You’re exactly right.
I’m absolutely sick of the idea of CC weapons.
CC can be a nice bonus to my weapon. But my weapon should first of all kill things. The weapon design in this domain is actually the worst. The shield and maul is the perfect example. For some reason they have decided that CC should be increased in proportion to damage lost. So the shield and maul hit like pillows. The hammer manages to be passable against light targets and is great against single targets but manages to absolutely suck where it should be the premium choice: mixed armored hordes.
When a group of flak, maulers, ragers, bulwarks and crushers rolls up, if I choose to run anything other than flamer alongside my hammer i know i am in for a really poor time. Earlier today i clutched a hi-int damnation against two bulwarks, three crushers, some number of flak ragers, three or four maulers and a fair few flak assault troops. I did this mostly by buying time with normal heavy swings, shotgun blasts, and barrels. Its incredibly poor design that THE armor buster is basically so gimped as to be useless against large ammounts of armor. Sure i had a ton of fun but i basically could not safely use my charged attack at any point. Imagine if a vet with a power sword had been there. He’d have been able to cut through most of that in a handful of swings and i spent like 8 minutes listening to ineffectual bonks from a THUNDER HAMMER. Man that really grinds my gears.
This goes to another point i’ve made which is we are being forced to balance power and chain weapons against normal sharp metal sticks. This scalar makes no sense. Add more power weapons and power weapon variety and lets be done with it. If people want to run suboptimally let them, i literally do it every game with my hammer!
In light of this i reject my previous restrained engancements propose the following;
- Eliminate the self recoil on the hammer
- Charging the weapon will allow 3 or 4 swings before needing to be recharged
- Damage is still single target, first hit.
Will this be an incredible buff?
Yes. It needs it.
Make hammer S tier.
Why are these my chosen buffs? Because they retain the thunder hammer’s enormous single target potential while making it a total overkill against horde targets. Having no cleave on powered attacks forces the hammer into the intended niche. Removing the self-stun reduces the penalty associated with “secret service agents”. Increasing swings before reaching an unpowered swings also reduces this problem and allows the hammer to work as an armor buster.
I hate to propose this because all the techniques i use to mitigate the self-stun will become bunk and I feel cool about them.
My main concern with this proposal is Monstrosities will be trivialized more than they already are. Counter point: plasma guns. Perhaps retain self-stun against monstrosities? Might feel weird.