Guild Wars 2

This thread is meant to bring constructive feedback to help our beloved hammer get back into the shining light of viability.

Feel free to add suggestions and ideas of what should be changed about hammer and its trait.

I’m having issues with the auto attack on hammer tbh. The weapon is a nice controll weapon but that’s about it. In PvE I almost never see any guardian running hammer and it’s kinda sad.

cloudysan.4397:

I’m having issues with the auto attack on hammer tbh. The weapon is a nice controll weapon but that’s about it. In PvE I almost never see any guardian running hammer and it’s kinda sad.

Hammer is good for sustained DPS if you got the zeal traits.

Hammer is a good weapon and certainly is up there in the meta for fractals.

Auto chain and Mighty Blow is great. The problem is with other skills.

Faster cast on 3rd and 4th skill; and allowing movement while casting the 5th skill should be the chamges we see. They are mostly very easy to avoid as they are right now.

While we’re theorycrafting improvements: the auto-attack should not include a combo field. No auto-attack should; combo fields should be something players use deliberately not an incidental part of the auto chain that interferes with coordinated group combo use.

Of course this would require rebalancing the auto and/or other skills to avoid a DPS loss.

Hammer 3 and 4 got a new life in PvE with the break bar, you can destroy half a champion’s bar using only hammer, then destroy the other with 2 traps.
I do feel the symbol on AutoAttack is really clunky, it is good, its really good, but reaaaally clunky.
As for Hammer 5… it sucks in PvE. Most enemies don’t move a lot and enemies with stability can just move out of it without any damage to their breakbar. Long casttime, barely any damage on breakbar (only if you’re lucky) long cooldown. I guess this move is 100% balance for PvP

The problems with hammer are thus

1: The AA is dreadfully slow & creates a light field that overrides other fields

2: Banish has a long cast time

3: Wards. They are mostly useless against champs/ledgends in PvE & anything with stability or a teleport/shadowstep in PvP.

Sadly they are unlikely to address these problems as they have been around since launch and they have yet to mention anything about them no matter how many complaints they get.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

The problems with hammer are thus

1: The AA is dreadfully slow & creates a light field that overrides other fields

2: Banish has a long cast time

3: Wards. They are mostly useless against champs/ledgends in PvE & anything with stability or a teleport/shadowstep in PvP.

Sadly they are unlikely to address these problems as they have been around since launch and they have yet to mention anything about them no matter how many complaints they get.

Good point but shield had problems since launch too and it good fixed… well, after a long time but still ^^
My thought is that we could have AA without combo field, but as fast as other hammers and a little 10% AA damage increase to it with a 1 sec cripple every 3rd hit.
Now mighty blow (which feels kind of unmighty now) could have 1 or 2 seconds CD increase but drop the prot field for 4-5 seconds and as it is mighty, it should have 15% critical chance increase (without ICD but with trait).
Now this sounds mighty indeed

Hammer is one of the best weapons period. The 5 is perfect for certain areas, especially fractals, where you pull enemies and then move around the corner, put out the 5 and it acts as stun and you beat the life out of them.

If Guardian GS wasnt so perfect, Hammer would be extremely popular

Azure.8670:

Hammer is one of the best weapons period. The 5 is perfect for certain areas, especially fractals, where you pull enemies and then move around the corner, put out the 5 and it acts as stun and you beat the life out of them.

If Guardian GS wasnt so perfect, Hammer would be extremely popular

GS iz a multi-tool. We need hammer to be the same as it is an iconic weapon of our class throughout all mmorpgs. As we can see, something is surely off if we see hammer guards to be rare like Pepe. Sure, fractals are nice but what about other stuff?
I will fight for the rights of our beloved blunt weapon as we can not have great axes nor polearms

Rodzynald.5897:

Azure.8670:

Hammer is one of the best weapons period. The 5 is perfect for certain areas, especially fractals, where you pull enemies and then move around the corner, put out the 5 and it acts as stun and you beat the life out of them.

