Sledgehammer is overpowered

[Uscari]

100% chance to knockdown virtually anything without stunting your stamina is fundamentally broken.

I can clear T5 quests without firing a single shot from a gun as long as I have my trusty sledgehammer. With beer or sufficient perks I can kite a group of irradiated zombies all day, knocking them down and slowly finishing them off. If I power attack I have a very strong chance of stunlocking litterally all of them, headshotting each one for 700+ dmg while gaining literally all of my stamina back from Sex Rex.

This weapon needs a nerf, it basically replaces guns in all circumstances other than horde night, and even then you can construct a pretty powerful melee base.

Game is too easy with the sledgehammer as it's currently balanced.

[Tux]

In every video series I watch people are not using the Sledgehammer and they are simply selling any finds related to it

[Khissi]

You're silly. For persons who love to melee, sledge is FUN! Games are supposed to be fun! For me, pewpew is fun. Sledge means the zeds get up in my face, which I do not agree with. Each to their own! Saying the Sledge is overpowered when, to get to that point, you have to put a TON of points into the proper perks, leaving other perks empty, is just nuts!

There, you've waved your silliness about for all to admire. We bow to your massive ability and possible lack of empathy for other persons who love this game, and admit that you are far above us all in the use of said weapon. pft...

[Kraxin-Kari]

i can clear the T5 areas with all the other melee weapons as well, except spear, i dont like it enough to do a playthrough with it.

each melee weapon has its own play style and become powerful at different times. but in the end, they're quite powerful. if you're clearing stuff without firing weapons, that doesnt mean its overpowered, just means you're efficient using it.

[Shurenai]

Pretty much any weapon with all of its perks and fully modded out is..Fairly imbalanced. If you think the sledge is OP; Go play with fist weapons. With max fortitude, max The Brawler, pain tolerancce, heavy armor, and healing factor(All within the Fortitude tree, for convenience), you're basically an unstoppable tank. Even the strong enemies hit you for 1 damage most of the time.

Pair that with your fist weapon which via the Brawler perk and mods can have up to NINE different status effects it can apply to enemies, and you can just wade into a group on horde night and pound everything into mush. Any damage you -do- take gets refilled by healing factor and the occasional bandage. -- The status effects include negating the infection ability on headshots; A chance to stagger; a chance to knock down; a chance to ragdoll them; a second chance to simply explode their head; a chance to set them on fire; a chance to stun them; a chance to slow them; a chance to burn them; a chance to make them bleed and will prevent radiation zombies from regenerating....It's ridiculous. They spend so much time stunned/knocked down/ragdolled that you never take damage basically.

And knives have the highest potential DPS output in the game; with it's skill maxed and with it modded out it can set them on fire, prevent rads from regenerating, some other stuff- And with a power attack that costs basically zero stamina, you can apply 6 bleeding wounds to a zombie. You can apply this bleed to as many zombies as you want, and if you're skillful you can easily be affecting up to 16 at a time in a horde scenario- With burn chance included, you're going to be killing a LOT of enemies with just one hit.

Spear has it's own OP setup; as do most of the guns.

Any single weapon geared into is very powerful.

[Captain Nap]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Pretty much any weapon with all of its perks and fully modded out is..Fairly imbalanced. If you think the sledge is OP; Go play with fist weapons. With max fortitude, max The Brawler, pain tolerancce, heavy armor, and healing factor(All within the Fortitude tree, for convenience), you're basically an unstoppable tank. Even the strong enemies hit you for 1 damage most of the time.

Pair that with your fist weapon which via the Brawler perk and mods can have up to NINE different status effects it can apply to enemies, and you can just wade into a group on horde night and pound everything into mush. Any damage you -do- take gets refilled by healing factor and the occasional bandage. -- The status effects include negating the infection ability on headshots; A chance to stagger; a chance to knock down; a chance to ragdoll them; a second chance to simply explode their head; a chance to set them on fire; a chance to stun them; a chance to slow them; a chance to burn them; a chance to make them bleed and will prevent radiation zombies from regenerating....It's ridiculous. They spend so much time stunned/knocked down/ragdolled that you never take damage basically.

And knives have the highest potential DPS output in the game; with it's skill maxed and with it modded out it can set them on fire, prevent rads from regenerating, some other stuff- And with a power attack that costs basically zero stamina, you can apply 6 bleeding wounds to a zombie. You can apply this bleed to as many zombies as you want, and if you're skillful you can easily be affecting up to 16 at a time in a horde scenario- With burn chance included, you're going to be killing a LOT of enemies with just one hit.

Spear has it's own OP setup; as do most of the guns.

Any single weapon geared into is very powerful.

I had never considered a knife... now it's next on my list, thanks.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by Captain Nap:

I had never considered a knife... now it's next on my list, thanks.

