Curse

dusanyu · Aug 25, 2009, 02:45 AM // 02:45

For hammer i use a 15^50 sundering with +30 hp and a 15^50 ebon with +30 hp.

Vamp can deliver slightly more damage over time but sundering crits are often enough to land an unexpected kill, which makes it well worth the slight decrease in DPS.

jaximus · Aug 25, 2009, 05:25 PM // 17:25

i play hammer quite often, and from my experience, elemental works the best all around with vamp as a close second. by using elemental (swapping when attacking rangers) you are hiding your damage type (vamp screams blunt) then chances are you are maximizing your efficiency. as for using ebon weps, its moreso the team design. if your team has an elemental damage character, then stay away from that, but also, if you can stay away from ebon that is good too, seeing as every war is told to use ebon. just dont match damage types from your teammates. as for all the calculations with sundering/vamp blah blah blah blah, its really cant account for human error/expectations. basic thoughts are 'hey a hammer war /blunt shield which hurts the damage on both sunder and vamp, whereas 'hey a hammer war/bluntshield' = good for elemental.

then though, one must consider the skill level of the hammer war. if you are good at q stepping/positioning then vamp delivers great dps and with good positioning comes more hits while in flail which means more damage also. thats why you see a lot of the higher level wars with vamp hammers. then consider the 'vamp screams blunt' but in this case, in a coordinated team, that isnt so much a bad thing. if the character being attacked is on a blunt shield, that leaves more damage for the axe/support to provide the kill. along with that, the skill of the warrior also gives better opportunities to catch casters on casting sets instead of shield sets where the damage mitigation is even less. keep in mind that hammer isnt necessarily about killing the target they attack, but creating the best opportunity for kills elsewhere via kds/annoyance.

as for the furious hammer, not so good. yeah looks okay on paper, but since you have a shield set, make the spear furious considering that youll end up spearing fairly regularly anyway, so enraging on the spear opens up a hammer that can be used for more dps/spikes. seeing as as the hammer war, like all wars, youll be against blind/snares/aura of stab, you want every hit to count when you do get the chance.

my wep sets go 1. xx element of fortitude(varies for team build) 2. +5e furious of fortitude spear/shield (anti crip mostly) 3. vamp of fortitude 4. sundering colossal pick of fortitude(quick swap before spikes to change up the damage)

*lemming* · Aug 25, 2009, 06:55 PM // 18:55

Elemental is a waste of a weapon slot.

Revelations · Aug 25, 2009, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by tehlemming

Elemental is a waste of a weapon slot.

Mostly true now that everyone runs sentinels. Axe warriors often still run 13 strength though, so weakness from dev can drop them below the threshold.

Anyone suggesting zealous hammer, plain no. Furious is strong, but you're usually better off trying to proc enraging with it and leaving it aside otherwise. Vamp is your best all-purpose set.

I usually carry a +5e axe/sword somewhere in my main sets for emergency bull's too, surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet.

Reverend Dr · Aug 25, 2009, 08:55 PM // 20:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by tehlemming

Elemental is a waste of a weapon slot.

Casters sometimes switch to +10 vs blunt shields, so not always, just usually.

Quote:

you want every hit to count when you do get the chance.

Hammer warriors no longer use frenzy. The only way a hammer warrior can pressure is if they meet the conditional of flail, the opponent not moving. This happens against terrible teams or they are on the ground. Especially if you are talking about hammer pressure and not the spike itself, furious is far superior. Furious = more KD's More KD's = more free hits More free hits = more adrenaline = more KD's. If we are talking about killing on a spike then yes the sundering or the +5 from vamp can make a difference, if we are talking about general match pressure then furious all the way; even if the match boils down to spiking swapping to furious to build and then another for the spike is reason alone to bring furious.

kedde · Aug 25, 2009, 09:16 PM // 21:16

Sundering for lord damage.

God_Hand · Aug 25, 2009, 11:23 PM // 23:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

...even if the match boils down to spiking swapping to furious to build and then another for the spike is reason alone to bring furious.

