heavy hammer or improvised hatchet

[konstantinoskountousias]

what is the best tool to survive a wolf strugle in interloper in 2021? i believe these two are the best but not sure witch is better

[pickle]

I heard the heavy hammer is better in terms of ending the wolf struggle but personally, I prefer the improvised hatchet. Just because it's a more universal tool.

[gothmog77]

I'm pretty sure the hammer is the best defensive melee weapon in Loper, but it's heavy and doesn't cause bleedout.

There is an old thread where GunTech did a detailed analysis of melee weapons:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/3001051775910270433/

[iwasa]

I have heard that the heavy hammer, similarly the prybar, is more suited towards driving the wolf away from the fight. The improvised hatchet, in this context, can in addition inflict lethal or mortal injury to the wolf but the comparative effectiveness between the two tools may vary significantly depending on the RNG and circumstances.

I defer to those who do play interloper but suggest effectiveness depends on what kind of outcome you want to have? Drive the wolf away fastest (maybe) or drive the wolf away and possibly do mortal damage as well? With RNG in play, it will vary.

[Chris P. Bacon]

Ahhh, I love it when this topic crops up again. The hammer is better defensively because it usually fends off the attacker faster, but the hatchet has a good chance to cause bleeding, which will kill the wolf eventually. The hammer does have a chance to kill, though.

I personally have only used the hammer for struggles on Loper, and only when I don't have any crafted clothing yet. Imo, it is usually better to kill the wolf so it isn't a problem in the future, but either option is good for a wolf struggle.

Also, the hatchet is slightly lighter. So there is also that advantage.

[konstantinoskountousias]

To answer my question, just did a test with my stalker. with hammer i got 30% off and with imp hatchet (i made one for the test) 10%. With 52% armor on my stalker file 30% off is real big damage and in interloper i would be dead for sure. I think its not RNG in that test because in other games RNG effects the result by +-25% or so. So probably i ll go with imp hatchet (if i live until i forge it lol)

[gothmog77]

There is a lot of RNG in struggle damage. I recommend taking a look at GunTech's data.

[marejov83]

I prefer hatchet.. But I don't even carry a heavy hammer with me.. Usually I just leave it at forge.

Funny, last time I died from wolf I had 90% condition and he straight up killed me even if I fought with hammer.. Right after that I started new run and got into a wolf fight after 30 seconds into the new run and fought him of with bare hands. Lost only 35-40%.

So.. Who knows what's the best.

[Evendark]

i only carry the knive around, my last 2 struggels one aurora and one normal wolf got me no problems so far. but! i wear fur gear. without fur gear i would carry the axe its more useful

[konstantinoskountousias]

i agree that hatchet is a better than hammer as a tool and the combo imp hatchet + imp knife is lighter than the hammer + hacksaw + imp knife and you need both 3 tools to cut bow materials, defend, quarter a big kill and open canned food. So i ll go with the imp hatchet + imp knife because carrying capicity is limited in early and midle game

[konstantinoskountousias]

In most games developers change things a lot and sometimes their changes are large and innexpective. So while in previous versions moose was afraid the fire and bear not, now the opossite is the case. It is a program and it does not simulate real life so common logic is worthless and only tests in the curent versions can tell what is working and what is not. I did a test in stalker and strugle with hammer cost 33% exactly and with imp hatchet cost 10% exactly so i figured out that in interloper try not to strugle with a wolf until you have imp hatchet + armor. And even with that its not good idea to strugle because you will take damage + damage on clothes so its better to walk away or run if you can...

[darkscaryforest]

Folks who spent the time to put together the data rating the different tools in wolf struggles are awesome and I shouldn't criticize that. However, I wonder if anyone can really objectively say what's best without an intimate understanding of how the game is coded and performing tests without biases. Has hinterland ever commented on how this is all calculated?

For example, how are we to know if a wolf's resistance to a particular weapon is based on:
-A profile applied to a specific wolf spawn
-A profile generated for the next wolf struggle (ergo, the next struggle with any wolf will resist weapon X more or less)
-A whole game save. What if the hammer is better for your save but not mine?
-A universal ranking (aka this operates like we are discussing with hammer being best for getting wolf off fast, etc)

Originally posted by konstantinoskountousias:

In most games developers change things a lot and sometimes their changes are large and innexpective. So while in previous versions moose was afraid the fire and bear not, now the opossite is the case. It is a program and it does not simulate real life so common logic is worthless and only tests in the curent versions can tell what is working and what is not. I did a test in stalker and strugle with hammer cost 33% exactly and with imp hatchet cost 10% exactly so i figured out that in interloper try not to strugle with a wolf until you have imp hatchet + armor. And even with that its not good idea to strugle because you will take damage + damage on clothes so its better to walk away or run if you can...

And to your point, what if the guy who coded the logic for this tweaks it everytime someone posts a spreadsheet in the next update?

At any rate, I suppose the data out there is better than nothing

[IvantheFormidable]

Originally posted by konstantinoskountousias:

I did a test in stalker and strugle with hammer cost 33% exactly and with imp hatchet cost 10% exactly

Ok, but doing a single test doesn't really tell us whether or not one tool is better than the other, even if we accept that things might have changed from when data on attacks was previously gathered.

Originally posted by gothmog77:

There is an old thread where GunTech did a detailed analysis of melee weapons:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/305620/discussions/0/3001051775910270433/

The thread that gothmog referenced here involved over 300 tests, which makes it fairly reliable as far as data sets go for stuff like this.

Originally posted by darkscaryforest:

However, I wonder if anyone can really objectively say what's best without an intimate understanding of how the game is coded and performing tests without biases.

Given the conditions of GunTech's tests, it's about as objective as it can get in terms of pure efficiency of each tool. That being said, you do raise some interesting questions about how the calculation works. My first reaction is that the wolf struggle mechanic probably isn't influenced by sequence, however that is definitely something that, if someone cares to do, could be tested for.

Bottom line, imo, is that people are going to stick to whatever "feels right" to them, rather than relying on any data gathered.

[marejov83]

And consider that every wolf (animal) has different HP, strength and tendencies.

[konstantinoskountousias]

So to get an answer we need to strugle with all wolves in the game and repeat the strugles with other saves as well and if we need an answer for interloper difficulty to test only while using interloper files? Lol man, if something is the case in one difficulty lvl or wolf power, then the same result differense will be in all difficulty lvls and all wolves power. For example if when u use the A tool to stalker leads to -30% damage in average and the B tool leads to -10% in average then in all other difficulties the A tool will result to 3XB damage in average