Guild Wars 2

Simply put, I like using hammer and staff in dungeons. Especially when traited well, the aoe damage in a stack is really good. But I see a lot of people complaining about guardians using hammer because of the symbol of protection and light field.

Generally, is it okay for me to start putting down the symbol of protection after the eles have stacked might (i.e. during the fight)? Or should I simply not allow my symbol of protection to proc at all?

I think might stacks should happen before the fight so technically speaking Hammer shouldn’t interfere that much. Unless you are fighting bosses with a lot of HP. Just make sure you carry a fire field with you (Purging Flames) which you can cast just before you start hitting with your hammer.

If you can organise with your group well enough then you should be able to stop your full hammer AA rotation when appropriate, ie. just before the ele is about to cast their fire field – but it’s hard to get it to get the timing to work with PUGs

see: Combo field precedence FAQ#29

You shouldn’t have any problem using a Hammer in dungeons. If your group cares enough about stacking might at all, they’ll likely know they should stack might before a fight, leaving you free to drop symbols to your hearts content during. Now, I wouldn’t mind being able to chance which field our symbols drop, but people complaining about “losing stacks because of light fields” is likely unwarranted in dungeons. PvP and WvW are a different matter, but those take different coordination anyway.

A couple things here.

DON’T interrupt your hammer AA symbol, EVER. That’s your main source of dmg (make sure to use writ of persistence). You just need to use it at the right time. Stacking might usually occur before the right or at the beginning of the fight (the first few second). In an organized group, you will have almost constant might stacking with a staff ele. That’s why in speed run with my guild I usually take S/F instead of hammer. But for pugs, don’t worry about might stacking during the first. Just make sure you don’t use your hammer during like the 5 first second of the fight. You can put your symbol on top of the first field, no problem.

I would suggest you use something else than a staff. Staff is a really bad weapon for PvE (freaking great in WvW). The might stacking last way too short to count for anything, the dmg is poor, swiftness is not that useful in dungeon and the cc have limited use. Check for a Greatsword, you can start the fight with it so you don’t put symbol right away, then switch to hammer for the rest of the fight (or switch around both to maximize dps). Or if you need a range weapons, the sceptre is better than staff for this purpose.

Anyway, Hammer is one of the best weapon for the guardian in PvE, so good choose.

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple things here.

DON’T interrupt your hammer AA symbol, EVER. That’s your main source of dmg (make sure to use writ of persistence). You just need to use it at the right time. Stacking might usually occur before the right or at the beginning of the fight (the first few second). In an organized group, you will have almost constant might stacking with a staff ele. That’s why in speed run with my guild I usually take S/F instead of hammer. But for pugs, don’t worry about might stacking during the first. Just make sure you don’t use your hammer during like the 5 first second of the fight. You can put your symbol on top of the first field, no problem.

I would suggest you use something else than a staff. Staff is a really bad weapon for PvE (freaking great in WvW). The might stacking last way too short to count for anything, the dmg is poor, swiftness is not that useful in dungeon and the cc have limited use. Check for a Greatsword, you can start the fight with it so you don’t put symbol right away, then switch to hammer for the rest of the fight (or switch around both to maximize dps). Or if you need a range weapons, the sceptre is better than staff for this purpose.

Anyway, Hammer is one of the best weapon for the guardian in PvE, so good choose.

I find myself using staff a lot, not at all once a fight starts, but it’s pretty great between. Swiftness stacking when the warriors or whoever are too lazy to pull out their warhorns is enough for me to want it. But also the line of warding is quite nice, situations like the Charr fractal I can rotate between the staff and hammer lines on trash pulls to make it overall faster and still very safe. Empower is not a bad setup for a fight, I’ll often pull then turn that corner and start empowering, knowing that my phalanx warrior will take over once there are mobs to hit, not a huge deal but hey it gives us a few extra stacks of might for the few first swings. Spamming 2 is nice during a run in case we take some damage. It’s not much but it’s nice none the less.

But the main reason I take it is for pulling. My group puts that on me a lot. Between 2 and 3 it just works very well, even if things are spread out I can toss a 2 at one, then lay a 3 on the others and have tagged them all.

