Guild Wars 2

Many have stated that they’d like to see revenant be able to weapon swap. As we look through the hammer, it’ll become obvious why that is. Compared to mace/axe, which has a solid kit combined with fluid animations, the hammer leaves much to be desired. Seeing no changes between the demo and the recent beta, we’re going to go through the hammer to see what can be done to retain the thematic element of no weapon swap while building on the groundwork laid out by the skills in their current state. The goal at the end being to focus on tweaks rather than complete overhauls. It’s also worth mentioning that hammer will most likely only see play in PvP due to it’s current lack of strong melee cleave. Lastly, numbers won’t be discussed as they can easily be tweaked once the feel of the weapon is improved.

Skills Breakdown:
Hammer Bolt
Pros:
- guaranteed projectile finisher
- pierces
- the projectile arc allows you to get closer to 1.5k range
Cons:
- lackluster damage without combo fields
- pierce makes for bad melee cleave
- the cast time is similar to elementalist Fireball without the punch and as a result further compounds the issue of the attack feeling weak

Coalescence of Ruin
Pros:
- high damage against multiple lined up targets
- low cooldown resulting in solid pressure being put out to those targets
- fluid animation
Cons:
- while it contains all the damage the revenant hammer has to offer, it has next no synergy with the rest of the hammer attacks

Phase Smash
Pros:
- may confuse new players in PvP
Cons:
- skill roots you in place for the duration
- leap is too slow to lock down moving targets
- weak two second chill for the trade off
- tacked on damage value that’s too low to compete with the other hammer skills
- in PvP, the animation will be like waving a giant flag saying, “Please use your immobilize/CC… now.”

Field of the Mists
Pros:
- powerful anti-ranged tool that stays on you
- if energy is managed well, results in 50% projectile block uptime
- synergy with Hammer Bolt
Cons:
- while a minor complaint, the effect could potentially be difficult to see in PvP

Drop the Hammer
Pros:
- ranged knockdown
- can be cast while moving
Cons:
- much like Phase Smash, its long cast makes it difficult to hit moving targets
- while the animation is rather fancy, the reality is that this skill has much too big of a warning, thus making it quite possibly the worst CC skill in the game as you will not only dodge it but hardcounter it with a CC of your own each time
- once again outshined in damage due to its long cast time

Immediately we can see that the hammer has only one reliable combo. Second, it clearly favors ranged with next to no melee options. Coalescence of Ruin is your main damage source and if enemies align it accomplishes this very nicely. Comparable weapons would then be mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow, the problem being that revenant hammer has neither the damage nor the ability to create distance. While it’s clear that the intended counter to revenant hammer is melee, it is absolutely necessary to have at least equal options like the aforementioned weapons because otherwise any melee class will dominate the revenant while in hammer, with the revenant unable to swap weapons to compensate.

[…]

Possible Solutions:
Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer need to be tweaked if the revenant is to maintain its theme of no weapon swapping. These skills ought to be your peel but their activation times make it clunky for them to accomplish this task. This is glaringly obvious for Phase Smash, as one miss will likely mean that the enemy is upon you. There’s also very little pay off for landing these skills currently and you will be outright punished for using Phase Smash in PvP.

Hammer Bolt suffers from the same issues that once plagued ranger Long Range Shot and could use a reduced cast time to bring it in line, 0.75s would probably suffice.

Phase Smash’s return teleport is self-defeating and its use will be punished heavily in PvP. So instead, a potential fix would be having the enemy teleported to your old location which would retain the theme of teleporting and would completely reverse a detrimental situation into a far more positive one. Reducing the cast time to 1s or even 0.75s would make it feel a lot better and easier to use. Increasing the chill to 3s or 4s may also be necessary for close combat. Cooldown would need to be adjusted to around 10s, thus making it similar in function to engineer Net Shot.

