I’m guessing this is just the worst variant of the hammer we’re going to get, with a couple more on the way?
My problem with it is how bad it feels to use. It has surprisingly low cleave on its heavy swings, which is the only way to actually deal with groups. (Which WILL get interrupted all the time unless you burn a feat to stop it.) It also has surprisingly bad damage on individual units without using its power. Actually using its alternate also tends to result in hitting trash mobs and wasting it, since it does no AoE, has no cleave and (again) it can’t handle mobs very well.
It’s just a miserable weapon to use. The only redeeming quality is the rare instant you manage to power it, charge its heavy and actually land it on the thing you want. Even then, against the things you usually WANT to hit, it’ll just bounce off and they won’t move much. Pretty dull and unsatisfying 99% of the time.
Stagger-oriented weapons on Zealot have zero synergy with their kit. It’s all about kills and crits, or there’s that one feat that improves stagger after cleaving 3 foes, but on the crusher or thunder hammer it’s just overkill in terms of stagger and nothing can compliment their weaknesses…
Yea, I think that’s one of the bigger problems for the thunder hammer. All the things zealot gets either don’t support this weapon or have really poor effects on it. There is a heavy focus on crit build, but thunder hammer has bad crit damage and crit chance. The better impact is very useful for the evis, but the thunder hammer already has enough impact. That +4% melee damage on hit almost can’t help the charged attack.
I really hope they can redesign the zealot’s skill tree so that the unique weapon for zealot can be supported, not just the dagger gets all the love.
Methinks we’ll have to wait for other subclasses before getting redesigns. Sad for Psyker and Zealot who’s pigeonholed into the Combat Knife or Tac Axe forever on Heresy+
Its issue is the Charged heavy attack is completely blocked by its first impact, wasting a charged shot on likely a dreg.
Much of the problem being the Heavy attack would normally cleave, until charged, its max damage then overkills its first target.
My solution would be a significant Chain lightning effect, any damage in excess of the first target is transferred in a Surge Force Staff-like chain lightning or a Halo Gravity Hammer like Thunder Clap, blasting things back.
Having the Special action animate automatically during some combo attacks for free, like a piezoelectric Hammer.
I would also like to see an Uppercut variation of the single target attack.
Personally i would think one way to fix the thunder hammer with regards to the special is to swap the move set so that the horizontal swings are the light attack and the heavy attacks are the downwards slams ala the Executioner’s sword from VT2. That would solve the issue of constantly not being able to use the heavy special due to chaff.
Alternatively give the TH the same shockwave effect that the Crusher has on the charged attack considering that the weapon is stopped by the first target it hits and is then stuck in a long recovery animation. It gets really weird when you use the heavy special attack on enemies that are stacked on top of each other and one of them gets blown away while the rest just stand there like nothing happened.
Personally i would love to see both these changes but imo i would prefer at least the move set change so that it is not so clunky to use.
I really like the “backwards” moveset of the hammer, but I think light attacks should do more damage and have significantly increased armor penetration (I believe this is coming next patch?).
Heavy swings are slow but have a lot of stagger and deal moderate-high damage to many enemies. Light attacks should have heavy damage and armor pen, at the expense of being single target. I think this is how Kruber’s 2h hammer works in VT2 and it was good fun, and a well rounded weapon.
As for the special, I would keep the heavy as it is (very high damage single target) but make the light a ground slam instead, with really high AOE stagger but not too high damage (except for at the very centre of the slam), so yhe special would be backwards of “backwards”
I agree on one thing the overkill on one mob is a bit lame but still charged attak deal greater damage to the other.
Its a Crowd Control, not crowd killer
Also for the crit, you need to use the two charge. you crit who ever you want to.
witch charging attak,with special its devastating.
Psyker got their job already lets not steal from them.
I’m slowly coming around to T Hammer. It’s definitely usable albeit pushes you into a more niche role than a lot of other weapons. Things that still bother me about it:
Length of animation lockout after landing special attack
The mobility is unnecessarily terrible
Zealot lacks good feat synergies with it (not really T Hammer’s fault).
Thunder hammer is not underpowered. They are increasing the penetration on light attacks at some point already. Some of the zealot feats could use a bump or rework, but the hammer is an excellent weapon.
Edit: I also think the light and heavy attack patterns should also stay the way they currently are.
As a matter of fact I have slightly changed my position.
Well, non-charged attacks are useless alright, unable to oneshot even the weakest of mobs, however charged shot are able to oneshot the majority of mobs, which is not too shabby.
Pro tip: even if you might think that regular and heavy charged attack are the same - they ARENT!
Heavy charged attack deals more damage. Single target dmg.
So it has some niche application alright. Just don’t use noncharged attacks.
Also, I’ve noticed that the charged attack impact has awesome visual interaction: the enemy armour/helmet is evaporated showing flesh below it. I hadn’t noticed it before - has it been stealth implemented or I was just inattentive?
no! thunder hammer is not means to be a crowd control at the base…worst the crusher is far better than the thunder hammer. a thunder hammer is a beast, that when charged destroy everything around the target… it’s release a blast of energy… and where goes the whole blast of energy on the thunder hammer? it disappear…
and behind this we did get a crusher that is a power weapon that do what the thunder hammer is means to do.
yes it hit hard… but only on one target after a long activation time + you get a recoil… balance is good, but i often say on the discord… if balance kill the identity of the weapon it’s bad. yes some weapon will be strong, but that normal… like trying to balance a power sword around devil catachan claw, one is a sword surrounded by an energy field allowing to cut throught most armor and the other is a simple machete.
and that the same for the thunder hammer… it’s a beast, a weapon that will reign suprem as hard hitting weapon, i have nothing against the recoil, but the activation time + the lack of aoe on the hit is bad…
don’t forget that some weapon of the veteran can litterally deal 3k damage in one shoot, yes i talk of the lucius mk3 even the plasma can deal more of 1500 damage… how much damage deal the thunder hammer?
The amount they are increasing is very small. Fatshark plan to increase the damage percentage against flak armor from 75% to 90%, for both light and heavy attack. But if you compare it with other weapons: eviscerator, tactical axe, combat axe, power maul, chainaxe, chainsword, dagger’s heavy attack, they all have better damage against armor. They at least have 100% damage toward flak armor, a lot of them have 130%. Almost every weapon zealot can use have better stats than the thunder hammer against armor, except heavy sword and demon claw.
