Guild Wars 2

JonPeters.5630:

Hammer
We are taking damage away from the hammer skills that do CC, because we don’t think it is ok for skills to do both of these things. I see a lot of comparison with Greatsword damage, but the Greatsword has no interrupts and a single cripple on the Bladetrail. We left the skills that do not do hard control alone such as Fierce Blow and Hammer Shock, as we are ok with those skills hitting hard because they do not actually disable. We also left Backbreaker alone because it has a long cast time and a long cooldown. The standard hammer build is still going to be very strong after this change, but it will open up options for mace to make a comeback as the control weapon.

A few problems with this:

1. The Hammer CC already comes with a great tradeoff in dmg.
   The comparison with Greatsword is justified, since it illustrates what a dmg build without any CCs does in damage in comparison. In numbers a full Zerker GS build does about 5x more dps.
   Isn’t this enough of a gap to justify the CC on the Hammer? Especially since all of it’s control abilities are easily countered by stability!?
   IMHO the Hammer damage right now is appropriate for a big two handed weapon.
   And honestly it is nothing short of ridiculous to give earthshaker an animation that leaves a crater(!!) and not have it cause a ton of serious damage. Cutting off 20% of that is just sad.
2. Fierce Blow and Hammer Shock do not hit hard.
   If you really want to follow through with the massive 20 and 23% damage cuts to the control skills, it is not enough to just leave the aforementioned skills as they were. Give both these skills (or the first two hits of the auto attack chain) a damage boost and you have your separation of control and damage. Especially the dmg on Hammer Shock does not match it’s animation. It feels like hitting air with a rubber Hammer which is pretty frustrating.
3. None of this “opens up options for mace to make a comeback as the control weapon”.
   With the same update you are making the maces best CC asset easier to counter. By a lot. This does not make sense. At all.
4. This nerf is completely uncalled for.
   The community has been complaining about perma stealth thieves, the ridiculousness that is the perplexity rune, the possibility to stack up immobilize to 20seconds and other things that really stifle player vs. player combat and you give us a complete crackdown on the control warrior while giving thieves a 33% initiative boost and not adressing the other two problems at all.

Dear GW2 team.

PLEASE DO NOT NERF THE WARRIOR HAMMER BUILD!

Earthshaker is THE ONLY cool skill the hamwarrior has so it’s bad enough to be forced into a burst build, but to kastrate the ONLY efficient build THERE IS for a hammer Warrior is just, stupid, silly, completely uncalled for, stifles gameplay and honestly bejond frustrating.
And to call this build overpowered is so far from reality that I cannot even think of a good way to explain.

This is a build that ONLY works in WVW Zerg fight, is highly specialized and thus LIMITED.
It sucks in PVE, it sucks in one on ones, it even sucks in small PVP groups.
Isn’t that balanced enough?
But even if you think that it’s still overpowered within the ridiciously small limits it can operate, lets take a look at other classes in zergfight.
Compared to what some other classes are throwing out there (eg. massive bleeds, confusion, torment on thiefs and necros; dmg on mesmers, thiefs, elementalists, GS warris etc.) the hammer build falls WAY behind in terms of overall damage.

With that in mind, the damage obviously can’t be the problem, right?
So lets talk about the CC’s on the hammer. again… to call this overpowered is mindblowing. Please compare it to the walls and bubbles on guards(!!), static fields, or necros who can put out fear like there’s no tomorrow.
These skills are about a million times more helpful in big group fights than hammer stuns or knockbacks.
In fact most of the time you wont even get ANY CCs out of your build because when two zergs clash, every single player has stability up which renders the hammer CCs utterly USELESS!
(keep in mind that guard walls and bubbles still work though.)
Overall the hammer warrior deliveres MEDIOCRE CC paired with MEDIOCRE dmg output with NO OTHER abilities, like heal, ressurect or good group support skills, which together still makes a really well rounded build.
So again, WHERE is the imbalance here?
In fact the hammer burst build is very well balanced in WvW gameplay, since what the hammer warri delivers in cc and damage on the one hand it lacks in aplying conditions, the ability to deal with the same, incorporating the second weapon set and vitality on the other hand.

And now the most important part:
A hammer build is FINALLY FUN.
Since you added movability to staggering blow and the possibility to reduce cooldown on earthshaker playing a hammer warrior build FINALLY really FEELS like throwing a kitten hammer around.
The way this works right now IS PERFECT!
PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT DESTROY THIS GREAT BUILD!

Everything in this game is so geared towars greatsword anyway, which is getting sooooo old…
Wanna play Guard? first weapon GS, second doesn’t matter because… you know GS.
Wanna play Mesmer? Sure… just make sure your first weapon is a GS, second doesn’t matter because… you know GS.
Oh Warrior? GS GS GS hundret blades hundret blades hundret blades… Other builds? Good luck finding someone to group up for PVE, PVP or roaming in WVW.
Greatsword, Greatsword, Greatsword… like in ANY OTHER MMORPG out there… THE ultimate weapon is always the twohanded sword. yawn
When I bought this game I was so excited that there was a warhammer. so coool!!
So I started a warri, got me a hammer and realized that if I ever wanted to reach lvl 80 I effing HAD to get a Greatsword.
I did not want to do that though so I started a guard. Got me a hammer aaaand… utter disappointment: The hammer skills on the guard were even lamer than on the warrior.
So what weapon do you get if you want to play the guardian efficiently? Oh… surprise surprise… a Greatsword.
Does not exactly feel like what you promised the game would be like (play whatever you want… sure)

The hammer FINALLY has its legitimate place and a build that goes with it. Why you want to destroy this I will never understand.
How about you give thieves, necros and elementalists greatswors too? Then you could get rid of all the other weapon classes all together.

Thank you very much for your attention.