Guardian Hammer

[Falseprophet.1502]

2 minutes ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The main reason hammer doesn't see a lot of use is that it doesn't (currently) offer a lot of synergy with the existing elite specs - it lacks its equivalent of Spellbreaker.

The point you're trying to make is really grey. Hammer is seeing relevancy on Warrior because of its power coefficient buffs and the change to the increase damage now affecting defiant foes in November (Merciless Hammer in Defense, a core traitline, included). Spellbreaker really does not have more +damage modifiers than DH or even WB. 

[Falseprophet.1502]

23 minutes ago, hash.8462 said:

Whay you don't understand with the word "NEEDED"? What you need is there, everything else is optional.

maybe just a misunderstanding?

Your poor choice of wording or semantics still doesn't make hammer do this. Firebrand may do this, but hammer does not. 

[hash.8462]

3 minutes ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

Your poor choice of wording or semantics still doesn't make hammer do this. Firebrand may do this, but hammer does not. 

Sorry for my poor wording.

But as I already said before I was speaking for the whole build, obviously there is no weapon in the game that give all those boons by itself.

Anyway hammer (the symbol to tell the truth) help getting the permanent 25 stack of vulnerabilty (from symbolic exposure) and since you are hitting a lot of time per second also for the permanent 25 stacks of might (zealous scepter and some other traits), things difficult to maintain by yourself with the other melee weapons, or not so easily at least.

The biggest difference in using the hammer compared to the other support weapons (mace and staff) is that the damage is definitely higher, and this is very evident in solo.

Anyway I suppose you are not interested in solo builds it is useless for me to continue... sorry for bothering.

[draxynnic.3719]

13 hours ago, Falseprophet.1502 said:

The point you're trying to make is really grey. Hammer is seeing relevancy on Warrior because of its power coefficient buffs and the change to the increase damage now affecting defiant foes in November (Merciless Hammer in Defense, a core traitline, included). Spellbreaker really does not have more +damage modifiers than DH or even WB. 

The distinction is that Spellbreaker rewards you for bringing lots of CC skills to the table and then spamming them. It gives you extra boon removal and, generally more important for instanced PvE, it builds Attacker's Insight stacks, making it easier to max out Attacker's Insight. Spellbreaker also helps to gain adrenaline from Merciless Hammer and stability (and therefore the damage boost) from Stalwart Strength since you get extra disable procs from Full Counter, dagger being a decent mainhand power weapon with a daze, and possibly even Magebane Tether procs. So you get a situation where the hammer, while normally falling behind axe and greatsword, makes Spellbreaker better, while Spellbreaker makes Defence better, which in turn makes hammer more attractive, creating three pillars that support one another to make hammer work for spellbreaker when it largely still doesn't for other warrior builds. All without requiring a rework of hammer's behaviour that would destroy its unique identity.

For guardian hammer, what it really wants to shine is a healing or heal-DPS hybrid build where getting protection from a weapon is an advantage. It doesn't generally get used on firebrand, because firebrand usually gets enough protection from non-weapon sources (it does see use, though, just not in speedrun builds).

The broad point stands, though, that guardian has four melee weapons on core alone: two are DPS oriented, one is support-oriented, and hammer sits in between. With that many weapons available, it's okay, and I would even say beneficial, if one has a distinctive feature that makes it a little niche. It might not be to your liking, but it's not like you're ever going to be forced to use it if you don't like it, unlike some professions that are sometimes forced to use an awkward weapon because that's all they've got for the job. 

[Gehenna.3625]

23 hours ago, hash.8462 said:

You are right, but is not only protection, when Hammer is traited with Writ of Persistence it can also heal, symbols can overlap each other and you can drop a large 4 sec symbol (hit 5 times) every 1.85 sec (2.8s base speed + quickness) traiggering Writ of Persistence about 2.7 times per second to 5 allies (and of course 5 foes); I'm not saying that is the best one, but at the same time is also not so bad as people continue to say.

Well, that trait goes for all main weapons because they all have a symbol as part of their skills, so the main reason to use a Hammer is still control and not support.

Hammer by itself is viable as such in OW PvE, but all weapons are. 

