Guild Wars 2

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].

I assume you mean MB would go at the end of the auto attack chain and we would just get another symbol. I think this would put hammer in a worse place than it is now. It would still be a weapon base of just pressing “1” in PVE and would bring far less utility. Also agree that a 40% damage reduction to MB would “literally” make it an auto attack and almost identical to the damage currently done by the hammer 3rd chain attack. Even if MB’s damage was kept as is, having to sit through 3s of auto attacks for the needed spike damage with no protection would not be worth it on the new content area.

My juggernaut is just a blast finisher now It used to be decent for Fractals when protection was worth taking but now people have learned that it’s not really needed anymore.

Rodzynald.5897:

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.

That’s the entire point. MB is faster than SoP (by 40%), so you drop the total damage by 40% so the DPS stays the same while providing more mobility and blast finishers. All that damage goes back into SoP which has now taken MB’s spot and recharge. Due to the cast time, it has 50% uptime untraited, and 100% uptime with Glacial Heart+Writ of Persistence (keep in mind I’m also proposing GH be in a supposedly easier spot to trait for). It inherently lasts longer though, providing area denial at a given time. With SoP on Hammer 2, you can at least intentionally place your Symbol after a preferred combo field.

So you mean to drop damage of MB due to comparing it with the length of how SoP is being cast ?
time =/= damage
If we lose a steady source of burst we rely on then we will be useless 1v1 unless sustained damage gets much stronger. (Remember the wiki: it says that it’s AoE HIGH DAMAGE weapon so it has to deal damage just as GS more or less)
Though on the other hand, if glacial heart was in honor trait line so that we could easily combo it with writ, during team fights a constant 33% reduction and slight heals looks really tempting.
But you know there is also that part where decent players don’t stand in symbols or just fear,knock,pull you out of it, then we don’t have any instant damage blast so we get slowly kited to death while standing in symbol with small heals and a decent dmg reduction.
Buuut, I would go with those changes if Zaelot’s embrace had lower CD, faster projectile speed and pull. ZE has much potential,(let’s not take previous ideas I just gave in my last sentence) it could also root in AoE. You get to root one player but then in 300 yard radius everyone else gets slowed (not rooted and not crippled), 2 second longer duration and applying torment every second.

Skill 3, 4 and 5 need to not be situational in pve. Because they don’t have a consistent use, hammer users are bound to using skill 1 and 2 95% of the time. That is bad design.

glad we are getting some feedback from the community
hopefully we can get a dev to have a look at it

Aza.2105:

Skill 3, 4 and 5 need to not be situational in pve. Because they don’t have a consistent use, hammer users are bound to using skill 1 and 2 95% of the time. That is bad design.

It isn’t necessarily bad design. Weapons are designed to be different, and not every weapon needs to have skills 1-5 be applicable in all situations.

Ghotistyx:

You are right! But as I said if a weapon has 3 out of 5 abilities which are CC spells and we only have power creep it means the weapon is falling behind. The creep on the AA and the #2 is not enough to keep the weapon viable. On a CC weapon you need some kind of “cc-creep” let it be increased damage, reduced CD or added effect.

The hammer is in a bad situation now because the MightyBlow is weaker than the TrueShot the AA chain is slow as a glacier. The CC abilities might come handy but they have extremely long CD even traited.

The whole meta shifted for a faster pace and there is no place for a weapon with mediocre damage and the CC skills on a long CD.

Even +300 range on the MB and -0.3 sec casttime on AA#3 would bring the Hammer back in the meta.

If ANET wants to keep the hammer as a CC weapon they should slightly reduce the CD of the 3-4-5 or add some more effect, like boonstrip on ZE, unblockable on Banish and movable Ring (or pulsing stability or something)…

Just my 2 cents…

Ghotistyx.6942:

Aza.2105:

Skill 3, 4 and 5 need to not be situational in pve. Because they don’t have a consistent use, hammer users are bound to using skill 1 and 2 95% of the time. That is bad design.

