What I’m think for this rework is make her a moving Core. In size she will be big Azmo or bigger. The tanks in SC are huge use that. As of right now she looks like a kid in a toy tank. With the big size give her lots of health. And with that health give her the role of Tank.
Second is her damage since she’s re-classed I would lower her damage BUT make each shot deal a large AOE. like DW lava pool size.
The traits will change to fit tanking dmg and speed. She’ll be slower than now to accommodate the new range and tankyness.
She’s been reworked 1 or 2 times in HotS history already though. Others like D.Va deserve to at least have their first rework before Hammer gets a third.
Would not mind Vikings either, they were last touched in 2015 in any meaningful way. Only got number changes and minor health changes after that.
No it doesn’t. You’re bad, and using her wrong. And you CAN play her in siege mode most of the time with no problems but for some reason people can’t grasp when to select intelligent talents (Unstoppable at 4 is bad in nearly every circumstance except MAYBE against Qhira). Leave hammer alone; she’s fine.
My goal in this rework is to open up her playstyle options while also helping her fit the fantasy of a Siege Tank more. To this end, I’ve made several major changes to her base kit and almost entirely overhauled her talent tree.
Sgt. Hammer now has a higher basic attack DPS against a single target in Tank Mode rather than in Siege Mode. Her attack speed has been increased in Tank Mode and significantly decreased in Siege Mode. Additionally, Siege Mode now has a minimum range and no longer grants extra vision range.
To make up for this, Siege Mode’s basic attacks deal far more damage per attack, their splash area and damage have been increased, and their baseline range has been increased.
Spider Mines and Concussive Blast have been normalized. They now have a fixed range that is the same for both Tank and Siege Modes.
Neosteel Plating has been removed in favor of Field Repairs. Instead of being able to simply sit through enemy damage, she will have to pull back to heal up before rejoining the fight. This will offset the greater difficulty in reaching her with allowing damage done to be meaningful by forcing her back at least.
A new active ability called Hold Fire has been added to command Sgt. Hammer to cease firing until a new attack command is issued. This is just a nice quality of life change I’ve always thought she could use.
Napalm Strike is now more powerful but has a longer cooldown and a higher mana cost to compensate.
At level 20, Advanced Lava Strike has be replaced with Scorched Earth which focuses more on the burn and area denial role of Napalm Strike.
Blunt Force Gun has had its initial damage reduced in exchange for cooldown reduction for every enemy hit by it and the unlisted change of increasing its scaling from 3% to 4% per level.
Orbital BFG has been replaced with Siegebreaker, which increases its damage and travel speed and adds a knockback and stun effect.
Almost all of Sgt. Hammer’s talents have been scrapped and replaced, reworked, or tweaked.
Basic Attack: Let’s start with losing her ability to attack anything close range with her basics. This is awful beyond belief. This one change would absolutely ruin Hammer and make her completely helpless against divers and utterly unable to function in the solo lane. Big nope.
E - Field Repairs: Her E being a ‘field repair’ is…eh… I started playing her back when she had First Aid and that was okay, but a bit too dependent on yet another long cooldown. Damage not taken is always better than damage healed, hence why her current E is a vastly superior ability for her concept, plus as it stands by level 4 you know if you need in-fight and in-lane sustain and will likely take Regenerative Bio-Steel if you do. This one’s also a big ‘nope’.
Spider Mines: Mines having a ‘burrow’ would consequently make them a bit too good, especially combiined with other trap/mine-placing Heroes like Abathur and Chromie. Right now, mines are best used as a way to give you vision and thus more options to attack enemies within your range you’d otherwise be unable to target due to lack of vision, slow down enemy engagement and set up easier escapes for yourself and allies. As a talent? it’d be great. But baseline? Too good.
Heroics - Napalm Strike/Blunt Force Gun. More than anything else, these so-called ‘reworks’ show that whoever made it has no understanding of Hammer’s playstyle or purpose. BFG’s purpose is not to be a big damage dealer in and of itself, it is intended to be a finisher or a long-ranged support ability and (at 20) a zoning tool and lane pressure generator. Losing Orbital BFG for a stun is…no. Its generic, boring and removes her unique ability to apply constant pressure in late game for something boring that isn’t even very good.
