I've never used a weapon that was so fun and at the same time so clearly bad. It looks cool, the effects are cool, the finishers are brutal, it's got a unique feel and flow, but it's easily the worst melee weapon by a good margin. At least the power fist won't lock you in an animation for so long, and also it isn't as cool so it being bad isn't as upsetting.
One very frequent problem is that rarely can you even land anything other than the dash attack on ranged terminid warriors because they can back pedal faster than you can get your attack off, as it so slow, and you move forward so little (especially the first attack, as it takes a smaller step). Another is being stuck in animations you can't cancel, and having no ability to parry an incoming attack or dodge an unparryable one. The amount of times I've lost nearly my entire health bar during a single animation with this weapon is wild, times when moments before, I felt relatively in control of the situation. With other weapons its usually small chunks here and there but frequently its massive chunks lost while using this weapon. The weapon being slow is understandable, it's part of the identity of the weapon and what makes it feel special, but the movement and animation locks are too punishing. I also don't like the stat spread on the available weapons. I felt the master-crafted one with 5+ speed was the best feeling one to use, but then in artificer and relic tier the fastest one you can get is 3+, What's up with that?

The issue is not with the hammer its with the jumppack recharge speed, would be so fun to utilize the longer dash to chase down shooters but you cant because you just run out of jumppack charge too fast and it takes ages for it to regen.

my chainsword tactician is way more survivable than assault.  just has a better/faster moveset.  make hammer the fastest weapon in the game and it becomes more viable although damage is garbage on it too (soaking, multiple hit enemies = slow weapon worthless).

thunderhammer needs a good bit of work at this point, sure you can play with it, options are severely limited on the move set though.  speed is better than anything in this game. speed beats all.  speed is the games combat economy.  everything that the assault class has to deal with using the thunderhammer including the charge move is ....being ...........slow..........

Im not saying assault is garbage, i just think the thunderhammer needs to some creative thinking.  jump pack dodge agree, give us a CD on it, or give it a couple charges or something that come back over time.  jump pack right now can be pretty darn amazing, but once they start looking at how horribly damage soak affects assault vs. all other classes i think all this will be fixed.

Most of its problems stem from how bad it feels to BE a space marine, since they're physically so weak compared to enemies. The hammer being slow wouldn't matter if it took a while to lose all your armor and you got it all back after an execution. Other than that, its damage is obviously lower than it should be.

You cannot be locked out of parry with an attack animation.  I've had an Aftershock a split second from hitting the ground, realized it wouldn't land soon enough, and canceled into a parry.  I've never seen parry not work. 

I also think hammer might need a buff to its light attack but otherwise it's pretty beast.  Easily my preferred Assault weap.

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FatherGoose wrote:

You cannot be locked out of parry with an attack animation.  I've had an Aftershock a split second from hitting the ground, realized it wouldn't land soon enough, and canceled into a parry.  I've never seen parry not work. 

I also think hammer might need a buff to its light attack but otherwise it's pretty beast.  Easily my preferred Assault weap.

Good for you . It sure the hell has happened to me

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xXHappy_PuppyXx wrote:

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FatherGoose wrote:

You cannot be locked out of parry with an attack animation.  I've had an Aftershock a split second from hitting the ground, realized it wouldn't land soon enough, and canceled into a parry.  I've never seen parry not work. 

I also think hammer might need a buff to its light attack but otherwise it's pretty beast.  Easily my preferred Assault weap.

Good for you . It sure the hell has happened to me

Which attack, what circumstances? 

I used the thunder hammer almost exclusively in SM 1 and was a master with the weapon. The SM2 version is almost unplayable. Way too slow and deals little damage to reflect the slowness. Should kill warriors in 2-3 hits on ruthless, not 8-10.

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FatherGoose wrote:

You cannot be locked out of parry with an attack animation.  I've had an Aftershock a split second from hitting the ground, realized it wouldn't land soon enough, and canceled into a parry.  I've never seen parry not work. 

I also think hammer might need a buff to its light attack but otherwise it's pretty beast.  Easily my preferred Assault weap.

I misspoke on parrying, but you can't dodge during the attacks, and you can very frequently get stuck in an attack animation when an unblockable attack comes. Most of them are actually quicker to land than the parryable attacks because you can parry too early for blockable attacks, and parry again and still get it, but you can't parry the second you hear the sound effect, and then dodge when you realize it's unblockable on almost any of those attacks. Then you get heavy hit, get staggered, and take more hits you can't do anything about. When you get stuck in an animation, can't react to an unblockable attack, then get hit with another flurry of attacks, it's frustrating because the only answer available to that problem is to basically just not use the thunderhammer.
I just don't see a way around the problem without making it allowed to dodge cancel attacks. Even if they made the thunderhammer faster, it probably still wouldn't be fast enough because even chainsword attacks can occasionally land in that sweetspot of having to eat an unblockable attack.

Dodge cancels could also make PVP melee more interesting.

I absolutely agree with dodge canceling.  It should exist. 

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Bladerunner777 wrote:

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MrsHeadshott wrote:

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Bladerunner777 wrote:

Yeah, generally melee should cancell anything 10 meters away from the target, so that when the melee guy even thinks of attacking anybody, they get frozen, cannot move or do anything. And then the melee hero can finally win with ease like they should...cos they're melee guys afterall, they deserve more XD

I feel like you just want to argue with this guy at this point. 

Gun is better than melee ATM. Melee takes set up as it is. Guns ttk is faster even with the shield. 

Just being able to cancel a hit into a Dodge would provide a lot of benefit for melee animations, guns don't lock you in an animation. The flourishes look cool, but the damaged being back loaded should be able to be cancelled out of. I can already think of some cool hammer moves for assault if Dodge cancelling was a thing. Ha

Rereading your post I think you misunderstood what a Dodge cancel is. 

It's starting a melee hit, and being able to dodge to cancel your animation. Not cancelling enemy dodges. So it simply gives you some extra melee control. It would affect very little except skill ceiling in PvP, and let you go for charges without taking unlockables from enemies in PvE.

That's cheating :D

Well it's like plasma cannon, you can charge it and dodge out of it without shooting. Same difference, imo. Would allow a more fluid assault experience.

XD. One does not draw the bow without shooting the bow. This is heretical. Lift the hammer. Drop the hammer.