So, as stun animation cancel was removed(i guess weapon were overperforming and overshadowing such things as flamer, power sword, heavy sword with power buffs, shredder autopistol and so on you name it) but stun duration wasn’t adjusted. It was fun to use hammer with cancel since it give hammer an options to be safe in comparison with other “meta” weapons that’s safe to use by default. Now use of special charge are very limited, unfun and punishing in most cases if it’s not isolated target, on old MK hammer(new hammer just a mess with eviscerator cleave problem, very inconsistent with power buffs if you want to kill specific targets). I get that this change been made, most likely, because of new Thunder Hammer, but i ask to consider adjustments for the stun.
Lower the duration from 3 to 1 second
Allow player at least dodge from stun animation
Make cooldown on special activation after hit but remove stun entirely
Anything that will make this weapon fun to use again and not punishing player for using it
There are a lot of weapons that doesn’t require thinking for using them, but why we need to make weapon that actually require at least some positioning, precision and etc even more limited in it’s using and dumbing it down to attack spam as many other melee weapons.
Ironhelm is actually faster than the Cruxis, and it works in mixed hordes, but you do take a ton of damage using it. Heavy Swing pattern is slightly different. That said the Cruxis seems to be stronger on Elites than the Ironhelm. I ran the Ironhelm with Autopistol and it works well,
My Cruxis will 2 shot Crushers on Damnation but the Ironhelm despite similar blessings takes 3, and always takes 2 on Ragers vs 1 on Cruxis. They seem to be equal on Monstrosities so that didn’t lose a step.
…but it does have a lot of problems with Phantom hits and specifically on the non-armored Rager The Charged hit will not go off if you use the full 3 stacks of Thrust Blessing. It will do a normal hit so its obviously a bug.
All in All despite the bugginess its not bad, when its not acting buggy. Still the Animation lock hurts it badly in mixed hordes which is what it was designed for.
I think I actually kill more though with the Cruxis and Flamer combo rather than the Ironhelm and Auto Pistol, but I will say you can use Ironhelm with other ranged weapons and its effective since you don’t get body blocked on your Charged Swings anymore.
I do not veiw the self-stun as the core problem of the thunder hammer series of weapons. Learning when you can and cannot commit to an Obliteration attack is one of the great joys of the Hammer and contributes to its fabulously fun skill floor. With adequate positioning and good timing you can usually get Block or Chastise up before anything can hit you, though sometimes it is quite worth eating that one free toughness hit for the right kill.
The big thing with the hammer is it still suffers from the Secret Service effect where your big hits get eaten by a poxwalker for no value. The buffs to the Crucius feel good but this problem remaining unsolved may drive me away from Crucius despite my preference for its newly improved base armor pen and light attacks and its superior swing pattern.
They made an all new Hammer called Ironhelm, It looks slightly different but this one cleaves through body blockers to hit your intended target.
Also the Heavy swing pattern is slightly different, on Ironhelm the Heavy Swings become one heavy claerout, then a second heavy clearout then an overhead. Cruxis only does Heavy Clearouts but does not cleave on the Charged hit.
Problem with animation locking that on damnation you would die for it. And room for your decisions are now mostly “attack only isolated targets”. Mixed hordes were not a big problem, because you were jumping to snipe elites in horde after CCing them. But now you can’t do it at all.
So there are no real learning when you can or cannot commit. It’s now strictly for isolated targets. 2-3 ragers will kill you for this 3 second stun.
I don’t mind removing animation cancel, just give adjustments to stun. Give player options to work with. Because now there are no room for mistake and it’s better just not use special charge outside of very niche cases(they become even more niche now).
And looking on existing broken weapons which requires not a lot from player to use it makes me sad. They even buffed brutal momentum this patch so it’s has no internal cooldown no more.
I play almost exclusively hi-int damnation and make excellent use of it without the exploit/animation cancelling. It is actually quite rare for me to die from it. Here’s a somewhat old video of me doing it.
I agree with the general critique that its very hard to use in mixed hordes and this is the weakest area for using the hammer. But its hardly unusable in all cases in damnation. Good positioning and understanding the timing for blocking can allow you to sneak in swings. The main problem with the hammer was the secret service effect and mixed hordes. Both are still a problem with crucius so i expect i will drift towards the new hammer due to its superior flexibility.
Yeah the only thing they buffed on Cruxis was the Impact or Stagger. They did improve the light attack damage but you don’t use those in a cleave. they did NOT give Cruxis the ability to pass through other targets before impacting on an Elite though.
There’s two Hammers now…
Ironhelm. that looks like this… which does cleave through targets on Charged Heavies…
And Cruxis… which does not. That’s the Ironhelm I tested today.
Here is my normal Cruxis
This way you can also see the two are comparable in my testing.
Yes, you can do fine. I used to both play stayles too, but cancel give more flexibility and allow you to play less defensive, but still mind about position and your decisions. And if animation cancel considered as exploit why q-q cancel is still there? It’s a rethorical question. There are ablosutely no reason except new hammer to ditch animation cancel. Now thammer fall behind even more comparing to combat axes and heavy swords with power buffs. Not talking about flamer and shredder here.
I just want to be it less punishing, or bring all other weapons in line.
New hammer, as i said, just a mess, it pass through ragers(with special popped up) if you have power buffs up(thrust and/or slaughterer), so you can’t even kill isoalted target properly with it. Or target in mixed horde.
Yeah, basically it’s old thammer but with evis special which is sad since it would be very inconsistent. And dmg curve after first target not better than on old thammer.
No, what I mean is… I kill more Elites with it. Kinda surprising but true.
And I can tell you the Auto Pistol with the Pinning Fire and other Blessing they’re talking about is pretty good at taking down hordes too just like they’re telling you. Its why I could pair it with the Ironhelm. What it doesn’t do is clear off all the junk sticking to an Elite the way the Flamer does because that cleaves through all of it.
Hence why you have to use Flamer with Crucis and you don’t have to with Ironhelm. Its also the reason I ran the test the way I did was because Auto Pistol with Blessings excels at taking down hordes.
It’s not good horde clear weapon, even with slaughterer since you deal like 140 dmg with all power up to second poxwalker. But it’s makes hammer bearable, it’s just slow comparing to most meta weapons which is fine. Only thing thammer needs is a better dmg curve and tweaks/removal of recoil.
It really needs a better damage curve on normal swings AND powered swings. It doesn’t do enough damage considering how slow it is compared to something like the axe or PS or new force swords.
I maintain there’s nothing wrong with the self stun, it just needs the payoff for the risk. Right now other weapons entirely outcompete it and the axe is one and its just a sharpened wedge.