Napalm shares BFG’s zoning applications but its shorter cooldown and circle AoE makes it ideal for massive waveclear and structure damage at the cost of hugely shorter range.
Talents: Up to this point this ‘rework’ feels like a massive, poorly thought-out nerf. The talents are even worse; Barricade isn’t good now and making it level 1 is even worse, especially if it means losing awesome talents like Advanced Artillery and Maelstrom Rounds that greatly change how she is played.
1 - Mine Spitter is either trash or amazing. It could have one use: Covering more entries and exits with mines. But that could easily be way too strong as hammer now has a zone of invincibility.
Barricade we already talked about, but i’ll elaborate: a bajillion heroes have ways to bypass walls by leaping or teleporting over them. It’s usefulness is niche now and as a level 1 talent for which you give up bigger splash damage its awful. The entire level 1 tier is trash.
4 - Ambush protocol. Ambush Siege is bad and this talent is bad too, especially since this awful rework move Hover Siege to 13 and made it take even longer for the synergy to come online. No.
Maelstrom Rounds. Nice, but way too good on Hammer. She’d be exploding people in an instant and it’d be unbelievably BS. No.
[Basic Attack 2] Artillery Suppression
Basic attacks in Siege Mode reduce enemy Heroes’ damage by 10%, up to 40%, for 3 seconds.
[Basic Attack 2] Shrapnel Shells
Siege Mode’s basic attack splash radius is increased to 3 and its splash damage is increased to 75%.
I want to like these, but like Maelstrom Rounds its way too good and seems like it was designed by someone who never bothered to learn why Hammer is strong so they just said ‘moar damage, and fixed’. She doesn’t need more damage; she does plenty as-is. Shrapnel Shells’ existence is a nerf in and of itself; a level 4 talent that replaces a level 1 talent 3 levels later but is way better is like…you just crippled her early game for no reason. Another big ‘nope’.
Level 7
[Trait] Entrenched
While in Siege Mode, Hammer becomes Anchored, rendering her immune to Displacement and accompanying effects.
While in Siege Mode, basic attacks grant Hammer 5 armor, up to 25, until she leaves Siege Mode.
[Basic Attack] Endless Siege
Basic attacks in Tank Mode heal for 20% of the damage they deal.
Basic attacks in Siege Mode heal for 10% of the damage they deal.
[W] Hold Your Ground
Each enemy Hero hit by Concussive Blast grants Sgt. Hammer 10 armor, up to 50, for 4 seconds.
[E] Regenerative Bio-Steel
Sgt. Hammer regenerates 2.5% of her missing health every second, increased to 5% while Field Repairs is active.
WOW. Are you kidding? Regenerative Bio-Steel and Endless Siege are straight-up broken. These talents are so good Hammer would be a must-pick in every comp, no matter what. At the same time moving her self-sustain to level 7 but making it brokenly good is beyond stupid and would force her to basically sit behind walls until that point and be useless and boring. Hold Your Ground and Entrenched are cool and have potential though, but not with the current setup in this ‘rework’
Level 13 - This whole talent tier is bad and needs no further explanation except to say its too little, too late. All of these talents come too late to be relevant and ruin her utility and synergy for most of the game up tot his point. It’s bad.
Level 16 and 20 - Both these tiers are awful; way too strong overall. No, no, no.
Summary: This rework is wonky and poorly thought out. It makes Sgt. Hammer have whole stretches of the game where she’s either useless or insanely overpowered, with no inbetween and it feels nothing like the hero Hammer mains know and love. The playstyles we enjoy would be gutted while simultaneously making her boring to play as and against. All in all i give this rework a solid 2/10; made by someone who has no idea how to play the hero in the first place. Dump this.
Saves me a lot of time answering questions i already answered there. In short: I have been a Sgt. Hammer main for the past 3+ years (Most of HotS’s existence. I came into the game during the Cho’Gall event back in the day, but i am not an Alpha/Beta player). My winrate (filtering out Brawl and AI) is 60.1% and if i filter out all but Hero and Storm league it only falls to 57.1%; i know what i’m talking about. Currently she’s level 350 on my main account; far less on my european smurf.