If Guardian GS wasnt so perfect, Hammer would be extremely popular

GS iz a multi-tool. We need hammer to be the same as it is an iconic weapon of our class throughout all mmorpgs. As we can see, something is surely off if we see hammer guards to be rare like Pepe. Sure, fractals are nice but what about other stuff?
I will fight for the rights of our beloved blunt weapon as we can not have great axes nor polearms

I 100% agree with you. I actually think warrior hammer is how hammer should be, except it has super low damage. 1hs and GS dominate in the dps department in this game and I dont know why

There was a thread somewhere and someone was testing out our weapons’ AA dps without any stats/runes/sigils on heavy golem and it turned out that hammer has the highest dps somehow, well it might be the best AA damage of all our weapons but hey, players are not dummies
This thread may die out soon enough but I’ll carry on the love of hammers until it gets the proper treatment it deserves

The new F1 pull combined with a Mighty Blow or #5 right after does feel really satisfying however :)

Vikkela.7261:

The new F1 pull combined with a Mighty Blow or #5 right after does feel really satisfying however

The problem with #5 has always been that it is to slow and never catches anyone inside it without the use of another move. You can’t use it while moving, enemies glitch through the ring all the time and now everyone has stability or a move to get out of it easily that the move just doesn’t matter as much as it used to.
I mean class that are using skills that make them invul are able to just walk through it like it is nothing.

Look at the hammer on every class that can use it and look how fast and fluid the skills are. Our hammer skills are outdated and everyone knows what to look out for with a hammer guard. Hammer needs a revamp so i can use my Juggz again

^ Tis true.
It really looks like guard overall seems that he lacks some good passives like other classes (that we are somehow outdated on core specs) but that’s something from a different barrel, for another thread.

I like it that there are so little people that claim for our hammer to be fine, this means that we are on a good way to start something as most of us agree on updating hammer
If we keep on this kind of threads some of the Devs could see that we crave for some better hammer action.

Respect tha hammah !

Problem is we need more people to speak up about it and their are to many who will say that the weapon is fine even though they never use it. Out of all the classes Guardian weapons are the ones that have been the least updated in the 3 years the game has been out. sad but true

Did Anet ever fix Might Blow + JI? The threads about it disappeared soon after HoT release.

ZoroDaOtter.3859:

Did Anet ever fix Might Blow + JI? The threads about it disappeared soon after HoT release.

Nope, i think josh likes having guardians have only 1 weapon trait to do with the hammer. As it stands there is no reason to use hammer.

I think that chill should proc more frequently like 5 second ICD considering how slow hammer is, or 10 sec CD but faster hammer without symbol.
I see we lack passive stabs where everone else has stabs or evades for days.
How about AA being as slow as it is, but 3rd hit gives 5 second 1 stab and perhaps a slight heal (or maybe 10% damage dealt from hammer is a heal – trait). Now Mighty blow should be on longer cooldown (10 seconds with trait) but do True Shot damage and a 8 second protection symbol with pulsing 1 stab every 2 seconds.
How about that ?

EDIT:
Now it came to me.
If warrior’s hammer is about knocking and stunning, then guard’s hammer should be about being slow but STABLE !
Hammer would be a great pvp weapon then, to give yourself and allies stabs while smackin’ enemies.

Hammer problems:
Glacial Heart is too weak. (ICD is waaay too long)
Traits that would really help a Hammer build shine are too spread out (or overlap other important hammer traits.)
Unavoidable Light Field disrupts fire fields, which are WAY more powerful.
Hammer 3, 4, and 5 cast times are too long.

Farzo.8410:

cloudysan.4397:

I’m having issues with the auto attack on hammer tbh. The weapon is a nice controll weapon but that’s about it. In PvE I almost never see any guardian running hammer and it’s kinda sad.

Hammer is good for sustained DPS if you got the zeal traits.

