Heroes of the Storm Sgt. Hammer

[positiv2 949]

15 hours ago, Guest Kalasnokov said:

Advanced rely on that you can stay in siegemode for prolonged times

But so does your suggestion of Graduating Range.

Unless I missed something (like an update), Advanced Artillery actually doesn't require you to be in siege mode, as the damage bonus damage starts at 75% of the "default" range. You do not need to siege up in order to get the damage bonus, unlike Ambush, which is very significant in team battles and when poking an enemy. If it required you to siege up, Ambush would most likely be better indeed.

[Guest Kalasnokov]

On 2017-03-22 at 3:53 PM, positiv2 said:

But so does your suggestion of Graduating Range.

Unless I missed something (like an update), Advanced Artillery actually doesn't require you to be in siege mode, as the damage bonus damage starts at 75% of the "default" range. You do not need to siege up in order to get the damage bonus, unlike Ambush, which is very significant in team battles and when poking an enemy. If it required you to siege up, Ambush would most likely be better indeed.

Using grad. with ambush comes from my preference with grad. before hover (range = first damage potential >>>> everything else), and as i stated earlier being forced from siege mode only gives you a new opportunity to get 200% damage. 10% extra damage ain't that much, even if poking could be important, wouldn't ambush + hover yield a similar result? (more powerful, albeit slower)

I have to admit i have not thought about that advanced gives you +10% when not in siege mode, but IMO that would put it on par with ambush, making it more profitable to choose, but having the knowledge that you always do 200% for your first shot is more compelling to me. My most tested play-style consists of out-ranging my opponents and using the first hit to provide a sizable advantage over anyone targeting me, have not found another style that provides a better result as of yet despite testing around quite a bit.

 

 

[positiv2 949]

7 hours ago, Guest Kalasnokov said:

I have to admit i have not thought about that advanced gives you +10% when not in siege mode, but IMO that would put it on par with ambush, making it more profitable to choose, but having the knowledge that you always do 200% for your first shot is more compelling to me. My most tested play-style consists of out-ranging my opponents and using the first hit to provide a sizable advantage over anyone targeting me, have not found another style that provides a better result as of yet despite testing around quite a bit.

Ambush can be useful during laning phase and when poking your enemy here and there, but in teamfights, you cannot afford being immovable, and even though Hover Siege Mode helps with it quite a lot, you still have to have a reliable way of running away if you end up losing the fight.

7 hours ago, Guest Kalasnokov said:

wouldn't ambush + hover yield a similar result? (more powerful, albeit slower)

You would still need to use Siege Mode again, which is the main issue of Ambush. I haven't tested it extensively though, so I'll try it out.

[Guest Crtsoboro]

when i play Sgt hammer i make use of the quicker siege mode deploy times with this build, the orbital BFG is really just for constant lane clearing and the occasional BFG snipe into a team fight
https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/sgt-hammer#24.0!1231231

or for the lvl 20 talent i may get the nexus frenzy because of my reliance on the basic attack, this makes me much more effective as far as damage output goes and jumping into team battles with the graduating range is easy, as well as using the extra range to attack forts or defend large areas without endangering myself more than i need to

[positiv2 949]

On 5. 4. 2017 at 2:51 AM, Guest Crtsoboro said:

when i play Sgt hammer i make use of the quicker siege mode deploy times with this build, the orbital BFG is really just for constant lane clearing and the occasional BFG snipe into a team fight
https://www.icy-veins.com/heroes/talent-calculator/sgt-hammer#24.0!1231231

or for the lvl 20 talent i may get the nexus frenzy because of my reliance on the basic attack, this makes me much more effective as far as damage output goes and jumping into team battles with the graduating range is easy, as well as using the extra range to attack forts or defend large areas without endangering myself more than i need to

