rat ogre will only clear/reset when it dies.

The following conclusion can be drawn from above mentioned behavior:

• Don’t attack rat ogres if you don’t want to draw their attention and instead focus on a single one.
• Don’t kite ogres close to other players or quickly gain distance to your ogres if you don’t want them to switch targets.
• “Skip” Points where players can jump down but ogres have to walk around can help you lose an ogre but also endanger others by random target switches.
• Ogres will always attack the closes hero upon spawning if no damage has been dealt to them.
• Ogres sending heroes flying will very often result in a target switch for at least one ogre.
• Since the aggro_table never gets fully reset, expect to get attacked by ogres you previously dealt a lot of damage to, should their current target be slapped away.
• The best way to keep aggro on an ogre is by dealing a lot of damage to him, staying close and not getting hit by his attacks that would send the player flying.

Team Setup – Character Roles

When playing Last Stand, each character should fulfill multiple roles in your team. In the following sections, each individual role should be listed and explained.

Keep in mind that depending on your teams play style, the need for certain roles can vary heavily.
Due to the nature of Last Stand, at best each character should be capable of kiting Ogres as well as killing them. therefore weapons with very low movement speed whilst blocking can cause problems and will most certainly make it harder to survive for the player wielding it.

For all specifics about block movement speed, visit Kyrials spreadsheet[docs.google.com] (Google Spreadsheet link – go to Dodge & Stamina tab)

This role benefits from high block movement speed melee weapons. You are tasked with getting the attention of Ogres and taking them for a walk while the rest of your team kills specials, Slaverats or another Ogre.
The speed trinket further increases your characters capability of accomplishing that task.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:

Infinite dodge weapons:

• Dual Daggers (90% block run)
• Rapier (90% block run)
• 1h Sword (Elf) (90% block run)
• Sword & Dagger (85% block run)
• Dual Swords (85% block run)

Other weapons with +80% block run:

• 1h sword (ES / BW) (85% block run)
• Flaming sword (80% block run)
• 1h hammer (80% block run)
• 1h mace (ES / BW) (80% block run)
• 1h axe (WH / DR) (80% block run)

This role requires weapons with high stamina and overall stopping power. Shields are the weapons with the highest stamina pool in the game making them the weapon of choice for tanking.
The biggest downside of shields is the poor movement coming with them. Kiting is therefore a lot harder then.

Stamina related traits such as improved pommel and perfect balance as well as the stamina boon make it easier to meet the requirements for this role.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:

• Shields
• Drakefire pistols
• Conflagration staff
• Fireball staff

The two handed hammer has issues dealing with Stormvermin waves and is therefore a bad choice for crowd control.

While Slaverats and Clanrats might not be the highest priority targets, they can cause problems if they get to numerously. Weapons with a high number of maximum targets and possibly splash damage are great at doing this particular job. Ranged weapons are generally better fitted for this role because melee weapons will be blocked by Stormvermin and thus denying multi target melee weapons to capitalize on their target count.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:

• Conflagration staff
• Fireball staff
• Drakefire pistols
• Hagbane bow

Killing specials plays a major role in Last Stand. You will encounter a lot of waves containing 6 of the same special type down the line and removing them as fast as possible is required. Ranged weapons are generally better fitted for this role as well since you often need to kill specials over longer distances.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:

• Trueflight bow
• Bolt staff
• Handgun

Since you will encounter a lot of Stormvermin, with some waves even solely dedicated to them, killing Stormvermin reliably is a very important aspect of Last Stand as well. Killing blow weapons as well as ranged weapons with a big area of effect can come in handy. Handguns can deal with Stormvermin but consume too much ammunition at it.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:

• 1h axe
• glaive
• bolt staff
• fireball staff
• conflagration staff
• fast normal killing blow weapons

Every once in awhile you will have to prove yourself by fighting Ogre waves. Currently the best way to kill Ogres is by using weapons with the Heroic Killing Blow trait. The more Heroic Killing Blows your group has, the faster Ogres will die. Wasting ammunition and bombs is not worth it as you will quickly run out of supplies that way so melee combat is encouraged.

As characters in Vermintide are solely defined by their weapon arsenal, these roles can be assigned to weapons as well. Some of the roles are mutually exclusive such as weapons which are good for kiting are almost always bad at tanking.

Some characters are better suited for certain roles due to their weapons (Waywatcher has a lot of melee weapons with high block movement speed making her great at kiting while the Empire Soldier and Dwarf Ranger are the only characters with shields available making them excellent tanks).

Thanks to the wide selection of weapons, every character can be played in different playstyles and thus fulfill a wide variety of roles. With that being said, every character has a playstyle that he particularly excels at which we will take a look at in the next sections.

The following weapons are particularly good for this role:
all melee weapons with fast charged attacks, Heroic Killing Blow and fast block run e.g.:

• 1h axe
• 1h sword
• 1h mace
• Waywatcher melee weapons (except 1h sword as it can’t roll Heroic Killing Blow)
• shields (warning: low block run)

Ranged weapons (keep in mind ammunition is rare and shouldn’t be wasted):

• Volley crossbow
• Repeater pistol
• Hagbane bow
• a few others

Team Setup – Trinkets

Even though there are some arguably bad trinkets, there is no “best” trinket loadout – as everything else in this game it depends heavily on the general playstyle of your team.

None the less there is one trinket everyone should always be carrying in Last Stand.

Not only is the so called “Bone Saw” one of the best trinkets in the game, it is also an excellent choice for Last Stand. For most experienced Last Stand players this trinket is an auto include and it should be.

The bone saw lets you revive teammates from downed state 50% faster. Downed is the keyword here as this trinket has no effect on rescuing respawned players. This trinket is very important when it comes to Ogre waves and a multitude of other tough situations where every second matters.

Even if you don’t own it at exotic quality, taking a blue or even green saw is a reasonable choice.

This trinket is an interesting choice as it’s never seen in adventures. Every player equipped with this trinket respawns 50% faster (exotic) or 25% faster (blue). The “Skulls for the Skullthrone”-Event introduced a purple category that increases your respawn rate by a stunning 75%!

