Guild Wars 2

Hey a-net, I think it is awesome you have designed a weapon for aging people with poor eye and is sight suitable for those who have response times of 15ms. But for us younger at heart people I think it is kinda obvious hammer is slow. Really-really slow. Terribly slow. Painfully slow. Can’t even effectively deal with a thief who chooses to use stealth more than once slow. Agonizing slow to stay on top of a warrior slow. Eye gouging slow to stay on top of necro that isn’t using their 25% movement increase signet that is also 3/4 dead, crippled, chilled and immobilized slow. I started using my hammer guardian in a map when you initially thought of skyhammer..so far i am almost about to center kinda slow.

In PvP where the point of focus changes fast, having a 2 second symbol that gives 3 seconds of protection isn’t all it is cracked up to be. I know you guys kinda that it is really good skill and so totally awesome that a 2 second symbol that damages about as much as fresh air does and that gives me protection for 2 auto attacks justifiably deserves some sorta obvious counter play. Really slow obvious counter play. Highly skilled, obvious counter play that involves just stepping to the side a little bit to avoid..even when your chilled and making coffee you still having a significantly large window to avoid.

People flock to warrior because, if you haven’t noticed..guardian is really slow..painfully slow. Horrendously slow..glacier slow..Many guardians would be happy if the damage stayed the same on hammer, even if you reduce some of the symbols by a second and shaved 0.5 seconds off the secondary prot’s some of the skills create for the sake that their weapon skill are hasten by 0.25-0.5 seconds.

Your reducing crit dmg to make other professions seem more in line damage..how bout actually making the only other heavy profession that can play melee not look like a slow moving avalanche. Yes-yes I know the counter argument about all of their terribly slow really defensive skills…but my argument is play hammer/staff for a month every day. I will take a newb to thief sword/dagger and let them play for a month..then you 2 duel for a 2 hours and tell me that was fun…it is was, it was probably really slow fun. Painfully slow fun…

You have your mindsets, but this is 2014. A lot of your new edition players have been through unreal tournament, counter strike, dark souls, street fighter..we’re kinda use to modern games moving at a certain speed. Hammer guardian feels like i am playing ice wind dale and waiting for my turn again. It is just too overly dramatically slow in small engagements and especially in 1 vs 1 situations. It seriously needs love.

Yours faithfully,
Love,
Every hammer guardian that has ever played spvp

I play Dark Souls pvp, and all i have to say is that it’s unbalanced since 2012, because there’s a lot of cheaters in all supports (i play on PS3 and i still see infinite hp guys) and lagswitchers now and gankers that makes the pvp rarely playable because of TWOP + Dark magic combo which is impossible (things like that shouldn’t exist in pvp) to survive if you get caught. Anyway, concerning the guardian in GW2, it’s a very good class when you know how to play it, and so far the only things that are annoying even if you’re good are conditions Engineer, conditions mesmers and conditions necros.

So you are saying the hammer is slow? I’m not sure but that is the message I am getting from this..

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Every hammer guardian that has ever played spvp

Remove me from that list please: I don’t sign this.

aspirine.6852:

So you are saying the hammer is slow? I’m not sure but that is the message I am getting from this..

Whoa dude, slow down. Don’t jump to conclusions. Let’s let this auto-attack chain marinate a little bit more first.

"The vengeance of heaven is slow but sure." - Kuno Tatewaki (Ranma 1/2)

Scary things is… it used to be slower…

And I wouldn’t say its for old folks, more for the devs. The way I’ve seen them play its more their speed…

Try the autoattack on the warrior hammer. It’s like light speed.

I had to put my seatbelt on.

Hammers do work great on old folks…

“Wer nicht Amboss sein will, der muss Hammer sein.”
—Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov

(“He who does not wish to be the anvil, must be the hammer.”)

I’m so confused…

Could you please slow down and spell it out… what are you trying to say?

Please give a TF;DR for the old folks.

Yeah hammer’s a fantastic weapon, but it is slloooooooow. If you’ve ever tried using a warrior hammer for even a short period of time, you will realize how great things COULD be.

I don’t agree with this thread at all.
You just have to know how to use the weapon correctly.

