scerevisiae.1972

With the addition of hammer, Ele became a primarily melee-based class. Definitions: Melee: more than 50% of skills <= 240 range Ranged: more than 50% of skills > 240 range Hybrid: approx equal melee/ranged skills Ele: melee (4): D/D, D/W, Sw/D, hammer ranged (2): staff, Sc/F hybrid (4): D/F, Sc/D, Sw/F, Sc/W --------------> 40% melee, 20% ranged, 40% hybrid Necro: melee (1): greatsword ranged (11): staff, Sc/D, Sc/F, Sc/T, A/D, A/F, A/W, A/T, P/D, P/F, P/W hybrid (4): D/W, D/D, D/T, D/F --------------> 6% melee, 70% ranged, 24% hybrid Mesmer: melee (1): Sw/Sh ranged (11): staff, Sc/F, Sc/T, Sc/Sw, Sc/P, GS, D/F, D/T, D/Sw, D/P, D/T hybrid (8): Sw/F, Sw/T, Sw/Sw, Sw/P, A/F, A/T, A/P, Sc/Sh --------------> 5% melee, 55% ranged, 40% hybrid In case you're wondering, hammer has 6 ranged skills out of 20. It is very much a melee weapon.

OK, including offhands as well then... Ele: melee (4): D/D, D/W, Sw/D, hammer ranged (2): staff, Sc/D hybrid (3): D/F, Sc/F, Sw/F, Sc/W Necro: melee (1): greatsword ranged (11): staff, Sc/D, Sc/F, Sc/T, A/D, A/F, A/W, A/T, P/D, P/F, P/W hybrid (4): D/W, D/D, D/T, D/F Mesmer: melee (1): Sw/Sh ranged (11): staff, Sc/F, Sc/T, Sc/Sw, Sc/P, GS, D/F, D/T, D/Sw, D/P, D/T hybrid (8): Sw/F, Sw/T, Sw/Sw, Sw/P, A/F, A/T, A/P, Sc/Sh ...including offhands just makes it even more clear than Ele is a primary melee class.

Yeah that's the thing. Hammer is strictly worse than dagger/dagger _across the board_ for everything. It's not even close: D/D has 3x mobility skills (600, 600, 1200), hammer has 1 (600) D/D has way better sustain (3 evades, 3 healing skills), hammer has 0 evades, 1 healing skill, 1 block D/D has way better AOE (240 radius AOEs vs hammer 180 radius) the 6 short-ranged skills hammer has make no real difference cause dagger's mobility is just that much better. Why would you ever play hammer vs anything but a static raid boss or golem or faceroll PVE? Notwithstanding that it's YET ANOTHER MELEE WEAPON it's just flat-out worse than dagger and sword. Hammer SUCKS The only way it's ever going to see play and not compete with dagger/sword is if it's reworked into a real 600 range weapon. Hence the thread.

A weapon that is good in only 1 game mode is IMO the prima facie definition of a badly-designed weapon. Also, I have 8hr+ on hammer from 2x beta weeks. It's not like I didn't give it a good go.

actually attunement CD is 10sec, 8.5 with arcane 😉 but what I meant was, water #4 on CD from a previous usage, swapping into water again at range and not have any skills to use cause you're at 600 range. Hammer even strong incentivises swapping through attunements cause of the (stupid) #3 skills. Anyway we can agree to disagree but I think hammer is super badly designed, and good for nothing but static raid bosses and golems.

Water #4 is a 20sec CD. you swapped to water for sustain already, water #4 is on CD, and your other attunements are also on CD. now what. likewise earth. you have a single attack block and nothing else. 600 range is a god-awful range at the best of times but to not even have 600 range options or decent sustain/mobility in 50% of the kit is just stupidly bad. IT's just not going to be used in WVW, i'm not sure why you're even defending it. Feel free to try but you're going to be a free bag to any remotely competent duellist. Also don't bother zerging with hammer because short range and small, low dmg AOEs.

Disagree, I think it feels terrible and IMHO terrible design to have 2 melee elements and 2 ranged elements. This leads to a boring and entirely predictable rotation because you literally have no other skill to use if you swap into water/earth while at range. Also you shouldn't have to mandate specific traitlines just to make a weapon playable. This is prima facie bad design. Other examples include the original Arcane traitline, which every Ele took because the class was near-unplayable without it, or Trickery for thief (which every still takes in every build as it feels mandatory). Swiftness by itself is not sufficient to enable a melee class to function, this is why all mele builds will typically have multiple leaps/gap closers and/or superspeed or else they are just useless. There's really no getting away from the conclusion that Hammer was the weapon that noone wanted, and even if hammer were the first melee weapon for Ele (instead of the third), it would still not be a good weapon.

Funnily enough, had hammer actually been a 600-range weapon, it could have. However what hammer actually turned out to be is a 2/3rds melee weapon with a few short-ranged skills. Which was kittening stupid cause we ALREADY HAD dagger/sword.

