Hello Hammond mains, I have only just been starting out to learn Hammond about a month back and have spent about 13 hours on him in QP with some degrees of success (65 wins). I totally enjoy playing him because there are just so many things to learn and so many different ways he can be used in both a team environment and independently. i like to play him being always on the move, scouting; disrupting; tanking on my own and then quickly moving back to play with my team.
So as we all know, the nerf to the air lock on piledriven targets has went through and although i am not a good player, i was acutely aware of the repercussions it would have:
Now that it is here, i am asking all of you experts on Hammond how did you adapt so that i can learn something off you guys. Because, well, that is just what us Tankers do and have done through these years, learn; adapt and Tank on.
I genuinely forgot that it was any different when playing him last night; itās not even noticeable.
Also it doesnāt have the effects described in that quote, because itās not a stun. All it does is remove air control. Enemies have always been able to use abilities while movement-locked, with the obvious exception of movement abilities like Soldierās Sprint.
Remember before adaptive shield had the qol change where it didnāt force you out of ball form? We used to have to activate adaptive shield right before piledriver, directly above the enemy team because the delay. Basically i went back to doing that and it works like a charm.
Did it even go through? Like, I know it should have, but the people in my lobbies are just not moving. I am still getting free shots on them after a Hammy piledrives.
That being said, when it happened to me as McCree, I was able to DI and get an easy flash which was definitely not possible before.
Oh i reread your original post and you said youre new to him. OK so before his qol change, we would grapple above the enemy team, activate adaptive shields, then piledriver. You can also exit ball form while in the air and land shots while youre descending and waiting for the adaptive shields to detect everyone.
Yes, i remember that quite well back when Ball was just released.
Guess that maybe i would have to try that but unless we are close to the red team, we would not be able to get all that much Shields off AS, yes?
Well actually theres lots of things to consider, in response to this we will need to make changes to our playstyle to a certain degree and this is a discussion about that. As a main tank you have to find the balance of engagement value and how and when to do it changes with this because it means your team has less time to capitalize on this important ability. Reshuffling priority targets and when to engage in the teamfight will change with this. This pushes Hamster further into the main tank role as its supposed to motivate us to engage closer to our team. Also deciding what order to use his kit shuffles as well to maximize value.
All it really does is affect the enemyās benefit rather than nerf Hammondās actual tech. Though it may give you and your allies less room to click the whack-a-mole heads (especially the snipers) as they rise from PD, it doesnāt actually change his flow too much.
As a m/gm hammond who has around 330 hours on him first i was expecting a slight buff, second that 0.5 is HUGE it prevent you from solo killing heros that have already used their stun/ccā¦ it feels like the heros i slam now moonwalk in the air and in zigzag, but doesnt matter for us master and up we can get better at it the problem here is other hammond players that will have to suffer through thisā¦
To nerf a hero that gets countered by 90% of all heros and a hero thats so unpopular people start being toxic against you for even playing him is the old tactic from bluzzard to force ppl into not playing him that way they get rid of ham players and satisfy the majority of toxic folks being toxic.
stay strong hammond ppl