Guardian Hammer is useless

[Fipmip.7219]

@Heizero.9183 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@Heizero.9183 said:

Me and my guild love hammer guard so much its not uncommon for us to run 3 or 4 at a time when roaming.

I can see how 3-4 of you fighting at the same time with hammers in WvW can make you feel that the weapon is powerful. But that's a hollow feeling, like armwrestling a 7 year old and bragging about winning. There's a reason you don't see hammers in neither PvE nor PvP (aside from Scrappers). They are outdated. They didn't endure the power creep of PoF.

Don't misunderstand, I solo roam with hammer very effectively. We all do. The weapon IS powerful when used properly in WvW. I know it isn't good in PvE and it's PvP application is debatable as well, but that's why I specifically said it was niche. It is very good at what it does where it's applicable. Which is fine imo.

how far do you get with it in ranked spvp? h5 -> judgement was also my favourite strat but it only worked up to a point, basically relying on people to not understand what was happening and hit the wall a few times. or be overwhelmed in a teamfight. eventually you get to the level where most people teleport or break out, and at that point i saw it as the one trick pony it was.

I still think hammer can be buffed while keeping it's current theme, as guild wars is a game where a small change to some function can have a big effect. like having another symbol on hammer 2 for instance.

[Black Bandit.9425]

Fact of the matter is that hammer underperforms in all areas of the game and needs a buff as well as core guard =P but that's another discussion.

[Yasai.3549]

@Fipmip.7219 said:

how far do you get with it in ranked spvp? h5 -> judgement was also my favourite strat but it only worked up to a point, basically relying on people to not understand what was happening and hit the wall a few times. or be overwhelmed in a teamfight. eventually you get to the level where most people teleport or break out, and at that point i saw it as the one trick pony it was.

I still think hammer can be buffed while keeping it's current theme, as guild wars is a game where a small change to some function can have a big effect. like having another symbol on hammer 2 for instance.

When I did play Hammer DH back before the nerfs, I actually played Hammer DH as a +1.The idea was to duel offnoders and when yu +1 a team fight, yur H5 > Judgement followed by Maw, Procession and Faith will easily disrupt and shutdown at least 1 or 2 of the enemy's team.

Have not tried it in recent times though, I need to try it again.

[Curennos.9307]

@Heizero.9183 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@Heizero.9183 said:

Me and my guild love hammer guard so much its not uncommon for us to run 3 or 4 at a time when roaming.

I can see how 3-4 of you fighting at the same time with hammers in WvW can make you feel that the weapon is powerful. But that's a hollow feeling, like armwrestling a 7 year old and bragging about winning. There's a reason you don't see hammers in neither PvE nor PvP (aside from Scrappers). They are outdated. They didn't endure the power creep of PoF.

Don't misunderstand, I solo roam with hammer very effectively. We all do. The weapon IS powerful when used properly in WvW. I know it isn't good in PvE and it's PvP application is debatable as well, but that's why I specifically said it was niche. It is very good at what it does where it's applicable. Which is fine imo.

Could you please go into what 'used properly' and 'effectively' are?

I use it in spvp and have found it rather lackluster - albeit funny when I can bonk someone with a 7k mighty blow while they're stuck in a trap or something. I'm dubious as to how it can be so bad in spvp but somehow manage to be as you describe in WvW, even with the stat/skill split differences and so forth. It is certainly very effective fighting against people who've never seen a hammer guardian before, but I've found it fails to measure up once I find someone who has any sort of idea of what they're doing and knows how to abuse the weapon's flaws.

Anywho. I think the weapon could definitely benefit from trimming some cast times, at the very least. It feels like it was given the speed of a heavy ranged weapon when it is not that.

[Yasai.3549]

@Curennos.9307 said:

I use it in spvp and have found it rather lackluster - albeit funny when I can bonk someone with a 7k mighty blow while they're stuck in a trap or something. I'm dubious as to how it can be so bad in spvp but somehow manage to be as you describe in WvW, even with the stat/skill split differences and so forth. It is certainly very effective fighting against people who've never seen a hammer guardian before, but I've found it fails to measure up once I find someone who has any sort of idea of what they're doing and knows how to abuse the weapon's flaws.

I can see Hammer being a useful ganking tool for H5 + Judgement followed by trap + Spirit Blades on a Burn build.This combo is usually a GGNORE Combo if landed.But the chances yur enemy is so unaware to let this happen is just unlikely, unless yu are some sort of master baiter which uses this to demolish camps and the moment someone leaps on yu with Warclaw yu lock them in and kill them.Again, if yur enemy is so stupid to jump onto a DH, they are asking to eat traps.

Anywho. I think the weapon could definitely benefit from trimming some cast times, at the very least. It feels like it was given the speed of a heavy ranged weapon when it is not that.Yea I think one of the main problems of hammer is the auto chain and knockback skill taking forever to cast.