I think Ele had space for another ranged option besides staff/sceptre for sure, even if it were "just" an offhand, but the real problem with hammer is that it's 2/3rds melee and only 1/3rd 600 range. 2 elements semi-ranged, 2 elements pure melee. IMO, that's just plain stupid. Should have been, 2/3rd 600 ranged, maybe based around 600 range cone AOEs like i suggest in another thread, a few melee skills, and maybe 1-2 ~900 range attacks. Now *that* could have been cool. But instead we get this POS.

Hammer is like a collection of things that are individualy cool but don't work at all when all thrown together. It doesn't work. 600 range is a very awkward space to be in in the first place if there aren't mobility skills/ports to make it work but the worst thing is making 2/3rds of the kit melee when there is already dagger / sword in that space. Huge design fail.

yeah that's the thing. if you were going to make a melee/600-ranged light armour class, don't you think you would give a lot of access to mobility skills and/or superspeed and/or a channelled block nd/or shadowstep in/out? hammer got none of those things.

Agree, another "pure ranged" weapon would not be all that. I'm actually OK with hammer as a hybrid weapon but atm it's not, it's a melee weapon with a few ranged skills - fire 1/2/4, air 1/2/5. Making the #5 skill 600 range cone AOEs (and adding a ranged water #1) shifts the balance to 10 ranged skills, 7 melee.

Not going to mince words, I think beta Hammer is one of the biggest design fails I've seen in any game, ever. The 2/3rds melee, 1/3rd short-range doesn't work in any area of the game (except maybe the benchmark golem), but it's particularly useless in my favourite game mode, WVW. I think hammer would be immensely improved by reworking some of existing skills into 600 ranged versions. For example, make all of the #5 skills into 600 range cone area-effect skills, similar to warrior hammer #3, or existing hammer fire #2. This would at least give hammer a theme and some identity, and a ranged skill in every element, something that is sorely lacking in the beta version.

A few good ideas there about effects that procs on specific kinds of finishers but IMO Catalyst's real issue is that hammer SUCKS HARD because it's a 2/3rds melee weapon that's worse than both sword and dagger yet weirdly trying to compete with them for the same design space. Rework hammer 5's into 600 range cone AOEs and hammer would almost be fine.

Agree. Minstrels is WAAAY more toxic to the game than celestial. There are relatively few builds that really benefit from cele and none of them are particularly dominant in wvw roaming. Minstrels on the other hand is absolutely dominant and has been the de facto standard for ALL support specs since it was introduced. The Feb2020 damage and CC nerfs only elevated minstrel's value. It should absolutely be removed from WVW competely - arguably removed from the game completely - or at least the stat combination be reworked, namely, remove the boon duration OR remove either toughness or vitality, so you get only 2 out of {heals, boons, tankiness} instead of getting all 3.

Don't worry, there's no way it's going to stay as 55K. Then it won't even be a golem spec and can fully embrace it's true place as least-wanted, worst-ever meme spec.

like Ele needed another PVE weapon...

well it's nice to know there's at least 1 person who likes hammer, but the reality is, you're not going to be using it in its current form in WVW, that's for sure - it doesn't have the range, mobility, AOE, sustain. It's really a golem benchmark spec and nothing more.

so much ^this.... but i'm still angry.

why would you play hammer when dagger and sword are both hands-down better everywhere except vs raid golem. hammer is not viable in WVW for zerg or solo roaming for support or dps roles - it's useless. you also clearly missed the part about already playing staff ele for 9+ years. the mind boggles.

that's just it though, the absolute last thing i wanted was core ele staff for another 2 years.

Actually the title of the thread is, Catalyst feels like trash, which is does. The number of combo finishers has nothing to do with Catalyst feeling like trash. *You're* the one not following the thread here...

Ele main, have been playing ele since release. I *really* *really* wanted a new Ele weapon that wasn't melee (we have dagger/sword already and they are great) but it seems like what we're getting with Ele hammer is exactly that -- another melee weapon (14/20 skills are melee). The other 6/20 skills are only 600 range. Of those, only 2 are ranged AOEs, and they are small AOEs at that, and pretty low damage as well. Bottom line, hammer sucks REALLY badly in WVW, it's not at all viable. The short range, small number of AOE skills, and 180 radii just kill it. I really don't want to be stuck playing staff/sceptre/dagger again for another 2 years. @Anet - please rework _some_ hammer skills to make the weapon more ranged than melee, and make the existing ranged AOEs larger (they're only 600 range already!) Hammer really really missed the mark, pls fix.

It wouldn't matter if every hammer skill were a combo finisher. Hammer sucks because it's just another melee weapon that competes with dagger and sword. The 6/20 short-ranged skills don't differentiate the playstyle enough for it not to feel/play like a melee weapon. Also it completely sucks in the only game-mode I care about: WVW, and I've been playing staff/sceptre/dagger for 9 years now. So as far as I'm concerned, it's a total design fail, cause the design/playstyle is really the only thing that matters at the end of the day.

100x ^this Pls give us something that isn't OP AF vs stationary golem but trash everywhere else.