Guild Wars 2

I don’t care what class I have to play, or what spec I have to run. I’m sick of fighting this spec and I want a way to beat them reliably.

Any good dueling spec. Hambow is more team-oriented build, with huge hammer telegraphs and his damage was nerfed already.

I play warrior, and HATE those hammer licking miley cyrus wannabes!

I’ve found out GS builds who invest on damage can go well against them (I used to run 30/25/0/0/15 might stacking zerker because I am CRAAAAAZYYYYY). It basically is reduced to this: every time you come in contact, you’ll deal much more damage to them than what they do to you. By the time your stability runs out, you’ll have pressured them so hard they’ll be on the defensive

Med Guardian can work, too. They are brutal in melee, and warriors happen to be there. Just watch out for your health and block stuff.

Its easy. Just play a better Hambow War.

Hambows are easy to kill as long as you stay out of their red circle.. thats where they get much of their damage. Switch to range for a sec. I play as d/p thief and have no problems with hambow wars… zoo necros on the other hand…..

if you want an honest answer and are specifically looking to beat hambow, play an engineer with something like this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqiYH5yuF1LJyoCdGoC5lIF6nl95xbxWQIA-TsAAzCuI+S9l7LzXyisFN64swcBA

make sure you kite w/ nades and keep up perma poison (you have 4 sources of it), you will win 9/10 times against hambow – if you really want to win just drop your crate early-mid fight

if you want a build that is meta and practical for all pvp use the build below this on engi. it is quite similar but the change extra dps from might, change of runeset and the utility of elixer S in team fights will make you a formidable opponent:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?fcAQJAqalIqiYnvSyF1LJyoCdGoC5lIF6nl95xbxWQIA-TsAAzCuI0SplTLjWStsaNE5swcBA

hope this helps, if you need help learning to play mail me in game

Thank you guys, I’ve been playing phantasm mesmer, to which hambow is a hardcounter. I’ll try out the engi thing for sure, love that class.

I play a thief and I kill hambow wars 95% of the time 1v1 as long as I have 1 stunbreak up.

It’s more about timing than anything. If you can dodge the telegraphed moves and stay out of fire field + arcing shot then you should be good. You just have to make them blow their zerker stance and/or endure pain. If you can play a class that can reflect projectiles, it’s a big bonus as well.

A lot of hambow wars are very confident because they can rely on the build to carry them, but actually have very little knowledge of how to fight certain classes…use this to your advantage. The better player will win in this case.

Well said Amaterasu.6280 +1

I found d/p thief to be a great counter to warrior. The secret is to have blind on them all the time and kite away if they use zerker stance.

Its not a guaranteed win because usually they do so much damage that if you slip up you are dead or close to dead, but you will come to love facing the typical hambow warrior once you get the hang of it (steal, blindfield, HS to stealth backstab, use your stolen twirl through the blind field for huge damage and aoe blinds, drop another blind field backstab and auto attack, use shadow shot to blind and close gaps, then steal again and repeat until dead).

Its an awesome feeling when you can do that and kill the warrior without having taken any damage, although the good warriors won’t make it so easy on you.

Likewise dps (meditation) guard is good because you have blinds on a few abilities, but it is easier to lose than when playing d/p thief.

Axe/sword / LB warrior beats hambow reliably

Question, what Team Que builds beat a H/LB. ALso anyone know of “Ranger” build that is Meta isn’t designed just for 1v1 that can beat the all in one H/LB build running Solider’s/Lyssa combo.

I’m talking good player vs a good player cause I don’t think there is one at all.

i kill hambow on d/p usually

if i didn’t, it is mostly due to my mistake, no CDs or war had help

Arkimedes.8730:

Thank you guys, I’ve been playing phantasm mesmer, to which hambow is a hardcounter. I’ll try out the engi thing for sure, love that class.

Use phantasmal disenchanter to get the condis off you. I usually die to hambow warrs just cause of condi on my phant mesmer

with a bearbow of course.

