This guide aims to clear up the misconceptions about Unchained and make people see her as a Legend-viable class. I hope that everyone will be able to take something from this guide, regardless of what class they may play!
The Basics
If you already have a good understanding of Sienna and her mechanics then you can skip this section.All of Sienna's subclasses play a bit differently than conventional Vermintide classes, Unchained even more so. In this section I will try to explain her mechanics as quickly and succinctly as possible.
Overcharge Meter
- Using staves generates "Overcharge"
- Taking damage on Unchained will generate overcharge as well.
- The overcharge bar is split up into three parts: gray, orange, and red overcharge.
- Reaching maximum overcharge will cause the player to explode, downing them.
- The explosion deals high damage to enemies.
- Venting overcharge will not stop an explosion-in-progress, the only way to prevent a maximum overcharge death is by using Unchained's Living Bomb career skill.
- Overcharge can be vented by holding the reload key ('R' by default) with a staff equipped.
- Gray overcharge can be vented with no HP loss.
- Venting orange or red overcharge will use the player's HP.
- Venting is more efficient at higher overcharge levels.
- If the player has temporary (white) HP and vents, it will be consumed before normal HP
- Red overcharge slows the player's movement and attack speed UNLESS they are the Unchained subclass.
Your Role
Unchained is a very tanky class, but unlike other tanks, you are able to put out quite a lot of damage. Your job as Unchained is to carry grimoires, tomes, melt hordes, incinerate elites, and sear specials before they get a chance to hurt your allies.The following assumes that the player is using the bolt staff, though nearly all of this is applicable to other staves, as Unchained can utilize them all quite effectively. However, the bolt staff is her most versatile weapon and excels at swiftly killing specials and elites, which is crucial for doing well when pubbing Legend. The beam staff is also a fine choice, as it can quickly deal with whatever the director throws at you. Unless you are experienced with using them, I would suggest avoiding Sienna's other staves as they are gimmicky or ineffective against some enemy types.
Pick off distant elites with heavy ranged attacks as you move through levels, prioritizing plague monks, savages, and maulers in particular. These enemy types can be a big problem for other classes but will die very quickly to sustained fire from most staves. If armored elites are in melee range, it is best to switch to melee and block their attacks while countering with charged attacks to the head. You can also try to quickly take them out with your staff if you are confident in your ability to land headshots and dodge attacks.
During hordes, try to thin out the densest groups of enemies with your staff as soon as they come in to sight. Stacked enemies are a huge threat to melee players, killing off even half of them will help your teammates out immensely. Aim for bodyshots on distant enemies, as the bolt staff tends to be inaccurate at longer ranges. At short-range, aim at head-neck level to headshot most of the enemies, killing them significantly faster. At this point, the horde should be very close, switch to melee once you have 2-3 Unstable Strength stacks, or ~4 stacks if your ult is up. This will give you a massive damage increase, potentially allowing you to oneshot fanatics on Legend difficulty! It is important to note that Sienna's weapons are much more powerful if you use charged attacks, the light attacks have very poor cleave. If you take too much damage and reach maximum overcharge then pop Living Bomb to prevent yourself from dying. Your ult is also quite useful for staggering elite enemies, such as stormvermin or chaos warriors, or for killing off the last enemies at the end of a horde. Living Bomb is an offensive tool, not just a defensive one, you should never hold ults for too long! If you are concerned about avoiding overcharge deaths then manually vent more often until you are confident in your ability to avoid damage.
Prioritize specials above all else.
The bolt staff is a very effective special killer; its rapid-fire light attacks will stagger most specials, preventing them from attacking. Charged heavy attack headshots will instantly slay any special, 2-3 charged bodyshots will kill them as well. Remember: you miss every shot you don't take, accuracy through volume can be a good way to use the bolt staff so long as the special enemies die in the end. Be careful not to tunnel vision and overheat! If you reach red overcharge threshhold consider leaving the special mob and venting. It is not worth trading your life for that of a special.