To put this into perspective, the 75% “Skull of the Holy Revenant” trinket reduces your respawn time to merely a couple of seconds (around 7 if I remember correctly) which is absolutely insane.

While it’s certainly not an “auto-include” trinket it can be game changing and has a big impact on your strategy. The playstyle that goes along with it is more “suicidal” as you can respawn faster and more safely.

It’s less risky to die towards the end of a wave with this trinket equipped and an incorrect choice (e.g. dying to late) without the trinket can potentially ruin the run.

That being said the author of this guide doesn’t use the trinket all that often as it’s possible to die safely and the phoenix trinket doesn’t have a big impact on Ogre waves either (not the time at which you respawn is often to problem but instead being “free” to revive is).

The trinket is great for adventures and doesn’t lose much of it’s potential in Last Stand. Your team will come across several 6 gas rat waves and might be forced to walk through stacked gas clouds. Having damage from gas rats reduced by 60% can save your life.

Experienced players (and those with the spreadsheet at hand) might be able to survive gas waves unharmed – none the less it’s a decent trinket to carry and protects you from a potential wipe at those 6 gas rat waves.

Yet another trinket that isn’t used all that often in adventure runs – the dupe trinket has a 12% chance to duplicate any item being picked up by the player carrying it.

This trinket is an excellent choice if your team is struggling with supplies and should be worn by a character who can’t accidentally consume ammunition. Therefore if your team wants to use this trinket, give it to your bright wizard or drakefire dwarf.

An obviously powerful trinket in adventures – still a good choice for Last Stand even though it’s a lot less powerful here. Healing all teammates for 20% of their missing health to potentially get them out of bleedout can be very strong in tight situations but very often its simply better for the player in question to die close to the end of the wave.

Respawning is generally better than using supplies meaning healshare has it’s moments to shine but there is no reason to take more than one or two with you, if you take any at all.

A very polarizing choice and highly dependent on how you want to play Last Stand. Many groups (including the authors group) almost never use pots in Last Stand to begin with, rendering this trinket almost completely useless.

Other groups swear by it and use pots to defeat Ogre waves as well as Stormwaves.

Depending on your team setup only one or two players might benefit from the potion effect and you should therefore ask yourself if it would be enough when the person benefitting most just consumes it without share. If that’s the case, free up that trinket slot for something better!

The speed trinket increases your speed by 12% on the highest rarity as well as infinite dodges on all rarities. This gives the player wearing this trinket more safety when kiting Ogres and other rats.

The 1.9 change doubled the speed to the currently available 12% and added the infinite dodge mechanic to every character equipped with it. This makes kiting clan and slave rats extremely easy as players are actually faster than them. Infinite dodges on itself is a very powerful tool as well.

Players struggling to kite rats are highly encouraged to utilize this trinket.

The trinkets listed above are the most commonly used ones which doesn’t mean other trinkets are bad (the poison trinket is an excellent choice in combination with drakefire pistols for example – or any other high target weapon as the currently available 12% poision is absolutely insane, the fish (dupe heals) can be considered in combination with healshare).

Generally speaking, the only trinkets that are truly terrible are those who don’t have any effect in Last Stand whatsoever (Luck stone, Lichbone, class trinkets and prestige ones).

Team Setup – Traits

This is the most important trait in Last Stand if you want to deal with Ogres quickly and safely. The 3% chance to kill anything (including Ogres) on charged attack might seem marginal but it’s more than enough.

If your whole team uses Heroic Killing Blow on their melee weapons, Ogres will die sooner than later.

Not only is this trait good when you need to thin out the Ogre wave to make it less dangerous, it also preserves a ton of ammunition probably would have been consumed to deal with Ogres otherwise.

When choosing a weapon for Last Stand, players often think about its viability combined with Heroic Killing Blow first. The deciding factor is how effective the charged attack is and now fast it can be chained. The biggest downside of Heroic Killing Blow is the fact that Bloodlust can’t be combined with it on exotic weapons. Heroic killing blow can’t be rolled on green and blue weapons.

An important aspect of Last Stand is to stay healthy – while constant respawns are possible, it’s better to operate regrowth to slowly heal up to maximum health. Charged regrowth is generally worse but still possible on a few weapons. (Note: charged regrowth is absolutely terrible on shields as they only “hit” one target).

Light regrowth is often the choice due to the inability to take Bloodlust when Heroic Killing Blow is used. Infinite target attacks such as the light attack mace+shield benefit heavily off it. Other weapons profit much less due to their low number of targets.

As stated above, Bloodlust is often not a choice as it’s not available on exotic weapons combined with Heroic Killing Blow.

That being said, there are a few veteran melee weapons which combine Heroic Killing Blow with Bloodlust. Most prominently the Dwarf 1h axe as well as the Bright Wizard mace. These weapons can be an excellent choice as Bloodlust is generally better than regrowth.

When going for a movement focused game plan, Devastating Blow can be a strong addition to the melee weapon, improving both the survivability of the player himself as well as his group.

Shields also benefit from Devastating Blow (throw rats further) but already stun Stormvermin without the need for Devastating Blow. Therefore Devastating Blow isn’t a great choice for them in particular.

Generally speaking, Improved Pommel is better for weapons with high stamina count (shields in particular) whilst weapons with a low base stamina are better off using Perfect Balance.

These two traits are mostly for survival and stunlocking meaning you will have a easier time surviving with them.

Since Last Stand is all about killing rats, Scavenger can be a great addition to both melee as well as ranged weapons to lower the need for ammunition. As with every other trait, some weapons are perfectly fitted for this trait whilst this trait might not be worth using on other weapons.

Ammunition Holder fullfills the same task as Scavenger – reducing the need for extra ammunition. It is therefore an excellent trait for ranged weapons in Last Stand.

Inspirational Shot replenishes the groups stamina when a headshot is scored with the weapon.
This trait, not often seen in adventures, went popular when Last Stand went public. In the same patch that introduced Last Stand, the Bolt staff was buffed making it viable on its own.

Inspirational shot is a great trait for auto-aim weapons that always score headshots. It keeps your tanks supplied with stamina.