Drop the Hammer‘s greatest flaw is the long cast time, rendering its ability to catch targets next to impossible. It’s clear that the animation is this way because knockdowns are some of the most powerful forms of CC in the game. Therefore, this skill would be better served as a knockback instead to allow it to have a shorter cast time, for balancing purposes. Making the skill similar to Claw of Jormag’s Mist Wave so that it could trigger Coalescence of Ruin’s extra impacts (with Coalescene of Ruin‘s travel time modified to be slower) would create an immensely satisfying combo that brings the hammer’s damage in line with its competition (mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow). This would also allow the fancy animation to be kept with minimal changes, adjustments would only need to focus on aligning with the direction of the knockback and then speeding up to match a 1s cast (a la guardian Banish). Cooldown would most likely need to be adjusted to around 20s or 25s.

If Coalescence of Ruin did get changed to allow room for the same target to be hit by multiple impacts, this would also synergize with the proposed change to Phase Smash in that you could teleport an enemy into its path for two impacts. Coalescence of Ruin would then need to be adjusted in cooldown to around 8s, as it would function like mesmer Mirror Blade.

Conclusion:
The aim of these changes would be to shift the hammer from being long cast time oriented and clunky to focusing on heavy hitting combos on staggered cooldowns thus bringing the weapon into a more natural flow (as we see quite beautifully executed with revenant mace/axe). As it stands, it feels much too cumbersome with little reward. Hammers are generally focused on control and damage with the revenant hammer lacking efficiency in both regards currently. The proposed changes would take what’s been laid out and focus it into a cohesive weapon that can stand on its own (without the need for weapon swap). Melee will still be a counter to revenant hammer but it will no longer be an impossible matchup. It’s clear that the revenant hammer will most likely not have a place in PvE due to its strong resemblance to mesmer greatsword and ranger longbow (in other words, lack of melee cleave), but with these changes it should at least have some play in PvP.

P.S. Thank you Anet for your wonderful work, so far HoT is looking to be absolutely amazing. The level design has been stunning, especially the Shrouded Ruins and Itzel areas where everything felt like a secret exploring those places. As mentioned before, revenant mace/axe is extremely solid and is easily the most satisfying mace in the game. The elite specializations are really shaping up nicely. Particularly the reaper, whose traitline synergies are phenomenally well designed. So let’s make this revenant hammer something special too!

I think hammer bolt is fine where it is as it has potential to hit as hard as long range shot at 1000+ range. I agree with everything else tho. As it stands now hammer may be great in open world bosses due to the fact that revenant doesnt have other long range weapons (from what was datamined) and wvw in zergs. In pvp its going to be underpowered in current state

It’s definitely an odd-duck of a ranged weapon. Though so was Mesmer Greatsword. You’ve covered the cons pretty well, but I think you missed some of the perks.

1) Three finishers, two of which are Blast finishers and a Darkness field with really good uptime. This means that in addition to blocking projectiles your main attack life steals and you can do some AoE blinds. ANet seems to be making up for the single weapon set on Revs by giving them pretty good combo potential.
2) Phase Smash physically moves you during the animation. For example, if you have your the spinning hammers skill going while you use it then foes in the area of your Phase attack will be struck by it. This has a lot of potential as an impromptu dodge skill. Use it just before an enemy’s big AoE attack goes off and it will move you to safety then put you back where you were. However – besides these quirks it does seem an odd mechanic. Shorten the range a bit, make it a cone attack from where you leap to, and add in the option to activate again it during the jump to actually move there. It gives the weapon some mobility it’s lacking. Something it especially needs if the rev is going to be limited to a single weapon set.

Also something I noticed is that with the 2 Legends available during the beta none of the skills really synergized with the hammer.

Out of all your utilities only the taunt is 1200 range and with the hammer you don’t want enemies coming to you They need to be 1000-1200 range for maximum damage. I found my self mainly using The Rite of the Great Dwarf to support my allies, though I didn’t relies you could use the spinning hammers with phase smash so that’s one too I suppose.

