The Finals. Sledgehammer Guide
So the finals have finally been fully released, and I wanted to make a short guide about optimal usage of the sledgehammer after almost 60 hours of gameplay using it between the open beta and now the full release. Being the worst weapon in the game, there's a surprising amount of tech and other depth here that makes it semi-viable once you start to understand.
It's time for what actually prompted me to make this article in the first place and what makes playing such a game so viable as a whole animation canceling. No longer are you required to use the mouse to one tap, nor do you want to kill a medium after every swing after your hit registers. The Sledge has a back swing period where it finishes the swing animation before you can swing again while your damage has already registered powerway through the animation; however, you can cancel this by using the Quick Melee key immediately after the hit registers.
Allowing you to do damage again was fairly new during the open beta, as the Quick Melee only did 20 damage with the four releases; however, it's been buff to a full 40. This fits Sledge especially well because it perfectly fits the light and medium HP break points: one swing plus a Quick Melee instantly killing a light, and two swings plus a Quick Melee killing a medium.
It allows you to essentially instantly pulverize lights as you see the C currently running, and it usually allows you to win those sketchy mediums we previously would lose because they had a lot of HP. Remaining, when running this sledge, you rely very heavily on your gadgets to have self-defense when you do get into a small room with the element SP.
Typically, I would opt for the C4, the RPG 7, and the explosive mines for the best. Results: C4 is completely the bread and butter of your kit; it is incredibly useful and will quite likely be getting more kills than your Sledge itself ever will. The game plan is quite simple: take sneaky hidden angles on the cash out where you can catch people by surprise and avoid open spaces whenever possible.
C4 allows you to do the former better and makes the LGH less of a death sentence. Take the more basic example here, for instance. I hit somewh add the immediate combat zone with C4 planted on the cash out and then waited for the enemy him to put pushing and BW up the C4, now that we have the pick advantage and a surprise opening with the destruction, you can push into B with the sledgehammer and finish off whoever remains.
Sledge thrives off chaos on the battlefield, and having that surprise opening, you can use C4 to make that and make your fights a lot easier. Now the much sketchier yet incredibly powerful usage of sea salt can attach to any object, most commonly fire barrels, gas barrels, and explosive canisters.
Using this, you have a ranged weapon that can do up to 500 damage plus the damage over time from B provided du time. It sounds gimmicky, but in practice, it is far from your best-range option. Usually I opt to go with the fire bells and gas bells over the canister as they are much easier to aim at; however, the canisters are useful as well.
The only caveat to this technique is that if anybody sees you running around with a Sea4 payload in hand, shooting it causes it to explode and instantly kills you. Try to avoid holding on to them for too long and running into open sight lines with them; this usually gets you killed. The RPG7 has a lot less deps; it's simply a good tool to use to finish off running enemies.
So exploding random light classes with direct hits will also form a core part of the Arsenal, and as a whole, it's very useful; there just isn't really much to stay on it. You shoot people with it, and they die for the most part. Explosive mins are probably going to be one of the more controversial picks here, but I stand by them as being the best option.
however useful the Dome Shield may be, so that's pretty often as Sledge you're going to end up in these weird situations where you can't engage with a range in re chasing you and are essentially forced to run and pray to give up however turning a corner and placing a mine, however stupid it sounds, it can be a much more effective strat than you may imagine all sorts of players accidentally running into them and killing themselves you can use them alongside your C4 to for Fortify the cashard as well, allowing you to walk your defensive supply strategy much.
Better; specialization isn't even a debate. Use the chge; it's much too good for opening up walls and closing distances to get kills to consider anything else heavy has in his. Arenal, I'll keep this section short, as I already touched on what you should be doing in the C4 section. Sledge is as simple as it gets you if people are ready to fight you, and if you're in open space, you largely want to play defensive.
Allowing your team to play the front line contrary to your usual heavy gameplay setting up C4 and mind traps on the objective of places of interest and then coming into cost chaos and F off anybody who remains, do not forget your utility weapon, the best utility weapon in the game, and you need to make use of it.
cash out on the upper floor, knock it down for a well-timed stealth steel defending a cash out, and soul don't sit in the room, the cash out set traps, and then make your way to the floor above and destroy the floor jumping with a real-time RPG and a charge to get Kill from the Fire. A good team can help amplify this play style with a medium, a defib, good gas usage, and other chaos-oriented melee.
Weapons, in terms of map choice, for Sledge Soul and Sky Stadium are pretty great. Monaco is fly with the exception of a few cash outs that are absolutely awful in Vegas, which is just pretty awful from across the board. There are much too many wide open spaces in Vegas to make use of sledges; it's possible, but it is not a great map for any.
Sense, movement, and sledge are so important that you need to be able to outspeed people to secure kills. Applying the slowest glass in the game is excellent for closing distances, and opening up fights will surprise and attack you otherwise couldn't. Besides that, make absolutely use of the general higher skill level movement slide, which makes you ever so slightly faster than your opponent during the stud up in the middle of them.
Use it till you get close enough to land a world-time swing. You can also hop by jumping immediately while you have a lot of momentum, like coming off a zip line, which allows you to sometimes get closer to people than you would otherwise. Mele tracking walks pretty weird in this game, and it's not extremely useful to know, but I figured I should bring it up.
