Guild Wars 2

title + hammer 5 skill? any signs of fixing that dodging, teleporting out of it? or changing to something else or just delete it. make it to grow flowers on path that you walk with it.

I would just like to cast it while moving. Its hard for it to be useful if i’m standing still to use it and they are already clear out of the way. I think its ok for being able to be dodge out of if your opponent wants to waste a dodge getting out of it. ( i still get plenty of people stunned by it from not knowing)

Honestly I think the hammer abilities are just a little too slow for a melee weapon and feel rather clunky to use. I was going to write a really long “review/suggestion” list for guardian weapons/traits/etc and that’s something I’d like to see addressed.

If you play mobility style, just activate JI right after you cast Hammer#5. You teleport to your target as you cast for 100% capture.

Works wonders. Always useful if you use JI a lot I don’t but I still love Hammer#5. I use it to block doors, break a group of people, trap stunned/rooted enemies etc etc many ways to use it.

Hammer is good as-is, the “clunkiness” is part of its playstyle, and is very, very powerful in its “slow” guise. People shouldn’t be able to jump, dodge out of the ring (IMHO, not sure if the developers’ agree), but everything else is great with the hammer, in my estimation.

Star Ace.5207:

Hammer is good as-is, the “clunkiness” is part of its playstyle, and is very, very powerful in its “slow” guise. People shouldn’t be able to jump, dodge out of the ring (IMHO, not sure if the developers’ agree), but everything else is great with the hammer, in my estimation.

The problem isn’t that hammer is slow but that it’s slow and it sucks. It does crap damage so until that is fixed the hammer is pretty much exclusively for control. It’s kind of dumb that a pure control weapon has such an obvious flaw in its most important control ability.

There’s an easy fix though. Don’t use the hammer.

^^ Not sure why you have so much hate for hammer. It’s certainly not crap damage if you know how to use it and set yourself up to use it. Other weapons are certainly worse.

But yes, #5 seems to not be working as intended and it would be really nice to have some more frequent purpose for it in PVE.

Wathever I do hammer feels to slow. The thing is without symbol of protection, your 1-chain is INCREDIBLE weak. And the thing is, there’s LOADS of ways to screw up a 3rd attack in chain (dodge by enemy, CC you, die before that, just moving) etc. Everytime i need dps from SoP, it fails, no matter how hard i Try. Secondly to predictable. Everyone sees your hits. If you know guardian, you know you just have to dodge the third one, making the weapon pretty useless. I like the GS so much more. both control/dps wise, it feels so much smoother. But that’s just my opinion. I WANT to like hammer, but no matter what i do, i rarely am in the mood for it’s ‘slowness’ (and being easy to dodge).

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Star Ace.5207:

Hammer is good as-is, the “clunkiness” is part of its playstyle, and is very, very powerful in its “slow” guise. People shouldn’t be able to jump, dodge out of the ring (IMHO, not sure if the developers’ agree), but everything else is great with the hammer, in my estimation.

The problem isn’t that hammer is slow but that it’s slow and it sucks. It does crap damage so until that is fixed the hammer is pretty much exclusively for control. It’s kind of dumb that a pure control weapon has such an obvious flaw in its most important control ability.

There’s an easy fix though. Don’t use the hammer.

No offense, but one would think the hammer weapon choice personally hurt you or your family. Any hammer thread you say the same things. If you don’t like it, it’s OK, but it doesn’t mean it sucks. Hammer doesn’t have to be just like your favorite weapon (probably greatsword) in order for it to be any good, and it isn’t all about math and DPS (and hammer’s AoE attack is pretty high, in any case.)

In short, the hammer doesn’t suck, but it may “suck” for you if you don’t like it/find any fun use for it (same with sword, scepter, etc.) Use what you like and works for you, and respect others’ choice to “kitten” themselves with the hammer.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Star Ace.5207:

Hammer is good as-is, the “clunkiness” is part of its playstyle, and is very, very powerful in its “slow” guise. People shouldn’t be able to jump, dodge out of the ring (IMHO, not sure if the developers’ agree), but everything else is great with the hammer, in my estimation.

The problem isn’t that hammer is slow but that it’s slow and it sucks. It does crap damage so until that is fixed the hammer is pretty much exclusively for control. It’s kind of dumb that a pure control weapon has such an obvious flaw in its most important control ability.

There’s an easy fix though. Don’t use the hammer.

