Thoughts on making hammer better. A discussion.

[Krillaklise.9461]

I think we can all agree. Hammer is our longest ranged weapon, and it's in an awkward place. 

I'd love to open some dialogue, and get as much feedback about hammer in one place as we can. In the hopes Anet scrolls through it and nets some ideas for potential future hammer tweaks.

Right off the bat, I personally wonder about coalescence of ruin in its current state, ignoring how buggy it can be, right from the basic idea, it's simply akward. This is basically a longbow equivelant for us, and one of the skills is a close to medium range set of impacts, this goes against the basic idea of long-range. 

Why not change it to a targetable area effect, similar in function to necro staff marks, or guardian symbols / consecration a etc. 

Ground targetable area effect that pulses damage and either; buffs, debuffs, condi or heals in some manner. Does that not fit the idea of long range more ideally? And address our current issues with the skill as a bugged akward mess? This could also be a field of some type, dark, maybe smoke field?

What about field of the mists?  This is a great skill, in essence. It's a field, which we sorely lack, that has the potential to self combo. Great.  It could be a shorter duration and a reflect though and the field here has nearly no use to any party members outside of being super stacked, in which case the chances we're going to use it, is super slim. Look at wall of reflection, arguable the best projectile hate in game, or any other projectile defense skill, this one just so happens to be the most clumsy. We use it much much more for lifesteal procs, of we bother with the skill, or the hammer, at all.

Phase smash is interesting, likely the single greatest reason imo for a rev.to pick up a hammer, but also kinda awkward. Why is it a teleport to, then away kinda move. It could be a split skill where we do one, and have the option of the other, but again, on a purely ranged weapon that's awkward and doesn't fit the thematic very well. 

Drop the hammer. Great CC. If it ever hits.

Somewhere I kinda feel like both of these could be a singular skill. We could tele to a target and knockdown, and then have the option to tele away afterwards. Fixing the thematics and feel of both of these things. It would also provide some interesting synergy with weapon swap. And be cause for the removal of hammer 5 which could then potentially be a knockback skill, or heaven forbid, a better combo finisher of some type. 

In any event the goal is sticking out heads together about ideas for hammer reworks that make sense. 

Have at it folks!

 

 

 

 

[Krillaklise.9461]

Secondary thoughts, alot of hammer could legit be ground targetable. Looking at drop the hammer in a guardian spirit weapon kind of fashion as a skill, a ground targetable projectile defense / field, targetable combo finisher move, and active movement skill, with CC sprinkled in.

[Scoobaniec.9561]

Third thoughts (lol): rework hammer starting with CoR to be turned into a projectile - which would make it far more healthy for the game especially wvw where it cause major issue

[Lighter.5631]

2 minutes ago, Scoobaniec.9561 said:

Third thoughts (lol): rework hammer starting with CoR to be turned into a projectile - which would make it far more healthy for the game especially wvw where it cause major issue

with perma projectile hate uptime?

probably no

[Scoobaniec.9561]

Just now, Lighter.5631 said:

with perma projectile hate uptime?

probably no

Still better than ground targeted skill which is buggy most of the time, cant hit people on walls etc. U can always make it something closer to mes gs auto or whatever there is but it also mean damage will have to be lower than of that of a projectile due to less lower of counterplay. Ofc if one want to keep it balanced..

[Lighter.5631]

Just now, Scoobaniec.9561 said:

Still better than ground targeted skill which is buggy most of the time, cant hit people on walls etc. U can always make it something closer to mes gs auto or whatever there is but it also mean damage will have to be lower than of that of a projectile due to less lower of counterplay. Ofc if one want to keep it balanced..

still better? ground target at least has a chance to hit.

projectile has 0 chance to hit lol

[Scoobaniec.9561]

15 minutes ago, Lighter.5631 said:

still better? ground target at least has a chance to hit.

projectile has 0 chance to hit lol

Yeah dude im not sure.. 

lol

[Lighter.5631]

Just now, Scoobaniec.9561 said:

Yeah dude im not sure.. 