Condi PU mesmer works, it just takes some time. Avoid red circles, have a tp or dodge ready to avoid hammer, try to keep staff clones out mainly, watch it melt. If he runs don’t bother trying to catch him (you’re not equipped for that), just recap the point.

If you get killed as a phantasm mesmer against a hambow, you’re doing something wrong.

hihey.1075:

If you get killed as a phantasm mesmer against a hambow, you’re doing something wrong.

False. Any competent Warrior will kill off your phantasms (which normally takes only a few hits) and your damage will drop so far that you can’t outdamage the sustain that a Warrior has. Of course there’s plenty of FOTM Warrior rerollers that have no idea, but in general a Phantasm Mesmer will struggle against a decent Warrior.

PU Condi Mesmer, however, is a decent counter to most HamBow warriors. The problem is that it takes ages and if the Warrior is losing and chooses to disengage, there’s nothing the Mesmer can do about it then as it’s the slowest class in the game and the PU Condi one has no CC to stop the Warrior from fleeing.

I personally run a Lockdown Mesmer, centred on interrupts, dazes and stuns and have relatively little problem with most Warriors. It’s much less forgiving than a PU Condi one, but has much more CC, burst and boon-stripping and you need all that to take a Warrior down. And nothing beats chain-dazing/stunning a HamBow. ;-)

A well-played Mesmer is one of the few classes that can stand up to a Warrior, but even then the disparity is glaring: make a mistake on your Mesmer and you’re toast, but make a mistake on a Warrior and chances are you’ll be fine.

engineer 15char

Necro is a great nod contender vs a hambow with all the sustain from life siphoning…

leman.7682:

Necro is a great nod contender vs a hambow with all the sustain from life siphoning…

…hambow was pretty much made with the intention of countering necro in mind.

and I’ve never seen “necro” and “sustain” used together in a serious context

Actually, I take what I said earlier back, I just ran into a bow build with too much healing/mitigation (and quite good damage) for me to beat with d/p; although a more skilled player may have better luck.

Fighting a hambow is always going to be an uphill fight if you don’t have poison or stability, unless you are also a ham bow. For most classes, specially thieves, it only takes one stun to end it all. Your best bet is to burst them while having stability so that they don’t get the crit and damage bonus from stunning you or consistently applying poison.

As a med guard the only time I’ve been able to get the upper hand on hambow warriors is if they’re bad and I have SYG up. I play a GS and s/f med guard so that probably helps make things harder as a 0/30/30/5/5 might have it easier but I play a 0/15/30/5/20.

Like the thief before hand said, blinds are real important and with the build I use I have access to 4 of them and each of them applies 3 stacks of vuln for 10 seconds each. I try to reapply a blind immediately after the last one is used so that the war ends up missing with one of his crucial skills. I try to stall when he uses zerker stance using focus 5 and SYG so that I don’t get cced down and then proceed to blind the hell outta him and get my GS and sword bursts off.

Most ‘decent’ wars though will recognise that I’m a guard with no range and just use their bow against me. Far too easy to kite me even with hydromancy sigils and runes of speed.

Also lack of access to poison means missing any burst or not consistently being up in a wars face means they will out heal and damage you in the long run. Smart wars will see that and just keep planting fire fields forcing you to fight them in it.

P.S sry for the wall of text

T.L.D.R
Get poison and stability, avoid their big damage skills and more importantly their setup skills (pin down, hammer shock, staggering blow etc.) and then you may have a fighting chance.

it may sound silly but MMs can do pretty good against Hambow noobs,
since most of them are just that, noobs.
if you grab the trait that gives minions a 10% chance each hit to remove boons you can pretty much nullify any stability/regen they have, then just cc them to death while your minions pummel away at their health, be sure to keep poison up so healing sig and adrenal won’t heal very much and keep your minions out of the fire (by fearing the warrior out so the minions follow)
usually the war will chase you so you can lead him (and your minions) out of the fire

you have 2 fears, 2 immobilizes, 1 chill, 1 knockdown, 1 blind, (and thats just from staff)
scepter gives you perma poison and a cripple, throw on warhorn and you have another cripple and a daze.

dps sword guardian will melt hambow, i know i got melted a lot cant rem. his name though.