It is very important to maintain awareness of your surroundings, Unchained can die very quickly to stray trash mobs maxing out her overcharge meter. Be especially attentive of the sounds you hear, as enemies will usually make some sort of noise before they attack you regardless of what direction they are coming from. It can also be a good idea to quickly 180 once in a while to make sure that no enemies are sneaking up on you.
Also of note is that Unchained can make quick work of chaos warriors with the mace by utilizing overhead charged attack headshots when she has three or more Unstable Strength stacks. You can cancel the charge attack combo chain by blocking after each overhead strike. Doing this will kill Legend CW's in mere seconds.
Melee Weapons
This list is based on a combination of dummy testing, in-game testing, and personal feelings. I will update it once actual stats are data-mined. Please note that all of these stats are derived from unbuffed melee weapons. No overcharge damage bonus, no potions, no offensive talents.Picking complementary weapons is critical to doing well on higher difficulties. You do not necessarily have to use meta loadouts to win games on Legend, but you should be picking weapons that cover for eachothers weaknesses. The Flamestorm Staff, for example, is rather mediocre against armored targets, so the mace (a very strong anti-armor weapon) would be a great choice to use alongside of it. Sienna's melee weapons may be weak compared to other classes, but with enough practice they will make short work of most enemies.
Dagger
Damage - Very Low~High
Effectiveness vs Hordes - High
Effectiveness vs Armor - Average
Speed - Very High
Cleave - Low~Very High
Stagger - High
Shove - Low
Range - Low
Notes:
- High movespeed boost from light & push attacks
- Must use charge attacks to effectively deal with hordes.
- Charge attacks have very high cleave and damage output versus multiple enemies.
- Damage over time effect on overhead charged and push attacks.
Fire Sword
Damage - Average
Effectiveness vs Hordes - High
Effectiveness vs Armor - Low
Speed - Average
Cleave - Average~Very High
Stagger - Low
Shove - High
Range - Average
Notes:
- Looks cool as heck.
- May benefit from block canceling after two attacks during hordes.
- Charge attacks have very high cleave and damage output versus multiple enemies.
- Damage over time effect on charged attacks.
Mace
Damage - Average-High
Effectiveness vs Hordes - High
Effectiveness vs Armor - Very High
Speed - Average
Cleave - High
Stagger - High
Shove - High
Range - Average
Notes:
- The first light and heavy attacks deal massive single-target damage.
- Twoshots Stormvermin with charged attack headshots, must be charge1 attacks! Block cancel after the first strike.Charged attacks can be chained for continuous high-damage cleaves after the initial overhead charge attack.
- Can continuously cleave with push attack > light attack > charge attack combos. Synergizes very well with the 'Feuerbach's Fury' talent.Damage over time effect on overhead charged attack (charge1).
- Heavy attacks will cause shield infantry to drop their shield.
Sword
Damage - Average
Effectiveness vs Hordes - Average
Effectiveness vs Armor - Low
Speed - High
Cleave - High
Stagger - Average
Shove - Average
Range - Average
Notes:
- No really, why?
- Benefits from block-canceling after two attacks during hordes.
- Charged attacks can be chained for continuous high-damage cleaves.
- Great against skaven hordes but needs a good amount of chaos damage or overcharge stacks to effectively deal with fanatics.
Ranged Weapons
Beam Staff
| Light | Heavy | Shotgun | |
| Overcharge | Very Low | Average | High |
| Effectiveness vs Hordes | Low | Very Low | Insane |
| Effectiveness vs Armor | Low | High | Very Low |
| Effectiveness vs Specials | Average | Very High | Low |
| Effective Range | Very High | Very High | Very Low |
| Stagger | High | Very High | High |
| Speed | Continuous | Average | High |
- Has three fire modes: Beam (LMB), Heavy (LMB > RMB), and Shotgun (RMB > LMB.)
