Hammer feels a little underpowered. I think it needs some balancing.

[Hammerlord]

I've been playing hammer the entire game, with no idea how the other 13 weapons were doing. After watching some speedruns of other weapons, I've realized hammer, while not weak at all, got out-crept by all the other weapons evolving in this generation. I've got some ideas to balance things out so that it's not at the bottom of the leaderboards.

1. Mighty Charge needs more mobility and a faster charge. Right now it's mobility is so slow it might as well be stationary like a greatsword charge. Going from an offset upswing into mighty charge sometimes doesn't work out because the monster flinched backwards too far for you to reach. The mighty charge uppercut is a mostly useless attack with middling damage and sub-par stun damage, basically only used to cancel out of the move if you don't have enough time for the slam. Since mighty charge slam is mostly used as a finisher in your attack combo, it should charge up faster so you're not kept waiting.

2. Increase the stun damage of "strong attacks". Users with mods have confirmed the new stun values on some hammer attacks are lower than they were in iceborne. Specifically the charged upswing and spinning bludgeon upswing are weaker when they shouldn't be. Both mighty charge attacks deal way less stun than you'd expect for how long you have to build up to landing them. Mighty charge upswing should go from 25 stun to 55, and Mighty charge slam should go from 5+5+40 stun to 5+5+60. It's only fair that hammer's biggest attacks should inflict the most stun.

3. The Focus strike needs to deal more damage on its own. Focus strike: Earthquake is very weak compared to other weapon's focus strikes. The only benefit it has is that it can combo into a quick upswing for offset attacks, or combo into a mighty charge, which can't often be used because monsters recover from stagger too quickly. Considering how the attack consists of a strong spin and slam, its damage should be comparable to a big bang finisher, with a motion value of 100 instead of 40 (40 is absurdly low for a slam at the end of a combo attack!) It wouldn't hurt to buff the stun damage as well, in line with my statement that strong attacks should deal strong stun damage.

4. Basic combo drops inputs sometimes. With the ability to move between swings in the basic 3 hit combo, inputting more than one direction while moving causes the hunter to drop the combo entirely. During an actual hunt, with both focus mode and moving your camera, this can happen quite often and completely screw up offset attacks. For the overall flow of the weapon, this should get fixed.

5. Offset attacks don't do enough. Pretty simple. Landing one upswing doesn't deal a whole lot of damage, and there's no boost or special combo attack that you get after an offset. You can go into a mighty charge, but that's just a normal combo progression and doesn't even work half the time because you just knocked the monster across the room and it'll recover well before you close the distance holding a mighty charge.

These are my thoughts on how to reasonably buff hammer so its DPS isn't so low compared to other weapons. This would work a lot better than just some blanket buff to the damage of all its attacks as it should keep its distinct playstyle intact.

[zmanbuilder]

Do not base balance on speed runs.

[Hammerlord]

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

Do not base balance on speed runs.

Fair point. I am also basing it on some 4 player hunts I did with a damage meter on (No, I'm not telling other people I have a damage meter on). But then it also becomes a question of personal skill.

[OnePunchGay]

hammer dont need to use focus strike tho all it offer was a follow up, but hammer do need those wounded part stay wounded

[Good Kitty]

i think there needs to be more options to cancel the Triangle combo to a hold for a offset attack

[Hammerlord]

Yeah, focus strike doesn't feel useful enough to warrant using in its current state. But if you're landing big hits on wounds (especially with weakness exploit and crit boost) those wounds pop so fast that I'd almost rather get the guaranteed stagger that a focus strike provides.

[Cosmic Spirit]

No need more mobility for a hammer, please. In wilds hammer has a lot of it already.
Weapons with a lot of mobility are boring in my opinion and we have a lot of them already.

[Hammerlord]

It's already mobile, yeah. But not the mighty charge. The whole point is that hammer can charge while moving, but mighty charge seems too slow, even with consideration to the power that it has.

[zmanbuilder]

Hammer can KO, and that is very nice.

[NiamhNyx]

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

It's already mobile, yeah. But not the mighty charge. The whole point is that hammer can charge while moving, but mighty charge seems too slow, even with consideration to the power that it has.

it just needs some more damage for that move, the immobility of makes it more planned on its useage.

[『LITERALLY ME』]

worst feeling hammer in all of mh sadly

[Wild]

Haven't played much hammer yet but outside of speedruns I think it performs even worse, the weapon gets terrible damage by not constantly hitting the head all the time since it does blunt damage that gets terrible hitzones on other parts, can't always be on the head all the time playing at an average skill level too.

Odd thing is the producer of the game claims to be a hammer only main, it's weird that they made other weapons feel a lot better, even the hammer offset attack is annoying to pull off, compared to how easy the switch axe or GS is.

[J-Dawg]

My gripe is Wilds hammer sounds not giving the OOMPH like they used to in Worlds lol, but preach brother hammer main 🫡

[Hammerlord]

I'm starting to see more and more when I check my damage meter after a hunt, that hammer especially falls behind on DPS when a monster is incapacitated. When I bring a fire hammer to tempered gore hunts, I tend to deal more damage proportional to others than when I bring my para hammer. Again, not a competition with other players but it helps confirm that hammer's damage output is far below other weapons when the monster can't fight back. I said before that a blanket damage buff would be the wrong solution but I take that back. Hammer's attacks outside of mighty charge need more power, and mighty charge could use a slight speed buff.

[lolschrauber]

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

I'm starting to see more and more when I check my damage meter after a hunt, that hammer especially falls behind on DPS when a monster is incapacitated. When I bring a fire hammer to tempered gore hunts, I tend to deal more damage proportional to others than when I bring my para hammer.

Duh, you're losing out on the additional elemental damage and boosting other people's DPS at the same time via stuns and Para.

I like playing Para GS sometimes and don't really care. Hunts are usually still quick enough and the multiple paras make it less stressful imho.

[Hammerlord]

I know it's the loss of elemental damage but hammer should gain DPS when you can attack without restraint against a paralyzed monster. The increase in DPS is much less than other weapons gain when given this opportunity.

I still bring a para hammer because again, helping the team is helping everyone. If I bring a fire hammer, it's because I want the challenge. Seriously, tempered gore's the most fun hunt in the game since it actually gets your blood pumping.