Hammer sucks

[Serephen.3420]

On 8/31/2022 at 8:40 PM, PolarBear.3961 said:

Core ele can be ranged or meelee but all the elites are FORCED into meele... They could make Tempest overloads  be targeted ranged aoes insted of meelee self target aoes and that would actually make Tempest into a ranged mage but no they HAVE TO be MEELEE and i just dont get why ?! Weaver is a magic MEELEE swordsman and catalist is... what is catalist xD

Forgotten all about when staff weaver was king ey? R.i.p. 

 

Edit:

Confused reactions seem to have not played gw2 in the early days when staff wasn't limited by aoe and damage caps like it is now, and retaliation would instant down you when you cast Meteor Shower on a zerg but you'd do the same to 10 other people. It was glorious. 

Edited September 5, 2022 by Serephen.3420

[scerevisiae.1972]

On 8/31/2022 at 2:59 PM, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

Literally every thread in the Elementalist forum comes down to "I want to be wizard with staff camp fire plz Anet." Sometimes it's veiled behind something thin like this, most of the time it's not. But it is everywhere and it is eternal.

Clearly wizard is not the theme that Arena Net has in mind for Elementalist. All three of their elite specializations: Tempest, Weaver, and Catalyst - literally SEVEN years of designing and redesigning and iterating on how they want Elementalist to play - and none of them are wizard. Elementalists are not thematically wizards.

It is clear that they are inspired by things like Shamans, like Spellswords, and so on, and the sooner all of you recognize this, the less self harm you'll inflict.

If you want to be the ranged magic pewpew class, play Mesmer. Between Greatsword, Staff, Scepter, and now Dagger, they deliver on that fantasy and gameplay loop so much more than Elementalist has ever even tried. The wizard inspired class all of you _constantly_ whine about is in the game. It's just not Elementalist.

All 3 elite specs for Ele have had melee/short range weapons. All 3!

Staff / sceptre / focus are the only 3 weapons Ele has, and they were released when the game released, 10yr ago.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to expand the range/AOE radius on hammer skills so it's usable in a wider range of contexts than PVE golems, PVP capture points, and duels (where there are implcit boundaries).

[nucklepuckk.1805]

9 minutes ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

All 3 elite specs for Ele have had melee/short range weapons. All 3!

Staff / sceptre / focus are the only 3 weapons Ele has, and they were released when the game released, 10yr ago.

I don't think it's unreasonable to want to expand the range/AOE radius on hammer skills so it's usable in a wider range of contexts than PVE golems, PVP capture points, and duels (where there are implcit boundaries).

You should probably take the hint then that ranged magic pewpew mage wizard is not the theme, don't you think?

[pallas.8150]

Personally, I think all the Hammer skills should be 600. /shrugs

[wolfyrik.2017]

On 8/31/2022 at 5:59 AM, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

Literally every thread in the Elementalist forum comes down to "I want to be wizard with staff camp fire plz Anet." Sometimes it's veiled behind something thin like this, most of the time it's not. But it is everywhere and it is eternal.

Clearly wizard is not the theme that Arena Net has in mind for Elementalist. All three of their elite specializations: Tempest, Weaver, and Catalyst - literally SEVEN years of designing and redesigning and iterating on how they want Elementalist to play - and none of them are wizard. Elementalists are not thematically wizards.

It is clear that they are inspired by things like Shamans, like Spellswords, and so on, and the sooner all of you recognize this, the less self harm you'll inflict.

If you want to be the ranged magic pewpew class, play Mesmer. Between Greatsword, Staff, Scepter, and now Dagger, they deliver on that fantasy and gameplay loop so much more than Elementalist has ever even tried. The wizard inspired class all of you _constantly_ whine about is in the game. It's just not Elementalist.

Literally no one in this thread has made this argument. This is a strawman, nothing more.

Maybe argue the points being made instead of the fantasy in your head?

OP's points

1. Skills feel thrown together. What has this got to do with wizards?

2. Forced Melee range. None of the classes in this game are wizards, but plenty have ranged options. range=/=wizard.

3. Why do water/earth have no range? Why is it "wizard" for the hammer to have range on water/earth but not wizard if they are on fire/air?