Of course if someone else is pulling, and someone else is covering swiftness, then of course I prefer GS, just saying I don’t think staff is a bad option when you’re spending a lot of the time camping hammer. I will say I do like the GS setup though, it kinda solves that whole “don’t lay fields right away” situation in itself as you can start with GS, get your rotation through and have eaten up that time doing good damage and swap to hammer after.

Well, if you gonna camp 1 weapons as a guardian. Hammer is by far the best choice. Even GS camping is only meh. But hammer camping can hold its end in term of dps, while giving protection. So if you have a good hammer build, using a staff as secondary (if you use it right) is really not a big deal. Using a GS won’t help you dmg that much at this point so.

I’m still not a fan of staff, and you maybe found the only way staff may be ok to bring in dungeon lol. GS + Staff is bad guys don’t do that pls. So if staff is something you like, then go for it man.

Yeah, i’d agree, it’s honestly the only way I see staff as viable at least in dungeons . Also though it’s a great slot for more utility sigils, bloodlust for instance has been nerfed a lot so it isn’t that great on weapons you use a lot… but since staff isn’t being used for fighting there is no need for the more potent sigils, great slot for bloodlust. Also I keep an energy sigil in it, used much? naw, but it has saved my life so I see it as worthwhile.

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple things here.

DON’T interrupt your hammer AA symbol, EVER. That’s your main source of dmg (make sure to use writ of persistence). You just need to use it at the right time. Stacking might usually occur before the right or at the beginning of the fight (the first few second). In an organized group, you will have almost constant might stacking with a staff ele. That’s why in speed run with my guild I usually take S/F instead of hammer. But for pugs, don’t worry about might stacking during the first. Just make sure you don’t use your hammer during like the 5 first second of the fight. You can put your symbol on top of the first field, no problem.

I would suggest you use something else than a staff. Staff is a really bad weapon for PvE (freaking great in WvW). The might stacking last way too short to count for anything, the dmg is poor, swiftness is not that useful in dungeon and the cc have limited use. Check for a Greatsword, you can start the fight with it so you don’t put symbol right away, then switch to hammer for the rest of the fight (or switch around both to maximize dps). Or if you need a range weapons, the sceptre is better than staff for this purpose.

Anyway, Hammer is one of the best weapon for the guardian in PvE, so good choose.

@Thaddeus: Highly disagree with your opinions on the staff. Empower alone gives quite a long duration (around 15 seconds with 16s cd) of 12 stacks of might, so I don’t see where you got the idea that the might doesn’t last long enough. Staff 2 is good at pulling and staff 3 also compounds with the symbol of protection to give vulnerability. Furthermore, staff 5’s wall is much easier and more reliable than the wall of the hammer.

I figured using the staff along with my hammer was a good way to compensate for the light fields of the hammer because of Empower which I can constantly use during long fights without the need of fire fields, and the weakness from symbol of swiftness.

Sooneroo.2074:

Thaddeus.4891:

A couple things here.

DON’T interrupt your hammer AA symbol, EVER. That’s your main source of dmg (make sure to use writ of persistence). You just need to use it at the right time. Stacking might usually occur before the right or at the beginning of the fight (the first few second). In an organized group, you will have almost constant might stacking with a staff ele. That’s why in speed run with my guild I usually take S/F instead of hammer. But for pugs, don’t worry about might stacking during the first. Just make sure you don’t use your hammer during like the 5 first second of the fight. You can put your symbol on top of the first field, no problem.

I would suggest you use something else than a staff. Staff is a really bad weapon for PvE (freaking great in WvW). The might stacking last way too short to count for anything, the dmg is poor, swiftness is not that useful in dungeon and the cc have limited use. Check for a Greatsword, you can start the fight with it so you don’t put symbol right away, then switch to hammer for the rest of the fight (or switch around both to maximize dps). Or if you need a range weapons, the sceptre is better than staff for this purpose.

Anyway, Hammer is one of the best weapon for the guardian in PvE, so good choose.

