Guild Wars 2

I honestly think it could use a bit more tweaking to be honest.

-Hammer Swing: 3rd swing is WAY too slow.

-Ring of Warding: Change skill type to be a Symbol and it should do some damage OR actually make it’s warding range bigger.

-Mighty Blow: Put the passive of Glacial Heart as an inherent passive to this skill with maybe a 10s cooldown. We all know the Glacial Heart trait is far too useless to be even considered so why not put it on Mighty Blow?

I really love the hammer, don’t get me wrong, but I would really like to see these tweaks happen. What do you guys think?

i feel in most scenarios, by the time i have activated something on the hammer I am standing there by myself and my enemy has already done everything he wanted to do, left, and gone to bed.

I have been satisfied with the damage Symbol of Protection does, I don’t mind the activation time at all. The damage is worth the 2 second wait.

The damage is worth the 2 second wait, you are right, but it is more for PvE. The Hammer skill set is catered more for use as a PvP weapon and those 2 seconds, are a complete hazard if you want to even try and get it off.

Don’t like it, I’d rather have a Greatsword.

I dont want Circle of Warding changed into a symbol. I want it changed to ground target like Staff’s warding spell was in beta.

for those that dont know, the Staff’s ward skill was also not ground target at first. it casted at feet. so you couldnt really place it without standing at the location.

I would like traits that increase the duration of these. as well as making both by default to be ground target.

the hammer is excellent and i dont know why theyre buffing it. i played a shout hammer/staff guardian in beta in t/spvp, and found the spec to be highly effective. oh well, wont complain about the buffs i guess.

nerva.7940:

the hammer is excellent and i dont know why theyre buffing it. i played a shout hammer/staff guardian in beta in t/spvp, and found the spec to be highly effective. oh well, wont complain about the buffs i guess.

well SPvP is kinda a different side of the argument when it comes to gameplay balance, since that vary greatly on who you fighting, and how skilled they are 1v1.

things like PvE, and WvW function on a different rule of balance.

in WvW a slow melee weapon with lots of roots just doesnt balance well in an environment that involves massive zergcentric combat, and lots of AoE coming your way that need to be avoided constantly.

If they’re going to change hammers, they could kill two birds with one stone and make it a ranged weapon (somehow).

I agree but I don’t bother using the hammer unless I need to guard a control point. The swings seem slower than sword+shield, throws me off when trying to kill someone that I am chasing around.

I’d hope ANet makes use of the massive amount of data they have available to them to see how many guardians (and each other profession) have each weapon combo equipped. If there’s one that’s not being used, especially in the settings it’s intended for (say sPvP weapon that very few actually use in sPvP), that’s the compelling evidence that there’s something wrong with it.

We all have our suspicions. ANet (hopefully) has the data that provide the answers.

I would like the Zealot’s Embrace skill to be changed into a chain. First use does what it currently does, and chain effect pulls the target to the guardian while still rooted.

Knighthonor.4061:

I would like the Zealot’s Embrace skill to be changed into a chain. First use does what it currently does, and chain effect pulls the target to the guardian while still rooted.

That is a great idea! But it would make it too much like the GS I think.

My opinion of the hammer? Skills 3, 4 and 5 are much too situational. They need to be made all around useful instead of sometime being useful. Because of their limited uses, it makes hammer lack in depth compared to the great sword.

I tried Hammer out in the mists a bit ago and I quite liked the build I had. I decided to play along with glacial heart and added the chill on crit to the weapon along with the trait to see how much chilling I could get (now, the movement speed is obviously a snare that fits in with the area control the hammer has, and an added benefit of slowing recharge wait, but I don’t really have an idea of how much this helped). I do think the cd on Glacial Heart is probably a bit too high, but I don’t really have a way to see the full effect of what it does.

Now, when I heard all these complaints about the hammer’s #1 chain, I thought my char would be cooking dinner in between strikes, but honestly, I thought it was fine hitting things. You can chain #1 and #2 to give near constant protection and retaliation. Fighting each of the training professions in the mists, I didn’t even use #3-5 much at all actually (or at least, not to much effect).

