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Are you looking to use the thunder hammer for the sake of using the thunder hammer or are you trying to do something specific with it?
The one shot builds are a lot of fun but not exactly practical. The non one shot builds are more practical and still are capable of quickly taking out monstrosities and bosses.
Lots of people complain about the issue of not being able to kill (for example) a crusher in the middle of a horde, which is, in fact, just a skill issue.
also, dont listen to these people who tell you that hammer is ♥♥♥♥ for hordes. maybe an eveiscerator is better, but hammer does a VERY good joob in crowd control, but also in killing.
thrust t4 absolutley needed in my opinion, then i would go for slaughter, or anything that gives you horde dmg. Get the stun nades, for scenarios where you actually get overhelmed, or to get revives in. The ability is not really important, fury is very good for bosses and crusheers killing, but also for instand toughness regen. chorus is also a very good panic button and shroudfield can also be good for rezzing and killing big targets. As Keystone i would always go with martydrom, imo its the only one benefiting hammer builds.
As for guns, i would get stub revolver with hand cannon and surgical, its pairs VERY good with hammer, wayyyy better then flamer, or any other gun. What you DONT need it a crowd control gun, because hammer already does this job very well.
It also suffers from not really being able to benefit from zealots strongest build, crits.
You can cleave through hordes with more dmg and hit the specials and elites in the middle of it. Great for Ragers, Mutants, Hounds and others in the middle of the dense poxwalkers. Without its special however, its dmg is significantly worse than Crucis and seems to perform worse in general on Carapace.
So Ironhelm is great for horde clear but carapace clear and boss is okay. That said, they're great and I love them both, just that the skill ceiling for either is high, most notably the Crucis and I only know of one person that uses the Crucis to its best potential that constantly kills Daemonhosts in every mission he comes across.
Trying to use a TH at lower levels is just...yeah, don't.
What you can take my word for however, is Crucis and how to use it properly. It's *way* better than many people give it credit for and has a number of tricks and tips a lot of people don't seem to know or care about that really take it to the next level (bear in mind all these are from T5+ perspective):
- Get a Crucis with at least Thrust IV and Headtaker IV (or Slaughterer), and +unyielding dmg. Headtaker is better, since iirc Slaughterer can't really reach any meaningful breakpoints that Headtaker couldn't, while also being unreliable and often worthless against bosses.
- Since it's all about heavies which are all cleaving headshots, focus on hitting heads whether it's hordes or elites
- Remember that the First Target stat adds a lot of dmg to the first enemy hit by each swing, it's very important for hammers to be able to 1-shot elites
- You can use dodges and slides while powering up or charging attacks, and especially dodges while charging and attacking are absolutely essential for a slow weapon like this. It's not just for defense, but mobility where you plan ahead what you want to hit and dodge in a way where 0.5s from now you will.
- When you use the powered heavy attack, it starts from a specific point on the edge of your screen, you can easily hit priority targets even in a crowd by aiming just enough to the side that your target is on that sweet spot where the swing begins. Against oggies you can aim up, even jump just before the attack to make sure you always hit what you want. It may take some time but once you learn these you will basically never have trouble with trash getting in the way again.
- Fury of the Faithful (ult) is often used wrong with people wasting it on the first strike for charging in for a crit and nothing else. If you instead just waltz in and attack normally at first and save the ult for when you need it, you can make full use of its +50% toughness regen, AoE stagger AND that mobility & crit all of which perfectly complement the hammer's slowness.
- The Crucis TH benefits from many talents, but I'll list a few that aren't obvious to everyone. You don't have to pick all of them ofc, but it's good to know your options:
- Thy Wrath be Swift - The description on this is wrong, this talent makes you immune to stagger & stun from about everything including ranged & fires. Not only can't gunners or flamers staggerlock you, you actually get a speedbuff instead. It's good for any build but especially slow weapons like TH, since they can't interrupt your swings nor restrain your mobility.
- Duellist - Since the TH is slow enough to not just require dodging, but also slow enough to let the enemy attack between the dodges which causes this talent to proc, this pick will basically constantly give you +50% weakspot & crit dmg. Which ofc with a weapon that depends on weakspots and cleaves both while already doing a ton of dmg, is insane. Since you usually want Until Death with a TH (especially if you also get Martyrdom), Duellist is also just a single talent point away.
- Martyrdom - Martyrdom is crazy strong for any weapon, but this is doubly true for the TH. With 2 wound curios for example, you will get a constant +40% dmg, +20% attack speed, and +25% toughness dmg reduction. Together with the other talents this will transform the Crucis into a monster that can just spam regular heavies to completely destroy mixed hordes with specials and even ragers in there, while pushing you past the threshold of being able to 1-shot all non-boss enemies with powered Thrust heavies even without perks I think.
