Please, buff Hammers and stop favouring Daggers

[Sifu.9745]

Why is Scrapper the only profession (Elite spec) that actually uses Hammer as a main weapon? Scrapper is not very popular elite spec though.

Guardians don't use Hammers.

Warriors don't use them either.

You barely see a Revenant with Hammer: only while zerging in open world.

Out of four professions only one elite spec actually uses Hammer, while not playing with kits?

Any other Hammer meta build out there?

 

On the other hand we see Daggers being mandatory for many professions and elite specs, which is weird, because Daggers are small and visually not very popular, but they are meta for:

Elementalist, Weaver, Tempest, Spellbreaker, Thief, Daredevill, Deadeye, Soulbeast, with Necromancer being an exception. I guess Mesmer is the next spec with op Dagger elite spec?

 

Edited August 2, 2021 by Sifu.9745

[DanAlcedo.3281]

Scrapper is unpopular? Where? 

 

Hammer is Meta in Wvw for Warrior, Scrapper and Rev. 

 

And the only class I use  Dagger on is Necro offhand. 

 

 

[Dante.1763]

1 minute ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Scrapper is unpopular? Where? 

 

Hammer is Meta in Wvw for Warrior, Scrapper and Rev. 

 

And the only class I use  Dagger on is Necro offhand. 

 

 

Weaver uses sword/dagger, and tempest i think if i recall uses scepter/dagger.

 

Frankly they just need to make focus better for all classes, i never see anyone using one >.>

[Sifu.9745]

3 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

Scrapper is unpopular? Where? 

 

Hammer is Meta in Wvw for Warrior, Scrapper and Rev. 

 

And the only class I use  Dagger on is Necro offhand. 

 

 

Ok, so Hammer is meta in WvW, while Dagger is meta in ALL aspects of the game, not just the most unpopular one. If you don't play Daggers that's your choice, but don't say Daggers are not meta. You have Meta Daggers for Daredevil pvp, WvW, instanced pve and open world (both: condi and power builds). You have meta Daggers for Ele, Tempest and Weaver pvp, pve, open world and WvW: both condi and Power builds. You have meta Daggers for Spellbreaker and Soulbeast for open world and pvp. Not sure about WvW and instanced pve. Condition Necro off hand dagger is not bad either, if you don't like condi Scouge playstyle with Torch offhand, while main hand power Dagger is far behind GS Reaper.

 

So we have some uses of Hammer in non solo WvW, which represent maybe 5% of the playerbase? What about Hammer in fractals, raids, open world, pvp?

[Sifu.9745]

4 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Weaver uses sword/dagger, and tempest i think if i recall uses scepter/dagger.

 

Frankly they just need to make focus better for all classes, i never see anyone using one >.>

As Weaver you  can use whatever you want: most powerful is Sword or Dagger mainhand with whatever suits you best in offhand. Tempest is Dagger mainly (for dps or support builds), but can also use Scepter (not that powerful as dagger) or Staff for support/healing or WvW backline dps. But Daggers and Sword just outperforms Staff and Scepter in most parts of the game.

 

Focus is ok. No need to buff it. Focus on Guardian is great for power builds. Focus Elementalist is good enough for more defensive playstyle. Focus Necromancer is ok for power Reaper with Axe main hand. Mesmer Focus is not that great, but not bad either. Keep in mind that Focus is off hand only weapon, so not that important.

Anyway i use Focus on my Power Reaper (GS +Axe/Focus) most of the time and many times i use it on my Weaver as well, while on Tempest i prefer Warhorn or Dagger offhand.

Edited August 2, 2021 by Sifu.9745

[jwaz.1908]

4 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Frankly they just need to make focus better for all classes, i never see anyone using one >.>

Focus not good? You're joking... Mesmer focus is amazing everywhere, support tempest uses focus in wvw, scepter/focus dragonhunter in pve... the list goes on.

Edited August 2, 2021 by jwaz.1908

[artharon.9276]

I spent some gold to try again my old core warrior build with hammer, it's bad even in open world.

[Panda.1967]

5 hours ago, Sifu.9745 said:

Why is Scrapper the only profession (Elite spec) that actually uses Hammer as a main weapon?

