Guild Wars 2

Onto wvw, where hammer is most popular: Hammer works as intended here. I cannot tell you how many times ive lept into a zerg backline with earthshaker only to see five “miss” indicators pop up because I went blind just as I lept into the air. Highly frustrating! but also working as intended. Often too I will not stun a single target because stability is so popular in wvw. Earthsaker punishes people who dont attempt to control or dodge or avoid earthshaker, but it is by no means devoid of counter play. I worry that by so heavily reducing Earthshaker’s damage, people will be able to easily ignore hammer warriors, and that these changes go against the design philosophy of the warrior.

I feel like unsuspecting foe would be moved to master tier purely as a nerf to hammer warriors, and that this trait belongs where it is in adept tier, because it has very limited functionality. Stuns are quite rare, so the trait is where it belongs.

(TL;DR) In summary: dont nerf hammer for the sake of wvw. You will make it bad in pve and spvp, and your current changes go against your design philosophy for hammer, imho. Please consider only making some of the changes, or making different changes.

Now, I have some suggestions because I want to be helpful and as a law student I know it’s important to argue in the alternative in case you lose! If you do decide to go ahead with the nerfs, here’s how I suggest you do them differently to stay in line with your design philosophy!
– Decrease the RANGE of earthshaker from 600 to 300 to further the design philooshpy of slow, cumbersome attacks. Warriors will have to get even closer now to deliver their biggest attack.
- Decrease the area of effect or increase the cooldown of the aoe knockback hammer skill, again keeping in line with how hammer should feel. This could decrease a hammer’s overall dps while still keeping in line with how its attacks should feel: devestating but slow and easily avoided.
- Nerf the percentage increase on unsuspecting foes from 50% to 33% or even 25%. The trait is already specialized enough to belong in an adept tier (in that it doesnt have much use outside of a hammer build). This nerf would bring it in line with other adept tier traits while also forcing wars to bring a little more precision to fights or risk not critting when they land their earthshaker chain.
- Decrease the stun duration of earthshaker, rather than its damage. a 3 second stun is a long time, and perhaps it would be more appropriate for the stun to scale from 0…2 rather than 1…3.
- add a wind up for the aoe hammer knockback skill, rather than removing its damage, to further the feeling of hammer as a big, punishing weapon that is sluggish
- Increase the wind up for earthshaker (more time in the air before landing, maybe even adding a red circle before impact)
- Bring down the damage nerf to hammer skills from 20% and 23% to 10% and 15%, respectively. The nerfs as proposed are really, really high, and if nothing else I beseech you to start with a weaker nerf, ESPECIALLY if you are still planning to make all the other changes, as I feel even just one or two of these changes would bring hammer warriors in line with other builds in wvw. You could always nerf warrior again if 10% isnt enough.

Overall, I want these requests to communicate that more than anything I want warrior to play as it was intended, to feel visceral, and the be dangerous if ignored. I think some of the ideas in this post can help you do that to the hammer without reducing its teeth, and while also rewarding players who are skillful. Thanks for reading

Hey Anet devs. Two things got me to make a rare visit to the official forums to voice my input on the Decemeber 10 proposed changes. First, the general attitude of people on these forums is toxic, and I feel really bad for you guys, especially as someone who has been around since early GW1 and loves the games you make, and who has always loved your take on the brutal archetype of the warrior class. I’m not sure why the community has gone so far down hill since launch, but I want you to know I appreciate that you still try to involve us in some way and interact, and to also know that there are many people who respect what you do. The second reason is that if I dont say anything before the nerfs, I will have no one to blame for myself for not giving input. SO here goes:

I think the proposed nerfs to hammer go a little to far if they are launched exactly as proposed. A reduction to the damage of both burst mastery and the base damage on earth shaker and the hammer knockback skill combined with moving Unsuspecting Foes to Master tier is overkill on damage reduction. I understand your goal is to make warriors choose between damage or control, but the problem with this change is that it actually makes warriors choose between control or picking a different weapon.

You see, hammer’s design philosophy (as I believe it was intended) is to be a big, slow, cumbersome weapon with devastating attacks. It currently fills that role quite nicely with the right setup, at least in wvw. In pve, hammer has never been an optimal choice because it lacks the DPS that GS + axe/mace brings, and Defiant stacks make the control that hammer brings not worth the damage gap. In spvp, on the other hand, control is so important that blinds, stability, dodges, and other forms of avoiding control are practically required and keep hammer balanced and in check.

This brings us to a very important point: the reason why earthshaker deserves to have DPS AND control. Earthshaker is one of the most telegraphed attacks in the game, and is easily dodged. THis is good though, because it fits well with the philosophy of the hammer. Both when playing a hammer war and when playing against hammer wars, the fight is always exciting, because you feel like a little guy dodging a really big guy’s slow, heavy punches. If you slip up once, you will suffer, but that is balanced by how easy it is to avoid hammer attacks. I can tell you that playing hammer in spvp, I am often blinded, met with stability, dodged, stealthed, interrupted, knocked back, or otherwise avoided. When I finally do connect with earthshaker or another awesome hammer attack, it feels great, but moreso than with other weapons, I am often whiffing. When I play against a hammer warrior in spvp i always have a stun break (because I always have a stun break in spvp). I work around the hammer warrior by keeping my distance and dodging important attacks, by using stealth and stability, or by blinding. I know if I get hit in the face with a fully charged hammer attack with a huge windup it will hurt. This IS AND SHOULD BE how hammer feels. If you nerf hammer for the sake of wvw, you will make a weapon already barely viable in pve and make it useless, and I feel you will make hammer builds in spvp cease to be viable. (For those saying hammer warriors will simply have to switch to more offensive gear, I think you should note that hammer lacks any kind of escape mechanic and generally leaves itself open to attack. It either crushes foes or is quickly disabled, and therefore needs to be a tanky build, whereas other weapons allow the warrior to move around a lot more. to compensate, the base damage of hammer should not be something you can ignore.) (CONT)