It deals with mixed hordes just fine as most other weapons. Largely through its staggering properties. Light attacks and C2/C3 will stagger stormvermin out of every attack even without modifiers or opportunist. The C2/C3 has the same stagger profile as like every other 2h hammer only it lacks the ability to stun more than 2 elites as you have 2 hammers. It sucks a bit on the damage, but your also getting benefits 2h weapons lack which is better stamina, no movement speed penalty upon attack, better dodge range, and extra dodge ranges. It does indeed make a very good generalist weapon.
What? all of bardin weapons are perfectly viable. Only one hand axe feels kinda underwlming if you don’t use on slayer. And if it’s attack speed you want RV can easly get up to 14% extra.
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Please review the OP. I specifically stated that RV & IB melee dps talents are:
Foe-Feller is a weak fossil of a talent from 1.0, ales are the definition of inconsistency if you aren’t playing on Cata+, and Exhilarating Vapors only works during the ult. The exact same things can be said of Rune Etched Shield, Blood of Grimnir, Vengeance, and Drengbarazi Oath. And in pretty much the same order too.
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Foe feller may be old but it only competes with master of improvisation since last resort is a meme and again master of improvisation feel useful only with grudge raiker spam build in which case you don’t really need much melee attack speed. And i find no problem in keeping the stacks of ale up, i can’t say much about veteran and recruit but alredy in champion there should more than a couple of specals spawns evry 5 minutes to keep that sweet ale stacks.
I think the trouble with THP on cleave for Bardin is that he doesn’t actually have any good cleaving weapon options. For comparison, Kruber has an excellent arsenal of cleaving weapons.
What Bardin has is high damage weapons which can use THP on kill quite well, I know I use to love using the 2h hammer with THP on kill because in some cases you may be the only one who can reliably kill CW’s and you get a lot of THP from doing so. Which makes you the dedicated elite killer.
The other options available to Bardin are weapons that are good at staggering, so naturally THP on stagger is the way to go.
I have to disagree, his hammer and shield is underwhelming to use. So is the axe and shield, it’s basically just the 1h axe but slower and lower dps, the main advantage really is the shield but that’s about it.
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The 7.5% attack speed passive is the defining feature of Slayer, and without it the career might as well be deleted?
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Slayer is the one dwarf career that does to his weapons what handmaiden does to all the elf ones, pumps in enough steroids to make any them work well.It´s what distinguishes his melee from the other dwarf editions and without that he really does lack something.
Rather than making all the dwarf weapons more generally viable i favor the idea of talent reworks to give the other relevant careers better melee talent builds. Except engineer for obvious reasons.
But even that should be done carefully as to not just leave him pointless anyway, he has to be the strongest melee option the dwarf got and with a margin.
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If you think moving 7.5% attack speed out of Slayer’s kit and into base dwarf weapons will leave Slayer lacking or “pointless” you need your glasses checking.
Elf and Dwarf weapons aren’t an equal comparison.
It really isn’t a talent issue, even with talent buffs players will still gravitate to Dual Hammers.
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The idea of the change is to make all dwarf weapons more generally viable, but if they are generally viable, as in they feel good on any dwarf career…why play slayer?
His entire trademark is that his melee feels powerful and more fluid.
…
That said i am not sure 7.5% would actually make the difference but if it does, then why play slayer? For the jump spam?
Increased survivability, mobility, low cooldown leap & CC stagger.
Trophy Hunter / Increased melee DPS.
2 melee slots for mix and matching weapon strengths.
Not to mention he utilizes Throwing Axes better than RV.
e.g Combo TA + Dual Axes and insta deleting elites.
He’s a damn good career and can be polished further.
More powerful sure, more fluid… as in attack speed sure.
But making x weapon only feel good on 1 out of 4 careers is a little silly.
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Ranger goes invisible and ironbreaker when built for durability cant be killed by anything except specials. Ironbreaker also packs heavy stagger.
How many breakpoints does that passive actually hit? I havent noticed much of a difference, the one part that does feel more significant is his attackspeed on the leap if anything. As for DPS really,minigun and masterwork pistol.
Using throwing axes throws away the advantage of being able to switch melee weapons according to the situation.
What actually stands out between him and ironbreaker? Better mobility and damage at the expense of being much squishier when put under pressure. But, how much better mobility? He doesnt have any dodging bonuses so it comes from his jump but exactly how valuable is that? I´d call it good but not amazing.
