as a hammond main, i think heās perfect where he is. it just requires a lot of practice to be a useful hammond
I would say no on adaptive shield change but the ammo change is a more suitable change. Not the first one Iād make though.
Iād either have ball-form hammond not be body blocked as badly as heās now, somewhat pushing others aside OR allow him to rapidly change direction on ground regardless of momentum when not in top speed. If heās going to have inertia, at least let it be so consistently.
Secondly, give top speed state a charge property so that when colliding with Reinhardtās charge, rocket punch or shield-bash head-on (not from the sides or behind), both get knocked down.
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I believe the devs donāt want Hammond in his highly mobile ball form to suddenly get a ton of shields and would rather keep adaptive shields the way it is. It means he will have to manage his cooldowns correctly and be wary not to pop shields in a crowd waiting to melt him.
His reload does feel long and I love Hammond so I donāt mind any buff honestly. The way I see it though, Hammond automatically reloads in ball form and he walks faster than most heroes (even when they are using their skills). His playstyle seems to revolve around using your skills/weapons in conjunction and dipping away when you need to. His transformation to/from ball form are also so speedy (in ways that Bastion wishes he could do) that you can evade away with your run speed and then fire again to finish enemies off or do another charge if you need to.
Considering that in ball form you get a hidden crit spot, more mobility than most heroes can achieve, third person awareness, and access to your hook that you can use for a hasty retreat or CC filled counter attack; there seems to be no reason to suffer a reload outside of ball form. I admit, Iāve done pile drivers into enemies and focus targeted a squishy while popping adaptive shield, only to tunnel vision and try to reload in those enemiesā¦ tough habit to break but unless you need a quick melee to finish someone, ball form when ammo reaches zero!
So true. Like with Lucio, you start to learn what you can and canāt do - I feel like only parts of the payload/point can be hooked onto. Still, I suppose that is the price to pay to get a free hook vs. a more restricted one like Widow has.
Exactly right - this is the value that a lot of people will always miss with utilizing Hammond. Nothing flips a fight better than when I knock the Reinhardt 20m behind his team or off the map. No reason to break a barrier or burst down a squishy when you can smack them into your team.
When someone else locks Wrecking Ball, I happily go Zarya or Ana to try and support them. You gotta treat him like a main tank and follow through with his pushes!
Mei and Sombra are pretty much the only threat I feel when playing Hammond. Mei isnāt even too big because Hammond has more tools than any other hero to play around her (plus if she is spending all match trying to LMB you rather than get picks with her RMB then your team should be outdamaging them). Getting chain stunned and frozen is a bad time, of course, times like that I pray that my Off-tank supports me, haha. A good Sombra that is making it her mission to counter you is Lucio level trouble, though!
This is what we need haha - I have the worst luck when it comes to that ultās delay.
The biggest buff I think Wrecking Ball needs from a fan of the hamster
Some voice line buffs. I canāt BM when all of his voice lines come out seconds later. I get that he is talking and then the A.I. is translating but I wish Hammond installed some phrases that he can instantly say, while laughing about it afterwards. AI - āSTEP ASIDEā -Insert rodent chatter here-
Follow it up with some QoL and I need healing voiceline buffs and Iād be 
you mean the form he is in 99% of the time being immuen to one of his few counters?
yeahā¦just a bit op.
Sincerely, I find him weird to justify in any comp, if I wanted a disruptive tank, winston does the job greatly, while being easy to pick up, if I wanted raw damage and dive potential, dāva will do nicely, heās just too hard and inconsistent to have in a teamā¦
Also his gun is pathetic while is had low spread, is also has low damage, low ammo count and long reloadā¦
Adaptive shield in ball form isnāt happening, at least not now.
Itās been asked before, Jeff replied its a balance decision. Hammond needs to make a choice between mobility and damage mitigation.
Hammond doesnāt suckā¦ Iām sitting at 60% wr out of about 100 games. I climbed from mid gold to high Plat with Hammond but itās getting more difficult to one trick him now. I think Hammond is just too easily countered. Hack means death, and with all the cc in game heās impossible to play when enemy counters you. Example: pile drive, hacked, slept, anti nade, shield bash, frozen, dead. CC is just ridiculous in this game right now and I would rather have something done about the ridiculous amount of cc in the game rather than buff Hammond. Because Hammond has such a massive hit box it makes him incredibly vulnerable to cc.