………………..hammer does crap damage?

I do so hope you are joking.

Hammer has crap damage? Pfft.

I have played some wvw on my guardian now, and i find it hilariously easy to catch people with Ring of Warding. This gives me time to unload my damage on them. SoP i can agree is a tad slow. But if you are a hammer guardian, you realise at some point that Mighty Blow is the best skill when it comes to damage. But all in all i wouldn’t say that the hammer needs a fix. Try JI and that will solve the problem of having no gap closer. And, as mentioned before, JI and skill 5 works like a charm when timed fight.

the first two swings of the hammer easily net me multiple crits of high numbers. and then adding on the last swing, and then followed by a mighty blow. you see even higher numbers.

don’t feel hammer needs a fix at all. it’s in a pretty decent place right now. i would love movement while casting #5 but have no huge gripes with it. apart from using it to “trap” people, using it to “block” works wonders as well.

Star Ace.5207:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Star Ace.5207:

Hammer is good as-is, the “clunkiness” is part of its playstyle, and is very, very powerful in its “slow” guise. People shouldn’t be able to jump, dodge out of the ring (IMHO, not sure if the developers’ agree), but everything else is great with the hammer, in my estimation.

The problem isn’t that hammer is slow but that it’s slow and it sucks. It does crap damage so until that is fixed the hammer is pretty much exclusively for control. It’s kind of dumb that a pure control weapon has such an obvious flaw in its most important control ability.

There’s an easy fix though. Don’t use the hammer.

No offense, but one would think the hammer weapon choice personally hurt you or your family. Any hammer thread you say the same things. If you don’t like it, it’s OK, but it doesn’t mean it sucks. Hammer doesn’t have to be just like your favorite weapon (probably greatsword) in order for it to be any good, and it isn’t all about math and DPS (and hammer’s AoE attack is pretty high, in any case.)

In short, the hammer doesn’t suck, but it may “suck” for you if you don’t like it/find any fun use for it (same with sword, scepter, etc.) Use what you like and works for you, and respect others’ choice to “kitten” themselves with the hammer.

The problem is that I run too many dungeons with guardians who turn out to be using hammer then we’re basically 4/5 for the dungeon, dps-wise. It’s the same problem as warriors who use longbows and pretty much any necromancer build. If you want to want to kitten yourself, that’s fine. I’d rather you not kitten the entire group though.

I find that guardians who stick with greatsword have a worse time of it with dungeons that are actually challenging, simply because of the loss of the perma symbol. For dungeon farming where there is absolutely no skill necessary, though, yeah you can stick with greatsword, scepter, whatever.

However if everything goes to crap, you need a weapon that’s versatile enough to proc boons and divert aggro if necessary. This becomes very apparent on level 20+ fractals where really the only boss you need max DPS on is Old Tom, and the rest will not ever let you do a binding blade-whirling wrath combo without paying for it. And if you’re going into fractals only using the scepter, you may as well be replaced with a mesmer or ele who are just plain better than guardian in every way if doing fractals range only.

Huh, really? :O
Well I’ve done every single dungeon with greatsword/staff combo including getting in 20+ levels at fractals o.o
but I guess I should thank you

Thank you, GW2 community, for making most guardians pick a hammer
Thank you, for advertising it as the only “pro” weapon
It’s so much easier to kill these in WvW.
Keep up the good work, I want to see more hammer guardians :p So I could AoE you xD

Why should people just use what’s popular? Nothing wrong with joining the zillion Greatsword users, but also there’s nothing wrong with using Hammer (or sword, scepter, mace, etc.) Individuality and personal choice anyone?

Both Hammer and Greatsword are great weapons, no need to make them mutually exclusive, as if they were teamsports. Some will prefer one over the other, but the “superior choice” will boil down to what works best for each player, confronted with different situations, and depending on builds/traits desired. While I also don’t advocate the view that Hammer is “better” than Greatsword (nor do I care for which of the two has “more DPS”), I feel that we do not need to take sides on this issue.

I do not have a Exotic Greatsword, but don’t deem myself superior for not using it. Nor should Greatsword users feel “superior” because they are using the “best weapon” in the game.

BTW, I enjoy Greatsword gameplay on Ranger, just not on my Guardian. It’s nothing against the weapon itself-I just like what the other wepon choices offer for me and my allies best as a Guardian-even if most would disagree with what to them would be a “foolish” choice.

