Hammer lacking?
Hammer destroys in the AoE mob control market. If you’re fighting a boss, sure, you don’t have to bring one. The game lets you swap weapons around out of combat. However, if it’s a large event and you want to round up spawns or help peel off of allies, Earthshaker into Staggering Blow into Hammer Shock works wonders.
It has its place.
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
I play with my warrior only togeather with my girlfriend who has a ranger. I player with GS until about lvl 50. Then I was bored and tried other combinations, trying to focus less on dps and more on keeping the mobs away from her. Any combination with shield was awefull. Any mainhand and mace offhand was pretty nice. But the best for it, turned out to be hammer.
Like it’s been said, hammer is great for multiple mobs. It’s AoE and control can just decimate multiple mobs at the same time while not making you a glass cannon. And if you have someone with you, almost everything should drop like flies.
Even single mobs, unless they are unstoppable or have permanent stability (or certain champions), aren’t much of a problem depending on your utility skills and traits. The hammer may not do the sheer amount of damage as other weapons do (though I recall it actually has the highest damage-per-second of all warrior weapons), but it offers enough control and conditions that what it lacks in damage it makes up in giving you (and people around you) better survivability.
My only complaint is that there’s not really many traits which are for hammers specifically. In fact, I think there’s just one and it’s in the defense tree, meaning that hammer-centric builds pretty much have to put 20 points in defense since the damage increase and reduced cooldown is nothing to sneeze at. It would probably get more love if there were a few more hammer-specific traits spread out in different trees.
I was just about to make a thread asking about Hammer when I saw this. I pretty much at some point used every weapon for a period of time. I came into the game wanting to use Hammer but ended going Sword/Axe or Dual Axes with Rifle on weapon slot for majority of my levels(im 50 atm). I sorta wanted to get back to my original concept.
I got a great idea… lets give Warriors a weapon that only functions well as AoE in melee range … and give it an ability to knock everything out of melee range.
Hammer is one of the best pvp, pve and wvw weapon.
its a case of l2p. Just because it isnt faceroll damage like the greatsword doesnt mean its useless.
Its ridiculously easy to shut down any person or group with the hammer.
2 Second aoe stun.
Aoe knockback
Aoe cripple – if specced immobilises
Single target hard hitting knockdown
If specced we have 3 moves that can add 3 stacks of confusion.
Add a superior sigil of flame and we have a higher chance to proc a flame aoe that hits 1k+
The only thing hammer needs to make it a really good weapon is to make some of the animations trigger faster and allow some of the attacks to be done while moving (especially since they are so slow and obvious because of the size of the weapon).
I’m planning on trying out this spec tonight. Sort of a “Die in a fire” spec. Idea is to drop the longbow burst, arcing arrow (combo, 3x might), swap weapons, hammer shock, hammer burst (combo, 3x might), stomp (combo, 3x might) and/or staggering blow (combo, bolts). The group should still be end up knocked down, on fire, and crippled from the hammer shock.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fIAQJASTjgOpuxO2OMxBAMDt4y84niISfwOA
The only thing hammer needs to make it a really good weapon is to make some of the animations trigger faster and allow some of the attacks to be done while moving (especially since they are so slow and obvious because of the size of the weapon).
my BIGGEST issue with the hammer is: its horribly anti-climatically tiny. the head of the hammer should be semi obnoxiously huge, not like a hammer you’d buy from home depot.
— anywho, i like the hammer. aoe damage like a boss, knockback, and stun.
perhaps we need a joke skin hammer, have the end of it like a childs lunchbox or something?
(i am kidding btw)
I’d personally love some kind of Looney Tunes flavor on a Hammer’s graphics. Playing an Asura, their constant jumping has always seemed kind of cartoony to me anyhow. If there was some kind of comedy Hammer released, I’d do everything that I could to get it.
my BIGGEST issue with the hammer is: its horribly anti-climatically tiny. the head of the hammer should be semi obnoxiously huge, not like a hammer you’d buy from home depot.
— anywho, i like the hammer. aoe damage like a boss, knockback, and stun.
80% of the PvP Hammers look like absolute garbage, it’s a shame. Hell, alot of the Maces have as big or bigger hammerheads than the Hammers. They look so dinky in the hands of my giant hulk sized Norn.
I am dissapoint.
@dreadspectre: only 80% ? I haven’t seen one cool skin yet. /sigh
Slow sing speeds, dramatic animations, and two self-roots means opposing players have to be brand new or completely braindead for you to land anything important like backbreaker or earthshaker. Staggering Blow is so unreliable that it’s completely useless outside of a CC chain, thanks to the self root. High cooldowns and low damage are just icing on the “why would you ever do this” cake.
There are much better options available to groups who want CC.
Here’s a reason to use the hammer:
It owns.
I’m guessing in most situation, it’s the player who is being read instead of the ability/animation. “Oh look, someone with a hammer is running at me, they’ll probably lead with Earthshaker when they get in range”, like how when someone with a Greatsword runs at you, you think “Here comes the bull’s charge, let me get my dodging fingers ready to annihilate him”.
“He’s like a man with a fork in a world of soup.”
the hammer is like…the best warrior weapon.