No AOE explosion when powered up? Snags on any random lesser enemy when powered up? Does not obliterate lesser enemies when attacking normally? The thunder hammers aesthetically look SO cool, but they suck 
12 Likes
I want Bardinâs 2H hammer.
One variant can do charged single target.
The other should do charged mega-cleave.
Iâve never been able to make them work against hordes. Itâs me, I know. But I want Bardinâs hammer so I can just keep the hordes at bay, and occasionally pop one on the nogginâ when something bigger turns up.
4 Likes
The Ironhelm sounds like what you want.
Even it isnât really all that great, though. Not enough bang for the buck.
1 Like
The problem I have with the Thunder Hammer, is that almost all enemies you knockdown get back up again.
The so-called âcleave damage distributionâ is the cause of this problem. Itâs configured to only damage the first enemy you cleave and do nothing to all the others.
1 Like
Weâve been saying this before Traitorâs Curse even came out. Thunder Hammers are in an awful position right now.
Foldable shovels are better than a Thunder Hammer. Amazing work Fatshark, I can truly see the love you have for 40k at work!
5 Likes
no it is not you
it is me also⌠thatâs why I have already mixed a TH with a flamer, the flamer is here to kill hordes.
But this is not what I want as a thunder hammer⌠I would have wanted crowd control weapon, so something that eject enemies when you hit them with it⌠The exact contrary of that we haveâŚ
I tried a lot shock & awe⌠I wanted so badly seeing it working. But letâs be honest, this blessing is totally badly balanced and barely useful.
I believe thatâs called a âCrusherâ.
yes⌠and no. Thatâs not what I would have likedâŚ
In fact, both are bad. Crusher, NOBODY uses it. It doesnât kill anything, and if you rely on this and are the last man standing, you wonât last too much⌠cause you donât kill enough fast. Also, you rely entirely on the power (at least in my memory) to push/eject enemies. Crusher should be buffed on damages, and it would be good.
The TH at contrary is great against elite as it deal insane damages. BUT, the non powered attacks canât cleave at all (at least, not to be somewhat efficient), even with shock & awe (tested intensively, with thrust, with slaughterer⌠nothing works). And this is what I would have liked. A Thunderhammer that can cleave with the blessing done to allow that. But, this blessing doesnât work at all and so the TH is excellent at dealing with elite, it can deal with enemies groups, but suck when things go bad and we get or hordes or in high intensity.
1 Like
Really? I find the crusher deals perfectly decent damage. In fact Iâd say itâs probably slightly too effective vs infested for my liking - mostly because I dislike blunt weapons being almost as effective vs hordes as bladed ones.
I think crushers are just less popular because theyâre harder to use. The move set is more complicated, and you have to know what youâre doing to get the most out of it. That, and certain other weapons (eviscerator anyone?) are just really strong now and have much more forgiving move sets to boot.
6 Likes
Did you test Shock & awe? thatâs what I talk aboutâŚ
It seems you have not. So, what do you want I answer. I say that my problem with the hammer is the lack of cleave, even with shock & awe. Did I say it needs a damage increase? no
I say that Shock & awe is USELESS cause it gives you a bonus that you donât even feel.
Huh? The heavies have 16.5 base stagger cleave, that goes up to ~23 stagger cleave with max slaughter stacks. Of all the complaints you could make about T Hammers (largely redundant lights attacks, reliance on Ult to one hit crushers), complaining about their cleave makes no sense to me. Iâve never struggled to fight a horde safely with T Hammer.
In the current state of the game I agree T Hammers need help but letâs not bring the dubious thunder shovels into this⌠Gives me the same vibe as people complaining X gun isnât strong enough then comparing to plasma.
Well⌠for me thatâs the contrary
You must use something I donât know⌠cause, when I use it, this weapon doesnât really cleave with shock & awe.
Without, I consider the cleave relatively fair. After all, it is like a combat axe without BM, it cleaves, but does not excel at it.
However, shock & awe should make it really cleave (with the tradeoff of loosing DPS). But it doesnât really.
So, the question isâŚ
Do you think Shock & awe is worth to take it and bring you a good cleave bonus?
I tend to think that people miss the words âShock & aweâ I have writtenâŚ
For me, but maybe someone can show me I am wrong, the difference between without this blessing and with it is not worth taking it. And this blessing is what would transform the Hammer is something I would like.
Believe me, I tried the hammer a lot of times⌠and given up. I just feel it boring and inefficient. Yes it does great damages, but it is slow and⌠sorry, for me it lacks of cleave when I compare with a combat axe.
So, I repeat⌠Shock & awe appears totally bad for me. But, maybe I missed that it is now the new meta and that everybody put it on the TH nowadays?
Here my Hammers (at least the two I use as crucis⌠I have several others with one with momentum and also ironhelm hammers):
Even with the 380 with shock & awe, I just feel that the hammer is just weakier than the 380 slaughterer + thrust⌠in melee, the hammer is not really more efficient with shock & awe. I would even say that the one without any cleave bonus (so without shock & awe) can perform better cause it can get more DPS with the thrust blessing.
