Shock Maul Discussion

[xDaunt]

I'm pretty impressed with the new shock maul. Very interesting and strong weapon overall. It kills pretty much everything efficiently. I've run the Mk III on my zealot for a few games. H1 => L2 combos clear trash effectively. You can chain heavy attacks to do perpetual strikedowns, which can be pretty good for killing hard targets like crushers and maulers. The only problem is that it seems a little difficult to get back into horde clearing mode with the H1 => L2 combo if you aren't already in it. I probably just need to play with the weapon a little more to figure out how best to combo it.

The special attack is also very nifty. It stuns crushers (good for interrupting the overhead of death), bulwarks, ragers, and maulers. It may also stun mutants mid charge, but I may have hallucinated that due to a smite psyker being around.

The shock maul may also have the most interesting blessing options of any weapon. There are a lot of good options here. Given that the shock maul seems to apply electrocution to everything with just its regular attack patterns, I suspect that high voltage is going to be a must have in most circumstances. Entropic seems like something that you're going to want to have as well, but in practice I find that I am dodging more than blocking, so I am finding it hard to have a lot of uptime on it. What I find more interesting is leaning into the stagger potential of the weapon with opportunist, falter, or hammer blow. There just seems to be a lot of potential going this route, particularly if you spec into the some of the impact/stagger talents on the zealot.

[Ravs]

I like it a lot, I personally think it's up there with the best generalist melee weapons. It's a great weapon for both effortless light attack spam and heavies, and the good thing is you can use either of them or both of the same time, depending on your playstyle.

There are some interesting blessing combinations, and I'm happy they didn't make special activation as long as Ogryn's Power Maul (which still sucks ass by the way lol). I think that it's similar to Devil's Claw in terms of how versatile this weapon is. Better against most enemies than Devil's Claw, but weaker against Monstrosities and Ragers specifically.

I've spent around 30k plasteel hunting for the parry blessing, but it still eludes me. :( I'm sure it's not gonna be that strong, but I wanted to try this blessing because it reminded me of using parry on Skull Basher (mace and shield) weapon in Killing Floor 2.

[xDaunt]

Originally posted by Ravel:

I like it a lot, I personally think it's up there with the best generalist melee weapons. It's a great weapon for both effortless light attack spam and heavies, and the good thing is you can use either of them or both of the same time, depending on your playstyle.

There are some interesting blessing combinations, and I'm happy they didn't make special activation as long as Ogryn's Power Maul (which still sucks ass by the way lol). I think that it's similar to Devil's Claw in terms of how versatile this weapon is. Better against most enemies than Devil's Claw, but weaker against Monstrosities and Ragers specifically.

I've spent around 30k plasteel hunting for the parry blessing, but it still eludes me. :( I'm sure it's not gonna be that strong, but I wanted to try this blessing because it reminded me of using parry on Skull Basher (mace and shield) weapon in Killing Floor 2.

I think the shock maul is probably a better all around weapon than the devil's claw. It kills everything without a lot of effort as you point out. The biggest thing is that it can competently deal with heavy armor, whereas the devil's claw relies upon the parry, which can be a little finnicky.

I tried a game with the falter blessing. It was interesting. Heavy strikedowns can interrupt rager combos, which makes this a pretty safe weapon for engaging ragers. Trash enemies got knocked around easily with all of the headshots.

Also, I did confirm that the special does not stop muties.

[ナルゴ]

-Bad at crowd control.
-Low range.
-Good damage against armor, with blessings to further increase it. (The rending blessing is sweet)
-Swings are pretty quick.
-Also high stagger values.
-The special can incapacitate crushers and open up bulwarks.

I guess the closest comparison are those one-handed hammers in Vermintide 2.

Not for me, but I can see some players really liking what it offers.

[Pitviper]

Originally posted by Nargo:

-Bad at crowd control.
-Low range.
-Good damage against armor, with blessings to further increase it. (The rending blessing is sweet)
-Swings are pretty quick.
-Also high stagger values.
-The special can incapacitate crushers and open up bulwarks.

I guess the closest comparison is those one-handed hammers in Vermintide 2.

Not for me, but I can see some players really liking what it offers.

How is it bad at crowd control? Wouldn't Hammerblow (for the stacking Impact) make keeping a horde flat on the floor a breeze?