Dps guard, condi nade engi.

You’ll basically always come out of the fight low simply because of how Combustive Shot + warrior sustain works, though.

Marsares.2053:

hihey.1075:

If you get killed as a phantasm mesmer against a hambow, you’re doing something wrong.

False. Any competent Warrior will kill off your phantasms (which normally takes only a few hits) and your damage will drop so far that you can’t outdamage the sustain that a Warrior has. Of course there’s plenty of FOTM Warrior rerollers that have no idea, but in general a Phantasm Mesmer will struggle against a decent Warrior.

It is up to the Mesmer to place its phantasms in a way that the warrior can’t kill all of them with a single burst. With the proper amount of space, the fight is really easy. When I’m fighting a Hambow I merely even get hit once – and this usually happens because they managed to Pin Down me, but luckily, with the buffed Mender’s Purity, that is easily taken care of.
A competent Warrior will of course go after the phantasms, but I assure you that the mesmer has a lot of ways to keep doing damage.
However, I will not post my build here, but I have yet to be beaten by a hambow in a proper 1v1. It’s a long fight, that’s true, but they are killable.

A well-played Mesmer is one of the few classes that can stand up to a Warrior, but even then the disparity is glaring: make a mistake on your Mesmer and you’re toast, but make a mistake on a Warrior and chances are you’ll be fine.

100% agree with this, though with the amount of stunbreakers the mesmer has, you have plenty of “second chances” even as a mesmer. The warrior, on the other hand, has an insane amount of boring, braindead passive defenses which can make up for the player lack of skill.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fIAQNApZTjcO9upQCPMxBAkCtqyoYofUPsbu4A-TsAg0CnIMSZkzIjRSjsGNKY9xkAA

This is the warrior build I am currently running. I have been testing it in solo and team Q as well as duels. And I have had little problems killing Hammer/bow warriors. The problem with playing easy builds is that the opponent lose their skill while playing that spec. This means that the opponent will make many mistakes, and you can capitalize on those mistakes by delivering punishment.

This build is great because it provides the ability to dodge many times, as well as giving you stuns, pin down for immobilize, and blind as well as one block. This may not sound like much. But together, and used at the right time, most classes crumble before my mighty maces!

1) Kite to somewhere that doesn’t have a tonne of particle going on. Preferably on hill on terrain. This messes with their AoE skills.

2) play the weapon, not the player. Just auto attack happily until you see them come towards you>back way>wait for a leap>dodge>see weapon swap>dodge towards them and behind them and that will misfire any bow attempt and put it on short cool down>keep frustrating them until you know they have blown their stances. After that they become 200% easier to remove from the map.

I am a warrior player and I think hambow is good, but ultimately it is a very weird weapon. It over achieve’s in PvP and is underwhelming in PvE. That alone suggests it could do with a rework. As long as the rework is good, most players would be satisfied.

Liewec.2896:

it may sound silly but MMs can do pretty good against Hambow noobs,
since most of them are just that, noobs.
if you grab the trait that gives minions a 10% chance each hit to remove boons you can pretty much nullify any stability/regen they have, then just cc them to death while your minions pummel away at their health, be sure to keep poison up so healing sig and adrenal won’t heal very much and keep your minions out of the fire (by fearing the warrior out so the minions follow)
usually the war will chase you so you can lead him (and your minions) out of the fire

you have 2 fears, 2 immobilizes, 1 chill, 1 knockdown, 1 blind, (and thats just from staff)
scepter gives you perma poison and a cripple, throw on warhorn and you have another cripple and a daze.

Careful-careful..you’re providing A-net the fodder to nerf MM by stacking their accomplishments on a build that is 50% A.I and can still boost that amount of tactics with minimal micro managing.