It isn’t necessarily bad design. Weapons are designed to be different, and not every weapon needs to have skills 1-5 be applicable in all situations.

I can respect your perspective but I don’t agree. The reason why skills 3, 4 and 5 are rarely used is because they are situational (in pve). The biggest problem is that those skills don’t do much to mobs, particularly bosses.

There aren’t many situations where you want to immobilize a mob for 2secs. There usually aren’t too many situations where you want to knock the mob backwards and there aren’t many times were you want to prevent the mob from running. That type of stuff doesn’t exist in pve really.

Which is the problem.

Well I find banish quite handy in PvE as well (makin’ sweet combos) but truly these skills have too long cooldown, aren’t a part of dps rotation and they feel very situational.
We can’t have all but if Zealot’s Embrace could also daze or interrupt and deplete defiance bar on bosses, then we would find hammer a very cruicial weapon during boss fights.
I don’t think that 3 and 4 will see a dps boost because we have to be aware that hammer is a supportive weapon, even though it is said that it has to deal high AoE damage, that part belongs to AA and Mighty Blow.
If we sprinkled a (non trait) 5 second reduction on 3,4 and 5 along with 5 being cast while moving, but let the damage be low then hammer would definitely be viable.

As for ring of warding, (In case it won’t get that movement buff or CD reduction)
there are lots of possibilities, for example: ward being like test of faith/ every time enemy bumps on ward we gain stacks of stability or might/ enemies inside of the ward stack torment damage along with burning every second (but the more enemies caught in ward let’s say up to 3, the condition damage is split among them, just for the sake of not making this OP), so take your pick.
I’d go with burning and torment one

Skill # 3: Not sure

Skill #4: should do double or triple damage to targets who are immune to knockbacks.

Skill #5: In addition to what it already does, maybe it could become a ice field and apply chill per sec as long as the enemy stands in it.

Hammer is a fantastic cc weapon which also has quality damage. You’ve got Immobilize, knockback, and a ward. When traited you also inflict chill. That’s a lot of variety. A lot of pve content might not need that cc, but it’s something that future content (i.e. raiding) can take advantage of. I personally have used Hammer 3-5 to keep Ralena and Vassar separated during AC story runs. I’ve banished holograms into the clockwork oakheart on TA Aetherpath. You can often use RoW to cc and group up mobs against walls (or two well placed RoW) for easy nuking. Because the damage is getting loaded into the auto and Mighty Blow, you can save your other skills for when they’re necessary. Scepter has similar design. Not every weapon has to be like GS where you use every skill in a dps rotation. Look at Sword especially. Anything other than the auto is a dps loss.

So you claim that hammer is (no sarcasm) in a good spot already ?

A good spot? Yes.
Could it be better? Sure.
Most of what I’d change are qol improvements only, but otherwise it’s quite serviceable in every game mode.

Ghotistyx.6942:

A good spot? Yes.
Could it be better? Sure.
Most of what I’d change are qol improvements only, but otherwise it’s quite serviceable in every game mode.

If I said that I do not agree, that would be a lie.
There is a but a fistful of guardians that run with hammer in PvE/P and WvW, it is in a good spot indeed and what we are trying to do here is to update its abilities to match the overall possibilities that other professions’ weapons have so that every guardian could pick it up and rock it like those few who are doing it now (by making in viable on the same level as GS).
To be really honest, I’d be happy with just MB damage increase to the same as True Shot’s
or chill aplication reduction. (Well I’d throw in ward to be castable while moving and 5 second reduction to it along with banish becuase they have slow and very obvious cast animations that are easy to dodge by just decent players).

P.S.
For what does “qol” stand for ?

Quality of Life

Having the damage increased on #2 so it compares with LB would be awesome but i would love to have more functionality with skills 3-5, but i have now found that they are really good for PvE bosses to destory the break bar

So what exactly are those QoL changes that we could have then ?
Well I don’t know but I am sure that if MB got buffed to TS damage then hammer would go up not only in PvE but also in other game aspects.
Because to say the truth, if we had that one fast and good AoE burst then even Litany of Wrath would get more viable while fighting a bunch of enemies.
I once tried it and when MB got crit while fighting a bunch of players then those heals were amazing, though it’s very situational (LoW could use a tweak as well but that is for another thread).

