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.

[PhantomΩ]

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

Originally posted by PhantomΩ:

Wait whats the issues with SA?

No idea. I know people who loved ZSD spam are upset that the new Meta is FRS spam, but just like people who hated ZSD spam didn't spam it... Just don't spam it?

Ikr...i mean i love using FRS when i can but the morph combos are just so good

[Maiden Lightlina]

I think hammer is fine, although the issue of it still having no defense options is annoying, the changed movesets made it far less annoying to use than in world, it's still the best stunning weapon.

Much like GS the weapon requires you know the monster to get the best use out of it.

[Scipo0419]

Originally posted by PhantomΩ:

Originally posted by Scipo0419:

No idea. I know people who loved ZSD spam are upset that the new Meta is FRS spam, but just like people who hated ZSD spam didn't spam it... Just don't spam it?

Ikr...i mean i love using FRS when i can but the morph combos are just so good :MHRISE_Felyne:

Same! The morph combos for general dps then full Discharge + FRS for the largest openings, focus into FRS or quick FRS or ZSD for large openings, focus into Unbridled or full discharge + unbridled for medium openings, lastly quick unbridled into morph combos if I still need to build sword gauge and it toppled.

[Hammerlord]

Originally posted by Holyna, The High Seraph:

I think hammer is fine, although the issue of it still having no defense options is annoying, the changed movesets made it far less annoying to use than in world, it's still the best stunning weapon.

Much like GS the weapon requires you know the monster to get the best use out of it.

I think having too many defense options goes against the philosophy of the hammer. Evasion from the slinger dash (or whatever it's called) and the ability to do offsets is enough. It just needs faster or more damage when the monster is down. It can't properly capitalize on KO'd monsters at the moment.

[Hormesis]

i'm maining hammer atm and in rise it was my overall most used weapon. not saying i'm an expert or anything but i'm at the top of the dps in pugs 75% of the time while also being responsible for at least 2 KOs and can get 2 paralyzes myself if no one else is using a para weapon (exhaust is also a helpful utility when it's applicable). for me it's the most useful weapon besides HH in most parties. although some fights i'll switch to GS or DB, the spider, the fire octopus and the water blimp for example just aren't good fights for hammer (at least not for me)

[Hammerlord]

We can all agree its focus strike is so weak it borders on useless when compared to other weapons, right? Unless you want a tempered wound knockdown, you're better off just hitting the wound for extra damage.

[Mrrshan68]

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

We can all agree its focus strike is so weak it borders on useless when compared to other weapons, right? Unless you want a tempered wound knockdown, you're better off just hitting the wound for extra damage.

Eh its still free damage at the end of a combo and causes the monster to flinch, it also lets you reposition some since you go spinning away.
i will say its worlds better than gunlances godawful 0/10 focus stike.
It looks cool and all but god is it BAD.

[UVXIII]

Olivia begs to differ.

[lolschrauber]

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

We can all agree its focus strike is so weak it borders on useless when compared to other weapons, right? Unless you want a tempered wound knockdown, you're better off just hitting the wound for extra damage.

But you can charge during the focus strike animation and then immediately follow with a charged slam or go into Mighty charge.

That should be better dps overall, no?

[GamingWithSilvertail]

Originally posted by lolschrauber:

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

We can all agree its focus strike is so weak it borders on useless when compared to other weapons, right? Unless you want a tempered wound knockdown, you're better off just hitting the wound for extra damage.

But you can charge during the focus strike animation and then immediately follow with a charged slam or go into Mighty charge.

That should be better dps overall, no?

Dont tell people relearn weapons. More fun to see them struggle that way :P

[Mrrshan68]

Wait you can what now?
You mean i could have been charging my hammer during the focus strike this whole time?!?!

[PhantomΩ]

Originally posted by lolschrauber:

Originally posted by Hammerlord:

We can all agree its focus strike is so weak it borders on useless when compared to other weapons, right? Unless you want a tempered wound knockdown, you're better off just hitting the wound for extra damage.

But you can charge during the focus strike animation and then immediately follow with a charged slam or go into Mighty charge.

That should be better dps overall, no?

Surely Hammer lord knows that, right?

Right?

[lolschrauber]

Originally posted by Mrrshan68:

Wait you can what now?
You mean i could have been charging my hammer during the focus strike this whole time?!?!

Yes. Is that some sort of forbidden knowledge? lol

[Hikarian]

Imo all Hammer needs is to remove animation lock, I want to be able to stop whatever im doing with a dodge MH always felt clunky because of this weird controlls that you have to commit to attacks.

And what they also need to is to improve visuals when youre basically inside the monster and suddenly you dont see what it does anymore, this is especially a problem in tight spaces where moving the camera doesnt help alot.

Also they have to stop always forcing the camera towards the monster like I know its ahead I wanna GRAB THAT PLANT OVER THERE WHY DONT YOU LET MEassdafsadasdsa makes me foam from my mouth

[Mister Magician]

Originally posted by zmanbuilder:

Do not base balance on speed runs.

It is by far the weakest out of all weapons. A gunlance spamming wyvern blast and nothing else could probably kill a monster faster in a normal hunt.

It's ONLY speedrunners that seem to make it look balanced.