Table of contents
- Master Space Marine 2 with my ultimate beginner tips and cut down the learning curve from day one.
- Unlocking custom armor and weapon perks in the game can be complex, but mastering it lets you create a truly unique and powerful character.
- Your class will suck at level one, but keep smashing your head against it and you'll break through around level 8-10.
- Test every class to find your playstyle and take game difficulty seriously.
- Master the art of perfect parry and quick charge attacks to dominate Space Marine 2!
Master Space Marine 2 with my ultimate beginner tips and cut down the learning curve from day one.
Space Marine 2 is just launching, and with it, many of us will pick up the mantle of the emperor's angels of death. Whether you're a seasoned third-person shooter veteran or brand new to the series, there are a lot of mechanics that are convoluted about Space Marine 2 that took me a handful of hours to discover. In this video, I want to give you my best beginner tips to help you hit the ground running on day one after my 100 hours in the game. This will help cut down on the immense learning curve, as the game is not easy by any stretch of the imagination.
If this is your first time on my channel, the way I do things is by upping the knowledge of my videos. Now, that's a bit difficult when we're talking about a handful of tips, so you can find each one in the chapters in both the timeline and the description. Simply navigate to any part of the video that interests you the most, just in case you want to discover some of the combat for yourself or if you're curious about how unlocks work or whatever it is you have in mind. If this video ends up helping you, please don't forget to like, comment, or subscribe, as each one of those things helps me in a massive way. Lastly, I'll be streaming Space Marine 2 on Twitch with giveaways of the ultimate edition of the game on the 4th, 5th, and 6th of September at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Standard. So swing on by, experience the game, ask questions, or try and enter for a chance to win.
Let's get started with my ultimate beginner tips for Space Marine 2. The first tip you're going to want to know is that every single class has a passive ability, and all you have to do is hover over it to find it. For example, the Bull Work's starting perk increases Health by 20%. The Vanguard's contested Health regenerates 50% faster, the Assault class has a bonus for perfect Dodge by having its timing increased by 50%, and the Tactical class will reload its weapon after 10 seconds. Your Sniper gets a 10% bonus damage to headshots, and lastly, your Heavy will give a bonus of 10% less damage from ranged attacks to all Squad members within 50 meters when you turn Iron Halo on. I did not know this for 40 hours of gameplay, so this is my first tip to you.
My big tip here is about requisition. It is the most prevalent resource, but it is also the most important resource. You'll use this to purchase different variations of weapons, new heraldry, and for your perk tree, unlocking each and every one of these perks. Requisition is crucial because you're going to use it from the lowest difficulty to the highest difficulty. There are quick ways to get it, but most of the time, you'll be earning it through online multiplayer games or through operations, either Co-op or single-player. Since requisition is king, your trials are very important. Every single class has three trials to take advantage of, and these three trials will award you 25 requisition each if you get the B tier. This is a great way to get access to quite a bit of requisition—75 requisition just from doing a single character, and with six classes, you have 450 requisition just sitting on your characters. Make sure you do this on the ones you're playing the most because it will give you a nice boost to your acquisition at the very beginning of the game.
Another big thing for Space Marine 2 is your unlocks. Unlocking weapons and perks is relatively straightforward, but your armor sets and your Astartes chapters are not necessarily very straightforward. Think of your armor set as the physical pieces of armor your character is wearing. Essentially, it's like kit bashing your model from a tabletop perspective. Whatever you set as your custom armor set, you are choosing individual pieces of this armor set to put on. For example, here's a different helmet, and here's another different helmet. You'll see achievements like "achieve victory in one mission in operations mode or matches in Eternal War mode to unlock."
Unlocking custom armor and weapon perks in the game can be complex, but mastering it lets you create a truly unique and powerful character.
You don't need to play multiplayer if you don't want to; you can simply play single-player operations. Anytime you see a number there, it's a countdown. I'm only one mission away from this. Rather than seeing a bar that shows you, "Hey, complete 15 missions; you've got 14 of 15 completed," the game is just showing me I only need to do one more mission to unlock this armor piece.
After you've set your custom armor, you have your Astartes chapters, which are whatever custom or preset Astartes chapter you want to use. First, you have to unlock them. By doing that, you show heraldry, take a look, and unlock the three pieces here, and you'll then unlock this chapter. Pretty much what you're doing is unlocking armor colors, more or less, the colors for this armor that you can then set in your custom armor set right here.
