i feel it is so much playstyle. in fact your sentence about fanatics already is about playstyle. if those screaming rats or dual axe dudes come around, heavy striking them with the 2H will stagger them, buying time for your party to kill them, i’m guessing most people will try to light attack them, and then realise there’s other mobs, then start to hold block etc.
the 2h hammer is good at single target and hordes and has huge stagger capability. the heavy strikes can cover the largest angle of all the weapons. it’s a no brainer for me.
Great axe has less cleave but more damage to additional targets. I prefer this over smacking more trash around without actually killing them. When there’s armor in the mix, your hammer stops as well whilst the great axe gives at least some damage.
Long story short, axe has more killing power, building up temp hp faster as well.
Fanatics is what i (because the stat thingies seem to do) call the basic chaos enemies, the chaos equivalent to skaven slaves. I wasn’t talking about berserker/plague monks for which it’d need 6 heavy strikes without anything nearby.
ah. well what it doesn’t have in killing power, it makes up for in wide angle cc. it’s invaluable when you need to defend an open angle area. to each his own i guess