sPvP Thread: Radiance Hammer Guard changes

[Huskyboy.1053]

This is a sPvP-only thread, please refrain from comparing, analyzing, or generally derailing the thread by commenting about WvW or PvE.

Why It Works

Big burst up front. That's it. With the Metabattle build, a target without Protection will lose 45%-60% of their health pool with the F1 -> JI -> Mighty Blow -> Smite Condition combo. If you miss your burst, that's about it; Mighty Blow has a low CD but Judge's Intervention is 36s when traited. It's a big risk, and if you miss, you might as well exit the fight. If you want to keep up sustained damage then you have to use your defensive skills (F2, F3, heal skill) in order to get access to Retaliation, making you drastically more squishy as the fight goes on.

How to Improve It

1. Change Mighty Blow to be 600 range, lower aftercast, AND increase CD to 8s (so 6.4s traited). Also make it a leap finisher since it's very tricky to land the blast if you don't have 2 seconds to set it up. This will allow us to get Light Aura for more Retaliation.
2. Per Vallun's suggestion, reduce damage of Glacial Heart but also reduce its CD. This is a bad idea without my first change since Guard can't continuously pressure with hammer as it is. Also make it only trigger on hammer skills, there have been times when I've scored a kill with Smite Condition because it triggered Glacial Heart, which is ridiculous.
3. Increase velocity of Zealot's Embrace. There's no reason for it to have 1200 range at the moment because it only hits players who aren't already moving.
4. Decrease the cast time of Banish to .75s, but give it a more visible animation so people can better anticipate it. I literally cannot remember a time I've missed this skill because someone dodged it. I'd suggest a little logo that appears above the Guard's head, as happens with Call of the Wild or any signet.
5. Allow Guard to cast Ring of Warding while moving, OR reduce the CD to 20s (so 16s traited). Personally I'd just prefer a CD decrease since it's just a highly visible CC that lays on the ground, it's not all that great to begin with. Both buffs would be too much.

That's really it. Vallun is correct to say that the burst is a bit too much, I'd prefer to see the aforementioned combo take no more than 50% health from a target without Protection, but we do need to be able to put on more constant pressure, otherwise Hammer will go back to being completely unviable.

[Gwaihir.1745]

No it isn't MB has a low cd for a reason. Miss your burst? Keep on fighting guess what MB is back up again.

1. So make it gs ww? Nope.

2. Glacial heart doesn't hit hard. Rarely over 4k with wvw min maxed ferocity. And much less in pvp stats. Smite condi hits alot harder.

3. Really? It was buffed somewhat recently and I don't have much trouble hitting it at decent ranges. Seems like you wanted to throw some insignifcant buff in to cover the nerf cry.

4. Banish is very easy to see but very hard to land.

5. Ok.

Vallun is a thief main of course anything that can burst is a danger to him. Hammer puts out constant pressure or are you only mb'ing once every half minute when ji is available?

This entire post boils down to 'glacial heart op' which it most certainly is not the issue nor something that needs urgently addressed given the state of POF elites.

[Huskyboy.1053]

I think you misinterpreted my intention here; I play hammer guard in NA, I haven't seen you before so maybe you're EU. I'm usually around 1650 rating during the season, my toon is The Dank Stank. I don't want the build to be any worse than it already is. I'll address your concerns one by one:

@"Gwaihir.1745" said:No it isn't MB has a low cd for a reason. Miss your burst? Keep on fighting guess what MB is back up again.This is unrealistic in sPvP. Anyone kiting you can stay out of reach easily. I'm open to dueling you if you don't believe me, it's quite easy to avoid MB if JI isn't used.

