Picture this: There is a group of enemies coming straight at you. Among them is a few Ragers / Maulers. You want to blow up these ragers / maulers, so you charge the Thunder Hammer special, and try to kill the rager in the middle. But you accidentally hit the tiny poxwalker right next to it. It completely stops the special charge, and you get locked in a recoil animation (that’s a topic for another day), then get blasted by the elites you tried to kill.
Shouldn’t the Thunder Hammer special be cleaving low mass enemies and stops on the bigger one? Just like the Eviscerator do? It could be a bit too strong I admit, but it’s certainly is frustrating wasting your charge on a tiny poxwalker.
Biggest issue with the thunder hammer special is that it locks you in place for 3-4 seconds after hitting something during which time you cant dodge. I want it to have aoe too but at this point in the beta i have Serious doubts its gonna happen. I have a large vision for the weapon but since the beta is very close to over in terms of dev work days, im going to simplify my feedback for the thunder hammer to 3 core changes in hopes it will be easier for the devs to implement:
1.carpace armor piercing on lights
2.equalize damage of light and heavy special so that heavy special is not the straight up better option. This would also mean it would be easier to hit elites with chaff around. If this is “too op” just lower the damage of the special a bit. This would probally invalidate the heavy special, but we dont have enough time until launch for more creative solutions tbh unless fatshark thinks that this beta isnt for balancing and wants to do balance changes after launch.
****3.remove dodge lock on weapon special hit. This is the only change that really needs to happen for the weapon to improve in feel significantly. The reason the weapon feels so clunky is because of this mainly. If the devs are reading this, this is the single biggest and most important change you can make for the weapon.
I have to say I am torn. I really love the feeling of the thunderhammer and I think that its by no means in a bad place, but I would agree that it feels like something is missing to bring the weapon up to the same level as eg the eviscerator.
I disagree about the damage equalization, I like that the hammer is built around heavy attacks and that big oompf feeling. The weapon is built around the heavy impact special charged attack and it should retain that identity.
I agree with you on the third point, the self-stagger time is too long and puts you at serious risk. Reducing the stagger by at least 50% should make the hammer feel a lot better.
I would love the idea of the special having a small AOE, but it shouldnt come at the cost of the single target damage output which defines the weapons identity.
I also feel that more armour piercing on light attacks wouldnt imbalance the weapon, however if it had the same mechanic as the eviscerator (cutting through trash and only engaging the special upon hitting high-hp/armour enemies) might overtune the weapon.
The reason i ask for carapace ap on lights is because v2 2h hammer had it and that was a difining part of its identity and it wasnt even close to being op.
The reason i asked for damage equalization on the weapon special lights and heavies is because the only other solution would be to give the heavy weapon special cleave until it hits an elite or give it aoe. As has been laid out the problem with the heavy special is straight horizontal and only hits 1 enemy. Its almost usless when an elite is surrounded by trash. Even regular Chainsword heavies are much easier to hit a target mid chaff with because they are diagonal.
To clarify, i think the animation lock after hitting an enemy with the weapon special is fine. The dodge lock needs to be removed entirely though. Not reduced, but removed and i will die on this hill. It feels so crappy to be completely defenseless after hitting an enemy wwith the special. The animation lock is already enough of a drawback.
How do you feel about switching the special heavy animation from horizontal to vertical? I doubt its gonna happen, but it would solve a lot of the hammers issues (only vertical if special is engaged)
The really important problem is that even if the Thunderhammer light attack can penetrate the carapace, its damage is still too low. You can’t actually use it effectively against single enemy.
Yeah i do agree light attack damage is low but im trying to be realistic and not as for too much lol. Also it could be that my thunder hammer has bad stats so i think maybe changing damage should wait until we can fully optimize our weapons.
I think making the heavy special vertical is also a good idea but im assuming it would require extra animation work wich i dont think we have time for before launch. But like i said the thing most imortant to me at this point is removing the dodge lock. With that removed the weapon will already feel so much better.
Agreed. The light attacks need armor piercing and they could do several things to boost the special attack like give the charged horizontal attack a huge crowd control attack and the vertical a single target attack but stuns around it by a small amount.