Guild Wars 2

Just wondering.

Hammer has highest sustained (over time) dps and brings protection.

Thats what makes it good for raids because it reduces damage and the boss has extremely high health to let that sustained dps build up.

In anything else I cant really see using it because its so slow, highly telegraphed and requires you & targets to stand in one spot to make use of the symbol.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

Hammer has highest sustained (over time) dps and brings protection.

Thats what makes it good for raids because it reduces damage and the boss has extremely high health to let that sustained dps build up.

In anything else I cant really see using it because its so slow, highly telegraphed and requires you & targets to stand in one spot to make use of the symbol.

So for Fractals and Dungeons GS/Bow is better?

Hammer might still be good for high level fractals.

Personally, I run Hammer for everything. It does the job really. 100% prot uptime which is also helpful for HoT content. Play what you feel works. It doesn’t matter too much in PvE tbh.

I could be biased though since I love hammer and wouldn’t ditch my Jugg for anything haha.

The reason why Hammer is so good in raids is mainly that you should have 100% quickness uptime and Hammer gets a straight up 50% DPS boost from that since all you do is autoattacking.

^^ what he said. You need quickness

So does anyone have a tested build for hammer? Is this dps good or decent?

Here’s the raid variant. There’s also some fractal versions here.

I use hammer for fractals over 50, large meta boss fights like gerent and the DS lane bosses etc. Short fights and trash mob clear you are better of with gs/lb.

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

It was tested full buffed, compare to other profession full buffed.

The Hammer build dps is better at sustain dps, while GS + Bow is better at burst dps. The shorter the fight, the better GS + Bow will be. Hammer dps is also higly dependend on the movement of the boss. So GS + Bow for short fight against mob that move a lot, Hammer against longer fight against mobs that move not too much or slowly. What is the exact line where one is better than the other is higly variable, use your judgment.

Every professions are improved by quickness. Profession that use a good portion of their dps from auto-attack like Guardian Hammer, Thief D/D or Herald Sword will see thier dps boosted more than profession like Tempest by quickness. That said, alacrity usually almost never affect auto-attack profession, while affected the dps of profession like Tempest by a lot.

So the notion that some wrote here that you must have quickness for the Hammer build is doubtful. I’m not saying they are wrong, but Hammer won’t go from one of the best dps build to not worth using just because the party don’t have any quickness.

IMO, use whatever you want, there is too many variable and in the end, the difference between GS + Bow isn’t that big anyway. In 30sec fight, the GS + Bow only have like 10% more dps than Hammer without quickness, so unless you go for a record run or you really want to min max your build to every situation, just use the build you like the most.

For now, there is only at sabetha that we extensively tested Hammer build to say for sure that Hammer DH is the best Guardian build to use.

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

It was tested full buffed, compare to other profession full buffed.

The Hammer build dps is better at sustain dps, while GS + Bow is better at burst dps. The shorter the fight, the better GS + Bow will be. Hammer dps is also higly dependend on the movement of the boss. So GS + Bow for short fight against mob that move a lot, Hammer against longer fight against mobs that move not too much or slowly. What is the exact line where one is better than the other is higly variable, use your judgment.

Every professions are improved by quickness. Profession that use a good portion of their dps from auto-attack like Guardian Hammer, Thief D/D or Herald Sword will see thier dps boosted more than profession like Tempest by quickness. That said, alacrity usually almost never affect auto-attack profession, while affected the dps of profession like Tempest by a lot.

So the notion that some wrote here that you must have quickness for the Hammer build is doubtful. I’m not saying they are wrong, but Hammer won’t go from one of the best dps build to not worth using just because the party don’t have any quickness.

IMO, use whatever you want, there is too many variable and in the end, the difference between GS + Bow isn’t that big anyway. In 30sec fight, the GS + Bow only have like 10% more dps than Hammer without quickness, so unless you go for a record run or you really want to min max your build to every situation, just use the build you like the most.

For now, there is only at sabetha that we extensively tested Hammer build to say for sure that Hammer DH is the best Guardian build to use.

Alacrity is useful to hammer dps too since it isn’t just all autoattacks. Alacrity increases uptime of Big Game Hunter and lowers cooldown on dps traps like Procession of Blades.