While First Strike does provide a bigger damage bonus than Giant Killer, it also requires you not to have taken damage in the last 5 seconds, which makes the talent way too unreliable and that is the reason it should not be taken. 
Graduating Range has a similar downside as First Strike, and that is to be safe for a longer period of time, which is again not reliable enough in a dynamic game that is Heroes of the Storm. However, I have to say that after trying Graduating Range out, I have to admit that it is good against slow team with minimum reach, though I do not encounter teams like that often enough to pick it more often than Hover Siege Mode.
Orbital BFG is in my opinion too random to be taken on level 20 over Nexus Frenzy. I personally prefer Blunt Force Gun over Napalm Strike, but I do feel the Blunt Force Gun is weaker in teamfights due to its big cooldown compared to its relatively low damage (especially later on, as it scales by 1.03 rather than 1.04 per level).

[Fransoa 25]

I've been thinking the same, Hammer is bad noenetheless but its Fun to play :D.

I think this guide is old, Ambush is a clear winner as a level 1 pick and Blunt Force Gun, Orbital BFG and Graduating Range should be put as situational talents.

[positiv2 949]

15 hours ago, Fransoa said:

I've been thinking the same, Hammer is bad noenetheless but its Fun to play :D.

I think this guide is old, Ambush is a clear winner as a level 1 pick and Blunt Force Gun, Orbital BFG and Graduating Range should be put as situational talents.

We're actually considering adding more talents to the Situational tier due to meta shifts. 
As I said previously, Ambush requires you to siege up, while Advanced Artillery does not, which is a huge difference as you cannot afford to have your mobility impaired that much.

[Fransoa 25]

21 hours ago, positiv2 said:

We're actually considering adding more talents to the Situational tier due to meta shifts. 
As I said previously, Ambush requires you to siege up, while Advanced Artillery does not, which is a huge difference as you cannot afford to have your mobility impaired that much.

Well you would siege up, auto attack and unsiege. Siege gives bonus range so you can hit them, why pick hammer if you can't even siege up from time to time. 

[positiv2 949]

4 minutes ago, Fransoa said:

Well you would siege up, auto attack and unsiege. Siege gives bonus range so you can hit them, why pick hammer if you can't even siege up from time to time. 

Sieging up, taking a shot and unsieging with Ambush will result in less damage than taking Advanced Artillery and auto-attacking for the same amount of time.
You can siege up every now and then, but sieging up frequently will often cause troubles. That's one of the reasons why Ambush is not that powerful.

[EDL666 18]

Blunt Force Gun is said to be a Q in the abilities section and all of its tooltips on the website

Edited September 26, 2017 by EDL666

[Guest Broockle]

My build is almost exactly like the one described on this site.  Except I can't live without Hyper-Cooling Engines

It gives Hammer so much more Utility, you can spam Z to get anywhere quickly and help with objectives, team fights, or to just fill in a lane. Also it gives you much more survivability against Assassins. If you're caught by Zeratul or Valeera, what is First Aid gonna do? You gotta boost the heck out of their after you pass them a dose of Concussive Blast

I personally also don't see much sense in Hover Siege Mode since you can just boost out of Siege Mode  if you're in trouble anyway. I'm sure it can work depending on your play style but I find Stoneskin a little more useful. I mean it's not a crazy useful talent but I can at least make a little use of it. 

And ye, occasionally I do get the Blunt Force Gun I mean it's not all bad is it? I think it's pretty damn good sometimes. 

Great guide tho, I'm sure it helps many people ^^

 

 

 

 

[mctanaka 0]

On 9/30/2017 at 1:12 PM, Guest Broockle said:

My build is almost exactly like the one described on this site.  Except I can't live without Hyper-Cooling Engines

It gives Hammer so much more Utility, you can spam Z to get anywhere quickly and help with objectives, team fights, or to just fill in a lane. Also it gives you much more survivability against Assassins. If you're caught by Zeratul or Valeera, what is First Aid gonna do? You gotta boost the heck out of their after you pass them a dose of Concussive Blast

I personally also don't see much sense in Hover Siege Mode since you can just boost out of Siege Mode  if you're in trouble anyway. I'm sure it can work depending on your play style but I find Stoneskin a little more useful. I mean it's not a crazy useful talent but I can at least make a little use of it. 