Hammer does good damage (if you look at damage charts, it’s not the worst) and the great CC essentially increases damage (since your enemy has to be near you for you to be able to hit them). The auto attack speed could be buffed a little on the 3rd swing, apart from that I love it.

hammer have really good dmg, if you are a good build, i have 42% crit and 111% crit dmg and i have fury for 40 sec (20% more crit) and my mighty blow does 4.5-5.5k dmg i dont mind slowness of attacks because 3rd auto doing good dmg + aoe heal +vigor + 33% dmg reduction.
but #5 skill haha made me laugh when i used that and 4 ppl inside just teleport out and dodged out hilarious it would be good if its an instant attack or usable while moving, now its just useless 90% times. i want #5 skill to throw flowers when i walk on downed or dead ppl

Ravenmoon.5318:

Huh, really? :O
Well I’ve done every single dungeon with greatsword/staff combo including getting in 20+ levels at fractals o.o
but I guess I should thank you

Thank you, GW2 community, for making most guardians pick a hammer
Thank you, for advertising it as the only “pro” weapon
It’s so much easier to kill these in WvW.
Keep up the good work, I want to see more hammer guardians :p So I could AoE you xD

I sincerely doubt that greatsword/staff is the optimal choice for the dredge fractal or the grawl fractal (and all 2 handed weapons are bad at the jade sea fractal) for various reasons, not the least of which is that retaliation is not the boon you need to have during those times. And when it comes to the colossus fractal, having a counter to all that vulnerability the cultist set up + the party being forced to melee in a huddle together + a frequent light field to remove conditions from the ArchDiviner + a boss that needs to be bound once in a while and hits hard enough and slow enough that protection would be nice and retaliation would be useless = Hammer probably does colossus faster than greatsword.

I agree with the OP.

I wanna love the Hammer but where everything is about mobility, I don’t want to have to “time” things to achieve what other weapons provide out of the box.

ANet, please revisit the Hammer.

First, some facts. The first two swings of the hammer are both 1/2 second…which is EXACTLY the same as the first two swings of the greatsword. Yes, the second hit is a 1.25 second cast, but:

a) you can continue to move while doing it
b) the symbol and damage hits even if the target or yourself move out of melee range

Plus, that hit is extremely hard and it gives me a near permanent 33% damage reduction. What that means is I can add more +precision and +crit% to my gear and still be more survivable than your standard GS wearer.

Hammer hits just as hard as the greatsword, with significantly better built in survivability. That means gearing for better DPS which nets out to much, much harder hitting.

But anyway, I love seeing these “hammer sucks, need buffs” threads, because anything else will make it pretty ridiculous.

Whatever, though…I’m perfectly happy to let those greatsword users “spin to win” and think they’re awesome.

If Hammer didn’t have Mighty Blow, you’d have a point that it is inferior to other options. The comment that Hammer Guardians or Longbow Warriors are inferior to other ranged options makes me laugh, it is about using combo fields and that is devastatingly powerful.

Ring of Warding (skill 5) just needs to have the animation/activation reduced to .25s from .75s and it would fix it since you can only use the temporary containment zone from melee range (unlike Staff’s long range version). That being said, use RoW like you would the Staff (5) skill and you’ll grow to love it (*cough*portal bomb*cough*).

Hammer is a superior guardian weapon. The damage is often greater than GS — see AH build post that stickied to the top of the guardian thread for DPS comparisons.

The control of the weapon is superb.

Finally the protection buff is amazing and provides the single greatest survivability boost of any guardian weapon. We already have lots of heals going on. Given our mechanic is to out-last damage through regeneration, the use of protections makes us 33% more guardian.

juno.1840:

Hammer is a superior guardian weapon. The damage is often greater than GS — see AH build post that stickied to the top of the guardian thread for DPS comparisons.

The control of the weapon is superb.

Finally the protection buff is amazing and provides the single greatest survivability boost of any guardian weapon. We already have lots of heals going on. Given our mechanic is to out-last damage through regeneration, the use of protections makes us 33% more guardian.

Those comparisons are highly inaccurate. Brutaly basically built for hammer then hit a few things, then switched to greatsword without changing anything (so he was using a hammer build with a greatsword) and hit a few more things and came up with some random conclusions from that. Moreover, he also took out all his stats and used steady gear so his damage output was almost 50% from burning procs alone, which means he wasn’t even really comparing damage at all, he was just comparing number of hits. Lastly, he only compared the damage on the auto-attack, so he isn’t even actually proving anything at all except that the hammer auto-attack hits harder than the greatsword auto-attack. That much is true at the very least but it doesn’t really mean anything unless you really only ever auto-attack.

