Other weapons have a very small ‘aoe stagger’, which really is just low cleave stagger, like on chain axe. If you get clowncars of mobs at you and you hit some heads, you’ll see a couple get staggered per hit. Same could happen with the hammer special light.
Eh I guess you could convince me by making it sufficiently miniscule in radius but I still think it’s very unnecessary.
Hell no. The stagger is part of what lets it control multiple Ragers with slaughterer up which is invaluable at times.
Asking someone to give up slaughterer and thrust is asking them to nerf themself. Do you actually play this weapon? I’m increasingly unsure with the things you say.
Well, there is some expectation from the weapon to have a decent amount of power behind it, and having it bonk off the first shrimp kinda drops the ‘power’ fantasy. It wouldn’t really buff it, but it would make people feel more powerful while using it.
Well as said already, i also see it more of a “feeling” change than anything else. It really does not have to be anything massive. I just find it really odd that weapon buzzing with power seems to have no impact on the enemies nearby when you bonk someone to next dimension.
But i can also reasonably live without the addition.
Well I do agree that visually it losing all momentum on the first poxwalker it hits does feel a bit off. If we’re mostly talking for visual flair and it was subdued enough to not turn it into a mini crusher (something I’ve seen directly asked for before so I’m paranoid) then yeah I could be down for that.
Even better if the enemy hit itself became a projectile that damaged other enemies but I kinda doubt FS is gonna program that 
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Now i really want this. But yeah my idea was not to turn it into mini crusher or anything. Just make the enemies go for like 0,2 seconds “oh crap that dude went to the moon”.
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Well, then they should adjust the stagger for maniacs, especially for the lights. The clear for trash mobs is annoying as hell and completely counterproductive to the effectiveness of the weapon when they’re being thrown away from you.
I’m mostly comparing it to what I tend to use, a tactical axe, which is a great generalist weapon that actually clears small groups better than the hammer because it keeps everything grouped up well. Also, a tactical axe staggers ragers with either a heavy that takes less than half the time to swing than the hammer, or its special, without any bonus power, so maybe we instead ask that the hammer’s lights should at least match the base stagger of a tiny axe’s heavy, especially considering that the attack speed is similar and cleave is less.
Oh I completely agree the light attacks are unforgiveably ass. You’ll note that buffing both their power and speed is something I recommended earlier in the thread.
Also TBH heavies flinging things around is both part of the fun and how 2H Hammer has always been so I just can’t agree with your complaints there. Not everything has to be about perfect efficiency.
Yah, but to say that its stagger doesn’t need adjusting is kinda off. They have different stagger values for each armor class in DT, so it could be said that they can reduce the stagger for trash mobs and increase it for maniacs and flak. It’s just one of my main gripes with it is that the heavies throw around trash yards away, then you gotta go around to each one and bonk them with slow ass attacks. It’s a total slog to go around and bonk everything that flew 10ft from you when you otherwise could’ve already killed them all off while they were grouped up.
I think you’re looking for the suppression mechanic.
As an avid hammer user I don’t find this too bad or tedious and I find the high stagger and knockback/knockdown to be quite handy. I would be satisfied with adjusting the hammer charged attack mechanics first and foremost.
I have had the opportunity to try out this technique in earnest today. It backs up my proposed solution which I proposed in a previous thread also linked above.
But I am going to actually propose something extremely radical, a departure from the current norm of Power Weapons in general. Give the Thunder Hammer an on-off switch.