Warrior hammer =/= guardian hammer. Not everything is balanced around sPvP.

Fror.2163:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Every hammer guardian that has ever played spvp

Remove me from that list please: I don’t sign this.

Sure..but I se no argument that you think it is fast. The greater point here is that the meta is increasing in speed. Boons such as protection can be valuable in the right situations, but when that situation has already moved well away from where you are and you find yourself standing in symbol of swiftness for 4 seconds just so you can get the maximum speed increase duration..that’s when that situation it would have been useful in has completely past you by. This is the primary reason Guardians hold either home if required, or mostly center. They play a untactical game of where if the opposition wants to make a hard push for a side node and your lord the good old guardian just stays on center or home because they will never be able to react to side node defense, or get to a lord in time, so may as well hold home and take the points and pressure them to do whatever they want to fast, otherwise other teams mates will snatch a node while 2 mobile members will seek to defend. There is a painfully obvious reason why nothing ever changes to guardian in each patch apart from skill description updates and recently a small amount of fury that is perfectly designed for..you guessed it..a stationary guardian holding a node that no one expects to be able to react quickly. The guardian has potential to a roamer of a different nature in spvp. They could have the potential to be mobile defenders, but in stead they are a stationary one because they move slow and have weapon sets that attack slow and/or highly telegraphed. slow-slow-slow They shine in spvp by standing on one node with heavy defense. They incapable of having good reaction to spike damage apart from shouts. You can try to place your hammer ward down if you wish, but any thief and or mesmer/engi is going to interrupt you painfull..because you’re just too slow and painfully obvious in what you’re trying to do.

George Steel.1804:

Yeah hammer’s a fantastic weapon, but it is slloooooooow. If you’ve ever tried using a warrior hammer for even a short period of time, you will realize how great things COULD be.

Totally agree. Warrior is CC based damage that is mobile and versatile. Guardian hammer could be a mobile weapon that is highly team defensive and mobile. This makes a roaming guardian far more versatile. You don’t need a mesmer to portal them, or a warhorn warrior to speed them. Support is viable if it can get to where it is needed quickly and act and respond according to the situation. This is in my mind what makes guardian one of the deepest professions to play. All knowledge you have of opposng professions/weapons/general builds makes you that much stronger in knowing how to defend and support your surrounding team. Recognizing what a sword/pistol thief is probably aiming to achieve from a dagger/pistol maybe subtle, but it does help. Knowing what a greatsword warrior is probably running and how they are planning on setting a target for a full 100 blades is what allows you support single atrgets and team teams better, but it is all for naught if your caught constantly experiencing what I can only describe as “wait for it…wait for it..wait for it..here it comes…”

In WvW guardian hammer is just a sure thing to be interrupted and stacked with confusion now. I kinda know what you are feeling, and it’s slow even for me. And I am old

Its a learn to play issue and it kind of funny that OP find it to be an old mans weapon. If we use the OP logi, old people which have slower reflexes and worse eye to hand coordination should be the ones complaining since the weapon actually demands higher awareness and more proactive gameplay to be effective.

Nothing wrong with the hammer at all, it just has a higher skillcap compared to our other weapons and some people just dont have the patience to get there.

With that said i would like to se some QoL (not to be confused with quality of weapon) changes that would make it aesthetically more attractive. Removing one symbol tick and fasten up the third step and ofc moving while placing RoW and the less skilled might find it more attractive.

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Fror.2163:

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

Every hammer guardian that has ever played spvp

Remove me from that list please: I don’t sign this.

Sure..but I se no argument that you think it is fast. The greater point here is that the meta is increasing in speed. Boons such as protection can be valuable in the right situations, but when that situation has already moved well away from where you are and you find yourself standing in symbol of swiftness for 4 seconds just so you can get the maximum speed increase duration..that’s when that situation it would have been useful in has completely past you by. This is the primary reason Guardians hold either home if required, or mostly center. They play a untactical game of where if the opposition wants to make a hard push for a side node and your lord the good old guardian just stays on center or home because they will never be able to react to side node defense, or get to a lord in time, so may as well hold home and take the points and pressure them to do whatever they want to fast, otherwise other teams mates will snatch a node while 2 mobile members will seek to defend. There is a painfully obvious reason why nothing ever changes to guardian in each patch apart from skill description updates and recently a small amount of fury that is perfectly designed for..you guessed it..a stationary guardian holding a node that no one expects to be able to react quickly. The guardian has potential to a roamer of a different nature in spvp. They could have the potential to be mobile defenders, but in stead they are a stationary one because they move slow and have weapon sets that attack slow and/or highly telegraphed. slow-slow-slow They shine in spvp by standing on one node with heavy defense. They incapable of having good reaction to spike damage apart from shouts. You can try to place your hammer ward down if you wish, but any thief and or mesmer/engi is going to interrupt you painfull..because you’re just too slow and painfully obvious in what you’re trying to do.