P.S.
We all know that guard’s traps and longbow nerf is incoming, so what if TS got unrooted but got MB damage and MB got current TS damage ?

Aza.2105:

Skill #5: In addition to what it already does, maybe it could become a ice field and apply chill per sec as long as the enemy stands in it.

I like this. Guardians have way too many light fields, its sickening.

What if immob removed some break bar? That might be interesting as it would bring in some different things. It kinda makes sense as immob is more of a control mechanic then a condition.

I think #2 should definitely have an increased range, and #4 shave 5 sec off, unblockable, and 3 targets. This would help out guard hammer in pvp by a lot.

i would personally prefer to trait so that the symbols become a random field
it would make combat a lot more interesting

I want Hambow to be a thing! My DH feels weird to me right now. I liked guard because I could play more of a support role, but recently my utility slots have been filling up with traps. If hammer could be a little more viable (remove that symbol from the AA and replace with a cripple – pretty please with a cherry on top), then I could feel extremely useful by destroying break bars and still being able to throw in some damage mitigation with Courage/Wall of Reflection. Having some Aegis/Protection sprinkled in on the hammer skills would be pretty awesome too!

This is what we need, a little bit of extra effect to our hammer skills and a slight damage boost.
This could ease the pain of not having land polearms.
I use hammer to finish off my opponents or focus team bursts with judge+ward which should be more frequent, lower base CD on ward and Judge Intervention (26 seconds with trait).
If you think that lower CD on judge’s intervention could be OP then say hello to Rev’s phase traversal (energy is easy to gain through damage so don’t argue that 20 energy skill on ridiculosuly low cooldown is balanced).

Hammer needs more of what it has now because it’s just a control weapon with mediocre damage at best, it doesn’t feel intimidating seeing a hammer guardian heading towards you because of how weak hammer skills and damage is.
When I fight enemies and get them below 25% HP I always imagine that mighty blow should just reduce them to dust.

Here is a trait for hammer that could replace glacial heart.

Righteous Weight:
Hammer base damage is increased by 20% and 3rd AA dazes for 1 second (no ICD)
20% cooldown reduction on hammer skills (hammer AA and other abilities’ speed stays the same)

Mighty blow (which has its cooldown extended to 8 seconds + trait) has built in 100% critical strike chance on enemies below 25% health. Doesn’t it sound mighty ?
OR
Just buff the base damage of MB to match True Shot, I think that would be the easiest thing to do though

We should get rid of AA combo field and make it punishing and intimidating, to make our opponents feel that they might kitten up once they end up under the 3rd AA.
3rd AA should apply cripple and 1 sec daze but we keep the slow speed of our hammer.

Zealot’s embrace could be something harsh, something extra that could break defiance bar and faster projectile speed.

Banish just could use a lower cooldown, the casting speed should stay.

Ring of warding – now this made my brain think about countless possibilities.
We might keep the long cooldown but give it lots of stuff or lower the cooldown and just keep it simple.

1st: Is to make it a fire combo field that applies burn on trapped enemies or those who bounce outside of it

2nd: Is to make it apply 10 seconds stacking stability to us and our allies in 600 yard radius every time an enemy bounces inside or outside of the ward.

3rd: Is to give it a 20 second cooldown (with trait) but nothing else.

pick one
+ bonus to all three options, ward can be cast while moving in normal pace.

P.S.
I wonder how it would work out if our trait had a trade-off. Even more damage but we can’t benefit from any kind of movement speed increasing effects once we swap to hammer.
(Something like warrior’s sprint but we can’t run faster once we get swiftness nor superspeed or if we have traveler/speed rune equipped, just base running speed)

Ghotistyx.6942:

Rodzynald.5897:

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.

