The Hammer and the Anvil

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Originally Published by Sausaletus Rex

Professions: Ranger / Warrior

A hammer wielding primary Ranger? They said it couldn’t be done!

Attributes

Skills

Expertise {P}	9 (8+1)
Hammer Mastery	12
Beastmastery	12 (10+2)
Points Spent	195
Points Unspent	5

Flourish {E}	Unlinked - requires sword
Call of Disrutption	Beastmastery
Charm Animal	Beastmastery
Tiger's Fury	Beastmastery
Belly Smash	Hammer Mastery
Crushing Blow	Hammer Mastery
Heavy Blow	Hammer Mastery
Staggering Blow	Hammer Mastery

Gear

Runes	Minor Rune of Exptertise (+1 to Expterise) Minor Rune of Beastmastery (+1 to Beastmastery)
Headgear	Tamer's Mask (+1 to Beastmastery)
Armor	Druid's set
Sword	Starter
Shield	Best available
Hammer	Best available
Pet	Best available

One of the major problems with Hammers is that their skills have exceptionally long cooldowns. With skills that take 30 seconds to recharge or 10 adrenal strikes, they’re not going to get used very often, no matter how good they are. Coupled with a Hammer’s slower swing rate, Hammer skills just take to long. The solution? Flourish. While it won’t do anything to decrease the amount of time it takes a 2 second-a-swing hammer to gain a strike of adrenaline it will drastically cut down those high-recharge energy skills. It’ll take a quick swap to a sword but it means that a pattern of Weakening a foe with Staggering Blow, knocking them down with Heavy Blow, Deep Wounding them with Crushing Blow, and finally Blinding them with Belly Smash can happen twice within fifteen seconds. Going primary Ranger gives Expertise, which drops the cost of those skills and means Flourish will actually net this character energy when it’s used to recharge a skill. It also means this character can splash Beastmastery for Tiger’s Fury to quickly charge up Heavy Blow – whose drain all adren penalty doesn’t matter as it’s the only adrenal skill on the bar. A lot of attack skills means that Tiger’s Fury’s skill locking doesn’t matter. And, as long as this character’s dabbling in Beastmastery, it can pick up a pet, too, with a call to support it. Call of Disruption will up the pets damage and allow it to interrupt. A ritual like Predatory Season also might be nice there. This character is perhaps not the most damaging of builds but it can deal an appreciable amount of pain, especially to other Warriors, so it might be a good character to use to protect another important character, such as a Guild Lord or a Monk from Warrior swarming.

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