Strategy:Jackhammer

0.9.9.7

One of the only two unique shotguns in the game, the Jackhammer is also the only rapid-fire shotgun in the game. On paper, the Jackhammer looks like an amazing weapon, being a shotgun that deals on average, 45.6 damage per fire at point blank without trait investment, can be fired multiple times before having to reload, and even fires a focused shotgun blast, limiting dropoff reduction. Don't ditch your other shotguns though for it, as the Jackhammer does carry some significant drawbacks. The biggest of which is that when it fires its three shells, each individual shell knocks enemies back before the next shell hits. This results in the Jackhammer doing significantly less damage than firing off three shotgun shells should do, and absolutely atrocious ammo efficiency. If you were to rely on the Jackhammer as your primary weapon, you'll find yourself short on shells very very quickly.

As such, in many situations, other shotguns are better. Combat, Tactical, Assault, and Plasma Shotguns are better for radar shooting. Focused Double and Super Shotguns are better for shooting at a large group of enemies. Pretty much every other shotgun is better for corner shooting, with the Elephant Shotgun and P-modded Super Shotguns carrying vastly greater ammo efficiency while dealing similar damage to the Jackhammer in a single fire. Additionally, since the Jackhammer is a unique, it can't be modded like these other shotguns, putting it even farther behind.

While in a lot of ways the Jackhammer is an impractical weapon, it does have one niche worth keeping it around for; pure DPS. If you get a dangerous enemy against a wall you need dead ASAP, or when against a boss immune to knockback, no other shotgun is better. Shottyhead builds in particular can utilise the Jackhammer very well with this, where they will be able to empty its entire clip into an enemy before they can react. All three shots of the Jackhammer at point blank come to an average damage of 136.8, and against high tier enemies with an armor value of 2 that you'll more realistically need to empty the whole clip into, it's 102.6. From five tiles away against an enemy with 2 armor, the Jackhammer's entire salvo comes out to an average of 81, which is still greater than the HP of an Arch-vile. As such, with the Jackhammer, Shottyheads can reliably kill any non-boss monster pinned up against the wall before they can react if they're reasonably close. This is the best DPS any shotgun in the game can achieve, outside of a ridiculous P-modded Nano-Shrapnel Super Shotgun against enemies with even stronger armor (though once you factor in the Jackhammer's needed reloads, the P-modded Nano Shrapnel Super Shotgun pulls out ahead in any engagement that requires more than the Jackhammer's full clip).

Army of the Dead and Fireangel builds won't be able to utilise this aspect of the Jackhammer as well as Shottyheads, though the Jackhammmer's DPS is still better for them than any other shotguns', so the Jackhammer remains viable for them in this use.

Non-shotgun builds will have no use for the Jackhammer however. Its one caveat, pure DPS, pales to the DPS of their primary weapons, and as covered, other shotguns are a lot more efficient and effective at the various utilities shotguns are primarily used for.

So overall, the Jackhammer may be worth lugging for shotgun builds as an emergency point-blank fast killing weapon and as their boss killer, with Shottyheads especially utilising it well, while it's completely impractical for other builds to bother with. Omega Tyrant (talk) 08:31, 27 September 2014 (CEST)

0.9.9.8

0.9.9.8 gives this puppy some love. Now it can be switched over to single shot mode, thus becoming a sort of a better tactical shotgun, and it gets an extra shell in the clip for a total of 10. And finally, there is now a possibility to mod uniques by a technician, and Jackhammer is now allowed to be modded once by them. Probably the main stats were also altered, would need a double check. Ih8regin (talk)

The main implication of the increased clip size is that now with Triggerhappy 2, you will get a full second 5-shot salvo before having to reload, instead of the awkward 5 and then 4 shots. As for modding if you're a Technician, a Technical mod would be most ideal for increasing DPS even farther and letting you empty its clip faster, but a Power mod would also help DPS to a lesser degree and buff the ammo efficiency of it. A Bulk mod would increase its clip to 13 shots, but if you're using this weapon's rapid-firing mode, you are probably a Shotgun build with Reloader + Shottyman, and regardless will have a Shell box equipped, so getting an extra full shot in before reloading isn't as helpful as making the Jackhammer fire faster or stronger. Using a Nano mod to give it regenerating ammo isn't terrible either, as you'll then be able to fire off this weapon without worrying about its ammo-hungry nature, and it often does what you need to do in a single clip, though losing the ability to instantly reload it will hurt against bosses and big fights where you'll immediately need the clip fully reloaded, while the Nano mod will also likely be more effective used elsewhere (such as making Nano-shrapnel on another shotgun). Despite this weapon firing three shots, it is not compatible with a Firestorm mod, as the mod cannot be applied to shotguns regardless of if they meet the rapid-fire criteria. So no potential 7-shot shotgun with Triggerhappy unfortunately.

For one last note, as you're able to apply a basic assembly, the Jackhammer can be used for the Plasmatic shrapnel assembly, where it's the best shotgun for it bar none. In its single fire mode, it clears the Combat and Assault shotguns as a corpse disposal tool, as you got a clip nearly twice the size while the weapon hits slightly harder. In its rapid-firing mode, since its plasma damage will now have armor be halved with each shot instead of doubled, it'll be dealing a lot more damage to high armor enemies, and as a bonus, the extra damage won't increase knockback (since knockback calculation occurs with damage before armor is factored), so successive shots won't be weakened either from extra knockback. To revisit those earlier calculations, at point blank against a 2 armor enemy pinned against a wall, the Plasmatic Jackhammer will deal 42.8 per fire on average and 128 with the full clip, while from a distance of five tiles, those numbers are 33.8 and 101.2 respectively. An unfortunate side effect is the Plasmatic Jackhammer will absolutely destroy walls, so unless it is a tough walls event or you're in a special level with indestructible walls, you'll need enemies pinned against the edge of the map to get these damage numbers. Fortunately however, as mentioned before with the extra damage per shot not increasing knockback, the Plasmatic Jackhammer is a lot more damage efficient in the open; in the complete open with no obstacles to block the knockback, at point blank a full Plasmatic Jackhammer fire will deal 38.25 damage per fire against 2 armor enemies, whereas normally it would deal 30.6 damage, while if you empty the whole three shots in that scenario before neither you or the enemy move closer, the Plasmatic Jackhammer will dish out 90 damage total before having to reload, still well more than enough to kill any normal enemy. Comparatively, the normal Jackhammer's full three shots would deal 72 damage, which is just barely enough to finish an Archvile and so would often fail with slightly bad luck on damage rolls or if you didn't start firing at exactly point blank. Then even if you start firing from five tiles away in this scenario, the Plasmatic Jackhammer would end up dealing 75 damage on average, still potentially wiping out an Archvile (between this and the corpse disposal, this is one of the most ideal weapons possible for The Mortuary and Limbo). The Plasmatic Jackhammer is also still able to take one more mod on top of the assembly as long as you have Whizkid 2, so there's no real downside to turning it plasmatic. Omega Tyrant (talk) 15:21, 29 July 2024 (UTC)