@Thaddeus: Highly disagree with your opinions on the staff. Empower alone gives quite a long duration (around 15 seconds with 16s cd) of 12 stacks of might, so I don’t see where you got the idea that the might doesn’t last long enough. Staff 2 is good at pulling and staff 3 also compounds with the symbol of protection to give vulnerability. Furthermore, staff 5’s wall is much easier and more reliable than the wall of the hammer.

I figured using the staff along with my hammer was a good way to compensate for the light fields of the hammer because of Empower which I can constantly use during long fights without the need of fire fields, and the weakness from symbol of swiftness.

Problem is the DPS of staff is just so low. But, again I think it’s a very viable weapon for outside of fights, and with hammer being such a strong AA camping it isn’t really bad, so between the two you have a ton of utility, and you don’t lose that much damage potential.

Pull with 2, turn the corner, empower, drop the swiftness circle if you aren’t might stacking with a fire field (really don’t need it if you have a phalanx warrior, which my groups almost always do) then swap to hammer and have at it.

You can get all the things you mention without ever using it in the fight really set up the fight with the staff, then fight with the hammer. That’s how I usually do things.

Sooneroo.2074:

@Thaddeus: Highly disagree with your opinions on the staff. Empower alone gives quite a long duration (around 15 seconds with 16s cd) of 12 stacks of might, so I don’t see where you got the idea that the might doesn’t last long enough. Staff 2 is good at pulling and staff 3 also compounds with the symbol of protection to give vulnerability. Furthermore, staff 5’s wall is much easier and more reliable than the wall of the hammer.

I figured using the staff along with my hammer was a good way to compensate for the light fields of the hammer because of Empower which I can constantly use during long fights without the need of fire fields, and the weakness from symbol of swiftness.

1) Staff empower give 10sec of might on a 20sec cooldown. Now, you need 50% boons duration to get that 15sec you have. That mean that you probably have like 6pts in virtues and superior rune of water of something (food maybe) to reach 50%. And you have two-handed mastery trait to get the 16sec CD from your staff. So ya you sacrifice a good runes and some good trait to reach that level of empower with your staff. A might blast is 20sec wihtout any boons duration, FGJ is 25sec, HGH is 25sec there is better way of getting might than the staff Empower for PvE. So if you want to use boons duration, use that on an Ele or a Warrior for might, not for Empower.
2) Ok so you have 15s of might on a 16sec cooldown. Ok, but if you do that in the middle of the fight, you will do kittenty DPS (from what i can see of your build you probably don’t do that much DPS anyway) with a staff during 10sekittenil you can switch to the hammer.
3) Everything range is good at pulling man. Focus skill 4 work just fine 100% of the time. You want to pull stuff more? I rather see a sceptre, at least you can put a high DPS symbol on the ground before switching to your hammer, or use your staff to pull, empower, switch back to hammer and then never switch back to your staff until the fight is over.
4) Oh ya skill 3 is good right?? Vulnerability right?? Its just that GS symbol do 8 times more dmg, but shhhhh. Staff 3 is good.
5) There is no hammer wall, its a ring. And for the staff, its a line. But anyway, both line and rings and rarely useful PvE (except maybe in solo). Ya you denied the passage of those mobs. Cool. What does it give me? Either i kill them, or i run past them, and if i’m gonna run and skip, i rather have my focus shield than a line of warding. Its not useless, but not a really efficient skill in PvE.

Conclusion. Staff have kittenty DPS and inferior support for PvE. But its a kitten great weapon for WvW. That’s why I crafted Bifrost for my guardian. I don’t dislike the staff, i don’t want a buff to it to make it better. Its an awesome weapons, but PvE is not really its place unless you get it a really specialist role like Jesus do (before fight, never during the fight) or during TA for the blossom.

Thaddeus.4891:

Sooneroo.2074:

@Thaddeus: Highly disagree with your opinions on the staff. Empower alone gives quite a long duration (around 15 seconds with 16s cd) of 12 stacks of might, so I don’t see where you got the idea that the might doesn’t last long enough. Staff 2 is good at pulling and staff 3 also compounds with the symbol of protection to give vulnerability. Furthermore, staff 5’s wall is much easier and more reliable than the wall of the hammer.

I figured using the staff along with my hammer was a good way to compensate for the light fields of the hammer because of Empower which I can constantly use during long fights without the need of fire fields, and the weakness from symbol of swiftness.

