Guild Wars 2

I almost have enough stuff to make the Juggernaut. Before I commit to making it, I was wondering if I shouldn’t be running hammer in PvE. I do mostly dungeons and I find it gives nice support via protection and vulnerability while still hitting pretty hard. (frequent 2k crits + 5k MB)

My question is: am I wrong/bad to use it? Am I better off making a greatsword like everyone else?

Advice appreciated.

i love my hammer in all game modes. there are some vocal minority that hate the light field from the hammer AA (because they can’t blast might stacks) but don’t let them get to you.

the hammer is naturally tanky for obvious reasons and when specced for it, can do a lot of damage – which you already. given 3, 4, 5 are all situational in PvE/dungeons, etc you can still find uses for them.

learn all the weapons, and learn what they can do and be better for which situations. but if you enjoy the skin, just go for it. and hammer is the one weapon i feel can have a need for switching stats on so having that option is always nice.

so in the end, no, you’re not wrong / bad to use it. and there’s no reason you can’t play both hammer and GS.

i know it’s a huge investment but it’ll wear off – not saying it’s not worth it, but rather that eventually you won’t feel you HAVE to always use your Juggy after u first get it. you’ll still love it everytime you pull it out to use. at teh same time, you won’t be stubborn enough to ONLY use the hammer. at lesat, that’s how i see it.

Hammer is pretty kitten strong and you can’t compare it with a greatsword at all, they’re supposed to do two completely differents things.
A greatsword is meant to burst stuff, and that’s it. You use it for WW and SoW and swap it to another weapon with higher basic attack dps/utility.
Hammers, on the other hand, have perma protection with traited symbols and more basic attack dps than greatswords (i seriously hate greatsword basics), making them a better “main weapon” choice.

akamon.2769:

i love my hammer in all game modes. there are some vocal minority that hate the light field from the hammer AA (because they can’t blast might stacks) but don’t let them get to you.

My ele cannot blast fire fields.

Mine can’t either, light fields suck.

aww, haviz. it’s otay. my guard cannot blast fire fields either. : ((

(and tbh, i’m really just bitter someone told me to put my hammer away once in a dungeon lol. when that person, nor others, were not systematically dropping fire fields anyways)

that’s why i usually throw down fire field (or try to communicate if PUGs are willing) before dropping the AA chain. though when it’s mid-fight, then it’s hard to coordinate. ://

I usually run Purging Flames to blast my own fire field. Honestly, if I see a fire field go down I just pop mighty blow before my symbol drops to blast it. 2 seconds without protection down ain’t gonna hurt nobody. So far no one has complained about blasting fields.

Besides, you need might? Empower on staff swap has got yer might. Ran dungeons earlier with another guard and 3 warriors. Double empower, pull boss, boss melts…profit.

Gonna make that Juggernaut and feel like a boss.

like a SHINY boss.

for fun – you can also always aura stack for fun.

btw, running 15/25/0/20/10 with that hammer. Can I squeeze more Whammo! out of my build by dropping the 10 into zeal for 10% symbol damage or am I giving up too much utility?

two decent hammer builds are 15/15/0/20/20 or 15/15/0/30/10 (though they recently “fixed” PoV so donno if that makes a big difference now). your build is light on condi cleanse. but if someone in your party is in charge of AoE cleansing then that could probs work.

general consensus is that going past 10-15 in Zeal is usually not a good deal. they really need to relook at that line. you get 10% extra damage on symbols, but you do lose a bit too much utility for my liking. if you’re doing general PvE roaming for fun you could always go 25/25/0/20/0D though, GS + hammer

His build should be totally fine with the new purging flames. I’m running purging and absolute resolution, if he wants that all he needs to do is get 10 points of radiance and put into virtues.

hammer is beast for pve, though my guild comp doesn’t really call for it. I’d rather see a hammer guardian pug than a gs guardian since hammer provides much more team utility (then again, if they spam banish…)

PraetorMortis.8610:

btw, running 15/25/0/20/10 with that hammer. Can I squeeze more Whammo! out of my build by dropping the 10 into zeal for 10% symbol damage or am I giving up too much utility?

You would not want to drop 10 in zeal for the symbol damage. You are effectively losing 10% damage 100% of the time for 10% damage only from symbols (and thus no +10% damage to the autoattack).

15/25/0/20/10 is the best option for damage with a hammer, I think. However, if you do not mind sacrificing your damage, you can also run 15/15/0/20/20 and pick up Absolute Resolution for condintion removal. With the change to purging flames, I think 15/25/0/20/10 is the better option.

Hammer in PvE is one of the “pug savior” builds that doesn’t work so well in good groups by comparison. Protection is godlike when playing with bads, convenient at best when not.

As long as you know when to use it and when to put it away, you’ll be fine.

Bumbler.7581:

15/25/0/20/10 is the best option for damage with a hammer, I think. However, if you do not mind sacrificing your damage, you can also run 15/15/0/20/20 and pick up Absolute Resolution for condintion removal. With the change to purging flames, I think 15/25/0/20/10 is the better option.

With the 15/25/0/20/10 build what do you choose for the Master trait in Radiance? Blind Exposure is a must, but I don’t see anything else that would benefit the hammer.

Hammer is awesome, and The Juggernaut is one of the cooler legendaries.

You won’t regret it.

@Tenor
Condition removal on signets, lol (mostly because radiance is pretty meh if you’re not using a sword). Anyways, the point in going 25 into radiance is getting the +10% damage if you target has conditions on him.

Really depends on the group, I did a fractal 48 recently with a pug, it was awesome, even our ranged which was staff ele and ranger, kept stacked with us melee and knew whats up. Everything dropped relatively quick. We had to of course spread out where applicable on point blank boss abilities, but the run as a whole was just great.

In comparison, my previous FOTM run was with people that did not take advantage of it and were all always spread out. This was real bad and took for freagin ever, I almost left, but the zerk war did instead and it was kinda smooth rest of the way when we replaced him.

Tenor Madness.6784:

Bumbler.7581:

15/25/0/20/10 is the best option for damage with a hammer, I think. However, if you do not mind sacrificing your damage, you can also run 15/15/0/20/20 and pick up Absolute Resolution for condintion removal. With the change to purging flames, I think 15/25/0/20/10 is the better option.

With the 15/25/0/20/10 build what do you choose for the Master trait in Radiance? Blind Exposure is a must, but I don’t see anything else that would benefit the hammer.

Aside from Blind Exposure, you would take Signet Mastery. This puts Signet of Resolve on a 32s cooldown. But as Oxxy said, the point for the 25 points into Radiance is the damage boost as you will always have burning up.

You can also use Inner Fire if there’s lots of burn, like in CoF or Arah. Free fury is pretty good when you lack a ranger or ele.

haviz.1340:

akamon.2769:

i love my hammer in all game modes. there are some vocal minority that hate the light field from the hammer AA (because they can’t blast might stacks) but don’t let them get to you.

My ele cannot blast fire fields.

TROLL? OR….

jportell.2197:

TROLL? OR….

Take a deep breath. Now do it again. And again. Now release your finger from capslock/shift key. And finally make a mental leap.