Hammer is a good weapon and certainly is up there in the meta for fractals.

Not Zeal. Zeal and Honor. Honor affects hammer dps much more than Zeal ever will. Obviously, get both for wonderful synergy, but if you had to drop one, but still wanted to do decent damage with hammer, drop Zeal.

Math: Hammer Swing 0.8 + Hammer Bash 0.9 + Symbol of Protection 1.0+1.5 = 5.2 power coefficient

With Writ of Persistence, add 1.0 for the 2 extra ticks on the symbol: 6.2 power coefficient.

6.2/5.2 = 1.19, or a 19% damage increase by taking Writ of Persistence. What other weapon gives you a 19% damage boosting trait?

The full chain completes in 3.7 seconds. 6.2/3.7 = 1.68 power coefficient/second

Compare this to the warrior’s axe (their strongest autoattack weapon) which completes in 3.6 seconds. They get Chop 0.7 + Double Chop 1.4 + Triple Chop 2.9 = 5

Since I’m giving the hammer one grandmaster trait, let’s give the warrior one too and add in Dual Wielding to turn that 3.6 seconds into 3.06 seconds.

5/3.06 = 1.63 power coefficient/second

Writ of Persistence hammer beats out Dual Wielding Warrior axe. Don’t forget that since hammer is a two handed weapon, and axe is one handed, it also has a higher weapon strength stat, furthering the difference (damage = power x weapon strength). Guardian hammer (with Writ of Persistence) has the strongest autoattack chain. It requires the target to stay in the symbol for the full 5 ticks though, but at least with Writ of Persistence that symbol is pretty kitten huge. It lacks any sort of burst damage though.

In spvp and WvW: Has anyone had any sort of decent success/effective use of hammer? Ever since HoT came out, I haven’t seen a single hammer-guardian user. Tried it a bit myself, but it’s almost completely overshadowed by longbow: Longbow does better damage, is ranged, has comparable CC which can be more useful in my opinion.

As for hambow, I tried this, but honestly found much more success with greatsword instead of hammer. GS furnished better overall sustainability and pressure in just about any conquest, and especially stronghold scenarios.

It’s too early to say this for sure, but I think hammer is going to need a bit of an overhaul to both its skills, and to that trait. As is, it doesn’t perform very well in spvp, WvW, or roaming. It is a CC/support weapon? Yes, but there are other builds on other classes that fill this role MUCH more efficiently than a hammer guardian does. It has burst? Mighty blow would need a damage increase to merit that claim True shot is where it’s at right now.

Woah, I am glad that this thread gets so much attention, looks like our hammer really needs some good touch.

I run hammer in spvp and pve for a week, along with longbow and it is not too shabby but ham’s damage and skill feel somehow “raw”.
By raw I mean that it lacks something extra to it be it damage or certain triggering effects (excluding AA symbol). I look at scrapper’s hammer AA buffs and Im really wondering why they get so much of the good stuff.
As I said in my last post and considering that ham is a CC/support weapon.
The CC is quite rare. In this case banish should have 12 second cooldown and ring of warding about 20 (both on trait). Now it’s just an occasional CC due to very long cooldowns even with trait. But such weapon that has CC’s should at least have a one strong burst or AA chain.
I think that in supportive and damaging aspect, hammer could keep its normal AA damage and speed but 3rd attack instead of symbol, should give us and our allies a slight heal (like mace) and 1 stab for let’s say 5 seconds.
Now my fav ability which is Mighty Blow should be on 4-5 more seconds longer cooldown but True Shot’s damage, symbol for 6 seconds (pulsing 1 stab every 2 seconds stacking duration and protection in the same interval as it is now) and 5 stacks of might.

Hammer, a long time ago, was an alternative weapon with really close DPS to the ancient Greatsword + Sword/Focus. These days, for PvE, compared with Longbow + Greatsword, it’s a very subpar weapon only worth for it’s quick and short cooldown blast finisher and control. It’s not even a sustain weapon, it’s outright lower overall, although Staff will always be the lootstiks we have.