After the bolt staff was nerfed and no longer scored headshots without locking targets, the bolt staff was used less frequently and so was this trait. It’s still a viable option if your team is running tanks and has the need for more stamina though.

Knockback can be a great 3rd trait in weapons if no other traits are used yet. It benefits from splash damage weapons (conflag, fireball) and since recently also adds knockback to packmasters if the trait triggers. This will free any hooked player and throw the packmaster to the ground.

Weapon Recommendations

This section should give insights into viable weapon combinations for Last Stand.

It’s by no means a complete list and based on the opinion of a couple of experienced Last Stand players.

Feel free to leave a comment or private message if you think some weapon combinations are missing or weapons are categorized incorrectly.

Weapons – Witch Hunter

The Witch Hunter has access to a wide variety of weapons – both multi target weapons (the 2h sword and falchion) as well as powerful single target weapons (1h axe).

His Rapier is also particularly strong when combined with normal killing blow.

Even though Saltzpyre has quite a few options for ranged combat, the existing weapons are mostly a lackluster for Last Stand. He doesn’t have access to a particularly strong special killer weapon.

Weapons such as the Repeater Pistol as well as the normal Crossbow can be used for special killing but need quite a bit of practice to be used to their full potential.

One of Saltzpyres best choices for Last Stand is the 1 handed Axe. That’s due to its effectiveness against the biggest threats in Last Stand: Ogres and Stormvermin.

The biggest downside of this weapon is the fact that it only hits a single target – the player wielding this weapon must therefor be careful on how he approaches the enemy horde. Being close to a tank is advised as well as utilizing the dodge mechanic for kiting bigger hordes alone.

Due to the fact that Bloodlust is incredibly strong on this weapon and the Axe hits hard on its own, one can choose to omit Heroic Killing Blow in favor of Bloodlust.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Devastating Blow OR another trait of choice
• Bloodlust | Devastating Blow | Stamina Trait OR Backstabbery OR another trait of choice

The Falchion is yet another viable option for Last Stand. It’s light attack can’t compare to the 1h axe in terms of killing Ogres and Stormvermin though. Therefor using the charged attack as well as the Heroic Killing Blow trait is a better choice.

This weapon as a better time dealing with trash as its light attacks hit 3 targets. The choice between normal regrowth and charged regrowth isn’t as clear as on other weapons and depends on how the weapon is played.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) OR (Charged) | Devastating Blow OR another trait of choice

The Rapier is an incredibly good weapon when it comes to kiting but struggles due to the fact that it heavily relies on Normal Killing Blow and therefor ruling Heroic Killing Blow out in that combination.

One can still choose to use Heroic Killing Blow but that will cost this weapon much of its potential in killing Stormvermin.

Devastating Blow has almost no impact on this weapon and should therefor not be chosen.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Scavenger
• Normal Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Off Balance

The Two-Handed Sword is generally considered a weak choice in Last Stand. This is due to its low block run speed (50%) and the fact that it struggles to deal with Stormvermin as fast as the other weapons do.

The Volley Crossbow is both the blessing and curse of the Witch Hunter. It can quickly take out an ogre (or damage several) if the group chooses to thin out the 4 or 6 ogre waves.

The biggest weakness besides it at best average special killing potential is the high reload time. This will can be especially problematic if the player wielding this weapon wants to reload it whilst kiting ogres.

It also consumes quite a lot of Ammunition meaning scavenger on the melee weapon can be a good choice. The only must have trait on this weapon is Extra Capacity. Everything else is up to the players personal taste.

Example trait combinations:

• Extra Capacity | Ammunition Holder | Mastercrafted OR Hail of Doom OR something else

The Normal Crossbow is a decent choice for Last Stand. It takes quite some time to get used to and is not the most reliable special killer due to the travel time of the projectile.

Interestingly enough this weapon can have both Regrowth as well as Bloodlust in a single trait combination. This opens up the possibility to create a “Healing Crossbow” as this weapon also penetrates 5 targets. Whether this trait combination proves viable has yet to be tested (Note: Authors opinion – tested and found not useful but try it for yourself!).

Example trait combinations:

• Ammunition Holder | Scavenger | Hail of Doom OR Bloodlust OR something else
• Bloodlust | Regrowth | Ammunition Holder OR something else

This weapon needs a bit of practice to get right as well as the right traits. Even then can tend to be a bit unreliable when it comes to using the charged up shot.

It is capable of dealing with all kinds of specials as well as dealing massive amounts of damage to rat ogres and even Stormvermin can be killed with it (even though its advised not to waste Ammunition on them).

Extra Capacity as well as Targeteer are excellent traits for this weapon.

Example trait combinations:

• Extra Capacity | Targeteer | Hail of Doom OR Ammunition Holder OR something else

The only other weapon left is Brace of Pistols. It’s not the best choice for Last Stand but can still be taken.

Instead of using Brace of Pistols it is recommended to opt for the Repeater Pistol. It basically does the same job. Brace of Pistols biggest downside is the slow movement speed whilst using the charged shots making special removal whilst kiting unreliable.

Weapons – Bright Wizard

The Bright Wizard has a great arsenal of staves at her hands. Depending on what the team needs Sienna can always choose the staff that fits the requirements.

While she certainly has great melee weapons, her selection is more than limited with one weapon being straight up trash.

The veteran mace is very often the go-to weapon for mages. It combines Bloodlust and Heroic Killing Blow in a single weapon making it at least a decent choice.

That being said an exotic mace can be chosen instead as well. More often than not, omitting all healing traits from the melee weapon is okay since Bright Wizard players very often only pull out the melee weapon when it comes to kiting and ogre killing.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Bloodlust | Second Wind (VETERAN)
• Heroic Killing Blow | Devastating Blow | Regrowth (Light or Charged) OR stamina trait

The Long Sword is also a great pick for Last Stand. It offers a slightly higher movement speed (85% instead of 80% for the mace). Overall this weapon tends to be better for kiting but also takes more practice for killing ogres as the charged attacks need to be timed correctly.

