Which Hammer to use?

I am looking for peoples opinions about hammers for non-farming PvE and for PvP. Which hammers are best for each situation? Does anyone use vampiric hammers? Furious or sundering? Victo's or Kanaxai's/Vera?

- Xeeron

i use zealous woop woop woop

For PvP I'd go with:

Vampiric 15^50 of Foritiude

Ebon 15^50 of Fortitude

Zealous 15^50 of Fortitude (Not used very often)

Furious 15^50 of Fortitude (Not used very often)

I'd get a 15 -5e of Ebon and maybe a 15 -5 Vampiric, too. Although it's rarely ever used, teams with Wither or Malaise that put it on you = annoying.

vamp, zealous, elemental. In case it's not obvious, elemental weapons are used against warriors, and anyone you recognize wearing +armor vs. physical equipment.

Even without an IAS a 5/1 vampiric mod will give you more health than you lose, I think.. and it's obviously going to give you the most damage. I don't pvp on my hammer warrior yet, but I have these weapons:

15^50 vampiric w/ 20% hammer mastery
15^50 zealous w/ 20% hammer mastery
a wand
13 when enchanted shocking w/ +5 armor


Yeah I know the last one isn't the best, but I only use it as a swap from my vampiric. =p
I haven't really seen too much of a damage increase (if any) against warrior mobs with the shocking hammer, but I could just be spacing out.

Ice Breaker all the way

Victos Maul for Rangers, would prefer a vamp though.

i would have to agree with zui a vampiric 15^50 of fortitude

I have never used a zealous hammer, because the swing rate even in frenzy still doesn't seem to get me all that much more energy, and depending on your bar you won't need it that much. So really, a victo's maul, ice braker, and gavel of the nephilim are what you need green wise, though if you wanted to make your own hammer, go ebon because ebon is by far the best since only one profession currently has +armor vs earth. You'll primarily be using your vamp hammer though.

vamp, dobule adren and elemental for me

Ugly Stick
Ice Breaker
Victo's Maul
Kanaxai's (Cheaper than Vera I believe)

Depending on the rest of you team and what you're doing, I have these:

Vera
Ice Breaker
Victo's Maul
The Bludgeoner

Vamp, furious, and elemental should be your mainstays. Consider using sundering right before a k/d spike, but if you don't get its bonus it's a bit of a waste.

I also find that using a defense (+5 armor) mod is better until your life gets below 50% as you take less dmg during this time. You can then switch to a + 30Hp mod hammer.

Also, all hammer wars should consider a + 30HP sword/axe and a +30HP shield when they need to run away or are about to die.

My Choices - Vampiric Golden Maul Of Fortitude Victos Maul/Kanaxais Mallet/Vera(Usually a Sundering ull see why) The Ice Breaker (All good warriors know that there armor isnt as powerful against ele dmg) Fire Wand And Exalted Aegis/Bow (usually good if in stand off to gain some adrenaline thus not needing a furious hammer i dunno ur decision...)

I have +5 nrg for my maul actually. I use it on a very specific yet tremendously powerfull build i might post sometime.

I use a vamp 15^50 +30 fortitude, and an Ice Breaker.
I also keep a +30 fort sword and +30 hp sheild on hand, any time you are running, or in general not attacking, you should be using that set.


Sundering=garbage, don't bother.
15 -5 not much point really.
any suffix other than fortitude is really un-nessecary.

I used to run a Furious, but anymore I find that the aditional pressure given by the vampiric makes it far more worth bringing. It is of note however that a furious weapon is handy if you are using "To the Limit!" as it can potentialy increase your adrenaline gain.

Swing rate is to slow for a zealot hammer and it dosen't deny heaps of energy. if your adren based energy isn't going to be the problem unless your spamming to the limit to often with back breaker and crushing blow. sundering is nice but expensiver compared to an elemant based hilt. the pommel i'd rather have something like armor vs elements since most of my damage as a warrior is going to come from caster classes or degen and i can't remember the last time 30 hp saved me as a ham war.

sorry Spader, but I need to clean up some misinformation you posted.