So let me put it this way: What makes Hammer better FOR YOU than say sword/focus or mace/shield in OW? I'm not looking for a solid convincing argument, just your opinion. And think about traiting with Writ of Persistence for those weapons as well.

Essentially I want to know what makes Hammer your preferred choice, because all other weapons have a similar amount or more support functionality.

 

[hash.8462]

2 hours ago, Gehenna.3625 said:

Well, that trait goes for all main weapons because they all have a symbol as part of their skills, so the main reason to use a Hammer is still control and not support.

Hammer by itself is viable as such in OW PvE, but all weapons are. 

So let me put it this way: What makes Hammer better FOR YOU than say sword/focus or mace/shield in OW? I'm not looking for a solid convincing argument, just your opinion. And think about traiting with Writ of Persistence for those weapons as well.

Essentially I want to know what makes Hammer your preferred choice, because all other weapons have a similar amount or more support functionality.

 

Personally I'm not against considering hammer a dps, control and support weapon all at the same time, to me all viable roles but excelling in none of them.

First of all, no other weapon get the same benefits from traiting symbols as hammer do, and because of that you will never trait other weapons the same way.

Regarding mace/shield is obviously the damage you can do. While you can have a permanent symbol you cannot stack them because of the cooldown, also, many short regeneration applications can be problematic because of how that boon works. The biggest benefits you have there are the blocks and eventually the outgoing healing multiplier, good for a party healer but I wont use it for any other role.

Sword/focus is not traited the same way at all, the same as before you cannot overlap the symbol so symbols traits don't work as well as for hammer, I'm not sure if you can make an acceptable damage if you have to trait the character for defence also, and if you trait it offensively I doubt it can have an acceptable defence (of course I can be wrong here)...

An alternative to hammer that I also like to use is axe/shield but the build is very different.

JUST A NOTE: for me an acceptable solo build need to be able to easily solo all maguuma HP - with newborn mushroom HP as optional - while reaching at least a dps of 8k/s, with the hammer build I use I'm also able to tank newborn mushroom HP and the dps is a bit over 10k...  also note that for me a farming build and solo build are are two completely different things.

I'm not sure if I can do better with other weapons, ad anyway I find it fun, what I don't find funny at all is dying.

About Writ of Persistence (but the same is true for symbolic exposure), as said before you can stack symbols one of each other so there is a big difference in having a cd of less than 2 seconds or 6+ seconds. Also, with hammer the symbol is part of your main damage, so all symbol traits grant a bonus to your dps.

Anyway, I never said that Hammer is my preferred choice overall, I normally use different builds on each character but hammer and axe/shield are the only ones (for guardian) that I like to use as solo builds against strong opponents, that's all. I also have pure dps, cdps, and support/healing builds, but I would never use one of them for solo.

My main language is not english, let me know if anything is not clear.

Edited January 6, 2023 by hash.8462

[Falseprophet.1502]

17 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

The distinction is that Spellbreaker rewards you for bringing lots of CC skills to the table and then spamming them. It gives you extra boon removal and, generally more important for instanced PvE, it builds Attacker's Insight stacks, making it easier to max out Attacker's Insight. Spellbreaker also helps to gain adrenaline from Merciless Hammer and stability (and therefore the damage boost) from Stalwart Strength since you get extra disable procs from Full Counter, dagger being a decent mainhand power weapon with a daze, and possibly even Magebane Tether procs. So you get a situation where the hammer, while normally falling behind axe and greatsword, makes Spellbreaker better, while Spellbreaker makes Defence better, which in turn makes hammer more attractive, creating three pillars that support one another to make hammer work for spellbreaker when it largely still doesn't for other warrior builds. All without requiring a rework of hammer's behaviour that would destroy its unique identity.

For guardian hammer, what it really wants to shine is a healing or heal-DPS hybrid build where getting protection from a weapon is an advantage. It doesn't generally get used on firebrand, because firebrand usually gets enough protection from non-weapon sources (it does see use, though, just not in speedrun builds).

The broad point stands, though, that guardian has four melee weapons on core alone: two are DPS oriented, one is support-oriented, and hammer sits in between. With that many weapons available, it's okay, and I would even say beneficial, if one has a distinctive feature that makes it a little niche. It might not be to your liking, but it's not like you're ever going to be forced to use it if you don't like it, unlike some professions that are sometimes forced to use an awkward weapon because that's all they've got for the job. 