That’s the entire point. MB is faster than SoP (by 40%), so you drop the total damage by 40% so the DPS stays the same while providing more mobility and blast finishers. All that damage goes back into SoP which has now taken MB’s spot and recharge. Due to the cast time, it has 50% uptime untraited, and 100% uptime with Glacial Heart+Writ of Persistence (keep in mind I’m also proposing GH be in a supposedly easier spot to trait for). It inherently lasts longer though, providing area denial at a given time. With SoP on Hammer 2, you can at least intentionally place your Symbol after a preferred combo field.

I would actually love to see this.

I would also like to see wards get some utility also.

As is the only thing they are good for is breaking defiance bars.

In PvP & WvW there is just so many teleports, shadow steps & stability that they aren’t worth using vs other options.

Have to just chime in and add that I’m a little torn about the hammer. On one hand I completely agree that having a light field on AA is not great, but I would be very sad if the symbol was removed from AA as I like the way it allows me to utilize Zeal or even run with a Perma-Protection build. It certainly could use a speed boost, however.

I guess if I’m being honest, Hammer would lose a lot of appeal (flavor) for me if we lost SoP.

Why not just make Fire fields over-write Light fields?

Such a simple change would make such a huge difference.

Rodzynald.5897:

It says on wiki that it deals high AoE damage, well I kind of don’t feel it in both PvE and PvP.

-Spec for condition damage
-Spec for traits to increase symbol duration and size
-Take trait to cause burning on enemies in your symbols
-it’s been a while but you might be able to bring the trait that makes your enemies take more damage from you (and your burning) in the symbols too

Boring? Yes, but very practical, you can really hurt things with it.

I’m really enjoying using hammer, but I avoid using the AA and only use the CC abilities while placing traps before swapping back to longbow. It works pretty well in maguuma maps where you don’t want to be up in anything’s face anyway. I definitely would like to see a facelift for hammer so I don’t feel like I am gimping myself by running around with it.

Loki.4871:

Rodzynald.5897:

It says on wiki that it deals high AoE damage, well I kind of don’t feel it in both PvE and PvP.

-Spec for condition damage
-Spec for traits to increase symbol duration and size
-Take trait to cause burning on enemies in your symbols
-it’s been a while but you might be able to bring the trait that makes your enemies take more damage from you (and your burning) in the symbols too

Boring? Yes, but very practical, you can really hurt things with it.

Doesn’t it sound wrong that weapon’s viability is only limited to one type of damage ?
That is fine but what we need now is for hammer to be viable also as a power weapon.

Well, we might keep on discussing this thread but we should try to aim for one goal to specify what devs should update first in this weapon.

P.S.
Someone call for Karl :P

Loki:

Honestly? Who the hell uses Hammer in a Burn/Hybrid build (apart of me… I still do this)?

It’s so suboptimal I cannot even describe…

The Hammer is a CC/Support weapon so it should work like this. But it does not!

Not counting the sword MH it has the clunkiest CC in the guardian’s set.

But sw+s or sc+s beats it…

Seriously I’m fine with hammer the way it is. It needs minor tweaks not large ones. I think the mighty blow animation should be changed so you can use judge’s intervention right before the end of the animation again. Glacial heart being switched with communal defenses or strength in numbers would let us use glacial heart again. And being able to cast ring of warding would also be the only changes necessary really. C’mon we need Guard Hambow now!

Also type aye if you played hammer guard during the cele meta. I know I did.

Aye

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Checking out overall contributions it seems like we are beginning to give it a shape.
Lots of us would like to see:

1. 5th skill to be cast during movement
2. Moving glacial heart to a better spot (though this trait should be reworked as well)
3. Making 4th skill to hit in a cone up to 3 enemies.

Let the ideas keep on flowing.