1. Sundering is ok, but a vampiric weapon will do more damage. This does however require you to swap out of it when you aren't actually fighting.

2. Armor vs elements is on the verge of useless. It won't help vs degen as you suggest, the pommel that will help you vs degen is a fortitude.

3. having an extra 30 hp, scratch that, swaping to a shield and sword for an extra 30 hp over what I normaly have has saved my life quite a few times. This is in GvG though, I can see it possibly be more effective in some PvE area's (though I doubt it). In any case, you can't go wrong with +hp.

I'm assuming this a new player part of the forum. Some of them havn't unlocked the extra hp items or think about making items they don't have stat points in.

I suggested the pommel vs elements since degen chews through a warrior pretty badly since they have very few regen skills that are user friendly. 30 to 75 Hp is nothing vs an element that wants to spam flare with searing heat on you sheild and sword of fortitude. reduce the damage and you survive in the long run.

Like mana there is a cap on how much can have in that bar you can falsify your hp part of the time but if your not doing damage then your going to get killed by the other group or have them heal.

Just becuase someone is new doens't mean you should give them bad advice.

If he doens't have the +30 hp hammer mod unlocked doesn't mean it is or isn't the best option.

I'm a little condused by your statement of using a +armor vs elements to counter degen, becuase it has no effect on degen whatsoever.

To make sure we're on the same page here, when I talk about Degen, I am referring to the arrows facing either direction on your characters health bar. These are commonly reffered to as pips, and each pip represents 2 health gained or lost every second (in the case of your energy, it is 1 every 3 seconds). Now, wether you have 0 armor, or 500 doesn't matter in the face of degen, you still lose that 2 hp/second for each pip. I'm at a complete loss at how adding armor vs elemental damage is going to matter in this regard. On one final note about degen, don't bother countering it with regen, just use good solid heals, it's far more effiecient. You don't see healing breeze on monks in high level PvP for a reason.

As for your example about the elementalist using searing heat on me, I am simply going to move out of the way, I don't need equipment to lower my damage from that kind of spell, just the sense to move away. As far as flare is concerned, unless this is a boss in Factions PvE we're talking about, I don't really care if he has that skill, I'm far more concerned with the warrior who just walked up to me and is hitting me.

The whole purpose of having that +hp in PvP is becuase it is very very rare for a team to get kills just by wearing the other team down. Some kind of spike is almost always involved, ussually generated by 2 warriors unleashing adrenaline on a target and forcing the monks to have to act in a timely manner. If I have my sword and shield up while playing a hammer it is becuase I believe I am about to recieve one of these spikes, and that extra 1/2 second can make the difference between the monks heal getting to me, and being slain. The other situation is if I'm off soling a base and on the retreat, and the reasoning comes back to what I explained above.

Again, this is strctly talking about PvP here, in PvE I yielded that you MAY be able to get better effects from having +armor, but I've never cared to do the math as I find PvE to be too easy for it to really matter.

Okay since people don't get why i say the armor vs ele mod I'll spell it out in as the pvp format that I understand it.

1) warriors, and possibly rangers go after monks at the start of battle
2) If a team has caster heavy build at least one will focus on a warrior. even if it not a nuker lets say a necro there going to deal either cold or armor ignoring damage.
3) Assains will try to support something in someway depending on there build or get targeted before the warrior.

There is a A/E build that does a surpising amount of damage that pretty much can deal with anthing but a full blown stance tank but tthat would have a shield. and be worried of enchanted R/Es normal armor or not they can deal more damage then most other types.

Sure you can get 30 hp on the weapon why do your really need it? If its to run 2 major runes or one superior rune and keep safer hp from getting spiked look at the skills you use all the time and see if you can get by with a major and minors.

Quote:

Vamp hammer 15>50 with armor mod, and ebon hammer.
i'd beware of 15% -10 armor, that takes away a warriors big advantage.

If using vamp, remamber to try to speed up your attacks somehow to maximize damage/heal from it - protstrike, frenzy, tigerstrike etc.