Um... correct me if I'm wrong here, Reverend (or anyone who wishes to correct me), but when running a hammer, wouldn't one just use a Furious Spear to build, since it has a faster attack rate and is ranged (and thus, can be used with some success with Flail + Cancel Stance)?

-Vamp Hammer
-Elemental Hammer
-Furious Spear
-Defense Set

That's what I run.

But hey, what the hell do I know?

Reverend Dr · Aug 26, 2009, 12:31 AM // 00:31

You would really swap to a weapon that you have 0 mastery in to build, then swap to you main weapon effectively broadcasting HEY GUYS ITS TIME TO KITE/PROT/SNARE/BLIND!

Furious spear is great for 1-2 hits to fill up something, but mostly they are a holdover from the wand days of old when warriors who couldn't get into melee would use it to build up rush.

Using flail with a spear is terrible, unless you are waiting out the entire duration of flail you aren't going to be hitting anything with your hammer until enraged comes back up. If you are full when you use enraged, you just wasted 4 adrenaline, the 4 adrenaline you just built by using a spear.

Swahnee · Aug 26, 2009, 11:05 AM // 11:05

I've calculated that the average "damage" dealt by a vampiric hammer is more or less 4 points per hit higher than the sundering one (that's to say that the sundering mod adds more or less only one damage per hit, on average), so the best hammer for general pressure it's vampiric.

But i want to ask this: do you think it's worth to swap to a sundering hammer only when unloading adrenaline with spike skills, and then come back to the vampiric one for pressure? Do you think that the chance of having a +20% AP at the same time of the +damage from the spike skill is worth the loss of 5 "damage" in the long run?

Greedy Gus · Aug 26, 2009, 05:54 PM // 17:54

Nope, in effect you're trying to win the lottery by getting 2 or more sundering procs over a spike timeframe (only one sunder proc or less is comparable or far less damage than vamp even on 2-3 hit unloads). Anyone interested could probably find dozens of previous hammer threads like this one.

Swahnee · Aug 26, 2009, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Supposing to have a warrior with a max hammer 15>50, customized, hammer [email protected], hitting an AR60 caster, the damage is 28-52, 40 average.
Supposing that'a a sundering hit, the damage is 35-64, 49.5 average, 9.5 more damage (average).
Supposing to be hitting an AR80, the damage is 20-37(28.5av), sundering 26-48 (37av), 8.5 more.
Supposing to be hitting an AR100, the damage is 14-26(20av), sundering 20-37 (28.5av), 8.5 more.

Calculation made with
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Damage_calculation

So, if the calculations are correct, we will have a 20% chance to spike for +8 damage (let's take this number). So if i use sundering and hope for it to trigger, even if i am lucky and it triggers, i will only deal 3 more damage than the vampiric case...3 more points of damage seem not so "spiky" to me, so i agree with you, it's better to use vampiric and wait for the critical to trigger.

This is only to let know the arguments. At this point sundering seems really useless, and maybe this is true for axes too..

jaximus · Aug 26, 2009, 10:52 PM // 22:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

hammer [email protected]

i dont like this part of your post. with hammer you use sentinels, with sentinels you use 13 hammer because your hp is already low enough. anyway..

elemental is a great hammer, definitely worth a wep slot. thebest hammer is different hammerS. the best way to get more damage out of each hit, is to use damage the target wont be able to defend against. versus a hammer war, a blunt shield is a wise decision. therefore, by using an element, you are bypassing +10 armor. at lower armor levels (midlines) this +armor makes a bigger difference. as you go up in armor, vamp becomes more effective because the damage mitigation at higher levels tapers off, but since it already is negating a large portion of your damage the 5 life steal provides more damage than the change in damage type would. then again, isnt a warrior supposed to be opportunistic while doing their job and put damage on targets that are out of place/casting sets/most susceptible to damage? but yes, if you want to pound on hard targets then vamp is your friend.

be adaptive, change it up frequently. hit a target with a vamp a bit so they see the lifesteal and thinking about the damage, then change hammers and pound away. be careful though to use hammers with very similar geometry so you can become more effective with timing q knocks.

