Irresistible Blow

Irresistible Blow used to be Brutal Blow back in the day.

When they reworked Block and Evade, they changed Swift Chop, Seeking Blade and changed Brutal Blow to Irresistible Blow.

If you notice they other 2 weapon skills each have +damage when you hit regularly with a bonus effect should said skill be blocked or evaded.

My question is where is Irresistible Blow's +damage when it regularly hits?

Anyone have the scoop on why this skill is the way it is?

Normally you do your regular weapon damage when there is no additional damage listed.

Hopefully an Alpha will correct me if I'm wrong.

Not an Alpha, but I'm pretty sure you don't do any more damage than normal if no additional damage output is listed. Unless, of course, you manage a critical hit, then the damage jumps up some for that hit.

Bump action

Was hoping Rex or Ensign might know something more about this skill.

Hammer skills are almost universally worse than the skills available to sword or axe users. Just as Irresistable Blow is the bad Hammer version of Seeking Blade / Swift Chop, there's Crude Swing, the awful version of Hundred Blades / Cyclone Axe, and Mighty Blow, the ugly cousin of Galrath Slash / Executioner's Strike.

Why are hammer skills markedly inferior to what the other lines have available? I don't have a clue, honestly. Hammers already have a bunch of drawbacks - they don't combo well with damage buffs, you get adrenaline more slowly, you lose the use of an off-hand item - plus their skills are obviously inferior to what the other weapons get? What gives?

Peace,
-CxE

Well, the obvious answer, Chuck, is that Hammers have or, rather, had the knockdown lockdown. Properly arranged and timed a Hammer Warrior or a group of Hammer Wars could keep an opponent on their back and doing nothing for, well, forever. Knockdown was the best condition to inflict, hammers were the princes of all weapons, and, of course, that couldn't be allowed to stand so knockdown lockdown got hit hard. And the rest of their skills seemed to suffer to reduce the overall effectiveness of hammers overall.

Now, by chaining an elite knockdown into a "lose all adrenaline" knockdown you'll get 5, 6 seconds of knockdown. Which is a lot and nothing to scoff at but it's about all a hammer has going for it these days.

Hammers, as a weapon, are probably fine. They do more damage but they swing a bit slower. They do a bit more damage, on average, than any other weapon but to do so you lose the ability to carry a shield or a focus and all the mods that could be there, too. It's arguable but they're pretty much in line with the other weapons in terms of power.

Hammer Mastery, on the other hand, as a skill line, is incredibly thread-bare and poor and it's been that way for a long time. It just doesn't stack up with the other skill lines in terms of diversity, of utility, of raw power, or anything else even before you take into account that what little it does have has extremely high adrenal or recharge times to go along with that slower Hammer swing rate.

The why of it, I don't know. It's probably a case of the squeeky wheel getting the grease. There have been bigger problems elsewhere, more abusive things, more massive fixes needed with other skills and lines. Hammer have been "meh" for a while. Not quite awful, not quite great, just there. So, they get neglected as changes get made.

Rex,
Your post makes alot of sense, I would just like all three weapon trees to be balanced and viable, each in their own way.

Changing Irresitible Blow to the following would be a good start.

Irresistible Blow (Hammer Attack) If Irresistible Blow hits, you strike for +(1..16) damage. If Irresistible Blow is "Blocked", your target is knocked down and takes 1..16 damage. Irresistible Blow cannot be "Evaded".
Cost: 5 Energy Cast Time: None Recharge Time: 4 sec.

This would balance it vs Swift Chop and Seeking Blade.

That's not too bad, no. Although, personally, I think what the hammer should be good at is delivering large packets of damage. Spike damage, if you like. Over the long run you get about the same damage, maybe a little more, than with other weapons, so the DPS is the same. You swing less so it averages out but the hammer hits hardest letting you punch through defenses better. So, I wouldn't have a problem if those ranges were more like Power Attack and were +10...26 or whatever it is now.

The point being you can't balance Hammer skill damage against the damage of swords and axes. The swing rates are different so the damage output gets tilted. I'd have hammer skills doing far more damage, per hit, than their equivalents, and indeed, overall, to make up for the loss of both multiplying that damage and adding up all the damage adds that can be applied to a weapon to make it more deadly. In other words, a hammer is best, now, at disruption. Distracting Strike and a 6 second knocklock is about the best disruption you can get. No one's doing anything for a long long time with that and that's good. But there's nothing else they can do and that's bad when the other weapons can deal nearly that level of disruption and more besides. Hammers need to be the weapon to turn to for that spike damage. You can't use them a lot, you can't use them reliably, but when you get it right you can put a real hurting on someone in short order. A lot like an Air ele, really...

I'd agree that after the recent changes to buffs and buff stacking, the three melee weapons, attack for attack, are reasonably well balanced. Hammers are slower but a bit more damaging overall, and you can lucksack some serious criticals with them. The problem comes from the skill lists, where sword and axe users have a bunch of reasonable choices to make, while hammer Warriors are stuck staring at a list composed mostly of underpowered skills with little to no synergy.

The strength of the hammer Warrior is knockdown, and those skills are still in pretty reasonable shape. Start with your favorite elite knockdown skill (Backbreaker, Devastating Hammer, Earthshaker), and pair that with a lose all adrenaline one (Hammer Bash, Heavy Blow). Grab Counter Blow for arena or PvE maps where you'll likely have people attacking you. That a small, but solid core of knockdown skills to power out with your hammer. The problem, of course, is the supporting cast. The pickings after the knockdown skills are incredibly slim. Crushing Blow is worth toying with if you don't have another source of Deep Wound available, just because that condition is so good, but energy costs are always annoying for a Warrior. You might flirt with Mighty Blow just because it's adrenal and you have the space, but you certainly aren't happy to be running it. And...well, that's it. The rest of the hammer line isn't even worth looking at. That's the whole problem, as 3 skills do not make a character.

Another unconditional knockdown would be a mistake, but buffing up the supporting cast would be most welcome. Bringing skills like Irresistable Blow and Mighty Blow up to the standard set by other skill lines would be a good start. Once the whole skill line stops being Devastating Hammer, Hammer Bash, and a bunch of benchwarmers, hammers will escape their third-string status and move into the spotlight with swords and axes.

Peace,
-CxE

Well now the trick is getting the Devs to jump aboard this reasoning.

Hope they listen to you both.