1. So make it gs ww? Nope.Not really sure what you mean by this, did you mean whirling wrath? What I'm suggesting would make it similar to GS 3.
2. Glacial heart doesn't hit hard. Rarely over 4k with wvw min maxed ferocity. And much less in pvp stats. Smite condi hits alot harder.It hits for 1.6k to 1.8k. Smite Condition hits for about the same if you don't have condis on you, more if you do. I agree it's not a massive burst but it's a passive proc which isn't really a good thing for the game in general. If it hit for 1.3k every 6 seconds, that's more damage than 1.8k every 10 seconds. I'd prefer a more frequent but weaker proc so that I get chill more often.
3. Really? It was buffed somewhat recently and I don't have much trouble hitting it at decent ranges. Seems like you wanted to throw some insignifcant buff in to cover the nerf cry.Again, just pop in a hotjoin with me and try to hit me at 1200 range. All I have to do is walk slightly sideways.
4. Banish is very easy to see but very hard to land.Nothing about it is easy to see unless there are literally no allies/opponents around. So yes in a 1v1 situation with no visual noise sure I can see it, otherwise no. Think about how easy it is to see Jade Winds; by comparison Banish is practically invisible.

Vallun is a thief main of course anything that can burst is a danger to him. Hammer puts out constant pressure or are you only mb'ing once every half minute when ji is available?Hammer doesn't put out constant pressure unless the person you're attacking stands right next to you and doesn't use defensive skills or CC you at all. You must be fighting very low-skill opponents to believe this. You mentioned WvW so maybe you really are fighting bads, in Plat 2 people kite quite a bit.This entire post boils down to 'glacial heart op' which it most certainly is not the issue nor something that needs urgently addressed given the state of POF elites.Glacial heart is literally one of 5 bullet points, this is clearly not true.

[otto.5684]

None of this would work. The hammer burst combo is a total bust from the get go. It has comical setup requiring various skills with super long CDs. It is very easy to see and avoid by enemies. And then you will be stuck with slow and sluggish weapon with no sustainability or damage. Of all gurdian damage weapons, hammer is the worst to use in sPvP.

If that is the game play you are looking for, just play power rev.

[Huskyboy.1053]

@otto.5684 said:None of this would work. The hammer burst combo is a total bust from the get go. It has comical setup requiring various skills with super long CDs. It is very easy to see and avoid by enemies. And then you will be stuck with slow and sluggish weapon with no sustainability or damage. Of all gurdian damage weapons, hammer is the worst to use in sPvP.

If that is the game play you are looking for, just play power rev.

It's 96/100 on Metabattle for a reason. You can have your opinion but objectively it works quite well.

Power rev is worse in this meta because rev is a teamfighter, but is forced to contend against both scourge, condi mirage, and sometimes condi thief. It just doesn't work.

[Best.3479]

1. remove glacial heart from the game
2. make hammer autos like twice as fast
3. give banish an animation (like pindown)

done

[Josif.2015]

@Huskyboy.1053 said:Vallun is correct to say that the burst is a bit too much, I'd prefer to see the aforementioned combo take no more than 50% health from a target without Protection, but we do need to be able to put on more constant pressure, otherwise Hammer will go back to being completely unviable.

The guardian has a base health of 11k just like elementalist and thief. To balance these professions, they made these three professions glass cannons that can deal a lot of damage, but are also very vulnerable. Core elementalist has Fresh Air which can keep up the pressure from range, guardian has the spike damage which can change the match and thief has the mobility and +1 advantage.

Your proposed changes on the hammer aren't bad, but rather unnecessary. I agree that the third auto attack chain could be a little bit faster, but being able to use Ring of Warding while moving would make it overpowered because the CC field lasts for 5 seconds, giving you plenty of time to finish off your opponent. The hammer is a high risk, high reward weapon. It's slow and predictable, but deadly when played right.

[phokus.8934]

The only thing I agree with is making RoW castable while moving.

[Gwaihir.1745]

@Huskyboy.1053 said:It's 96/100 on Metabattle for a reason. You can have your opinion but objectively it works quite well.

If you want to be 'objective' theres only 11 people who have bothered to rate the build on metabattle. You can have your opinion but objectively 11 ratings aren't enough to provide any empirical value whatsoever.

