, the thrust blessing, the unstoppable force blessing, and now the innate “thrust” on the new cruncher weapon.
You would think that combining these together would make your fully charged heavies slap HARD - and they do, but here’s the problem:
Ogryn is very vulnerable while charging heavy attacks
melee enemies aren’t staggered because they’ve either ran up to you or recovered from the previous swing, so they are attacking while you charge. Also applies to trappers which are the bane of ogryns
Aside from taunt, ogryn can’t replenish toughness while charging heavy attacks - nearly all melee ogryn toughness comes from hitting enemies, the two talents, confident strike and slow & steady blessings. So if you’re taking Indomitable instead of Taunt, constantly hitting enemies is essential to survival, especially in havoc
ranged enemies - due to the last point, chip damage from ranged enemies while charging heavies is deadly, especially in havoc
Implacable exists yes, and I think it’s great if you’re attempting heavy swing builds but the 15% dr just isn’t enough to solve the issue
The solution?
I suggest changing the unstoppable node on heavy hitter (grants extra 6% toughness on melee kill at max stacks)
To:
“+X% toughness regenerated per second while charging heavy melee attacks”
I recommend at least 10%
This would combat the chip damage to help survive the charge up and get to the swing.
Another thing that would help a lot is if Fatshark actually made attack speed affect heavy charge up time - because at the moment it only affects the swing time, so talents like frenzied blows are fairly useless on heavy attack builds, I think it’s silly that light spam would benefit from it much more.
Look I don’t like the length of time needed for full charged heavies and melee builds that require holding heavies for so long underperform by default on higher difficulties by not reaching meaningful breakpoints while saddled with disproportionate movement penalties
WITH THAT SAID
Danger isn’t an issue. Good placement and game sense is the correct problem a heavy attack focused build should have. Utilizing your dodge-push and Ogryn’s very high damage reduction on dodges while charging a heavy is the ideal skill check to landing a strong attack.
This isn’t about heavy attacks in general it’s about fully charged heavy attacks. And the best ogryn players will tell you they nearly never do it - and I explained the reason why
With Barge (amazing dodge CC) introduced it’s a lot easier to justify them. I don’t always charge heavies, but when I do I make sure it’s worth it!
A better way to think about it would be to use them only as needed. Sometimes a charged heavy will kill when it would normally take two hits. Sometimes you get a bit more power into a mixed horde. Etc.
Also with the change to work more like Thrust, Crunch is much more desirable since it can buff attacks held even a little over minimum. Plus it honestly just feels great to charge up and let a heretic know how you really feel
Finally, you’re right about scenarios where you don’t want to spend the extra time charging the heavy and being vulnerable. But there are myriad ways to take advantage of the extra power when you are not in those situations.
Reading this and making assumptions (forgive me), I think you should focus on making use of Barge and dodging offensively. Trappers especially are staggered by a slight breeze (literally anything with stagger value… literally).
this, with the talent that doesnt slow you down upon heavy attacks you slide 70% of the time for traversal and literally 100% duck&slide as a non-optional way of any attacks
had a downed dude watching me carry and wonder why i took so little damage.
well slide&attack as the default is the key to that.
this way the quarter second more for a full hammer swing isnt a big deal.
besides “never using a full charge” is due pickaxes not profiting the way hammer seems (havent tested it yet of course) to do thus changing up the way engagements and placing/pacing play out
impact on my karsolas is the factor i send ragers/maulers and crushers on their asses.
the time gained where they cant attack as a result i rather swing in 2 80%charged heavies than one full amd a light.
with hammer that might chance, a few hours from now ill know
Ogre has cc on and dr after dodge, these two things alone make charging much safer than any other class.
Paired with the slew of other dr talents ogryn can charge heavies insanely comfortable.
The change you suggest would make it so you could just face tank damage while spamming charged heavies, without a care in the world.
Heavies are supposed to be a tradeoff, you should have to read the situation and evaluate if you can commit to charging a heavy.
It should never be: I always use big slow attack because more damooges.
The true issue with charging heavies is that all the enemies are dead by the time you release the swing. If you have both a psycher and a skitarii on your team then you can just stroll along and look at the scenery. No need to swing anything anymore.
had 3 auric maelstrom and one havoc 30 in the testing phase today and given how bullrush works currently, except havoc of course, i was always ahead of the curve
havoc and psyker is a different way of evaluating kills “earned”
interestingly opens windows of opportunity for a full overhead due to sending about every enemy on his ass
granted you have to keep an eye 360° for small fry that peckers you but usually after a heavy horizontal or bullrush a good overhead is a oneshot for crushers on auric maelstrom and a stunned plogryn or chaos spawn isnt happy about a 100% overhead either with unyielding
shield bosses take 3/4 of a charge to repop their bubble and even the new psyker boss takes good damage if you get in 2-3 overheads in a good paced frame.
You already can do most of that on Ogryn, with or without the new hammer.
This setup is very safe, I’ve taken it straight into H30-35 games today. Few-several points could be easily moved around. I could see “No Pushover” and “Unbreakable” being interesting flavour picks.
Final judgement after I stop running into vacuum cleaner psykers in my games
I agree with the second one, even if it means less damage bonus from thrust type mechanics for it. It would actually solve the survivability issue too.
The regen though, no, that’s just an unreasonable buff to toughness replenishment on ogryn honestly.