[varicose 'vascular' vinny]

it is kind of like a shovel, its pretty easy to space back and control horde but they're gonna die slowly so hopefully someone's working on them with you or you have grenades to spare (vet). that also makes it a pretty good weapon overall, since it can quickly work bonks and staggers in on bigger enemies while being extremely mobile. to balance that out you give it medium-ish damage output.

I was just disappointed tasing a mutie does nothing, like how does me punching them in the face with my axe in my hand stagger them, or the psyker's lightning, but not this? I was hoping for a little more utility from the move in quickly saving teammates, but oh well. it does make fighting bulwarks a snap, so your ranged options don't need to focus on those beatbags.

[xDaunt]

Here are my thoughts after getting to know the shock maul better over the past week:

1. The shock maul is a really strong, all purpose weapon. It hits hard and fast. It is capable of killing anything. It is definitely one of the snappier and more responsive options out there. I think that it is up there as a top tier option for zealots in particular.

2. I don't understand why anyone would take the Agni over the Indignatus. The Indignatus seems to do everything better presuming that you can reliably do the H1 => L2 combo for clearing hordes. If you're just a button masher, then maybe the Agni is for you. But I see better players gravitating towards the Indignatus.

3. High Voltage is the most important blessing to put on it. Think of it as a flat 25% damage buff that you will always have. The electrocution will automatically apply against anything smaller than ogryn. For ogryns and monstrosities, you need to use the special attack to apply the electrocution.

4. After High Voltage, you have some options depending upon play style. Skullcrusher is the other really good damage blessing to add, particularly on zealots who can pair it with +impact/stagger talents. I don't know that Falter is as good as I initially gave it credit for, at least on zealots. I don't really miss it when I take punishment or grievous wounds.

5. Despite my initial comments to the contrary, I have been gravitating towards Lightning Reflexes (formerly Entropic) as the best option for a second blessing on auric/maelstrom. I find myself running out of dodges far more often than I used to with the higher horde density, faster hordes, and newly-roided ragers. I'm having to think about defense a lot more now, and Lightning Reflexes is solving a lot more problems than I initially gave it credit for. The important thing to note about it is that it has no internal cooldown. This can help you create a lot of space in very hairy melee situations, which there are a lot more of now.

6. I've been running +flak and +carapace as the perks. I don't have a particularly good grasp of all of the breakpoints yet, but +carapace is really good to have against the increased spawn rate of maulers and crushers. Keep in mind that you can't really hit anything other than the heads of maulers with the Indignatus if you are using the heavy strikedown, so there's some added value on the +carapace pick. +Maniac doesn't really need necessary in my experience so far. Most trash is getting one-shot with headshots in horde situations, so +unarmored seems to be a waste as well.

7. On my zealot, I have predominantly been using the Indignatus with a more or less standard blades/FoF/momentum build. However, the weapon is pretty beastly with martydom as well.

[YARD_STALEV]

Originally posted by Nargo:

-Bad at crowd control.
-Low range.
Not for me, but I can see some players really liking what it offers.

I tried it from levels 1 to 5.
It was ok at 1-4, but stumbles with hords at 5.
Had to get back to Chainsaw (Vet) and Rashad/Visc (Zeal).

[Arani]

I have to admit I haven't really gotten into them yet. I admit I'm far from any kind of expert with them ofc, but as a psyker the dmg / CC isn't worth the costs. Psykers just have massive CC from other sources anyway, and for example a Deimos has superior dmg and just flat out kills & knocks down anything with its H2's instead. As a zelly the Crusher just seems to outdo it in every department anyway. As a Weapons Specialist vet raw dmg & fast weapon switching is more important, so knives or combat axes just fair better. And as literally anything if mobility or ranged is your focus, knives, duelling swords etc. are just way better.

I'm definitely not saying this is the case or that the weapon sucks, but I haven't yet found that niche where I'd want to use the shock mauls over something else. And idk what makes for the difference but that special hardly ever seems to stun anything worth stunning for me. Aside from ragers perhaps. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

I'm definitely excited about exploring Skullcrusher & High Voltage builds some time in the future, considering how crazy Skullcrusher's +80% dmg debuff can make some builds and how HV seems to stack with it. I also really want to make someting of Entropic & block builds to compete with DC parrying, with psykers Kinetic Deflection would make that easy after all. But the main thing about parrying is its insane dmg especially vs. bosses, crushers & maulers. I doubt Entropic will do anything there other than get you killed, but haven't tried yet it ofc.