 

 

Still grey. Your point as a TL;DR: just because Hammer on Warrior was not reworked, Guardian hammer should not be fixed into a competitive option for DPS builds? Also, in PvE, Hammer/kitten SPB is around 40k whereas the Greatsword is around 39k. Greatsword has a lot less CC than your point above but the difference is really negligible in any real PvE environment. But guess what, warrior has that choice to bring hammer or greatsword. GUARDIAN. DOES. NOT. 

 

Moreover,  you've pointed out how a specific warrior operates a lot differently than guardian,  where they rely heavily on CC to maintain damage coefficients. If you play guardian, you would know how heavily Guardian relies on symbol uptime and virtue proccing to maintain DPS. If you integrate the CC in a rotation on Guardian Hammer, you LOSE DPS where this is not the case with your point above. This is why symbol on Hammer AA is so terrible and desperately needs to be changed. You literally have to autoattack to maintain damage and if you don't, your damage suffers. It's becoming very odd that you fail to see that point.

 

Moving it off auto-attack won't change this weird fallacy you all have about "identity," it would just improve it to make it actually competitive as ArenaNet intended (and subsequently, failed) on the August 2022 balance pass. It's mind boggling that you all just cling to something so bad and then make tangential points of "oh but this class" or "my autoattacks because this is a support weapon for some hero point build I run in eight year old content!" 

 

You aren't providing any substance on how to make this weapon better, which makes me wonder if posters in this thread actually have time spent more than twenty hours of endgame PvE on DPS guardian. 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by Falseprophet.1502

[Gehenna.3625]

18 hours ago, hash.8462 said:

Personally I'm not against considering hammer a dps, control and support weapon all at the same time, to me all viable roles but excelling in none of them.

First of all, no other weapon get the same benefits from traiting symbols as hammer do, and because of that you will never trait other weapons the same way.

Regarding mace/shield is obviously the damage you can do. While you can have a permanent symbol you cannot stack them because of the cooldown, also, many short regeneration applications can be problematic because of how that boon works. The biggest benefits you have there are the blocks and eventually the outgoing healing multiplier, good for a party healer but I wont use it for any other role.

Sword/focus is not traited the same way at all, the same as before you cannot overlap the symbol so symbols traits don't work as well as for hammer, I'm not sure if you can make an acceptable damage if you have to trait the character for defence also, and if you trait it offensively I doubt it can have an acceptable defence (of course I can be wrong here)...

An alternative to hammer that I also like to use is axe/shield but the build is very different.

JUST A NOTE: for me an acceptable solo build need to be able to easily solo all maguuma HP - with newborn mushroom HP as optional - while reaching at least a dps of 8k/s, with the hammer build I use I'm also able to tank newborn mushroom HP and the dps is a bit over 10k...  also note that for me a farming build and solo build are are two completely different things.

I'm not sure if I can do better with other weapons, ad anyway I find it fun, what I don't find funny at all is dying.

About Writ of Persistence (but the same is true for symbolic exposure), as said before you can stack symbols one of each other so there is a big difference in having a cd of less than 2 seconds or 6+ seconds. Also, with hammer the symbol is part of your main damage, so all symbol traits grant a bonus to your dps.

Anyway, I never said that Hammer is my preferred choice overall, I normally use different builds on each character but hammer and axe/shield are the only ones (for guardian) that I like to use as solo builds against strong opponents, that's all. I also have pure dps, cdps, and support/healing builds, but I would never use one of them for solo.

My main language is not english, let me know if anything is not clear.

Thanks for your explanation. My first language also isn't English btw 🙂

There are two things I would want to respond to.

First is your point about being able to maintain a symbol indefinitely. Yes, you can with hammer, but it also prohibits using any other skill to keep that up. And this was kinda my point. With a mace, for example, you can do that as well with some concentration. A celestial build for example.

Second, you do indicate something important here. You use of hammer is a very specific use, for strong opponets you say. The example you give is about clearing HoT HPs with them. I thought you saw the hammer as a good option in OW in general. I suppose I don't do those anymore since I play WvW as well and can buy off HPs with WvW currency. 😉 

But thanks again for your explanation. It clarifies a lot about your viewpoint.