I don’t sign this because your assumption is that hammer is too slow where I think it’s perfect for what it does. If it were quicker, it’d be OP given the control it gives. I can’t see any better control weapon in the game for any class. Hammer made me win 1v1 fights than it made me lose, wether protecting a point or not. Hammer has good dps, but is not a dps weapon per se. So it’s actually a L2P issue on your side.

Brutaly.6257:

Its a learn to play issue and it kind of funny that OP find it to be an old mans weapon. If we use the OP logi, old people which have slower reflexes and worse eye to hand coordination should be the ones complaining since the weapon actually demands higher awareness and more proactive gameplay to be effective.

Nothing wrong with the hammer at all, it just has a higher skillcap compared to our other weapons and some people just dont have the patience to get there.

With that said i would like to se some QoL (not to be confused with quality of weapon) changes that would make it aesthetically more attractive. Removing one symbol tick and fasten up the third step and ofc moving while placing RoW and the less skilled might find it more attractive.

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it. I personally don’t care about any other part of the game. I faced a few hammer guards last night in spvp they didnt land one banish on me and certainly not that auto attack that gives symbol. There are many aspects to this game and points can be valid in one aspect but not another.

If they reduced the cast by maybe 1/4 or 1/2 it may even be par or above GS overall dps.

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

Charak.9761:

If they reduced the cast by maybe 1/4 or 1/2 it may even be par or above GS overall dps.

And that would be more than just OP, given the hammer’s permanent protection.

Amineo.8951:

I play Dark Souls pvp, and all i have to say is that it’s unbalanced since 2012, because there’s a lot of cheaters in all supports (i play on PS3 and i still see infinite hp guys) and lagswitchers now and gankers that makes the pvp rarely playable because of TWOP + Dark magic combo which is impossible (things like that shouldn’t exist in pvp) to survive if you get caught. Anyway, concerning the guardian in GW2, it’s a very good class when you know how to play it, and so far the only things that are annoying even if you’re good are conditions Engineer, conditions mesmers and conditions necros.

However, I don’t think Dark Souls can be considered fast paced.

Which makes it even better.

I still don’t know if this thread is about autoattack speed or character movement speed potential.

If it’s the former, I don’t see the problem. If it’s the latter, guardian mobility is a systemic problem and can’t be blamed on a particular weapon. There is less mobility than sword/great sword but it is no slower than Mace or Scepter; at which point I’m forced to say that you need to broaden your claim to include them.

What would you guys think about:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Protection
- is now .5 sec cast time. Protection only stacks up to (6sec? on self, 9sec? on others) similar to what they did with
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Swiftness
Would that work or is that too simple a fix?

Brutaly.6257:

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

But did you win any of those 200 matches =)

Well, it must be said that Binding Blade +Judge intervention at the right time is pretty brutal.xD

You are already bound before the battle starts.

What do you think of this build for hammer?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fUAQJARSlUgSDHHyNEf4ERVh4h9QjZ8jXPgYEbIA-ToAg0CnIYSxkjJDTSmsMN+Y9B

Could it work?

I feel like the OP is poking fun at me for being old. I didn’t know that the hammer was not a walking cane too.

Plenty of classes and playstyles requiring very active play. Try an engineer or elementalist. You do want some classes being new to MMO player friendly.

aspirine.6852:

Brutaly.6257:

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

But did you win any of those 200 matches =)

First i thought i wouldnt answer this because its just rude but the answer is yes indeed. My team has very good statistics in pvp.

