Been trying to get back into my old main Sgt Hammer and I find she just doesn’t match up well against most of the other assassins. Mainly because she lacks any self-heal or burst that other assassins now have.
Most of the characters in the game, and not just the assassins, can counter her easily. Mainly because her trait siege (locking yourself in place) doesn’t balance well with her damage or survivability well. Getting hard focused and then melted or running basically discourages the use of siege mode which in turn makes choosing her not fun. Why play a siege character if siege is useless and you’re running away most of the time? So here are a few suggestions.
1 - Concussive blast no longer pushes back, instead it stuns them for 1 sec and blinds for another 1.5 after. I know right now it makes for a below-average peel but it’s counter to her siege mode since it can push enemies almost out of her attack range. At the very least make this for siege mode only. The knockback can still be in non-siege mode. Or rework the level 13 talent. Keep the 75% damage increase but instead of increasing the knockback distance by 75%, add a 1.5 sec stun and 1.5 sec blind.
2 - Increase basic attack range baseline while in siege. This will allow you to get at least another shot in before you have to run. She should have the farthest basic attack range of any character in the game in my opinion. She is a siege tank after all.
3 - Make non-siege more fun. Make her able to attack and move at the same time (like Tracer) while not in siege mode.
Other QoL improvements not related to siege.
1 - Get rid of her mana requirements. She’s a tank, not a mage. Just make her be able to use her abilities whenever they’re off cooldown.
2 - Make the mines hidden once they get set in place and until they activate. This is the way they worked in StarCraft and this always bugged me. Maybe add an additional delay once they pop out of the ground before they attack to balance this.
Let me know what you guys think. What ideas do you have?
What make’s it absurd? It’s an ability that’s counter to her main function as a character. A stun makes way more sense if you ask me. I guess you could lose the blind after.
Again I disagree. She’s a siege tank, the entire reason for her existence should be an extra long attack range. If you don’t want to increase it then her base damage while sieged should be greater. Like I said, her damage potential doesn’t balance well with her locking herself in place. The only other option would be to bake in graduating range.
This is true but outside of siege, her damage potential in a team fight is much lower. Just figured this would be a way to make it more interesting and add more of a counter to her locked-in place siege mode.
What would you suggest because I know you can’t admit that she’s on par with other assassins? There are other heroes that have way more damage potential and they’re always fully mobile. Heck, even some tanks can just walk up to her and kill her if she doesn’t flee. There’s got to be some better trade-off if the character is designed around locking herself in place.
It is a very deliberate choice it does that to give using the ability a disadvantage. If it just stunned then she suddenly becomes a half-bruiser/tank as far as CC potential goes. She can now combo with nalpalm easily and act as an opener for most heroes that have skill shots.
This is the total opposite of what she has currently. Its knockback prevents its use in most combos and if anything it can save enemies from being comboed if used at the wrong time (like Morale’s grenade).
The entire point of the ability and the talent upgrades is to get rid of enemies who dive you. This includes creating terrain walls or absurd knockback distance. It is not meant to be used in an offensive way, but as a defensive option. Similar to Stukov’s ultimates.
Her auto attack damage is already high end. Given that longer range usually means lower auto attack damage this is why she is so powerful as is.
This is a deliberate design decision to force her to be team reliant. Her allies need to engage around her being able to siege. It also means that they must not let her enemies move the fight out of her siege range. Generally overall gameplay has to be more defensive, taking advantage of sieged hammer rather than offensive like with a dive comp.
I know it was, but times have changed and something needs to be done. There’s no denying that her win rate is one of the lowest simply because her main design mechanic, her siege mode, limits her damage potential because there are too many other heroes that just counter her so well. Something has to be done to make her a more dangerous assassin overall and not just in niche comps that are picked around her. That’s called being balanced.
Being locked in place is almost certainly a death sentence in today’s meta. And she’s just not as fun having to spend most of her time running away and trying to re-siege every few seconds. Once she gets into siege enemies should fear diving her unless they have back up. Enemies should have to wait and try to pick her off while she repositions.
What are everyone else’s suggestions? Does she just need a major rework and all-new talents?
[T1212123,SgtHammer] This is my favorite build for her and a very proactive one as well. Spider mines are gnarly when they go off and I like Ambush because it encourages constantly unsieging and repositioning.
So I don’t actively hate where she’s at right now but I do think she’s really outdated overall.
The thing about Hammer is she has a highly unintuitive playstyle that just doesn’t mesh well with a competitive environment. It attracts a lot of players of questionable skill because they want to turn off their brain and turn into a turret. The QM experience with her is awful because even bad players can ruin games for either team depending on what the comps are. They throw the game by not doing anything all day or win it by also not doing anything all day. It’s just painful to watch.
I’m glad Orbital BFG stopped damaging buildings too because that turtle defense was one of the most aggravating things to encounter in this game. Hammer’s team just hits 20 and stops picking fights, now your team is on the clock and has to engage into the hammer.
I do think about this once in a while and I think they should return her to actual Starcraft Siege tank fantasy.
Siege tanks should deal more single target damage while unsieged and siege mode is purely for range and splash damage.
Rework her talent tree to give her paths to either improve her sieged or unsieged modes or just things that let her freely switch between the two.
I’m not really one in favor of flooding this game with more self healing and cc so I think they could just do some things with her numbers.
Attacking while moving in tank form is interesting but I don’t like the idea of it baseline. It usually comes at the cost of having a weak body or dps, and would continue on with the trend of making her a braindead hero by attracting players who want to avoid stutter stepping.
But maybe adding it to Hover Siege mode or something could work.