Rodzynald.5897:

Woah, I am glad that this thread gets so much attention, looks like our hammer really needs some good touch.

I run hammer in spvp and pve for a week, along with longbow and it is not too shabby but ham’s damage and skill feel somehow “raw”.
By raw I mean that it lacks something extra to it be it damage or certain triggering effects (excluding AA symbol). I look at scrapper’s hammer AA buffs and Im really wondering why they get so much of the good stuff.
As I said in my last post and considering that ham is a CC/support weapon.
The CC is quite rare. In this case banish should have 12 second cooldown and ring of warding about 20 (both on trait). Now it’s just an occasional CC due to very long cooldowns even with trait. But such weapon that has CC’s should at least have a one strong burst or AA chain.
I think that in supportive and damaging aspect, hammer could keep its normal AA damage and speed but 3rd attack instead of symbol, should give us and our allies a slight heal (like mace) and 1 stab for let’s say 5 seconds.
Now my fav ability which is Mighty Blow should be on 4-5 more seconds longer cooldown but True Shot’s damage, symbol for 6 seconds (pulsing 1 stab every 2 seconds stacking duration and protection in the same interval as it is now) and 5 stacks of might.

I like these changes. Instead of making hammer a power creep weapon, this would make hammer deal decent damage provided that you land mighty blow (requires strategy/tactical use). Otherwise hammer provides frequent and decent CCs on lower cool downs. I would argue that we don’t need any change to the hammer auto attack other than a lower cast time on the third hit. Hammer #3 could do with a bit of cool down reduction as well (lower damage, more frequent immobs makes it very team friendly for coordinated bursts).

Additionally I’d like to see a change/shifting around of the hammer trait. As is, no one is ever going to take that hammer trait considering what it’s competing with… Glacial heart should be placed in either valor or honor, and should have a somewhat different effect. The idea behind glacial heart is to add some burst to hammer coupled with a soft CC ability. To pull this off, I think the icd should be reduced to 8 seconds. The visual effect should be a blue flame-burst, and the effect would be cripple and 2 stacks of burning (both power and condi-build friendly).

If changes similar to these are made, I think we’d see a lot more balanced hammer, and see more creative guardian builds in all game modes.

Hammer #1 move the symbol off of the AA and get it cripple or another cc to keep enemies close to us
Hammer #2 increase cool down but move the symbol onto this
Hammer #3 increase the number of tendrils to 3 and include a pull fuction to it (this is to keep enemies to us
Hammer #4 increase number of targets that can be hit or lower cool down
Hammer #5 should be able to use on the move, people shouldn’t be able to move out of it without stability and if activated twice makes the move into a vortex so it sucks players in.

^ would make hammer a lot more enjoyable to play with as you have more options

will do another post for traits

Xhyros.1340:

Not Zeal. Zeal and Honor. Honor affects hammer dps much more than Zeal ever will. Obviously, get both for wonderful synergy, but if you had to drop one, but still wanted to do decent damage with hammer, drop Zeal.

I’m not saying you are wrong, but I have a hard time believing that Honor out damages Zeal when it comes to the Hammer. Yes, Writ of Persistence gives a 19% damage increase, but the rest of the Honor line only adds ~3 stacks of might. Compared to the Zeal line which gives +20% damage as long as you are standing in your symbols (10% + ~3 stacks of vulnerability) and the target is on fire (7%). And on top of that gives your symbols 10% more damage and a 33% chance to burn, and for berserker builds ~250 bonus condition damage.

I dunno guys…

The Hammer is by far my most beloved weapon of the Guardian kitten nal. It feels like it does not have ANY ability affected by the power creep. It is a CC/support weapon so maybe this is why. There wasn’t any CC creep I got told. So obviously if a weapon set lets say GS has 3 damaging abilities it has more effect from the creep than a weapon with only one damaging ability.