Because most of his weapons are niche weapons, buff them into working outside their niche and they are the same as the old elf glaive. That was nerfed…
But despite being niche those weapons feel good on slayer for the same reason all elf weapons can feel good on handmaiden, enough steroids make anything work.And slayer has the bonus of being able to bring 2 and switch according to the situation.
So while i am in favor of more weapons feeling good generally, i cant really say i approve because i dont see a way of making that happen without making them overpowered. Or invalidating slayer because he´s already not particularly safe or amazing in DPS among the dwarf career.
I don’t think that’s true though. Even 2h hammer gets more out of cleave than stagger. I really don’t think on kill is a better option at all.
2h Hammer, Dual hammers, great axe, 1 handed Hammer, and coghammer I’m fairly sure all do best with cleave. Yes you can make on kill work with most of them too, but on RV especially I wouldn’t say it’s wise to forego the most consistent thp talent in the game (cleave) for the unreliable burst of kill thp.
Then you have stagger for shields obviously. So while replacing cleave with kill would help 1h axe, and be serviceable for weapons like greataxe, coghammer, and 2h Hammer, it would be a nerf overall for a career like RV that certainly does not excel at killing elites in melee.
I’ve been running 1h axe and grudge on RV for the last week, the only downside is lack of thp synergy, which your ult can make up for. Now its hard to pick any other weapon combo for RV.
Not sure how iron breaker is thought to be more useful than slayer, damage and mobility are more important factors for success than blocking and tanking.
It’s been a while since I’ve tried this, but I remember using THP on cleave with the 2h hammer as Knight and it was god awful. I could barely get enough THP to sustain myself in hordes, the hammer is not a cleaving weapon, and it’s attack rate is slow, so you only get 1THP per hit. Charged attacks are also slow so it’s not uncommon to take a hit when you want THP from a horde. Even if you do well the THP on cleave is capped at 5 targets. The 2h hammer does work well with THP on kill because its slow but powerful attacks do kill enemies quickly, which is where you want to be rather than in hordes.
However, I have found the THP on stagger has been fixed and now using the 2h hammer with THP on stagger is extremely efficient you don’t need to bring a shield to spam push to get THP anymore, a 2h hammer will generate lots of THP in hordes now, I found it actually made the 2h hammer a viable pick on the FK since he doesn’t have THP on kill and I always found THP on cleave was a poor choice if you bring the 2h Hammer.
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The IB can bring the Trollhammer Torpedo, he also has survivability, and you don’t need to bring a shield so you can trade powerful blocks for a high dodge count. Gromrils Curse also will push disablers off you if they grab you which is a fantastic talent and I wouldn’t mind seeing more talents like that in the future. His ult also grants you unbreakable stamina with some basic CC. Making him able to safely revive in most/some situation. The old IB was extremely boring to play, but an experienced player can really put work in with IB.
With all that said, I’m just going to leave this here.
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Maybe it’s changed since I last played around with it, but from memory you’re very off base there and cleave generates more than stagger does. Again yes on kill works for careers well suited for melee elite killing, which to be honest RV isn’t.
On kill in general is heavily overrated IMO. Too many factors can destroy its consistency. Cleave basically always works and works well, you’ll get good enough THP generation in every scenario.
@Velsix can you confirm/deny my memory of 2h hammer’s interaction with stagger talents? I seen to recall you also commenting that cleave works better than stagger for 2h Hammer in the past.
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We can debate the usefulness of different THP all day, I think we can both agree that that 2h hammers are not best suited with cleave and THP on kill is more suited for melee focused careers, such as the GK, who can destroy elites quickly getting that burst of THP that they need.
The RV however, is not a melee focused career, he’s a hybrid of melee and range.
So while I can argue THP on kill works great with a 2h hammer, RV is squishy and being in the thick of it brawling with CW’s and other elites is not really where he wants to be.
2h hammer is far too good at killing things to utilize stagger thp well in my experience. Unless you’re playing IB and not going for headshots I guess.
This is also incredibly off topic. Unlike careers like huntsman & BW, none of Bardin’s careers really have a systemic issue generating thp outside of niche scenarios like 1h axe RV/engi.
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Iron breaker is definitely useful, I just find the playstyle leans too far toward planning for failure. In the hands of a good player, I find slayer is generally more useful to the team whereas iron breaker is just a safer clutch