Honor. Changes to make it the one true Hammer trait

[GoingMenthol.7281]

Yes, I'm talking about the hammers again, but it's a weapon that could really do with an update that makes it less like a slow greatsword and more of the "support allies by hitting foes" weapon that it was made to be. And the best way in my opinion is to make Honor the de facto trait line as it already has traits that focus on boon support on critical hits (Vigorous Precision, Empowering Might)

 

These are the changes I believe would make hammer a better weapon to use:

 

Writ of persistence replaces Protector's Restoration

"Symbols are improved. Symbol of Protection now additionally provides quickness"

• Hammer damage is front-loaded onto the auto attack, where the symbol is. The problem has always been about how slow it is to cast
• Protector's Restoration is not a skill commonly used, not very useful, and can be easily replaced
• Additional boons synergises with Altruistic Healing to allow for more sustain oriented builds
• Hammer guardians are no longer forced to use Feel my Wrath or specialise into Firebrand in order to access quickness via their profession abilities

 

Glacial Heart moved to Honor Grandmaster

"Mighty Blow becomes Glacial Blow. Chill and damage foes you disable, immobilise, or slow"

• Moving Glacial Heart to Honor allows hammer users to keep the stronger attack without the need to branch into Virtues for a single trait
• The addition of immobilise allows Hammer Skill 3 to also benefit from the trait. Scepter 3 would coincidentally benefit too
• The addition of slow provides synergy with Dragonhunter, Firebrand, and Willbender skills and traits

[eldrevo.1746]

I agree that hammer needs some love, and that Honor may be a better place for its traits. Though then there will be no weapon traits in Virtues while each other traitline has 2 to 3 weapon traits in it. I can see Focus trait moved over to Virtues and reworked (I doubt anyone uses the current one) and maybe Sword or Scepter traits moved over as well?

I'm not sure that it needs 2 traits where all other weapons have 1. Maybe merge the traits you've suggested into one that goes like "Hammer skills grant Quickness and have reduced recharge; Hammer 2 skill is improved" while reworking Glacial Heart into just Chilling on CC and maybe immob and slow? This way we'll have bo

Quickness is very important to not having terrible hammertime, yes, maybe we could even experiment with turning the AA symbol into giving Quickness instead of Protection. That can be kind of wild, but it'll also make Hammer a cool option for Quickness builds with a clear offset that disencourages stacking. Another option is the one I've mentioned above, to attach self-Quickness to other Hammer skills. It's a questionable one, but it may add some interesting decisionmaking and fluidity into the weapon, chosing to weave different skills in between AA chains to maintain quickness or use them all at once in burst scenarios.

[GoingMenthol.7281]

Good point, hammer doesn't need two traits. I was just thinking of how quickness could be implemented without overloading on a single trait

I don't know about removing protection since it's a part of hammer's defense without traits (greatsword has blind/heal, sword has blind/projectile block, mace has heal/block. Hammer currently has protection and spacing skills, but spacing prevents your protection since you need to hit things. I'm not gonna count the ranged weapons since we're talking about a melee weapon)

I remember hearing (I don't remember where though) the devs saying they didn't like the 20% cooldown traits and wanted to rework them without the cooldown reduction, so I've been avoiding adding that in as a suggestion

I'm liking the idea of keeping Glacial Heart in Virtues but without the hammer ability so any builds that currently use it aren't messed up by changes

So maybe something like:

 

Honor - Major Adept - Protector's Aggression (replaces Protector's Restoration) - Hammer skills grant quickness on critical strike. Skill 2 becomes Glacial Blow

(The "on crit" would be in theme with other Honor traits, makes the player choose between Zeal for symbol damage, Radiance for the crit chance, Valor for the heals/support, Virtues for Glacial Heart, and still have an elite spec to choose from)

 

Virtues - Major Master - Glacial Heart - Chill and damage foes you disable, Immobilize or slow

(better synergy with elite specs and weapons)

 

Writ of Persistence can be kept the same without changes

 

In regards to no weapon traits in Virtues, there isn't any weapons that have a direct involvement with the profession skills, like Mesmer Scepter generating tons of clones to quickly shatter, or Necromancer Marks generating life force. Revenant (Invocation) and Thief (Trickery) don't have weapon traits on their Virtues equivalent trait line, so it's not uncommon in the game

Edited October 28, 2022 by GoingMenthol.7281

[Falseprophet.1502]

These suggestions won't make hammer more desirable or introduce Hammer as a viable option for any of the specializations. Honor is pure support. DH does not have a viable support spec and if you're playing an alacrity Willbender build, it requires virtue triggers to provide alacrity. Hammer is just too slow and clunky due to its symbol generation. Just adding passive quickness to it through Honor won't make it better in PvE because in end-game PvE encounter, you already have 100% quickness uptime.  If quickness made hammer better, you'd see people use it now. They don't. 

The main problem with hammer is its symbol. It needs to be removed from the auto-attack and placed elsewhere. I've suggested it be placed with Mighty Blow. The reason being - you will not drop any symbols in PvP or WvW because it is too slow. If you're in PvE, you must auto-attack constantly to do any damage because of the symbol attached, thus making it a DPS loss to weave in skills two through four (which were "buffed" recently). 

It's simple:

• Remove the symbol from auto-attack, move to Mighty Blow
• Buff the final auto attack and reduce the cast time to 1/2 
• Make the Glacial Heart damage/chill baseline for Mighty Blow. Rework the Glacial Heart trait in Virtues.
• Remove the root on Ring of Warding.

 

This will make hammer much better.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Falseprophet.1502

[Potato Slayer.3107]

On 10/22/2022 at 7:05 AM, GoingMenthol.7281 said:

 

Writ of persistence replaces Protector's Restoration

"Symbols are improved. Symbol of Protection now additionally provides quickness"

• Hammer damage is front-loaded onto the auto attack, where the symbol is. The problem has always been about how slow it is to cast
• Protector's Restoration is not a skill commonly used, not very useful, and can be easily replaced
• Additional boons synergises with Altruistic Healing to allow for more sustain oriented builds
• Hammer guardians are no longer forced to use Feel my Wrath or specialise into Firebrand in order to access quickness via their profession abilities

 

Please no more quickness.

[Mysticjedi.6053]

Anet has made it pretty clear they want hammer to feel heavy. I know people feel they want quickness with hammer, my personal opinion is that hammer should double down on skills 2-5 controlling. 

 

It would be nice glacial heart didn't just affect Heavy Blow, but applied it whenever a crit is hit with hammer  a person was either chilled or immobilized (1 sec duration).

 

I would like see the damage on the second auto hit and symbol increased. 

I would prefer more control that allows the auto attack to hit. (Ex. Heavy Blow might knock down if the target is immobilized.)

I would rather Warding Circle went away all together and was replaced with some type of Stun attack that didn't root.