It DOES feel underwhelming to wield a Hammer now. It needs some “oomph” let it be CD reduction, might, extra damage on MB, whatever.

Note: you can bypass the AbsoluteResolution trait just by slotting PurgingFlames to take GlacialHeart. I tried this… Since GH is almost useless (cool I now have CD reduction an the abilities I can land once in a blue moon…) there is still no point to take GH over AR “even” if you slot PF for virtually condi-immunity.

Hammer is in a bad-bad spot right now. It was not affected by the power-creep, it’s trait is a competitor for one of our strongest trait in a teamfight and it has no party support apart of landing 1-2 CC in a MINUTE! (seriously if somebody dies to a JI+Ward+Zealot’sEmbrace+MB+Banish combo… This takes like 6 seconds! They would also die to a ranger shooting autoattack on them…)

Sad Guardin’! :S

I am astonished that you guys are so creative about what hammer should be and that you really wish for it to be something more. It pleases me and I bet you are pleased as well.
Let’s try to keep this on surface because as I read guard forums very frequently, I didn’t see any hammer topics. It might take a long time for Devs (cheers Karl) to see this, and even then it doesn’t have to work out as we see fit but it’s always worth a shot.

Hammer is a brilliant weapon that fits our archetype just as greatsword does and it has to be worth for us to use it at full capability that it deserves and I believe that it will get some love soon enough.

Indure.5410:

Xhyros.1340:

Not Zeal. Zeal and Honor. Honor affects hammer dps much more than Zeal ever will. Obviously, get both for wonderful synergy, but if you had to drop one, but still wanted to do decent damage with hammer, drop Zeal.

I’m not saying you are wrong, but I have a hard time believing that Honor out damages Zeal when it comes to the Hammer. Yes, Writ of Persistence gives a 19% damage increase, but the rest of the Honor line only adds ~3 stacks of might. Compared to the Zeal line which gives +20% damage as long as you are standing in your symbols (10% + ~3 stacks of vulnerability) and the target is on fire (7%). And on top of that gives your symbols 10% more damage and a 33% chance to burn, and for berserker builds ~250 bonus condition damage.

10% bonus to enemies in symbols. 10% bonus to symbols. 10% bonus to symbols is garbage. Without honor that turns it from a 5.2 to a 5.35. The 10% bonus to enemies in symbols would turn that to a 5.885. The bonus to burning turns that into 6.29, but you have to remember, without Writ of Persistance, that 10% bonus to enemies in symbols is not going to be up all the time, and the area is going to be much smaller. 6.29 in best case, which it’s not going to be because the symbol duration just isn’t long enough.

This thread is amazing let’s keep the ideas flowin fellow guard bros. I made a post about this earlier but if any dev reads this thread don’t forget about mighty blow+JI. Cause I love that and it added a lot of synergy to hammer that is now gone. Now for the peeps in the thread I had an idea for #3 on hammer. When activated it would give us a movement speed bonus for up to 6 sec (looks like blue light around your body) and you could press again to stun enemy for 2 sec. I feel that would be alot better fit to hammer than the obvious and almost usless immob

Edit: If devs really don’t want movement speed for a short while so we won’t get kited I could pulse stab or be like -50% damage

I have no idea how you would truly fix the hammer, but I would like to see ArenaNet strongly consider giving Ring of Warding similar properties to Test of Faith, so if you use it against a boss or player with stability they will still take spike damage or debuff for leaving the ward. Also I would love to see Banish get a ~7-10 sec cripple added to it to synergize with the DH’s Zealot’s Aggression, either giving hammer 10% damage and a reason to use Banish on bosses, or so that hammer will fit in as a great secondary weapon for Guardians interested in using a longbow.

My personal experience with hammer is great. I treat it as a supporty/tank weapon. It does give a permanent uptime of protection which, even if you’re wearing full zerk, you end up feeling tanky, especially with Writ of Persistence traited with the extra heals.