Hammer is never stronger than the greatsword no matter the situation. In actuality, under ideal circumstances (which can’t actually happen due to the long swing time on the auto-attack chain preventing you from using skills on cooldown), the hammer deals about 1.9k/s. In practice it’s closer to 1.8k/s. That’s also building to get max damage out of it, since hammer trades off very poorly with a support build. By comparison the greatsword hits 2.2k/s both in theory and in practice. That difference doesn’t sound like that much but it’s actually a good 20% difference. The hammer also applies its damage on a huge delay so you’ll really feel that difference against ordinary mobs. Meanwhile, against dungeon mobs and bosses, where you actually have to roll to avoid attacks, you’ll find that you’re losing tons of damage from having to interrupt your hammer chain so often. In practice I’d estimate the greatsword kills things about 50% faster than the hammer, which is a huge difference.

Guanglai is correct. Let me compound on his reasoning. The hammer on paper is an excellent weapon but in a game such as this where mobility is so important, it’s almost negligible. You’ll almost never hit a moving target with your Auto attack symbol, and the rest of the skills on the bar provide such a telegraph that it’s very easy to dodge.

yea but its all useless anet dont even read our complains about anything, so its waste of my time typing any thread, they do not read about their bugged dungeons and bosses, its useless

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Those comparisons are highly inaccurate. Brutaly basically built for hammer then hit a few things, then switched to greatsword without changing anything (so he was using a hammer build with a greatsword) and hit a few more things and came up with some random conclusions from that.

I wont go into the discussion regarding what weapon is superior since the entire discussion is flawed. They both serve a purpose and as long they are played to their strenghts they are extremely powerful.

Hammer and GS are made for two different purposes and they both work really nice.

I will only comment on this since this is as close to a lie as they come.

I perform(ed) all dps tests with 0 (zero) point in the trait trees and i also activate virtue of justice as soon as its off cd to eliminate the difference in attackspeed.

So no, the test(s) isnt made with a favorable build and this is the case for both weapons.

I think any test with builds, or traits, are biased to begin with and the only way to actually display some sort of objective result is to test them untraited with eliminated VoJ.

Solitary, single target DPS is a flawed philosophy anyway since the only class that applies to is the thief. Guardians especially roll in packs, stack might, use retaliation as an enemy dependent damage dealer, and are generally most effective against mobs, which is arguably where symbols shine. I find SYG and Courage break stuns to be way better than any DPS spec simply because they decrease the amount of time the party is not attacking a CC-happy boss – like Balthazar, who is possibly the poster child for Hallowed Ground and Purging Flames advocacy.

What I’d really like to know for DPS purposes is during the few times in dungeons with lame bosses that don’t attack, move, or present any threat whatsoever, whether it’s better to put on DPS for yourself or apply 25 stacks of might to team members to get the ordeal over with. I’d also like a separate calculation done for mobs in groups of five of more since the situation is totally different there. That’s really all that’s needed DPS wise since if you really want to kill damage sponges the fastest and your defenses are covered, you should really be rolling a warrior – unless of course a 25 might stack party is better than a perma fury party (in which case, elementalist or engineer of all things is probably a better choice, since at least they can spam blast finishers).

Hammer, for people who can think more than just KILL KILL KILL. superior in everyway.

Only thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that on the 3 strike of the Auto you can use JI before and essentially chase a target and pop the symbol on them. You can also evade and still have the last strike pop. I have done this many times in PVE ultimately though it is unreliable or I am just not good enough at it.

I believe most hammer builds are not DPS builds but survival builds anyway and while it puts out decent damage that is really a side effect of its true purpose. Making you hardier.

It has been said multiple times that the Hammer builds for Guards are mainly build around that team and that any guard caught in PVP with a hammer on his own is going to get pawned 9/10 times.

Anyway who just uses one weapon all of the time?

KensaiZen.3740:

Hammer, for people who can think more than just KILL KILL KILL. superior in everyway.

