Guild Wars 2

Obtena.7952:

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.

I test after every patch or update and this is what i got from my latest test after yesterdays update, at least my patcher updated.

No traits, no gear and VoJ triggered when off cd so i eliminate passive triggering and steady weapon in the mist and a heavy golem, i measure in killtime btw.

Hammer
Skill 1 125s
Skill 1+2 125s (MB infact adds dps but in a pve environment the difference between spamming one and using mb is kind of meager, its a total different story in pvp.)

GS
Skill 1 130s
Skill 1+2 125s

Add in 2 mastery and you can remove 2-3 s from GS and an additional 2-3 s if you use skill 3.

Single, static, target the dps difference is about 5%.

Hammer isnt improved dps wise by 2h mastery and the use of more skills then 1+2 but if you add in writ of persistence to the hammer then about 11.8% (+of one more hit that can trigger VoJ) damage is added to the chain.

Just a disclaimer here, as you can see the killtimes is around 2 minute (hammer chain with WoP was the only one scoring under 2 minutes at 1:55 but also got one less active VoJ) which means that the kill was made during the burn effect from active VoJ which makes the “finish line” a bit blury. But the relations correspond to what i seen in every test. But these numbers are a bit incorrect but i will redo them and if i find something that differs greatly i will post about it.

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.

First i have never said they do the same damage, i think i have been pretty clear what the relative strenght of the two weapons are. I clearly stated that i wouldnt use hammer in duels for instance, hammer is an aoe weapon and its here where it shines and where it shortcoming, clunkiness imo, can be effectively eliminated.

There are multiple claims here so lets sort it out.

Hammer imo gains just as much as GS from radiance. In pure numbers there is no difference or have i missed something here?

For maxing dps on GS one of the main contributers is 2h master (20 points in valor) and especially in pvp. We all know this trait doesnt increase dps on the hammer, in pve, but is huge in pvp.

If we use a 10/30/30/0/0 build with both weapons they both have the same increase (%) in dps. Am i correct in this or have i missed something?

Both weapons can trait into Honor (which gives both weapons a freedom of choice in how to obtain a certain dps) and GS is improved by 2h mastery primarily and hammer byt traiting symbols. Am i correct?

So if people want to know what weapon to choose based on dps we need:

1. base dps on single targets
2. Total uptime on aoe and the number of damage components applied in a given time frame so we can estimate aoe dps which is very different from single target dps.

3. Know how i want to play the game and trait/gear accordingly to achive the wante dpd, burst, aoe and ofc survivability.

I chose hammer, primarily, since it fulfills my needs for a high dps aoe build with great survivability which allows me to gear in a very offensively manner and still be in the front bashing in heads and spreading boons to the team. Even though i could have a margianlly higher burst/dps with gs i find the lack of survivability and its dependency on cooldown to not be in my taste even though i use it in small clashes and duel situations.

Regarding your personal opinion about me it has no relevance, i can do the tests again but i know we will find that the ‘base dps’ on GS and hammer are almost exactly the same on a single target and GS will come out with maybe 5% advantage and if you add 2h mastery espcially. If we isolate the aoe damage and add in one more target the hammer will be on top and the chain is always stronger (in a pve environment) and can be further improved for more aoe with traited symbols.

Hammer works excellently with honor simply because the perpetual symbol allows you to keep attacking and critting enemies without actually having to be in melee range. I’ve taken up dodging after landing one combo just to proc selfless daring and elusive power, and it works great.

The most overpowered aspect of the hammer is of course its spammable blast finisher. Blast finisher is a tremendous offensive and defensive tool for parties, and it enables otherwise squishy classes to get in melee range and amp synergy even more, which is critical for the classes with the better combo fields.

I just played a 20 fractal with dredge, cliffside, and grawl, and I couldn’t have had an easier time of it. Being able to blast about every field your party members put up means frost armor, chaos armor, AoE healing, perma retaliation, and might stacks for everyone every five seconds. You don’t even need to coordinate, because caster classes apparently have spammable fields like guardians have this spammable finisher. It is the fastest sustainable blast finisher by the only class likely to be in the field anyway, which completely makes up for the shorter duration of the effects.

This alone makes the hammer, for me, a lot more fun and unpredictable than the greatsword. I do however appreciate fellow guardians who wield the greatsword, which instantly becomes extremely viable against mobs when paired with a guardian wielding the hammer. The two were made for eachother, since the crowd aggregating binding blade is absolutely necessary to get the most out of the hammer, and the vulnerability of whirling wrath is best countered with a generous helping of protection.