It’s also a great CC weapon for the new break bars. I can’t comment on DPS, since I find Greatsword better for that still.

Hammer has some conceptual issues and HoT amplifies them … if you want the great things Hammer gives you, you’re standing in melee range uninterrupted for the duration of the Auto Attack. So even though you can get perma-protection, you’re sucking up opposition melee attacks to get it, or losing alot of your damage trying to avoid them. You can’t really afford to do either of those things in HoT.

I would love to see the symbol moved off to another skill. I have no hope that would happen at this point in the game.

would be nice to get more input from the community, but it shows how little people care about the hammer. No one to defend it or add to to it because it is so over looked

I would really like hammer to get some love, i find GS tiring in the long run and not as impactful as hammer animations and sounds. I am here only to support the hammer love, don’t have much to theorycraft about though.

GreyWraith.8394:

While we’re theorycrafting improvements: the auto-attack should not include a combo field. No auto-attack should; combo fields should be something players use deliberately not an incidental part of the auto chain that interferes with coordinated group combo use.

Of course this would require rebalancing the auto and/or other skills to avoid a DPS loss.

Oh my god yes. It could just apply aoe protection for 3 seconds or whatever. Since there is no more combo field, damage is nerfed, oh wait we gotta fix that, so Mighty Blow gets fat buff! Wooo its easily the most enjoyable skill in the game to use.

johnmcpraise.1243:

don’t have much to theorycraft about though.

WHAT ARE YOU?!

Well, we won’t get much for hammer right now I think but I guess that getting symbol off the AA chain and giving it normal atk speed with 3rd hit to apply 4 second protection as AoE, NOT SYMBOL (we would be able to keep 33% reduction all this time on us and our allies with just AA chain which is good enough), chill ICD lowered to 10 seconds and mighty blow damage increased to true shot (MB is just a melee version of TS but weaker), this would be just enough for hammer to be widely viable for us in every aspect.

P.S. as melee has lower hand than ranged, MB could also have 1 stab for 2 seconds (but increased CD to 6 seconds with trait) OR 15% critical chance increase all the time (ofc with trait)

Been playing hammer since closed beta (pvp/wvw/pve) and i love it but it is outdated atm.

What needs to be done is:
1. Remove one tick from SoP and reduce casting time on third step of the auto.
2. Make the current SoP a pure aoe (no symbol/combo field) and add a rather strong selfheal (not teamwide that is a mace job) or instant x seconds of protection
3. Slight increase in range (+200) on MB and add some sort of condition, why not chill and just delete glacial heart). An other way is to increase range dramatically and make it ground targeted. The last being my personal favorite, its so much more fun playing with ground targeting. how about 900 range ;-)
4. balance the damage between skill 1 and 2 so both are used in every dps rotation in pve.
5. Increase damage on #3 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve. Speed up the “projectile” speed.
6. Increase damage on #4 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve and make it affect 3 players.
7. Let us move while casting #5 and make it a fire field and also apply burning to players that crosses it or bounces into it.
8. Move the hammer trait. Its current spot in virtues effectively eliminates the weapon from pvp and wvw.

Brutaly.6257:

Been playing hammer since closed beta (pvp/wvw/pve) and i love it but it is outdated atm.

What needs to be done is:
1. Remove one tick from SoP and reduce casting time on third step of the auto.
2. Make the current SoP a pure aoe (no symbol/combo field) and add a rather strong selfheal (not teamwide that is a mace job) or instant x seconds of protection
3. Slight increase in range (+200) on MB and add some sort of condition, why not chill and just delete glacial heart). An other way is to increase range dramatically and make it ground targeted. The last being my personal favorite, its so much more fun playing with ground targeting. how about 900 range ;-)
4. balance the damage between skill 1 and 2 so both are used in every dps rotation in pve.
5. Increase damage on #3 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve. Speed up the “projectile” speed.
6. Increase damage on #4 so it is a part of a dps rotation in pve and make it affect 3 players.
7. Let us move while casting #5 and make it a fire field and also apply burning to players that crosses it or bounces into it.
8. Move the hammer trait. Its current spot in virtues effectively eliminates the weapon from pvp and wvw.