Med dps guards generally beat them if you play right. Dodge the Arcing Arrow, and you’re fine most of the time. Combustive Shot isn’t really a big deal, it can actually work in your favor if you trait Inner Fire.

Make sure you save all your blinds and blocks when he pulls out the hammer. Generally med dps guards don’t have stab, so that’s the one big issue.

Use hambow. Or any class with healing signet

Static discharge engi! Just don’t let them catch you or look a at you too hard.

Sooo. I’ll assume you’re not playing warrior yourself. If you are, just play a better hambow or play the bugged sword offhand, it’s an autowin. Other than that, it depends if you have to fight on node.

Thief with sword pistol or dagger pistol should win easily (black powder whirl funzzies). Sword dagger in 1v1 will kill most random warriors but you’ll lose to the good ones.

Ranger can mayyyybe kill a hambow if you don’t have to care about the node at all and he needs to stick on it to defend his cap. You shouldn’t at least die in 1v1 against one.

Engi with nades wins by standing out of reach. Condi fighter type builds like Teldo’s can have a chance as well, but it’s way less certain.

Ele, humm, no.

Mesmer, you win if you stand off node and outrange him with greatsword and count dodges before shattering. You can also quickly strafe left and right to bug out the longbow shots.

Necro, same story, outrange and cripple/chill alot. Flesh wurm is golden as well.

And no guardian can ever kill a hambow, ever. No matter what spec.

Now all of that ofc relies on you playing your class efficiently. Overall, don’t waste your kitten. The warrior has an easier time against you that you have against him but you can still abuse his lack of mobility by outranging and kiting him alot. It’ll take time, but you can still win rather easily, as the hammer animation are huuuuge anyway. Granted it’s annoying and tanky as kitten, but still not the hardest to fight. Not sure if trying to fight one 1v1 during a tpvp game is worth it anyway, it’ll take too long.
On the other hand, axe sword longbow is 10000000x more broken. Just run against those.

Should re-name thread to “how do I beat healing signet”.
You’re not actually fighting against a warrior, you’re fighting against healing signet while the warrior happens to be doing stuff in the background.

KarsaiB.9475:

Sooo. I’ll assume you’re not playing warrior yourself. If you are, just play a better hambow or play the bugged sword offhand, it’s an autowin. Other than that, it depends if you have to fight on node.

Thief with sword pistol or dagger pistol should win easily (black powder whirl funzzies). Sword dagger in 1v1 will kill most random warriors but you’ll lose to the good ones.

Ranger can mayyyybe kill a hambow if you don’t have to care about the node at all and he needs to stick on it to defend his cap. You shouldn’t at least die in 1v1 against one.

Engi with nades wins by standing out of reach. Condi fighter type builds like Teldo’s can have a chance as well, but it’s way less certain.

Ele, humm, no.

Mesmer, you win if you stand off node and outrange him with greatsword and count dodges before shattering. You can also quickly strafe left and right to bug out the longbow shots.

Necro, same story, outrange and cripple/chill alot. Flesh wurm is golden as well.

And no guardian can ever kill a hambow, ever. No matter what spec.

Now all of that ofc relies on you playing your class efficiently. Overall, don’t waste your kitten. The warrior has an easier time against you that you have against him but you can still abuse his lack of mobility by outranging and kiting him alot. It’ll take time, but you can still win rather easily, as the hammer animation are huuuuge anyway. Granted it’s annoying and tanky as kitten, but still not the hardest to fight. Not sure if trying to fight one 1v1 during a tpvp game is worth it anyway, it’ll take too long.
On the other hand, axe sword longbow is 10000000x more broken. Just run against those.

Disagree with the guardian part. A mediation guardian can beat the standard hambow warrior build.

But generally Hambow warriors are annyoing. They can place a a nasty aoe on the capture point for a long time.

Going to agree that a meditation dps guardian with sigil of leeching/ sigil of blood does really well against them. Sigil of blood does 300 damage with a 2 second icd, so it helps against healing signet well enough. Smite condition is really useful against them as it helps you keep pressure.