[pukish.5784]

Give Dragon's Tooth like skills on guardian hammer please! Auto tracking high damage max 5 targets non projectile big one😊

[Helvalith.2170]

i think a way to improve Hammer usage could be moving Glacial Heart from Virtue, that is a condi oriented traitline, to Zeal that is more power oriented

[Eekasqueak.7850]

Core does also lack Condi weapons so that's one option too. What I really want is scepter to be condi though. 

[Xaylin.1860]

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Nah, my point was that weapons having different behaviours means that they can have some builds they thrive with, and some they don't. This means that instead of having two power DPS weapons that are always the best under any circumstance, you can have different ones that are better under different circumstances.

 

I agree with you on this one. I mean, it is totally fine if anyone wants a specific weapon to stand out at something for a specific class fantasy. But from a design point of view, there is absolutely no reason to make Hammer compete with Greatsword for Power DPS. Additionally, I'd like to point out that, for one, Warrior has more overall weapon options and combinations than any other class so overlap in roles is more likely. And second, it still doesn't have a supportive one-handed main hand nor a one-handed ranged weapon. While Guardian does. I just don't see the reason for a comparison from this perspective. Professions are different and having one role not being filled is probably worse than not having several choices for one role.

 

7 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Hammer, as has been discussed a bit, isn't intended as the straight DPS weapon. Guardian has enough of those. It's a hybrid weapon. It mainly suffers because the way firebrand is set up, axe generally works better as the hybrid DPS/support weapon for celestial or harrier firebrand, because firebrand has plenty of protection from other sources but fury is a bit harder to get. 

There probably should be a distinction between PvE and PvP, right?

But since people have been talking about power I  think DH is the e-spec that has to be looked at to begin with, not Firebrand. A DH with Glacial Heart actually has a very similar set up as the new Hammer Warrior, just in reverse. Instead of speeding up itself, it slows and debilitates enemies. However, I agree that the latter is probably weaker at the moment, more niche (mostly PvP) and ontop of that Guardian lacks proper synergies in other traitlines. I think it would be great if DH could lean a bit more into Chill and provide something else on Dulled Senses. Maybe even minor Boon removal.

On 1/6/2023 at 9:02 AM, draxynnic.3719 said:

For guardian hammer, what it really wants to shine is a healing or heal-DPS hybrid build where getting protection from a weapon is an advantage. It doesn't generally get used on firebrand, because firebrand usually gets enough protection from non-weapon sources (it does see use, though, just not in speedrun builds).

I disagree on this one. IMHO, the healing weapons are Macce and Staff, period. Hammer is a hybrid, yes. But it leans more towards CC or boon support than healing. Asking for Hammer to be a healing weapon is no different than asking for it to be top tier DPS.

 

On 1/5/2023 at 6:45 PM, Falseprophet.1502 said:

The point you're trying to make is really grey. Hammer is seeing relevancy on Warrior because of its power coefficient buffs and the change to the increase damage now affecting defiant foes in November (Merciless Hammer in Defense, a core traitline, included). Spellbreaker really does not have more +damage modifiers than DH or even WB. 

You are right when it comes to Spellbreaker. However, while the comparison to Warrior might be somewhat relevant when talking PvP where CC plays a bigger role, I just fail to see the point for PvE. As mentioned earlier, Guardian has way fewer weapon combinations and options than Warrior and there is no reason to make two weapons compete for the same role.

4 hours ago, Eekasqueak.7850 said:

Core does also lack Condi weapons so that's one option too. What I really want is scepter to be condi though. 

Well... it basically already is if you land #2. Guardian just happens to be build differently when it comes to Conditions.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

14 minutes ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

 

I agree with you on this one. I mean, it is totally fine if anyone wants a specific weapon to stand out at something for a specific class fantasy. But from a design point of view, there is absolutely no reason to make Hammer compete with Greatsword for Power DPS. Additionally, I'd like to point out that, for one, Warrior has more overall weapon options and combinations than any other class so overlap in roles is more likely. And second, it still doesn't have a supportive one-handed main hand nor a one-handed ranged weapon. While Guardian does. I just don't see the reason for a comparison from this perspective. Professions are different and having one role not being filled is probably worse than not having several choices for one role.