Fair warning; Early game can be a bit dicey especially after the change that doubled attack speed but halved damage. Sharpen your kiting skills, because a lot of your damage will be via the bleed effect until you get a better weapon (Hunting knife or machete; because the bone shiv is...not great.)

Also be sure you never get caught in a corner as unlike most other weapons, the knives have Very little chance of staggering or knocking down an enemy to get you a way out.

Still, I really enjoyed my knife playthrough. Being able to power attack enemies and just kite it for a short while to kill it was really nice for survivability, and you can use a -lot- more stamina for sprinting for your life due to the crazy low stamina cost of the knife attack and power attack. (No seriously, you can power attack twice for the cost of a normal wooden club swing, i think; stamina wise.)

[Go_Coup]

I can clear a place far faster by using guns. If you want to spend your time clearing a tier-5 building with a melee weapon, you should be able to; they're only zombies.

If you don't like how strong it is with maxed out perks, don't buy them. It's not like you're going to be clearing house in PVP. Hmm... Maybe, it should have a jumping attack which sends an energy wave 10-blocks long, kicking up one level of the ground and damaging the 2 levels(player height) above that. Ooh, I want this game to have special attacks! I wish I knew how to mod and animate and was good at it.

[JimmyIowa]

Sledge is slow and harder to hit with than other melee weapons due to the long delay between pressing fire and hitting. (Which is why few people use it) But even more importantly isn't much higher DPS than the baseball bat. Compared to the bat, sledge has somewhat higher damage per hit, but much much lower attack rate. Resulting in almost equal DPS.

So if you nerf the only advantage sledge has (knockdown), sledge would actually become a less easy to use version of the baseball bat, which makes no sense. So then you would have to nerf the baseball bat to even keep sledge relevant. But then you would have to nerf all the weapons below baseball bat. Etc, etc.

In other words your idea doesn't make much sense, unless you want to rework literally every weapon in the game.

Also, btw, junk turrets and shotgun combo are by far the most overpowered thing in the game right now. They make using a sledge look lame in comparison. Try it. Nerfing the thing that isn't the problem, again, makes no sense.

*edited for accuracy

[JimmyIowa]

Also note that if you get Flurry of Blows, the baseball bat actually does more DPS than the sledge. Which is a fair comparison because you are assuming max skull crusher in your description of the sledge.

[Jenkins]

I find sledge much slower than guns on horde nights and against packs of irradiated. That's a problem if you want to run against a longer horde night on 24+. Way slower than shotguns.

Just my experience; mileage varies

[Azure]

Then don't use it, that's the challenge to not use the (in your opinion) overpowered weapon when you could rather than calling for nerfing a choice. If data proving that absolutely everyone who played the game only used this one melee option then maybe but i highly doubt that occurs.

I'm not a big fan of the melee in the game but i often carry one to punch holes in walls when i dont want to follow the "path" (at least untill i get a good Pick and Axe)

[Uscari]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Pretty much any weapon with all of its perks and fully modded out is..Fairly imbalanced. If you think the sledge is OP; Go play with fist weapons. With max fortitude, max The Brawler, pain tolerancce, heavy armor, and healing factor(All within the Fortitude tree, for convenience), you're basically an unstoppable tank. Even the strong enemies hit you for 1 damage most of the time.

You can facehug zombies and take hits for no reason while you kill them slower or you can kite zombies, stay at a safer range, and kill them way faster with a sledge hammer.

Pretty easy choice.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Pair that with your fist weapon which via the Brawler perk and mods can have up to NINE different status effects it can apply to enemies, and you can just wade into a group on horde night and pound everything into mush. Any damage you -do- take gets refilled by healing factor and the occasional bandage. -- The status effects include negating the infection ability on headshots; A chance to stagger; a chance to knock down; a chance to ragdoll them; a second chance to simply explode their head; a chance to set them on fire; a chance to stun them; a chance to slow them; a chance to burn them; a chance to make them bleed and will prevent radiation zombies from regenerating....It's ridiculous. They spend so much time stunned/knocked down/ragdolled that you never take damage basically.

You can apply 9 different status effects, or you can just kill them. Sledge does this but also has a chance to stun every other zombie nearby. It's not even a contest.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

And knives have the highest potential DPS output in the game; with it's skill maxed and with it modded out it can set them on fire, prevent rads from regenerating, some other stuff- And with a power attack that costs basically zero stamina, you can apply 6 bleeding wounds to a zombie. You can apply this bleed to as many zombies as you want, and if you're skillful you can easily be affecting up to 16 at a time in a horde scenario- With burn chance included, you're going to be killing a LOT of enemies with just one hit.

You can apply 6 DoT effects on 1 zombie or you can kill them immediately with the sledge hammer.

Knives used to be a viable competitor to sledge hammer during alpha 17, when they had AoE bleed and a higher chance to decapitate. Now however they are garbage compared to sledge hammer.

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Spear has it's own OP setup; as do most of the guns.

Spears are the worst of all melee weapons, slow firing rate, low damage, high stamina cost, no stun.

