hammer/scepter build?
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
well, like I said, I know I wont get the best dps with the build that I need, but on the other hand, I dont want a build, that is so support focused, that it takes me 10 min to kill a normal elite mob, thats why I think its hard to find the right build, since it should work both as support in groups, but still have some dps, since it will make solo playing a pain in the a** othewise, so the ultimate build for me, would be a build, that lets me swap out the major traits, when doing groups/party, so I get some more dps or support
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
this guy is unbelievably wrong. mighty blow in your hammer’s light field is some of (if not THE) highest DPS available to a guardian. to be honest, there’s a sticky up at the top called “AH hammer gameplay” or something like that which will show you basically exactly how to do what you’re asking with ridiculous detail. i actually just started playing around with it yesterday in dungeons (been running a guardian since head start only used hammer sparringly) and found that i could not only out-dps my GS, but that the hammer really does support altruistic healing better than just about any other weapon. if that doesn’t form the core of support based DPS, i’m not sure what does.
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
this guy is unbelievably wrong. mighty blow in your hammer’s light field is some of (if not THE) highest DPS available to a guardian. to be honest, there’s a sticky up at the top called “AH hammer gameplay” or something like that which will show you basically exactly how to do what you’re asking with ridiculous detail. i actually just started playing around with it yesterday in dungeons (been running a guardian since head start only used hammer sparringly) and found that i could not only out-dps my GS, but that the hammer really does support altruistic healing better than just about any other weapon. if that doesn’t form the core of support based DPS, i’m not sure what does.
That guide is based on so many wrong assumptions I don’t even know where to begin with it. I suspect hammer is popular just because it’s an easy weapon to use (you can just run in and auto-attack) but it’s not actually that good compared to the other options you have as guardian.
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
its ok if you dont like hammer, but take your personal taste as law, its not.
Im not an hammer lover, but im using it, and its really more viable then GS.
Yes its A BIT slower on autoattack, but its the most balanced weapon we can use now.
Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs.
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill"
LOL
(edited by Ganzo.5079)
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
I’m not so sure about that. I find that my hammer doesn’t do as much direct damage as the greatsword, but it comes close enough that with the hammer’s blast finishers, protection, almost-constant retaliation and protection symbol, synergy with Altruistic Healing, and the CC options, I almost never use my greatsword anymore. Only when I need the pull or longer leap, or when I need to DPS while moving straight forward.
To OP, I’d say drop into the usual 0/5/30/30/5 build, which will give you a good amount of effective traits and stats to balance out whatever armor you decide to take. Or, really, just any variation centered around 30 into Valor or Honor.
As for weapons, I truly believe our best party-centric weapons are the shield, staff, and hammer. They lay down plenty of CC abilities, have great synergy with fields (save the staff) and traits in general. With the hammer #2, you can constantly synergize with your teammates, which is crucial if you’re rolling with an ele. Whenever I party with an ele, I tell them to drop water fields when they notice party health dropping. I’ll hit the field to throw out a 1.5k+ heal (depending on my gear), which is nothing to laugh at.
If I’m rolling with a bunch of melee, I generally run staff/hammer for maximum support, whereas squishies push me into a hammer and mace/shield for tanking support. The hammer does deal an incredible amount of damage over the long run (i.e., don’t focus on burst dps), and does provide a better support role than our strictly dps-centric weapon options.
OP, you won’t take forever to kill something with it, and Guanglai, I please ask you again to stop telling people the hammer is terrible. That is an outright lie, and does a great disservice to people trying to learn how use our weapons. Is the hammer better in WvW/PvP/dungeons than it is in PvE? Sure, but the distance between the two in PvE is not so disparaging so as to consistently criticize a supremely balanced weapon.
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
this guy is unbelievably wrong. mighty blow in your hammer’s light field is some of (if not THE) highest DPS available to a guardian. to be honest, there’s a sticky up at the top called “AH hammer gameplay” or something like that which will show you basically exactly how to do what you’re asking with ridiculous detail. i actually just started playing around with it yesterday in dungeons (been running a guardian since head start only used hammer sparringly) and found that i could not only out-dps my GS, but that the hammer really does support altruistic healing better than just about any other weapon. if that doesn’t form the core of support based DPS, i’m not sure what does.