A) She can still shoot point-blank in Tank Mode. She doesn’t have to always be in Siege Mode, in fact in contested solo-lanes it’s kind of the point that she should stay in Tank Mode rather than afk in Siege Mode while facetanking a Malthael, Thrall, or Dehaka.
B) Siege Tanks aren’t supposed to be able to shoot right next to them in the first place. They are supposed to be weak in close-quarters, which is why you want to keep your enemy at range. Divers are kind of supposed to be a counter, you know.
C) Hammer and her team already have 4 ways of keeping enemies further away from herself as it is: peel and zoning from your team, your own zoning, Concussive Blast, and Thrusters.
D) Many melee heroes may actually still be within Hammer’s attack range if they simply stay at the edge of their own attack range. They would have to intentionally move closer to her than simply right-clicking on her would result in.
Kharazim with Deadly Reach has a range of 3.5, which puts him outside that minimum range of 2.5, and even without it his 1.75 attack range and a unit diameter of 1.25 will still put part of his hitbox in Hammer’s range, meaning she can still hit him unless he intentionally walks even closer to her.
E) She can pick talents to mitigate or even remove this weakness, which is kinda the point of talents. Since the minimum range is equal to her splash radius, Maelstrom Rounds reduces the minimum range slightly by reducing her splash radius. Then there’s her level 20 talent Shaped Blast, which outright removes the minimum range.
I think you’re missing the point. I’m not trying to buff her. I’m shifting her power so she can’t just sit through burst, but can still hang around in a fight for a while.
Neosteel Plating is problematic. Long-ranged burst damage is supposed to be her counter, but Neosteel Plating allows her to basically ignore this intended counter every 16 seconds.
This makes Azmodan, Chromie, KT, etc, all of whom are supposed to counter her little more than annoyances. She should not be able to facetank that kind of damage and poke, but she can because she has NP.
That is why Neosteel Plating needs to go. I’m not trying to buff her kit, I’m trying to make it so she is both impactful and requires some modicum of skill to deal with her counters, those being people who can get up in her face or outburst her from far enough away she doesn’t melt them before they reach her.
Instead, she now is able to recover her health over time, even in combat so long as she does not take damage. This means positioning is more important now, as you only have 1 panic button now, rather than 2.
Also, Field Repair is not a “long cooldown.” It’s 10 seconds. First Aid was 60 seconds.
Um. The baseline Spider Mines in the rework function the same as they are in-game currently.
Did you think I meant they would turn invisible by “burrow?” Because I actually considered that as a talent before realizing how ridiculous that could turn out.
I have played a ton of Hammer, especially before her rework. I know what BFG is meant for and what OBFG is meant for. I also understand why OBFG has always been a problem.
BFG is basically a joke until you get OBFG, then it becomes one of the most powerful abilities in the entire game simply because you can permanently and passively deny the enemy team minions in an entire lane. That is not okay.
Instead, I’ve given BFG more presence by having its cooldown reduced whenever it hits enemies, and its scaling is now 4% rather than 3%. Now it can actually be more than barely useful pre-20.
OBFG is replaced by a much more active upgrade, Siege Breaker. Now instead of firing it once and AFK shoving a lane for the rest of the game, you now can use it to really bust up teamfights and smash down defenses with its bonus damage, knockback, and stun, and it’ll be better for cross-map sniping with the increased travel speed.
The fact that Napalm Strike can literally be spammed to have nearly 100% uptime is also a bit problematic, though much less so than BFG/OBFG. Instead, it now gets increased impact damage and duration (totaling over double its old damage) and extra range, but now has a longer cooldown so you actually have to choose when you use it.
And since its cooldown is less than the minion wave respawn time, it’ll still be up by the next wave.
More impact, less spam. At least until level 20, when you get CDR every time it damages an enemy. Then you can potentially go back to spamming it.
Did you notice the baseline buffs to her basic attacks in both Modes? Because those are part of why the rest of her kit got some minor nerfs. She got some big buffs in that department.