So before I hold judgment on the hammer I need to see the remaining Legends to see what new skills will be available.

skowcia.8257:

I think hammer bolt is fine where it is as it has potential to hit as hard as long range shot at 1000+ range. I agree with everything else tho. As it stands now hammer may be great in open world bosses due to the fact that revenant doesnt have other long range weapons (from what was datamined) and wvw in zergs. In pvp its going to be underpowered in current state

Then it’s a useless weapon, open world bosses as it is right now is literally standing on 1 spot and spamming 1.

As for the delay on drop the hammer, it works fine for BoB, and thats Pbaoe with a much longer delay. It will work as a way to discourage enemies from occupying certain spaces for too long (like capture points, chokepoints, downed teammates/enemies). The weapon costs and cooldowns seems low while the utilities are higher, meaning that if you really want to land something it might cost an extra taunt and so on. That might also be the use for phase smash, a bit similar to the glue bomb/Bob combo. The chill might be enough to catch someone expecting to just kite out of the hammer by surprise, while still allowing you to stay at range and combo the Kd with a well timed ruin.

Another thing to consider, and this is rather interesting, is the power coefficients. People noted that revenants did less damage than X class (well yes we have a primary condiweapon and what amounts to a ranged support weapon revealed so far with a conditank and physical tank legend) in the same gear. This gear being celestial. Now we take a look at the power scaling. See while the revenant skills seems to have a low base damage they also have a pretty hefty power scaling. Take ruin for example. Now that thing has a 2 sec cooldown and if we are talking ye ol’ pve dps at high power it overtakes jump shots landing damage (traited for damage) while staying at range. The ingame links are wonky with the calculations but support this, and if the wiki is true this is even more so the case. They wanted to avoid ending up in another celetrapp, so they increased the power scaling, meaning the difference between low power and high power is more pronounced here. This might actually be a sound move considering the ridiculous self healing traits available for the rev.

+comparing dps with longbow might be futile when its quite obvious that the intention is not for a rev to go toe to toe with a ranger at range dps wise when they got a massive upkeep of mobile projectile blocks and aoe CC, not to mention other forms of survivability. Once again that seems like a fragile speedster vs mighty glacier kind of fight.

Of course i am talking from a pvp/wvw perspective as i do consider that to be the top priority for balance as i dont care what numbers you hit a npc for as long as we don’t see a return of the gw1 dervish update.

Bonus nostalgia:

Thats a comprasion at 2333 power untrained longbow. Rebember hammer has higher base wep damage by 34 which adds up as another 32 damage to the tooltips.

I think a lot of people are so busy focusing on other aspects of the beta that this weapon will unfortunately be left in the dust. Why is that? Because most of us were simply happy to be able to try out something different and new. We’re forgetting what happened in the past with weapons such as ranger longbow. It was a weapon that was used by a select few because it simply could not compete with the utility and damage other weapons (from other classes) had to offer. This was a huge factor in terms of people being able to play ranger comfortably in PvE and PvP. Recall that before being buffed, in PvE, it lacked the damage and, for PvP, it lacked kiting ability. Without any changes to the revenant hammer we will see history repeat itself. As it stands, hammer simply doesn’t have the means necessary to make its kit work— just like the longbow before it, the kiting abilities are just not there when they desperately need to be, given that it is a ranged power based weapon. The damage might be impressive at max range but, with the current PvE meta of stacking, things would need to change a full 180 degrees and even still once again you’d have issues locking down targets. In PvP, max range isn’t even an option with almost every class having a gap closer. The comparison cannot be made enough, this leaves the hammer in the same exact spot we saw ranger longbow before the buffs— only worse because you can’t weapon swap out of it. If any change at all is to be made, Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer need to be tweaked so that the revenant can properly kite with these skills. It is so essential that you have some form of reliable peel on your power based weapon when your damage is best at range.

