Black Hammer Review

“I cannot permit you to exist.”

Talent Upgrades Tree

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Black Hammer Video Review

*Error at 4:17 – it has the slowest base reload speed, not the fastest.
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Weapon Review

Black Hammer is a special sniper rifle that can only be obtained by defeating Crota. We have a full guide to Crota’s End if you need help with the raid.

How does this compare to the other sniper rifles obtainable at the Tower vendors? Is it a worthy Ice Breaker replacement? Like Ice Breaker, Black Hammer is most useful in PvE – but is it the best PvE sniper rifle? Keep reading to find out!

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Recommended perks:

AMBUSH SLH25
+20 Stability
-15 Range
+10 Reload

Perfect Balance
+35 Stability
-20 Range

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The Good

As it stands, players gaze at Black Hammer in both fear and awe; it’s as intimidating as it is respected.

It has a unique and very powerful perk: an instant magazine refill if you can land 3 critical shots in quick succession. What is even better is that this isn’t ammunition from reserve, they are brand new rounds plucked from thin air.

With Mulligan, if you miss a shot you may get one back (though this very rarely happens), giving you another crucial opportunity to land all 3 shots. If you have a steady hand, feel for the weapon and intense concentration you can keep firing on a boss from the first and last shot of the entire battle without a single reload.

This weapon hits with terrifying force too because of its extremely high Impact. In Crucible you can knock a guardian down to the last minuscule piece of health from a single shot, making it ever so easy to one shot Guardians anywhere on the body if they have been so much hit once already.

Overall the perks are excellent, but Mulligan needs a buff and White Nail is basically a PvE-only perk.

Probably the best scope to go with is the AMBUSH SLH25, which doesn’t have as much range, but helps out with stability the most. This sniper rifle has the highest base range of any Legendary sniper rifle anyway (tied with Efrideet’s Spear), so there’s not much use in the other scopes.

Unique to the raid weapons is the “Hive Disruptor” perk which increases damage to Hive Majors. You’ll be able to do about 400 additional damage to Hive Majors. However, it’s bugged, so if you buy the Hive Disruptor perk then you will not be able to take advantage of White Nail against Hive Majors!
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The Bad

This is a very situational weapon. It’s very sluggish, hard to handle and maybe has more kick than it needs against weaker enemies. It’s only really effective against those bosses that are like Black Hammer: sluggish.

With the fantastic opportunity to refill your magazine from landing only 3 precision shots, you are unforgivably only given 3 shots in the first place, which means you won’t make use of the perk at all if you can’t land all 3 within about 2.5 seconds of each other. Even if you land all 3 critical hits, you’ve got to do it quickly or it won’t count towards the refill, which takes getting used to.

What makes matters even harder to land all 3 shots, you’re working with a horribly slow rate of fire; you’re going to have to prioritize your encounters if you don’t want your target to move out of sight.

In Crucible there is no justified reason to use this weapon over other more agile and snappy snipers. White Nail will hardly ever be used, and because there’s so much special ammo on the map it wouldn’t even matter anyway.

Its stability is also poor, the fourth lowest of all Legendary sniper rifles. As for the base reload speed, it’s actually the slowest, making the small magazine size hurt even more.

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Cosmetics

This weapon follows the same style as all the Crota’s End weapons: Bones and other seemingly living things grow out of them on various areas, as if the weapon has evolved to become like the Hive themselves.

Green lights also pop out, giving the weapon an eerie glow in the darker areas of the world. They will also light up brighter if you are out of ammo.

Conclusion

If you get into its rhythm and have the concentration and patience to learn its quirks, it grants an incredible and unique opportunity to be the “Gjallarbreaker of sniping” in certain situations.

It has the amazing practicality to deal an insane amount of damage by the second, and to not need to use use any ammo or reload while doing so is a huge bonus.

When it comes down to it though, Black Hammer is a niche weapon. While it can be used as an everyday sniper rifle, it is best suited when you know you can take advantage of the White Nail perk. It will truly shine against a stationary or slow-moving boss.

Using White Nail effectively will allow you to dish out more damage with this weapon than Ice Breaker or any other sniper. Should it take Ice Breaker’s PvE crown? Let us know what you think!

As far as the Crucible goes, forget it. There isn’t a good enough reason to use it over sniper rifles that fire much faster, have more stability and a larger magazine.

For PvP this weapon earns a 5.5/10 and for PvE a 8.5/10.