[Heizero.9183]

@Curennos.9307 said:

@Heizero.9183 said:

@Buran.3796 said:

@Heizero.9183 said:

Me and my guild love hammer guard so much its not uncommon for us to run 3 or 4 at a time when roaming.

I can see how 3-4 of you fighting at the same time with hammers in WvW can make you feel that the weapon is powerful. But that's a hollow feeling, like armwrestling a 7 year old and bragging about winning. There's a reason you don't see hammers in neither PvE nor PvP (aside from Scrappers). They are outdated. They didn't endure the power creep of PoF.

Don't misunderstand, I solo roam with hammer very effectively. We all do. The weapon IS powerful when used properly in WvW. I know it isn't good in PvE and it's PvP application is debatable as well, but that's why I specifically said it was niche. It is very good at what it does where it's applicable. Which is fine imo.

Could you please go into what 'used properly' and 'effectively' are?

I use it in spvp and have found it rather lackluster - albeit funny when I can bonk someone with a 7k mighty blow while they're stuck in a trap or something. I'm dubious as to how it can be so bad in spvp but somehow manage to be as you describe in WvW, even with the stat/skill split differences and so forth. It is certainly very effective fighting against people who've never seen a hammer guardian before, but I've found it fails to measure up once I find someone who has any sort of idea of what they're doing and knows how to abuse the weapon's flaws.

Anywho. I think the weapon could definitely benefit from trimming some cast times, at the very least. It feels like it was given the speed of a heavy ranged weapon when it is not that.

I generally run it as a DH but I dont run traps I run full meditations like an old school core medi guard. The stat split in wvw does make a big difference because your 7k bonk is a 10k bonk for me in wvw which with the sigil proc can almost 1 shot thieves and mesmers. I run vision sigils on my hammer and my greatsword and hydromancy on greatsword. I catch them with the JI+H5, H2, swap to greatsword for the hydromancy sigil ceit which is usually about 2k, and then full crit greatsword 2 which usually lands because they ate the KD from the ring of warding. In total its something like 20k+ damage in that burst.

If they survive, its fine because I can keep bursting like this since im running double vision sigils and DH virtues plus monks focus full meditations gives me tons of survivability. People also underestimate hammer 3 but it actually hits really hard, about 3 or 3.5k when it crits and is really strong when chained right after a banish and then into a DH F2, then you can follow with whichever burst you have available, either H2, Greatsword 2 or both.

[Oxstar.7643]

I can see it being useful in blob fights since you can give a bunch of people a bunch of protectio. I'm offhanding it in pvp in case I simply want to tank something particularly fast.

[Sonork.2916]

I use Hammer as a fun weapon on DH for roaming/ganking/picks. Use Bow/Hammer and yoink people over, hammer circle around them, then dump traps on them while going to town with the hammer. Really good spike damage if they can't escape the circle and honestly, just fun to play. It won't win many duels or get you out of dicey situations, but it is really fun.

[Bazsi.2734]

@Ogwom.7940 said:There is no game mode that I use hammer on my guardian because there seems to be no use for it.It doesn't feel rewarding to play.I would hope they could address it one day.

What are your thoughts?

On game release the protection you got from the autoattack chain was uselful for dungeon speedruns and fractals. Even when raids came out, sometimes I was asked to roll hammerguard and prot the baddies in team who cannot dodge.Since PoF came out, the powercreep indeed left the weapon behind in PvE. It's still good in PvP though. If you enjoy landing the one hit that decides duels/teamfights, go play hammer mediguard.

[Downstate.4697]

Ring of warding should be 24s and banish 12s. Hammer is good as long as its not your primary damage source. Symbols and traps for instance. The CDs are just too long right now. The entire concept is about trapping your enemy in damage and knocking them around so its pretty much useful every 30s.

[yLoon.5289]

Hammer skill 3 immobile,4 knockdown & 5 wardings are CC skills. I don't think any other combination of weapons offer that much of CC skills. (Correct me if I'm wrong xD). I guess that's the trade-off for its clunky movement and damage. I too hate that Arena increases the cooldown of skill 2...

It has its usage to player's preferential method of playing, but not everyone loves it. That is all to it I guess.If Arena wants to balance it, one of the CC skill can revamp into a DPS skill then.

[Arheundel.6451]

Hammer glacial Heart hits very hard on a relatively low CD....it's not hard to land it even without JI, it's a powerful end fight weapon for teamfights.....far from being the worst weapon in the game.

[Arheundel.6451]

@Black Bandit.9425 said:Fact of the matter is that hammer underperforms in all areas of the game and needs a buff as well as core guard =P but that's another discussion.

Lol NO..neither hammer or core guard needs buffs....