You aren’t losing anything, and these are themed talent tiers intentionally distributed to avoid any absurd powerspikes too early on.
Level 1 is themed around flexibility, especially in lane. She can transform faster, scout better, shoot while moving (that pairs with Hover Siege Mode pretty well), or block enemies from reaching her (which pairs well with Hold Your Ground for the extra wall width).
Level 4 is themed around her basic attack and what playstyle you prefer.
You want waveclear and AoE pressure, pick Shrapnel Shells.
You want armor penetration, pick Ambush Protocol.
You want to punch through damage mitigation, pick Maelstrom Rounds.
You want to provide cover for your teammates, pick Artillery Suppression.
Level 7 is themed around staying-power and being able to stay in fights longer.
You effectively get 2 extra Spider Mines per cooldown and you can place them more freely. That in no way is “trash,” nor does that make her “invincible.”
If Barricade is useless now then it was useless before and I’m not sure why you’re complaining.
And no, you are not giving up the extra splash radius. Even ignoring that you already get more splash damage and radius baseline, you can get even more 3 levels later if you want.
Ambush Protocol is neither bad nor does it need Hover Siege Mode to be useful. It is actually a very good talent, and I’ve always found that it pairs better with Graduating Range than Hover Mode.
Additionally, while the bonus damage being reduced from +100% to +50% may seem like a nerf, you have to account for the baseline increase to Siege Mode’s basic attack damage. 150% of 260 is more than 200% of 168.
If I’d left the bonus damage at +100%, that first attack would be dealing 520 damage at base level. That would be nearly half of Valla’s or Li Ming’s health in 1 attack from a level 4 talent, which is not okay. It had to be nerfed.
Did you read all the changes to her basic attacks?
Maelstrom Rounds does not directly increase her damage, nor does it allow her to “explode people in an instant.” The armor reduction stacks at a rate of 3 per attack, up to 15. Additionally, it only lasts for 2.5 seconds.
In Siege Mode, Hammer’s attack rate is reduced to 0.5/sec. That’s 1 attack every 2 seconds. It would take 10 seconds of continuous fire against the same target in order to fully stack up that armor reduction in Siege Mode. It she misses the target even once, for whatever reason, the armor reduction will expire and she’ll have to start over.
The armor shred is actually most useful in Tank Mode, were you’ll actually be able to stack it up in anything resembling a timely manner. It’s the armor ignore that will actually be useful in Siege Mode.
Level 4 buff
Crippled her early-game
Pick one.
Endless Siege is literally current Regenerative Bio-Steel but with Tank Mode attacks healing as well. The only reason it would be stronger than its current state is because of the increased impact of Siege Mode’s splash damage and the fact that you can heal in Tank Mode too.
I’ve run the numbers for all of these.
In Tank Mode you would only average about 35 HPS if you were constantly attacking the same target. I’ve actually considered buffing the Tank Mode healing a bit further.
The new Regenerative Bio-Steel only increases your health regeneration by 2.5% of your missing health. If you are at literally 1 health, you would only regenerate 43 additional health per second. If you are at any higher health value, it only drops from there. At 50% health, you are only regenerating extra 22 health per second.
This talent is intentionally designed to be more effective while you are low on health and really need the quick repairs. It’s pretty strong, yes, but it should not be a must-pick. I expect Entrenched and Endless Siege would be more popular, simply for the more reliable in-combat healing and the resistance to displacement.
This is where Hover Mode and Graduating Range were before her first rework, and they were fine there. They’ve been both buffed and moved back up to their old levels.
Besides, these talents all synergize well with earlier talents. None of them are supposed to be great on their own, but they make her earlier talents in their respective builds even better.
You do realize these are the late-game talent tiers, right? This is where the strongest talents are supposed to come in, the ones that cut out major weaknesses or act as the capstones to your builds. KT’s Ignite and Fury of the Sunwell come to mind, both literally doubling Flamestrike’s potential damage output.
None of these talents are any stronger than comparable ones on other heroes, such as KT’s level 16s.
Also, I don’t think you’ve taken into consideration how these talents scale with the other changes.