- Heavy attack damage scales with duration of beam hitting target.
- Must attack an enemy with Beam mode for approximately three seconds to reach full heavy attack damage potential.
- Holding LMB and switching to the beam staff will begin firing the beam without zooming in, it WILL zoom in if you use a heavy attack.
- DoT effect on heavy and shotgun attacks.
Bolt Staff
| Light | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|
| Overcharge | Very Low | Average |
| Effectiveness vs Hordes | Average | Very Low |
| Effectiveness vs Armor | Low | Very High |
| Effectiveness vs Specials | High | Very High |
| Effective Range | Average | Very High |
| Stagger | Average | High |
| Speed | Insane | Very Low |
- Heavy attacks must be charged for approximately two seconds to reach full damage.
- Heavy attacks have travel time, lead your targets if they are far away!
Conflagration Staff
| Light | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|
| Overcharge | Very Low | Very High |
| Effectiveness vs Hordes | Very Low | Very High |
| Effectiveness vs Armor | Average | Very Low |
| Effectiveness vs Specials | Average | Very Low |
| Effective Range | Very High | High |
| Stagger | High | Insane |
| Speed | High | Very Low |
- Can stagger entire chaos patrols with heavy attacks.
- Can stagger all non-boss enemies (aside from packmasters) with an uncharged heavy attack.
Fireball Staff
| Light | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|
| Overcharge | Very Low | Low |
| Effectiveness vs Hordes | Very Low | High |
| Effectiveness vs Armor | Average | Average |
| Effectiveness vs Specials | Average | Average |
| Effective Range | High | High |
| Stagger | High | High |
| Speed | Average | Very Low |
- Oneshots packmasters with fully charged heavy attacks.
- Fully charged heavy attacks have a slightly increased the AOE radius.
- Heavy attacks have projectile drop at longer ranges.
- Limited effectiveness in open areas.
- DoT effect on heavy attacks.
Flamestorm Staff
| Light | Heavy | |
|---|---|---|
| Overcharge | Low | High |
| Effectiveness vs Hordes | Very Low | Insane |
| Effectiveness vs Armor | Very Low | Low |
| Effectiveness vs Specials | Average | Average |
| Effective Range | High | Low |
| Stagger | High | High |
| Speed | Low | Very High |
- Continuous fire can stagger-lock most conventional enemies as well as specials.
- Fully-charged attacks last for ~5 seconds before stopping.
- Using Living Bomb will not interrupt a heavy attack in progress
- Slow charge time
Staff Mechanics
These are the basic mechanics inherent to every type of staff, as well as a few staff-specific mechanics. Although they may not be essential, utilizing these mechanics will marginally increase your damage output as well as your survivability.- Holding RMB while switching to a staff from melee will immediately start charging a heavy attack.
- Holding RMB while switching to the Beam Staff will immediately switch it to shotgun mode.
- Holding RMB while switching to melee will make you immediately start blocking.
- Living Bomb will never interrupt staff charge animations.
- Getting hit by an enemy while charging a staff animation will interrupt it.
- It is possible to dodge while charging attacks.
- It is possible to animation cancel heavy attacks with the Beam and Conflagration staves, making them attack much faster than normal.
- Beam : After firing, release LMB, then LMB > RMB
- Conflag : After firing, release RMB, then RMB > LMB
- Most staves benefit little from speed potions, as they do not increase heavy attack charge times. The one exception to this is the Fireball Staff, which can output insane amounts of AOE damage on to patrols or hordes by spamming uncharged heavy attacks. All stave light attacks benefit normally from potions.
Equipment
As mentioned in my shade guide: Practice and experience will take you farther than items ever will. Don't stress too much over your gear, the difference that it makes is actually quite negligible. You do not need reds. You do not need perfect rolls. Aim for 4% or higher on stats that cap at 5, such as attack speed and critical hit rate. 8% or more for stats that cap at 10, such as Power vs Faction.Gearing Unchained is fairly linear, some things just don't work well on her and there's not a lot that you can do about it. For general use, the mace and beam staff are her strongest weapon. That said, the bolt and conflag staves are also quite strong, and much more engaging to play with. I found that crit builds don't work too well on Unchained, but if you do well with one or just enjoy it then keep using it. Play whatever you have fun with, just don't make the mistake of focusing too much on dealing with a single enemy type.