And ye, occasionally I do get the Blunt Force Gun I mean it's not all bad is it? I think it's pretty damn good sometimes. 

Great guide tho, I'm sure it helps many people ^^

 

 

 

 

I completely agree with you when it comes to Hyper-Cooling Engines. It gives you much more survivability than First Aid because of the way Sgt. Hammer ganks are set up: most of them exploit their lack of mobility and escape machanisms, so they tend to rely much more on CC than on raw damage. If Zeratul has already closed in on you, or if you got hooked up by Stitches, Artanis or Diablo, First Aid will do you absolutely no good because, in this situations, what you need is not healing, is escape. Hyper-Cooling Engines also allows you to easily outmaneuver The Butcher, whatever his Heroic ability choice is. Once he locks you in with his Ruthless Onslaught, you can just Z' away from him, whic Hyper-Cooling Engines pretty much guarantees will be possible.

But I strongly believe Blunt Force Gun is almost useless compared to Napalm Strike. Yes, it's good in some specific situations, but not in matches as a whole. This means that even if you miss BFG for a specific moment or too, this will be more than compensated in the rest of the match. Besides, Advanced Lava Strike is an absolutely terrifying talent, as it allows you to poke enemies and deal heavy amounts of damage without any fear of retribution at all. This reminds me of Flamethrower, which allows Kael'Thas do deal lots of AoE damage from such a ridiculous distance that the enemy will have much difficulty countering you. Since both Kael'Thas' and Hammer's damage outputs are calculated around the fact that they have limited mobility, the added cast range means you have a devastating amount of damage in your hands.

[positiv2 949]

50 minutes ago, mctanaka said:

I completely agree with you when it comes to Hyper-Cooling Engines. It gives you much more survivability than First Aid because of the way Sgt. Hammer ganks are set up: most of them exploit their lack of mobility and escape machanisms, so they tend to rely much more on CC than on raw damage. If Zeratul has already closed in on you, or if you got hooked up by Stitches, Artanis or Diablo, First Aid will do you absolutely no good because, in this situations, what you need is not healing, is escape. Hyper-Cooling Engines also allows you to easily outmaneuver The Butcher, whatever his Heroic ability choice is. Once he locks you in with his Ruthless Onslaught, you can just Z' away from him, whic Hyper-Cooling Engines pretty much guarantees will be possible.

A key skill of a Sgt. Hammer player, even if not reflected in the guide, is knowing when (not) to use Thrusters. Hyper-Cooling Engines is pretty much a talent that gives you more space for mistakes, but ultimately not giving you a great advantage over using Thrusters more carefully, while First Aid lets you stay longer in the fights and doing more damage, while also leaving you with an escape mechanism in the form of Thrusters in case things go downhill too quickly.

[EDL666 18]

With that rework, the guide needs some serious review because I have a feeling that Hammer is pretty damn good now, with way more flexibility, more survivability and less feeling like a one-pony trick.

[Trensicourt 5]

Really? I feel she is a lot weaker now. The only thing stronger about her is her siege damage with Maelstorm rounds.

Siege mode is now stronger at the severe cost of her tank mode, which should be your main form. However, the stronger Siege mode is not even good in teamfights. In fact, it's worse in teamfights due to her not having First Aid and Stoneskin.

I thank Blizzard for a better Siege Mode, but Tank Mode is gutted. The only fair change is to give Tank Mode 50% faster cooldowns. Afterall, it feels as if I am 10 levels stronger in Siege Mode, but then again, I can't move. So what am I? 5 power levels below the average hero?

Read this comment (btw, I totally disagree with Orbtial BFG. Everyone knows that Orbtital BFG takes way too damn long to punish a competent team.)