lol

how you are not sure 

still having chance to hit is better then having no chance to hit lol

[Scoobaniec.9561]

Just now, Lighter.5631 said:

how you are not sure 

still having chance to hit is better then having no chance to hit lol

Projectile would at least be able to hit immobile ambient creatures lol

Besides i also said you could turn it into literally anything else that is not projectile (most likely a beam) but in turn youll have to cope with lower damage due to limited counterplay options

[Krillaklise.9461]

Craziest (and best) idea I've had for awhile;

Do something with hammer that mimics trident, wherein the projectile behave differently depending on legend, glint burns, mallyx is torment, Shiro life steals, etc.

[Buran.3796]

  Having played the Herald since was available and being aware of its former glory I'll REFUSE to wield it again as long as they don't revert the CoR mechanics to the old system. Is not about the damage (it can be easily corrected, they also increased the cd from 2 across all game modes to 4s in PvE, 8s in WvW and 10s in PvP) but about how inconsistent and bad they made the skill (Sevenshot came in the other way, tho). Also, I won't use a weapon with a 1.75s cast time which hits for 10 points...

   If you want to play a good Rev hammer (a power ranged weapon) just jump in the Mechanist wagon and run their rifle.

[Krillaklise.9461]

7 minutes ago, Buran.3796 said:

  Having played the Herald since was available and being aware of its former glory I'll REFUSE to wield it again as long as they don't revert the CoR mechanics to the old system. Is not about the damage (it can be easily corrected, they also increased the cd from 2 across all game modes to 4s in PvE, 8s in WvW and 10s in PvP) but about how inconsistent and bad they made the skill (Sevenshot came in the other way, tho). Also, I won't use a weapon with a 1.75s cast time which hits for 10 points...

   If you want to play a good Rev hammer (a power ranged weapon) just jump in the Mechanist wagon and run their rifle.

This; all of it, is a pretty good wording for WHY so many of us think it could use an overhaul.

[Shao.7236]

CoR should be like Vengeful Blast. A wave of energy that is neither a projectile nor a terrain dependent AoE.

Otherwise Hammer hardly need changes. You can maybe ask for speeding up the AA and Drop The Hammer by 0.25 each, Revenant has plenty tools to make Hammer work the way it is already. Quickness especially.

Hammer AA is actually one of the best as it is 100% chance for Finishers, from constant cleanses with Light, to repeated Life Steals on Dark then Vulnerability from Lightning. That's the reason why it's 1 second per AA, it encourages active gameplay over simple skill camping.

Edited July 6, 2022 by Shao.7236

[phokus.8934]

CoR just needs to be reevaluated again and either reverted or changed to be terrain agnostic.

But if it were to change, I've always liked the idea of making it a shockwave where it cones out the farther it goes, dealing more damage the closer you are to an enemy.

Otherwise, hammer is not that bad.

[Jaykay.9641]

I made a thread at the beginning of the year about one change I would make to hammer to open up many more options: Here is the thread.

You can read the thread, but essentially I would like to remove the Chill from Hammer 3 Phase Smash and move it to Hammer 2 and make it an Ice Field. CD/Damage/Cast time can all be compensated.  I list many arguments why this could be a beneficial change. Shao had some good perspective in the thread as well.

The most important thing that I think Hammer is lacking is a reliable #2 damage ability and it's the only 1200 range weapon in the game that has very poor self peel/escape. An Ice Field will give it more reliable peel because of the inherent Chill and the potential with 100% AA projectile finishers through the Ice Field creates more Chill.

Interestingly, the Herald change to add quickness to Draconic Echo has indirectly buffed Hammer Herald so maybe there are some other ways to indirectly buff Hammer through traits as well (such as a hammer trait in cast speed in Devastation similar to Mesmer Scepter trait or something). Either way, I'm all for discussion on Hammer changes as it's Core Rev's only ranged weapon and should be versatile for all it's specializations.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

They should just revert CoR back to how it was before October 2019 and call it good. The changes they made to "nerf it" made it unfun and fundamentally worse