Really now? So what now, you think you are smarter for using a hammer?
To the dude quoting me, yes I have gotten underground fractal and colossus quite fast with my combo. I usually aggro all the mobs and just run until some team member finishes with the contol panel

KensaiZen.3740:

Hammer, for people who can think more than just KILL KILL KILL. superior in everyway.

Hammer is just sit and auto-attack. You’re basically just trading DPS (and thus utility to your team) for a crutch that enables you to not have to do proper defensive movement. 95% of the stuff that Protection actually affects is easily evaded. The other 5% is mostly large groups of mobs that hit you for low damage, like the dredge mobs at the bomb gate in Underground Fractals, in which case greatsword is actually better since it hits more often and has better AOE capabilities, so you proc heals more often and kill things that would otherwise be killing you more quickly.

Moreover, if you really, really want to survive well, you should be using a scepter. It has a higher overall DPS and enables you to attack at range, which makes it 100x easier to dodge red circles and the like. Alternately, mace is way better defensively for when you really need to go full defense, although the DPS on that sucks even more than hammer.

Ravenmoon.5318:

KensaiZen.3740:

Hammer, for people who can think more than just KILL KILL KILL. superior in everyway.

Really now? So what now, you think you are smarter for using a hammer?
To the dude quoting me, yes I have gotten underground fractal and colossus quite fast with my combo. I usually aggro all the mobs and just run until some team member finishes with the contol panel

I actually find that guardians with sanctuary, shield of the avenger, and focus + the standard blocks can cheat up the control panel very well. Otherwise, I’m relegated to standing on a button alone while everyone else coordinates aggro. In fact, the entire dredge fractal is actually better served by doing more CC and less DPS: getting dredge off the bombs, getting the veteran away from rabsovich, and binding and reflecting the final boss.

I’m actually curious as to how you can use greatsword effectively in the Colossus fractal, especially during the harder seals where mobility is restricted. Binding Blade hurts more than helps when dealing with cultists, as you just want to target one of them to get the hammer tag for the seal.

Use large symbols. It requires very fancy footwork or 2 dodgrolls to get out of range

KensaiZen.3740:

Use large symbols. It requires very fancy footwork or 2 dodgrolls to get out of range

Even with untraited symbols you hit with two out of three ticks, as long you hit with the third blow, in most pvp situations. With larger symbols its usually 3 ticks and two ticks even if you miss the final step.

The discussion is flawed to begin with.

The hammer isnt a single target duel weapon and as long as people use it as that then i frankly understand that they can be very unsatisfied with its performance. Personally i use gs or 1h sword for duels and wouldnt dream of having the hammer as my main weapon in duels as my first choice. But the number of duels i do is very limited.

Does that mean that the hammer is subpar dpswise, no, it just means its subpar versus single targets.

From a masspvp/pve perspective, with multiple enemies, the hammer is just fine.

The only thing that is flawed is that 2h mastery doesnt improve overall dps and that RoW seems to be bugged.

And from that perspective the chain might need a tweak in length so we get an improvement in dps from 2h mastery. Personally i would like the chain to be 2,3-2,4 seconds, this would mean that without 2h mastery max dps would be 3chain+mb and with 2h mastery 2*chain+mb*
Or that they doubled the cooldown on MB and doubled the damage.

An other thing that bothers me in tpvp/premade wvw is that the symbols from the hammer has to long duration/uptime and often overlaps other symbols. This makes it difficult to coordinate the triggering of the desired symbol which isnt SoP by default.

Shortening animation length on the chain and keep just 2 damage/protection ticks would improve this and it would also be in line with shortening animation så 2h mastery improves dps.

2 ticks on symbol of protection would also be inline with 50% increased symbol duration.

Hammer is fine in it self but the traits and the ability to play coordinated could/would/should need an improvement.

Improving the starttup on AA chain in exchange for fewer symbol ticks and less total damage would in fact be a major buff to the hammer overall. That said, that would probably make Writ of Persistence overpowered for the hammer (if for example it gave you 1 extra tick on a 1s startup symbol instead of 1 extra tick on a 2s startup one).

I would still favor simply making the hammer chain a regular chain like Mace, and making Symbol of Protection skill 2 so it can be used on demand. If it had regular duration instead of only being 2s it would be worth decent damage and actually useful since really, who is going to sit in a hammer chain for 4s? The greatsword’s symbol is way better in general since you can use it with snares to guarantee heavy damage, i.e. something like Binding Blades > symbol precast > Pull. On the other hand you can’t do ZE/Ring > symbol because of long startup and symbol > ZE/Ring doesn’t work either due to short symbol duration. Hammer has a bunch of control skills but there’s no point to any of them except to immediately switch to another weapon. That’s fine but it just makes the hammer a pure CC weapon… might as well use scepter chains so you can keep damage potential and still have decent CC.