Greatsword is incredibly offensive weapon. As such it’s better than the hammer in the DPS sector. It’s mobile, it’s versatile. Every single attack is AoE. Whirling Wrath is actually 9 hits in ~3 seconds from which I can land at least 5 hits at a single target. Most of the time I manage to land more hits on a single target. With 45% crit rate on a completely bunkered build (read toughness) I manage to crit every other hit. Every third hit stacks group might – hello AH. And while hammer casts its third attack quite slow, I can easily just walk away from stomp range. Both weapons are good in specific situations but for me the greatsword is more useful in more situations. Now I see why ANet nerfed retaliation’s duration few months back. This is the most powerful defensive buff imo. You just have to survive, and your enemies kill themselves in you. So if you leap in the closing seconds of the leap you get extra retaliation seconds which is extremely effective against thieves.

It was just yesterday a thief hit me for 11k on 3400 armor with opening attack out of stealth while i was full hp. Clearly something is bugged about this class with the damage and the non-stop stealth which some ppl abuse in WvW and retaliation is really the only thing stopping a thief from kitten you. I don’t see how a hammer could save me

@Ravenmoon:
I don’t really understand your point.
- Every single Hammer attack is AoE too.
- Mighty Blow brings up Area Retaliation on our symbols and fields, every 5 seconds (instead of 15s for Leap of Faith)
- You can easily walk from stomp range, no sir, third hit is not melee, is RANGED hit, homes on your feet even if distant (try it), range is only 170 but sufficient to not simply “walk away”
- Whirling Wrath, is indoubtly the most powerful guardian DPS skill, is 7 hits + 2 projectiles on a single target. Damage listed in the tooltip is for the total (barring increments due to traits), and i often try to combine Mighty Blow + JI/Ring of Warding + Whirling Wrath to inflict massive punishment on the target. I found however that the 5s CD on Mighty Blow makes me much more adaptable to have that the 10s on WW. Personal opinions, too.

- I don’t see how a hammer could save me, just pls, hammer gives you PROTECTION almost 24/7, it means you get 33% less damage, your 15k suddenly become 20k, how can you tell this. Maybe you have trouble getting the third hit done, but i assure it will land, in the meanwhile, however, nothing will save you, not even the Greatsword.

- That thief could be surprised if you react swiftly with a Banish in his face… just when he thought he has you in her hands, slam! He’s far from you and you can heal without interruptions… With the GS you don’t have this option, but, that said, i found Binding Blade MUCH MORE USEFUL, only not in the case you post.

Quarktastic.1027:

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.

I am talking about dodging past your foe and turning and belting on him a bit to get protection up. Or dodging past a guy who has just dodged and trapping him in ring of warding. Using your dodge offensively.

Ravenmoon.5318:

Greatsword is incredibly offensive weapon. As such it’s better than the hammer in the DPS sector. It’s mobile, it’s versatile.

Whirling Wrath misses a lot. Mighty blow does not.

That being said, if you use Whirling Wrath and then JI right on top of a person or group it is massively devastating as they can’t see it coming very well. By the time most react the ability has run its course.

@Relentliss there is a way to make Whirling Wrath “more accurate”

@Fabsm I guess hammer has changed since head start (or was it the open beta few days before head start) because the third attack used to lock me in place. And afaik the third hit is still at least 2 seconds cast? That’s enough for me to run away because if I’m not going to whirl I usually stay as much away as possible. Yep that costs me few misses every now and then but it’s worth it!

On the thief, I actually knock them down with blinding blade. It gives me enough time to heal up and get back offensively on him. Most thieves run from a GS combo cuz most of them are glass cannons traited for high opening attacks and conditions and 0 defense. And I’m not running

Ravenmoon.5318:

@Fabsm I guess hammer has changed since head start (or was it the open beta few days before head start) because the third attack used to lock me in place. And afaik the third hit is still at least 2 seconds cast? That’s enough for me to run away because if I’m not going to whirl I usually stay as much away as possible. Yep that costs me few misses every now and then but it’s worth it!

Yes, it’s changed. The third attack DOES NOT root you (none of the attacks in the 1 chain do). And the third hit is a 1.25 second cast. The first two are 0.5 which is the EXACT same speed as the Greatsword.

