Super Slam feat question

[Fenix]

Explain how does it work?
"Perform a sledgehammer attack that does normal damage plus additional (20% of your maximum health) mechanical damage." - what does it mean? It can't crit?
Is it just a flat plus to damage like Expertise?

[Fenix]

Don't need feat I don't understand what it do. I'll pick Nimble instead.

[Phyroks]

it deals normal damage and bonus damage based on your max hp >.>

so if you have 100 maxhp and deal 50 dmg on normal attack, you would deal 70 with the feat (50 + 20 from max hp)

[Fenix]

So it can't crit and just add flat damage?
On my Con 3 char it will add 40 dmg in late game.
It is useful, but it's last priority feat.

[Phyroks]

it does not say anything about not critting so i would guess it can crit normally.

normal damage just means it happens like normal attack, and normal attacks can crit.

[Tygrende]

Why do you assume it cannot crit? Any special ability that cannot crit has that explicitly stated in its description, like Snipe or Implosion for example.

Really can't see what the source of confusion here is, the description is not vague or ambiguous at all.

[MirddinEmris]

Why do you assume it cannot crit? Any special ability that cannot crit has that explicitly stated in its description, like Snipe or Implosion for example.

Really can't see what the source of confusion here is, the description is not vague or ambiguous at all.

Well, i think he asked not wherever this attack can crit or not, but if this damage will be multiplied in that case. And i'm not sure if this is the case.

[Fenix]

In this case it is better then usual attack after all - with crit 40 dmg turns in ~100, but anyway I'll take it last.
Or not?

[TheAverageGortsby]

In this case it is better then usual attack after all - with crit 40 dmg turns in ~100, but anyway I'll take it last.
Or not?

For high CON builds it ends up being a lot of damage.  I know that conventional wisdom is that you need to stack STR for a sledge build, but I did a Hard run pumping CON above STR and Super Slam ended up adding ~120 mechanical damage.  Then of course you roll with a crit modifier over 200% so it ends up really adding near 300 (before mitigation) on Hard.  That makes a big difference.  Pummel -> Expose Weakness -> Super Slam.  He ded.

Super Slam is pretty great.

[Fenix]

Why Pummel at all?

[MirddinEmris]

Super Slam is really not great. It's OK on easy and normal and almost useless on hard. Let's see, each point in CON at lvl 25 gives you: 24 health (30 with juggernaut) on Hard, 51 (64) on Normal and 102 (128) on Easy. That means that at lvlv 25 each point in CON gives you: 6 dmg on Hard, 13 dmg on Normal, 26 dmg on Easy. Damage that you can apply only once or twice per combat. Each point in STR however gives you 7-8% damage increase from boosting your skill and 10% damage boost from having STR above 8. I'm not sure if they are additive or multiplicative, but that damage applies to every attack and also STR increases your accuracy with a weapon, so it's clearly much, much better deal.

So i don't think that Super Slam worth it in 90% of the cases even if it multiplies on the crit. For sledgehammer users it's much more viable to put their point in STR rather than CON (that's being said, having 7 CON is recommended). A nice bonus is that if you have 15-16 STR then you can put adrenaline and rathound barbeque on top of that and use Balor hammer for about 3 rounds in combat, which often is enough to eliminate your enemies, given that with that weapon it's usually 1 hit = 1 kill.

[MirddinEmris]

Why Pummel at all?

Pummel so that you have less chances to miss, i guess, since it reduces evasion and dodge to 0. Still, taking 3 attacks to kill someone, unless this someone is bladeling, industrial bot or something like that is not a great example of a good sledg build in my opinion.

[MirddinEmris]

Although there are many other options for nullifying enemy dodge when necessary, I think Pummel is still handy to have because of its low AP cost.

Super Slam has funny synergy for easy difficulty and I think it's fairly well balanced for normal. It's weaker on hard, but always better than just auto-attacking if your feat budget isn't too tight. This may change at some point in the future so it works the same regardless of difficulty.

Yes, 10 AP sledgehammer attack is actually what i found most useful form this feat, even if for 50% damage only.

Well, yeah, it is better than just an attack (with all other being equal), but the benefit is not particularly noticeable unless you are playing on easy, so there is always better choice for that feat slot. Especially it's not worth making CON > STR sledg build, both in general and with that feat.

[Fenix]

Each point in STR however gives you 7-8% damage increase from boosting your skill and 10% damage boost from having STR above 8. I'm not sure if they are additive or multiplicative, but that damage applies to every attack and also STR increases your accuracy with a weapon, so it's clearly much, much better deal.

Yeah, I don't like armored beast types, so I did stealth Con 3 hammerer and figured out that he at least should oneshot everything, so 20 Str and Balor's hammer is the goal (initial).
It is ~ like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGlEYXA2KBYSwQZhAdhKjocgJygHqhollgUAco1FATDbkxbrOJZh3KHHiAKwI0-fMiA

[MirddinEmris]

Each point in STR however gives you 7-8% damage increase from boosting your skill and 10% damage boost from having STR above 8. I'm not sure if they are additive or multiplicative, but that damage applies to every attack and also STR increases your accuracy with a weapon, so it's clearly much, much better deal.

Yeah, I don't like armored beast types, so I did stealth Con 3 hammerer and figured out that he at least should oneshot everything, so 20 Str and Balor's hammer is the goal (initial).
It is ~ like this http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGlEYXA2KBYSwQZhAdhKjocgJygHqhollgUAco1FATDbkxbrOJZh3KHHiAKwI0-fMiA

Actually armored sledg is the best one in my experience. With Sprint and good tabis you get enough movement to get around enemies and with super steel armor you can get enough resistance that mechanical damage doesn't bother you. So i would still recommend 6-7 CON sledg build. 3 CON for a build with a relatively low maneuverability is too savescummy for me.

And you won't hit 20 STR without supersoldier drug which you can get only at the end of the game (and not with your biology skill, i tell you that). With maxed STR what you can expect is to take rat barbecue and inject yourself with adrenaline in combat, then you'll have 17-19 str, meaning only 5-15% accuracy penalty on the hammer.

About your build, i think it's good enough to finish the game but you WILL hit a lot of roadblocks where you can get mostly by luck after a lot of reloading. 7 PER is almost useless, there just not enough secret places for you to discover with effective 10 PER for it to be even remotely worth it 4 attribute points and 1 feat investment. I would recommend you to take Pummel and Taste for Blood on your next level ups. Pummel is really good, since under adrenaline you can swing you Balor 3 times for 20 AP each and then still hit someone with Pummel for 10 AP (or taser someone, or take some drug). Taste for blood also works decently with sedgehammer build since it also gives you one stack for killing someone and with decent sledge build you can expect to kill 1-2 enemies per turn, each one increasing your further damage by 5%, and since sledg deals damage in large spikes, it's a noticeable increase.

That's the build that i finished the game with http://underrail.info.tm/build/?AwGloJgVhBGGBsIkHYQGYPLD0t0zggCcewsIAHGkfnhGXLBE0bcIVUUrACxyUQvULxi9iIKGgSgEElDEqhK-SlCA