It’s charged attack also offers a decent amount of crowd control. The Author of this guide uses this weapon without any healing traits as the weapon is mainly used for kiting and killing ogres – survival traits might therefor be the better choice.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Devastating Blow | Stamina trait
• Heroic Killing Blow | Devastating Blow | Regrowth (Light or Charged)

At this time, the only other melee weapon available is the Flaming Sword. It’s generally considered a weaker version of the Long Sword due to the following aspects:

• No headshot multiplier (Long Sword has x2)
• Less targets on light attack (3 instead of 4)
• Slower block movement speed (80% instead of 85%)
• Visual effects clutter the screen (personal opinion)

The only benefit of this weapon is the fact that it applies a “burning” debuff on all rats. The damage done by this is neglect-able and doesn’t overcome the many downsides of this weapon. This stays true for Last Stand and even more so due to the importance of block movement speed.

The Conflagration Staff is a strong choice for Last Stand as it can stunlock stormvermin (and kill them) as well as remove trash effectively.

Some practice is required to learn how to place the circle correctly (and not throw all rats into your teammates backs) but when mastered, it’s a powerful tool and the only trash cleaner your group needs.

This staff is paticularly powerful on The Fall as it can throw Stormvermin off the cliff very easily.

Example trait combinations:

• Regrowth | Stability | Knockback OR Distraction OR anything else

Even thought the Fireball Staff got nerfed pretty badly, it’s still an excellent choice for Last Stand. It fills the same roles as the Conflagration Staff and can therefor be exchanged with it.

When used together with a strength pot this weapon can clean up entire stormvermin weaves.
It should be noted that spamming the smallest fireballs is not a viable tactic anymore, instead they need to be charged up for a second or two.

Example trait combinations:

• Bloodlust | Stability | Hail of Doom

Even though the current Bolt Staff is no where near as overpowered as it was before, it still is a viable option for Last Stand. Combined with Inspirational Shot it opens up new playstyles and is a great way to extend the parties special killing capabilities.

The light attack should also not be underestimated and can be used with great effectiveness to clean up trash rats.

Example trait combinations:

• Bloodlust | Stability | Inspirational Shot
• Bloodlust | Stability | Hail of Doom

The Beam staff doesn’t make the cut for Last Stand. It can’t stun Stormvermin and doesn’t clean trash rats as fast as the Fireball or Conflagration Staff. Special killing is also better be done by the Bolt staff leaving this weapon as a “can do everything but nothing good spot” for Last Stand.

Weapons – Dwarf Ranger

The Dwarf Ranger can choose from a wide variety of weapons with completely different playstyles. As of 1.8.2 he has the biggest pool of weapons and surely is one of the most versatile characters.

His physical size can proof problematic as scoring headshots gets more difficult. Since there is no friendly fire in Last Stand, his size is no longer a benefit in that regard.

Besides his height, Bardin has no real weaknesses. He can be used in almost every role and the biggest weaknesses are attached to the weapons he chooses.

Same as with Saltzpyres, one of Bardins best choices for Last Stand is the 1 handed Axe. That’s due to its effectiveness against the biggest threats in Last Stand: Ogres and Stormvermin.

The biggest downside of this weapon is the fact that it only hits a single target – the player wielding this weapon must therefor be careful on how he approaches the enemy horde. Being close to a tank is advised as well as utilizing the dodge mechanic for kiting bigger hordes alone.

Bardin has a very powerful veteran Axe combining Heroic Killing Blow with Bloodlust as well as Swift Slaying Charged which is a decent third trait for a veteran weapon.

Due to the lack of any “survival” traits such as Devastating Blow or Perfect Balance, the player using this veteran weapon should opt for a more dodge oriented playstyle.

Backstabbery is not available for Bardin.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Bloodlust | Swift Slaying (Charged) (VETERAN)
• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Devastating Blow OR another trait of choice
• Bloodlust | Devastating Blow | Stamina Trait OR another trait of choice

The Axe and Shield is an excellent crowd control weapon. Combined with the Axe it can also deal with seperated Stormvermin.

Light attacks during the horde can prove to be difficult since they only hit a single rat. This also means that regrowth isn’t going to get all that much value. When compared with the Hammer and Shield, this weapon is the slightly better ogre killer as it’s charged attack frequency is a bit higher.

The biggest downside is the block low movement speed attached to this weapon making it harder to kite ogres as well as surviving on his own.

Note: Even though devastating blow is listed below, it’s generally considered to be an unnecessary trait for shields.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Improved Pommel OR Scavenger OR something else
• Heroic Killing Blow | Improved Pommel | Devastating Blow

Just as the Axe and Shield, the Hammer and Shield is an incredible crowd control weapon. It easily makes up for its slightly slower charged attack frequency by having a light attack that hits infinite targets.

Infinite targets is incredibly strong when combined with light regrowth. Healing shouldn’t be a problem with this weapon.

Light attack – Light attack – Push is a commonly used attack pattern with this tactic and should leave you with enough crowd control to not get hit.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Improved Pommel OR Scavenger OR something else

The other available weapons tend to be weaker choices. One can argue for taking the 1h Hammer but it’s generally weaker than the 1h Axe for Last Stand.

The Two-Handed Hammer as well as the Two-Handed Axe and Warpick all lack movement speed as well as proper crowd control.

As soon as a few Stormvermin get into your way, the Two-Handed Hammer loses a lot of its crowd control potential and becomes a lackluster.

Drakefire Pistols are a very powerful choice when combined with the single handed Axe as they offer both crowd control to the team as well as better survivability to the player using them.

The charged attack stunlocks Stormvermin (as well as packmasters!) and the light attack can pick of slave rats with a single hit if the bad accuracy allows for it. Regrowth is generally the better choice for this weapon allowing two possible heal procs when quick swapping between the veteran Axe and Drakefire pistols.

Example trait combinations:

• Regrowth | Stability | Mastercrafted OR Knockback OR something else

The Handgun is still an excellent special killer weapon even though it lost some of its charm when Mastercrafted was nerfed. It’s a good choice if the party needs more ways to deal with specials.