EDIT: And and you can dodge in between the 2 and 3 hits of the hammer chain 1, and still land the third hit without interruption. AFAIK you can’t dodge during Whirling Wrath.

ironzerg.3196:

Ravenmoon.5318:

@Fabsm I guess hammer has changed since head start (or was it the open beta few days before head start) because the third attack used to lock me in place. And afaik the third hit is still at least 2 seconds cast? That’s enough for me to run away because if I’m not going to whirl I usually stay as much away as possible. Yep that costs me few misses every now and then but it’s worth it!

AFAIK you can’t dodge during Whirling Wrath.

You can. You just tap the dodge key and the guardian attacker gets “Evaded” messages even if you are in proximity to him. I guess dodge gives you something like a second or so of invulnerability

If we’re talking greatsword vs. hammer for practical use in PvP, greatsword is miles and away the superior choice. I’ve used both considerably and I can confidently say that hammer is pretty much crap unless you’re using it specifically to snare someone so you can switch to GS. Let’s look at the advantages of GS:

1) It has way better burst. Hammer has, what, Mighty Blow? That’s only like 4-5k tops depending on how much might and vulnerability you have stacked. That’s not a burst. By comparison GS gets a fast, on-demand Symbol, a snare for keeping targets inside that symbol, and a whirl that deals massive damage once they’ve used up all their defensive options escaping the symbol. It’s not IK tier burst but it’s strong enough to rip through a weakened opponent, especially given that:

2) GS has the best sustained DPS in practice. Well, 1H sword deals more in terms of auto-attacks but you lose all your burst so I’d say it about evens out. The GS auto-attack chain is wide and difficult to avoid, and it hits for as much as 3k per swing depending on your might stacks and your opponent’s armor. This makes it quite easy to just chase a target down and auto-attack him and kill just from that. By comparison the Hammer’s auto-attack chain is all backloaded. You have a fairly average first two swings on your auto-attack and an absolutely horrid third attack. The DPS is fine in PvE because mobs will sit through the lengthy almost-2s chargeup and 3s of the symbol, but good luck getting anything but the first hit of the symbol to connect in PvP. You don’t even have to roll to avoid it, you’ll neutralize most of the damage just by running forward. Mighty Blow isn’t actually that much damage either, it’s a single hit for about 4-5k every 5 seconds (if traited) and potentially nothing at all if it doesn’t crit. It’s a 50/50 proposition that means you could potentially go 10 whole seconds without dealing any damage to your opponent at all.

3) The hammer snares really aren’t that good. Zealot’s Embrace is the most obvious thing on the planet even if your opponent isn’t paying attention since it moves so slow. If you do tag it you can snare a Ring of Warding… if they don’t escape that, you can get maybe one full auto-attack chain off. That’s not really a game-breaking combo there. By comparison the scepter and GS snares are much harder to avoid due to their on-demand nature. Binding Blade is comparatively fast but the best thing about it is that your pull is on-demand, so you can tag them with it and then wait before pulling them.

4) The prot from the hammer symbol is worthless. Are you going to sit in it the entire fight? The opponent will be moving away from the symbol, not towards it. If you sit in it to get protection you’re not hitting them. If your opponent is a ranged class you’re taking damage the entire time. You’re reducing your damage taken in exchange for not dealing any. That’s not really a good tradeoff.

To be fair, I do use Hammer/GS for the swap combo a fair bit. It’s pretty decent. That said in terms of overall usefulness in a PvP matchup the GS is way better.

Depends on play style. GS playstyle is kill before your killed. Hammer is counter attack.

GS can try to outburst other classes to win but how lower survivability especially if the enemy had his chance to unlosd skills first. Reduced survivability for increased damage.

Hammer players play the waiting game. They can survive any full burst from any class and when the damage has been absorbed they destroy the enemy as he has used up all his skills.

People who play bunkers dont need mobility. The enemy will come to you and get themselves killed

You don’t need to dodge WW, just move around a bit and it will miss some.

Binding blade is kind of the worst CC a guardian has. The whirl is broadcast, the projectile is dodgeable/blockable/reflectable, and people are actually really good at watching for you to raise your sword so they can dodge right out of the pull – or if they miss that, stun break and dodge out of whirling wrath, which they know you’re going to proc right after the pull. The binding blades condition is also the easiest alarm to put up stability that there ever was. I use it mainly against people who are distracted while fighting other people, because otherwise any half decent focused player will know to dodge. The other way to use it is to just scare a player into emptying their dodge meter so you can do the real trick of JI + whirling wrath, but the main problem is that if neither of those work, you’ve got to switch out of your sword cause the match isn’t going to end well for you.

