Right now Bardin’s hammer and shield is basically axe and shield but weaker. It’s just a 1h hammer with a shield stuck to it (duh). And both the hammer and the shield do very similar things. What hammer offers over axe is more cleave and stagger… But when you add the shield, you already have infinite cleave and probably the biggest stagger in the game. It makes no sense.
I’ve played the game for a looong time, mostly as IB and mostly with axe and shield and I think I have a good idea how to easily make the hammer and shield more fun and more unique:
Make the light attack combo consist solely of single-target armor-piercing hits, like overheads
Make the heavy attack combo start off with the usual shield attack but then have it chain into reliable cleaving and staggering side sweeps
That way the weapon will be very reliable (rn you need to eat up your stamina to do any considerable armor damage), unique and fun to use. This would basically bring its profile to a place between axe and shield and 2h hammer.
i feel like they should make the combo more like saltz’ shield and hammer. THAT feels more like hammer and shield to me than bardin’s hammer and shield. The hammer needs to have some weight behind it.
Hammer and Shield does not need anything. It is stronger than Axe and Shield… Probably even the strongest melee weapon Bardin has. You just need to use its combo: Push attack - Light attack against armored enemies and heavy attacks chain against hordes… With the Push attack - Light attack combo you can keep staggered the whole patrol while you killing them one by one.
I dunno chief.
Any time I see a H&S Bardin in my game, he ends up being about as useful as an old shoe box in the corner of the room. (And quite often has to be carried because he can’t kill anything on his own.)
That could just be me, but some other people share this sentiment.
Just do push attack + light attack and you will bully and kill those stormvermin patrols like crazy. It deals also a high amount of armour damage. Most people out there dont use push attack into light attack on hammer and shield, but this combo really pushes the weapon to S tier.
Yeah those push attack into light attack combos and chain heavy make it much more effective than axe + shield imo. Also it is one of the most well designed weapons imo.
That’s probably because people which want to try to go to higher diff and do not have skill enough yet will probably take the most defensive equipment they can find and just try to survive it somehow. (Yes, I was like that when I was at the beggining of my journey with V2 too)
Read my post again.
Axe and Shield is stronger than Hammer and Shield. Hammer and Shield has lower armor DPS than Axe and Shield AND also it eats up your stamina.
Push attack - light attack combo is weaker than axe and shield’s H3+L2 (iirc) combo or qq cancelling, both of which do not use any stamina.
Axe and shield can also “keep the whole patrol staggered” - with shieldbash + H1. Which happens not to use as much stamina and also constantly giving you tons of THP (if you have the THP talent).
Even singe axe and shield lights are decent enough against armored targets, if you want to play it safe.
Hammer and Shield is boring, it doesn’t offer anything unique over other weapons and needs a rework.
It’s doable, but it eats your stamina, is arguably boring and still isn’t as good as axe and shield.
There’s no reason to take Hammer and Shield over Axe and Shield.
Effective… How? Axe and Shield is much more effective at dealing with armored targets.
As for swarms… You have a shield. Shield gives you infinite cleave and immense stagger values. Both of the weapons have a shield. The hammer just overlaps with the shield; it’s redundant.
When you compare axe with the hammer, hammer has more cleave and stagger. But you already have infinite cleave and more than enough stagger, as stated above.
Axe and Shield also has H2 which is decent against hordes.
No it’s not. It feels like they just took the 1H hammer, gave it a shield and buggered off. Hammer and shield do not complement each other - unlike axe and shield.
Or maybe it’s because it makes no sense to have the combos we have now on hammer and shield because the two things overlap rather than complementing each other.
And the fact that you have to work around those weird combos with push attacks just proves it’s true.
you can just throw heavy 1 in between and you wont have any stamina issues.
I bet 1h hammer + shield will deal with mixed horde better than 1h axe + shield.
But that significantly lowers the armored DPS, at which point axe and shield is definitely way better.
Not in any particular way, since you already have a shield that can stagger the mixed horde. And with the axe you can just tap armored heads with lights very reliably while the mixed horde is still staggered.
Another point to make is that you need stamina to deal with shield SVs.
Reading your post again will not change anything. H&S is better because you can deal with multiple armored enemies and horde at the same time. A&S cannot do that. A&S is better only against individual enemies but even that is questionable because H&S can keep CW staggered continually - A&S can not. I am not saying A&S is bad, H&S is just more versatile and safer to use.
Not true. Axe and Shield is my most used weapon on Bardin.
It can deal with mixed horde just fine, as long as you keep it staggered with the shield. I also quickly swap to Drakefire Pistols and blast the horde every few seconds, that pretty much filters it even better and leaves me to deal with armored enemies, at which axe and shield is better.
Yes it can. And it can do it better.
lmao no
The shield has INFINITE cleave and you can do even more cleave damage with H2.
Axe and Shield H1 can do that as well.
Also, Axe and Shield has slightly faster heavy combo.
But all of that is irrelevant because in the end Hammer and Shield consists of two things that overlap instead of complementing each other and player has to circumvent its drawbacks by utilizing a weird combo that drains stamina.
It should be reworked to have simpler, more controllable combos.
hammer and axe mostly have the same damage profiles as h&s and a&s respectfully. it’s weapon but with added shield moves, and that’s just how it is. i love using mace on huntsman for the stagger thp and light 1&2 on the shield weapons is the same. nice stagger and good enough damage, i sometimes just light, light, block cancel and it works great. it’s enough.
Yeah, but we’re talking about Bardin’s Hammer and Shield.
It makes no sense to have weapon that has more cleave and stagger (compared to axe) with a shield, which already has infinite cleave and possibly biggest stagger in the whole game.
It’d be fine if the weapon was easy to control (aka had homogeneous combos) and didn’t require from player spending the stamina to do anything to armored targets, while still being slightly worse than axe and shield.
Thats true hammer and shield needs more investment with stamina and heavy attacks to excel axe and shield. But that shouldnt be a problem with stamina regeneration on the trinket and the amount of stamina your shield provides and if you do it right you will never run out of stamina even in the toughest situations. The skill which is required is higher than axe and shield, but i prefer a weapon design which supports skill and stamina management and the better you get the more you will get out of this weapon. Look at flail and shield of wp, its damn boring. Just play around with it, you will see it is a great weapon and there is no need for a rework and it is more interesting than axe and shield imo BECAUSE of the stamina management and the versatility. And its also the better choice of a shield weapon imo.