Glacial Hammer

While it's possible this was caused by sync issues, I've tested it a few times and it looks like you can use Glacial Hammer to shatter monsters who are under the effect of the "monsters can't die" aura (but only when the freeze procs).

it seems the spell sometimes doesn't hit. there's no spell effect either... but every time this happens, the 2nd hit will shatter then enemy.

damage is too low and the cold buff not very good. heavy strike seems just so much better in comparison.

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brdy wrote:

aRPGs are all about crowd control. Right now melee has few viable AoE options which really hinders the ability to make effective/creative melee characters in my opinion. I'd say glacial hammer is the PERFECT candidate for AoE, the radius doesn't need to be huge but if its got some radius we can at least enhance it with gems.

I was started to gear up to make a glacial hammer char just to do something different but after learning that it had zero AoE the build is effectively gimped out the gate.

Please add more AoE skills to the melee portfolio so we can actually have some fun swinging large metal objects!

A 2-handed hammer has plenty of AoE with sweep and ground slam, but 2H builds have survivability problems. For 1-handed weapons, it's either getting a sword/axe and using cleave, or getting a mace and using ground slam. The latter option is probably better since the optimal range is slightly higher, making it a little safer to use, but I'm not sure.


Also, I'm guessing that glacial hammer could benefit from elemental damage bonuses just like Avatar of Fire - anyone tried a build like that?

I only played briefly in the Stress Test weekend, but i found Glacial Hammer really pleasing when using my staff. And as i was going for a melee heavy, elemental damage setup as well i thought that 2-handed weapons feel a lot better than 1-handed. Plus i like the idea of the block stat for the staves.

lvl 45ish Aof Mace-shield Templar

I do not want an AoE glacial Hammer.

I need a good skill for single-target (pVp in mind). Any improvement should be towards that.

With wrath, shock passive skills and ignite support gem, I will have godly abilities to ignite, chill, freeze and shock single players under elemental weakness... well that's assuming I survive long enough approaching with shield charge...

FYI, im doind about 2k dps with glacial hammer, 2.2k with heavy strike, and 1.3k with lightning stirke.

So far loving this skill, use it for all attacks.
So far I'm level 41 templar and hitting 3.1k dps.

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Gyver wrote:

lvl 45ish Aof Mace-shield Templar

I do not want an AoE glacial Hammer.

I need a good skill for single-target (pVp in mind). Any improvement should be towards that.

With wrath, shock passive skills and ignite support gem, I will have godly abilities to ignite, chill, freeze and shock single players under elemental weakness... well that's assuming I survive long enough approaching with shield charge...

FYI, im doind about 2k dps with glacial hammer, 2.2k with heavy strike, and 1.3k with lightning stirke.

If you have PvP in mind, you have to make sure your weapon swings quickly enough, otherwise people will simply run away mid-swing and you will never be able to hit anyone.

What basically happens is that your dude will catch up to the dude you are trying to chase down, stop, try to swing at him, and always miss because the other dude will have run away by the time you actually swing your mace.

For this reason, AoE is actually better for PvP, since it's easier to actually hit people with it. Or do you have a bunch of attack speed or ranged CC worked into your build, to prevent people from running away from your attacks?

If you can freeze or chill players with a ranged attack first, you should be fine. But you can't rely on melee ability to freeze or otherwise CC people, because you won't be able to hit them in the first place unless you have a lot of attack speed.

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Mark_GGG wrote:

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SinisterDexter wrote:

While it's possible this was caused by sync issues, I've tested it a few times and it looks like you can use Glacial Hammer to shatter monsters who are under the effect of the "monsters can't die" aura (but only when the freeze procs).

Fixed for a future patch. Glacial Hammer's effect of shattering any frozen monster hit if on 1/3 or less life was failing to kill the monsters (thus it wouldn't drop anything) then proceeding to shatter the still-living monster anyway.
Thanks for the report!

Is this fixed now ? I still get the impression that shattered mobs tend not to drop anything.

Awful single target skill, as there are other ones (Infernal blow, heavy strike) that do more damage. Besides for the freezing, there is no inductive to use this skill.

As said before, either give it some sort of AOE effect (to include more monsters in its "slam"), or have an area of effect of freeze happen when we kill a monster with this skill.

Meh...