As a side note, many of you are saying that we should wait for the other legends to be revealed. Keep in mind, though, that utilities are your fallback skills rather than your be-all end-all (unless, of course, you’re playing engineer). Other legends won’t address the issues the hammer currently suffers from. In fact, as it stands now, the only revenant utility skill that works with hammer is forced engagement (the irony of that is not lost upon me), the rest are all 600 range or less. We would need to see two new legends that completely cater to the long range playstyle in order to even consider legends being a decisive factor.

Anet is so close to getting this right but I do think the rest of us need to offer up some feedback or this is gonna end up on the back burner unnecessarily.

Personally i preferred the hammer out of the 2 options we had. I will say that i can’t speak much about PvP, but for PvE i will always choose the hammer over the axe combo. With the hammer weapon and the dwarf legend it was almost impossible to die. Phase smash made it easy to dodge any high dmg skill. Also i found that on the return animation there was a lot of the cast time where CC skills had no effect on me. Even when they would physically touch my character. Drop the hammer was so easy to combo into it was hilarious. especially when combed with the taunt. Speaking of taunts, i believe the hammer skill set is designed to combo with other CC skills.

Adelaine.7126:

As a side note, many of you are saying that we should wait for the other legends to be revealed. Keep in mind, though, that utilities are your fallback skills rather than your be-all end-all (unless, of course, you’re playing engineer). Other legends won’t address the issues the hammer currently suffers from. In fact, as it stands now, the only revenant utility skill that works with hammer is forced engagement (the irony of that is not lost upon me), the rest are all 600 range or less.

Actually i have to disagree. Yes we should wait for other legends to show up as one of them should offer extreme focus on mobility. After all they said revenant mobility in combat going to be as high as thief mobility outside of combat. Will it become true? I dont know, thats why we have to wait. Also i dont not think revenant utilities are fallbacks by any means, i look at them as revenant main weapon while weapons itself are there olny to aid legends.

And i dont understand why people saying that Jalis doesnt synergy well with hammer. What do you think these spinning hammers (vengeful hammers) are for? For extra damage? No. For extra pressure on anyone that get close and mind you it has potential to hit quite well in power builds. I dont think that for example a thief will be capable of staying too long in a melee range vs a hammer revenant unless they want to suicide. Pair that with reflexive summon trait for extra hammer spinning around you which also causing weakness on a hit and thats some really strong combo.

The main issue i have is drop the hammer due to lenght casttime and phase smash. And thats where your suggestions come in. With hammer bolt i simply disagree due to it high damage and 100% finisher. Watch these 3k crits in spvp flying around against another squishies just by spamming auto. It also has no range penantly like long ranged shot which makes it even more dangerous so that 1sec is justified at this point.

skowcia.8257:

Actually i have to disagree. Yes we should wait for other legends to show up as one of them should offer extreme focus on mobility. After all they said revenant mobility in combat going to be as high as thief mobility outside of combat. Will it become true? I dont know, thats why we have to wait. Also i dont not think revenant utilities are fallbacks by any means, i look at them as revenant main weapon while weapons itself are there olny to aid legends.

This is not a valid case to support the hammer, if anything once they reveal revenant sword, people will use that instead given the huge mobility and generally better options such a weapon will undoubtedly provide. We’ve already established that every class in the game has a gap closer, so why would any number of shadowsteps (using this for the sake of example since it’s the highest possible mobility) for the revenant fix the issues that hammer is facing? You could give revenant 3 shadowsteps and any intelligent player could still walk up to you without contest because the hammer control skills aren’t useful with combat this fluid— all you would need is swiftness and to zigzag. Thieves and warriors will still train you down easily. At which point, you’ll literally just stand there and take it while you wait for Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer to activate. There simply won’t be any competition between those match ups, which is why the hammer needs to see changes that are meaningful.