Axe/ Dagger + Sword/ Warhorn rangers with perma poison application does really well against them as well with boar/ spider pet.

I’ve had success against them with a phantasmal mesmer. Scepter/Sword + Sword/ Pistol with Project. Reflect Heal/ Phant Disenchanter/ Mimic or Arcane Thievery(since they have no access to blinds)/ Blink.

I know the secret, all warriors hate me!
to beat a warrior using hambow you simply KILL HIM. big red fire circle – it has a duration. If warrior goes power – his condi dmg is pathetic. You can dance in it. Warrior does big swing animation – dodge it. Traited warrior can do hammer combo every 24 seconds. shouts have 1min of cooldown. IF your are doing 0 dmg out of the blue – means its 4(5)s immune to it – save cooldowns and wait. Use advantages your class has and thats the big secret.

The worst problem I have with hambows is that sometimes they are little asuras and they are hidden by my max sized norn. So I ca barely see what they are doing. Racist Anet.XD

Now I see why most top warriors run asuras (even with GS, moving too much with a big doofus can put you in places where you see nothing).XD

Introp.8465:

I know the secret, all warriors hate me!
to beat a warrior using hambow you simply KILL HIM. big red fire circle – it has a duration. If warrior goes power – his condi dmg is pathetic. You can dance in it. Warrior does big swing animation – dodge it. Traited warrior can do hammer combo every 24 seconds. shouts have 1min of cooldown. IF your are doing 0 dmg out of the blue – means its 4(5)s immune to it – save cooldowns and wait. Use advantages your class has and thats the big secret.

Combustive shot has 9 sec duration on a 8-10 sec CD. Earthshaker also has an 8-10 sec CD.

Hammer animations are good, it actually used to be fun fighting against warrior because the animations are generally really well implemented.

Yasha.5963:

Introp.8465:

I know the secret, all warriors hate me!
to beat a warrior using hambow you simply KILL HIM. big red fire circle – it has a duration. If warrior goes power – his condi dmg is pathetic. You can dance in it. Warrior does big swing animation – dodge it. Traited warrior can do hammer combo every 24 seconds. shouts have 1min of cooldown. IF your are doing 0 dmg out of the blue – means its 4(5)s immune to it – save cooldowns and wait. Use advantages your class has and thats the big secret.

Combustive shot has 9 sec duration on a 8-10 sec CD. Earthshaker also has an 8-10 sec CD.

Hammer animations are good, it actually used to be fun fighting against warrior because the animations are generally really well implemented.

I think he meant that Earthshaker alone is not the real threat, which is kinda true, but it’s also true that the warrior might not use the others until he lands Earthshaker. However, I think he means that you have to dodge only once every 10 seconds, for without Earthshaker they won’t deal great damage. It’s also true that you can avoid some skills with impredictable movement, without the need to dodge.

However, when I fight hammer warrs as engi I have to rely on dodges, blinds and blocks in order to survive.

As soon as you face one … imagine the player behind the warrior looks like this …

Even if you lose .. you will die with a smile on your face …

Jokes aside … what Amaterasu said.

Hambow skilled for condition damage is a blast. Very hard to kill. I would like to have such condtion removal on my engi just for one day

7 months later…

Dead Muppet.9718:

7 months later…

If you haven’t managed by now necroing an old thread won’t save you.

Dead Muppet.9718:

7 months later…

reported for resurrecting a thread, necromancy is not allowed.

Lachanche.6859:

necromancy is not allowed.

But it’s even in the game, how can it not be allowed????

The “reviver” has not yet clarified if he is a necromancer or not. However my money is on banner rez.

hambow is easy if you know how to dodge their elite. hambow is easy to dodge. You rrally can use any build to beat but just know how to dodge

Depends what type of hambow warrior, the trick is to keep them under pressure always because that passive heal will tick for a good amount if they have you CCed for a long time, don’t let them play with time, time dodge their main attacks and use stability wisely.