 

There probably should be a distinction between PvE and PvP, right?

But since people have been talking about power I  think DH is the e-spec that has to be looked at to begin with, not Firebrand. A DH with Glacial Heart actually has a very similar set up as the new Hammer Warrior, just in reverse. Instead of speeding up itself, it slows and debilitates enemies. However, I agree that the latter is probably weaker at the moment, more niche (mostly PvP) and ontop of that Guardian lacks proper synergies in other traitlines. I think it would be great if DH could lean a bit more into Chill and provide something else on Dulled Senses. Maybe even minor Boon removal.

I disagree on this one. IMHO, the healing weapons are Macce and Staff, period. Hammer is a hybrid, yes. But it leans more towards CC or boon support than healing. Asking for Hammer to be a healing weapon is no different than asking for it to be top tier DPS.

 

You are right when it comes to Spellbreaker. However, while the comparison to Warrior might be somewhat relevant when talking PvP where CC plays a bigger role, I just fail to see the point for PvE. As mentioned earlier, Guardian has way fewer weapon combinations and options than Warrior and there is no reason to make two weapons compete for the same role.

Well... it basically already is if you land #2. Guardian just happens to be build differently when it comes to Conditions.

Oh I know, but I play firebrand which gets extra on top of that. 

[draxynnic.3719]

19 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

 

I agree with you on this one. I mean, it is totally fine if anyone wants a specific weapon to stand out at something for a specific class fantasy. But from a design point of view, there is absolutely no reason to make Hammer compete with Greatsword for Power DPS. Additionally, I'd like to point out that, for one, Warrior has more overall weapon options and combinations than any other class so overlap in roles is more likely. And second, it still doesn't have a supportive one-handed main hand nor a one-handed ranged weapon. While Guardian does. I just don't see the reason for a comparison from this perspective. Professions are different and having one role not being filled is probably worse than not having several choices for one role.

I largely agree here, with two caveats:

The first is that I think it's reasonable to say that if a given playstyle already has sufficient weapons, it's better for weapons that suit a different playstyle be allowed to continue to suit a different playstyle rather than be forced into the first playstyle. This is more of an expansion of your points than a refutation of them, but in the context of this discussion, I think it's an important one.

The second is that... well, guardian has eight two-handed or mainhanded weapons to choose from. Sword, greatsword, mace, hammer, scepter and staff in core, longbow for DH, axe for firebrand. Warrior has sword, axe, mace, greatsword, hammer, rifle, longbow, and dagger - also eight. Warrior started with more, but warrior getting more offhands for elite specialisations evens it out with the weapons that generally make the biggest difference in playstyle - warrior just has more offhands. So while technically warrior does still have more, guardian is a very close second. Which has the effect of... if there's one weapon that doesn't suit one particular purpose, it's not a big deal when there are already two or three weapons that can fit that purpose. It's a much bigger deal when a profession is missing a capability because one of their weapons is overly niche, which I don't think is the case for guardian.

19 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

 

There probably should be a distinction between PvE and PvP, right?

But since people have been talking about power I  think DH is the e-spec that has to be looked at to begin with, not Firebrand. A DH with Glacial Heart actually has a very similar set up as the new Hammer Warrior, just in reverse. Instead of speeding up itself, it slows and debilitates enemies. However, I agree that the latter is probably weaker at the moment, more niche (mostly PvP) and ontop of that Guardian lacks proper synergies in other traitlines. I think it would be great if DH could lean a bit more into Chill and provide something else on Dulled Senses. Maybe even minor Boon removal.

That's pretty much my point, really. Power firebrand does work in open world, but you wouldn't take it into endgame content. Technically speaking, you probably could make hammer firebrand work due to getting lots of Justice procs from the symbols, but the main reason you take hammer in PvE (the PvP hammer fantasy is knocking some enemies away while keeping others stuck with you where you can pound them) is the protection and, well, Firebrand just doesn't need to get protection from a weapon. For hammer to really shine, then, it would need to have some other elite specialisation that synergises with it, but which doesn't naturally have access to Protection on tap. DH could work, possibly alacbender if that ever actually truly becomes a thing, or perhaps some future elite specialisation. DH at least, and possibly WB as well, could definitely also do with a bit of a buff for endgame PvE.