The same kind of thing happens to the hammer, which is why ring of warding and banish are best used to put distance between you and your enemy while your skills recharge. It’s also helpful to know that you can still do the third strike in the combo even if you’re interrupted, provided you get within range of an enemy in time. I mainly use the symbol to stack protection while biding time for the enemy to get within range of mighty blow.

The strength of mighty blow is the weakness of the rest of the guardian: it is an unpredictable, high damage, mobile attack with an extremely low recharge time. Those are the attacks you’ll have to resort to when a person gets to 25% health and becomes extra cautious and focused on avoiding damage. You could say the same of Leap of Faith, but the slower recharge really hurts it, and if it’s used in battle, the enemy knows that you’ve lost your spike. Most people who use greatsword have to take JI, which of course turns every hammer skill into a different beast. Mighty blow makes JI less necessary.

In PvP, you need your spikes to be available as much as possible, and Hammer makes it easy just because the spike has really low recharge.

I’ve never thought of symbol spikes as real spikes for the same reason that people discount symbol of protection as a useful part of the hammer damage combo. People are really good at staying out of area DoT.

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.

You obviously just don’t know how to use it. Please don’t use your lack of skill as a basis for wholesale condemnation. There are plenty of people, myself included, who have alot of success with the Hammer.

What about hammers in PvE? I’ve watched hammer guardians facetank bosses that would down my ranger in 3 hits.

You can do that with Hammer, Mace/Focus, and Sword/Focus if you’re playing for keeps and paying attention, but really guardians can do this with any weapon if they make sacrifices in their utility bar in favor of more blocks and boons. Protection + Signet of Judgment is 43% damage reduction. That already puts them at 6 hits, and they can almost double that with judicious blocks and blinds. This is way before gear is taken into account, and is obviously more than enough time for heal to recharge.

crewthief.8649:

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.

You obviously just don’t know how to use it. Please don’t use your lack of skill as a basis for wholesale condemnation. There are plenty of people, myself included, who have alot of success with the Hammer.

For what it’s worth, I just literally just AFK’d the CoF1 final boss with hammer. Walked into range, started swinging, made a late-night coffee and came back and boss was dead. So there is that I guess.

I think I could probably AFK that boss with a greatsword too though.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

If we’re talking greatsword vs. hammer for practical use in PvP, greatsword is miles and away the superior choice. I’ve used both considerably and I can confidently say that hammer is pretty much crap unless you’re using it specifically to snare someone so you can switch to GS.

While i have the utmost respect for your knowledge of GS, i would like to point that both weapons have about equal value in PvP and Pve, with a little preference for GS in PVP and Hammer in PvE.

I would like to explain why, quoting your post. Have to snip them for message length.

Let’s look at the advantages of GS:

1) It has way better burst. [SNIP] It’s not IK tier burst but it’s strong enough to rip through a weakened opponent, especially given that:

Mighty Blow can be used 2xtimes of WW, that you have to put that into consideration. WW can be totally avoided with skill, but it is more difficult to avoid 2 mighty blow in the same time (provided you can stay in the fight at least 5s). That said, GS is certainly more bursty than hammer.

2) GS has the best sustained DPS in practice. [SNIP] Mighty Blow isn’t actually that much damage either, it’s a single hit for about 4-5k every 5 seconds (if traited) and potentially nothing at all if it doesn’t crit. It’s a 50/50 proposition that means you could potentially go 10 whole seconds without dealing any damage to your opponent at all.

This, i beg to differ. Hammer Auto-attack doesn’t work as you said. First 2 hits are normal, wide, AoE attacks (exactly as the Greatsword), but the third has a chargeup of 1.25s, not 2s, and IS NOT MELEE, it’s RANGED (look at the tooltip and on the wiki)
So while you can avoid the “third” GS attack by walking forward, you have to DODGE to avoid the third hit, especially if i am moving towards the target in the charge time (you can move during the charge time without interruption, you can even dodge, cancelling the charge time!).
So, no, Sustained DPS is the same, if not a little better from the hammer, because the third chain hit actually hits two times, one for the swing and one GUARANTEED tick from the symbol, putting that in pair with GS and even a little more.
Obviously in PvE that’s amplified by the fact that targets don’t move.
And, Mighty Blow is 5s UNTRAITED (read the wiki). I cannot understand why you say it doesn’t do damage if it doesn’t crit, and why should i wait 10s to do damage… i will wait 5s at most… Or i could debate that if your WW doesn’t crit, you’re wasting 20s doing no damage?