Especially with incoming hog buffs, itās going to put Hammond in a really bad spot. If blizz isnāt going to do anything about cc then yes Hammond should be buffed.
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This is the real issue with Hammond. With such a gigantic hit box he completely relys on his mobility to have any value. Take that mobility away with the ridiculous amount of cc in the game, he becomes useless. #nerfcc
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So why do we have to buff every hero instead of nerfing? All these posts talk about how we should buff mercy and crap yet all there doing is supporting powercreep. Reminder that powercreep is a cycle so if you buff something it will be dominant over the other and so on.
I donāt know how he is on PC, but on console heās a nightmare to play. Its very hard to track someone with the limited ammo and relatively disappointing damage he provides. I respect any Hammond main who can get more than 15 kills a match
He reloads early in the animation, meaning you can cancel said animation relatively quickly. Still, I feel like his ammo is a bit too low considering how its handled. Maybe 100 or 120 would feel better
I think Hammond is good where he is.
His playstyle is a tricky one, especially with that ability to hook onto something and spin in a circle. If you play him straight forward like the other tanks, you wonāt be effective, so you have to use his abilities and such in order to use him correctly.
Heās like the tank version of Doomfist basically. And once Sombra hacks him, he has no option but to fight back with his basic attack.
Certainly a poor balance decision, then. I fail to see how WB would be unbalanced if he was just able to shield up in ball form.
If Hammondās adaptive shield stopped some cc like a real shield did, he would be way better
3 Likes
Buff him like this?
Wrecking ball
Quad Cannons
- ammo count increased to 100 from 80
- reload time reduced to 1.5 seconds from 2 seconds
Adaptive Shield
- no longer forces you out of ball mode
- Area of effect increased to 10 meters from 7 meters (can detect enemies from further away)
- cooldown reduced to 14 seconds from 15 seconds
Minefield
- mine health reduced to 30 hp from 50 hp
- damage lowered to 100 from 130
- minimum area of effect increased to 12 meters from 6
- number of mines increased to 25 from 15
Grappling Claw
- fix the bugginess
- cooldown reduced to 4 seconds from 5 seconds
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Honestly, as somebody who plays a lot of Hammond, Hammond isnāt the problem: itās heroes like Sombra and Mei who dominate the game and more or less switch all the functionality of his kit off.
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Hammy has innate CC. Buff him and the game gets even worse.
I disagree with your perspective. I think forcing himself out of the ball with the adaptive shield is something that should stay as it helps with the flow of the hero, reinforces the flow of the hero, and that his ammo count is fine.
The shields are meant as a means to establish yourself in a fight, and to allow yourself a window to escape after going in. They are not meant to make you absurdly difficult to kill while outside of the fight.
Him using his shields to bring himself out of the ball to shoot at targets is very ideal. You are simultaneously bringing out your weaponry and defending yourself, instead of separately.
His shielding with fewer enemies nearby needs addressing. I legitimately see no issues with the rest of his kit. Itās all up to the player to make good use of them. If you canāt reliably track with him, of course his ammo count being only at 80 isnāt going to feel good enough. Ammo management is a big part of his kit.
If they took his adaptive shield and altered it to give 75 per enemy hero nearby and initially 250 (same max but more with less enemies near), I think it would be much better overall, much more applicable.
His exceptional mobility and crowd control options are very powerful in proper usage, but heavily countered by crowd control. This is a given, and is his primary weakness.
Overall, wrecking ball has a lot of potential with his kit. Unfortunately its just very difficult to justify the pick as his durability is unreliable.
Yeah, often I swing over the team to spread the bombs out, press ult near while near the bottom of the swing. But depending on the speed, I might often miscalculate how early I need to press and the start up delay to releasing the orbs causes me to miss the general area I was aiming for. Thus, most of the bombs would stick to the walls or ceiling on the up swing. So, if they can be released sooner (but could be slowed down to activate to compensate and allow opponents time to react), then placement of the bombs would be easier, and I wouldnāt get stunned out of it so much.
Grapple has 2 charges but can only be held for a max of 10 seconds
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