- Good Balance - This isn't as important as the rest on this list and certainly not strong on its own, but it has great synergies that imo make it worth considering. *If* you already have tons of dmg resist, already depend on dodges, and already got Thy Wrath be Swift, together that means that this talent is a single point investment that adds tons of extra survivability for when it matters. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
- Finally as a more general note, +30% toughness regen on curios is extremely super important for virtually every single class and build, especially on those that depend on toughness and coherency. It only works on coherency regen, but 3 of these not only makes you regen toughness almost twice as effectively, but also reduces the delay between when the regen starts by almost half. Since coherency regen stops every time you go out of coherency even for a split second, or take even a single hit from melee or ranged, in practice this perk lets you constantly regen toughness where without it you would get none, easily netting orders of magnitude more passive toughness regen in combat than you would get otherwise. I use this on every single one of my curios on all characters. Even or especially if you have the Loner aura, this perk is a god-sent as it doubles its efficiency from the 2 minimum and halves the time it starts working.
I think that's about it. For reference, below is my main TH build and it's absolutely crazy strong on T5+ and makes use of all the points I mentioned above. Ofc, hammers in general and especially with Martyrdom rely on good positioning and very good dodging skills, so this might take some getting used to. I have over 2k hours experience in the game so for me after I randomly tried variations of this build there's just no going back with how absolutely insane powerful it is. xDhttps://darktide.gameslantern.com/build-editor?id=9b15933d-52b8-4dc2-9991-93b44da672f5
Note that the +carapace on the hammer, and some of the perks on the curios aren't mandatory, but rather just what I have either locked or with curios am using because I share them with other builds. The main point is that with Martyrdom, toughness not health is your main survival stat.
Ironhelm is nothing but a crutch for people who don't understand how to use the Crucis effectively. Thunder hammers shouldn't "cleave" when a charged blow makes impact, it should be like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bomb going off and stagger everything around the target you hit.
This hammer below combined with my talent build does 584 base damage per swing. I have no problem mowing down hordes. People will tell you "It dosn't kill fast enough!!" Well, they're wrong. Once my stacks fill up, which only takes 2-3 swings into a horde, I kill everything my hammer touches. Then with my other talents and how much toughness I regen, I am essentially immortal while I'm swinging my hammer.
The thing about the Crucis that people don't get, is that you shouldn't be activating it all the time, you don't NEED to activate it, until you have a clear shot at a big target.
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2314353836506428836/7746DAAE2E237774F353EA4E9B12909A4BC6D055/?imw=5000&imh=5000&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=false
Fast enough is purely subjective. There are plenty of weapons that will kill more enemies per swing, with much faster attack speeds. That is a fact. They are fully capable of dealing with hordes but comparably to other weapons, are lacking.
Let's just start with the obvious. The idea that the Crucis has anything resembling competent horde clearing performance is just a bad joke. Either you don't know what competent horde clearing looks like or you are playing on malice. In the time that it takes you to kill two trash mobs with a Crucis, I'll have killed 4-5+ with another weapon. So yes, the Crucis "doesn't kill fast enough!!"
Second, you're hugely understating the importance of having a functional special attack on the thunderhammer. Let's just be blunt: if you're not using the special attack on the hammer, you're better off using virtually any other weapon, depending upon what you want to do. Do you want to mulch heavy armor? Take a chainaxe. Do you want to mow through hordes? Take one of the swords. Do you want to knock things around and play the stagger game? Take the crusher. The only thing that the hammer does better than anything else is deal single target burst damage using the special attack. The Crucis's lack of a functional special attack in mixed horde situations is crippling for the weapon's overall effectiveness. The Ironhelm can actually do its job in these situations, whereas the Crucis just can't.
Third, saying that the Ironhelm is just a crutch for people who don't know to use the Crucis belies a misunderstanding of what the Ironhelm can do. The cleave on the Ironhelm's special isn't just for sniping elites. It also gives the Ironhelm some nifty synergies with the crit talents that are the staples of the best zealot builds kinda like how deathblow works with heavy swords. The moveset on the Ironhelm is also better. It is faster and more responsive than the Crucis. People complain about the third heavy, which is the overhead strikedown. However, they are missing the point. Having that move available gives you an option for sniping elites in mixed hordes without having to activate your special attack. The Crucis cannot do this. And if you activate your special attack anyway on the third heavy, you're going to do monstrous damage with it. If you want to stick with the heavy horizontal swings, all you need to do is replace the heavy 3 with a block/push attack to reset the combo back to heavy 1. If anything, mindlessly spamming the two basic heavy attacks on the Crucis is a crutch compared to actually learning how to use the more complex moveset and capabilities that the Ironhelm offers.