Topic: 2-h hammmer is worse than 2-h axe in every way; I believe it needs a buff.

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  • 21. April 2017 at 00:13 #21616
    Avatar photocoocoodas
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    Two handed hammer, compared to two handed axe,

    1. does less damage

    2. no specific bonus from perks as opposed to axe

    3. surprisingly, does less armor damage because axe always hits head to deal 50% extra damage to armor; what’s the point of ever using hammer?

    4. does less effective shield-breaking.

    I think 2-h hammer needs a buff to offset its disadvantages compared to 2-h axe. I raised 2-h hammer guy to deal with heavy armored opponents but they are utterly useless compared to 2-h axe guys. It stagger the opponent but it’s not very useful….

    As of now I or anyone has no reason in most cases to ever use 2h hammer over 2h axe as hammer specialization doesn’t add passive bonus to 2-h hammer and its inferior to axe even in its specialty of armor-breaking.

    21. April 2017 at 18:24 #21651
    Avatar photoNamespace
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    Hammer Mastery gives +5% chance to hit for shatter. It is a great AOE attack and much easier to use than Greataxe’s Round-Swing. It also has more accuracy.

    I don’t like the extra dmg to head unless I fight stuff like orc warriors that don’t drop their armor. All in all I much prefer Greathammers over Greataxes.

    22. April 2017 at 01:27 #21655
    Avatar photocoocoodas
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    Namespace wrote:

    Hammer Mastery gives +5% chance to hit for shatter. It is a great AOE attack and much easier to use than Greataxe’s Round-Swing. It also has more accuracy.

    I don’t like the extra dmg to head unless I fight stuff like orc warriors that don’t drop their armor. All in all I much prefer Greathammers over Greataxes.

    It’s better than round-swing, but worse than sword’s 3 space AOE attack. It’s better to use a sword if you are going for that, and axe if you want armor damage.

    Hammer is supposed to be specialized in armor damage. As of now it feels neither specialized nor good enough to use. (talking about 2h)

    24. April 2017 at 07:21 #21685
    Avatar photoWanderer
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    2H Hammer and Greatsword are similar, but have striking differences. The Greatsword allows the 2-tile straight line aoe, which is commonly used to hack archers or pikemen. Shatter, on the other hand, has a chance of doing knockback along with the stagger. Which means that, for example, Full-size Nachtzehrers have to waste another turn to devour a person, because they need to spend all of their AP to devour. In most other cases, it wastes AP for the enemy to walk back into the melee; as in they won’t get two attacks off. Also likely: the 3-man queue to trigger Berserk will repopulate again, with a weakened group considering the survivors of the first Shatter walk back in.

    Also: 2H hammers do 1-shot head hits a lot easier than Greatswords (through helmets), simply by virtue of the higher armor bypass.

    24. April 2017 at 19:47 #21715
    Avatar photoNamespace
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    @Wanderer I really like the knockback too but it is not very reliable (only 33% chance). I really wish Hammer Mastery would buff those effects.

    coocoodas wrote:

    It’s better than round-swing, but worse than sword’s 3 space AOE attack. It’s better to use a sword if you are going for that, and axe if you want armor damage.

    Hammer is supposed to be specialized in armor damage. As of now it feels neither specialized nor good enough to use. (talking about 2h)

    Well, Swing is more accurate and has more HP damage, but less armor damage. Shatter is an amazing skill against orc warriors. 2-3 swings will strip their armor completely. Yes, Split Man (Axe) is a better skill than Smite (Hammer) when you look at the numbers. I wonder if the total damage written in the skill description for Split Man is for the initial hit (and we get extra on top of that) or if the damage to head is already included.
    I would rather have more damage to body armor than have the damage split up between body and head armor.

    If we assume that we get extra damage with the Greataxe, I would agree that the single-target attack of the Greathammer seems weak compared to the Greataxe. On top of that, Greataxes have higher base damage and lower effectiveness against armor than a greathammer. This has a significant effect on famed item stats:

    Damage increase seems to be percentual. So a Greataxe will benefit more from a 20% increase than a Greathammer because of the higher base damage, concerning HP-damage.
    Armor effectiveness also seem to be percentual, but additive. A Greataxe (140% base armor eff.) will benefit more from a 30% bonus (170%) vs. a Greathammer (200+30%). Axe will get a 21.4% bonus armor dmg where the Greathammer will only get 15% effectively.

    I did not do the math on armor penetration but my guess is that both weapons would get a similar effect with not too big a difference.

    24. April 2017 at 22:12 #21718
    Avatar photoWanderer
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    @Namespace

    It actually makes it more convenient that not all of the targets get knocked out of range; if you trigger a Berserk, you have to have something to follow up on, or else the Berserk charge gets wasted.

    I do tend to think though if the knockback got buffed for Hammer mastery, then 1H Hammer wouldn’t really have a place, because 2H Hammer would be always more useful for destroying armor than 1H Hammer. When you hit late game, you often have more than one target that you need to strip armor from to start triggering morale checks; 1H Hammer simply doesn’t grind fast enough.

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