3) The hammer snares really aren’t that good. [SNIP]

ZE is really obvious, but the real use is to snare an opponent that is already in melee with us, so it is unavoidable because is part of my swings at point blank. It is also a nice catcher for when you’re chasing, as most people don’t watch their back while fleeing, making connecting ZE easy.
Someone already answered about the defects of Binding Blade, but i have to point out that is one of my favorite skills of all times: Pull, Interrupt, and Whirl Finisher in one shot, i wish to have that in the hammer instead of Knockdown (useful but counterintuitive on a melee weapon…)

4) The prot from the hammer symbol is worthless. Are you going to sit in it the entire fight? The opponent will be moving away from the symbol, not towards it. If you sit in it to get protection you’re not hitting them. If your opponent is a ranged class you’re taking damage the entire time. You’re reducing your damage taken in exchange for not dealing any. That’s not really a good tradeoff.

You don’t need to sit in the symbol, you only need protection from the first hit, 1s protection is enough to have the first 2 hit of the chain under the boon. If you spec/rune on it, you can have protection almost 100% uptime without nerfing your mobility or damage.

To be fair, I do use Hammer/GS for the swap combo a fair bit. It’s pretty decent. That said in terms of overall usefulness in a PvP matchup the GS is way better.

To be fair, me too!
I find that Hammer and GS complement each other really well, i use GS for WW burst, then switch to hammer to take advantage of MB and protection (and snaring, rooting, etc), and then is spin time again

KensaiZen.3740:

Hammer players play the waiting game. They can survive any full burst from any class and when the damage has been absorbed they destroy the enemy as he has used up all his skills.

In reality though, hammer users go for crit rate. That means lose some in the armor department, that means that usually the GS users are more “tanky”. I mean … I’m happy 3400 armor user and I deal nice dmg in WvW. Alone I make a zerg back off and focus me while I’m in renewed focus while my zerg is bashing at theirs. Fun 10 seconds xD Agroing zerg is almost like CC a whole bunch of mobs. It’s funny actually, it ALWAYS works O_O

Ravenmoon.5318:

KensaiZen.3740:

Hammer players play the waiting game. They can survive any full burst from any class and when the damage has been absorbed they destroy the enemy as he has used up all his skills.

In reality though, hammer users go for crit rate. That means lose some in the armor department, that means that usually the GS users are more “tanky”. I mean … I’m happy 3400 armor user and I deal nice dmg in WvW. Alone I make a zerg back off and focus me while I’m in renewed focus while my zerg is bashing at theirs. Fun 10 seconds xD Agroing zerg is almost like CC a whole bunch of mobs. It’s funny actually, it ALWAYS works O_O

To go for crit rate, usually i go for knight armor. More precision (thanks to the trait) and more tanky.
I do like aggroing the zerg too… i suggest however aggroing with GS and WW…. this tend to disperse them, you can then put a WoR and start hammering away

For every situation, a weapon to suit it.

Guardians are walking armories. Start acting like it instead of lording the virtues of one weapon over another.

Romarix.5829:

For every situation, a weapon to suit it.

Guardians are walking armories. Start acting like it instead of lording the virtues of one weapon over another.

QFT

I never use hammer in PVP, since its very slow to actually deliver damage and offers me no mobility, only some CC if im lucky to apply them (chains and and ring). Mighty Blow is by no means a gap closer since it has animation start and end, which in practise makes you slower than actually running from point A to point B.

In PVE i find it excellent.

I fill the role of DPS/Tank/Buffer and Hammer always gets out to boost my healing income and at the same time providing Protection buff to my melee comrades.

Fabsm.5897:

Mighty Blow can be used 2xtimes of WW, that you have to put that into consideration. WW can be totally avoided with skill, but it is more difficult to avoid 2 mighty blow in the same time (provided you can stay in the fight at least 5s). That said, GS is certainly more bursty than hammer.