Why that’s very good, yes I like that !

Ground targeted MB would be more skill based, but then it should have dramatic damage/conditions increase (along with CD) to be really punishing once someone ends up under that AoE.

Rodzynald.5897:

Ground targeted MB would be more skill based, but then it should have dramatic damage/conditions increase (along with CD) to be really punishing once someone ends up under that AoE.

I am all for a increased cd on #2 (if ground targeted) as long ss the other skills get shorter CD. Long cool downs is one of the downsides to the guardian.

8-10 seconds with >25% increase in damage and applying aoe chill, 700-900 range.

Personally would like the sword blink and GS leap to be ground targeted as well. Sure it would increase the skill cap dramatically but also address some of the in combat issues we have, like kittenty mobility.

Brutaly.6257:

4. balance the damage between skill 1 and 2 so both are used in every dps rotation in pve.

This above all else, I love the hammer but if optimal DPS rotation is press 1 and walk away then I think the weapon has some serious problems.

Make Glacial Heart just apply to Mighty Blow, no chance on crit shenanigans. Make Mighty Blow have a higher cooldown, but more damage to compensate.

I would just add a slight self heal on 3rd AA along with AoE protection (not symbol ofc)
and shorter CD on banish and ward.
Little sparkle and sprinkle here and there and we got a brand new hammer.

3rd chain to 3/4 sec and protection nerf to 1 sec
2# attack buff to 2000 base dmg like LB#2
3# cast time 3/4
4# cast time to 3/4
5# casting while walking

I would play with this.

Ragnarox.9601:

3rd chain to 3/4 sec and protection nerf to 1 sec
2# attack buff to 2000 base dmg like LB#2
3# cast time 3/4
4# cast time to 3/4
5# casting while walking

I would play with this.

Add some range (200 more) to 2# and ofc move glacial heart and i can live with those changes as well.

Just make the protection be selfcentered with 600 range and not ground targeted aoe.

Swap Symbol of Protection with Mighty Blow
Decrease Mighty Blow damage by 40%
Increase Symbol of Protection duration to 3s, reduce cast time to 1s
Proposed changes #3-5 from Ragnarox

Not saying I would actually want to run this, but it would be interesting for sure. Also take into consideration a fantasy trait change:
Glacial Heart swapped with Retaliatory Subconscious. Retaliatory Subconscious functionality changed to "Activate Virtue of Courage when affected by [Control Effect].

Ghotistyx.6942:

Swap Symbol of Protection with Mighty Blow
Decrease Mighty Blow damage by 40%
Increase Symbol of Protection duration to 3s, reduce cast time to 1s
Proposed changes #3-5 from Ragnarox

Not saying I would actually want to run this, but it would be interesting for sure. Also take into consideration a fantasy trait change:
Glacial Heart swapped with Retaliatory Subconscious. Retaliatory Subconscious functionality changed to "Activate Virtue of Courage when affected by [Control Effect].

This is also a nice change but bruh… MB damage is already weak, why would anyone think of nerfing it even more ? With 40% dmg decrease it would be just like AA.

Seriously reducing MB damage would kill the weapon for pvp. Its the main contributor since no one stands in the symbol. It would be even more so if anet fixes so mb and aa are balanced so they are a part of a dps rotation in pve.

Adding a symbol to mb would probably force anet to remove the blast finisher which probably is the best blast finisher in tjhe game. This would totally destroy the weapon. A symbol on MB would also keep the current state when hammer “overwrites” more valuable symbols in pve.

I would prefer a total removal of the symbol as long as they keep MB as a blast finisher.