Sledgehammer

Sledgehammer

Heavy tank

Mobility	Ground
Giant	No
Cost	200
Unlock cost	50
Units	5
HP	3478
Attack	608
Target	Ground Only
Attack Interval	4.5s
Splash Damage	5.0m
Burst Damage	3040
Max DPS	676
Range	95m
Speed	7m/s
Description A fairly sturdy, heavy tank. It can deal splash damage in a small area over medium and long distances.

Values are normalized to the supply cost of the unit to make it easier to compare units. The Splash Index tries to calculate the effectiveness vs spam by multiply attacks with slash area and a penalty for damage below 350.
Unit Cost	40 - 50
HP Value	69.6 - 87
Burst Value	12.2 - 15.2
DPS Value	2.7 - 3.4
Splash Index	5.6

v1.0

Summary

Sledgehammers are durable, well-rounded ranged attackers that don't specialize in killing any particular unit, but can be customized to serve a variety of battlefield roles, similarly to Fangs.

Without upgrades, Sledgehammers deal decent single-target damage in a small area, though with a relatively slow rate of fire. Their damage-per-shot allows them to kill Mustangs in one hit, while Arclights are destroyed in 1-2 volleys of fire. The AoE on their attacks also make them reasonably effective against chaff units, though they don't fire quickly enough to counter them outright. In general, Sledgehammers are effective against ground units with low damage per shot and a high rate of fire - those units are too fragile to withstand Sledgehammers' attacks and deal little damage in return.

Sledgehammers have particularly good synergy with Fangs; not only do Fangs provide anti-air support for Sledgehammers, both units can serve different roles depending on the enemy's unit composition. If the enemy army has many high-burst units like the Phoenix or Fortress, Fangs can absorb damage with Portable Shield while Sledgehammers can deal damage with upgrades like Range Enhancement and Armor-Piercing Bullets. If the enemy army has a lot of splash damage (e.g. Vulcans, Arclights), Sledgehammers can act as frontline units with upgrades like Field Maintenance or Armor Enhancement, while the Fangs can deal damage with upgrades like Ignite or Mechanical Rage.

Sledgehammers are vulnerable to Stormcallers due to their slow speed and the size of each individual tank. They lack any means to attack air units and are vulnerable to high damage-per-shot attacks, making them particularly weak to Phoenixes. Sledgehammers also trade poorly into Steel Balls - they're durable enough to withstand the Sledgehammer's attacks and their high-DPS lasers chew through Sledgehammers efficiently. Lastly, Sledgehammers are weak when underlevelled. Their versatility is something of a double-edged sword - overlevelled Sledgehammers can trade favorably with many different ground units, but underlevelled Sledgehammers can struggle to meaningfully impact the battlefield.

Sledgehammers have many upgrades available to them that turn them into strong damage dealers or defensive juggernauts as required. Offensively, Sledgehammers can increase their damage-per-shot with Armor-Piercing Bullets and use Range Enhancement in order to cripple enemy frontline units before they can fire. Mechanical Rage is particularly useful as both an offensive and defensive tool - it increases Sledgehammers' overall DPS while increasing the speed at which it clears chaff units, while the movement speed reduces the damage Sledgehammers take from Stormcallers and Overlords. Defensively, Sledgehammers can use Field Maintenance, Damage Sharing, and Armor Enhancement to mitigate damage taken, though none of these upgrades solve the Sledgehammer's weakness to strong burst damage.

Tech Upgrades

Icon	Name	Cost	Description
	Field Maintenance	300	Increases HP by 30%, automatically restores 4.5% Max HP per second upon taking damage HP 4521, Heal 203
	Damage Sharing	200	Chains adjacent Sledgehammers together, increasing HP by 120% and sharing damage received equally between them HP 7652, Total HP 38258
	Mechanical Rage	300	Increases the movement speed of units by 4m/s and reduces attack interval by 1.5s Speed 11m/s, Attack interval 3s
	Range Enhancement	300	Increases attack range by 40m Range 135m
	Electromagnetic Shot	300	Causes electromagnetic interference on hit, temporarily disabling the target unit's Tech and reducing its movement speed by 40% Debuff duration 5.3 seconds
	Armor-Piercing Bullets	250	Increases ATK by 150% and attack interval increases by 20% Attack 1520, Attack interval 5.4s
	Armor Enhancement	300	HP is increased by 35% and 60 damage is blocked when attacked. The damage blocking effect increases by 60 with each level HP 4695

Update Notes

0.7.41 The HP bonus of Tech [Armor Enhancement] has been increased from 20% to 35%. 0.7.13 Tech [Armor Enhancement] now adds an additional 20% HP. The price of [Armor-Piercing Bullets] has been adjusted from 300 to 250. 0.6.175 Page created