This, i beg to differ. Hammer Auto-attack doesn’t work as you said. First 2 hits are normal, wide, AoE attacks (exactly as the Greatsword), but the third has a chargeup of 1.25s, not 2s, and IS NOT MELEE, it’s RANGED (look at the tooltip and on the wiki)
So while you can avoid the “third” GS attack by walking forward, you have to DODGE to avoid the third hit, especially if i am moving towards the target in the charge time (you can move during the charge time without interruption, you can even dodge, cancelling the charge time!).
So, no, Sustained DPS is the same, if not a little better from the hammer, because the third chain hit actually hits two times, one for the swing and one GUARANTEED tick from the symbol, putting that in pair with GS and even a little more.
Obviously in PvE that’s amplified by the fact that targets don’t move.
And, Mighty Blow is 5s UNTRAITED (read the wiki). I cannot understand why you say it doesn’t do damage if it doesn’t crit, and why should i wait 10s to do damage… i will wait 5s at most… Or i could debate that if your WW doesn’t crit, you’re wasting 20s doing no damage?

I’ll do a bit of editing as well.

The problem with Mighty Blow isn’t the cooldown. Well, it can be part of the problem, but let’s address these one at a time. Say you’re fighting a guy. Since you’re a guardian with a greatsword, you’ll probably win in a 1v1. You chop him down a bit with the auto-attack and he panics and heals. At that point you can snare, symbol, and whirl and bring him back down again. Depending on his class and how much health he actually had left you may or may not kill him, but either way he’s not going to last long after. If you’re using a hammer you may be able to weaken him the same way with your auto but if he heals Mighty Blow won’t get him back down. Even if you crit you hit 5k tops, but most classes can heal for more than that with their defensive options. Without spike damage to counter spike healing you’re just going to be chasing each other around forever.

Moreover, the hammer swing time isn’t 1.25s even though the tooltip says that. A full hammer chain is 3.6s. The first two swings are .8s each which leaves 2s for the symbol swing. That’s a really long time to be sitting there doing nothing. Moreover, even if the swing itself does hit at melee range (and it has to be melee range or only the symbol will deal damage) you’re barely dealing any more raw damage than the GS auto unless they actually sit in the symbol while it ticks. Otherwise, you’re doing almost the same damage but taking 2.5x as long to do it. That’s not equivalent DPS no matter how you slice it.

And yeah, Mighty Blow is 6s untraited. The effective cooldown of a skill is animation time + cooldown since it doesn’t start recharging till after the skill is complete. The reason crits are important for Mighty Blow is because it’s a single-hit skill. That means either you hit a big crit or you hit nothing at all. Your non-crit MB might hit for as little as 1.5k. If you hit a good MB, wait 5s for the recharge, do another MB and that doesn’t crit, you have to wait another 5s to try again. If in the meantime they’re avoiding your hammer autos you’re basically doing next to nothing that entire 10s interval. Even with full Radiance and a berserker setup your crit rate is only 55%, so it’s almost a 50/50 chance of getting nothing out of the skill at all. By comparison, WW hits 7 times, so numbers are much more stable. You aren’t as likely to get massive damage (i.e. they all crit) but you won’t get crap either (i.e. none of them crit). It’s just a matter of numbers.

Incidentally, scepter is also really good for PvP, for lots of reasons. I don’t know why people always complain about the projectile speed. It’d be super OP if it was any faster.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

crewthief.8649:

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.

You obviously just don’t know how to use it. Please don’t use your lack of skill as a basis for wholesale condemnation. There are plenty of people, myself included, who have alot of success with the Hammer.

For what it’s worth, I just literally just AFK’d the CoF1 final boss with hammer. Walked into range, started swinging, made a late-night coffee and came back and boss was dead. So there is that I guess.

I think I could probably AFK that boss with a greatsword too though.

Well, that really is neither here, nor there. You make a claim on the internet, that may or may not be true. Fact of the matter is, I see alot of silly hate from you, on these forums, regarding anything that ISN’T the GS. And to be honest, i’m just not sure what the point of your crusade is. I get where you’re going with the GS, i’ve used it…it’s excellent for what it does, but it isn’t the weapon I choose to use on a regular basis. Call it play style, or whatever you like. I’ve found using and mastering the Hammer to be a much more rewarding experience, and from what i’ve seen, there’s alot more depth to it. Hammer is most certainly NOT an easy weapon to use successfully (in PvP), and I can see how some people may be put off by it when a much easier option, mechanically speaking (GS), is available.