Do not use Natural Bond.
You may be thinking "Unchained is so tanky, I can use regen and always be at full HP!" This is not the case. Not only is it irresponsible to take NB on grimoire carrier classes, but when played optimally Unchained will take very little damage, negating the need for regen. Even if you do get hit a fair amount, the temporary HP generation from clearing hordes is quite high and will usually keep you at full HP if you are playing well. The only time you should ever have an NB necklace equipped is for 'Deprivation' modifier deeds.
General-Purpose Build
Notes:
- +% Power vs Infantry and +% Power vs Chaos are indistinguishable for purpose of this build.
- It can be beneficial to get even more Infantry & Chaos power on some weapons, many of Sienna's weapons are capable of oneshotting fanatics with +20-30% power and 3+ Unstable Strength stacks!
- The 'Parry' trait for melee weapons synergizes with your 'Blazing Sinews' passive. Parrying 1-2 Chaos Warrior attacks is enough to purge all of your built up overcharge.
- 'Boon of Shallya' is essential to Unchained, as it helps to generate huge amounts of temporary HP from both ranged and melee combat. This affords the player better survivability as well as more HP to vent with, if necessary. It also has the added benefit of making healing kits max out your HP as well as helping healing draughts keep up with your immense HP pool.
- 'Concoction' is very useful, as it allows you to get an entire ult off of potions that people commonly ignore.
- The beam staff is an excellent choice for a pure-melee build, as its shotgun fire mode generates massive amounts of overcharge very quickly. Be sure to remove all overcharge reduction talents and traits if you are using this build!
Talents
There is not much to say here. Unchained's talents are quite lackluster as most of them are very gimmicky or only there for the illusion of choice.Recommended Talents
Passives
Red overcharge slows the player's movement and attack speed.
Slave to Aqshy is a rather lackluster passive, allowing the player to move and attack at full speed despite being at red overcharge. You should only attempt to utilize this passive if you are very confident in your ability to avoid damage or if Living Bomb is off cooldown!
Unstable Strength is incredibly strong as of v1.08, more than doubling melee damage output at high overcharge levels. Making use of this passive is essential to playing Unchained to its fullest potential, as it allows you to slaughter elites and hordes in a fraction of the time it would take with a staff.
As you gain overcharge, you will gain Unstable Strength stacks, shown by the icon in the lower-left of your screen. Every stack of US will raise your melee damage by roughly 25%, all the way up to 145% with the maximum number of stacks!
If you are prone to taking damage, it can be a good idea to stay at lower overcharge percentages until Living Bomb is off cooldown. At just 50%+ overcharge you will deal 75% more damage, enough to halve the number of hits required to kill most enemies.
Blazing Sinews is mainly useful for resetting your overcharge. The passive actually synergizes with the legendary weapon trait 'Parry', allowing you to quickly empty a red overcharge bar by parrying 1-2 elite enemy overhead attacks. No values are known for the block cost reduction effect, and it is rare that you will ever need to make use of it.
Ult Usage
As mentioned in the role section, it is best to save Living Bomb for hordes, as it deals significant damage to trash enemies while knocking down any survivors. Ideally you will be ranging hordes as soon as they come in to sight, and have high overcharge when they reach you. When enemies are in melee range, switch to melee and start murdering as many of them as possible. If you take too much damage and start the overcharge explosion animation, simply use your ult and go back to ranging enemies with the space that LB's massive stagger created. It is not effective to melee at this point considering how weak Sienna's unbuffed weapons are.Due to LB's high crowd control power, it can be invaluable for safely ressing allies in combat. Hold block, pop your ult to knock down and stagger all nearby enemies, and start ressing your ally. Follow up on nearby enemies with shove attacks if they are going to attack your teammate. It is also worth mentioning that LB can stagger every non-boss enemy, even chaos warriors and packmasters. If you stagger a packmaster when it is near, it will run away for ~5 seconds instead of attempting to grab you.
