Opinions on skyhammer in organized play.

(Guziol) #1

I was wondering what is the general consensus on skyhammer in more serious setting.

This bald scotsman quickly became my most played merc and timik skyhammer is probably the most fun i have in dirty bomb right now but i can’t help but feel that in ranked play he is subpar to other fire supports, esspecially arty ( which is odd, i remember times when arty was a joke merc and skyhammers were everywhere ).

The reliabilty of the kira laser and arty strikes with lower cooldown and more precision just feels way better in games with smaller amount of people that know what they are doing compare to the “i need to absolutely, positively blow everything the fuck out in that area” of skyhammer on long cooldown. There also comes friendly fire in ranked, which makes skymmer a bit trickier to use if you are not playing with 4 buddies.

I get that he is more versitile with his marker exploding like a grenade indoors and i use that quite often but it feels it doesn’t outweight the downside of not having a reliable precision strike, esspecially the aura station clearing potential or destroying side generators on certain maps.

In “pub” games he is absolutely fine, multikills for days hence my reluctance to straight up call for a buff.
Also arty and kira get the Stark but i guess the problem is with the weapon being a bit too good there rather than skyhammer itself.

You could always say: “well play arty then, if you want all of that” but thats the point, i want to play skyhammer and stay competetive. Mostly because i love this one timik, T61.

Anyway, i don’t know if i would ask for a buff, i just want to know what you people think.

On a sidenote: Am i really the only one that uses direct hit ammopacks to reduce cooldown of other mercs in my team? Esspecially other skyhammers or fraggers that just tossed a grenade. I never see anyone use that feature.

(GatoCommodore) #2

if you reduce the cooldown, kids gonna go to forum and write about how OP is skyhammer.

Imo 50 sec is long enough, since skyhammer dont really have 2nd ability or anything.
but considering the skyhammer spam (4-5 skyhammer in a team) is nearly as obnoxious as proxy flying pancake spam, i think the cooldown right now is pretty okay for me.

and no, youre not the only one using the cooldown reduction for ammo

(Guziol) #3

[quote=“GatoCommodore;c-224670”]
and no, youre not the only one using the cooldown reduction for ammo[/quote]

Good. It’s just sad that i never see anyone do it. I’m sure most players don’t even know it’s a thing. I also wish that fraggers and skyhammers would let me pump them with cooldown reduction instead of running away when there is nothing else going on but i guess most people don’t even realize what im trying to do. It took me 300-400h to realize that direct ammo packs even have any benefit.

(Dawnlazy) #4

Outside of pubs, the only times when I find Skyhammer useful aside from anti-EV defenses, are on a couple of spots on Trainyard and attacking Chapel 3rd objective. I think it would be nice if the airstrike cooldown remained high when there is an EV around, but was shortened to maybe 50 seconds otherwise, if it’s even possible to implement that.

(Guziol) #5

I was talking to my buddy and i liked his idea but it might be a bit wonky to implement.

What if the airstrike marker and airstrike itself had seperate cooldowns so you can still throw the marker every 20sec and it will only spawn the drone when its off cooldown? Currently if you make an airstrike happen you can’t throw the markers for the meh but still usefull damage.
Being able to choose to not calldown an airstrike and just throw the marker to the damage might be cool as well.

(Dawnlazy) #6

That’s actually pretty neat. Maybe also lowering cooldown to 15-17 seconds so he can be a mini-Fragger (and considering the Stoker buff coming tomorrow).

(everlovestruck) #7

@Guziol @Dawnlazy
Imagine throwing a marker that explodes, and grants you 3 seconds to call in an airstrike at where it landed by pressing Q again (inside these 3 seconds).
That would make Skydad somewhat more viable as area denier, because the enemies will have to wait out until the air support arrives a liiiiiittle bit longer
Boy I’d love that

(Guziol) #8

Let’s make skyhammer tremendous again.

(Szakalot) #9

@everlovestruck this is a really interesring idea actually, though imo skyhammer should have the option to cancel airstrike rather than confirm it.

it would also make him easier to get a hang off for newbies, as they could readjust their airstrike if they miss horribly

@Toomic ?

(GatoCommodore) #10

Project Skyhammer Rework 2017

SD pls implement

(JJMAJR) #11

I support the idea @everlovestruck put out here. It not only allows an airstrike to be better controlled, but the fact that you can cancel the airstrike by waiting could be useful. If you cancel you should get the cooldown reduced to what you can get if the thing was thrown indoors.