1, I’m fine with it maybe .25-.5 cast time reduction on the symbol.
2 a few hundred yards increase will do, nothing spectacular needed but if MB stays as this it should be buffed to around TS level.
3 Zealot’s Embrace also could stun the target and immob everybody it passes through. Nice addition for both PvP and PvE
4 Make Banish unblockable, reduce the cast time like 25% OR make it cleave
5 The Ward… This has the most potentions… Make it a moving field, make it fire field, add prot or stability to the players inside, let us detonate it for some effects like stun or burn, reflect projectiles (not like we need more reflect), make it ground targetable with 600 range… Anything you like :P

Aggrostemma.1703:

1, I’m fine with it maybe .25-.5 cast time reduction on the symbol.
2 a few hundred yards increase will do, nothing spectacular needed but if MB stays as this it should be buffed to around TS level.
3 Zealot’s Embrace also could stun the target and immob everybody it passes through. Nice addition for both PvP and PvE
4 Make Banish unblockable, reduce the cast time like 25% OR make it cleave
5 The Ward… This has the most potentions… Make it a moving field, make it fire field, add prot or stability to the players inside, let us detonate it for some effects like stun or burn, reflect projectiles (not like we need more reflect), make it ground targetable with 600 range… Anything you like :P

Ok yea those changes would be nice. But we are looking at realistic goals that anet would do. They definitely won’t take this post seriously if the changes we want are overpowered and ridiculous. Really we just need to move glacial heart to valor, adjust mighty blow to by used with JI. And increase AA by -.25 sec. Those are changes anet could put in realistically. Anet doesn’t have the time or resources for a major overhaul.

Brutaly.6257:

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

I like these changes.

Alongside Glacial Heart moving to a different line, I would like to see the Chill-on-crit-chance removed and instead the trait modify Symbol of Protection into an ice field. If Mighty Blow’s damage is kept the same it wouldn’t be worth using for a DPS gain, but it would be worth the blast finisher on ice for the additional 10% damage reduction and Chill when attacked. Dumb or overpowered suggestion, well maybe I have no way of testing it.

Timston: I absolutely agree!

I expect something like the Shield changes a few month ago… It only took them 3 years to buff it with CDR and some buffs.

So I do not want big things… I made a list like everybody else what “I” want to be changed.

The changes I suggested are indeed minor (apart of the #5 skill The Ward).

+200 range here, -0.25sec cast there, a stun instead of immob over there. Just tiny bits.

Basically nothing would effect the PvP because 2-3-4 are already impossible to land against any good opponent in 1v1. In a teamfight you can land them but the Banish… Nobody gets hit by it anyways. The Ward is only used to block bottlenecks, secure res or stomp or kill the runner who would die anyway if you wield a scepter.

My only “gamebreaking” suggestion was the #5. It does need something revolution.

Happy Guardin’!

Brutaly.6257:

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Heh, I guess what is minor or major is a pretty subjective thing. Still, many of these suggestions make sense. Hammer users are only punished because most the awesome happens on 3rd chain of auto attack.

My hammer changes would be something like:
#2 buff mighty blow range
#3 decrease casting time to 1/2 sec
#4 now hits 5 targets
#5 cast while moving, ground targeted aoe 1200 range

Now this looks more like it.
But indeed we should keep it simple, there will be time for huge overhauls but now we should keep it at small tweaks.

Judging by what you say the most urgent aspects of hammer that should be changed first are:

1. The placement of glacial heart, for the most convenience it should be moved to valor or honor

2. Mighty blow damage OR range increase and ground targeted (this is up to the devs).

3. Ring of warding should be cast even while moving (perhaps at least slower like whirling wrath).

For those things like Zealot’s embrace and Banish I think we will have to wait, unless devs will see it through and make our hammer all new and shiny right away (which I doubt that will happen soon).
For Zealot’s embrace I thought that instead of root it should daze and cripple multiple targets that it passes through, and Banish just as some of you said, should hit in a cone for up to 3 people (faster animation OR lower cooldown).

Honestly Glacial Heart belongs in the zeal line since it is the line with symbol traits.