Symbol of protection is mainly there for your protection, really. More often than not (especially if the enemy is a thief or warrior) people will get up close and stay there for as long as it takes to unload their high damage combo. In those cases, you can count on the strikes, otherwise you can take one of the many symbol enhancing traits (like larger symbols, which is actually pretty formidable) to really make it a no-fly zone. This is important because one of the guardian’s key strengths is defending from ranged attacks. Absorption and reflection make short work of damage kiters, and ideally some sort of light symbol with a few party members would help with condition spam.

The problem I have with Binding Blade is that it’s as easy to dodge as the hammer’s primary attack, and since the combo timer on the hammer’s main is very lenient (try it against someone who CCs a lot and you’ll be surprised), a proper CC on blades is not so easy. They can dodge the initial hit, move out of range before the pull, or dodge on the equally obvious pull animation to nullify a critical component of a GS only strategy for 30 whole seconds. In addition, they can stun whirling wrath while it’s being activated, which is really the downside of any damage over time skill.

If you want to kill someone, you snare them. Immobilize is a lot harder to negate than stun breaks, which is why many do the chains of light-JI-WW combo and it does just fine. That combo is pretty expensive though, and mighty blow is not. Moreover, when a person is in a critical phase, the binding blades-pull takes more time to execute than most heal skills. Mighty blow does not.

The main fallacy here is that we are assuming a scenario where all your attacks hit. This is rarely the case, and truthfully a person that doesn’t utilize weapon swap is crippling themselves when PvP is concerned, because the inability to adapt to when situations go wrong is what kills you. The case being made here is that the hammer remains a formidable PvP weapon and should not be discounted.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The problem with Mighty Blow isn’t the cooldown. Well, it can be part of the problem, but let’s address these one at a time. Say you’re fighting a guy. Since you’re a guardian with a greatsword, you’ll probably win in a 1v1. You chop him down a bit with the auto-attack and he panics and heals. At that point you can snare, symbol, and whirl and bring him back down again. Depending on his class and how much health he actually had left you may or may not kill him, but either way he’s not going to last long after. If you’re using a hammer you may be able to weaken him the same way with your auto but if he heals Mighty Blow won’t get him back down. Even if you crit you hit 5k tops, but most classes can heal for more than that with their defensive options. Without spike damage to counter spike healing you’re just going to be chasing each other around forever.

You have a point, but keep forgetting that i have 2xtimes of MB compared to WW. So, you have to double my 5k hits when comparing with WW. And that 2 MB will be comparable to a WW.

Moreover, the hammer swing time isn’t 1.25s even though the tooltip says that. A full hammer chain is 3.6s. The first two swings are .8s each which leaves 2s for the symbol swing. That’s a really long time to be sitting there doing nothing.

I don’t want to argue without proof, so i will try with and without traits, but i seem to remind that wiki times were right when i tried last time for the lifeleech build. Also, don’t be fooled by graphics… only watch the CD of the animations, graphics could be lagged, you have to time when your button changes again to the “first” icon.

Moreover, even if the swing itself does hit at melee range (and it has to be melee range or only the symbol will deal damage) you’re barely dealing any more raw damage than the GS auto unless they actually sit in the symbol while it ticks. Otherwise, you’re doing almost the same damage but taking 2.5x as long to do it. That’s not equivalent DPS no matter how you slice it.

If they get hit by your third attack, they will get hit by four hammer hits, three for the chain and one guaranteed for the symbol. Yes, it isn’t equal, but not 2.5 times far as you say, and you have to sum that you’re getting protection with it (granted, you’re getting might, and that’s the only reason i could yield to GS having much more autoattack damage).

And yeah, Mighty Blow is 6s untraited. The effective cooldown of a skill is animation time + cooldown since it doesn’t start recharging till after the skill is complete.

According to the wiki is 0.75s activation + 5s CD, while WW is 0.75s activation + 10s CD. So is 10.75 against 5.75 = 1.87 times faster, not 2x, still a lot faster.

The reason crits are important for Mighty Blow is because it’s a single-hit skill. That means either you hit a big crit or you hit nothing at all. Your non-crit MB might hit for as little as 1.5k. If you hit a good MB, wait 5s for the recharge, do another MB and that doesn’t crit, you have to wait another 5s to try again. If in the meantime they’re avoiding your hammer autos you’re basically doing next to nothing that entire 10s interval. Even with full Radiance and a berserker setup your crit rate is only 55%, so it’s almost a 50/50 chance of getting nothing out of the skill at all. By comparison, WW hits 7 times, so numbers are much more stable. You aren’t as likely to get massive damage (i.e. they all crit) but you won’t get crap either (i.e. none of them crit). It’s just a matter of numbers.

