hammer for endgame pve

[Yuka.6182]

can we please make hammer more fun to use in pve? it feels awful and plays awful. the AA is weird but i think it's fine since rev already lacks ranged weapons outside of renegade. honestly hammer for the heavy class just lack any polish. 

[Yasai.3549]

All it needs imo is:

- CoR to just be a conal AoE instant damage. Just stop messing around with that rippling damage wave. That stuff has not worked properly since... gods idk man. 

- DtH faster way faster. PLEASE. 

- Phase Smash more Ranged Friendly. By that I mean I don't want that nonsense with jumping through the mist to hit something then porting back, which is a whole anim lock in itself. Preferably something that feels like old sword's Precision Strike where you spin, but you launch 5 projectiles at enemies around you or at a single target if no others are around, but since it's replacing Phase Smash, it has a nice little evade tied in. 

Edited December 11, 2022 by Yasai.3549

[Virdo.1540]

and make hammer 4 a dome of the mists, like the retribution dome. 

So it can actually work as some sort of projectile destruction.

[otto.5684]

On 12/10/2022 at 8:08 PM, Yasai.3549 said:

All it needs imo is:

- CoR to just be a conal AoE instant damage. Just stop messing around with that rippling damage wave. That stuff has not worked properly since... gods idk man. 

- DtH faster way faster. PLEASE. 

- Phase Smash more Ranged Friendly. By that I mean I don't want that nonsense with jumping through the mist to hit something then porting back, which is a whole anim lock in itself. Preferably something that feels like old sword's Precision Strike where you spin, but you launch 5 projectiles at enemies around you or at a single target if no others are around, but since it's replacing Phase Smash, it has a nice little evade tied in. 

It needs way more than that. Compared to similar weapons, Guardian and Ranger LB, AA does about 15% less damage. Skill 2 does about 60% of guardian 2, and it is wonky as kitten to use. Skills 3 is okay, as an evade. Same will skill 4. Skill 5 does mediocre damage, 1.75 cast time and a long CD on top.

 

AA should deal similar damage to guardian LB AA. CoR damage should be increased by ~66%. Skill 5 needs 70-100% damage increase and the case time reduced to 1.25 secs in all game modes. and hammer desperately needs this cuz it is the only ranged weapon available to all elites and core, except Renegade.

[Yasai.3549]

5 hours ago, otto.5684 said:

AA should deal similar damage to guardian LB AA. CoR damage should be increased by ~66%. Skill 5 needs 70-100% damage increase and the case time reduced to 1.25 secs in all game modes. and hammer desperately needs this cuz it is the only ranged weapon available to all elites and core, except Renegade.

If we're talking about PvE, then Hammer Bolt does comparable damage to both LBs. In fact, Hammer Bolt is slightly better due to its ability to pierce 5 units. 

I think a good improvement though is to speed up its animation. It's currently 1s recast cooldown while both other LBs are 0.75s which could make Hammer Bolt feel very very slow and clunky. 

[The Boz.2038]

I really like the "slow, hits hard" idea of the hammer#1. If its performance were to be bumped up, I'd like it if it were through better ratio, not better attack speed.

[otto.5684]

2 hours ago, Yasai.3549 said:

If we're talking about PvE, then Hammer Bolt does comparable damage to both LBs. In fact, Hammer Bolt is slightly better due to its ability to pierce 5 units. 

I think a good improvement though is to speed up its animation. It's currently 1s recast cooldown while both other LBs are 0.75s which could make Hammer Bolt feel very very slow and clunky. 

Guardian LB AA also hits 5 targets. The difference of cast time of 1 sec from 0.75 secs is very large. Rev hammer has scaling of 1.1. Guardian LB 1.0, however, if you adjust it to 1 sec it becomes 1.33. Quite a big difference there. Sure changing hammer AA to 0.75 secs would fix the issue, or a buff to increase its damage by 20%.

