I dont think the thunder hammer is weak (oneshotting bulwarks is pretty sweet), but there are many small things that combine to make me dissapointed with the weapon. Especially considering the 2h hammer is my favorite weapon in v2
-light attacks dont pierce super armor and dont do enough damage imo. Especially coming off v2 2h hammer.
-recovery on the special attack is way too long. The chain weapons finish their weapon specials approximately 1 second faster overall(based off my rough testing).
-weapon special activation is sluggish when compared to regular chainsword(eviscerator and chain axe also have this problem) i.e. the cancel window from weapon special to attack starts later than the regular chainsword.
-special attack recovery prevents dodging which makes the weapon special super risky to use without taking damage, even moreso than the chain weapons.
-the heavy weapon special does far more damage than the light one, but is incredibly unwieldy in high stress scenarios to snipe elites since it is a horizontal attack that hits 1 enemy, often resulting in hitting trash rather than the elite you are trying to kill. This forces you to use the much less damaging light special which still feels bad because you cant really effectively use it in high stress situations because of the horrendously long dodge lock mentioned earlier. I have suggested and heard suggested that the heavy weapon special should have an explosion(with much less single target damage) and the light special should have its damage brought up to what the heavy special has currently.
-push attack is like pre buff v2 2h hammer so it is actually useless. Push attack should be like in current vermintide 2 where it has cleave.
-heavy attacks dont cleave armored elites(mauler and armored rager) like in v2.
Eviscerator just overshadows the thunder hammer overall. The eviscerator weapon special does comprable damage against all non ogryn elites and has the ability to snipe elites mid horde due to cleaving chaff on the heavy special. On top of this it has far more damage cleave than the thunder hammer and thus far outshines it in the horde clear department. I came into darktide thinking “my baby is back!” But honestly im kinda dissapointed.
EDIT: upon further testing, it seems like the rocovery is broken. You can attack sooner out of the recovery of the special attack than you can dodge. So after preforming the special attack the recovery still lasts forever, but the dodge lock lasts much longer, im assuming this is not intended.
EDIT2: removed statements i no longer agree with in an attempt to focus my feedback.
My biggest problem with this weapon is the fact that its push attack is a pathetic side light with no cleave. If its push attack was given just a bit of cleave the hammer would be dramatically more useful and versatile and I could forgive many of its other problems
I actually just had to get off the game because I was so disappointed and frustrated because of the state of the Thunder Hammer…
It really makes absolutely zero sense to me, it’s so bonkers that it has to just be a bug, it can’t be that a real person signed off on this.
Imagine the excitement at finally getting a Thunder Hammer, and it’s blue to boot. The expectation was to be a powerhouse but the reality is that you just knock the hordes around until your allies get the kills.
When it comes to the special attack, between the charge and recovery times it’s too slow and unwieldy for somebody to realistically spam it against elites in the middle of hordes.
Charging it allows for some incredible damage but since it only effects a single target on impact, if you miss then you just wasted a lot of time and will probably get hit a lot - this makes it almost impossible to heavy attack elites with the special attack if they’re surrounded by hordes of trash.
You’ll hit the trash, waste the charge, then probably die because you can’t dodge.
Just the fact that a light headshot with the Thunder Hammer against an armored target deals less damage than a knife…
It’s disgraceful and it genuinely made me get off the game because of how unfun it was.
Imo the biggest problems are the lack of ap and low damage on lights and the special attack being imprecise and incredibly dangerous to use. If these things are fixed it would already be a massive improovement but honestly i think this weapon should be better than the v2 2h hammer. Its zealot’s signiature weapon so it should feel powerful. Right now it feels awkward and unwieldy.
I find that the dodge and speed are fine - but the special stopping on the first enemy hit unlike the chain sword was a sincere disappointment.
Have 1 mauler and 1 trash mob? Welp, you’ll likely waste your special on the trash mob then!
And I get that the light attack does less damage than the heavy, noting that melee headshotting elites doesn’t seem to be the thing to do in darktide, but I’m wired to think that headshots = good, and the Thunder Hammer is perfect for it - yet that’s not what you should on the armoured elites.
Yeah after playing a few more games with it the dodge is about the same as the eviscerator (maybe even better) so ill concede that point. But the special attack being so cumbersome combined with the lack of carapace armor piercing on light attacks, the push attack being single target like old v2 2h hammer, and the fact the heavies dont cleave armored elites like in v2 makes the weapon feel like a massive downgrade compared to v2 2h hammer.
Funny thing is, alot of the metaslave people in v2 say the 2h hammer isnt worth using, which is a statement i dont agree with but i would be interested to see what they think of the thunder hammer lol.