Problem is, multi hit attacks can be dodged midway, while a single hit attack cannot. When we start WW, there is always a possibility the opponent reacts with a dodge to the telling animation (the first spin) and will nullify all but the very first hits, cutting at least 4/5 of the total damage (especially if it dodges away to avoid projectiles too). That’s not the case with Mighty Blow, either they see it coming in the 0.75s activation time (and it doesn’t have a telling animation if you’re near to them), or they’re smacked in the face.

And i know that crit is all that matter in the hammer, i stack precision and toughness, with knight armor set, and i was thinking of switching to rampager jewels to get more precision. I run Precision food and oil, sometimes switching to lifeleech food if i feel tanky.

Running both weapons with an high crit, i tend to use them both, i tend to use WW if the enemy is packed, while i use MB if the enemy is dispersing or is “on the ball”. Multihit against Onehit has always been a staple of DPS theorycrafting.
Incidentally, if Empowering might didn’t have a 1s CD, Whirling Wrath could be the DPS skill of the century…

Tooltips are way off (or meaningless since aftercast delay isn’t included)

Hammer chain is very close to 0.8/0.8/2.0.
On the other hand GS is also about 0.8/0.8/0.8.

These tooltip issues also apply to all other skills, including ww/mb/sow.

Finally noteworthy is that ww only comes close to tooltip damage if you turn off melee assist and ww inside the target. Else about 5 of the 7 projectiles miss.

crewthief.8649:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

crewthief.8649:

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.

You obviously just don’t know how to use it. Please don’t use your lack of skill as a basis for wholesale condemnation. There are plenty of people, myself included, who have alot of success with the Hammer.

For what it’s worth, I just literally just AFK’d the CoF1 final boss with hammer. Walked into range, started swinging, made a late-night coffee and came back and boss was dead. So there is that I guess.

I think I could probably AFK that boss with a greatsword too though.

Well, that really is neither here, nor there. You make a claim on the internet, that may or may not be true. Fact of the matter is, I see alot of silly hate from you, on these forums, regarding anything that ISN’T the GS. And to be honest, i’m just not sure what the point of your crusade is. I get where you’re going with the GS, i’ve used it…it’s excellent for what it does, but it isn’t the weapon I choose to use on a regular basis. Call it play style, or whatever you like. I’ve found using and mastering the Hammer to be a much more rewarding experience, and from what i’ve seen, there’s alot more depth to it. Hammer is most certainly NOT an easy weapon to use successfully (in PvP), and I can see how some people may be put off by it when a much easier option, mechanically speaking (GS), is available.

Maybe. It’s just super annoying when people constantly say stuff that has already been mathematically disproved (and refuse to admit they’re wrong even with I show them the math). It’s one thing to say “I like hammer despite the loss of DPS compared to other weapons” because then we could debate that. It’s another to say “HAMMER IS THE BEST DPS WEAPON IT DOES LIKE 40X MORE THAN GS LAWLZ” which is pretty much every other post ever.

And yeah, I made a claim and it is true. Unless you want to try to disprove my numbers.

DaveGan.8065:

Tooltips are way off (or meaningless since aftercast delay isn’t included)

Hammer chain is very close to 0.8/0.8/2.0.
On the other hand GS is also about 0.8/0.8/0.8.

These tooltip issues also apply to all other skills, including ww/mb/sow.

Finally noteworthy is that ww only comes close to tooltip damage if you turn off melee assist and ww inside the target. Else about 5 of the 7 projectiles miss.

Yeah, the actual times are as listed. Go try it on a dummy in LA, see how many swings you get against a dummy with Greatsword in 20 seconds (hint: it’s 25).

Also, the WW damage numbers assume you’re missing 5 of 7 projectiles at melee range. You actually get higher than the tooltip damage if you’re standing inside the target so all 14 hits connect.

That’s another error with the tooltip (edit: it says 9 hits but means 14) Try it with a steady weapon against heavy golem and add them up. Autoattack, mighty blow, symbol of wrath are just a few points lower (24 instead of 25, etc). WW is off by a lot more. Add in the 5 missing hits and it’ll be very close.

I didn’t know that about WW, that’s interesting.

I would still like to see a calculation redone with the top trait metas comparing every weapon, mainly because I’ve never seen an honorless GS build.