That guide is based on so many wrong assumptions I don’t even know where to begin with it. I suspect hammer is popular just because it’s an easy weapon to use (you can just run in and auto-attack) but it’s not actually that good compared to the other options you have as guardian.
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
haha, this guy is a straight-up troll. Don’t even waste your time reading his “input” on this discussion, because he is flat-out: kittening full of kitten.
“10 minutes to kill anything”…haha sure thing.
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
this guy is unbelievably wrong. mighty blow in your hammer’s light field is some of (if not THE) highest DPS available to a guardian. to be honest, there’s a sticky up at the top called “AH hammer gameplay” or something like that which will show you basically exactly how to do what you’re asking with ridiculous detail. i actually just started playing around with it yesterday in dungeons (been running a guardian since head start only used hammer sparringly) and found that i could not only out-dps my GS, but that the hammer really does support altruistic healing better than just about any other weapon. if that doesn’t form the core of support based DPS, i’m not sure what does.
That guide is based on so many wrong assumptions I don’t even know where to begin with it. I suspect hammer is popular just because it’s an easy weapon to use (you can just run in and auto-attack) but it’s not actually that good compared to the other options you have as guardian.
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
You have obviously NOT tried the AH ‘Crithammer’ build. Plenty of DPS and support. You could not be more wrong in these assumptions.
< JADE QUARRY >
Zabroshan – 80 Guardian / Sorroe – 80 Mesmer
Hands Off My Octopus
Zabroshan – 80 Guardian / Sorroe – 80 Mesmer
Hands Off My Octopus
The hammer actually does outdamage the greatsword, unless you go full into zeal and go glass cannon.
Why?
Mighty Blow is used twice in the amount of time that it takes to do one whirling wrath, while having a larger radius than WW does, as well as dropping all its damage in one hit.
Factor in your persistent symbol damage as well as your retaliation that is up near constantly.
Want even more damage out of your hammer? Animation cancel by dodging after the second swing connects, dropping about one second in your attack chain time – causing it to become as fast as or faster than that of the Greatsword.
(edited by ExpiredLifetime.1083)
yeah, idk what gulagagaga is talking about. but for real, don’t take our word for it. go compare AH crithammer with, i dunno, ANYTHING based around a GS (or any other weapon) and see which one feels like better frontline support. staff works wonders if you don’t have to heal others a whole lot and are free to cast empower and line of warding. probably want the mace and either the shield or focus (depending on many things). i honestly believe that with one or two players at your side you’ll get more DPS out of a hammer and staff than just about anything. and you’ll also have much better support and control.
the reason the hammer is superior is symbol of protection, and how it hits (and crits) multiple times in addition to our sluggish hammer blows. but for real, read brutaly’s guide. it’s a really well written deal, and deserves to speak for itself.
and above all try it out yourself. seriously. take your GS, with it’s burst centric retaliation symbol on a 20 second cooldown. then take a sword and a torch, with all that DPS. go burn down some mobs with a few friends. try it again with a hammer, and a staff, and see what area retal, constant DPS, AND empower do for you.
also, wtf do you mean this is easy to play? can you ninjaskip like he does that video? cause i’ve been trying and it’s pretty tricky. certainly trickier than running the same three sequences with the GS over and over again. it’s like l-canceling in super smash bros. that’s some advanced teq. for the OP, nothing like that is necessary to make this playstyle awesome. it’s just a way to make it even /more/ awesome.
You guys really like hammer and I don’t know why. I don’t see anything to recommend it. The damage output sucks (it’s the lowest DPS weapon the guardian has) and it procs the fewest AH ticks, and while protection is decent it doesn’t really make as big of a difference as you might think, especially not compared to just outright healing. Moreover, just prot spamming isn’t ideal for a guardian build, since eles do it better; an ele can spam an AOE spike heal for 5 digits, keep up constant regen and protection, and not even give up DPS doing it. By comparison to keep up just that protection boon in a limited area you are giving up all of your DPS and survivability and you have to stay in melee to boot.