This is a gentleman on Instagram called Sanguin Night Terrors. It's his Blood Angel successor. If you're on Instagram and you like watching a guy who makes badass model paint jobs, go check him out. He has this exact Blood Angel successor paint job for all of his models, and it looks really sick. Conversely, you can just set however many you want. It's worth noting right now, at least on my build—this might be different come launch—I cannot delete any of these. You can simply recustomize them, but it's worth noting.
So again, your armor sets are the physical armor you're wearing. The Astartes chapters are the paint jobs on that armor, regardless of whatever armor pieces you have equipped. Outside of all the armor cosmetic unlocks, we have the Mastery point system and attached to that is also the weapon data system. Up top, you'll see here the weapon data that we have access to: we have a green, a purple, and then we have that orange. That corresponds to mastercrafted, artificer, and then Relic. You get those corresponding resources from each respective difficulty. The first two are going to get you the green, the third difficulty gets you the purple, and the fourth difficulty will get you the orange.
This is a pretty convoluted system when you first look at it because you have these weapons that you unlock, and then there is a perk tree. The perk tree is progressed with Mastery points, whereas these are all progressed with weapon data and experience. Take a look over here; it says Plasma Pistol experience 7500 out of 25,700. So I recruited 7500, which puts me into this tier, the third tier, and I have to use weapon data to purchase this tier. Let's go over here to the bolt gun to show you the difference. My bolt gun, I have not gotten this up to 1,500 for mastercrafted, and you can see here too that we have these two bolt pistols unlocked.
If I switch over to this, you can see that I've unlocked the first tier and the second tier for the thunderhammer, but I have not unlocked these weapons. This is where weapon data comes in. Rather than simply equipping this weapon and using it to then give it experience because you see there's this Mastery bar here, I can simply spend 75 requisition to purchase it. Once I've purchased it, I can use weapon data to get its Mastery Point. This is really convoluted; this is where you're really going to get lost. You want to acquire the Mastery points of the weapons you're not even going to use so that you can get the Mastery points for your perk tree.
If I go ahead and reset this, you see I've got two Mastery points because two of my weapons have that little Mastery Cog on them. This allows me to, at any point, swap these Mastery points out as I want and invest these Mastery points to progress this overall weapon category. If I take a look at my power fist, I've got the same thing. Or if I go look over here at this pistol, I've got three Mastery cogs here, so that allows me to progress three Mastery points. Even though I look at this weapon and go, "This is what I want," but this weapon I don't really want due to the low accuracy, I like the increased magazine capacity and ammo reserve. I'd rather just have this one. I purchase this and use weapon data to get the Mastery point. Then, when I progress to the next tier, I use that tier's corresponding weapon data on the tier to unlock it, as well as the individual weapons to unlock them and get more Mastery points.
I'm doing a whole video on this segment, but this is just a real quick kind of crash course on it. It's a thing that, once you kind of put it all into motion, makes sense, but it's initially very difficult.
Your class will suck at level one, but keep smashing your head against it and you'll break through around level 8-10.
You can just swap the appearance of anything you have unlocked by simply equipping it over here. The last thing to know about this system is, let's go back to my Plasma Pistol. The last thing to know about this system is that you need to lock the tier to gain experience. For example, if you are at 7500 plasma experience with your Plasma Pistol and you go on missions, you will not get any experience until you lock this tier. Make sure you have the necessary weapon data for the items you're using as you unlock them, so you don't miss out on any experience. If you're at 7,499 experience points, you'll only get one point of experience until you invest that weapon data.
Speaking of weapons, the most important ones are your melee weapons because you'll spend a lot of time in melee combat. For example, the assault class has three weapons: the chainsword, the thunderhammer, and the Power Fist. If you're familiar with tabletop, you might have an idea of how these perform, but it’s different here. The chainsword, for instance, specializes in single-target damage, unlike the thunderhammer, which is contrary to what you might expect. The Power Fist is slightly to the right of the center in terms of specialization.
Each weapon also has a defense attribute. Every weapon starts balanced, but you can choose between fencing or block. Fencing increases the perfect Parry window, while block allows you to hold down the block button without the ability to Parry. This is crucial for classes like the assault, which might have a weapon with high strength but cannot Parry, only block. On the other hand, if you're playing a bulwark and want to Parry more, you'll need a weapon with fencing. This is all playstyle and class-dependent. For example, the Vanguard gets a 50% increase to its perfect Parry window, while the assault class focuses more on brute strength with weapons like the thunderhammer.
