13 replies to this topic

[Mighty_Gluup]

Hi there! By far the 2h hammer is my favorite weapon in the game but it seems that most builds are GS heavy around these forums and I'm having trouble looking for a good hammer pve build that would also work well in dungeons. If anyone knows of one or could link one that would be awesome! Thanks in advance for your replies.

[ProfGast]

The favored builds I've seen are Hammer/Shouts.  I've been fiddling around with possible hammer builds at level 80 for about a day now so I don't have any solid ones.  Near as I can tell though you either try to focus on interrupting and slot at least Strength 20 for distracting strikes (Confusion on interrupt), or you go 30 tactics, 10 Discipline and slot for Healing and Inspiring shouts to keep your adrenaline high.

I think I need not mention that you should slot at least 20 trait points into Toughness to get the Hammer CD trait.

[Mighty_Gluup]

ProfGast, on 15 September 2012 - 04:51 AM, said:

The favored builds I've seen are Hammer/Shouts.  I've been fiddling around with possible hammer builds at level 80 for about a day now so I don't have any solid ones.  Near as I can tell though you either try to focus on interrupting and slot at least Strength 20 for distracting strikes (Confusion on interrupt), or you go 30 tactics, 10 Discipline and slot for Healing and Inspiring shouts to keep your adrenaline high.

I think I need not mention that you should slot at least 20 trait points into Toughness to get the Hammer CD trait.

Oooo awesome I'll definitely be using these tips . So far to me it seems the hammer is a little bit more popular in pvp but I'm just trying to move away from the overly popular GS which seems to be the crowd favorite. I'm sure as the days pass by though that the other weapons will start to shine a bit more.

One thing I have read is that hammers are silly for pve dungeons being that so many of the enemies can't be knocked down or around, especially the bosses...is that true?

[Crosier]

Mighty_Gluup, on 15 September 2012 - 02:18 PM, said:

Oooo awesome I'll definitely be using these tips . So far to me it seems the hammer is a little bit more popular in pvp but I'm just trying to move away from the overly popular GS which seems to be the crowd favorite. I'm sure as the days pass by though that the other weapons will start to shine a bit more.

One thing I have read is that hammers are silly for pve dungeons being that so many of the enemies can't be knocked down or around, especially the bosses...is that true?

Yeah. A lot of bosses have anti-CC buffs. Just switch to a secondary weapon set like mace/shield when fighting bosses and do what good you can with your Shouts or banners etc. However, many if not all of the "trash" mobs in dungeons (I put quotation marks around trash there because these mobs are plenty powerful) aren't immune to CC at all and hammer still shines there.

Edited by Crosier, 17 September 2012 - 10:02 AM.

[Soylent]

Hammer goes awesome together with shout healing, the stuns and knockdows are a big help on trash.

[Mighty_Gluup]

Well that is true too, its easy to just switch before a boss encounter so it would be pretty viable on the bosses. And yea those trash mobs certainly are not trash haha. I was figuring the 2h hammer would go well with shouts and what not...more like a support build.

[Sithicus Dias]

I ran a Hammer build for a while, using Vigorous Shouts, and it became fairly clear that the Hammer is there to do a much different job than a Greatsword for example. Running a Hammer build almost certainly means you should spec into a t least 20 Defense to get Merciless Hammer, as such the talents that are best suited to Hammers tend to be in either Defense or Discipline.

I like that the OP didn't ask for a Hammer build that can rival GS for damage, because that cannot be done. There is no replacement for Hundred Blades. But that's the thing, the heavy damage can be left to the GS and Dual Axes, Hammers play a different game entirely. ProfGast correctly said that Hammers and Shouts work really well, you can go into Vigorous Shouts or Inspiring Battle Standards so that you can provide some healing to your team as an example.

[Ashoto]

I'll be doing some dungeons tonight with this
http://gw2skills.net...Cru6oQplSPELs1A

Of course you can swap Shield Master for Merciless Hammer any time.
In the end it all depends on what you like I guess.
I like having those brief "tanky" moments, that's why I have the Shield trait instead.
Oh, yeah. And I use banner regen support. I hate shout healing

[torcher999]

http://gw2skills.net...ZJyymlLLZWrNGbA

As soon as I tried this one it got me and I haven't looked back since. I'm currently sporting full healing power/toughness/power gear and my shouts heal pretty nicely. My only dilemma is to use the shouts for healing, condition removal, adrenaline gain or the original effect.

[Impurator]

Note that with the 0/20/20/30/0 setup, you can swap the /10 level traits in defense and arms around and do both GS and Hammer without respeccing.  This gives a decent amount of extra flexibility, depending on whether or not the mobs are susceptible to CC, need for mobility (GS3/5), need for more damage, etc.  Despite having no points in strength and wearing cleric gear, GS is still noticeably more damage than hammer.

[Mighty_Gluup]

These are definitely builds I'll be messing around with and yea I liked the whole support type role in other mmos and I'm glad that this is a way to sort of get that feel.Of course like in any mmo people will complain that you aren't putting out enough damage since you aren't using ____ (here it would be GS) but the whole point is we're keeping them alive hehe.

[Fizzgig]

Impurator, on 18 September 2012 - 06:26 PM, said:

Note that with the 0/20/20/30/0 setup, you can swap the /10 level traits in defense and arms around and do both GS and Hammer without respeccing.  This gives a decent amount of extra flexibility, depending on whether or not the mobs are susceptible to CC, need for mobility (GS3/5), need for more damage, etc.  Despite having no points in strength and wearing cleric gear, GS is still noticeably more damage than hammer.

yeah 0/20/20/30/0 is a great set up cause you can swap some traits around and switch to GS for boss fights.

[Greeve]

Mighty_Gluup, on 14 September 2012 - 09:36 PM, said:

Hi there! By far the 2h hammer is my favorite weapon in the game but it seems that most builds are GS heavy around these forums and I'm having trouble looking for a good hammer pve build that would also work well in dungeons. If anyone knows of one or could link one that would be awesome! Thanks in advance for your replies.

I've been playing this build a day or so, and really love it.

http://www.guildhead...aNm9MxxaoaboRbo

It is essentially a hammer/shouts set up.  I run it with clerics gears to provide high aoe heals for support (shouts will heal for 2k+).  You have incredible boon uptime with this as well.  Signet of rage and for great justice really increase your damage to respectable levels.  No not great sword uber, but for me I was looking for a defensive support build that could do more then wet noodle damage.  If you are diligent on keeping these two skills on cooldown, you will have around 6-11 stacks of might at all times perma fury for an extra 20% crit chance.  It really is helpful for increasing your damage here.  Obviously signet cooldown, shouts heal/cooldown, and hammer specific skill are a necessity for this but the rest of the traits I have chosen could be swapped around to your preference imo.  Skills are obviously shout centric for the heals.

[Lunacy Polish]

Here is one I've been playing and experimenting with for a while now.

http://www.gw2db.com...0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

It is a lot of fun, but I need to do some more stuff to really test its effectiveness.  It takes a little practice to really use this one as well, because you have to think about when you're going to drop that stun or cripple, and what is best to do immediately after.

It's kind of a weird build though because it goes 40 points into offense traits and 30 into defense traits, so you feel like your damage isn't good (although the Traits, used well, do augment the damage meaningfully and considerably by adding Confusion damage and increased crit chances), and you feel like a glass cannon too, but your durability is really more about cycling through your crowd control than anything.

With the Signet of Stamina and Fear Me and other stuff here though, your control gives you many escapes, I like that a lot.