For example, let’s look at Tank Buster, the replacement talent for Giant Slayer. 3% max health damage might seem like a lot until you also account for her halved attack speed in Siege Mode. So now, rather than 1.5% damage every 1 second, it’s 3% damage every 2 seconds. The average damage is the same, just a bit more bursty.
Tank Buster is about the same as Giant Slayer currently is, if not actually a little weaker due to the reduced damage for her Tank Mode attacks (halved %-based damage but only 33% faster attack speed). If Tank Buster will really be “OP” then that means Giant Slayer must be OP right now.
I spent literally hours doing research, math, and fine-tuning this build after I finished the framework for the mechanics of each ability and talent.
I’ve accounted for just about every talent interaction and how they are affected by the change to her base stats. I’ve buffed the stats and talents that turned out to be likely useless, nerfed the ones that were too OP (you should have seen my first version of Maelstrom Rounds, now that would have been OP), and reworked a couple wholesale (like Cerberus Mines).
Yes these changes have been thoroughly thought out. None of this was spur-of-the-moment. I had a clear goal in mind, and while I would of course expect there would need to be some balance changes and number tweaks, that’s the case for literally every rework. I’ve just tried to make that process as simple as possible.
As someone who used to off-main Hammer, the current Hammer is nothing like the one I used to know and love before her rework. And judging by the precipitous drop in her pickrate in the weeks following her rework, it would seem I was not the only Hammer player dissatisfied with what the rework turned her into. To-date, she remains literally one of the lowest popularity and pickrate heroes in the game, currently holding the 5th lowest pickrate in the game at 3%, compared to her old ~15-18% pickrate.
Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, Hammer is already either boring as hell or annoying as hell to play both against and with, and there isn’t really in between. She’s either dead weight or she dominates, and that mostly depends on whether her teammates are babysitting her.
Almost nobody likes Hammer in her current state. Not her opponents, not her teammates, not ~80% of the people who have ever played Hammer more than once or twice.
Maybe for Hammer’s current state, but you really need to go through and much more thoroughly read the rework I proposed. Your post seems like a knee-jerk rejection of the changes based on an incomplete understanding of how they would compare to her current stats.
One major problem I can see in the view differences on Hammer is also league. It is possible you play two very different leagues. Playing Hammer at 57% win rate in gold or silver is not the same as playing her at 57% in diamond or master.
For example in higher games, you have to be in Tank mode a lot of the time while attacking or laning because of how unsafe siege mode is vs competent people.
In medium games you can stay in siege almost all game.
I don’t downplay the experience of maining her in medium or low leagues, but it’s a very different game than playing with people who know all the ins and outs of countering her completely or denying her value.
BFG can also be a nice teamfight ult in middle tier games, but in higher games it’s completely useless until the Orbital upgrade which permanently clears a lane of minions and catapults.
Let me address all this in one fell swoop: So the overall goal of your rework is to make her crappier but also more fun? I don’t see how your changes would accomplish that at all. You want more tank mode play? Why? What is interesting about tank mode? You want more skill to playing her? You don’t play her if you think it requires no skill, because let me tell you the difference between some scrub playing her (You) and someone who knows what they’re doing (me) is like night and day.
What this rework actually looks like is an across the board nerf to a hero who doesn’t deserve it. And according to Hotslogs, her current pickrate is 3.1%. That’s not bad for a roster of 86 heroes (87 if you count both Cho and Gall separately).
Popularity does not a good hero make. Look at Xul right now; he’s top of the charts at 88.2% Pick/Ban rate because he’s overpowered, not because he’s fun. His fundamental playstyle didn’t change - just his power did. Yet now he’s picked or banned in 88.2% of all games. Another perfect example of a niche hero: Lost Vikings have 1.8% pick/ban, but a 58.9% win rate. Know why? Because it’s not a hero for everyone, but the people who play them specialize and play them well.