[ΉYDЯΛ]

I love the Indignatus, so good

[Al3x!el]

Originally posted by xDaunt:

Here are my thoughts after getting to know the shock maul better over the past week:

1. The shock maul is a really strong, all purpose weapon. It hits hard and fast. It is capable of killing anything. It is definitely one of the snappier and more responsive options out there. I think that it is up there as a top tier option for zealots in particular.

2. I don't understand why anyone would take the Agni over the Indignatus. The Indignatus seems to do everything better presuming that you can reliably do the H1 => L2 combo for clearing hordes. If you're just a button masher, then maybe the Agni is for you. But I see better players gravitating towards the Indignatus.

3. High Voltage is the most important blessing to put on it. Think of it as a flat 25% damage buff that you will always have. The electrocution will automatically apply against anything smaller than ogryn. For ogryns and monstrosities, you need to use the special attack to apply the electrocution.

4. After High Voltage, you have some options depending upon play style. Skullcrusher is the other really good damage blessing to add, particularly on zealots who can pair it with +impact/stagger talents. I don't know that Falter is as good as I initially gave it credit for, at least on zealots. I don't really miss it when I take punishment or grievous wounds.

5. Despite my initial comments to the contrary, I have been gravitating towards Lightning Reflexes (formerly Entropic) as the best option for a second blessing on auric/maelstrom. I find myself running out of dodges far more often than I used to with the higher horde density, faster hordes, and newly-roided ragers. I'm having to think about defense a lot more now, and Lightning Reflexes is solving a lot more problems than I initially gave it credit for. The important thing to note about it is that it has no internal cooldown. This can help you create a lot of space in very hairy melee situations, which there are a lot more of now.

6. I've been running +flak and +carapace as the perks. I don't have a particularly good grasp of all of the breakpoints yet, but +carapace is really good to have against the increased spawn rate of maulers and crushers. Keep in mind that you can't really hit anything other than the heads of maulers with the Indignatus if you are using the heavy strikedown, so there's some added value on the +carapace pick. +Maniac doesn't really need necessary in my experience so far. Most trash is getting one-shot with headshots in horde situations, so +unarmored seems to be a waste as well.

7. On my zealot, I have predominantly been using the Indignatus with a more or less standard blades/FoF/momentum build. However, the weapon is pretty beastly with martydom as well.

2. Did you invest into Agni combos?
- Block push attack / H1 / L1 / H1 & = Horde clear sweap
- H1 / L1 / L1 or H1 / L1 / H1 = all over head strikes for crit on bigger targets and specials

I wonder if the higher heavy base dmg this one comes with does have a great impact anyway..

However, compared to eviscator this two weapons are just not that powerfull. The heavy sword also does a cleaner job popping heads if it comes to hordes, not to mention the knife.

In the end it comes down wich style you like to use purging the unclean :D

[xDaunt]

Originally posted by Arani:

I have to admit I haven't really gotten into them yet. I admit I'm far from any kind of expert with them ofc, but as a psyker the dmg / CC isn't worth the costs. Psykers just have massive CC from other sources anyway, and for example a Deimos has superior dmg and just flat out kills & knocks down anything with its H2's instead. As a zelly the Crusher just seems to outdo it in every department anyway. As a Weapons Specialist vet raw dmg & fast weapon switching is more important, so knives or combat axes just fair better. And as literally anything if mobility or ranged is your focus, knives, duelling swords etc. are just way better.

I'm definitely not saying this is the case or that the weapon sucks, but I haven't yet found that niche where I'd want to use the shock mauls over something else. And idk what makes for the difference but that special hardly ever seems to stun anything worth stunning for me. Aside from ragers perhaps. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong.