All are talking about raids. The title asked if its useful outside of raids and i guess PvE.
So what about hammer in PvP.

Xhyros.1340:

Alacrity is useful to hammer dps too since it isn’t just all autoattacks. Alacrity increases uptime of Big Game Hunter and lowers cooldown on dps traps like Procession of Blades.

My point was that alacrity affect their dps a lot less. That’s why there was the word ’’almost’’ in the sentence.

Wolfric.9380:

All are talking about raids. The title asked if its useful outside of raids and i guess PvE.
So what about hammer in PvP.

There is a decent hammer/bow spec using DH and palladin’s amulet. It’s mostly centered on cc spamming. Probably offers better team support than GS/bow.

I just use GS+Hammer
start with GS for the burst and then go hammer
swap to bow for fights where you can’t go melee

LB is probably better than GS if what you want is burst but your second weapon set is hammer. LB has burst with true shot, and it also has CC with lb 5 and heavy light. There will always be a situation in a pvp match where you might want to range someone instead of melee.

Longbow doesn’t seem to have any advantages over GS in terms of damage

Oh. I was talking about (non-raid) PvE. not PvP

For Pve the second weapon set is pretty much irrelevant since you should always be on hammer for the sustained dps. And if it isn’t a fight that lasts a while, you probably shouldn’t take hammer and you should go lb/gs.

It’s best for longer fights in general. As long as you have perma quickness I guess it’d be decent in higher level fractals too. However not 80+ as the mobs would steal the prot and inevitable retal from light field. TBH guardian is quite terrible 80+ anyway.

2nd weapon set would be used for supporting your team extra I guess. I personally take LB at gors to help with orbs a bit and GS at sab just in case one of our eles kittens up and I need to kill a cannon.

yeah, light fields are awful against the boon thieves instability. My poor ele can’t deal with eating 800 dmg retaliation ticks several times per second

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

I’ve been trying to find these said videos. Can anyone help me please?

SrebX.6498:

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

I’ve been trying to find these said videos. Can anyone help me please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/44dli8/actual_dps_comparison_between_classesguard_ele/

cranos.5913:

SrebX.6498:

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

I’ve been trying to find these said videos. Can anyone help me please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/44dli8/actual_dps_comparison_between_classesguard_ele/

Thanks. Just wondering, since hammer is really pretty dependant on stationary target, how does the Hammer build fairs against VG?

SrebX.6498:

cranos.5913:

SrebX.6498:

Thaddeus.4891:

Yes the Hammer dps was tested. You can find the videos on youtube and reddit. It’s the third best dps for raids behind Tempest and Thief (especially for Sabetha).

I’ve been trying to find these said videos. Can anyone help me please?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/44dli8/actual_dps_comparison_between_classesguard_ele/

Thanks. Just wondering, since hammer is really pretty dependant on stationary target, how does the Hammer build fairs against VG?

IMO it’s still very decent. At VG in proper pulls first phaze is stationary, and in second phaze you only rly move once. Meaning you only lose DPS in the last phaze. On top of that protection is more readily available for the chronotank making his job ezpz.

Hi

Whats your opinion on this more defence build using paladin amulet.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJASTn8cCVDhlDBWkittendilEi6aZDgEAbDeuyUe5j+rH-TpBFABE8AAA4QAIwRAQ8yAPcBAuf/BA

Greetings

Wolf

The rare times I check the forum, I’m always too late to answer something. xD

But as I’m in charge for the metabattle guardian stuff and ppl referred to it, I just would like to give me 2 cents.

Most ppl said it already. Hammer got a really good and high sustained DPS. When opening with Shield of Wrath + Symbol of Faith + Mighty Blow, the burst ain’t that bad, but you still can’t compare it with GS/LB or GS/Mace,Focus(Torch). Meanwhile the last to mentioned weapon choices doesn’t really have much different in DPS. And what got mentioned as well, Hammer really profits from perma quickness as the only thing you do is auto attack.

So yeah, for dungeons and low fractals I would not recommend playing Hammer unless you just don’t give a kitten about it. ^^
For higher fractals, Hammer is completely fine to play and might even be pretty helpful when pugging.