And having read your quote about this combo not doing more than 50% to a target WITHOUT protection I am dismissing this thread. This combo relies on a lot of skills with perfect timing and not taking damage to retain unscathed contended and the focus burst, as well as having condis to proc smite. Care to provide a hp value to check your 50% against? There are literally countless skills in this game that do 50% to the heaviest bunker builds. Single. Skills. Not a timed multi skills combo.

[Huskyboy.1053]

@Gwaihir.1745 said:

@"Huskyboy.1053" said:It's 96/100 on Metabattle for a reason. You can have your opinion but objectively it works quite well.

If you want to be 'objective' theres only 11 people who have bothered to rate the build on metabattle. You can have your opinion but objectively 11 ratings aren't enough to provide any empirical value whatsoever.

And having read your quote about this combo not doing more than 50% to a target WITHOUT protection I am dismissing this thread. This combo relies on a lot of skills with perfect timing and not taking damage to retain unscathed contended and the focus burst, as well as having condis to proc smite. Care to provide a hp value to check your 50% against? There are literally countless skills in this game that do 50% to the heaviest bunker builds. Single. Skills. Not a timed multi skills combo.

That's really more an argument for nerfing overpowered skills than a response to my thread. But since you refused to respond to anything I've said to you, yes, feel free to "dismiss" this thread.

[cat.8975]

Glacial Heart:

• Nerf the damage to a 0.75 (down from 1.0), decrease cooldown to 5s (from 10s). This is, on paper, a 50% increase to its DPS, but you wont always be proccing it immediately off cooldown. Assuming it takes ~1.5s on average to proc it after it comes up, this would be a ~33% increase. The cooldown change would also help it line up with Mighty Blow more.
• Alternatively, remove the damage portion from glacial and give the trait and increase the damage of all hammer skills by 10-20%. A little boring, but it would still have the chill proc, and the damage would be more consistent.
• Super alternatively, do a mix of the above suggestions (rebalance numbers on damage/chill proc, and give the trait ~5-10% increased hammer damage).
• Extra random idea: guaranteed procs on the symbol/mighty blow/banish, and on nothing else.

Hammer auto:

• Third hit could use either a faster cast time or an aftercast reduction. Whichever is less prone to abuse.

Mighty blow:

• Reduce aftercast, it feels very clunky (in a bad way)

Zealot's Embrace:

• Either reduce the max range to 900, or speed it up so the 1200 range tooltip is accurate.

Banish:

• I've personally never had an issue seeing a guardian cast this, unless they had quickness. (Though I haven't played PvP since pre-PoF times, so I imagine it's much worse now with all the new visual noise.) I wouldn't be against a stronger indicator so long as hammer gets other buffs to go with this nerf.

Ring of Warding:

• Knockdown enemies within range on initial cast? Cast while moving? No changes?

Hammer is in an OK spot, but it could definitely use a few tweaks to make it more consistent/less clunky. It's in a pretty sad state for PvE as well, and some of these suggestions would help on that front as well.

[Arcaedus.7290]

Hammer is meant to be a slower, control based weapon. I think some of the changes OP posted are very much in line with this general theme. I'll cover the hammer skills 1 at a time to address this:

• Hammer auto attack is a bit too slow. Hammer is supposed to be a slow weapon, but skills 2-5 are already slow, so there's no reason that hammer auto chain needs to be slow. It's almost never used in pvp unless you have a down. I think a good change would be to speed up the chain (particularly the cast time of the third strike) and remove a pulse off the symbol at the end. The overall effect would be increased dps. This would also synergize well with glacial heart.
• Mighty blow is a decent burst. I don't think its damage or CD need tweaking. It suffers from the same problem as auto attack, so I think a good fix would be to increase the range to 450 or 600. MB could possibly also be ground targeted.
• Zealot's Embrace is mostly fine but should be 0.75s cast time rather than 1s.
• Banish could also be 0.75s cast time rather than 1s. Alternatively, it could keep the same cast time but affect up to 3 targets at once. OP mentioned visibility so I think a good change here would be to make the hammer head glow brightly as the guardian is winding up the swing. That's honestly all the tell anyone needs to the skill.
• Agree with OP on changes to Ring of Warding. Right now it's almost as bad as Line of Warding, improved only by the fact that it's a ring and not a line.
• The trait: I think GH on a lower CD (with lower damage) is actually way more in line with hammer's theme than how it currently is. This would shift the focus from burst to chilling the opponent which thematically matches the controlling theme.

