I wonder how many people will play the traditional Hammerdin considering how popular it was the last time I played D2: LoD.
Is it anyone else who actually gets a bit turned off by this meta gameplay that is just normalized and go for something completely different?
I will most certainly not play it as I dislike the paladin altogether and will not play it. Maybe as a final character when bored with the others.
The same percentage of people that used to play it in the first place.
Assuming blizzard will not hunt bots of course. Because blizzard never does the right thing.
I will come back to this post after s1 ends to prove I am right.
I don’t care about meta… I play what it want… Trying new builds. Hammerdin ist boring in my opinion but if the people want to play it… Why not. I don’t mind. 
Hammerdin’s are the closest to god mode in the game, there will be a ton of hammerdin’s in the game and it will still be the most popular bot build out there.
I’ll be making a zealot, I hate the Pally as a caster.
I might make a poison nova necro to farm pits.
Never liked the hammerdin playstyle; it plays too similarly to a caster. His other combat skills were always a lot more fun.
i dont understand why people alwas play the same builds ^^
there are SO MANY builds out there…
look at the guide forum part here …
Auradins (Tesladin, dragon Pala, Omnidin ect)
Zealot
Charger (Ping-Pongladin*G)
and so much more crazy stuff.
Why people have allways go with the mainstream ?! boring 
Same for the sorceres…
The Hammerin’s “S tier” power is countered by its mind numbing play style.
If it were more fun to play we’d see even more of them.
I feel the same way.
Main reason I think a lot default to hammerdin as its the way they can get to end game and farm for items. The hammerdin is a way to funnel items to a different build to be played more for fun.
Yea people don’t play tesladin because you need 3 jah runes for engima and 2 dreams. gtfo
Well… yes and no.
I had a budget Tesla using Lightsaber. I can solo Chaos Sanc Hell in p1. It is not as fast as hammers though due to the fact it is still primarily melee without dream(s). It is fun though! Nicer to play than say a pure melee zealot.
Can kill anything as my backup for my Tesladin is conviction instead of the more traditional HB/FoH. With high level conviction and LS, any elemental immune just get wiped.
I’ve respec to hammers since then because I need farming speed.
In depth respond
Ppl have a life and ppl like to play …, face roll?
To build Tesla or others you need very expensive rune words
Zealon need decrify merc to break Phys immune (if this still work)
Charger no longer viable built
But … 3 clones of Pala still are massive - Hammerdin for “god mode for cheap”, Smiter "get your torch(es) for cheap from Ubers and Tesladin (I got way to much wealth)
I know they are powerful as all get up but they put me to sleep.
People play hammerdin because it is so easy to do with budget gear and enables you to farm end game content without having super gear. It makes the pally a caster indeed. I am hoping they fix FoH and Holy bolt so that you can actually clear all content with it.
You still can do that just not nearly as fast as with hammerdin. And hammerdin still won’t be able clear Ubers w/o switching to smite (albeit very minor gear changes are need for lazy approach).
Btw hammerdin have so much hate exactly for this reason … for ability to be playable in hell w/o much of end-game gear (seriously 2 spirits, lore, crafted FCR/Skill ammi, insight pole on merc - hit mark 75FCR and you are almost golden)
But you mistaken about which class is created first 
- PGs make fire Meteor(Firewall)/Orb Sorc to farm NM Mephisto and only after that hammerdin
yea sorc I would say is the logical first class to play to farm gear for other classes hahaha I don’t like that because it seems too strict and I love melee characters much more than range but it feels like if you want to get some gear fast at the start, sorc is the logical choice of character
I’m trying my first hammerdin and while it’s powerful, it’s not a lot of fun to play. I like the more melee builds for a knight styled character. I played zealots before and they’re a lot of fun. With hammerdin, it’s tough to aim and hit with the hammers, they get blocked a lot and trying to move into position is tough. When I try to get into either a close range to just hit right in front of me or try to move out for some room, I end up just accidentally clicking on a monster and casting instead of moving. So I just burn through mana and chug potions before I can even get in some good hits. The “minefield” approach gives mixed results. I’ll probably just switch to some other melee build and get back to just beating on things.
this is why imo hammerdin actually takes skill to use over the other gg p8 builds like lite sorc/summon necro.
aiming the hammers efficiently takes skill and practice especially with enigma along with actively managing your auras.
tip on casting/clicking: try using the quick cast and put the “walk” skill as your main left click. hotkey hammer for the left skill (i put my teleport as my F hotkey and hammers as my D hotkey) then when you teleport, when you stop your active aura like conc comes back on automatically so saves you a step when teleporting/casting hammers.
makes it much easier to cast rather than needing to hold shift or accidently cast while left clicking.