4. Why does the weapon exist on something called ranged caster? Anet literally calls the prof this, where is OP wrong? In your own terms, Anet want it to be a wizard? Nope. Ranged caster =/= wizard.

5. Badly designed. This is an opinon. What has it got to do with wizards? The weapon is badly designed.

[nucklepuckk.1805]

39 minutes ago, wolfyrik.2017 said:

Literally no one in this thread has made this argument.

Are you sure about that? Are you sure, on your honor, that literally no one is complaining that they don't get to play as a ranged caster in this thread? Are you100% absolutely, solemnly, cross your heart and hope to die sure that not one single person is complaining that they cannot play as a ranged caster, in this thread? Even if you have to hold that L for all eternity?

The original post:

On 8/27/2022 at 12:52 AM, brandies.8673 said:

I'm trying hard to like it but skills just feel thrown together like a kitchen sink, just feels bad.

I don't like the circular projectiles at all, makes me feel like I have to be in melee range, which is not what I want.

Why do water and earth attunements have no ranged skills?

Why does this weapon even exist on what the website describes as a "ranged caster"?

Just a terribly designed weapon IMO.

</feedback>

Edited September 2, 2022 by nucklepuckk.1805

[Arkaile.5604]

Such a shame Anet opted for hammer instead of an off-hand pistol. It would have fit the elite spec's name, the magic-tech and jade-tech theme, and it would fill a niche as a ranged, offensive, off-hand option. Maybe next time, right? lol

With respect to potential changes to hammer, it would be nice to at least see all the third slot skills replaced with fields or something, almost anything else, and their function rolled into an elite skill for Catalyst that can compete with Fiery Greatsword and Tornado, preferably something that's actually useful. Give it two charges and have it function as a stance which lasts roughly 6 seconds during which the Catalyst applies additional effects to any reactions it triggers according to which attunement it was in when the elite skill was activated. Allow it to also apply an additional stack of empowerment which lasts longer than usual or something.

Come on, Anet, where's your creativity?

Edited September 2, 2022 by Arkaile.5604

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

You should probably take the hint then that ranged magic pewpew mage wizard is not the theme, don't you think?

Get ArenaNet to change how Elementalist is described in the character creation screen so that it reads 'Favours Melee' instead of 'Favours Ranged', and then maybe you can use this argument.

Elementalist was marketed as a mage. It's described as a ranged profession to new players. Most players are probably going to level it mostly using ranged weapons. And then they get to elite specialisations and find that 1) elementalist is the worst profession in the game for remaining core and 2) 3/3 elite specialisations are all pushing you into melee. You can make ranged weaver kinda work, but that's what they're all doing.

I enjoy the meleementalist theme myself, my second GW1 character outside of testing was a W/E, but it is overdue for a change. Even two out of three 'favours melee' professions have elites that support ranged better than anything ele has.

In the case of hammer...hammer had a lot of potential but has been shot in the foot by implementation. Having a combination of melee and ranged on the one weapon is something that would be unique to elementalist, maybe even required given how some of the more recent content. But it's been shot in the foot by implementation. Even just increasing the range on fire and air skills to 900, and possibly projectile velocity by a proportional amount, would make a huge difference.

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Arkaile.5604 said:

Such a shame Anet opted for hammer instead of an off-hand pistol. It would have fit the elite spec's name, the magic-tech and jade-tech theme, and it would fill a niche as a ranged, offensive, off-hand option. Maybe next time, right? lol

 

Honestly, the jadetech orb thing just felt shoehorned in because jadetech was the theme of the expansion. I don't even see the orb unless I'm specifically looking for it - what I see is the giant phoenix/kirin/dragon/tortoise in a field of its element. They could easily have just left that floating orb out, explained it as drawing power from the elemental creatures of Cantha, and left it at that.

[wolfyrik.2017]

11 hours ago, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

Are you sure about that? Are you sure, on your honor, that literally no one is complaining that they don't get to play as a ranged caster in this thread? Are you100% absolutely, solemnly, cross your heart and hope to die sure that not one single person is complaining that they cannot play as a ranged caster, in this thread? Even if you have to hold that L for all eternity?

The original post:

Yes. Firstly, ranged is not the same as wizard. Second, as I've asked you before, how is it not "wizard" to have ranged spells in fire and air, but it is "wizard" to have them in Earth and water? Your argument makes no sense whatsoever.