When you start the game, you have six classes: Tactical, Assault, Vanguard, Bulwark, Sniper, and Heavy. These classes are for both operations and multiplayer. Initially, every class is weak at level one, which is intended. The game is skill-heavy, and you need to improve your gameplay. Even at max level, a character can still die easily at higher difficulties. Your character level only increases your chances of success, but you are the one who will ultimately succeed in the game. The game becomes more manageable around levels 8, 9, or 10 as your character gains more mechanics to lean into.
Test every class to find your playstyle and take game difficulty seriously.
When choosing a class, it ultimately comes down to how you like the play style of that class. I encourage you to play every single one and do the trials for them to see if it aligns with the way you like to play. For example, I have zero experience with the Tactical class because it just wasn’t a class I enjoyed. I failed the mission, and that’s why I have zero experience with it. Try them out, see what you enjoy, and then go from there.
This game is not easy. If you play operations, the game is not the same as the campaign; there are different mechanics that kick in. You are going to be really hurting for health on minimal difficulty, so pay attention to the screen that shows the recommended level for each difficulty. We have minimal, average, substantial, and ruthless, with another difficulty coming in October. This basically goes from level one to level 25 for the recommendations. On max difficulty, respawn timers are increased, enemies are deadly, and your first incapacitation inflicts a mortal wound. Armor data is relic, and Medicaid stems are less effective. These aspects can haunt you because certain mission elements are RNG. You don’t know if there will be the same amount of objectives in one mission as another. Armory crates that restock your ammunition are less frequent on higher difficulties, so the game will punish you. Take these difficulties seriously.
I come from the world of Vermintide and Darktide, and I've been playing a ton with Indie Pride from Milk and Cookies Total War. He’s a veteran of those games, way beyond my skill, and we have been struggling until reaching a certain breakpoint around level five or six. At that point, your character starts to get better weapon unlocks and damage, and you understand the cadence of the game. The game is punishing, but remember, difficulty is meant to be taken seriously. Don’t touch average until you’re level five or unless someone is carrying you through the game. Even then, expect it to be a punishing process.
Unlike armor, weapons transcend classes. Armor in the game is linked to individual classes because it’s customized for each one, but weapons can be used by multiple classes. Leveling up a weapon on one class will make it accessible for another class. For example, my Bulwark has a plasma gun with 7500 experience, which I can switch over to my heavy and use at the same level. This allows you to level up weapons on a character and use them on another character you might not be as good at. For instance, the bolt pistol I’ve used on my assault is almost at tier three. The sniper class struggles initially until it gets more talents, but having a leveled-up bolt pistol makes it easier to jump into the sniper class.
If you’re struggling with one class, try to use the fact that some weapons transcend classes. For example, the Stalker bolt rifle and the bolt carbine can be used by both the Tactical and the sniper classes. You can level these weapons up on one class and use them on another. The meltagun is another example of a weapon accessible on multiple classes. Use this to your advantage to power level classes you’re struggling with.
Master the art of perfect parry and quick charge attacks to dominate Space Marine 2!
One of the most important skills to master in Space Marine is dodging, hitting things, and then getting a gun strike. Using a controller on my PC, you can see all the combos. Everything will have something like this that says Canon punch, which sounds a lot like Falcon Punch. While evading or while sprinting, right bumper, which is just going to be left click right left click if you're on a keyboard. So if I run right bumper, I do that. It's the same thing if I were to do this and that. It’s a Dodge and a right bumper.
What this enables you to do, and I'm going to try to show it off here while filming this live, is hit any of the Bas level creatures, tyranids, or any of the gauns, termagon, or zenor and knock them over so that you can get a gun strike. The gun strike will then give you one bubble of armor. This is the most crucial thing to learn because it will keep you in a healthy situation where you can push through hordes and still maintain armor rather than just simply dying because you just can't get a kill off or execute off. This just allows you to basically spam this SP, this and this, messing up live on air like I'm doing right now, and you can keep your armor up.
Let's go ahead and do this, and that little reticle pops up. R2 and I do that so that enables me to keep my health from always dropping. You want to try to mitigate your armor as much as you can because it’s going to fall off very quickly in the higher difficulties. So again, just one more time, I'll sprint over to these guys, and we're going to just simply right bumper them, then I'm going to hold down or press R2 here. That little reticle pops up, and we press R2, and we're good. It will always appear and feel like, okay, now I'm back again. My armor is just staying up this way rather than constantly having to worry about it.
