I find him very unreliable for a Mythic. If I’m to think about Gorgotha or Stonehammer, I never even take a second breath.
Gorgotha is just better at everything. Even if stunned - it can cleanse right away. The armor is almost the same. And Gorgotha provides much more mana generation (it’s just a Legend).
I feel like Stonehammer misses his ability most of the time, and AoE Burn with AoE stun doesn’t really feel even close to what I’d think a Mythic should do. Jarl, for example, is better at gem looping by far (resulting in AoE burn anyway), and he’s only a Legend.
Thoughts? Buffs? Is he okay? Do you use him? Discuss.
Spawns too few gems for his mana cost, blocks too many colors to be easily charged, only really works in front, only really works with full traits. Can be used to some effect in some teams, but very rarely feels like the best option, even in a Guild Wars situation. Works well with Courage, for example, but that leaves you hunting for mana for way too many turns, same with his synergy with Elemaugrim - way too high setup cost to be universally useable. Loses hard to mana drain and devour - the two biggest gimmicks on defense, and he only protects the team from Death Mark inflicted via Death Touch or Death Curse (if you stun before killing). Massively high attack troops can also whittle him down to the point where he can be finished off by a random spell while you are still hunting for mana. Mana cost in general should be about 20 IMO, and/or he needs a double 9 gem spawn.
Keep in mind if you are testing in the current Unity version that gem spawners are basically broken after the first extra turn. You won’t likely see this with Stonehammer as he won’t get the initial extra turn as much, nor will he fill himself to go in with a second cast, but if he does, it won’t miss.
I adore Stonehammer because of his stun. It neutralizes things like the “on 4+ matches” on Mab, Khorvash, Sylvanamora, keeps Deathknight from cursing my team, keeps famine from eroding my stats, all the resurrection effects, etc. Yes, as a mana-maker it is inferior to gorgotha, but that isn’t his use.
He’s one of my best frontline troops. I can just ignore skulls and focus on charging my troops. Usually he’ll be on a team with Ragnagord or Dragon Soul because they feed off of each other. Pair that with the all-Stun and you’ve got a combo that will get you far; mix and match the other 2 spots as needed.
Even better is when you go up against a team without much red or brown in it (obviously not this week!). That many red & brown gems sprayed across the board will seriously screw with teams built around other colors.
This requirement is all already injected into Gorgotha alone.
it can ignore skulls, and doesn’t block blue color unlike Stonehammer. Also, you don’t have to focus on charging other troops. Gorgotha charges them for you. - You wouldn’t need Ragna nor TDS.
from this perspective - Stonehammer is far inferior.
His only benefit are troops that somehow interact with Burning or Stun (by the time you stun Mab, you’re long frozen on 3 troops. If Stonehammer is frozen, that’s 3 colors alone).
Courage and Elemaugrim are the ones with synergy. And neither of them bring you anything but RNG, and have much better team combinations.
And even bringing that AoE stun and burning cannot be excluded from a high possibility of giving enemies Extra turns and a lot of mana.
24 mana on his skill is a huge overkill. I’d evaluate the effects for 18 mana, at best. If I compare it to justice, that can give 20 Life AND Attack to 3 troops, for 13 mana - I just cannot comprehend the vast difference.
Having tested him I have found it’s always faster to use gorgotha in PvP. The only time I use him instead of gorgotha is against death touch, but now that death mark got nerfed gorgotha is arguably better in that situation too. I haven’t found a need for him once in guild wars.
I do like team stun and life buff. When I use gorgotha I often wish he buffed life, but when I use stonehammer I wish he cleansed himself.
I think he should be impervious or cleanse on cast. And a lower mana cost would definitely help.
EDIT: and just to add, there is a new mythic coming up which burns all enemies on 4+ matches which makes stonehammer’s spell look even weaker
I got him with a pinch of luck … thinking he spawns 15+15 gems.
… I haven’t used him ever, because I didn’t have resources to trait him up …
And now when I do - I’m finding out he’s far weaker then I could have ever imagined.
So I thought other people at forums might tell me something that I do not know yet, or show me a use for him which I didn’t see before.
And it turns out I’m not seeing things and he really is as weak as he seems.
Yeah, I got him and traited him this week, and yeah I think he’s weak. I’m slightly sadden that Dwarven Gate is better in almost all respects…
Better results with Gate over Stonehammer:
Team-wide mana generation
Team wide buff with barriers
Far smaller mana cost and doesn’t block three colours.
no chance of giving a brown/red board to the opposition through failed gem spawn
Stonehammer better at:
Tanking
…
But, the Gate can cast it spell twice for less than Stonehammers cost, so maybe that still make the Dwarf God lose out on tanking ability…
While the stun and burn is nice sometimes, I don’t think it makes up for the ludicrous 24 mana cost, especially now that Highforge stuns 50% of the team anyways. The Gate costs 10 and gives 15 flat to the other troops. So yeah he needs to be looked at!
Have been using him exclusively in Dwarf teams but I doubt experiences would change in another line up.
The comparison with Dwarven Gate highlights both how poor Stonehammer is and how ludicrously powercreeped the new common gate is… Armour and Barriers and overblown team mana all for only 10 mana cost… okay it’s not going to break the game or induce much rage. But it’s so much better than anything supposedly similar, do devs gave no time for even the simplest benchmarking these days?