Bended handles have a purpose on heavy two-handed weapons/tools such as hammers and axes.
See: Effects of handle angle and work orientation on hammering: I. Wrist motion and hammering performance - PubMed
To improve your information on the subject you both can further research using: purpose of bent handles on hammers
I think some people forget how damage mitigation works. A 90% reduction in damage is effectively twice as strong as 80%. Keep that in mind.
I agree that Stonehammer should have Impervious, aside from his backstory and theme being the most fitting for any troop in the game to have that trait, i think we all agree that Stonehammer could still use a little extra and Impervious would be a nice fit for a front troop with three manacolours when troops like Wraith are quite common.
It would be a subtle way to make him more of a worthy base mythic frontline tank without the danger of making him too strong.
Giving him Impervious also opens a slot for another “Dwarf related” trait, it’s a shame that Dwarf bond isn’t exciting except lore-wise as they are a united race. But maybe with a little adjustment on his spell, like “all dwarves gains three/four manas”, it would reduce the issues with his colors blocking the mana for others.
I happen to agree. In my view, Impervious + Impregnable (100% Skull reduction) is still trivial to defeat, since spell damage is a thing.
One neat idea for a tanky troop might be one that has relatively low Armor and high Life, and a third trait like: “At the start of my turn, restore my Armor to full.” So basically, a regenerating shield you’d have to burn through each turn to do damage. That would function as “spell reduction” of sorts, barring true damage of course.
A stoneskin trait and a Mythic trait called: Dwarfs Cottage, all Dwarves starts with half filled manas.
Maybe…
+20 armor from kingdoms, +8 armor from guild tasks, +10 armor in guild wars, plus team bonus or event bonuses… That’s an awful lot of armor to chew through every turn.
Yeah, it wouldn’t work, would it? Bummer.
Maybe if there were a ceiling: “Restore my armor to 12 at the start of each turn”.
And if moving to Unity allows for variable trait numbers, it could be something like “Restore my armor to [$base + $level_bonus + $ascension_bonus] at the start of each turn”, which would be truer to your original idea.
thats true and its perfectly fine, if you look back at all other mythic releases: devs always put a bit higher mana cost at first in purpose to observe the mythic and then tone it accordingly
aww i still want him!
why everyone seem to take my words out of context. i was suggesting that giving impervious to stonehammer may not necesarely be automatically the best/most wanted since - instead we could ask for mana drain resistance for him
not like i care about giving drain resistance to stonehammer in particular, but thats my first thought when someone suggests to give impervious to another unit - especially since everybody yells that drain resistance shouldnt be added to impervious, seems noones remmembers that ppl dont want impervious to be ultimate protection when they call to give better protection to a unit
i just simply state that there could possibly be other desirable protections then impervious currently offers
It is just that Impervious would also free up an additional trait as currently he ‘wastes’ 2 traits on status effect immunities, which i find a bit wasteful on higher rarity troops in the first place, and especially misplaced on a mythic with such a specialized role and badass background and a rather reasonably powered spell compared to some other mythics, or legendaries even.
i dont think the slot is wasted,
to be honest i think giving stormhammer immunity to entangle would be too much, but id like to see a trait rework making warded protect from other instant kill effects along with death mark protection
i agree he could have devour protection included but if i had to choose, id prefer he doesnt have it if it comes along with entangled protection
every unit must have some weaknesses. other weaknesses then onbviously being hittable by a spell damage
I was talking about the difference between the mythic trait and the legendary trait… but whatever. Increase the reduction is just annoying for the players using teams based on skulls to a point that it becomes trolling (ie force players to retreat). So why not trolling teams based on spell (aside Mana Burn ones)? 
I think he should be able to be freezed (need some counter) so no thanks for Impervious. And the lore argument is meh when you can put 4xStonehammer in your team…
In overall, this troop is super tanky, has a nice spell and aside the copy/paste trait from Gorgotha, I don’t see why he will need a buff. My main concern about him is more about the unreliability of his spell… but apparently, I’m the only concerned 
.