Edited November 30, 2017 by Trensicourt
additional info

[SleepySheepy 41]

I want to add that at 16 Mechanical Know-how is a trap talent. Either you use it right when you need armor, which means you need to bail out, because you are focused, or you are using your defensive ability for the potential of doing more damage, because it's not even guaranteed to proc.

And yes, Hammer was gutted. RIP

Edited November 30, 2017 by SleepySheepy

[EDL666 18]

For having played her a lot (the rework), I mean, I feel like you can do a lot more with that Siege mode, many many times you require more than 1 hero to take care of you because you deal so much more damage and much more widely. That 50% armor in siege mode is really good at eating burst and then you usually just destroy the hero that was bursting you down... When you aren't getting into team fights, you can just go utterly demolish structures with your siege mode, getting the armor up and using thrusters to get out. Yes, you are vulnerable to CCs, but you can take that Unstoppable talent to fix that. I honestly don't think she's bad, she's quite different to play, for sure, and yes, you must use the siege mode more and that requires different strategy from your team and likely a much different comp that what you needed with her before.

[mctanaka 0]

On 11/30/2017 at 8:19 PM, EDL666 said:

For having played her a lot (the rework), I mean, I feel like you can do a lot more with that Siege mode, many many times you require more than 1 hero to take care of you because you deal so much more damage and much more widely. That 50% armor in siege mode is really good at eating burst and then you usually just destroy the hero that was bursting you down... When you aren't getting into team fights, you can just go utterly demolish structures with your siege mode, getting the armor up and using thrusters to get out. Yes, you are vulnerable to CCs, but you can take that Unstoppable talent to fix that. I honestly don't think she's bad, she's quite different to play, for sure, and yes, you must use the siege mode more and that requires different strategy from your team and likely a much different comp that what you needed with her before.

Actually, you can't demolish forts in siege mode. Strange as it may sound, it is a beginner's mistake to think siege mode is that good for sieging.

"Huh?? What the hell do you mean??"

As any reasonably experienced player knows, it is nigh impossible to stay for more than a few seconds sieging enemy structures on your own, because that is the time it takes for the other team to counter-attack and proceed to gank you. If you take more than a few seconds, you will be ganked by 3, 4 and sometimes even all 5 heroes, which means even Thrusters might not be enough to save you. This means that even when playing with Sgt. Hammer, you get at most 10 seconds to siege the enemy fort, and though every second counts in HotS, this time is simply too meagre. On top of that, as my experience shows, 10 seconds is the max time you get; often the other team takes as little as 5 seconds to counter-attack, and sometimes you cant' barely enter siege mode because the other team is paying attention to you and has some kind of defense previously set up. Even nibmble pushers like Sylvanas can't afford the luxury to stay for more than a few seconds on a given fort/keep, because even Sylvanas' mobility is not enough to guarantee an escape, depending on the extent of her overextension. As @Trensicort noted, a good Hammer player should stay most of the time in tank mode - especially once you reach lvl 10 and get Napalm Strike.

By the way, I always thought Hyper-Cooling Engines was overpowered. I completely disagree with @positiv2 on this point: the strength of Hyper-Cooling Engines was not to give more room for mistakes; it's that it allowed you to have a nearly-global presence in the map, even larger ones, so you could "split-siege" AND take part in team fights with impunity. Think of it in these terms: Thrusters last for 4 seconds, meaning Hyper-Cooling Engines made them available every 11 seconds. 60% move speed every 11 seconds which is not interrupted by taking damage? Holy carp!

Given that, as explained above, you have at most a few seconds to siege a fort, Hyper-Cooling Engines was essential to siege effectively (ironically as it sounds), as you could switch between forts and give a hell of a headache to the other team, since it forced them to pay attention to more forts. No wonder this talent was deleted. The only reason it was not as overpowered as it was supposed to be is that most Sgt. Hammer players were simply too incompetent to take full advantage of it or notice its potential. I lost count of the times I killed Hammers who thought they would get away with it merely because they had First Aid - my team usually knew that hammer had healing, so our ganks did not revolve around burst damage, but rather on CC combos.