It’s one of the 4 weapons capable of stunning packmasters. Even though this might sound good, the handgun staggers packmasters at 1 hp (because it deals 34 with a body shot and a packmaster has 35hp) meaning they will die from any damage anyways.

Example trait combinations:

• Mastercrafted | Ammunition Holder | Hail of Doom OR Skullcracker
• Mastercrafted | Skullcracker | Hail of Doom OR Ammunition Holder

The Crossbow doesn’t make the cut for Bardin as the Handgun overall does a better job. The Grudge Raker is not a bad weapon by itself but might not be worth taking due to its high Ammunition consumption and Drakefire Pistols as another great weapon to choose.

Weapons – Waywatcher

Kerillian has both great ranged weapon as well as excellent melee weapons at hand. Her melee weapons have an infinite dodge count (Note: not the Glaive) and overall very high block movement speed.

The Waywatcher doesn’t have any weapon to really help the team with crowd control.

Overall a great weapon when combined with Normal Killing Blow, the biggest downside is that it can’t roll Heroic Killing Blow at all. It can still be a viable choice for Last Stand but does often not make the cut if Ogres are the main problem.

Example trait combinations:

• Normal Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Scavenger

Just as with adventures, Sword and Dagger is a decent choice for Last Stand even after it’s block movement speed got reduced.

The red variant provides higher than usual regrowth and is a viable option even though it lacks the commonly used heroic killing blow trait.

Example trait combinations:

• Normal Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Off Balance (VETERAN)
• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Devastating Blow OR Scavenger

Dual Swords are generally considered harder to play than Sword & Dagger but players mastering this weapon are rewarded with a weapon that can outperform it’s counterparts due to its high number of targets.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light OR Charged) | Devastating Blow or Scavenger

The Glaive is great at killing Stormvermin. The charged attack takes some time to get used to but is certainly worth it. Heroic Killing Blow rules out the possibility of Bloodlust – a great trait for this weapon – meaning you will have to settle for Regrowth instead.

This weapons biggest weakness is it’s low block movement speed of 75%, 4 Stamina (2 shields) and efficient dodge count of 3 meaning surviving alone can prove challenging but is certainly possible.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Scavenger

The only other weapon (dual daggers) tend to be used less frequently due to the fact that it’s the only weapon hitting only one target at all times and an unfamiliar attack pattern. When it comes to block movement speed it doesn’t fall short compared to the other weapons (90%).

Currently one if not the best weapon to remove specials in Last Stand. Having a good Waywatcher player using the Trueflight Bow to its full potential have a massive impact on the run and allow other characters to leave their special killer weapons (such as Handguns) at the Inn.

The Trueflight Bow can stun packmasters without the knockback trait.

Example trait combinations:

• Ammunition Holder | Hail of Doom | Scavenger OR Mastercrafted

Excellent choice for cleaning up trash as well as quickly killing Ogres if the group decides to thin out a dangerous ogre wave. Having tanks holding the horde in place with pushes can give the Waywatcher the ability to regain arrows whilst cleaning up the horde.

Example trait combinations:

• Scavenger | Hail of Doom | Ammunition Holder OR something else

Same as with adventures, the other two bows (Swift bow and Long bow) are underwhelming choices and have no spot in Last Stand when compared to their “better” counterparts.

Weapons – Empire Soldier

The Empire Soldier has excellent tools at hand when it comes to crowd control. He can also act as a great special killer due to his Handgun.

Kruber does not offer a lot of different playstyles as he has no access to any exceptional single handed weapon. His ranged arsenal is also more than limited with only three weapons.

Sword and Shield also called “Sword and Board” is, just as any other shield, an incredibly strong crowd control weapon. Just as Bardins Axe and Shield, this weapon has a higher charged attack frequency than the “Mace / Hammer” variant.

The sword was 4 targets making regrowth a better choice than on the axe but is utterly uselss against stormvermin.

Just as any other shield, the biggest problem with this weapon is its incredibly slow movement speed of 60% – which doesn’t make kiting multiple ogres impossible but certainly harder.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Improved Pommel OR Scavenger OR something else

Krubers second Shield variant adds a mace. It’s the exact same weapon as Bardins Hammer and Shield when it comes to damage and attack frequency thus regrowth works exceptional on this weapon (infinite light attack targets).

As said before, just as any other shield, the biggest problem with this weapon is its incredibly slow movement speed of 60% – which doesn’t make kiting multiple ogres impossible but certainly harder.

Example trait combinations:

• Heroic Killing Blow | Regrowth (Light) | Improved Pommel OR Scavenger OR something else

The other available weapons tend to be weaker choices. If a player seeks to play Kruber in a more mobile oriented playstyle, his best bet would probably be the single handed Mace. The Mace is the same weapon as Bardins one handed hammer with the only difference being the available trait combinations (for example Kruber can’t roll normal killing blow).

The Two-Handed Sword and Executioner Sword lack the block movement speed as well as crowd control to make the cut. The One-Handed Sword is a weak choice as well.

The Handgun is still an excellent special killer weapon even though it lost some of its charm when Mastercrafted was nerfed. It’s a good choice if the party needs more ways to deal with specials.

It’s one of the 4 weapons capable of stunning packmasters. Even though this might sound good, the handgun staggers packmasters at 1 hp (because it deals 34 with a body shot and a packmaster has 35hp) meaning they will die from any damage anyways.

Example trait combinations:

• Mastercrafted | Ammunition Holder | Hail of Doom OR Skullcracker
• Mastercrafted | Skullcracker | Hail of Doom OR Ammunition Holder

Both the Blunderbuss as well as the Repeater Handgun tend to consume to much Ammunition to be worthwhile. Blunderbuss would be the better choice as it grants the player wielding it for more survivability.

Map Specifics

The following sections will be all about the differences between the available Last Stand maps. At the time this section was written. Last Stand has two available maps.

As repairs of Von Jungfreudsplatz finally reach a close, the Skaven launch a surprise attack on the unsuspecting heroes.

Takes place at the Jungfreudsplatz known from the adventure map Horn of Magnus.

Trapped in the fortress of Schluesselschloss, the heroes are forced into an inevitable standoff against the Skaven horde.