I don’t know how it’ll fair with people trying to interrupt you more than the training mobs did, but so far it’s second behind sword+torch for me.

Build I used: http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php#1.3.11.7.0.0.23.32.0.0.54.74.61.68.78.10.10.17.0.0.0.0.0.0.185.189.191.198.202.204.212.0.0.0.0.30.30.10

yep, hammer 1 combo is just fine. if they buff the speed a little, i wouldnt complain i suppose. thing is, hammer has such nice burst and unbelievable soft CC, so they run the risk of making it OP.

I think Glacial Heart should have affected Ring of Warding, rather than being a passive to crits. While I am a big proponent of turning our Ring into a symbol for further hammer utility, I can see how being able to set down a powerful chain of three symbols (weapon swap right after Ring) could be a problem. Then again, even if the hammer is designed (I’m guessing) with PvP in mind, we still have a bit of a problem with people just dodging the ring.

So, if you turn Glacial Heart to a passive freeze effect that triggers every second for one second for the duration of the ring, you have increased the efficacy of the ward as a CC without giving it unbalancing healing/damage. Even moreso, you could also make it change Ring of Warding into an ice field. A guardian with three field types would definitely be an asset to a team, without it being imbalanced.

The rest of the hammer is fine, but I think the Ring of Warding has the best potential to really make the hammer stand out and shine on its own as a sort of melee staff support weapon…without making it too OP.

^ The last statement you say is true. If they somehow buff Ring of Warding, it has really GREAT potential as cc. At the moment, it really is too easy to dodge plus the fact there is a short casting time.

Hopefully they realize that the Hammer is still greatly inferior to the GS. Given a choice of 1 weapon, I would use GS for PvP 100% of the time and PvE 100% of the time.

I’ve been using the Hammer from 2-80, and then 100+ hours since then. I love it.

Don’t confuse your dislike of it with it being broken. For example, I don’t like the 1h Sword, but it’s still a great weapon.

I see a lot of complaints with the Hammer that stem from people simply not preferring it, rather than them seeing something as broken or underpowered.

Just make sure your suggestions aren’t simply preference, otherwise you’re basically asking for the weapon to be changed from what the current users like, to something that you probably wouldn’t even use but would just find slightly more pleasing.

For dungeons, the Hammer is a work of art. THREE crowd control skills catered to handling melee mobs, two of which can CC any number of them? It synergizes GREAT with Shield of the Avenger and Wall of Reflection for giving your entire team a moment to breathe.

Also, cheesing the evil gate exploding event in CM EX made me break out into cackles of Wicked Witch proportions. >_>

third swing on the number 1 skill takes way too long, other than that I kind of like the weapon.

Agreed with most of the sentiments in this thread. The #1 if sped up a little bit, would be perfect. It really feels slow and in a game where constant movement is vital, the symbol doesn’t really warrant a slow strike.

I think the hammer does awsome damage and has great utility. But that huge pause on the 1 strike puts me off from wanting to use it. And btw how come the hammer can spam protection so fast but a mace/shield user has like a 30 second cooldown? Since that setup is geared more towards defense, wouldn`t it make more sense to be able to protect quicker then a hammer?

A hammer has a blast finisher on a 5 (or even 4 if trained) second cooldown; that’s afaik the fastest recharging blast finisher in the game. If your teammates play along that’s Retaliation, Might and healing for everyone, and possibly even more.
On top of that the Hammer #3 to #5 are not great but at least decent CC abilities but you can’t have everything.
Imo for general PvE the Greatsword is better, but no other weapon choice for Guardian beats the Hammer for Dungeons.

Imo, there are 2 major problems with the hammer after trying it out in PvP myself yesterday. The auto-attack skill is way too slow, I ended up not using this skill at all cause it’s so terrible; I just did the immobilize/burst and switched to GS. Also the ward is a great skill BUT this skill needs to be able to be used while moving. There are supposed to be 2 uses for this skill which is to TRAP enemies or BLOCK them at choke points. It is near impossible to TRAP enemies in a fight atm cause you are bound to the ground and they can just run away while you cast that longkitten skill. The only time I saw using that skill viable was to use it at choke points to defend a node when I see a zerg coming in sPvP. I can’t even use it for running away cause it binds you to the ground. This is very inferior to greatsword skills which has a lot more viability.