"But, hey, I get to flatten the enemy forts and even keeps! How come I get so much more time?"

If you are able to flatten enemy forts and keeps in siege mode, either you are playing against the AI, or the other team is really, really, REALLY novice - the kind of team which enters 3x5 or even 2x5 team fights.

Edited December 6, 2017 by mctanaka

[EDL666 18]

3 hours ago, mctanaka said:

Actually, you can't demolish forts in siege mode. Strange as it may sound, it is a beginner's mistake to think siege mode is that good for sieging.

Well, you can do it, as in you have the ability to do it. That forces particular plays from the enemy team and since she has really strong tools to deal a lot of damage in team fight WHILE IN SIEGE MODE, it allows for setups from your team. And like I said, with that 50% armor and the Unstoppable talent, it will be quite hard for your opponents to catch you UNLESS they specificly built for it. You can reset the thrusters in team fights, when you are the most resilient since your team is built to protect you while you shred the opponents. Someone dives you, you can push them back, initial CC doesn't work, I think it can be really strong, more potential than before I'm pretty sure because you can go much wider in your build options. I mean, everything you said is right, but I'm really not as confident that you'll get as much pinned down than you were with the previous talents when you attempted to enter siege mode and THAT is a buff to me because she's really deadly in siege mode.

[mctanaka 0]

1 hour ago, EDL666 said:

Well, you can do it, as in you have the ability to do it. That forces particular plays from the enemy team and since she has really strong tools to deal a lot of damage in team fight WHILE IN SIEGE MODE, it allows for setups from your team. And like I said, with that 50% armor and the Unstoppable talent, it will be quite hard for your opponents to catch you UNLESS they specificly built for it. You can reset the thrusters in team fights, when you are the most resilient since your team is built to protect you while you shred the opponents. Someone dives you, you can push them back, initial CC doesn't work, I think it can be really strong, more potential than before I'm pretty sure because you can go much wider in your build options. I mean, everything you said is right, but I'm really not as confident that you'll get as much pinned down than you were with the previous talents when you attempted to enter siege mode and THAT is a buff to me because she's really deadly in siege mode.

I think it has to do with the experiences with solo pushing. I have never been able to stay for more than a few seconds solo-pushing regardless of the Hero, unless the other team was completely inept. Sgt. Hammer has one of my lowest "timers" for solo-pushing. Maybe I had the bad luck to always be matched against Hammer-haters. :-D

(Or maybe it's bad luck in general; more often than not, my teammates are of the kind who engage 2x5 team fights, or are suicidal assassins who then proceed to blame me because I did not heal them - you know, that kind of stuff.)

[Guest Fire]

Is there a reason for removing the siege build?

[positiv2 949]

On 10/18/2019 at 1:09 AM, Guest Fire said:

Is there a reason for removing the siege build?

I believe that the Siege Build was renamed to Standard Build, rather than removed.

[Guest Fire]

On 10/24/2019 at 9:58 PM, positiv2 said:

I believe that the Siege Build was renamed to Standard Build, rather than removed.

No no. The Siege Build was completely different. 

This was the old: Siege Build

[Oxygen 446]

On 10/28/2019 at 9:26 AM, Guest Fire said:

No no. The Siege Build was completely different. 

This was the old: Siege Build

I simply don't believe we're in this kind of metagame anymore, with more "defensive" options (read: mines) being one of the better ways of making Hammer relevant, however rare that is for now. When bruisers do finally calm down, we might start seeing more siege-oriented heroes and builds again.

[CaperfinWoW 21]

1 hour ago, Oxygen said:

I simply don't believe we're in this kind of metagame anymore, with more "defensive" options (read: mines) being one of the better ways of making Hammer relevant, however rare that is for now. When bruisers do finally calm down, we might start seeing more siege-oriented heroes and builds again.

Yes YES! I'd like old siege Zagara back. Nothing like taking down towers within 1min of a game start.