19 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

I disagree on this one. IMHO, the healing weapons are Macce and Staff, period. Hammer is a hybrid, yes. But it leans more towards CC or boon support than healing. Asking for Hammer to be a healing weapon is no different than asking for it to be top tier DPS.

Healbrands primarily use axe instead of mace unless they need the blocks for tanking - why? Short answer is that they can get away with it - they don't need that small bit of extra healing from mace, so they can get an offensive boon and a little extra damage instead. A weapon doesn't need to be a pure healing weapon to be viable for a healer, particularly if the healer is already a bit of a hybrid. If you're using a hammer as a healing or hybrid weapon, you're doing it to benefit from Writ of Persistence stacking from multiple symbols... which might actually lead to more healing than hammer if you've got access to regeneration from some other source. I'd still consider it more of a hybrid weapon than healing per se, but I think it is definitely a weapon that would be suitable for a healing build as long as you're running Writ of Persistence.
Or you could run Zeal/Honor/Whatever and be more of a hybrid.

19 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

 

You are right when it comes to Spellbreaker. However, while the comparison to Warrior might be somewhat relevant when talking PvP where CC plays a bigger role, I just fail to see the point for PvE. As mentioned earlier, Guardian has way fewer weapon combinations and options than Warrior and there is no reason to make two weapons compete for the same role.

Only thing Guardian really has less of is offhands. And I guess it has less melee weapons and more ranged weapons. The fact that it has so many is why I think it's okay - maybe even inevitable - for one or two to be a bit more niche than the others.

19 hours ago, Xaylin.1860 said:

Well... it basically already is if you land #2. Guardian just happens to be build differently when it comes to Conditions.

This. Axe and torch do generate some conditions naturally, but guardian's method of doing condition damage is multihit attacks to proc Justice passives. Which means the condition weapons - torch offhand aside - tend to be things like sword (5-hit auto chain and Zealot's Defence plus a symbol), sceptre (the symbol has extra strikes on top of the symbol itself) and axe (has some inherent conditions, but also a 6-hit auto chain plus symbol).

[draxynnic.3719]

Smoothing out the animations a little won't stop hammer from having a weighty feel when the problem is that the final part of the chain takes more time than the rest of the chain combined. Which is why it feels slower than hammer despite the chain actually taking the same amount of time. You could maintain the 'weighty' feel by slowing down the first two swings and speeding up the third (maybe removing the 'charge up' portion).

The thread you linked is about numbers changes - reducing aftercast on the final swing (that hammer chain skill 3 even had an aftercast that was over half a second says a lot in itself...) is a number change, and increasing coefficients are numbers changes. Nowhere in that thread does anything say that they think hammer needs to be fundamentally changed, only improved.

(Incidentally, it's already possible to have two symbols landed at once with hammer. Someone even pointed that out earlier in the thread. Might even be able to maintain two continuously with Quickness.)

Edited January 12, 2023 by draxynnic.3719

[draxynnic.3719]

Actually, you know what could be cool?

Remove or at least substantially reduce the 'charging up' part of the animation on the third part of the autoattack chain. Make the hammer visible start charging up with each of the previous hits instead. Slow down the previous hits so the overall time of the chain is about the same.

Reduce the coefficient of the direct strike portion of the third hammer strike down to 0.8.

Instead, the second hammer strike provides an effect that increases the damage of your next strike by 25%.

This would present a choice: you can finish the autoattack chain to plant that symbol. Or you could choose to deliberately interrupt that chain and use some other skill to get a big damage boost on that skill instead.

There. That would actually increase hammer's unique character rather than decreasing it, while creating an interaction that makes it more attractive to use the other skills. Unlike guardian's general tendency to rely on multiple small strikes, however, this would encourage using single-hit skills with high coefficients, which might also increase the viability of utilities such as Smite Condition, Hammer of Wisdom, Test of Faith, Dragon's Maw, and Heaven's Palm.

[Gaiawolf.8261]

3 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

Myopic fixation on DPS as the only standard of weapon viability.

