Over the past two weeks, the PTR server has been updated to normalize Hammond's damage output from Piledriver:

- (8/22/18) Fixed a bug that allowed Wrecking Ball’s Piledriver to deal damage twice if he slid off the environment during its duration

- (8/29/18) Fixed a bug that caused all enemies to use the same damage falloff calculation

Both changes were needed, as Coach Jayne voiced concern that these bugs could define the World Cup meta.  Coach Aero also felt that the current Live patch shouldn't be considered playable for the World Cup.  But now with the PTR updates locked in, we can expect that Hammond will be seeing adjustment on the next Live patch.

Given that Hammond has already seen play at the World Cup for Australia and South Korea, as well as various regions across Contenders, I wanted to know if Hammond would still be viable once the fixes go Live.  I got in contact with Decod of Last Night's Leftovers and asked precisely that question, and then proceeded to probe further to get more insights on Hammond. 

Of course, Decod himself has plenty of Hammond play to show off, from using his grapple for start-of-the-match recon, to this moment where he won the respect of the casting desk:

How do you feel about the latest PTR patches that fixed Hammond's Piledriver damage?  Will he still be viable?

I think the bug fix is needed and hoped it would be launched before the OWWC stage coming up.  I think Hammond is still viable, nothing has changed for him, except for just being lucky and randomly 1-shotting 200 hp targets.

Do you and NexX have different Hammond play styles? Or do you switch off based on hero pool?

We play Hammond based on what the map favors and the team comp we play, he is a more supportive Hammond player and I just roll around and do random stuff.

Would it be safe to say that a map with a payload or a pillar is optimal for Hammond?  DS Punk in Contenders AU and T1W Silver3 in Contenders CN were able to stall successfully.  Were these moments more of a fluke?

I think when a Hammond does this, it's a last resort thing to do, and teams that can't deal with Hammond when he is doing this are just not coordinated, and does not kill him together.

What are the top synergy hero choices for Hammond?

Piledriver works well with a lot of abilities/ults.  It is a knock-up CC similiar to Doomfist's Uppercut. D.va works well, Doomfist and dive heroes, generally.  Ana and Lucio is good as well.

Are there any particular Hammond players you think are impressive? 

Panker's movement is probably the best I've seen. Scrims showed me a lot of how insane he is at learning new heroes fast.

Although both you and Panker are excellent at Hammond, both of your teams were not able to win Quarterfinals. Do you believe the limitations of the hero may have been a factor?

I believe Hammond wasn't the reason neither of us qualified, the meta favored other teams.

If the meta favored other teams that didn't play Hammond, doesn't that imply Hammond is not meta?

Hammond works really well against 3-3 (GOATS) but some teams didn't run it, and the Mercy meta had died, so no more double sniper that favored some teams.

Who are the counters to Hammond?

Sombra and Brig are the 2 best counters in my opinion, a lot of movement denying abilities are good against Hammond.