Guns obviously are stronger than the sledgehammer but they cost ammo, sledge costs literally nothing.

Originally posted by Go_Coup:

I can clear a place far faster by using guns. If you want to spend your time clearing a tier-5 building with a melee weapon, you should be able to; they're only zombies.

If you don't like how strong it is with maxed out perks, don't buy them. It's not like you're going to be clearing house in PVP. Hmm... Maybe, it should have a jumping attack which sends an energy wave 10-blocks long, kicking up one level of the ground and damaging the 2 levels(player height) above that. Ooh, I want this game to have special attacks! I wish I knew how to mod and animate and was good at it.

Yeah you can waste precious ammo clearing a tier V or you can do it in nearly the same amount of time using the sledge hammer.

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Sledge is slow and harder to hit with than other melee weapons due to the long delay between pressing fire and hitting. (Which is why few people use it) But even more importantly isn't much higher DPS than the baseball bat. Compared to the bat, sledge has somewhat higher damage per hit, but much much lower attack rate. Resulting in almost equal DPS.

So if you nerf the only advantage sledge has (knockdown), sledge would actually become a less easy to use version of the baseball bat, which makes no sense. So then you would have to nerf the baseball bat to even keep sledge relevant. But then you would have to nerf all the weapons below baseball bat. Etc, etc.

The DPS isn't what makes Sledge overpowered, it's the stun. At the highest rank you can melee any zombie with ease but the sledge is the only melee weapon that can realistically handle groups of feral and irradiated zombies.

The Sledge would still be a viable sidegrade if you removed the stun on regular attacks completely, and left only the AoE knockdown stat, because at least power attacks stunt your stamina and force you to conserve energy.

But being able to completely nullify irradiate wights while maintaining full movement speed and retaining full stamina regen is completely broken.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by Uscari:

The DPS isn't what makes Sledge overpowered, it's the stun.

Yep, I got that. But that wasn't what I said. :) What I said was the knockdown is its only advantage. And it comes with some significant disadvantages (very slow and harder to use than other weapons). If you got rid of the knockdown there would be no point in using the sledge at all, since it doesn't have a damage advantage. That was the point. You can't just nerf it in a vacuum. You either have to very significantly buff it in some other way that makes it have a purpose, or nerf all other weapons. :)

Originally posted by Uscari:

The Sledge would still be a viable sidegrade if you removed the stun on regular attacks completely, and left only the AoE knockdown stat, because at least power attacks stunt your stamina and force you to conserve energy.

How would a weapon that does less damage than the bat (with flurry of blows), is massively slower, and harder to use in any way a "viable" sidegrade? And why even have sidegrades? I think weapons should have a unique identity/purpose, not just be a skin that almost no one uses.

Honest discussion.

Originally posted by Uscari:

But being able to completely nullify irradiate wights while maintaining full movement speed and retaining full stamina regen is completely broken.

Your opinion is noted. I find the shotgun with both shotshells and slugs overpowered. I find junk turrets outright broken. I find brawling, the sledge, and the bat to about right, fun, and require fast movement, aiming and melee skills. I'm sure others have opinions as well.

[Uscari]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Yep, I got that. But that wasn't what I said. :) What I said was the knockdown is its only advantage. And it comes with some significant disadvantages (very slow and harder to use than other weapons). If you got rid of the knockdown there would be no point in using the sledge at all, since it doesn't have a damage advantage. That was the point. You can't just nerf it in a vacuum. You either have to very significantly buff it in some other way that makes it have a purpose, or nerf all other weapons. :)

I'm saying some of the knockback should be nerfed, it doesn't have to be taken away completely.

Like keep the AoE knockdown on power attacks but remove the knockdown on regular attacks, or at least reduce the likelihood.

The way it is now there is no consequence for running out of stamina by spamming powerattacks, because you can kite with regular attacks indefinitely.

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

How would a weapon that does less damage than the bat (with flurry of blows), is massively slower, and harder to use in any way a "viable" sidegrade? And why even have sidegrades? I think weapons should have a unique identity/purpose, not just be a skin that almost no one uses.

Honest discussion.

The damage output at max level is irrelevant because virtually all melees will 1-shot zombies and the time it takes for you to aim and get ready to hit a zombie with any melee weapon essentially ignores melee firing speed.

There's nothing wrong with the sledgehammer being the stun melee weapon, but the stun is simply too powerful. With sex rex maxed out and an ergonomic grip you can spam power attacks until everything is dead. If they increased the stamina cost and reduced the stun this weapon would be balanced, but as it is it's nearly impossible to lose.

You can get cornered by 5 irradiated Wight's and survive because you spammed m2, if you run out of stamina you can resort to m1 and still survive.

[mONONOke_____]

uscari,
u dont have to use the sledgehammer.
if the sledge is ur favourite weapon - change the dmg in xml.
imo thats not for the devs to do.