[GoingMenthol.7281]

@yLoon.5289 said:Hammer skill 3 immobile,4 knockdown & 5 wardings are CC skills. I don't think any other combination of weapons offer that much of CC skills. (Correct me if I'm wrong xD). I guess that's the trade-off for its clunky movement and damage. I too hate that Arena increases the cooldown of skill 2...

Axe 2 can have 3 target daze when traited, 8 second cooldownAxe 3 is a 3 target pull, 12 second cooldown. Hammer 4 is a 1 target launch on 15 seconds that makes you chase after your target if you didn't use hammer 5 first

Both power or conditions are viable on axe, and you have the versatility of having an off-hand, and hard CC on lower cooldown, and Glacial Heart doesn't exclusively help hammer

Greatsword and sword are better than hammer for physical damage and somehow also make more sense as a condition weapon than hammer. Why does hammer, a weapon with a symbol on auto, have its trait in Virtues and not in Zeal? And if it's going to stay in the Virtues trait, can hammer get more synergy with its profession mechanic instead of just being a situational weapon?

Personally I'd like hammer to be a faster hitting, soft CC weapon with area denial. It can keep the low mobility to give it counterplay against. I don't know how that would look or if that's a good idea, but anything's better than what we currently have. Every weapon should be viable at something

Edit: I'm exclusively talking about PvE, I don't know enough to make a statement about WvW or PvP

[GoingMenthol.7281]

Hammer could also be a boon support weapon instead.

The Virtues traitline is all about active use of virtues (Inspired Virtue, Virtue of Retribution, Inspiring Virtue, Absolute Resolution, Indomitable Courage) and the minor traits either give boons or give extra damage for having lots of boons

Hammer 1 - Auto attack can give boons to allies based on how many foes you hit (Similar to Greatsword auto - Wrathful Strike gives the user 1 might per foe hit), and/or can reduce the cooldown of recharging virtues if it hits by 1 second

Hammer 2 - Mighty Blow can stay the same

Hammer 3 - Zealot's Embrace is replaced with Symbol of Protection. Lasts 4 seconds (like all other symbols), 8 second cooldown. Considering how this was an auto attack that could be traited to permanent uptime and we can use quickness to have 2 symbols out at the same time and none of us have said that was overpowered, then it doesn't need a 15-20 second long cooldown

I don't know about Hammer 4. Considering how you swing the hammer like a baseball bat it could be a 1/2 second projectile reflect for all i know. At the very least it needs to go from 1 target to 3-5 for the launch or reworked completely

Hammer 5 - Ring of Warding could be a ranged skill to keep it in line with other Ward skills (Line of Warding / Hunter's Ward) but with a shorter range (900?). Cooldown can stay as 30 seconds or go to 40 if it's looking overpowered. This is essentially combining Zealot's Embrace with Ring of Warding to avoid having 2 skills that keep a target in place

Glacial Heart - Remove Glacial Blow, keep chill/damage on disabled foes. While weilding a hammer, activating Virtues causes an AoE chill for 1 second, cooldown 12 seconds. This stops Spear of Justice active and Tomes from spamming chill all the time. (Superior Sigil of Hydromancy gives 2 second AoE chill and damage on 9 second cooldown so a trait that gives 1 second chill on 12 second cooldown wouldn't be too overpowered)

Having a symbol on demand would give it better active use than to leave it on auto. It lets the auto be used for recharging the profession mechanic and provide minor boon support to allies. Hammer can either stay as a slow hitting weapon with more boon support or it can hit slightly faster to trigger Virtue 1 (at least close the gap in difference in damage) while having additional utility from its skills.

(All of this is based on PvE, I don't know enough to comment on WvW or PvP)

[Black Bandit.9425]

Just an update...after all the patches...hammer is still useless lmao 😆

[Ratnoon.4251]

What do you mean useless? 🥴

 

[Black Bandit.9425]

53 minutes ago, Tuen.5641 said:

What do you mean useless? 🥴

 

Yes i have seen this guide as well, and tbh I was happy at first. But the more I watched the more I realized he's not doing anything special or different from the norm, though I commend him for it. Hammer HEAVILY depends on utility as a crutch for its clunky mechanics. Where other classes use their utilities as a trump card, guardian uses it just to land its hammer skills...sad really. Honestly, might just give up on hammer being good. I'll just embrace the possibility of dual weilding swords and live my other role playing weapon preference with new elite specialization.

[Hogwarts Zebra.8597]

3 hours ago, Black Bandit.9425 said:

Yes i have seen this guide as well, and tbh I was happy at first. But the more I watched the more I realized he's not doing anything special or different from the norm, though I commend him for it. Hammer HEAVILY depends on utility as a crutch for its clunky mechanics. Where other classes use their utilities as a trump card, guardian uses it just to land its hammer skills...sad really. Honestly, might just give up on hammer being good. I'll just embrace the possibility of dual weilding swords and live my other role playing weapon preference with new elite specialization.

yeah hammer is just meme option unfortunately. There's basically 0 situations where hammer provides a gameplay advantage over another weapon--it's only taken for sentimental/cosmetic reasons. 