 

However, the bigger offender is CoR. Normalizing for 10 secs it does 3.5 (1.75 x 2). Guardian TS does 5.33 (3.2 x 10 / 6). And TS is so much smoother. And I did not factor in the 3 other skills, which are heavily skewed in favour of guardian LB. And mind you, guardian LB is not even a dps rotational weapon. If I compare rev hammer to mesmer GS as an example, it would be a joke.

[The Boz.2038]

4 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

Guardian LB AA also hits 5 targets. The difference of cast time of 1 sec from 0.75 secs is very large. Rev hammer has scaling of 1.1. Guardian LB 1.0, however, if you adjust it to 1 sec it becomes 1.33. Quite a big difference there. Sure changing hammer AA to 0.75 secs would fix the issue, or a buff to increase its damage by 20%.

The in-game casting time shown is often wrong af.
Hammer Bolt has a casting time of 1.25s, for a total of 0.8 attacks/second at 1.1 Power; 0.88P/S.
Puncture Shot has a casting time of 1.0s, for a total of 1 attacks/second at 1.0 Power; 1P/S.

Bolt's "big selling point" is a 100% physical projectile combo finisher chance, compared to all other projectile's 20%.

[Yasai.3549]

5 minutes ago, otto.5684 said:

However, the bigger offender is CoR. Normalizing for 10 secs it does 3.5 (1.75 x 2). Guardian TS does 5.33 (3.2 x 10 / 6). And TS is so much smoother. And I did not factor in the 3 other skills, which are heavily skewed in favour of guardian LB. And mind you, guardian LB is not even a dps rotational weapon. If I compare rev hammer to mesmer GS as an example, it would be a joke.

CoR in general suffers more than just damage ratios, it just kills itself by bugging on terrain. I rather they change up how the skill functions and get rid of the rippling damage areas first, make it a nice neat conal AoE, then we see if ratios help it. 

And tbh hardly fair to compare Hammer to Mesmer GS or Ranger Longbow, both of those don't have AoE CC tied to it and are more tailored to pure ranged combat. Rev Hammer is a confused mess that are lots of cool ideas but terrible in practice. For one, I don't even know why Phase Smash exists the way it is when most of its skills are purely tailored to ranged. To cast Phase Smash is to just lose the point of the weapon for 1.25s. 

[arazoth.7290]

• hammer auto attack:  * The cast time changed to 0,75 seconds. 

                                                     * the hammer hits twice, the 1st time it contacts enemies and the 2nd time on return to player.

 

Let me enlighten how I see this animation, so you can imagine all the same.

1st hit contact: You throw the hammer like you already do, but now the hammer always goes the whole 1200 range even if the enemy is shorter.

This means that on exactly 1200 it reaches the enemy only and if shorter it goes through.

 2nd hit contact on return: Now the hammer also returns back like mjölnir on thor kinda was the inspiration. Because of this it looks like you keep the momentum of a heavy hammer up because hit, return and swinging. 

 

The damage number how much this total does, can be adjusted according to pve/wvw/pvp ofcourse. But because it hits now twice, it gives more options I explain below.

 

Pros: * Shiro : Impossible odds gets now more benefit from this if you have quickness or not, this would benefit the power builds in fluent gameplay/damage more.

          * Projectile finiser 100% : Because it is slow cast time, but still a projectile finisher: It ends now doing twice the projectile finisher in 1 cast time. This can benefit some hybrid builds by condi and combo fields or even as support with cleansing or other combo field options.

          * Because the projectile traveling speed is not fast, but also not slow this seems fine to not get an automatic machine gun effect of lot fast hitting projectiles.             

 

Cons: on shorter target ranges that it goes through and can hit other mobs/enemies unwanted.

           argument: In most cases this problem should be nullified by good positioning for hitting.

Edited December 12, 2022 by arazoth.7290

[Buran.3796]

On 12/11/2022 at 4:53 PM, Virdo.1540 said:

and make hammer 4 a dome of the mists, like the retribution dome. 

So it can actually work as some sort of projectile destruction.