1) Staff empower give 10sec of might on a 20sec cooldown. Now, you need 50% boons duration to get that 15sec you have. That mean that you probably have like 6pts in virtues and superior rune of water of something (food maybe) to reach 50%. And you have two-handed mastery trait to get the 16sec CD from your staff. So ya you sacrifice a good runes and some good trait to reach that level of empower with your staff. A might blast is 20sec wihtout any boons duration, FGJ is 25sec, HGH is 25sec there is better way of getting might than the staff Empower for PvE. So if you want to use boons duration, use that on an Ele or a Warrior for might, not for Empower.
2) Ok so you have 15s of might on a 16sec cooldown. Ok, but if you do that in the middle of the fight, you will do kittenty DPS (from what i can see of your build you probably don’t do that much DPS anyway) with a staff during 10sekittenil you can switch to the hammer.
3) Everything range is good at pulling man. Focus skill 4 work just fine 100% of the time. You want to pull stuff more? I rather see a sceptre, at least you can put a high DPS symbol on the ground before switching to your hammer, or use your staff to pull, empower, switch back to hammer and then never switch back to your staff until the fight is over.
4) Oh ya skill 3 is good right?? Vulnerability right?? Its just that GS symbol do 8 times more dmg, but shhhhh. Staff 3 is good.
5) There is no hammer wall, its a ring. And for the staff, its a line. But anyway, both line and rings and rarely useful PvE (except maybe in solo). Ya you denied the passage of those mobs. Cool. What does it give me? Either i kill them, or i run past them, and if i’m gonna run and skip, i rather have my focus shield than a line of warding. Its not useless, but not a really efficient skill in PvE.

Conclusion. Staff have kittenty DPS and inferior support for PvE. But its a kitten great weapon for WvW. That’s why I crafted Bifrost for my guardian. I don’t dislike the staff, i don’t want a buff to it to make it better. Its an awesome weapons, but PvE is not really its place unless you get it a really specialist role like Jesus do (before fight, never during the fight) or during TA for the blossom.

Sure staff does inferior DPS, but it’s really more about the utility it gives. Imagine this, you pull with the orb and stack might with staff 4 at the beginning of the fight then switch to hammer. What happens when the might stack of the warriors and eles wears off in long fights? I highly doubt pugs will be coordinated enough to make fields and stack might again during the fight. Switching back to staff to use empower again gives them 12 stacks of might and that is enough compensation for the inferior DPS of the staff, since you buff your allies’ damage.

Further to that, staff 3, like I said, also gives vulnerability, and along with spamming orb 2 during the fight (and not detonating giving it a 2s cooldown) while alternating with staff 1, can actually contribute more damage than you think.

im pretty sure a pug warrior can stick on phalanx strength and press 2 off of cooldown on gs

might stacking isnt that hard

I’d really like to see the light field dropped from the AA. There’s already a light field on #5 for on demand access. Having it on the AA seems more like a handicap for having perma-protection.

Shanks.2907:

I’d really like to see the light field dropped from the AA. There’s already a light field on #5 for on demand access. Having it on the AA seems more like a handicap for having perma-protection.

god I would love that so much. just so so so so much.

The situation of PUGs being unable to stack might any other way begs the question “are they worth the personal loss to stack them with might?” If they can’t run phalanx as a war, or find other ways to stack might up, how much damage are they doing? how much are you adding? does it beat out what you would have otherwise done yourself?

Personally I have always thought that’s a tough enough question to answer that I rather just take what I know, and do the best I can, rather than rely on the group that’s already showing itself to fail in some areas.

I love my phalanx warriors though, might stacking without fire fields is great.