Haven’t read all posts, but as I see many people think that hammer does crap damage and is useless. I can say its not. In wvw, no matter who is my oponent, 1vs1 none beaten me yet. Hammer is great in dungeons, in PvE also usefull, but in open world I prefer GS as it gives little more flexibility.

Imo the beauty with the hammer is that you waste no time standing still when you drop the symbol which makes it less dependent on cc, like SoW is and you cant move while placing it. Removing the symbol form the chain totally would make the hammer a much poorer version of the warrior hammer and then they have to fix the other skills as well.

A mace type chain would kill the weapon, long casting times and extremely predictable, even more so then the hammer symbol tbh. The only weapon where Anet infact solved the symolimplementation in a decent fashion are staff and hammer, where you can move and place it with not so bloody awful long casting times.

Both mace and GS are poor implementations imo.

I would even prefer that they made the chain faster, to make 2h mastery worth trating in pve, and just have one tick of protection/damage if it would be to powerful.

I would be happy with 1sec protection and 2,4 sec animation length and with traited symbols it would be 2s protection per animation, which would add up to 80% uptime with WoP. Today its close to 100% with WoP.

Then ofc adjust damage accordingly in the chain so it wont get overpowered in combination with the symbol.

Imo the idea of the hammer is in fact to force people to move from a certain area and as such it works great today. I find the symbol to work in favor of the team even though not all ticks infact hit the opponent. Damage isnt everything in war, forcing people to move can be just as powerful.

I wont go into a discussion regarding hammer being a pure cc weapon or the need to switch to another weapon, we are on different sides of the fence there, imo the good thing is that the hammer isnt dependent on cd to do damage and there is no reason to have a secondary weapon for doing the same job. You see that different then me and we most certainly have very different playstyles so there seem to be no point in discussing it and i just leave it at that.

Love using the hammer to trap people inside the ring of warding in WvWvW and let my teammates finish them off.

Sad when people are able to bug out from it by dodging or getting knocked back.

I play with both Hammer and Greatsword, and often i respec when going to certain activities.

There are strong points for both of the weapon, and IMHO these are the most versatile guardian weapons.

Greatsword has great utility and damage. I realy like the pull, especially in WvW and PvP. Spin is always beautiful, even if not so efficient as i would (bolts tend to miss even targets which are very near).
Symbol is so-so… being stationary while casting it is a liability, but can be overcome with good movement skill. Greatswords AoE like Hammer, and has builtin might.

Hammer has strong CC and damage. The utilities are completely reversed from the GS. Where the GS pulls, the hammers knocks away. The hammer has root, while the GS has not. Even if the chain is slower than the GS, most people are fooled from the third hit. But, the third hit is RANGED, not MELEE. Most people oversee that, you hit even if the foe has gone away (400 or 600 range i think).
So, third hit, and symbol, are mostly assured (especially if larger). DPS is the same of the GS, except that Hammer has protection boon , while GS has Might, and that tips the scale a little toward Greatsword DPS.

What i really like of the hammer, and the reason that it is my mainstay weapon, is the Combo Finisher: Blast. Sure, Greatsword has three combo finishers, but they are 2 Whirl and one Leap.

If you have familiarity with Combo Fields, you should know that while Leap applies the “Combo Buff” only to you(or debuffs to your target), and Whirl makes “bolts” that give boons (or debuffs) on hit.

Blast, however, spread the effect on an area. I ALWAYS coordinate my Mighty Blow with my Ranger and Elementalist teammate to spread a Water field into a 1.5k+ Area Healing (*3 times), all the while keeping hitting my foes with a large AoE attack.

I much rather prefer this “fire and forget” approach to Combo, that aiming for my teammates with the spin, hoping to get them.

TLDR; both weapons are right for their job, doing DPS. While either has their own advantages and disadvantages in some aspects of the game.