Also anet does in fact refer to Elementalist as a ranged caster. All you've done by highlighting this, is point to why you are wrong.

 

[fuzzyp.6295]

Lol another hammer hate thread complaining about the mage fantasy. Shocking news: staff still exists, your fantasy is secured.

Hammer is awesome. Sorry if y'all can't see it from all the way in the backline. (Edit: I don't care if you dislike hammer and want it changed, it has valid criticism. but I just love how this conversation always slowly turns into the 'favors range' garbage)

Edited September 2, 2022 by fuzzyp.6295

[SAROMON.9158]

Yeah this representation of elementalists being melee have to stop. Devs are incompetent in that case and lack any creativity for range magics.

[draxynnic.3719]

9 hours ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

Lol another hammer hate thread complaining about the mage fantasy. Shocking news: staff still exists, your fantasy is secured.

Hammer is awesome. Sorry if y'all can't see it from all the way in the backline. (Edit: I don't care if you dislike hammer and want it changed, it has valid criticism. but I just love how this conversation always slowly turns into the 'favors range' garbage)

I think there's a couple of separate issues here.

The first is that hammer feels like it has serious wasted potential. People who liked the idea presented by hammer have found that it's pretty much only viable as melee. The change to how orbs work actually helps more in this respect than people think: the orbs are now primarily a buff rather than a direct source of damage, so if orbs were the only issue, you could bounce between fire and air and have a decent ranged capability. Less output than if you use all four elements, sure, but this is like a regular profession having a ranged weapon on one swap and a melee weapon on the other but only using the ranged weapon. The big issue is that the range of 600 is terrible: it's barely a sword's length further than flamethrower-type weapons (dagger fire, for instance), and the slow projectile speeds make its effective range feel even shorter.

The other issue is that, to put it bluntly, elementalist really should not have had three out of three melee-oriented* elite specialisations. We just had the tenth anniversary, I don't think people expected to still have basically the same ranged options as they had on release this far along. So hammer is getting some extra flak it probably wouldn't have if Catalyst had been elite specialisation #4 with a ranged specialisation mixed in.

*Yes, I know it's possibly to make ranged Weaver or Catalyst work, and I was an early adopter of using sceptre Tempest with a skirmishing playstyle. But you can tell what they were designed for through how they were marketed.

[Bladestrom.6425]

there are many issues (mainly PVP) After 10 years:

 

- There are no competitive well designed cohesive ranged packages.  For e.g staff is entirely unviable, sceptre attack are too slow, warhorn is too easily avoided.

 

- You have to fight in melee with low armor and HP, meaning you further have to skew builds for melee AND condy defences.  This pushes you into melee to get value out of your build.

 

- And Yes GW2 ELE was indeed pitched at the classic 'mage' player, even to this day when you look at the website it shows ranged skill videos all of which are actually unviable in PVP and not used.  I joined in Beta as one of those, and could not wait to play staff.  I haven't played it now in probably 9 years. 9 YEARS for a weapon that was introduced in Beta.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/

 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2022 by vesica tempestas.1563

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

My issue with hammer isn't that it's not "ranged wizard weapon" but the falsely hybrid design and the lack of constancy between even each skills in each elements.

 

All ranged skills are 600 max, but the big projectil finisher is 800, the jade sphere is 900 ? ( Why not push skills to 800-900?) No ranged crowd control, but the air #4 that could push you out of range (I think they tweak that with a weird animation, but didn't try it a lot).
Fire #5 is 130 range (or ~240 radius?) but all others skills are 600 ?
Circular projectiles are also 130 which obviously push you to stick melee. And buffs attached to weapon skills too strong IMO and too overriding in rotation. (12% precision ? Really ?)

 

I know that (sadly) elementalist has always had high learning curve and is about muscular reflex. I mained weaver in wvw and pvp for years : range, effects and cooldown of all skills are etched in my subconscious. Sometimes I feel like a machine, fingers move alone.
But I really struggle with hammer, I don't undestand it; and catalyst in general.

Edited September 3, 2022 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[draxynnic.3719]

3 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

Circular projectiles are also 130 which obviously push you to stick melee. And buffs attached to weapon skills too strong IMO and too overriding in rotation. (12% precision ? Really ?)

