Making the hammer melee just be an explosive attack and then triggering the cooldown isn't a bad idea, honestly. You're also absolutely right about the issues with some maps insisting on ranged combat with super out reach enemies where I have issues dealing with that even with the failsafes I've added. I'm sticking to my guns here though, or swords in this case. One day when I break away from the Doom engine and go into standalone games, I won't have that problem.
I appreciate your patience as I continue to adjust everything and flip this mod upside down for like the 4th time. With any luck with the next upcoming update I can further finetune Blaz and get things feeling good.