Takes place at the fortress Schluesselschloss, near Ubersreik and is available as a DLC map.

Map Specifics – Hold out spots

Each map has an “optimal” spot to defend at – or at least its the most common one to use and everyone defaults to it. While several other spots work as well – these locations have proven to be good enough to “beat” Last Stand.

The gate surrounded by a wooden scaffolding is generally considered the best hold out spot on Town Meeting. The majority of rats will approach the heroes from the front, while only a few rats will intrude from the left side every once in a while.

The open left side also has the benefit of an emergency escape route if the horde is about to overwhelm the group.

The big broken bridge is a great hold out spot for Schluesselschloss. The horde will mostly attack from the side of the fortress. Some waves can also spawn rats on the other side and therefor in the back of the heroes. These rats are an easy prey for heroes equipped with a Devastating Blow weapon or a shield as long as they don’t go unnoticed which can lead to game ending consequences.

The best escape route at this position is jumping down to the right and retreating to the forest which can fail if the horde has pushed to far and therefor blocking the escape.

It’s also possible to hold out at the so called “chambers” on the top floor right next to the so called “double bridges”. Stormvermin can get very tedious at this location and the party can be overrun pretty easily.

Map Specifics – Chest and Supply Drops

For more information about the waves, at which Chests and Supplies unlock as well as their contents please refer to the heroic last stand spreadsheet (link at the top of this guide) and / or the section “Chests and Supply Drops”

Click the pictures to enlarge them.

Supply drops on Town Meeting are scattered around the outer circle making it harder to retrieve items whilst kiting ogres.

Most supply drops on The Fall are in close proximity of the most commonly used hold out spot, making it easy to gather supplies between waves. Supply drops in the first can be quite far away and take more time as well as risk to acquire.

Map Specifics – Safe Respawn

Both Last Stand maps have a respawn point that will always be chosen to respawn deceased heroes if another hero is close to said location.

On Town Meeting, heroes will always respawn at the batch of wood if another hero is in close proximity. If the party fails to get there in time, the dead hero will most likely respawn on the opposite side nex to the 4th and final chest (at the tents).

On The Fall, heroes will always respawn inside the building next to the so called “double bridges” if another hero is in close proximity. This is the very same building less commonly used as the second hold out spot.

If the party has chosen the broken bridge as their hold out spot and fails to get to the chambers in time, the lost hero will most likely respawn inside the forest.

Wave Types

The following part of this guide is all about the waves you may encounter in your Last Stand run. Not all types of waves get their own section.

Those lacking their own section will instead be shortly described here:

Trash
Trash waves consist out of slave and clan rats. They don’t spawn any specials nor Stormvermin. This wave type is only seen in the first two waves.

4 Special wave
This wave is very similar to the 6 special ways happening later on. The advice given in those sections should also apply to this wave, even though the wave containing 4 gas rats doesn’t require your group to split up.

All other waves should be explained in one of the following sections.

Wave Types – 3 Specials

Even though this type of wave is relatively easy to beat, it’s still good to know more about it. This wave always spawns 3 specials. There won’t be more than two specials of one kind and they will generally be spawned at the first horn blow thus at the start of the wave.

It’s possible that the three special spawns are spread across the length of the wave, conditions for this are not known yet though.

When seeing this wave on your spreadsheet, it’s recommended to count the already killed amount of specials making it easier for your party to know if any special is still hiding somewhere.

Wave Types – 6 Wave

The term “6 Wave” refers to six specials of the same type spawning at the same moment on the second horn blow of a wave. These waves tend to get dangerous especially those waves containing six assassins.

The game gives hints when those waves occur though so you should always be prepared if the signs for one of those waves show.

All waves containing six specials spawn slave rats at the same locations making it easy to identify potential 6 Waves. The pictures should be self explaining by showing the spawn locations of slave rats.

Wave Types – 6 Wave: Gas & Gunner

This section aims specifically at the 6 Wave that can consist out of 6 gas rats or 6 rattling gunner. By checking the heroic wave spreadsheet linked at the top of this guide, it’s easy to identify the waves containing these enemies.

The 6 Waves containing Gas or Gunners very often occur right after each other in a randomized order. For example: If wave 19 spawns 6 gas rats, wave 20 will always spawn 6 gunners and vice versa.

The strategy for facing those enemies are often very different though.
Six Rattling gunner can often be dealt with by your special killing party members and therefor shouldn’t interfere with your game plan at all.
Gas rat on the other hand often require you to spreading out as your party will otherwise be pinned into a corner and barraged by globadiers.

At that point even your trustworthy gas trinket won’t be enough to survive and killing the globadiers will be quite a burdon to do as soon as all visibilty is lost in the gas cloud.

When defending at the bespoken hold out point (see Hold out spots) your parties best choice for facing the globadier wave is quickly spreading out by escaping through the left path.

If the party stays to long at the hold out spot, the escape route will be blocked by slave rats as well as stormvermin making it much harder and more dangerous to escape.

After taking the escape route, the party should quickly spread up – slower heroes can easily defend the wooden scaffoling until most globadiers are “defused”.

The globadiers spawn pretty evenly spread across the map and a single globadier will drop onto the scaffoling right above the escape route.

Same as with Town Meeting, your parties best chance to survive is taking its escape route. Therefor staying close to the fortress end of the bridge is advised. As soon as gas noises are heard, most party members should retreat to the forest.

The open area makes it much easier to pin down globadiers and remove them without getting gased to death. Conveniently the globadiers will help the heroes by killing off their own slave rats in the process.

Wave Types – 6 Wave: Packmaster

This section aims specifically at the 6 Wave that can contain 6 packmaster. It should be noted that these waves can also spawn 6 assasins – arguable a very big threat in Last Stand if they catch the players off guard.

By checking the heroic wave spreadsheet linked at the top of this guide, it’s easy to identify the waves containing these enemies.

The 6 Waves including packmasters or assasins very often occur right after each other in a randomized order. For example: If wave 39 spawns 6 packmaster, wave 40 will always spawn 6 assasins and vice versa.