1 Like
TBC I wasnât talking about shock and awe at all, just saying the base Hammer has very good stagger cleave compared to most weapons, and that I donât think thatâs an area it needs base stat buffs. I donât even have a hammer with S&A, so I really canât comment on how well that blessing works, Iâd assume not very.
There are two problems I see with S&A. Firstly it adds something the Hammer doesnât particularly need (whereas it REALLY wants extra damage for one shots). Secondly that the two meta power blessings, by virtue of giving power, already give a pretty large amount of cleave on top of their extra damage. I donât really know how you balance this. I did make a suggestion once that S&A could maybe work a bit like BM for special attacks, allowing you to hit multiple elites with one special attack provides the attack kills the first target it hits outright. I think that would be desirable as an option to allow better clearing of multiple smaller elites at the cost of some single target damage, but it might just replace slaughterer as the meta pairing for thrust outright.
1 Like
Gotta agree with your take on this completely. The THs special activation could use some adjustment, but the standard weapon profile works fine. The empowered lights are terrible.
1 Like
I feel like both empowered and unempowered lights are terrible. The weapon is just generally very heavy attack centric, which is fine up to a point, but this is too much.
I donât deny this⌠now that youâve read⌠yes, I just want shock & awe giving the TH a true improved cleave⌠so that the blessing could transform it into something that is excellent against enemiesâ pack. And I am totally agreeing that it would b e a tradeoff with DPS.
But actually, there is two blessings that everybody takes. Momentum is not bad tbh, same for thunderous. But the âmetaâ blessings are or too powerful or the others are too inefficient. When we compare with other weapons, they succeeded to make the blessing pool really interesting. I donât feel the same with the TH.
I really feel that the blessings pool of the TH does not feel great, cause only 2 of them are really great.
And about shock & awe, I donât know if the trigger is well chosen. But, I am not also sure the 0.2 seconds are enough. At the end of the day, it gives a blessing that⌠you donât feel at all.
I think there are a lot of factors here. Slaughter was already nerfed to a point that I think is fairly reasonable for most weapons that have it. It definitely can pay an uptime cost in scramble scenarios that balances it decently against head taker.
Thrust is undoubtedly very good, but again it does have the fairly reasonable drawback of investing extra time charging your heavy attack, itâs definitely not optimal to always full charge heavies which suggests to me its balance is kinda ok. I would be fine with a thrust nerf if and only if it came with a base damage increase for Hammer, right now itâs very reliant on it for break points and Hammer losing even more elite killing power would be pretty disastrous for it.
Nerfing thrust while increasing Hammer heavy base damage to compensate would be fine but they would need to make sure the downward adjustment was only for Hammer thrust. I donât think itâs warranted at all for blessing balance on any other weapon with thrust.
Honestly part of me feels that thrust should be an innate property of charging heavy attacks across the board. It feels weird that winding up longer has no effect on power unless you have a specific blessing for it. I dunno maybe making thrust a core feature of charging heavy attacks across the board would break some weapons, at very least it wouldnât make much sense and probably shouldnât be applied to chain weapons, but I feel like for most weapons you could apply this as a base feature without issue. Itâd still be optimal for DPS to spam uncharged heavies on most weapons most of the time.
Momentum is ok on paper but you donât really need it on Zealot. The heavy attack kill talent does enough work on its own. Itâs a nice option to have for those that feel uncomfortable fighting hordes with it though so I wouldnât change anything about it.
Personally Iâd remove Hammerblow, thunderous, and thunder strike from its pool entirely. Itâs a bloated blessing pool as is and I donât see any of those every having a place for them. You can get ample extra impact for it from Zealot tree as is if you really want it. Trauma could definitely go too but Iâd probably leave it there as the single most usable impact blessing. I dunno maybe trauma + skull crusher could have some niche use on a primarily unempowered build if the unempowered attacks were a bit meatier and/or thrust was a built in feature. Skull crusher itself is a fine enough blessing I think. Donât have much else to say about it.
From there rework Shock and Awe into something more interesting and cool and I think the blessing pool would be balanced enough pending on other stat changes for the weapon. In general theyâd all have much more potential use if Thrust wasnât necessary for a lot of breakpoints it ought to have out the box (or at least with appropriate perk and good base stats). Whether thatâs achieved by upping non unyielding single target damage to turn thrust into more of a max boss damage option thatâs no longer needed for elite breakpoints or incorporating thrust into its base kit doesnât particularly matter to me.
1 Like
You canât remove blessings
So, they have to make them interesting
Thunderous is already enough good.
Others need something to be done.
And I do not want to push for a nerf of headtaker / thrust. Sorry if it has given this feeling.
I think that they should change the trigger to weakpoint hit and increase a little the duration of the effect. Not too much work, and it would make it somewhat interesting I think. At least it would be a start in the right direction.
My opinion is that the TH is not balanced at all regarding the blessing pool. Only 2 blessings are good, making this weapon one of the less interesting since the patch 13.
I donât think it needs a damage increase or even a cleave increase. I think the problem is more in the blessings pool.
Yep, they need a buff
I was just saying its weird a non fastened shovel does more damage than a T Hammer. I think thatâs funny. Not saying everything needs to be as strong as that.
2 Likes