Guild Wars 2

My main gripe is actually not with the hundred blades self root, but the self root abilities with hammer. The hammer is already a slow weapon and often awkward to use when your opponent has swiftness.

Personally I really dislike the self root abilities. On a melee character, the last thing I want is an ability that forces me to stand still for 3 seconds. This not only applies to 100 blades of course, but also things like flurry and hammer 3.

I would gladly trade off less damage for the ability to move while channeling or casting these abilities. As for the hammer 3 ability, I would gladly trade for a narrower arc that hits and cripples less targets if I didn’t have to stop momentarily to cast it.

I can understand the developer wanting to bring an element of strategy to the game by having these self root abilities, and they do bring a sense of risk and reward. But to me it’s just not a fun mechanic, because it makes the otherwise smooth and fast combat uncomfortably awkward.

The self root on the 4 ability for the Hammer (aoe knockback) makes the ability so awkward to use as well.

When the ability finally goes off after 10000 seconds of “cast time” everything will already have moved out of range!

The idea is to knock them over first, or stun or whatever. Also that’s the only point in having different weapon skills, the hammer is a big slow weapon, if you’re looking for something that can keep up with swift enemies then hammer is clearly not the best choice.

Hammer self roots are the main reason why i don’t use it. They already have horribly obvious swing animations/tells that make it easy to dodge correctly, but the self root punishes you further if they do dodge it.

I’m fine with 100b rooting you in place though, it has to have SOME sort of drawback. (wish it would get some sort of defensive ability attached to it like pistol whip/ blurred frenzy though)

I run leg specialist, enter the fray with the F1 on hammer to stun then cripple, which immobilizes everyone because of the trait, at which point you can backbreaker.

I look at no4 as more of a defensive ability

I’d love to see how warriors would do if the root on HB and frenzy would both get removed. HB is still very easily interruptable.

Teabaker.9524:

I’d love to see how warriors would do if the root on HB and frenzy would both get removed. HB is still very easily interruptable.

Lower damage by 50%.

Heck I would take that 50% damage Nerf to trade for mobility. Enemies avoid much of the hundred blades non frenzy channel any ways through dodge are simply circle strafe thing around me or heck even walking through me.

gwawer.9805:

Heck I would take that 50% damage Nerf to trade for mobility. Enemies avoid much of the hundred blades non frenzy channel any ways through dodge are simply circle strafe thing around me or heck even walking through me.

You realise of course that drops the damage over that duration below the basic greatsword swing combo. This is the same reason why noone uses the offhand axe, the damage over that duration is lower than the basic triple chop combo. If you want to halve the damage do it by halving the number of attacks and having the attack apply something like vulnerability with each swing. The gist of the greatsword is a mobility/momentum weapon after all.

As far as specifics, something like 4 of the opener rapid swings plus the finisher with each of the rapid swings applying a single stack and the finisher applying a heavy stack. Lowers the frontloaded damage from a frenzy burst but opens the way for heavier damage if the warrior can maintain close range with the caveat of being easier to land the full combo on a target without relying on a multi utility slot gimmick.

I do just fine with a hammer, I came back to it after 2 months and realized I was using it wrong. Dolan and Seren have it right, hammer 4 is an ability to use after the targets are already controlled (to extend the control time) or to hit someone you know is on the way (defensive.)

As for hammer 3… I almost agree with this. It can REALLY cripple a LOT of people in the right situation, it sorta makes sense to me that it is limited in that respect. If you weigh this with the “how often are you actually in that situation” argument, I’d have to say, “hardly ever,” and you’d have a great point.