Another big one are these bulbs, these Barbed bulbs. You'll see they'll spit out this little green sperm. Basically, what you do is you shoot them every time you see those things, and this enables you to push through them without getting hung up. They will slow you down otherwise. If I walk through, it slows me down, and it will eventually poison me if I stay in this. I'm just taking the damage here, sure, in a video, but the big thing is you want to shoot those. On the lower difficulties, it's not as crucial, but once we get into higher ones, it's going to be absolutely crucial because those things will slow you down and be extremely punishing. You can just die in the middle of filming the video, but my point remains: shoot the bulbs.
When you jump into your first game, you're going to be wondering how to keep ammo up, health up, and armor up. Look for these green crates. They're huge and very important. They will scale with the number of active players in the game versus the Bots and will have ammo drops, armor boosts, and health. They will have pretty much everything you need. You can just simply dodge right through them. If there's only one person, it seems that the medic will almost always only drop one unless there are three players, then it will drop two. Usually, ammo will drop sets of two per player, and armor boost will drop one per player. This is the only one that seems to be relatively finite, so you have to determine what makes the most sense for you.
If you want to play the bull work, you’re going to struggle with perfect Parry. That's what I just did right there, and it will be a pain to do. You'll get shot by a sniper while recording a video, but my point is you need to think of Parry as a tap versus a hold. It’s the only class that has a shield, and with a shield, I can hold it down. Watch, I just tank the shot, no big deal, take a full shot. No one else can do that. As a result, it’s very easy to hold down to Parry. When you are playing any other class with the bull work, to get a perfect Parry, you have to be keen about doing a tap versus an actual hold. If you hold down the button, with bull work, you'll just use your shield.
If we can time this here, that is a perfect Parry. Your character will do some sort of big gesture. I find it far easier to do it with a balanced weapon like a Power Fist than any other weapon in the repertoire of the bull work. The bull work has a high skill ceiling, and it's the one I have probably the most time played on. Once you get that timing down for perfect Parry, your character will feel very tanky and survivable. Until then, realize that if you don't hold the left bumper or whatever the block button is, you have to tap it to get that going. It’s tricky, even for me, and I have something like 30 hours. If you're playing bull work and it’s tricky to get the perfect Parry, that is intended. It’s a skill issue, but you'll get the timing down, and it will eventually be easier for you.
I switched over to my assault for this one. Some classes, well most classes, have a charge attack. The heavy, the bull work, and others depend on the weapon. For the charge attack, you pull down your left or your activatable, whatever it is, right bumper, maybe it's left click for you on PC. You don't need to hold it down for that long. In fact, there you go, that's all you needed to do. This gives you the ability to get your charge going a lot faster. This is important, especially if you're playing assault, as it gives you a ton of damage and wave clear. If you sit there and hold it, that's a long time, and you'll be overwhelmed by hordes very easily.
Try to keep that thing constantly on a charge, constantly pulling through to do a lot of that max damage. You can see it right there, it’s an Aftershock application. Damage increases every 1.5 seconds while held. You can get even more out of it, but it’s going to do the trick just fine if you get the timing down. As soon as your other hand touches it, you're good to go. Even that was a little bit long. Try to use this on every single charge weapon. It’s going to work on the Power Fist, the heavy boot slam capability, anytime you have some sort of charge up. You don’t need to do it for the whole windup, just get a little bit of that animation going and let loose.
That brings our video here to a close. Hopefully, these tips helped you out. You're about to jump into Space Marine 2, and it's going to be a lot of fun but very punishing. Don’t be afraid to jump through the campaign. Many of us are seeing the operations because that's what most content creators are showing off, myself included. It has the highest replayability for us, and we didn’t want to spoil the campaign for you. So, you'll be jumping into operations, and it will be hard, but just slam your head against it like a true soldier of the emperor, and you will push through.
A huge shout out to Tragic as well. He’s a gentleman who helps out with Legacy Gaming. If you've seen a lot of Legacy Gaming's videos, he is the sniper or the heavy. Indie Pride and I happened to match up with him in one of these games, and he gave us tons of information on things we didn’t even know were in the game or were a little more hidden. He has 250+ hours in the game, so a huge shout out to him for his help in generating some of these tips and making me a better player.
Thank you so much for watching today. If you have any comments or questions, need help in the game, or have tips to share, leave them in the comments below. Make sure anyone new to the game can get acclimated as best as possible. As always, thank you for watching, have a good one, and take care.