 

btw, @Tuen.5641 is in fact the creator of that vid, he just has a different forum name xD

Edited August 5, 2021 by Hogwarts Zebra.8597

[Ratnoon.4251]

8 hours ago, Hogwarts Zebra.8597 said:

yeah hammer is just meme option unfortunately. There's basically 0 situations where hammer provides a gameplay advantage over another weapon--it's only taken for sentimental/cosmetic reasons. 

 

btw, @Tuen.5641 is in fact the creator of that vid, he just has a different forum name xD

Sshh, now all of the sudden this looks like self promotion 😂😂😂 
 

facts time tho; hammer is outclassed easily. But it’s very fun! And that’s all I’m trying to do. 

[MithranArkanere.8957]

If there's one constant when it comes to GW2's gameplay, is that more often than not, when people say "X it's bad, it sucks, it needs buffs", what they are actually saying: "I'm bad at using X, I suck at it, I don't actually understand it". 

 

That doesn't mean there can't be improvements done, but they would have to be to make the thing and its purpose easier to understand, rather than giving it more power or abilities.

 

Hammer guardian is a slow control and support weapon.  If you are not going to need control and support at the same time, or expect enemies to bring lots of disables, then you don't bring it. 

 

It is slow, but that's not a hammer problem, it's a problem of most other weapons being too fast.   Fluent gameplay is nice, but when the pace is too fast and there's too many skills with short activation times or instant casts, people don't have time to appreciate the visuals of the skills, and a pace and rhythm that should have been more like between waltz and rock goes all the way up to dubstep. 

 

The main issue hammer guardian needs to have solved these days is the light field that appear regularly, covering other fields, which is annoying as it disrupts the actions of other players. It is not a hammer problem, tho, it is  a problem with the combo field mechanic that can only be solved with a rework on how finishers interact with stacked fields so people don't have to worry about field stacking order. 

[Black Bandit.9425]

8 hours ago, MithranArkanere.8957 said:

If there's one constant when it comes to GW2's gameplay, is that more often than not, when people say "X it's bad, it sucks, it needs buffs", what they are actually saying: "I'm bad at using X, I suck at it, I don't actually understand it". 

 

That doesn't mean there can't be improvements done, but they would have to be to make the thing and its purpose easier to understand, rather than giving it more power or abilities.

 

Hammer guardian is a slow control and support weapon.  If you are not going to need control and support at the same time, or expect enemies to bring lots of disables, then you don't bring it. 

 

It is slow, but that's not a hammer problem, it's a problem of most other weapons being too fast.   Fluent gameplay is nice, but when the pace is too fast and there's too many skills with short activation times or instant casts, people don't have time to appreciate the visuals of the skills, and a pace and rhythm that should have been more like between waltz and rock goes all the way up to dubstep. 

 

The main issue hammer guardian needs to have solved these days is the light field that appear regularly, covering other fields, which is annoying as it disrupts the actions of other players. It is not a hammer problem, tho, it is  a problem with the combo field mechanic that can only be solved with a rework on how finishers interact with stacked fields so people don't have to worry about field stacking order. 

So that first part I feel that you're projecting lol. Second I agree with other weapons being to fast and instant cast...that's why it feels out of place and we're asking it to be addressed. At the end of the day this a game and we'd like it to be fun to use the hammer. Which at the moment feels a bit lackluster. Rework or balance are viable options. Hopefully breaking the rules of elite specialization means they might just repurpose the hammer in a new espec, here's hoping! 

[Obtena.7952]

On 8/4/2021 at 8:39 PM, Tuen.5641 said:

What do you mean useless? 🥴

 

"hammer is useless" = "he doesn't know how to use it". 

 

The only issue hammer ever had and still has is overloaded AA. 

Edited August 6, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Black Bandit.9425]

52 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

"hammer is useless" = "he doesn't know how to use it". 

 

The only issue hammer ever had and still has is overloaded AA. 

100% agree with the AA, but will also add could be a little less clunky over all. I don't thing the quote on quote "CC" really validates the long channels in addition to low damage. I'd argue most 1 handed weapons have more utility than 2 handed hammer.

[Obtena.7952]

1 minute ago, Black Bandit.9425 said:

100% agree with the AA, but will also add could be a little less clunky over all. I don't thing the quote on quote "CC" really validates the long channels in addition to low damage. I'd argue most 1 handed weapons have more utility than 2 handed hammer.

OK, but what's the premise to improve it? It's certainly not because it's a useless weapon. It most certainly has a use and people that know what that use is and how to use it effectively get GOOD use from it.