The strategy needed for killing off packmasters is very different from the one used for assassins and even contradicts to a certain extend which is why both options get their own section.

When defending at the most commonly used location, the party should focus their splash and special killer weapons onto the packmasters. Most packmasters spawn at the 3rd chest location (wave 14) but a few also spawn on the opposite side.

It should also be noted that a single packmaster can sometimes come through the “escape route”.

If your party is not capable of killing all packmasters safely. An incendiary bomb can be used to both thin out the trash rats as well as potentially killing off packmasters. Incendiary bombs should otherwise be spared for the more dangerous assassin waves.

The game plan for Schluesselschloss isn’t all that different from Town Meeting. As soon as your party knows that the wave contains 6 packmaster, you should back off and move closer to the end of the bridge and therefor lengthen the path the packmasters have to take to get to you.

One or two packmasters can/will also spawn at the other end of the broken bridge and should be dealth with immediatly.

Wave Types – 6 Wave: Gutter Runner

This section aims specifically at the 6 Wave that can contain 6 assasins. It should be noted that these waves can also spawn 6 packmaster.

By checking the heroic wave spreadsheet linked at the top of this guide, it’s easy to identify the waves containing these enemies.

The 6 Waves including packmasters or assasins very often occur right after each other in a randomized order. For example: If wave 39 spawns 6 packmaster, wave 40 will always spawn 6 assasins and vice versa.

The strategy needed for killing off assasins is very different from the one used for packmasters and even contradicts to a certain extend which is why both options get their own section.

Assasins will spawn shortly before the second blow of the horn and will also spawn in a single pack of six at the same location every time making them predictable.

If your party feels unconfortable killing assassins or wants to be safer, throw an indendiary bomb on to your position when the horn blows for the second time. This will make it easier to kill assassins and the trash comming with them.

The map specific part includes markers for the spawn location of the gutter runner “pack”.

The circle might not be 100% accurate but symbolized the direction your parties special killers should focus on. The gutter runner might spawn way further behind but will eventually cross this point.

It might be possible that one or two gutter runner spawn at the end of the broken bridge so keep an eye out!

Gutter Runner waves are especially dangerous on Schluesselschloss as a single assassin might be capable of pushing several heroes off the bridge. Not only should your party split up if an assassin wave is announced, they should also get closer to the fortress / island side of the bridge to avoid being thrown off.

Wave Types – Stormrush

Stormvermin waves, also called “stormrush” can occur on the same waves as ogre waves. It’s basically a coin flip whether your party will find itself fighting against ogres or Stormvermin on these waves.
Depending on which ogre wave would spawn, Stormvermin waves differ as well requiring your team to adjust their tactic accordingly.
All possible ogre waves as well as their Stormvermin counterparts are listed at the top of this guide. None the less this table will be reposted here to minimize scrolling effort.

Wave Types – Stormrush: No specials

These Stormvermin waves can occur on all waves, which would otherwise spawn two ogres initially. They only contain Stormvermin as well as Clanrats making them one of the easiest Stormrushs to defeat. Two ways to deal with them are as followed:

• If your team has enough crowd control and Stormvermin killing capability, they may choose to stick to their hold out spot and tank the Stormvermin horde till they are killed off completely. While generally easy to do, this attempt can sometimes fail horribly if your tanks don’t block properly, get their block broken by Stormvermin or fail to push at the correct moment which will most likely lead to a quick death of the other heroes.
• The second option is splitting up and revert to kiting. While easy to do for high block movement weapons, shield players can struggle against the clan rats slowly removing their stamina due to the low block run.

As there are two waves spawning two ogres at the start, the Stormvermin wave replacing those, are two different ones as well.

The following information is taken from a Last Stand code flush, provided by Grimalackt.

The “2 Ogres + 1 Ogre” Wave is replaced by the following for a Stormrush:

• 12 Stormvermin with horde when less than 4 Stormvermin are left.

The “2 Ogres + 5 Stormvermin” Wave is replaced by the following for a Stormrush:

• 18 Stormvermin with horde

Both tactics described above work and can be used. If your team has decent crowd control, the first tactic (sticking to the corner) may be better suited.
When your party decides to stay at the gate, make sure to stay close to the wall so Stormvermin dropping from above don’t get into your back.

Staying at the broken bridge is most certainly the best way to encounter this wave. If your party defends both ends of the bridge it should have no problem here.

Wave Types – Stormrush: 3 Assassins

This Stormvermin wave is the counterpart to “4 ogres + 2 packmasters” and the most dangerous Stormrush. The three assassins need to be dealt with as soon as possible or they will pin your tanks (who often stand in front and thus are the easiest prey to assassins) leaving you defenceless against the horde of Stormvermin.

Here is the exact wave information provided by Grimalackt:

• 10 Stormvermin + 3 assassins, 10 more Stormvermin when less than 4 alive

While less dangerous than on The Fall, this wave should even on Town Meeting be something your group watches out for. Your group should stick together at their designated hold out spot. The party’s special killers should be focused on getting rid of those 3 assassins as soon as possible whilst the rest of the group tanks the Stormvermin and pings assassins.

Assassins are generally a big threat on The Fall as they can also push heroes off the bridge. Thus, your party should spread out (over the bridge – don’t use the escape route) as soon as it gets clear that an assassin Stormrush is approaching. As soon as all three assassins are dealt with, the group move closer together, taking the remaining Stormvermin.

Wave Types – Stormrush: 4 Gunner

This Stormvermin wave is the counterpart to “6 ogres + 2 assassins + 2 gunner” and – even though it may sound contradictory – one of the easiest if not the easiest Stormrush.

It has only Stormvermin and 4 Rattling Gunner on Town Meeting. On the Fall, 2 additional Gas rats join the group (for unknown reasons).

Again, the exact wave information:
10 Stormvermin + 4 gunners, 10 more Stormvermin when less than 4 alive.

This however is not true for The Fall as to why will be explained at the “The Fall” related part of this section.

Since no clan or slave rats spawn, kiting without blocking is possible. Stormvermin are slower than players and thus a low threat as long as they don’t corner the heroes or get the chance to surround them by approaching from different directions and cutting the players way off.