It’s quite simple. Both numbers and experience show that the hammer is a bad weapon. You can’t argue with this. It takes forever to kill anything with a hammer no matter how you build it. Even if you do the “ninja skip” crap that’s apparently all the rage the damage is still crap. At best it’s like half of what a real set like GS/mace could put out.
It’s not just about DPS either. The hammer is a decent CC weapon for PvP but it’s also easily countered (stability bypasses wards) and it deals virtually zero damage, which means if you ever need to switch BACK to it mid-fight, you’re dead in the water for 10 seconds while the opponent gets to pound on you all he wants. Guardians can survive ten seconds no problem, but there’s no reason to do that when you could just kill your opponent(s) in that time.
No matter how much I repeat these facts, no one has any counter to them. They just go NUH UH U TROLLAN MY HAMMER DOES LIKE A BILLION DAMAGE PER HIT.
Well, mine doesn’t. It barely does 4 digits a hit and it hits slow as kitten.
Well, before this thread falls completely off the track, here’s some personal advice for the OP.
The 0/5/30/30/5 build suggested by Draeka would be something you’ll want to look into if you enjoy playing a supportive role, as the trait line specs you for good durability as well as (potentially) throwing out heals with symbols as well as keeping up constant buff on the party. Do go ahead and take a look at the Crit Hammer/Altruistic Healing guide that’s stickied on this forum to get a better idea as to what you can expect here.
I personally roll with a 0/15/30/20/5 build with full Cleric gear, which is designed to keep myself alive above all else, as well as provide the party with a few heals here and there. My weapon choices are Scepter/Shield and Staff, but you can always replace the Staff with a Hammer if you choose to. As far as damage is concerned with this build, it’s pretty constant, especially if you put in certain Sigils in your weapon, such as Sigil of Fire to add more DPS potential.
On the subject of weapons, don’t treat the Scepter as a pure ranged weapon, Smite at melee range followed by some hammer smacking is the equivalent of smacking your opponent with a fully loaded semi, at least in PvE.
I’ve no PvP experience, so I can’t comment there, but do take a quick look around some of the topics like “Post Your Build” thread, as well as the Guardian 101 sticky, which covers a lot of the basic topics, such as weapon synergy and their strengths.
As a general rule for PvE you don’t go hammer/anything. Hammer has no CDs to recharge on swap and the auto isn’t strong enough to justify sitting on for ten seconds only.
If you do want to use hammer you should commit to going 100% full support and just auto-attack to spam protection, and give up on DPS, because it isn’t going to happen, not with a hammer. If you want to do a support/DPS hybrid mace/scepter/gs + staff is probably your best best.
this guy is unbelievably wrong. mighty blow in your hammer’s light field is some of (if not THE) highest DPS available to a guardian. to be honest, there’s a sticky up at the top called “AH hammer gameplay” or something like that which will show you basically exactly how to do what you’re asking with ridiculous detail. i actually just started playing around with it yesterday in dungeons (been running a guardian since head start only used hammer sparringly) and found that i could not only out-dps my GS, but that the hammer really does support altruistic healing better than just about any other weapon. if that doesn’t form the core of support based DPS, i’m not sure what does.
That guide is based on so many wrong assumptions I don’t even know where to begin with it. I suspect hammer is popular just because it’s an easy weapon to use (you can just run in and auto-attack) but it’s not actually that good compared to the other options you have as guardian.
As a matter of fact if you do want to run a hammer build you’ll have to resign yourself to taking ten minutes to kill anything. You could go Hammer/GS and just never actually use the hammer? I dunno.
No….
Hammer has the best combo finishers out of all the Guardian weapons. The blast finisher on might blow is fantastic. With healing springs under your feet, fire combo fields etc, you can buff and heal everyone around you. No other Guardian weapon does it that consistently.
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