[Huskyboy.1053]

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

• Hammer auto attack is a bit too slow. Hammer is supposed to be a slow weapon, but skills 2-5 are already slow, so there's no reason that hammer auto chain needs to be slow. It's almost never used in pvp unless you have a down. I think a good change would be to speed up the chain (particularly the cast time of the third strike) and remove a pulse off the symbol at the end. The overall effect would be increased dps. This would also synergize well with glacial heart.I actually do use the auto both right after the main JI burst and sometimes in 1v1s on point against warriors. I wouldn't be opposed to moving the symbol to another skill but I already do get use out of it. I usually lose to warriors eventually (especially SB) but the protection does help quite a bit.

• Banish could also be 0.75s cast time rather than 1s. Alternatively, it could keep the same cast time but affect up to 3 targets at once. OP mentioned visibility so I think a good change here would be to make the hammer head glow brightly as the guardian is winding up the swing. That's honestly all the tell anyone needs to the skill.This is a great idea, would probably take less development resources than creating an image like I suggested.

[Arcaedus.7290]

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

• Hammer auto attack is a bit too slow. Hammer is supposed to be a slow weapon, but skills 2-5 are already slow, so there's no reason that hammer auto chain needs to be slow. It's almost never used in pvp unless you have a down. I think a good change would be to speed up the chain (particularly the cast time of the third strike) and remove a pulse off the symbol at the end. The overall effect would be increased dps. This would also synergize well with glacial heart.I actually do use the auto both right after the main JI burst and sometimes in 1v1s on point against warriors. I wouldn't be opposed to moving the symbol to another skill but I already do get use out of it. I usually lose to warriors eventually (especially SB) but the protection does help quite a bit.

I try to as well. Its usefulness is limited across the board though due to how slow it is. The protection is valuable, I agree, but with the entire chain executing 2x as fast and about one third of the protection gone (one pulse at the beginning, one pulse at 1s, but you lose the third pulse on the final second of the symbol duration) you overall would have higher protection up time assuming you're repeatedly landing the auto chain.

[otto.5684]

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Gwaihir.1745 said:

@Huskyboy.1053 said:It's 96/100 on Metabattle for a reason. You can have your opinion but objectively it works quite well.

If you want to be 'objective' theres only 11 people who have bothered to rate the build on metabattle. You can have your opinion but objectively 11 ratings aren't enough to provide any empirical value whatsoever.

And having read your quote about this combo not doing more than 50% to a target WITHOUT protection I am dismissing this thread. This combo relies on a lot of skills with perfect timing and not taking damage to retain unscathed contended and the focus burst, as well as having condis to proc smite. Care to provide a hp value to check your 50% against? There are literally countless skills in this game that do 50% to the heaviest bunker builds. Single. Skills. Not a timed multi skills combo.

That's really more an argument for nerfing overpowered skills than a response to my thread. But since you refused to respond to anything I've said to you, yes, feel free to "dismiss" this thread.

Well, if they change the last AA chain to 0.75 from 1.25 secs, that would be key to give hammer the ability to maintain some sort of pressure (anet could reduce the protection duration if that is an issue, even though I do not think it is).