Reverend Dr · Aug 27, 2009, 12:37 AM // 00:37

Hammer warriors use 14 strength and 13 hammer master. Simply because of the breakpoint in enraging charge.

This is why furious hammer is better than every other hammer.

Lux Aeterna · Aug 27, 2009, 02:32 AM // 02:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swahnee

Supposing to have a warrior with a max hammer 15>50, customized, hammer [email protected], hitting an AR60 caster, the damage is 28-52, 40 average.
Supposing that'a a sundering hit, the damage is 35-64, 49.5 average, 9.5 more damage (average).
Supposing to be hitting an AR80, the damage is 20-37(28.5av), sundering 26-48 (37av), 8.5 more.
Supposing to be hitting an AR100, the damage is 14-26(20av), sundering 20-37 (28.5av), 8.5 more.

These numbers are all wrong like... The base damage might be right, but most good hammer wars run 13 mastery and also your numbers are excluding crits and crits are a big factor. Also the dps calculation is bad, hammers do around 40 or a bit more dps if they use all their attack skills, base damage dps will be less than 40.

I bought a hammer today which came with a sundering mod, despite being a die-hard vamp fan I left the mod on and I've actually been liking it. 1/5 crits vs. moving targets will be like +25, 1/5 bull's strikes will be 130.
It probably does less damage than vamp vs. a stationary target, but I've never seen protector's strike hit for 140 before and hitting for 140 gives me a buzz.

Swahnee · Aug 27, 2009, 07:39 AM // 07:39

Ok so:

-i chose 14 hammer mastery only to make an example..if you choose 13, numbers don't change so much

-i didn't calculate the dps, i already posted before that i wanted to study the spike ability of a hammer..my question was: "is it worth to change to a sundering hammer when i spike?". So i calculated how much more damage would the sundering deal when it triggers. Since the sundering means +20% AP, it is only related to the base damage, skill damage isn't important for my purpose

-i know that there is also the critical, but again, i wasn't interested in it..it doesn't make sense to hope for the sundering and the critical to trigger at the same time, because sundering chance is 20%, critical is 13% (or 14, what you want..), so the chance for both to trigger is 2.6%. Furthermore, surely if critical triggers it does more damage, but it will trigger even without the sundering mod..

Quote:

I bought a hammer today which came with a sundering mod, despite being a die-hard vamp fan I left the mod on and I've actually been liking it. 1/5 crits vs. moving targets will be like +25, 1/5 bull's strikes will be 130.
It probably does less damage than vamp vs. a stationary target, but I've never seen protector's strike hit for 140 before and hitting for 140 gives me a buzz.

Sundering isn't triggered on moving targets..it's critical that's triggered, and this happens also with a vampiric one..Probably you were lucky that the sundering triggered and you saw the big damage, but if it doesn't trigger, you will do 5 less damage than with a vampiric one.

-actually, there was a mistake in my calculations, and it was that i didn't take into account the AP due to Hammer Mastery. New calculations are (13 hammer mastery, 14 strength):

against AR 60, 31-58 (44.5average), sundering 39-71 (55 average), 10.5 more damage
against AR 80, 23-43 (33av), sundering 31-57 (44av), 11 more damage
against AR 100, 17-32 (24.5av), sundering 24-45 (34.5av), 10 more damage

Again: i'm not interested in critical hits, because the chance for them to trigger at the same time of sundering is too low, and they happen with or without the sundering mod, nor i'm interested in skill damage, because sundering doesn't affect it..it's the same with or without sundering.

My question is: are these 10 more damage 1 time out of 5 (or more damage with the critical 1 time out of 39) worth the swap to a sundering hammer when you spike (which means that you use vampiric for the regular damage)?