Because engineers don’t have any other melee weapon choices unless they go holosmith… let’s face it… even Scrapper hammer is terrible…

 

Guardian Hammer is actually pretty good for support builds… though mace + shield and staff are usually the better picks for support guardian…

[HnRkLnXqZ.1870]

 

Scrapper Hammer works the way it is right now. If they improve it, we may end with something as optimized as the Dragonhunter Longbow. Hammers are not supposed to be Dagger 2.0. They are slower and more focused on impactful attacks instead of raw damage-output. A hammer is a big heavy weapon that can be moved with great power, slowly and gains its strength from built up momentum. A dagger is a stab-weapon, that gains its strength from being sharp and moving fast. Obviously the Dagger is better for DPS.

Edited August 2, 2021 by HnRkLnXqZ.1870

[Xanadrine.4352]

As a guardian I would love to be able to use a hammer and not lose out on dps or support. I actually think it makes more sense for guardians and warriors to use hammers than anything. I base guardians off the paladin type and warriors off the beserker types both of which use 2 handed aka hammers in games and in real world history/mythology 

 

Im hoping guardian or maybe warrior gets paragon, I realize that spear and shield, but there may be room for a hammer build 

[Chichimec.9364]

6 hours ago, Sifu.9745 said:

Why is Scrapper the only profession (Elite spec) that actually uses Hammer as a main weapon?...You barely see a Revenant with Hammer: only while zerging in open world...

 

While I'm all in favor of buffing hammers, I'm not sure where this kind of generalization come from. I run a hammer & sword/sword Herald in open world pve, in WvW, and in low level fractals. It works just fine for me.

[Obtena.7952]

Thread doesn't make sense ... nothing is 'mandatory' for any class and lots of the 'facts' the OP presents are wrong. 

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Wanna buff warrior hammer? get rid of the hard CC damage nerf in competitive. Want to buff it more? Change Body Blow to strike damage instead of bleed.

[genjonah.1253]

9 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Weaver uses sword/dagger, and tempest i think if i recall uses scepter/dagger.

 

Frankly they just need to make focus better for all classes, i never see anyone using one >.>

You can pry my Binding of Ipos from my necros cold, dead hands!

 

yeah I agree they’re not used much in my experience, but I can’t drop the aesthetic haha

[Vidit.7108]

This is a little apples to oranges with Warrior/Guard Hammer and just any dagger. A hammer is mostly a crowd control 2h weapon and you're comparing it to the fastest melee dps weapon on other classes.
It doesn't seem to me that hammer spellbreaker is all that much worse off in PvE than a dagger spellbreaker, its got access to those interrupts too. The fairer comparison is to greatsword dps on those classes. I think Dragonhunter might be more likely to pick a hammer over greatsword if the traits for damage were on the same trait line and it got to pick which weapon to buff. On warrior I'm not sure with either elite spec if you could move the hammer buff somewhere else that it would make it competitive with greatsword.
This is kind of ignoring the role each weapon is supposed to play though, like if the buffs on hammer were better as a support weapon maybe a firebrand would be more likely to take it over staff in some gamemodes. Warrior just has a lot of weapons and you can say any one of them is underpowered compared to dagger on another class. Maces on warrior are probably what's competing with hammer more than anything else and they could still also use a buff versus all the other weapons warrior has.
 

[Veprovina.4876]

11 hours ago, Dante.1763 said:

Weaver uses sword/dagger, and tempest i think if i recall uses scepter/dagger.

 

Frankly they just need to make focus better for all classes, i never see anyone using one >.>

Mesmers use focus for the pulls. Not sure who else though...

[ChronoPinoyX.7923]

Hammer defo needs a bit more presence in PvE content, would be nice to bonk stuff more frequently on my Revenant without feeling hampered. 