His weakness is his basic concept. The only way to use him effectively is as the frontline tank, where he blocks three colours. His spell is quite average (not just for base mythics, many legendaries have more impactful spells), not useless by any means but also not very decisive especially considering the cost. His attack is also on the lower end so he isn’t exactly a powerhouse in the front.
There are already impervious mythics around and they aren’t considered too strong at all, and why would they?
You already commit to a significantly slower pace when using Stonehammer for his tankyness, i don’t see why he should have additional unnecessary weaknesses.
Any player who finds the cost of scouting (50 gold/battle) prohibitive is also going to be too low-level to have to worry about seeing the base mythic cards very often.
By the time you get to level 100 or so, you’ve got enough gold to scout as often as you want. Which is, I’m sure, intentional: part of the fun is building teams to counter the specific strengths/weaknesses of your opponent.
the point is nothing about his base attack but the possibility.
if not good enough attack-buffing troop is yet in game, im sure there will be sooner or later
stormhammer is the “tankiest” tank, or at least suppose to be, that doesnt mean he has to also hit hard.
anyway its just too many advantages if he cannot be entangled neither frozen on top to what he already does
you mistake “weakness” with “linsufficient strong points”
the weakness means vulnerability to significant negative effects
lack of strong points not necesarely equals to that, and in stormhammer case it doesnt.
he is tanky and resistant enough (besides the lack of resistance to instant kill which is needed but not present in game), he doesnt need to have an ensured and unstoppable way to be also very dangerous
do you realise he doesnt mana-block courage?
But Courage alone is just a (gambling) gem’s generator, it’s Courage’s trait that does the “work” and even on this case you are being sort of counter-productive if you match skulls instead of leaving them since you have the best tanker in the game on your side…
I understand that the devs are probably being cautious with the new Mythics and all, but the whole concept of the troop doesn’t seems very god-like even for a God of Vigor and Stubbornness.
But well, the Dragon Soul was also supposed to be a god of sorts…
As it stand, I still prefer Gorgotha because
a) It is a much better mana generator
b) spell has a lower mana cost
c) Has a chance to summon a fodder backup tank when it dies.
d) Gorgotha Clenses Itself!
At the very least, Stonehammer should get Impervious to tip the scale as the MT for me.
He is only very slightly tankier than Gorgotha, while Gorgotha hits harder at base.
Gorgotha is much less susceptible to frozen or entangle with his self cleanse than Stonehammer. In addition, his cleanse also makes the window for stun or Deathmark to work quite short, and while stories of the rare first turn Deathmark kills burn themselves into our brains, i haven’t lost a Gorgotha to a Deathmark in weeks now tbh.
He also creates much less team mana than Gorgotha with his spell while he blocks three colours and costs significantly more, and Gorgotha doesn’t block Courage either though i am not sure why this is relevant. If we throw strong buffing troops into the mix the base tankyness of the front troop gets less relevant anyways.
As it stands now Stonehammer is simply a more clunky and slow (albeit much cooler) version of Gorgotha and Gorgotha edges him out for all the reasons @Sidousai stated.
Maybe the problem is that Gorgotha is too much powerful. Devs gave him Cleanse when he was already very nice/powerful. So “much powerful version of Gorgotha” seems quite high.
But don’t forget that Stonehammer heals himself which can nullify some attacks.
We can also compare Stonehammer with Jarl (both generate 9 gems from 2 colors too). Ratio gems generate/mana is approximately the same. Jarl do damage to one enemy when Stonehammer stuns/burns all enemies + retrieve life… And traits of Jarl are not that great compared to StoneH in terms of tankiyness.
Yes, but the problem is, people tend to play Stonehammer with the mindset of replacing Gorgotha.
Not many think of it in term of replacing Jarl…
Beside, who uses Jarl at end-game? 