That said however the zeal line needs a major overhaul with the 2nd and 3rd minor being merged into existing majors & some of the existing majors becoming minors so that there is actual choice involved in the traits.
(as is the line makes you feel like your loosing out if not using a hammer/mace due to minors being symbols & some of the majors are so obviously the best choice no matter what your doing)

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Honestly Glacial Heart belongs in the zeal line since it is the line with symbol traits.

It would make the most sense in the Zeal line due to the hammer’s reliance on symbols, but as it stands Glacial Heart adds very little to PVE for the hammer and the zeal line already has strong contenders for good traits (except for tier 2).

I could also see it in the Honor line, since Writ of Persistence is mandatory for Hammers and the rest of the line is terrible. I think it would be interesting if they just merge it into Honorable Staff: making the trait give 20% boon duration and 20% reduce cooldown on staff/hammer skills (having all two-handers together makes more sense, but would really hurt GS builds).

Glacial Heart doesn’t really have synergy with Zeal though.

However, my interest was piqued at Glacial Heart changing SoP (or perhaps every Symbol) to an ice field. Ice fields don’t have to pulse chill (and this one shouldn’t), but combined with Mighty Blow, and ask of a sudden you’ve got frequent Chill Aura uptime. That would be amazing defensively with Prot and Aura while providing chill on being hit.

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

Timston.1976:

It needs minor tweaks not large ones.

True!

1. Make each hit with the hammer chain pulse x second(s) of protection and do aoe damage. That would improve its user friendliness in both pve and pvp. It would also make hammer valid choice for burn builds due to permeathing wrath.
2. Increase range on skill 2, damage is fine. In a perfect world it should be 900 range and ground targeted. The animation is already in the game on the revenant hammer. This would add more mobility.
3. Increase damage on skill 3 so it fits into a damage rotation
4. Increase damage on skill 4 so it fits into a damage rotation and/or make it aoe, hitting three opponents in a cone.
5. Make it possible to move while casting skill 5 and make it a fire field. Warriors use the exact same animation on their hammer so its already in the game. Why not make wards be affected by symbol traits as well.

6. Move glacial heart. This is the most important one in pvp/wvw.

All set to go. No need to overhaul something that in essence is good but suffer from long cd, long casting times and low damage which makes the weapon dull in pve and clunky in pvp/wvw.

Heh, I guess what is minor or major is a pretty subjective thing. Still, many of these suggestions make sense. Hammer users are only punished because most the awesome happens on 3rd chain of auto attack.

Besides the chain change everything is already in the game, to me that is minor. Changing cd, casting times and damage is minor.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Glacial Heart doesn’t really have synergy with Zeal though.

However, my interest was piqued at Glacial Heart changing SoP (or perhaps every Symbol) to an ice field. Ice fields don’t have to pulse chill (and this one shouldn’t), but combined with Mighty Blow, and ask of a sudden you’ve got frequent Chill Aura uptime. That would be amazing defensively with Prot and Aura while providing chill on being hit.

I agree, zeal/radiance imo make the least sense tbh, hammer is close to useless as it stands as a condi weapon in wvw and pvp. Imo honor or valor would be more fitting. Major trait in either honor or valor would be acceptable.

I seriously like the idea of glacial heart making symbols ice fields. I can also see that they add other traits in other lines that alter symbols in a similar fashion. That might make symbol builds competitive in pvp/wvw.

Would be really interesting if they:
Remove one tick from the symbol
Reduce casting time on aa to maintain dps
Change glacial heart as described and move it to valor/honor.

I would definitely settle for just those three changes.

And why not a wishlist this close to christmas.
In general i like the idea of traiting and adding effects to our symbols.
Why not a radiance trait that make symbols lightning fields and selfcentered and that follows the Guardian when he/she moves.
Or a honor trait that makes symbols water fields
Or a zeal trait that makes them fire fields.
Or a DH trait that makes them smoke fields

Judging by what you say the most urgent aspects of hammer that should be changed first are:

1. The placement of glacial heart, for the most convenience it should be moved to valor or honor

2. Mighty blow damage OR range increase and ground targeted (this is up to the devs).

3. Ring of warding should be cast even while moving (perhaps at least slower like whirling wrath).

I think the pve guys would say that SoP is one of the major issues since its spammable and risk overwriting more valuable combo fields.

