Space Marine 2: Is the Buffed Heroic Power Fist Good Now? - True Solo Absolute

No. Build: https://sm2meleecalc.us/b/3PBSKbXJ New heroics are not on there yet so ignore the variant for the Power Fist. In hotfix 14.1 the heroic Power Fist was changed to be able to fire a melta blast in place of a "level 1" charge attack. The fist has 3 charge levels for its charged attacks: 2x damage, 5.5x damage, and 9x damage depending on how long you charge. You can see when you reach the next charge level when the fist flashes and makes a distinct sound effect. To do the melta blast you just hold melee long enough to begin doing a charge attack then release before you reach the first charge level. However do note that the Melta Blast is slower than an uncharged charge attack. It takes about as long as reaching the first charge level and attacking. This one change actually opens up some different possibilities for the melta blast if we avoid the perk Following Blow. This perk causes a held melee input after a Thrust Jab to perform a level 1 (uncharged) backfist. However if we don't take this perk, we can instead perform the melta blast in place of the backfist. We can also perform the melta blast after a sprint attack. Taking Following Blow also prevents this method of accessing the melta blast since you will perform the uncharged Backfist after a sprint attack if you take this perk. The more convenient access to the melta blast is certainly a lot better than what it was before. However ultimately the melta blast is still just a pointless attack because spamming charged attacks is better, so the stat nerfs compared to the relic balanced fist are also pointless. This is a Power Fist after all; the entire point is to oneshot enemies from up to 20m away. Why bother with burning enemies when you can delete them outright? Following Blow is also a good perk that sucks to give up. The uncharged backfists help pick up executes frequently, and the melta blast is still slow and clunky to use anyway even if it is more accessible now if we avoid Following Blow. Overall a pointless heroic that is completely inferior to both the balanced and block relic options. The heroic perk is put out of a job by the bread and butter attack of the weapon it's on. For the build, taking Concussive Force and using Shield Rush a lot is so helpful for playing balanced weapons on Bulwark. We can end up in some sticky situations where it's hard to land a perfect parry because of that balanced window in combination with Bulwark's parry starting when you release the button instead of when you press it, and Shield Rush lets us regain the initiative by staggering the enemy and giving us space to start our charge attacks. It's also just nice to have access to a safe attack that comes out fast when using the fist. For the signature perk I think Armored Advance would be better with the fist just to give you some no knockback while charging. It's harder to keep Merciless Resolve active consistently on a weapon that wants you to charge up big attacks since we can't refresh its duration. We can also see the challenges of fighting the Terminator Sorcerer with balanced weapons in this run, especially for Bulwark. The delayed parry window makes it tricky to parry his melee combo if you miss the first one, and we also don't stagger him or get a gunstrike on most of his melee hits, so we need to hit many perfect parries in a row before we're rewarded with anything. This is a lot harder than using block which has 0 startup frames and lets us interrupt his combo after just 2 perfect blocks every time. It does seem like the clones attack actually has a timer though - I don't think I killed a single one and eventually he just went back to doing his normal stuff. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Mission start and build 08:20 Close the gates 14:00 Helbrute 15:25 Follow the Dreadnought 22:20 Defend the Dreadnought 25:10 Terminator Sorcerer 31:00 Blow up the church 34:17 Stats 34:40 Build hover #warhammer40k #spacemarine2 #spacemarines