I'm definitely excited about exploring Skullcrusher & High Voltage builds some time in the future, considering how crazy Skullcrusher's +80% dmg debuff can make some builds and how HV seems to stack with it. I also really want to make someting of Entropic & block builds to compete with DC parrying, with psykers Kinetic Deflection would make that easy after all. But the main thing about parrying is its insane dmg especially vs. bosses, crushers & maulers. I doubt Entropic will do anything there other than get you killed, but haven't tried yet it ofc.

I've never been able to get good damage numbers out of a crusher. Pretty much every other zealot weapon out-performs the crusher for me in terms of sheer damage potential, with the exception of the crucis. Just looking at the attack profiles of the shock maul and the crusher side by side, I don't see how the crusher would outperform the shock maul either, particularly when you factor in the blessings that the shock maul has available. Yeah, the crusher's heavy attacks do more damage -- particularly H2 -- but the light attacks on the shock maul greatly outperform the crusher's light attacks and are faster to boot.

As for lightning reflexes/entropic, I would never use it like the parry on the devil's claw. It just doesn't function the same way. You should use as an "oh ♥♥♥♥" crowd control mechanism in desperate situations or as a hard counter to ragers rather than as an offensive tool, notwithstanding the damage buff that you'll get out of it. You certainly cannot use it to counter the overheads from crushers and maulers.

[Haggis]

Originally posted by xDaunt:

2. I don't understand why anyone would take the Agni over the Indignatus. The Indignatus seems to do everything better presuming that you can reliably do the H1 => L2 combo for clearing hordes. If you're just a button masher, then maybe the Agni is for you. But I see better players gravitating towards the Indignatus.

I prefer the moveset on the Agni. H1 is a vertical overhead that kills any non-elite enemy in 1 hit. It also feels so damn good. The feeling is the big thing for me, and is also why I prefer mk1 bully club to the others on my ogryn. For horde clear you do L1->H2 and repeat. Maybe its not quite so good at horde clearing as the other, but its kept me alive in Auric Damnations so its definitely good enough.

[Arani]

Originally posted by xDaunt:

...

Lantern has forgotten about my build and I don't have the time to recreate it but in short the crusher has really high finesse bonus dmg and an incredible push-attack. The PA does about the same dmg as a heavy (especially on weakspots / crits) but it's fast, procs Skullcrusher for the same attack, has a high CC and ultra wide cleave. It's an absolutely insane weapon if you get high stamina / sta recovery and abuse the 2x attack per stealth. The CC is just the icing on the cake.

Outside of that the crusher is completely underwhelming, that's true. Also the recent IoD nerf seriously affected that build ofc, so not as strong now as it used to be. Still works well enough from the few runs I did a few days ago tho.

[xDaunt]

Originally posted by Kuoni Trahho:

Originally posted by xDaunt:

Here are my thoughts after getting to know the shock maul better over the past week:

1. The shock maul is a really strong, all purpose weapon. It hits hard and fast. It is capable of killing anything. It is definitely one of the snappier and more responsive options out there. I think that it is up there as a top tier option for zealots in particular.

2. I don't understand why anyone would take the Agni over the Indignatus. The Indignatus seems to do everything better presuming that you can reliably do the H1 => L2 combo for clearing hordes. If you're just a button masher, then maybe the Agni is for you. But I see better players gravitating towards the Indignatus.

3. High Voltage is the most important blessing to put on it. Think of it as a flat 25% damage buff that you will always have. The electrocution will automatically apply against anything smaller than ogryn. For ogryns and monstrosities, you need to use the special attack to apply the electrocution.

4. After High Voltage, you have some options depending upon play style. Skullcrusher is the other really good damage blessing to add, particularly on zealots who can pair it with +impact/stagger talents. I don't know that Falter is as good as I initially gave it credit for, at least on zealots. I don't really miss it when I take punishment or grievous wounds.

5. Despite my initial comments to the contrary, I have been gravitating towards Lightning Reflexes (formerly Entropic) as the best option for a second blessing on auric/maelstrom. I find myself running out of dodges far more often than I used to with the higher horde density, faster hordes, and newly-roided ragers. I'm having to think about defense a lot more now, and Lightning Reflexes is solving a lot more problems than I initially gave it credit for. The important thing to note about it is that it has no internal cooldown. This can help you create a lot of space in very hairy melee situations, which there are a lot more of now.