Quote:

elemental is a great hammer, definitely worth a wep slot. thebest hammer is different hammerS. the best way to get more damage out of each hit, is to use damage the target wont be able to defend against. versus a hammer war, a blunt shield is a wise decision. therefore, by using an element, you are bypassing +10 armor. at lower armor levels (midlines) this +armor makes a bigger difference. as you go up in armor, vamp becomes more effective because the damage mitigation at higher levels tapers off, but since it already is negating a large portion of your damage the 5 life steal provides more damage than the change in damage type would. then again, isnt a warrior supposed to be opportunistic while doing their job and put damage on targets that are out of place/casting sets/most susceptible to damage? but yes, if you want to pound on hard targets then vamp is your friend.

So, let's calulate what does this 10% less armor mean.

13 Hammer Mastery, 14 Strength, 15>50, custom.

Non-critical: against AR60 damage is 31-58 (44.5av), against AR70 damage is 27-50 (38.6av), 6 more damage on average.
Critical: against AR60 damage is 47-86 (66.5 av), against AR70 damage is 40-74 (57av), 9.5 more damage.

So i agree with you, if you are hitting a caster with a +10 vs. blunt it's better to use an elemental hammer, you will do 1 to 4.5 more damage than the vampiric one.

Lux Aeterna · Aug 27, 2009, 06:28 PM // 18:28

^

I'd like to agree with you but your numbers are still obviously wrong, you don't even know what strength does and you're using the wrong critical hit chance.

I'm guessing just by experience that for stationary dps, sundering does 2-3 less damage (about 4%), on average than vamp, with the bonus of a possible big number on your bull's strike. I'll probably re-mod my hammer furious once I get bored with sundering, then switch it to vamp for serious play.

Swahnee · Aug 27, 2009, 09:57 PM // 21:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux Aeterna

^

I'd like to agree with you but your numbers are still obviously wrong, you don't even know what strength does and you're using the wrong critical hit chance.

I'm guessing just by experience that for stationary dps, sundering does 2-3 less damage (about 4%), on average than vamp, with the bonus of a possible big number on your bull's strike. I'll probably re-mod my hammer furious once I get bored with sundering, then switch it to vamp for serious play.

Oh yes i'm sorry, i confused the effects of hammer mastery and strength.

So, we have 14 Strength -> 14% AP
13 Hammer Mastery -> 18.3% critical

The only notable difference is the chance of getting both sundering and critical together, which is now 3.66%, in hit every 28.

In the other calculations i used AP 13% instead of 14%, so they're pretty the same..

Why my numbers are wrong? I simply used wiki formulas..i will be more than appy to correct my mistakes, but you can't simply say that i'm wrong, you have to show me why..

And..you didn't answer to my former question

Lux Aeterna · Aug 28, 2009, 05:31 AM // 05:31

Strength only affects attack skills, which you weren't even counting, making basic mistakes throws in doubt your other conclusions.

Crits are very very common and figure into whether or not you get a kill.

I'm not saying sundering is better than vamp, I'm only saying that you're making logical flaws.
It certainly doesn't seem worth it to me to switch weapons every 5-6 hits for using attack skills.

Like I said, sundering almost certainly does very slightly less than vamp, with the possibility of cool looking big numbers.

GW damage calculator says sundering does 3 less damage than vamp, but may not be completely right.

Swahnee · Aug 28, 2009, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Ok good! I apologize for my bad mistakes..at least i won't repeat them now.

Didn't intend to hijack the thread..thank you for your replies^^

some guy · Aug 28, 2009, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revelations

Mostly true now that everyone runs sentinels. Axe warriors often still run 13 strength though, so weakness from dev can drop them below the threshold.

Anyone suggesting zealous hammer, plain no. Furious is strong, but you're usually better off trying to proc enraging with it and leaving it aside otherwise. Vamp is your best all-purpose set.

I usually carry a +5e axe/sword somewhere in my main sets for emergency bull's too, surprised this hasn't been mentioned yet.

Beat me for the emergency bulls