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Most professions are in dire need of a Hammer rework.


Aodlop.1907

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Maybe it's different in PvE, but I can't remember the last time I saw someone using a hammer in PvP. The weapon feels just...dead.

 

How's life in PvE? I imagine scrappers can make it work, but I've also read that while it's "okay" it's still suboptimal compared to other options.

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16 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I see warriors running hammer in WvW. F1-FB-BB-FB still hurts, just not guaranteed to down tougher opponents. Would kill a thief though that gets caught with it's stunbreaks on CD.

Its not common but yeah I have seen 2+ mans use hammer warriors and simply stunlock enemies to death.

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I don't play structured PvP so I can't say anything on the matter...

In both PvE and WvW I use the hammer on Scrapper and Firebrand and I like it; as for Revenant (also PvE/WvW), I think that March 31 2020 patch killed the only good skill (#2 cannot be used anymore in melee and the ground targeting make it clumsy).

On warriors in PvE is bad (I don't use warrior in WvW), and haven't seen anyone using it in years; in competitive modes the hammer is "wierd" since half of the skills deal no damage.

Edited by hash.8462
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I play a warrior hammer build in PVE with martial cadence and it works.  But I don't play it because it's particularly effective.  I play it because it feels right.  Like this is what a warrior is supposed to be.   I've had problems in pvp but I think it's mostly inexperience on my part and not the build.

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13 hours ago, Ceryxobitus.3012 said:

I wonder if they'll make a hammer condition spec for EoD. Maybe ranger and toys with the idea of confusion damage. One would think there would be some confusion after being smacked with a hammer lol

 

If they're gonna give us another condi weapon after the boring mainhand dagger on soulbeast, there should be some heads at Anet that deserve a smacking with a hammer.

Edited by Lazze.9870
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In PvE, hammer is the inferior option on all but scrapper with warrior's hammer being one of the very weakest weapons in the game. Considering that hammers are slow weapons with backloaded damage making them high-risk weapons to use, one would expect them to be rewarded with good damage for taking the risk instead of hitting like a dry wool cloth.

 

Guard's hammer's only saving grace is the longest launch in the game with Banish. Otherwise it has  short immob, short low-damage leap (just auto-attacking is more dps) and an area denial bubble which can have creative uses in some extremely niche cases. And in comparison, other weapons have same utilities but better depending on combo with superior damage. Solution: Buff power co-efficients on Mighty Blow from 2.1 to 2.5, Zealot's Embrace from 0.8 to 1.6 and Banish from 1.0 to 2.0 to promote skill use in PvE. Banish with decent damage forces a choice of using it off-CD for damage or saving it for CC.

Rev's hammer is just longer-ranged shortbow with greatly inferior damage (renegade's shortbow does 50% more with same build) and a miniscule hard-to-time evade that has some niche uses. And a projectile block but that's also pretty niche to use and being front-only makes it worse. Solution: Buff Coalescence of Ruin, Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer in PvE.

 

And warrior's hammer...oh dear. Auto-attack chain does roughly same damage as thief's sword BUT takes about 50% longer (1.88s vs 2.75s) and due to that slow attack rate loses to most weapons by good margin in auto-attack dps and ofc the bigger damage is on the super-slow last hit that you're unlikely to kand if anything is happening or you're sticky like a velcro fly. Solution? Boost last attack's (Hammer Smash) power co-efficient from 1.2 to 1.8 and maybe the other attacks from 0.9 to 1.0. As a side-note, mace's auto-attack chain is even slower(2.9s) so that could also use some 15-20% speed-up or damage boost from 0.8 to 0.9 on first 2 attacks to make mace a bit less insufferable defensive option.

Fierce Blow has seemingly big damage against controlled foes but...in PvE you can't really control anything with a breakbar reliably if at all. That means the damage bonus is essentially useless against any champion mobs and bosses while those are what people usually base their choice of weapon on. Hammer Shock does have a big range...but hits like that aforementioned cloth, essentially as much as first auto-attack hit. Staggering Blow has the same issue with the added bonus of not even knocking most enemies out of the melee attack range and thus being an interrupt at best. Solution? Buff the radius to 240 so that knockback can actually work at knocking stuff away.

Backbreaker also has really weak damage for 5th weapon skill though it compensates with strong single-target CC and reloading Fierce Blow if enemy is CC'd by Backbreaker. Thus, Backbreaker->Fierce Blow should be good damage, right? Not against champs and bosses since you can't control them for more than 5% uptime at the very best if they have normal, fastly recovering breakbar. Solution? Make that reset and controlled foe damage bonus  trigger against enemies with breakbar by making them count interrupts too, like with some similar traits on other classes.

Earthshaker (Hammer Burst) is essentially Mace's burst Skull Crack in AoE leap format with inferior Stun duration and damage of a dry cloth. Solution? Boost Skull Crack's power efficient from 1.5 to 1.8 and Earthshaker's from 1.0 to 1.5-1.6.

 

These suggestions would make hammer a considerable option for better utility vs damage option as currently competing weapons have lots of utility, some even better like guardian's greatsword, while also having 25% (guardian's greatsword)/ 50% (revenant's shortbow)/ 100%+ (warrior's axes) higher dps. 

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