I’m a new guardian, and I’m using AC exotic hammer, after this post I’m considering to try the GS during dungeons, since I have some tokens from CoF, I can get the GS from there and use both during my runs.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The problem is that I run too many dungeons with guardians who turn out to be using hammer then we’re basically 4/5 for the dungeon, dps-wise. It’s the same problem as warriors who use longbows and pretty much any necromancer build. If you want to want to gimp yourself, that’s fine. I’d rather you not gimp the entire group though.

That’s very little to do with the specific choice of playing hammer. Hammer isn’t a bad weapon because you team with guardians that aren’t successful with it in dungeons. I’ve seen guardians that are successful with it in dungeons, so my conclusion is that it’s just a matter of perception and proper use. As a pure assessment of weapon damage, hammer is a good choice.

Brutaly.6257:

I perform(ed) all dps tests with 0 (zero) point in the trait trees and i also activate virtue of justice as soon as its off cd to eliminate the difference in attackspeed.

So no, the test(s) isnt made with a favorable build and this is the case for both weapons.

I think any test with builds, or traits, are biased to begin with and the only way to actually display some sort of objective result is to test them untraited with eliminated VoJ.

Bravo to you sir, for understanding how to build an objective test. Would you be kind enough to link your results again? I believe I have missed them, or simply forgotten.

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

I perform(ed) all dps tests with 0 (zero) point in the trait trees and i also activate virtue of justice as soon as its off cd to eliminate the difference in attackspeed.

So no, the test(s) isnt made with a favorable build and this is the case for both weapons.

I think any test with builds, or traits, are biased to begin with and the only way to actually display some sort of objective result is to test them untraited with eliminated VoJ.

Bravo to you sir, for understanding how to build an objective test. Would you be kind enough to link your results again? I believe I have missed them, or simply forgotten.

That’s not an objective test lol. Greatsword benefits more from traits and equipment than hammer does. By not using traits or equipment he’s skewing the tests in favor of the hammer. The only way to objectively compare DPS is to compare them at their best.

I mean, yeah, I guess it’s an objective test if you commonly play with no armor or traits for some reason.

AH, EM, large symbols, writ of the merciful. These are my traits i usually run with for all modes. From the onset it does look like it is pure support but when combined with attack based gear and items it becomes beastly.

The damage done from burn+symbol+auto+ret+bleeed (from rune) means i am doing massive amounts of damage to anything in range. The sustained damage the hammer gives is more than enough to take care of anything in PvE or dungeons. Face tanking champion mobs is not a problem. With a group it makes it even easier as the more allies in the symbols the more i heal, the longer i am alive the more damage i will do AND use MB to trigger combo finishers.

I used to run with a GS but i found the damage to survivability trade off to the hammer was not worth it. GS dps is only SLIGHTLY higher then the hammer. In PvP Whirling weath will only hit people who dont know how to dodge, which is a very low amount. MB will hit fsr more often.

Its not all about number crunching. Sure GS looks good on paper but from my experience with both weapons, i find the hammer will do far more damage as it will land the big hit more often. 3k crit with MB bssic and 4k crit with might stacks on a very quick cool down leaping AoE damage + combo finisher. Definitely the hammer

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

I perform(ed) all dps tests with 0 (zero) point in the trait trees and i also activate virtue of justice as soon as its off cd to eliminate the difference in attackspeed.

So no, the test(s) isnt made with a favorable build and this is the case for both weapons.

I think any test with builds, or traits, are biased to begin with and the only way to actually display some sort of objective result is to test them untraited with eliminated VoJ.

Bravo to you sir, for understanding how to build an objective test. Would you be kind enough to link your results again? I believe I have missed them, or simply forgotten.

That’s not an objective test lol. Greatsword benefits more from traits and equipment than hammer does. By not using traits or equipment he’s skewing the tests in favor of the hammer. The only way to objectively compare DPS is to compare them at their best.

I mean, yeah, I guess it’s an objective test if you commonly play with no armor or traits for some reason.

Well, i beg to differ but it might be based on incompetence.

GS benefits more from 2h mastery since hammer doesnt benefit at all, at least not in a pve environment while the hammer benefits more from WoP and also more from larger symbols in multitarget environments due to more total uptime and total number of damage/boon proccs/AH proccs.

Both weapons benefit equally from crit chance and crit damage.

Hammer benefits more from passive VoJ (which i eliminate by activating it) and AH due to more hits. So GS doesnt benefit more from traits and gear, but it benefits in other ways.

I might have totally misunderstood the concept of our traits and i would really like to know how GS benefits more from gear and traits? This would also explain how im
“skewing” the tests?