6. I've been running +flak and +carapace as the perks. I don't have a particularly good grasp of all of the breakpoints yet, but +carapace is really good to have against the increased spawn rate of maulers and crushers. Keep in mind that you can't really hit anything other than the heads of maulers with the Indignatus if you are using the heavy strikedown, so there's some added value on the +carapace pick. +Maniac doesn't really need necessary in my experience so far. Most trash is getting one-shot with headshots in horde situations, so +unarmored seems to be a waste as well.

7. On my zealot, I have predominantly been using the Indignatus with a more or less standard blades/FoF/momentum build. However, the weapon is pretty beastly with martydom as well.

2. Did you invest into Agni combos?
- Block push attack / H1 / L1 / H1 & = Horde clear sweap
- H1 / L1 / L1 or H1 / L1 / H1 = all over head strikes for crit on bigger targets and specials

I wonder if the higher heavy base dmg this one comes with does have a great impact anyway..

However, compared to eviscator this two weapons are just not that powerfull. The heavy sword also does a cleaner job popping heads if it comes to hordes, not to mention the knife.

In the end it comes down wich style you like to use purging the unclean :D

I looked at the Agni some, but didn't like the patterns at all. For the horde clear combo, I really don't like starting combos with light attacks chaining into heavy attacks. It's much more efficient to go heavy into light. The other problem with the Agni is that the heavy swing is not perfectly horizontal. Both swings on the H1+L2 combo of the Indignatus are perfectly horizontal, which makes weak spot hits in hordes much easier. The other thing that I don't like about the Agni is that you can't chain heavy strike downs like you can with the Indignatus. This makes killing crushers and other hard targets more difficult in my opinion.

As for your comparison of the shock mauls to the eviscerators, I think you should take another look. The damage difference isn't what you think it is, to the extent that there is any at all. I just played an eviscerator game (Mk 2) for the first time this patch. I didn't match the damage output of any of my past 3 games with the shock maul, which kinda surprised me. My build for the eviscerator and the shock maul are basically identical. The main thing that I noticed was that my attack speed with the eviscerator was significantly slower than on the shock maul. The other thing that I think that people underestimate is how powerful the shock maul blessings are, which greatly boost base damage. The eviscerator blessings really can't compete.

So yeah, I'm quite comfortable ranking shock mauls (the Indignatus, anyway) on the same level as eviscerators. I'm not prepared to put them in the same class as knives or heavy swords yet, but there's a lot of potential with the shock mauls.

EDIT: I just played an auric game with another zealot whom I know is good. We had to carry the team pretty hard. He was playing with an eviscerator, and I was playing with the shock maul. Here were the stats at the end:

Him: 619k total damage, 393k melee, 299k ranged (197k overkill)
Me: 608k total damage, 553k melee, 123k ranged (150k overkill)

Offensive score per the scoreboard app was 114 for each of us. Most of his ranged damage came from immolation grenades. But the point is that the shock maul more than kept up with his eviscerator.

[Arani]

Originally posted by xDaunt:

Originally posted by Kuoni Trahho:

...

I looked at the Agni some, but didn't like the patterns at all. For the horde clear combo, I really don't like starting combos with light attacks chaining into heavy attacks. It's much more efficient to go heavy into light. The other problem with the Agni is that the heavy swing is not perfectly horizontal. Both swings on the H1+L2 combo of the Indignatus are perfectly horizontal, which makes weak spot hits in hordes much easier. The other thing that I don't like about the Agni is that you can't chain heavy strike downs like you can with the Indignatus. This makes killing crushers and other hard targets more difficult in my opinion.
...

Thx for these (and the other) tips!

Idk why but I'd settled on the Agni at first after testing them in the psykhanium. Got lucky enough to roll a halfway decent Indignatus on one of my psykers so fixed that with Skullcrusher & High Voltage and gotta say the improvement was instant and remarkable. Even with a psyker that H>L combo is insane. Idk why but even with Darktide's wonky headshot detection that thing stacks True Aim like crazy.

So I made an Assail & shield build with Empowered Psionics as opposed to the usual crits & Disrupt Destiny and it's incredibly effective. My only issue so far is that the mace doesn't have enough cleave to power through the big spawns.

Regardless, if this is what the Indignatus can do on a psyker, I can't wait to give it a try on my vet & zelly!