Just switch the symbol to the ring of warding and make the #1 a little faster. Problem solved.

I’m not a fan of the hammer personally. As I primarily WvW, the thing is just way too slow, the abilities are cumbersome and the range on the RoW needs to be wider (not to mention it has to ACTUALLY trap an enemy).

The Greatsword is superior in every respect.

turning Circle of Warding into a Symbol wont change anything. looks at GS’s symbol for example here.

also it would be effected by traits.

the best thing to do is make it ground target like they did Staff’s ward.

we have two ward spells. originally nether of them were ground target skills. that was changed because it didnt work well. CoW need to also change for the same reason.

Personally I think the Hammer is already op in PvE, but on the other hand it´s kind of useless in PvP.
With a Tank Built and Crit/Tank Eq I can burst in everywhere, and I really mean EVERYWHERE, without getting any (serious) damage, using all explo fields and healing myself giving me and my mates 2 boons every 4 seconds + might on every crit, healing myself even more.
I cant remember the last time I had to use my heal to save myself, since I found my favourite hammer built.

Even if I want to do damage I prefer the hammer. The symbol´s just awesome and it still gives soooo much support >.<

Maybe I simply prefer it because I feel pretty much immortal using it xD

Didn’t we had the exact same thread three days ago?
Anyway, I like the Hammer. Great weapon in sPvP, kinda situational in PvE but it makes for a good balance between offense and support.

They should just give in and change Ring of Warding to GW1 Shield of Judgement. Same mechanic, really, but have it follow the guardian. I’ll set up the pins.

I keep trying it out, since I want to like it. But that end-chain attack is crazy slow. Seems like every other time I get to the actually executing the final hit, my enemies are long dead. I could see it being better in dungeons though, since there aren’t many fragile enemies.

Either way, I enjoy the Greatsword much more.

Hammer number 5 ability should be a symbol that roots every1 caught in it for a couple of seconds.

3rd swing on the autoattack should be weaker but faster

Hammer number 2 ability shouldn’t lock the player in place

weapon fixed

I’d leave #2 alone, they already buffed it and most of us are happy now.

Game needs to be fun.
If I put a fun rating on each of the Hammer’s attacks:
1.1 – 10 fun
1.2 – 10 fun
1.3 – activation time – 0 fun
Don’t want it to be faster? Fine. Spread out the activation time between the three so that the pacing isn’t so horrible and the most important attack in the chain isn’t so horribly easy to interrupt.

2 – 1000 fun! This skill is literally the ONLY saving grace for the Hammer. Low cooldown, no activation time, blast finisher… THIS is how melee should feel.

3 – activation time, slow projectile, difficult to use effectively in PVP and almost entirely useless for PVE – 0 fun

4 – the first time you use this skill, it seems AMAZING. The animation makes you FEEL the power of the Hammer. But use it a few times more and once again “activation time” quickly ruins any visceral feel that this attack should have. Since it knocks your enemy so far away and you have no movement skills with the Hammer, it’s another one of those “Situational PVP, will I ever really use it in PVE?” skills. – 50 fun

5 – ANOTHER ACTIVATION TIME?!? switches to GS

So many skills with activation times completely ruins the melee experience for me.

hammer is my favourite weapon in tPVP.
It doesn’t have a place in PvE though.

uh yes it does. it has a spammable finisher and above average damage. oh yeah, and the CC >.<

Hammer is awesome in dungeons with its protection spam, CCs, and blast finisher on a short cooldown. Outside of dungeons, it’s not my weapon of choice.

Been playing with the Hammer, back to back with Greatsword, and prefer Greatsword over the Hammer for general use.

Biggest issue with the hammer is the low speed of the of the 3rd regular attack, which many people are able to get out of in PvP, so the damage and the symbol get wasted—lots of damage lost. My main damage output is currently heavily reliant on Mighty Blow, even moreso with the new short jump range with it due to the lack of mobility when using the Hammer. Greatsword can chop down enemies significantly faster, even with fewer control options.