Well it is a giant kittening hammer. It's supposed to smack things around really hard. What else are you going to do with it? Serve soup on it?

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

5 hours ago, Batalix.2873 said:

 

Myopic fixation on DPS as the only standard of weapon viability.

The whole point of hammers has always been slow, hard-hitting attacks. Yet, almost no hammer in the game accomplishes this, except for maybe Untamed and Warrior to an extent (needs traits). Even then, hammer isn't used in any meta builds for PvE except Scrapper.

 

Its a failed weapon because its become associated with CC without damage, a ghost gun.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Grand Marshal.4098]

Guard Hammer has no spec to rly make use of it is all.

When the next spec becomes a CC spec it will be better lmfao.

[SleepyBat.9034]

11 minutes ago, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Guard Hammer has no spec to rly make use of it is all.

When the next spec becomes a CC spec it will be better lmfao.

I run it on willbender in wvw. Also we don't even know if we're getting more specs, how many will anet add? We've got 36 already.

Also the cc works well with the new firebreand gm trait.

 

Edited January 14, 2023 by SleepyBat.9034

[Grand Marshal.4098]

1 minute ago, SleepyBat.9034 said:

I run it on willbender in wvw. Also we don't even know if we're getting more specs, how many will anet add? We've got 36 already.

More if it makes them money cause they are overpowered. Who cares about balance? Not them.

[Mikhael.2391]

On 12/21/2022 at 7:33 PM, Coltz.5617 said:

  We've been having trouble using hammers practically for years now, I wonder if we can get the Guardian Hammer to a respectable polish? I think it needs to be faster, but simply lowering CD wouldn't work as most of that time is being taken during the looooong animation. The time before the skill activates takes too long, if you must have some kind of delay its better to have it after the skill is launched. Forcibly having the animation delay just feels wonky with CD timer.

 

Any other views on Guardian Hammers is welcomed.

 

Thanks for notice

Only thing hammer needs its an evade on hammer 2 and ring of warding to be casted while moving. nothing else

 

[Junkpile.7439]

On 1/14/2023 at 8:13 PM, Grand Marshal.4098 said:

Guard Hammer has no spec to rly make use of it is all.

When the next spec becomes a CC spec it will be better lmfao.

Works well with one shot build. Target necro, pop virtues, use hammer 5, tp, do +20k gs spin thingy and finnish him with 7k leap skill.

[Asum.4960]

On 1/13/2023 at 11:27 PM, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

The whole point of hammers has always been slow, hard-hitting attacks. Yet, almost no hammer in the game accomplishes this, except for maybe Untamed and Warrior to an extent (needs traits). Even then, hammer isn't used in any meta builds for PvE except Scrapper.

 

Its a failed weapon because its become associated with CC without damage, a ghost gun.

I don't think it's an issue with Hammer's per se - I think generally Anet struggles to make slow, supposedly hard hitting, things fun and effective. Hammer's just naturally suffer from that the most, but it's not like slow kits such as Core Shroud have ever been the epitome of fun, snappy or impactful gameplay either. 

The problem of slow but hard hitting skills is the unfun oneshot potential in PvP modes ofc (esp. for setups that can't hardcounter them with Aegis and Blinds, etc.) - but that unfortunately meant that everything slow has been an unfun wet noodle in PvE, where there is little benefit to single unexpected bursts, and more emphasis on sustained DPS. 

I'm not sure why Anet refuses to make more use of game mode split balance here, massively ramping up the coefficients of slow skills in PvE only.

 

The rise of Vindicator (and recent buffs to Hammer Spellbreaker, although the modifiers they had to cram into the Defense line to make Warrior Hammer actually do damage is obscene) actually gives me hope in that regard though, as that's imo the first kit of slow but hard hitting skills that's actually genuinely fun to play with - on top of being very effective now. 

Comparing the PvE balance of skills like Mighty Blow to Nomad's Advance just shows how far behind most of the old slow and "hard hitting" skills are though. 

 

[Mikhael.2391]

Just to show as core guardian and hammer is still a lot of fun and can be usefull if you have a good roaming group to support, pl,ease notice it may not be ideal for most but i find this extremely fun and love the hate pm's I get.