[Sifu.9745]

14 hours ago, Vidit.7108 said:

This is a little apples to oranges with Warrior/Guard Hammer and just any dagger. A hammer is mostly a crowd control 2h weapon and you're comparing it to the fastest melee dps weapon on other classes.
It doesn't seem to me that hammer spellbreaker is all that much worse off in PvE than a dagger spellbreaker, its got access to those interrupts too. The fairer comparison is to greatsword dps on those classes. I think Dragonhunter might be more likely to pick a hammer over greatsword if the traits for damage were on the same trait line and it got to pick which weapon to buff. On warrior I'm not sure with either elite spec if you could move the hammer buff somewhere else that it would make it competitive with greatsword.
This is kind of ignoring the role each weapon is supposed to play though, like if the buffs on hammer were better as a support weapon maybe a firebrand would be more likely to take it over staff in some gamemodes. Warrior just has a lot of weapons and you can say any one of them is underpowered compared to dagger on another class. Maces on warrior are probably what's competing with hammer more than anything else and they could still also use a buff versus all the other weapons warrior has.
 

I am not comparing Hammers to Daggers ... I am just pointing  out that you can see Daggers everywhere (both mainhand and offhand) while you barely se anyone playing with Hammer. Why? Because Hammer (with exception of Scraper) has a limited use in WvW and maybe PvP and sure, you can play it in open world, but everything works in open world, while you can see daggers in PvP, wvw, open world, and instance pve. You can play condi, power, hybrid, support/healing Daggers. Hammer is just a pure Power weapon with little cc and very little support in most cases. It feels stupid that the smallest weapon in the game has such a wide variety of usage and it is probably the most represented weapon in the game while Hammer is the least popular weapon. I guess only Staff is more popular than Daggers?

Sorry for English ...

Edited August 3, 2021 by Sifu.9745

[Vidit.7108]

5 hours ago, Sifu.9745 said:

.It feels stupid that the smallest weapon in the game has such a wide variety of usage and it is probably the most represented weapon in the game while Hammer is the least popular weapon. I guess only Staff is more popular than Daggers?

More classes can use dagger than hammer and they can put a dagger in the off-hand. So it's going to show up more. And you are comparing them by perceived usage and by how they look. Also there is an availability factor here, 4 of 9 classes have hammer, one of which is warrior which can use almost everything. The weapon with the most class availability is sword as a main-hand with 8 of 9 classes able to use it.

[kharmin.7683]

20 hours ago, ChronoPinoyX.7923 said:

Hammer defo needs a bit more presence in PvE content, would be nice to bonk stuff more frequently on my Revenant without feeling hampered. 

Probably get your wish with all of the crying for bunny thumper in the Ranger forum.  🙄

[nopoet.2960]

I played a hammer warrior for a long time.  It's not good out of the box but if you build for quickness and take the hammer trait in Strength and Martial Cadence in Tactics it can work well.  You have to fully commit, casual hammer usage will just suck.

 

There are two problems with warrior hammer (I don't know much about the other classes) 1. The concept of a big heavy slow weapon in a game that rewards speed and reaction time doesn't work well.  2. The animations.  #1 could be addressed if they used the bottom of the pommel as a strike point on the back swing.  It would speed up some of the animations and make usage more fluid.

 

Also might help just to acknowledge that warrior hammer is not about dps.  It can do some surprising spikes but it's more about control.  In that vein, it would be really helpful if stability and un-blockable was added to the skill set; natively not though traits.  

 

[Mungrul.9358]

My main build on my long term main character is a core warrior hambow, but it's taken me a long time to tweak it to be even remotely competitive. I tried mixing some Spellbreaker in with my hammer build, but lost a lot of the synergies it relies on for sustain.

 

I love using hammer on a warrior; it feels great to play with, and it's got some great utility. Feel-wise, it's probably my favourite weapon and profession combination in the game.

But it's not one for DPS (although as noted above, you can get some MASSIVE spikes with it), and it got massively punished in PoF PvE content thanks to blind spam (its attack speed just isn't fast enough to burst through all the blind spam pumped out by scarabs, dust motes or lions, so you end up perma-blind).

 

It's also unfairly punished when fighting any enemy with a breakbar. Suddenly, all of the interesting tactical nuances hammer excels at (cripples, roots, dazes, knockdowns, knockbacks) all just become a way of reducing the breakbar.

And one of your main sources of DPS, Fierce Blow, suddenly loses a lot of that, as you only get the DPS boost against "Controlled" foes. Same with the trait Merciless Hammer.

 

And in any PvP, where permastab somehow became a thing, it becomes almost entirely redundant.

Imagine the howls if warriors were given some way to permanently negate blind!

 

I really love the weapon, but it needs some TLC.