Ok its some rough math, but

Here the DPS a player using good trait, gear, food, sigil, buff.
Hammer (no might) : 7 300dps
Hammer (12 might) : 8 500dps
Staff (no might) : 3 000dps
Staff (12 might) : 3 600dps
Staff and Hammer (no might) : 5 150dps
Staff and hammer (12 might) : 6 050dps

Let say, you have 4 guardian using hammer and 1 switching around. (I use guardian hammer only to keep the math simple) That’s about :
Party (no might) : 34 350 dps
Party (12 might) : 40 050 dps

If you have 10sec of might and switching around take weapons take 20sec. (10sec in Staff, 10sec in hammer). This mean that you will have 12 might around 50% of the time. (Not true, but i’ll talk about that latter).
That mean that in average, you party will make about 37 200 dps
A party of 5 Hammer guardian with no might will have about 36 500 dps

You won’t have 10sec of might each 20sec right. It will be less of that, over time. But that give you a general idea. So not that bad idea overall, but it won’t gonna give you an improvement. At best, you are practically the same amount of DPS with or without that.

Now, I consider myself a good player. At least I use a good build with high DPS and I die not too much. What happen, if i’m with pug, with an average build. Do they use food? Potions? Full Zerker? Good runes? Good sigils? Do they use best trait? Just remove some buffs like potions, foods, scholar runes or UC and you got other numbers. My own portion of the overall DPS increase, making the 12 stack less and less of a good option. So you have two possibility.

1) I’m with a average pug, where It’s gonna better for me to keep my own dps high compare to boosting the low dps of the rest of my party.
2) I’m with some good pugs, which whom it could be a good option to use staff or at least not decease our overall DPS. But in that case, if i’m playing with some good player, i’ll probably have 25 stacks of might because other profession, better at stacking might will do their jobs, while as a guardian i’ll do my job of damage mitigation with aegis, blind and reflect.

There is a 3rd options. If you play with 4 good players and you bring a bad dps build. Then ya, use your staff to boost their dmg. But either they gonna kick you for joining them with a bad build, gonna give themselves 25 stacks of might or don’t care and carry you by killing stuff fast while you empower and put switfness symbol all over the place.

Curious did you factor in the 3s of 0 damage into that staff DPS? You’re actually only getting 7s of staff attacks for every rotation, with 1 symbol, and what like 3-4 balls?

I still like staff for the out of combat utility, while focus can pull as thad pointed out, a focus doesn’t really fit into a Hammer build, it’s basically Hammer + something, ideally GS for damage but camping hammer isn’t bad so you’re really pretty open to what’s in the secondary. But a sword/focus, no real point sword is an AA weapon as is hammer, mace/focus… why? scepter/focus… again why? So personally I keep finding myself going back to staff or GS depending on if my group is willing to do everything they can and keep up the swiftness and pull things when needed.

Sure I could pull with hammer3, but I really hate pulling with immobilize. Plus on things like subject alpha it’s nice to be able to turn the corner before they take that damage so you don’t get frozen on your way back or stuff like that.

Jerus.4350:

Curious did you factor in the 3s of 0 damage into that staff DPS? You’re actually only getting 7s of staff attacks for every rotation, with 1 symbol, and what like 3-4 balls?

I still like staff for the out of combat utility, while focus can pull as thad pointed out, a focus doesn’t really fit into a Hammer build, it’s basically Hammer + something, ideally GS for damage but camping hammer isn’t bad so you’re really pretty open to what’s in the secondary. But a sword/focus, no real point sword is an AA weapon as is hammer, mace/focus… why? scepter/focus… again why? So personally I keep finding myself going back to staff or GS depending on if my group is willing to do everything they can and keep up the swiftness and pull things when needed.

Sure I could pull with hammer3, but I really hate pulling with immobilize. Plus on things like subject alpha it’s nice to be able to turn the corner before they take that damage so you don’t get frozen on your way back or stuff like that.

Ya i thought about the 3s of empower during which you don’t dps. But still, i didn’t decreased the staff DPS by taking that into account. Like i said, that rought math. I didn’t took into account condition neither. I prefer to be generous with the Staff DPS to make my point even stronger. In reality, using staff during a fight would be even less good than what my rough math show. So even is the best situation possible, staff in never a good option in the middle of a fight.

But ya, like we talk about, staff is a good choice if you don’t use it during fight and camp hammer. I still prefer to use GS (pull and some burst) or scepter/focus (for some range fight in some specific situation) over a staff, but that’s mainly because I usually run with my guildmate that bring might. And since i dropped zap and crafted bolt, i must say that i only play hammer in fractal anymore. I need to show off that bolt now