Zealot’s Embrace is okay, but not so good at medium ranges or against targets that frequently change direction. A miss on a kiting class can set you back in a fight far enough to be unrecoverable at times. Frustrating when that happens. I guess the travel time is okay, I just wish the snare projectile was a little wider so it was more reliable when you’re very close to someone.

Banish is hard to use. The range on it seems non-existant, and I frequently miss with it. Use is already very situational since it puts distance between you and your target, making it solidly more defensive than offensive. I wish it would connect when I want to use it offensively.

Ring of Warding I use more to deny space than to trap someone in it. It casts too slow, and roots you at the same time, so that even pairing it with Zealot’s Embrace, you still have a difficult time keeping someone in the ring. When you finally do get them in it, they can somehow get out of it after they run into the edge after the first knockdown.

Overall, the Hammer’s performance in combat, especially PvP can be very chancy, inconsistent. When things work out, it’s great. When skills miss due to timing being just a bit too long, it feels very frustrating. It almost feels like rolling a lottery when playing with the Hammer.

3rd strike of the #1 chain is a non-issue. it does very decent aoe and it will hit as long as you keep on top of your target. the protection buff is hard to pass up. in addition, they buffed the hell out of Mighty Blow. it’s simply amazing. its aoe range is huge and has a short leap built in. not to mention it hits like a truck and spreads fields.

Hammer lacks depth since skills 3, 4 and 5 are situational. That leaves players using skills 1 and 2 only.

i love the hammer. i’m nowhere near amazing with it yet, bu ti plan to be. i will say it does take a bit of getting used to. some issues i’ve heard, sure, the time it takes for #1.3 is slow, but you can still be on the move no? i always use that potential time to reposition myself, and it does AoE. so as long as you’re reasonably within range, it should hit. if not, you get a protection buff, and then if you time your CD’s right, you can gain retaliation, along with a massive hit, and slight gap closer now that #2 jumps.

hmm for those saying #3, 4, and 5 are too situational. i haven’t really experimented too much. few thoughts out loud:

- can they be used in a string? #3 to snare them (given you hit them, which seems to be an issue as well), then if you’re far, hit #2 to close the gap, then #5, trap ‘em and then use #4? not sure how viable that is in terms of timing
- one way to surprise attack using #4 is you can target someone, activate #4 and use judge’s intervention, which doesn’t cancel the charge up so it’s like SURPRISE burst in flames while flying through the air, then depending on where you are, how far they fly you can close in with mighty blow, then pull a #1 combo, OR switch weps (GS or sword) and jump blind attack in, not a bad combo in my mind
- having gound casting for #5 would be awesome, but would that be a bit too OP? maybe given the small radius, it would be okay. haven’t really experiecned this yet, because it IS hard to pull off, but do enemies stumble after hitting the wall while being trapped / stuck outside? could be put to good use

After exploring a hammer/greatsword build in spvp and wvw Ive fallen in love with the hammer. I like to 1200 ranged root my targets, lock them in ring of warding then blow them up with great sword aoe .I’m specced for longer protection, retaliation and symbols(bigger too). The hammer has amazing cc and I love the auto attack protection.

I’m honestly worried they will change the hammer too much.

I love the hammer!

just wished, it would profit more from the zeal trait line (+% hammer damage would be awesome)

and having this little jump on the 2 skill is just awesome – fighting feels like fighting again

i also love skills 3 and 4…only 5 has the problem for me, that it’s almost impossible to “catch” players in (s)pvp…coupled with a high CD it’s my least used skill

but besides that…i love hammers!
and i love AN for their hammer love!

I agree with every one on the 3rd swing of the chain skill. Its a little slow 1/2 a second or maaaaaybe a full second off of it would make it so much better. Also Skill four the knock back i dislike because its the hammer you really cant pvp with it out in the open unless you trying to knock someone away or off a wall. I would rather it be a knock down than knock back. and Ring of warding’s cast time is to slow.

@Marlafox: You can’t really change Banish because of how useful it is in sPvP and PvE. Making it a knock-down would change the use of it entirely.