The damage done by the orbs while circling you is completely insignificant in PvE. They count as hits for the purpose of gaining energy, removing Blind, and so on, but the damage coefficient is lower than most CC skills in competitive. Worst thing that can happen from those orbiting projectiles not hitting anything is that you might not have as much energy as you like and things like blind and aegis stop attacks that actually matter..

Don't get me wrong, I dislike the Weave Self 2.0 nature of the orbs, but you don't summon them for the direct damage, you summon them for the buffs.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

On 9/3/2022 at 5:04 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

The damage done by the orbs while circling you is completely insignificant in PvE. They count as hits for the purpose of gaining energy, removing Blind, and so on, but the damage coefficient is lower than most CC skills in competitive. Worst thing that can happen from those orbiting projectiles not hitting anything is that you might not have as much energy as you like and things like blind and aegis stop attacks that actually matter..

Don't get me wrong, I dislike the Weave Self 2.0 nature of the orbs, but you don't summon them for the direct damage, you summon them for the buffs.

 

I don't get you wrong, but don't get me wrong I didn't speak about damage for the projectil but you're right I didn't mention the energy generation which was implicit in my mind, and I wasn't wrong about buffs.

Hope everything's alright.

[Gibson.4036]

On 8/31/2022 at 12:59 AM, nucklepuckk.1805 said:

Literally every thread in the Elementalist forum comes down to "I want to be wizard with staff camp fire plz Anet." Sometimes it's veiled behind something thin like this, most of the time it's not. But it is everywhere and it is eternal.

Clearly wizard is not the theme that Arena Net has in mind for Elementalist. All three of their elite specializations: Tempest, Weaver, and Catalyst - literally SEVEN years of designing and redesigning and iterating on how they want Elementalist to play - and none of them are wizard. Elementalists are not thematically wizards.

It is clear that they are inspired by things like Shamans, like Spellswords, and so on, and the sooner all of you recognize this, the less self harm you'll inflict.

If you want to be the ranged magic pewpew class, play Mesmer. Between Greatsword, Staff, Scepter, and now Dagger, they deliver on that fantasy and gameplay loop so much more than Elementalist has ever even tried. The wizard inspired class all of you _constantly_ whine about is in the game. It's just not Elementalist.

And yet, the character creation tip still says... "Favors ranged" 😄

[draxynnic.3719]

7 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

 

I don't get you wrong, but don't get me wrong I didn't speak about damage for the projectil but you're right I didn't mention the energy generation which was implicit in my mind, and I wasn't wrong about buffs.

Hope everything's alright.

Part of my own implicit thoughts were that if fire and air had real range to them rather than this 600-with-slow-projectiles token range, you'd have less need for the water and earth spheres (or the buffs from Icy Coil and Rocky Loop) due to the inherent boost in survivability you get from being further away from threats. So you have less need for energy since you're only trying to feed two spheres rather than four, and Hurricane of Pain is pretty good at generating energy between spheres.

Problem is that since the spheres do dish out nontrivial damage, and they're you're main source of combo fields, you do kinda want both your allies and your enemies in the sphere. (That, and the range of fire and air attacks is so short it might as well be melee when the projectiles are also slow. And that if you're bouncing between just fire and air you're likely to have less time when both Flame Wheel and Crescent Wind are up. But if you beefed up the ranges on fire and air skills, I think hammer at least has the potential to be the equivalent of, say, a guardian that has sceptre or longbow in one swap and sword or greatsword in the other.) 

[Sarm.5923]

On 9/3/2022 at 7:45 AM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

All ranged skills are 600 max, but the big projectil finisher is 800, the jade sphere is 900 ? ( Why not push skills to 800-900?) No ranged crowd control, but the air #4 that could push you out of range (I think they tweak that with a weird animation, but didn't try it a lot).
Fire #5 is 130 range (or ~240 radius?) but all others skills are 600 ?
Circular projectiles are also 130 which obviously push you to stick melee. And buffs attached to weapon skills too strong IMO and too overriding in rotation. (12% precision ? Really ?)

I don't have the expansion myself so this question's coming from a place of ignorance.