Even though sticking to the corner is a valid game plan for this wave, spreading out is generally considered the “safer bet” as long as your group is capable of dealing with the 4 rattling gunners.

As mentioned before, this wave does not only include Stormvermin and Gunner on the Fall, it also spawns to additional gas rats making kiting an even better option here.

On the Fall, two gunner will spawn at the outer end of the broken bridge while the other two gunner will be located closer to the twin bridges finding their way to the first chest location.

Wave Types – Ogres

Last Stand currently offers six different ogre waves with four of them repeating / being used multiple times.

The other two ogre waves are only used on wave 7 (1 ogre + horde) and wave 13 (2 ogres + horde after first ogre died).

All available ogre waves can be seen in the table below and will be explained in the upcoming sections.

Wave Types – 1 Ogre (Wave 7)

Only occurring at wave 7, this wave has no option to be a Stormrush instead. The same tactics can be applied as in adventures, meaning all slave and clan rats should be removed before focusing on the ogre itself.

This wave will also spawn a globe rat which should be targeted first before your group focuses on killing the horde.

After the “trash” is dealt with, the ogre will be completely on it’s own leaving the group both time as well as space to handle it.

Wave Types – 2 Ogres (Wave 13)

Similar to wave 7, this ogre wave will only occur on wave 13 and serves as the gatekeeper to finishing the Last Stand Achievement.

At the start of the wave, two ogres with two gas rats will spawn. The groups first target should be these globadiers.

As soon as they are removed. The group can split into pairs of two (one team for each ogre) and move over to killing them.

After the first ogre died, a horde will spawn. Your party should then focus on killing the horde and isolating the ogre again. It’s advised that one player keeps kiting the ogre and informs the rest of the group if he loses aggro.

Wave Types – 2 Ogres (+1 Ogre)

Keep in mind that this wave can be randomly replaced with a Stormrush. For more information regarding those, please refer to “Wave Types – Stormrush: No specials”.

This ogre wave can appear on wave 18 for the first time and is one of the easiest ones to deal with as it only spawns two ogres at the start of the wave.

Split your team into two groups of two and focus on one ogre each. He will repeatedly lose aggro on one player and more to the opposite one. Just keep an eye out for the second team so you don’t collide.

After the first ogre is killed, another one joins the pack bringing its number back up to two (unless you killed both ogres in parallel) – and that’s it. Since this wave is generally a very low threat to your team. Dying and respawning due to low health or low ammunition might be worthwhile.

Wave Types – 2 Ogres (+5 Storms)

Keep in mind that this wave can be randomly replaced with a Stormrush. For more information regarding those, please refer to “Wave Types – Stormrush: No specials”.

This ogre wave can appear on wave 22 for the first time and is – just as the other 2 ogre wave – one of the easiest ones to deal with as it only spawns two ogres at the start of the wave.

Split your team into two groups of two and focus on one ogre each. He will repeatedly lose aggro on one player and more to the opposite one. Just keep an eye out for the second team so you don’t collide.

After the first ogre is killed, 5 Stormvermin will spawn. This wave is generally a low threat to your team therefore dying and respawning for more health or ammunition might be worthwhile (check with your team first!)

The safest way to respawn on this wave is by keeping one stormvermin alive, since the wave won’t end till all 5 stormvermin as well as both ogres are killed.

On Town Meeting, all 5 Stormvermin will be spawning behind the gate (the commonly use hold off point at the “Barrel Event” on Horn of Magnus) and climb over the wall.

On The Fall, all 5 Stormvermin will spawn somewhere close to the upper cliff side in the area of the crane. Since the most commonly used spot to kill ogres is the forest, you might find them jumping down the stairs moving into your direction (next to the first chest).

Wave Types – 4 Ogres (+2 Packmasters)

Keep in mind that this wave can be randomly replaced with a Stormrush. For more information regarding those, please refer to “Wave Types – Stormrush: 3 Assassins”.

This ogre wave can appear on wave 24 for the first time and quite dangerous if the two packmasters spawned with it aren’t dealt with.
It spawns four ogres at random locations and two packmasters at set locations. The two packmasters should be the main focus of your group as getting caught by one often means certain death.

After both packmasters are done, the heroes need to get rid of all 4 ogres.
A often used tactic is trying to get three ogres aggroing a single hero thus isolating one ogre. As soon as a hero “caught” three ogres he should then revert to kiting them till the isolated ogre is killed.

This cycle then gets repeated till only two ogres are left which allows for the same tactic as earlier ogre waves.

The two packmasters will spawn at the marked locations shown in this image.
(Note: On some occasions, this packmaster might drop down on the right side of the scaffolding.)
(Note: This packmaster will always jump over the wodden fence close to the tents)

The two packmasters will spawn at both bridges.

Wave Types – 6 Ogres

This is the big one. By beating this wave, your party has proven to defeat everything Last Stand throws at you. Possibly appearing for the first time on wave 35, this ogre wave will throw 6 ogres, 2 assassins as well as 2 gunner at you.

The six ogres will all spawn at the start of the wave, same as the specials even though those appear to be spawning closely after the ogres.

Your teams top priority should be taking out those assassins. If they catch a hero, they will pin him to the ground and let the horde of rat ogres kill him easily. The easiest way to kill them is through the two auto aim weapons Trueflight Longbow and Bolt staff.

The Ratling gunner should also be dealt with as they will otherwise cause significant damage. Especially on Town Meeting Gunners have a very open area and therefor almost always line of sight to players.

As of writing this guide, the author does only know about the exact spawn point of the two rattling gunners on Town Meeting. They both spawn at the same location as one packmaster from the 4 ogre wave.

Both Rattling Gunner spawn at the marked location.

Changelog

## 2017-09-01
Updated Trinkets section

## 2017-06-07
Added Ogre Mechanics

## 2017-06-01
Changed Section about Devastating Blow
Added Glaive to Stormvermin Killer weapons

## 2017-05-30
Added Wave Types
Added Table of Contents
Reworked Guide Structure

## 2017-05-28
initial