Revenant weapons can’t be secondary to their legends by design. Imagine if you had a legend that was as strong as a meditation guardian’s utilities; why would you pick any other legend? Where is the gameplay decision there? By design, we’ll never see a revenant legend that outperforms its weapons. It can’t happen because that takes away too many decisions— it’ll be zerker meta allover again, only now within a class, it’s not going to happen.

skowcia.8257:

And i dont understand why people saying that Jalis doesnt synergy well with hammer. What do you think these spinning hammers (vengeful hammers) are for? For extra damage? No. For extra pressure on anyone that get close and mind you it has potential to hit quite well in power builds. I dont think that for example a thief will be capable of staying too long in a melee range vs a hammer revenant unless they want to suicide. Pair that with reflexive summon trait for extra hammer spinning around you which also causing weakness on a hit and thats some really strong combo.

The main problem with using Vengeful Hammers alongside revenant hammer is the cost for using it means that while you might be able to discourage a melee attacker, you’ve lost so much energy that your projectile block uptime is now compromised. At that point, any skillful player will swap to their ranged weapon and will train you down at close ranges (to negate your ranged power). Thus shifting the fight in their favor as they’ll rotate into melee, once your wall is back up, rotate back into ranged when you try your hammers, and repeat— you’ll be outrotated. This is not hard to do for anyone that knows their class. And that’s not even taking into consideration the fact that it cripples your ability to use other utility skills, which you probably needed during that fight. You will get baited into using those high cost utility skills and then forced into Vengeful Hammers to seal the deal.

When it comes to revenant hammer facing skilled opponents, there is not a single match up it can win. That’s disappointing. If you look at all the elementalist and engineer weapons, they all have a place in a competitive environment. I’d rather not see revenant be an exception. We shouldn’t have to wait months after HoT releases for people to realize just how bad it is. Especially, when it’s only two skills that need adjusting— Phase Smash and Drop the Hammer.

We olny agree on a buffs to phase smash and drop the hammer so i dont think we have to argue about these nor i dont know why you keep mentioning them.

Youre a bit wrong about outrotating tho, in the moment where they switch to ranged youre at huge advantage due to 50% uptime projectile block and outdpsing them just by spamming 1. Lets also not forget that energy regenerates quite fast (50 in 10seconds).

The hammers on it own can last a while as well and its not like you cant swap legends either when they swap weapon to ranged weapon.. Youre not stuck to one legend, rebember? Thats the beatiful thing about revenant, he can adapt to any situation depending on legends choice.

We dont know if for example revenant will get access to stealth via Shiro either as we dont have a heavy class with stealth yet (trapper runes doesnt count). Also glint elite is a ranged attack (beta movie) so theres really no point to moan unless we get all info.

But then again when i look at legend elite skills and forced (nerfed from 3 to 2 sec taunt while kepeing 50 energy per use and 1 sec casttime- lol.) i have to say im worried a bit.

Where do I think the hammer will shine? In large scale WvW.

It has everything you’ll need to be versatile from both the front and backlines. Range, AoE, blast finishers for water blasts and even a mobile reflect. So while it might not see use in PVE or sPVP, I predict it might become a meta weapon in WvW.

I hope Anet improves the Revenant by at least doing these 2 things:

1) increase hammer attack speed (it’s SO slow and clunky)
2) give revenants weapon swap (they only have access to switching between 2 legends after all, AND the fact that they can’t, or don’t have many options to, changing their utility skills – the least they deserve is the ability to weapon swap)

And suggestions 3) and 4) aren’t really an absolute deal breaker for me, but it would be the cherry on the top if it were made possible…

3) give revenants a trait that increases the range on mace skills. 130 range is pathetic. I think it should be more like 600 range (like necromancer’s axe skill range).

4) have a trait that makes the axe skill “temporal rift” ground targeted. This way you can place it where you really want it to go – not just straight ahead. This would be great for pulling people off ledges etc. too – like the Mesmer focus #4 skill.

I think if all those changes were made, it would make the Revenant SO much fun to play and feel less slow, clunky, and restricted.

Well you won’t get weapon swap.