In a previous post i was apparently skewing them by using traits but when its was evident i wasnt using gear or traits im still skewing them, its a bit confusing to say the least. Pleas explain how gear and traits in fact improves the GS to a further extent then the hammer, i simply dont get that?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

That’s not an objective test lol.

It certainly is an objective test because it holds factors that would influence the raw weapon damage constant across all the tests. Your tests bias the results of assessing raw damage by selecting the optimal traits and stats for each one. When you do that, you are mixing the factors of traits, stats and weapons all together, not knowing how each one contributed to the overall damage. Because you do this, you can’t ultimately conclude that a specific weapon has the most raw damage since those other factors are contributing to that damage in different amounts over the various weapon tests you do.

Your approach is more suitable for a discussion about optimal setups, but overreaches anything that could be used to have a reasonable discussion about the damage the weapons themselves do.

Brutaly.6257:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Obtena.7952:

Brutaly.6257:

I perform(ed) all dps tests with 0 (zero) point in the trait trees and i also activate virtue of justice as soon as its off cd to eliminate the difference in attackspeed.

So no, the test(s) isnt made with a favorable build and this is the case for both weapons.

I think any test with builds, or traits, are biased to begin with and the only way to actually display some sort of objective result is to test them untraited with eliminated VoJ.

Bravo to you sir, for understanding how to build an objective test. Would you be kind enough to link your results again? I believe I have missed them, or simply forgotten.

That’s not an objective test lol. Greatsword benefits more from traits and equipment than hammer does. By not using traits or equipment he’s skewing the tests in favor of the hammer. The only way to objectively compare DPS is to compare them at their best.

I mean, yeah, I guess it’s an objective test if you commonly play with no armor or traits for some reason.

Well, i beg to differ but it might be based on incompetence.

GS benefits more from 2h mastery since hammer doesnt benefit at all, at least not in a pve environment while the hammer benefits more from WoP and also more from larger symbols in multitarget environments due to more total uptime and total number of damage/boon proccs/AH proccs.

Both weapons benefit equally from crit chance and crit damage.

Hammer benefits more from passive VoJ (which i eliminate by activating it) and AH due to more hits. So GS doesnt benefit more from traits and gear, but it benefits in other ways.

I might have totally misunderstood the concept of our traits and i would really like to know how GS benefits more from gear and traits? This would also explain how im
“skewing” the tests?

In a previous post i was apparently skewing them by using traits but when its was evident i wasnt using gear or traits im still skewing them, its a bit confusing to say the least. Pleas explain how gear and traits in fact improves the GS to a further extent then the hammer, i simply dont get that?

GS benefits from Radiance line. Hammer requires Honor line to be effective. It’s not really complicated.

Moreover, I’m convinced your numbers are skewed purely because iirc you think hammer does the same as gs in terms of base damage, which is outright wrong. I suggest you go back and do your tests again.

I find the Hammer 1 chain a bit slow. You end up taking a lot of damage trying to get it off.

I use the Hammer in WvW alot when things get tight. Generally, I use my GS (leap+ji+ww or ww+ji) to plunk down some nice damage to a wounded part of a zerg and if things are going well I will switch to hammer and keep pushing. 9/10 times I plop down wall of reflection and pull back (using ww+ji to damage then leap to get some distance).

If it is small skirmish, Hammer is cool (#5 + ji to catch them in the circle followed by mb + #4 + mb then use #3 and swap weapons to WW) and can mess up glass cannons. My favourite is to catch thieves who have just done their spinny blade thingy (lasts about 6 seconds and you catch them at the end). It messes them up bad even if you just use #5 + ji, they turn invisible, swap to GS and WW on their head.

Hammer is pretty effective but, yeah, the #1 chain is very slow and not very practical.

In WvW GS has the illusion of damage. Hammer actually does more because GS MISSES A LOT. MB never misses. 2 mb > WW any day. But with so many invisible foes, I really like WW in these circumstances.

The trick to playing a Guardian in pvp is to dodge past your foe before using a big ability. You get really used to aggressive dodging with a hammer because you have no leap skill.

Relentliss.2170:

The trick to playing a Guardian in pvp is to dodge past your foe before using a big ability. You get really used to aggressive dodging with a hammer because you have no leap skill.

Mighty blow is a 300 range leap. It’s not a very good gap closer, but it’s still a leap.