Sorry, not buying this need for a rework and i don’t buy your qualifications to be proposing one, especially one this bad. Everything you said comes down to ‘people don’t want to get better’ and ‘losing isn’t fun’. And you are right about the latter - losing isn’t fun. But the solution isn’t making all the heroes more samey and that is what this theorhetical rework would be - homogenization. No thanks, i’d rather not make something fun and unique for the people who love her into yet another generic hero. Let niche heroes be niche and be powerful in their niche. Your rework would be miserable to play as and against not because it’s too weak or too strong, but because it’s both while also being boring.
Ultimately neither of us gets to make the final call, though i hope the HotS devs don’t do anything remotely like this if she is changed. I do admit i’d actually like to see a rework myself to give her more talent diversity; if that happened, i personally want to see her become the next multi-class hero with an actual Tank build, an AoE Damage/Siege build, and a bursty teamfight build. But that’s just my personal wants.
BFG needs to be reverted. It’s just “eh?” now. Having a Hammer with BFG in a long game is advantageous but that could be her thing (similar but different to other infinite scaling heroes). Perhaps a quest for Hammer to make it deal dmg to buildings.
BFG is still excelllent. While i agree building damage being removed was kinda ‘eh’ considering the many other unfair ults that exist, BFG losing it didn’t make it bad or useless. Again: I can and will happily show anyone how to play Hammer.
There’s some good ideas here. I’d love to see a supersized Hammer with big AoE’s as basics; this is cool. I’d even be okay with some talent that reduced her damage and attack speed further to give her true global range on her basics, but with a big delay and visual indicator.
You really need to work on your reading comprehension.
This rework is meant to make her more fun to play and less frustrating to play with and against by making her much more dynamic and less braindead. There will now be several playstyles available, and though Siege Mode will still be her main focus it will no longer be her only focus.
If this rework went through, Hammer would likely be a bit OP for a month or two before she’s brought down to par. This is not a nerf, and if you think it is then you clearly haven’t done your research.
Right now? Nothing. Which is what I want to change and the whole purpose of giving her actual options in Tank Mode.
Hammer requires less skill to play than Raynor, literally the posterboy for low-skill heroes.
At least Raynor has to worry about his positioning and getting bursted down. Hammer has more range, more durability, and more escape potential than Raynor.
Raynor can easily die to a 2 man gank. Hammer just presses E and Z and gets away easily. 50 armor and +60% move speed on demand is ridiculous.
Raynor has to manage his AA budget, trying to save every fourth AA for enemy heroes for the extra damage. Hammer just sits still and blasts away at anything in range.
I’m sorry, but if you think sitting in place left-clicking on people, then pressing W, E, and/or Z whenever they get close is “high skill,” then I can’t take you seriously.
If it looks like an “across the board nerf” then you aren’t looking very close. Please actually read all the changes and consider how they affect each other.
Fifth lowest pickrate in the game is “not bad?”
You do realize that is how many games she is picked in, not how many people pick her, right?
Since every game has 10 players, that means that only 0.31% of players pick her when they play a game.
Depends what you mean by “a good hero.”
If you mean balance, then you are absolutely right. Hammer is statistically balanced right now.
But if you mean desirability, then you are dead wrong. Hammer is not desirable right now, despite being balanced.
Or maybe because people don’t really find them fun to play? In fact, people have been asking for a TLV rework for a while. They need one too.
Hammer is like that except worse, because unlike TLV, Hammer is not niche. She doesn’t have any real hard counters, but she doesn’t have any real strengths besides AFK splitpushing. She is decidedly “meh,” and the biggest qualifying factor in how well she does is the skill level of her opponents and teammates.
Again, if this looks like it’s lowering her skill requirement, then you aren’t looking very close. It literally does the opposite.
Positioning is more important because you no longer have 2 panic buttons. Resource budgeting is more important since your self-sustain can be interrupted. Ults actually require more than 4 neurons to get value out of. AA targeting priority is more important because they hit harder but slower. Multiple build paths now grant more distinct playstyle options.
Seriously, how much of the rework did you actually read? Because just by this, I’d estimate your reading comprehension is somewhere below 4th grade.
“Homogenization?” “Generic hero?” You think giving her 2 very distinct attack modes somehow makes her “generic?”
Either you read about half of the rework concept, or you’re just using words without knowing what they even mean, which would be even more disappointing because these words aren’t even that big.