Glacial heart proc ICD from 10 secs to 5 secs, and if the chill is an issue, it can be changed to slow or cripple. Damage is the main point of the proc.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

[Huskyboy.1053]

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

... 2 nerfs and one slight buff. Why on earth are you advocating nerfs to hammer guard. And no, it does not have "tons" of Retaliation. The only way you can upkeep it is by burning defensive cooldowns, something that most builds do not require in order to simply do damage.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@"Stand The Wall.6987" said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

... 2 nerfs and one slight buff. Why on earth are you advocating nerfs to hammer guard. And no, it does not have "tons" of Retaliation. The only way you can upkeep it is by burning defensive cooldowns, something that most builds do not require in order to simply do damage.

maybe because getting one shotted from outta nowhere is really cheap and if this is holding up a build then that build needs some serious changes...

[phokus.8934]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

... 2 nerfs and one slight buff. Why on earth are you advocating nerfs to hammer guard. And no, it does not have "tons" of Retaliation. The only way you can upkeep it is by burning defensive cooldowns, something that most builds do not require in order to simply do damage.

maybe because getting one shotted from outta nowhere is really cheap and if this is holding up a build then that build needs some serious changes...

Glacial Heart does around 1500 max damage. Mighty Blow+JI is what’s killing you and there’s no way you’re getting one shot from that combo with max health.

[Yannir.4132]

@phokus.8934 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@Huskyboy.1053 said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

... 2 nerfs and one slight buff. Why on earth are you advocating nerfs to hammer guard. And no, it does not have "tons" of Retaliation. The only way you can upkeep it is by burning defensive cooldowns, something that most builds do not require in order to simply do damage.

maybe because getting one shotted from outta nowhere is really cheap and if this is holding up a build then that build needs some serious changes...

Glacial Heart does around 1500 max damage. Mighty Blow+JI is what’s killing you and there’s no way you’re getting one shot from that combo with max health.

JI is also around 2k damage at best so it's mostly just the Mighty Blow. And that hits for about 8,5k at best(which I've seen maybe 5-8 times during the 200+ games I have with this build). Usually it hits in the 4-6k range.

PS. I find it funny that Lesser Smite Condition(the trait proc) is exactly the same as the full version but deals more damage. How is that lesser? xD

[cat.8975]

@Yannir.4132 said:PS. I find it funny that Lesser Smite Condition(the trait proc) is exactly the same as the full version but deals more damage. How is that lesser? xD

They do the same amount of damage, check again.

[Yannir.4132]

@cat.8975 said:

@Yannir.4132 said:PS. I find it funny that Lesser Smite Condition(the trait proc) is exactly the same as the full version but deals more damage. How is that lesser? xD

They do the same amount of damage, check again.

I think you need to check again. The base damage is indeed the same but Lesser Smite deals more damage with conditions than the actual utility. Or is this just a tooltip error?

[Math.5123]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

If the damage is moved elsewhere, sure.

No, that would be way too oppressive to face.

Just make it deal the same damage with and without condis. The middle point of what it currently is.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

If the damage is moved elsewhere, sure.

No, that would be way too oppressive to face.

Just make it deal the same damage with and without condis. The middle point of what it currently is.

for number 2 my thought was it would take away the one shot potential and give guard some extra defense since ppl would avoid the shield instead of breaking it, but yeah you might be right on that. your smite condi idea sounds good.

[Gwaihir.1745]

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:

@"AngelLovesFredrik.6741" said:

@Stand The Wall.6987 said:600 range? yes. leap finisher? absolutely not. you gotta take into account that people see this blast finisher as a useful tool outside of pvp radiance guard lol. no, anet wont change it into a leap just for pvp, that makes no sense. it doesnt even need a leap, its got tons of retal already.

1. remove damage from glacial heart
2. make focus 5 blow up when the shield breaks
3. slightly reduce smite condi damage

If the damage is moved elsewhere, sure.

No, that would be way too oppressive to face.

Just make it deal the same damage with and without condis. The middle point of what it currently is.

for number 2 my thought was it would take away the one shot potential and give guard some extra defense since ppl would avoid the shield instead of breaking it, but yeah you might be right on that. your smite condi idea sounds good.

You want to remove the 1 shot?

See links below:

www.protection.eduwww.counterplayisathing.eduwww.20kburstisnow13kburst.gofundme.com