Btw excellent that you put in the effort and try to change this. As a hammer veteran that has swapped for Revenant due to the changes to glacial heart i can see a future where i will be back on my guardian.

The idea of a trait that would allow our symbols to follow us would be dangity dang great.
It would make symbol builds viable to 100% considering that now enemies just step out of our symbols (basically we avoid any kind of AoE as much as we can), but with such trait if we kept on chasing them and hold them in the radius of our symbols, they would end up in our domain

P.S.
Perhaps we could have a trait for symbols to force every other enemy ground AoE to disperse.
Dang, symbols should have their very own trait line

Rodzynald.5897:

Dang, symbols should have their very own trait line

If we compare to the necro staff we need to invest just as much in different traitlines to optimize our symbols. The difference is that necros has 4 wells with very high uptime on the staff which makes it understandable but the guardian can have two symbols in two different weapons.

So yes, i think that the symbol traits should be in the same traitline so we dont have to invest silly amount of traitpoints in order to boost two weapon skills. This in combination with really boring/weak traits pretty much excludes proper symbol builds.

The weird part is that Anet said way back that guardians were supposed to excel at area control and the bizarre thing is that its traps and DH that finally made that possible in a, imo, kind cheezy way.

Either one traitline for symbols or merge all symbols to our staff and move the staff skills to the other weapons. But its kind of off topic. Sorry.

Indure.5410:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Honestly Glacial Heart belongs in the zeal line since it is the line with symbol traits.

It would make the most sense in the Zeal line due to the hammer’s reliance on symbols, but as it stands Glacial Heart adds very little to PVE for the hammer and the zeal line already has strong contenders for good traits (except for tier 2).

I could also see it in the Honor line, since Writ of Persistence is mandatory for Hammers and the rest of the line is terrible. I think it would be interesting if they just merge it into Honorable Staff: making the trait give 20% boon duration and 20% reduce cooldown on staff/hammer skills (having all two-handers together makes more sense, but would really hurt GS builds).

True it does make more sense being in honor or valor.

But that is only because zeal is such a jumbled mess. (2/3 of the minors should be merged into majors, multiple majors needing reworks & several majors that should be made into minors to promote build diversity)

If zeal were to get some love then glacial heart would be great there.

At any rate the regardless of trait reworks the hammer definitely needs some love from the devs.

For Glacial Heart trait the best choice might be Honor, in case we keep protection symbol on AA or somewhere else, then we should have the straight on capability of boosting this symbol.
Zeal would work out too but only if some of those traits got merged (some are so weak that they are like a minor trait). Maybe if devs were up to it and thought that it is as good idea, then they might try to make one of our core specs merge into a symbol based spec.
But the question still remains: should we keep the symbol or get rid of it and replace it with AoE protection boon ?
I changed my mind and I stand behind keeping the symbol and making it an ice field.

Now Valor spec would work out for those who run with meditations and considering that it’s our only best source of survivability, we should not ignore it as well. (Unless SW, signets and consecrations will git gud and give us kind of the same level of survivability).

P.S.
Let’s contribute more and hit’em posts so that devs see it !

The more i think of it moving glacial heart and making it transform SoP into an ice field is an easy but yet interesting solution.

Just remove one second of SoP, reduce casting time on aa and up the damage on skill 3 and4. This with the new and improved glacial heart sounds pretty sweet tbh.

Brutaly.6257:

The more i think of it moving glacial heart and making it transform SoP into an ice field is an easy but yet interesting solution.

Just remove one second of SoP, reduce casting time on aa and up the damage on skill 3 and4. This with the new and improved glacial heart sounds pretty sweet tbh.

Considering that SoP is already like two seconds, it should stay as it is (or make protection last longer if SoP gets reduced to one sec). But it might work out, I think we could also drop a 600 yard ground targeted mighty blow and I’d call it a day.