The new Thunder Hammer design is as follows:
- Eliminate Self Recoil on the charged hammer attack EXCEPT when hitting a monstrosity
- The weapon’s charged mode can be toggled on or off and lasts infinitely
- Charged attack damage is single target, first enemy hit as it is currently
- Enemies who are killed by a charged heavy gib in the direction momentum of the swing
- Enemies within 1 or 2 meters (very close) of an enemy killed in this way flinch (this will not be a powerful enough effect to suppress incoming attacks, its more for feel than utility)
Justification:
Charging the hammer over and over is tedious busywork. Unlike other powered weapons the Thunder Hammer, when charged, fundamentally changes weapon behavior entirely. You are sacrificing ALL cleave damage and cleave stagger for single target. This is already sufficiently punishing to the player to be running around in charged mode as it is. It has absolutely no value against hordes in this state and is a poor weapon against hordes in uncharged mode, only benefiting from its high stagger and single target KO on heavy swings. HOWEVER eliminating all recoil and charging animations from the hammer against monstrosities would result in them becoming incredibly easy meat for the Zealot. Thus ruining the fun for everyone. Adding the recoil against monstrosities actually enhances the fun by creating an additional layer of skill ceiling when fighting these most dangerous foes. Furthermore this keeps the character of the weapon without treading on the territory of either the Eviscerator or the Crusher.
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To that I say that the power maul is available for such a thing. Having the hammer and the maul occupy the same gameplay space is not only redundant, but takes away from the unique identities of both just as much.
The maul already does better cleave damage, and it makes sense that it would in my view
Huh? They don’t occupy the same space at all. Crusher is mostly a control weapon, thunder hammer is a single target annihilator. They are only similar in their weakness of horde clear.
I’m not following you here sorry.
+100
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that was in response to deisu saying that the hammer should have a large aoe stagger, and I was saying the maul already occupies that gameplay space (like in the part you didn’t quote)
My quote of you was you saying the hammer is annoying due to the way it throws enemies around with heavy swings and I said I didn’t mind that. I do not support a large or small aoe stagger on charged impact. The only possible charged attack AOE I might be interested in would have to go against my proposed design above. But in theory we could go this route:
- Give the charged hammer attacks cleave until some hitmass value is reached
- On discharge create a “blow through” effect that does damage and/or aoe stagger in the direction of the energy blast
I didn’t mention the activated attack either. I don’t think it’s necessary for the hammer to fill the role of an aoe stagger weapon when the maul fills that space. The hammer can sacrifice the stagger for more damage/cleave, and let the maul fill the stagger/control role.
Fine by me.
But again my main concern is the charged attack. Its a THUNDER HAMMER and it should do thunder hammer things well.
Ok. Having played around with the hammer for a several hi-int damnation and hounds games this evening while using the technique that resets self-stun. I have to say I just don’t like playing it this way as much. In fact it feels kind of awful AND it doesn’t solve the fundamental problems with the hammer at all. I thought it did on my first playthrough hence my recommendations here:
But I was just flat out wrong. It still really sucks to use in a mixed horde. Even given the fact that I can use over-heads much faster even despite the lighter damage, it just doesn’t matter.
I am going to re-iterate my design statement on what the Thunder Hammer needs to be to feel good:
A purpose built solution for dealing with mixed armored groups in melee with no requirement for a ranged weapon solution. Its weakness can be against hordes, where it will mostly deal stagger and first target.
My latest proposal harkens back to my original proposal with some tweaks based on the ongoing conversation.
NEW NEW PROPOSAL
- Give the charged hammer attacks cleave until some hitmass value is reached. Something in the range of 3~ light enemies and discharges on the 4th or any time a heavy enemy is hit.
- charged swings that cleave these lighter enemies deal full damage
- On discharge create a “blow through” effect that does damage and and very light suppression/flinch in the direction of the energy blast (mostly for visual flare than defensive utility)
- enemies that are attacking should not be interrupted by this suppression
- enemies killed by powered attacks are gibbed, gaining momentum from the direction of the swing
- powered swings retain the self stun effect
WHY
I’m not trying to turn this into a power sword, I just think its not going to matter in a game with 2-3000 enemies if you kill 3 or 4 in a singular powered swing that retains its self stun and must be re-charged every swing. Instead we eliminate the critical weakspot of the weapon which the inability to ensure swings meet their intended target and give good odds of killing/staggering them. In my above video the main reason why I wasn’t willing to risk committing to powered swings wasn’t because of the number of elites, but because I was concerned the wrong target would catch my blow at the wrong time thus ensuring I got hit. I’m not sure my above changes will resolve that problem in all cases, but at least in the most miserable ones (small or minor enemies).