Living Bomb will hurt allies who are caught in it. The damage is not very high but you should take care not to hit teammates with it regardless. Be especially careful to avoid teammates who are at very low hp or have been downed!
Unchained's class skill has a cooldown time of 2 minutes (120 seconds). Ideally you will build for maximum cooldown reduction to lower this even further, which will greatly boost your survivability and help with your role of horde-clearing.
| CDR | Reduction | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Tick, Tick, Tick... | 30% | 36 seconds |
| Trinket | 10% | 12 seconds |
| Resourceful Combatant | 2% / crit | 2.4 seconds |
| Taking Damage | Scales with damage | Varies |
Elites
Unchained cannot deal with elites as swiftly as other classes, but she is still a very capable (albeit slower-paced) elite-killer. Well-aimed heavy ranged attack headshots from any staff will take out elites with ease. Focus on taking out berserkers and maulers in particular, as Unchained excels at quickly slaughtering them from long range before they can become a threat to your team. Elite mobs have massive damage output; be very careful to block or dodge their attacks!Stormvermin
Headshoting unalerted stormvermin from far away generally won't alert any nearby enemies
Shieldvermin
Headshot unalerted shieldvermin from far away generally won't alert any nearby enemies.
Light range or melee attack until they drop their shield, then attack their head with charged attacks.
Plague Monk
Don't stop blocking, let your teammates deal with these if they are aggro'd on you.
Spam ranged attacks at them from a distance if possible.
Avoid cornering yourself if these aggro on you, they can easily chip down your HP if there are other enemies helping.
Mauler
These don't seem to have any unique audio cues and can easily oneshot you from behind if you are not attentive.
Their head is armored, spam ranged bodyshots to quickly take them out!
Savage
Hold block if they target you.
Don't stop blocking, let your teammates deal with these if they are aggro'd on you.
If there are not many enemies around, position yourself on the other side of the Savage so that your teammates can safely melee him.
Spam ranged attacks at them from a distance if possible.
Avoid cornering yourself if these aggro on you, they can easily chip down your HP if there are other enemies helping.
Chaos Warrior
Aim for his head, bodyshots with most attacks do very little damage.
Specials
Specials can be very dangerous and wipe entire teams if not quickly taken care of. It is very important to learn every special mob's audio cue, and how to deal with their attacks. One or two heavy ranged attacks is usually enough to kill every special listed. Taking damage will generally prevent any special aside from packmasters from attacking.Blightstormer
Their storm has a deceptively long range, be careful!
Will teleport away ~3 seconds after taking damage.
Leech
These make a distinctive sound when they teleport, wait for this and sidestep the projectile, then headshot him with your ranged weapon.
Will generally teleport behind the player or group.
If the leech takes any damage while grabbing a player they will drop them.
If the leech takes any damage before trying to grab a player they will teleport away without attacking.
Globadier
Fairly awkward to headshot, more often than not you will have to bodyshot them to death.
Will charge at players and attempt to suicide bomb them at low HP.
Their suicide attack can hurt you through walls, be very careful if you hear the low HP audio cue.
Packmaster
Gutter Runner
Ratling Gunner
Ratling Gunners tend to shoot through wooden objects or clutter at times.
Warpfire Thrower
Will sometimes explode if the tank on their back is hit, dealing light damage to anything nearby and leaving a small patch of warpfire on the ground.