Bombsaway.7198:

I feel like the OP is poking fun at me for being old. I didn’t know that the hammer was not a walking cane too.

Plenty of classes and playstyles requiring very active play. Try an engineer or elementalist. You do want some classes being new to MMO player friendly.

Well, always citing Dark Souls…

sometimes the hardest weapons to use are the slow ones.XD

In this game, they should be two different kinds of difficulty.

redslion.9675:

Bombsaway.7198:

I feel like the OP is poking fun at me for being old. I didn’t know that the hammer was not a walking cane too.

Plenty of classes and playstyles requiring very active play. Try an engineer or elementalist. You do want some classes being new to MMO player friendly.

Well, always citing Dark Souls…

sometimes the hardest weapons to use are the slow ones.XD

In this game, they should be two different kinds of difficulty.

Chaos Zweihander would like to have a word with you. Easymode weapon, with the slowest attackspeed.

foofad.5162:

redslion.9675:

Bombsaway.7198:

I feel like the OP is poking fun at me for being old. I didn’t know that the hammer was not a walking cane too.

Plenty of classes and playstyles requiring very active play. Try an engineer or elementalist. You do want some classes being new to MMO player friendly.

Well, always citing Dark Souls…

sometimes the hardest weapons to use are the slow ones.XD

In this game, they should be two different kinds of difficulty.

Chaos Zweihander would like to have a word with you. Easymode weapon, with the slowest attackspeed.

What are you, casul?XD

Just avoid it, strike once, avoid again. You don’t even need to roll backstab.

For the bass cannon you need SWAG.

redslion.9675:

foofad.5162:

redslion.9675:

Bombsaway.7198:

I feel like the OP is poking fun at me for being old. I didn’t know that the hammer was not a walking cane too.

Plenty of classes and playstyles requiring very active play. Try an engineer or elementalist. You do want some classes being new to MMO player friendly.

Well, always citing Dark Souls…

sometimes the hardest weapons to use are the slow ones.XD

In this game, they should be two different kinds of difficulty.

Chaos Zweihander would like to have a word with you. Easymode weapon, with the slowest attackspeed.

casul

Brutaly.6257:

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

I’ve played thousands of high rank tpvp matches, I second this.

I’m not old and hammer is really good as it is now. If it would be faster then it would be OP like hell.

Tho would be great if we could move during RoW :/

The hammer is quite good in PvP and WvW. It’s more reliable then the GS. Large amount of CC, and still great damage. GS burst is easy to avoid, and retaliation hurts it a lot. I love the GS, but the hammer does somethings better.

Brutaly.6257:

aspirine.6852:

Brutaly.6257:

brannigan.9831:

In spvp hammer is way too slow there is no way around it.

I have 200 tournements under my belt an 90 % of the matches i used the hammer as main weapon and i never run bunker.

And i disagree.

But did you win any of those 200 matches =)

First i thought i wouldnt answer this because its just rude but the answer is yes indeed. My team has very good statistics in pvp.

It was half tongue in cheek and half serious. No need to get offended so quickly.

I tried it a bit. I think inhabiting Fallout’s turn system for this weapon might me good idea

THE LEGEND NEVER DIES!

Just change the third in the Hammer #1 to note take forever and a day to cast and I think that will address a lot of the issues. The other 4 hammer abilities are pretty good. They require proper setup – you can’t just spam them and win. Once you learn the setups, those are really effective.

Personally, the slow third ability in the auto-attack chain just frustrates me too much to use the rest of the weapon.

Given that it’s one of the most powerful autos in the game (5s AOE protection lol) I think a slightly extended startup is more than warranted.

If you want to whine about something whine about the flamethrower auto, it takes like twice as long as the hammer windup and does like a quarter of the damage.

What do you think about hammer in a meditation build?

IMHO the problem is you can’t go 30 in radiance if you go GS/Hammer because you don’t have one-handed weapons, so you go in Valor for cd reduction and more sustain. You last even more, can play as a half bunker thanks to protection and have more cc.

But IMHO you sacrifice too much crit chance and damage. What do you think?

CntrlAltDefeat.1465:

You have your mindsets, but this is 2014. A lot of your new edition players

Yeah, Anet, this is 2014 New Edition!