With the ranged skills varying like they do, is it even worth considering half of hammer to be a real ranged weapon if you can't have a consistent range among your abilities? It sounds like it's saner on your gameplay to treat the entire weapon as melee and pretend that anything with larger reach is an accident you don't want to rely on.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Sarm.5923

[draxynnic.3719]

8 minutes ago, Sarm.5923 said:

I don't have the expansion myself so this question's coming from a place of ignorance.

With the ranged skills varying like they do, is it even worth considering half of hammer to be a real ranged weapon if you can't have a consistent range among your abilities? It sounds like it's saner on your gameplay to treat the entire weapon as melee and pretend that anything with larger reach is an accident you don't want to rely on.

Theoretically speaking, you can fairly reliably do 600 range by bouncing between fire and air. It'd be the equivalent of a guardian running sceptre or longbow with a melee weapon on the swap - they'll do more damage in melee using both sets, but if you stick on the ranged weapon, you'll do decent if not top-tier ranged damage. You can view fire and air as the equivalent of a ranged weapon, while earth and water are the equivalent of a melee swap. Bouncing between fire and air won't have the same impact as using all four, but this is similar to most other professions when not swapping.

Problem is that the 600 range compared to the low projectile speeds means that the effective range is, if anything, probably shorter than dagger.

[scerevisiae.1972]

On 9/3/2022 at 7:26 PM, draxynnic.3719 said:

I think there's a couple of separate issues here.

The first is that hammer feels like it has serious wasted potential. People who liked the idea presented by hammer have found that it's pretty much only viable as melee. The change to how orbs work actually helps more in this respect than people think: the orbs are now primarily a buff rather than a direct source of damage, so if orbs were the only issue, you could bounce between fire and air and have a decent ranged capability. Less output than if you use all four elements, sure, but this is like a regular profession having a ranged weapon on one swap and a melee weapon on the other but only using the ranged weapon. The big issue is that the range of 600 is terrible: it's barely a sword's length further than flamethrower-type weapons (dagger fire, for instance), and the slow projectile speeds make its effective range feel even shorter.

The other issue is that, to put it bluntly, elementalist really should not have had three out of three melee-oriented* elite specialisations. We just had the tenth anniversary, I don't think people expected to still have basically the same ranged options as they had on release this far along. So hammer is getting some extra flak it probably wouldn't have if Catalyst had been elite specialisation #4 with a ranged specialisation mixed in.

*Yes, I know it's possibly to make ranged Weaver or Catalyst work, and I was an early adopter of using sceptre Tempest with a skirmishing playstyle. But you can tell what they were designed for through how they were marketed.

this. to argue this is all just about Ele's wanting pure ranged wizard fantasy, no, it's a simplistic (and mostly cynical) misrepresentation of what's being said. The core issues are, hammer doesn't deliver on the hybrid mlee/hybrid playstyle - the only places it's finding traction is static PVE bosses and PVP capture points, but also that catalyst doesn't deliver anything new/different to existing core weapon playstyles, cause it's just core ele with a field, and augments aren't really compelling either.

[Mortime.1359]

On 9/6/2022 at 11:29 PM, Gibson.4036 said:

And yet, the character creation tip still says... "Favors ranged" 😄

 

Yeah, this is what the character creation tells new players. Imagine how surprised they will be when they finally learn that in order to be of any use to your allies you'll have to suddenly become a goddamn brawler.

i.imgur.com/S9hbTvd.jpg

[Bast.7253]

Hammer would be significantly better if the energy mechanic didn't exist so you could initiate a fight with stab instead of struggling for 30 seconds trying to stay within range or land enough attacks to slowly build it. 

Personally - I think they should still figure out a way to rebuild hammer 3 mechanic into the spec mechanic similar to overloads. It's still going to be clunky but then they can give hammer 3 combo fields or something while also providing benefit to every other weapon choice for the spec.

Not only is this mechanic a projectile finisher, but it's also a buff meant to be maintained - that you could have access to while building this stupid energy pool and aura empowerment on more than just hammer. 

[FunkaHolixx.2937]

Hammer is so garbage. I find zero motivation to learn it. Its so clunky and mashy while you have to keep track of too many things. I honestly cant think of a worse design decision. Atleast buff Weaver so we dont have to switch the class. its really emberrassing...