Guild Wars 2

Just would like to hear everyone’s thoughts on hammer’s place in the current meta.

I’m finding that the vast majority of guardians are running great sword mediation (excluding bunker) now that the dust has settled. Great sword is fun when everything comes together, and is an absolute bomb with shattered aegis, but against skilled opponents it is hard to stick to them, in addition to lacking utility.

Personally i have always enjoyed the play style of hammer, outside of the slow auto attack it just feels good. Its utility and team potential is high with a imob, ring, and punt. So with all of this great utility, why has hammer fallen out of the meta?

Part of it in my opinion is that the traits do not line up as well as they do for the great sword. After Virtues and valor, zeal fits in very well with the great sword burst setup. It feels like hammer does not have a third line that fits it properly, and i’m constantly switching between them in order to try to find one that works well. Loosing the ability to take glacial heart obviously hurts, but that can’t be enough to completely put hammer out of the meta right?

Was it buffs to the other classes in the meta that have put hammer on the bench? Or is it just that hammers damage is now just too low to contend with the other marauder specs?

Would like to hear some other opinions on hammer, and what third trait line people have been having success with.

With GS it’s easy now to stack lots of burning in teamfights even if have completly 0 points in Condiion Damage, when you picked up Indomitable Courage and Permeating Wrath.
You just jump into the battle with Whirling Wrath + Judge’s Intervention and that’s enough to stack burning up to 10. I use to play with Celestial Amulet so it’s even more condi dmg.

Also Glacial Heart is placed next to two very strong trait so the choice is hard here.

I think that hammer will find its use after HoT expansion. It will help with holding enemies in your traps:

1. Test of Faith + Banish
2. Ring of Warding + Procession of Blades / Light’s Judgement

I would like to see Guardian “banishing” enemy right into the Dragon’s Maw.

Hammer has terrible damage because of the way the auto-attack is structured. It needed the Glacial Heart trait for the extra burst and CC to make up for that. If the third part of the auto-attack chain was less clunky, hammer would do more damage overall and would be far more viable in PvP.

As a dps I’d only use the hammer for a CC heavy build with radiance immobilize and bane signet.
But it’s not great especially with many classes having access to a kittenload of stability and kiting you all day easy.
Sword/focus as 2nd weapon set for the mobility.

The 3rd autoattack is slow but gives lot of protection, you can get double symbol of protection (an autoattack step that fail to hit foe can be used twice). That’s why I’ve tried it with merciful intervention + spirit bow and sigil of the ogre but it’s too stituational still.
Sigil of rage and Feel my wrath helps a lot with the slowness.
And it’s best with traited symbols.

Probably a viable weapon for a type of bunker build for example.

Honor
Radiance
Virtues

Sanctuary
Hallowed Ground
Stand your Ground
Feel my Wrath

Hi there!

Since the patch I run a GS/Hammer Hybrid meditation build

Bursting/Hydromancy and Intelligence/Hydromancy in the weapons.

Radiance
Valor
Virtues

Carrion + Flame Legion

Glacial Heart is hard to get but since you get access to two very good condition cleanse via Purging Flames and Contemplation of Purity you can live without Absolute Resolution. It’s a very good party support yes, but since the 600 radius nerf the PF is not much worse. AR has 42 sec CD while PF has 32 but it’s also an offensive tool.

So if you don’t run Renewed Focus but Feel my Wrath then Purging Flames CAN be better. So there is a way to get the Glacial Heart!

About the damage:

The hammer is slow as a sloth but with FmW it’s horrifying! All those slow but powerful CC spells getting almost instant cast is a gamechanger indeed. Most enemies time their dodge around the normal cast time so a bit of Quickness from either Rage sigil or FmW can ruin their day a bit. And not a lot of build is suitable to survive a Mighty Blow, a Zealot’s Embrace, another Mighty Blow and a half Whirling Wrath within 5 seconds.

About the utility:

Hammer is a very good support weapon only shadowed by staff but the second has nowhere near the damage potential. This is especially true in sPvP where a landed CC can win a fight. And the hammer has 5 of it if traited (Glacial, Hydromancy, Banish, Ring and Zealot’s…).

As fast-paced the game is now even making some foe CC’ed for like 2-3 seconds means instant death in a teamfight.

Tl,dr:

Yes the Hammer is definitely the go-to weapon in a teamfight environment if you want some damage too (staff can offer better heals and the might stacks but the damage is lower and the CC potential is almost zero).

Yes the Hammer is still good as a secondary weapon! You can make any build viable with it. Getting more CC-peel and loosing some range-burn-damage-etc… sounds fine for me.

Yes the Hammer is still good as a main weapon too! Glacial Heart is not easy to take I admit. If you are support you may want AR. If you are a burner you want Supreme Justice (well… not with a hammer main, sorry).

Just support the Hammer with some burst-mobility-block-heal-whatever weapon set and you’ll be fine!

My two coppers…

Now take me apart if you want!

Happy Guardin’!

The Hammer’s CC is still amazing in sPvP. Perma-protection on an AOE that covers the entire point is pretty good as well. That being said… Hammer has a few issues that, IMO, make it only good as a secondary weapon for CC.

1.) The auto-attack is way too slow.

It deals solid damage over time, but that doesn’t really matter. Getting 3000 damage right away is worth more than dealing 4500 over 5 seconds if your opponent stays in one spot.

2.) Glacial Heart in Virtues…

If you want to make good use of the Hammer then you have to take Virtues, which is worse in most PvP builds except maybe burning/support. Ironically, if you even want to take this trait then you can’t take Supreme Justice (makes Justice burn more frequently). So basically, if you want to use a Hammer build in PvP then you have to take Virtues over something useful just for Glacial Heart.

2.) Writ of Persistence shares the slot with Pure of Voice…

If you’re dedicating yourself to a Hammer build then you’re obviously going to want to buff Symbol size and duration, making your auto-attack’s radius huge and giving you perma-protection. But, you also need to pick between using Shouts and using Meditiations. Problem is, the trait you absolutely need for shout builds shares a grandmaster slot with Writ of Persistence. I prefer Meditations, but it sucks that there’s not much of a choice.

TL;DR Auto-attack is extremely slow and if you want to make a Hammer build effective then your trait choices are heavily restricted.

Alarox:

You are right! But why a Hammer must be a first weapon? If it’s supported with either Writ of Persistence or Glacial Heart it becomes a great secondary weapon.

So for example:

situ1: you take Glacial and Pure of Voice
situ2: you take Writ of Persistence and Supreme Justice

You still have options… And the damage won’t change that much…

Last patch left 2 abandoned childs:

• Sword for PvE
• Hammer for PvP

Medi builds right now work a lot around condition damage. I don’t like GS because with no Crit chance (Carrion Amulet) it’s unappealing to me and it telegraphs most of the attacks to seasoned players. Right now I’m using http://intothemists.com/calc/?build=-Bkitten;0NFF30E3cF-90;9;4OnQ;0146147248;4Rs06T;91i
That is basically what everyone is using now. It has a nice burn burst, feel free to leave me your comments.

Did you know orb of light can crit for 5k? ^^

This build works but very risky (3000power +40% dmg multiplier / 11k hp)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJASWlsAhyhY1QwQIwPEHBEVOBfxI0GAZbCc32IIDA-TZBFwACuAAI3fYxRAoaZAAPCAA

Retribution can be switched for wrath of justice but I prefer +10% damage
Rune of scholar can be switched for rune of the pack but ""

With 15 stack of might mighty blow crits for around 8k not to mention sigils and glacial heart. With this build every virtue contribute to keep the dmg multiplier up when needed.