Guild Wars 2

I just got a guardian to 80 today. I’m coming from playing a lot of engineer primarily, and recently a decent amount of time on a warrior. Other than that, my class experience is limited. Long story short, I prefer to play builds that favor CC over damage because I find they are far superior in 1v1 or 1v2 fights, which is what I primarily encounter in WvW. Thus, I figured playing a hammer medi guardian would be the answer. However, it seems I am wrong. The hammers abilities have an incredible wind up time, particularly the 3rd hit from AA. Hammer 2 hits pretty hard, but not nearly as hard as GS 2. Hammer 4 has such an obvious animation and wind up time that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve actually landed it on someone. What do you hammer guardians run to make use of this weapon? Or is hammer on guard just kind of inferior to GS? Thanks.

Judges intervention can help you land some hits. Cast the hammer skill and then use JI and it should allow you to land some burst but that is only in some situations.

Hammer requires a certain finesse. In my opinion, MB is far superior to WW vs competent enemies because landing your entire burst in a single hit as opposed to many smaller hits leaves you with more freedom to move around and less stress. I believe the incredible wind up times on hammer are a godsend when you want to bait dodges. There’s a small skill cancel guide on youtube that will literally turn your adventures with the slowest weapon in the game into some of the best times ever in PvP. If you master this tiny trick with the hammer, losing fights should be nearly impossible unless you’re outnumbered.

I use the Glacial Heart trait.

Guardian over all is very limited in what CC it can do compared to every other class.

If the spirit weapons weren’t so badly designed then guardian would have decent CC with the spirit hammer.
Alas spirit weapon AI is horrible, they die quite easily and have long CD’s.

If you really want to be about CC I would suggest another class. guardian is more about burst, sustain & support.

You can absolutely make hammer a viable choice for roaming. It doesn’t provide much mobility which is why most med guards prefer GS and Sw/F. As an enthusiasitc hammer user, I’ve found the following about guardian hammer:

Hammer has amazing synergy with greatsword, and offhand focus. I would recommend NOT pairing hammer with sword, offhand torch, or mace. With greatsword, hammer comboes amazingly well, and puts out some amazing damage, as well as just enough CC to get you through most 1v1, and maybe 1v2 encounters. Hammer also comboes really well with scepter/focus. Scepter’s immob really helps you land MB, and with scepter, you can very steadily move towards your opponent to close the gap meanwhile dealing damage, and switch to hammer for immob, launch, ring, and MB.

Hammer is a team weapon: While it is viable and very stylish in 1v1 duels, it has a LOT of potential in havoc squads, or small scale battles. Banish is great for downing/interrupting rallies, immob is very helpful if you’re bursting down a target, and mighty blow comboes with fields.

Put one trait point into radiance: That blind REALLY helps with landing the auto attack chain. I’ve been interrupted frequently when trying to land this chain. Chances are, if people dodge the chain, they’ll suffer minor symbol damage afterwards, so it’s not a complete loss which is nice. Blind on F1 may also help with landing Hammer 4

Zealot’s Embrace and Banish combo together excellently: Whether you immob them, then launch, or launch, then immob, you have many options afterwards!

There are ways to guarantee a ring of warding trap: Greatsword 5 pull + swap to hammer + ring of warding, swap to hammer, sigil of hydromancy chill to slow them down + ring of warding, banish + zealot’s embrace + ring of warding, or of course the classic JI + ring of warding. I would recommend not using JI + ring of warding to start a battle because you just blew a stunbreak right there. Use it as a counter to some1 running away, or CCing you!

For sigils, I highly recommend using sigil of hydromancy/intelligence with hammer, and your other sigil should be energy, or a chance on crit if you did sigil of intelligence. Hydromancy sigil comboes very well with landing bursty attacks right after switching to hammer. If you have low crit chance, high ferocity, then consider sigil of intelligence. MB + glacial heart + a hammer auto attack will get you 6-7k damage right off the bat.

Keep in mind that while hammer is good for burst damage and CC, it’s not that great for sustain. If you pair hammer with gs, which gives you a LOT of damage, you’re going to need more sustain, so definitely be running shelter, and purity/strength in numbers over glacial heart. GS/Hammer is well suited to 1v1 up through 3v3, but any more, and you should opt for X/focus instead of pairing with greatsword.

Don’t worry about landing the 3rd autoattack in pvp. You will be using mighty blow often anyway every 4 or 5 seconds What hammer has over greatsword is a ridiculous launch and immobolize. Practice faking (you can cancel it and put it on 3 second cooldown) banish to make people waste dodges then you can land it. Also, the bigger a fight gets the easier Banish becomes to land because a player can’t keep track of everything. It’s easier then it looks but it takes practice.