Sack Rat
Bosses
To put it bluntly, Unchained is not a very strong boss slayer. Not to say that she is bad at it, but by no means will you be able to keep up with boss-oriented classes such as shade or bounty hunter. Ideally you should be putting out 400-700 damage on legend bosses, but it is much more important to focus on mitigating damage from your allies. Take care of any trash mobs or specials that may spawn during the boss fight. In the worst-case scenario Unchained is quite capable of holding off or even soloing a horde to keep her teammates relatively safe as they deal with the boss.Bile Troll
Some regen phases can be skipped if enough damage is dealt quickly enough.
A lot of his attacks pierce blocking, be sure to dodge them; the sideways swipe can be avoided by dodging backwards. while the downwards smashes & puke attacks should be dodged by moving left or right.
If there is no way for you to avoid his puke attack, you can turn away from the boss to avoid being blinded.
Attack the bosses head during regen phases for the best damage output.
Stays invulnerable for a few seconds after regen phases end.
Creates a barrier on certain maps that prevents progression, you must kill him to proceed.
Stormfiend
Weak point is the small rat attached to his back.
Always aim low while attacking his weak point, the metal hood near the top of it is armored and will significantly reduce your damage if you hit it.
Headshotting stormfiends with ranged weapons is also fairly effective.
Generally alternates warpfire thrower bursts and a melee attack at his target
Creates a barrier on certain maps that prevents progression, you must kill him to proceed
Position yourself on the opposite side of Stormfiends relative to your team. By spamming ranged attacks in to their back you will forcefully take aggro for roughly half of the fight, making things much easier for your allies.
Rat Ogre
Has an untelegraphed downwards smash attack that pierces blocking.
Take turns dodge tanking the boss with teammates. To do this, enter his attack range and backstep as attack animations start. Repeat this until the boss aggros on someone else or dies.
Chaos Spawn
Very dangerous against melee-oriented classes.
Will generally alternate a triple attack burst, and a wide-reaching grab.
Dodge backwards to avoid the grab.
The only way for Unchained to interrupt successful grabs is by hitting the boss with an explosive bomb.
If you have an explosive bomb, save it for interrupting grabs.
Can be dodge tanked similar to rat ogre
Map Bosses
Again, Unchained does not have the greatest damage output against bosses. You are much more valuable to your team killing trash enemies that spawn during fights and dealing with boss-specific mechanics if at all possible. This isn't to say you shouldn't be attacking bosses, but killing everything else as soon as possible is much more important.Burblespew ? Halescourge
Skarrik Spinemangler
Stay at medium range to avoid needing to stop DPS to avoid his attacks.
Move backwards and hold block if he starts charging a polearm attack and you are in range.
Try to avoid outright tanking him, some of Spinemangler's attacks will damage you through blocks.
Prioritize killing trash mobs that spawn during the fight.
Bödvarr Ribspreader
Most of his attacks can be avoided by dodging left or right, the one exception is his AOE knockback, which must be blocked or avoided entirely.
Prioritize killing trash mobs that spawn during the fight.
Gatekeeper Naglfahr
Well-armored. Use charged attacks to dealing damage to the boss.Once Naglfahr transforms he can be treated as a regular chaos spawn.
The arena gate will open as soon as the boss transforms, allowing specials and other mobs to enter
Prioritize killing enemies that come in during this time.
Deathrattler
This boss has the same weak points as a conventional stormfiend.Well-armored. Use charged attacks to dealing damage to the boss, unless you are hitting his weak point.
Stay near the pillars unless he has recently aggro'd on a new target. Being caught out in the open by his miniguns is a death sentence.
Prioritize killing trash mobs that spawn during the fight.
Try to constantly ranged attack Rasknitt whenever he falls off of Deathrattler, as this will prevent him from attacking.
Rasknitt
Will always teleport in to one of the four "corners" of the arena after being attacked for long enough.Constantly ranged attack the boss, as this will prevent him from attacking.
Prioritize killing trash mobs if teammates are already attacking the boss.
Guide authors: Faye, Blue, ✕, Zina[Desu] (^_^)v, bob
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