   Hammer #4 doesn't ever interact as combo field with any other skill of the game outside hammer's AA, I've read that projectile from allies doesn't interact with it, and probably remains unfixed.

 

Edit: to ad some confusion, according to Red Blood Arachnid calculations Rev's hammer AA delivers 11.6k dps whereas Dragon Huner's long bow AA delivers 9.5k dps:

 

   I'll test it myself later comparing the two with dps DH and a dps version of core Rev and Vindicator.

Edited December 13, 2022 by Buran.3796

[Buran.3796]

   Done:

   Not entirely apples to apples but fairly close, a few details:

* Gear legendary or ascended, and the stats are almost entirely berserker in both cases, except the long bow being marauder.

* Didn't equip any sigil of damage. Removed most of the infussions since my Rev has a full set and my DH not, so they ended fairly equal.

* Selected traits and skills oriented towards passive damage, but didn't use any active ability or with upcost since overall Revenant has way better access to fury and crit chance.

   Finds:

   Took DH 51 seconds to remove 10% HP from the  heavy golem in the Armistice Bastion using only autos, whereas took core Revenant 53 seconds to do the same. Heaviest single hit auto with DH was 2176, and heaviest True Shot skill 9016 (albeit didn't do it enough to be consistent). Heaviest hammer auto with core Rev was 2674, with heaviest Phase Smash at 3570 and long range Coalescence of Ruin ~3500 also.

   For solo auto any of the Rev specs would upgrade those numbers (specially Vindicator, which would increase damage in 25% just adding a evade each few seconds), but being realist both weapons suck at PvE and the main source of DH damage in PvE are the traps and not the weapons. Compared to other ranged damage dealers, as condi Renebow, power rifle Mechanist or condi double staff Mirage they are terribad.

   The redeeming factor of DH's longbow is that vs humans has good synergies with the rest of the DH kit (traits, traps) since the cc that provides enhances the chances to set a burst damage, whereas the hammer is just weak in 1 vs 1 and only used in WvW to stack AoE damage (still, albeit in the recent Teapot Guild vs Guild tournament some Heralds were present in the finals,  I'm not sure if they were running hammers).

     For PvE both are terrible, and the only reedeming quality is that those weapons allow to tag foes at range. In the case of the Guardian, that's not a must since they already have staff and scepter, but for core Rev, Herald and Vindicator is the only alternative.  But Renebow makes them irrelevant.

[Virdo.1540]

10 hours ago, Buran.3796 said:

   Hammer #4 doesn't ever interact as combo field with any other skill of the game outside hammer's AA, I've read that projectile from allies doesn't interact with it, and probably remains unfixed.

 

Edit: to ad some confusion, according to Red Blood Arachnid calculations Rev's hammer AA delivers 11.6k dps whereas Dragon Huner's long bow AA delivers 9.5k dps:

 

   I'll test it myself later comparing the two with dps DH and a dps version of core Rev and Vindicator.

Ally combos work if you are on the same height as the allies. Outside of that, you can use mace 3 to combo it aswell due to having exact same range from player

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

Phase smash is fine, it’s by far the best skill in the kit and most interesting. It absolutely does not need to be changed except perhaps higher damage in PvE

Edited December 14, 2022 by LucianTheAngelic.7054

[Buran.3796]

9 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Phase smash is fine, it’s by far the best skill in the kit and most interesting. It absolutely does not need to be changed except perhaps higher damage in PvE

   Of course it is. There were times in which CoR was the main appealing until they wreck it enough to not being the selling point and the same can be said about PS. And by the way I don't think that hammer needs a PvE rework because that's a cause lost beyond any hope: hammer would never touch Renegade's short bow in PvE and Renebow isn't even the best ranged spec you can run in PvE. 

   I personally would like a total redone of the hammer as happened with off hand sword but that won't happen because that probably would delete Revs from WvW zergs (despite ANet is anyway in the track to  kill WvW in 2023 as they succesfully did with PvP in 2022).