1, Take block talents, 2, get her to blow her knockback, 3, then coordinate a burst damage strike intermixed with some lockdown CC.
Don’t just take popular talents choices, build for your opposition. If theres a Yrel on your side, slow charge the jump, then insta jump when she knocks you back, with follow-up from team-mates, hammer is done. If you don’t have any of this, you’re in QM, in which case, tough beans. There is a lot of counter-play available, you just have to get out of your rut. Adaptation is key to winning skirmishes.
When Hammer became He from She?
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It’s not about her being OP and it never was. I made a similar thread about Hammer and I never called her OP, just problematic.
The thing about hammer is that although she isn’t overpowered, she does have the highest impact on the game out of any hero on the roster. The only hero that comes close to having as much of an impact on the game as she does is Cho’gall.
The moment Hammer is picked in draft, all the ally picks are aimed at protecting her, and all the enemy picks are aimed at countering her. She needs a very specific comp to work well with and the enemy needs a very specific comp to do well against her.
It’s essentially like Hammer IS the objective of most maps. On Cursed Hollow or Infernal Shrines, Hammer is the objective and after defeating her, the punisher is just a bonus reward.
Games with Hammer in it revolve completely around her. Games turn from “Who can contest the objective and maintain an experience lead better” to “Who can deal with hammer the best”.
Hammer is essentially a mobile fort/keep with less health but can also be healed. The amount of effort required to keep her under wraps is insane.
That’s essentially my entire point here. Hammer is counterable but the amount of effort required to counter her is insane. In lane, she is even more of a threat if left unattended.
Fun fact, after Sylvanas’ rework, Hammer is now the ONLY hero in the entire game who can take a fort with towers from 100 to 0 without backing off or needing minions. This is entirely due to her being able to outrange the towers and keep.
There are other heroes who are good at taking forts like Naz or Gazlowe, but they require occasional backing off, wave clearing, and ally minion wave support.
Hammer’s range is so long, she can anchor in a bush, completely ignoring minion aggro range, and assault a fort outside of cannon range. No other hero can do this. She doesn’t even need to clear the minions. She can just park in a bush and take a fort unless you send someone to counter her.
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Not sure what is wore, the salt, the broken English or the constant mistake of calling Hammer a him.
Hammer is not a broken as you think. She is powerful yes, but only in the right situation. In fact the only time i felt Hammer was OP was back before HotS 2.0. I was on blackheart’s bay and was 3v1ing Butcher, Jaina and Li ming. (While also taking out towers, minions and fort.
Since that game Hammer has always felt much, much weaker. When vs Hammer, you need burst damage, or stun. She is the slowest hero in the game when reactor is inactive, any stun will nullify that escape and leave her vulnerable.
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Hammer’s a pest for sure, but the only real place I’d consider her dangerously op would be in Aram. Bonus points if the enemies got two. Post 20 you never get a creep wave again.
sorry ![:sob:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/sob.png?v=6" ":sob:")
i was a bit lost
I mean, I can solo towers, forts, and keeps with Anub’s beetle build, but that is usually not the best use of him. I wouldn’t say she is the ONLY hero, just the best suited to do so.
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Thing is, ive always said that the most OP thing in the game is a well protected hammer. Nearly every time ive tested it it it ended badly for the team who didnt had her. Last game i had for that was hammer + morales + tassadar and just has 3 we actually took down on multiple occasion a 3v5 . ( stim morales + aa tass bubbles + force wall )
However i would love to see hammer with reghar’ blood lust ’ + auriels speed crown + morales ’ stim drone + abathurs speed hat or tassadar’ aa bubble lol
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I played a QM against a Hammer last night as full AA build Artanis.
With an Abby hat and an Attack Speed Auriel crown.
It was glorious. I think the Hammer deaths were somewhere in the double digits by the end of the match. To be fair, Cain gets a lot of credit for that. He was having too much fun Hammer hunting on his Alarak.
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I’d suggest she is taken out of siege mode when she uses Concussive Blast.
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Long range spells are quite uneffective when she is using the 50 armor.
And the dive as group argument is not realy a valid one since a hero should not be strong enough to always require a 3v1 to counter that hero.
The poke attempts are the only thing you can do, but it still has a problem: you take a lot of damage by doing so.
Its actualy more effective to force her to use the protect unstoppable early and then apply a displacement on her (like stitches or kelthuzad). Pulling hammer out of position is generaly the most risky thing for her, as instead of walking towards her, she suddenly would already end up being in the middle.
Kelthuzad is currently one of the strongest counters against her since he can already force his ulti on her (especialy on level 20 where spamming becomes possible). Only to trigger the protect and then use the spike + chain combo to drag her.
It basicly forces hammer to move away.
I wouldnt mind seeing the unstoppable talent getting nerfed to a state it removes the 25 armor while sieged up. As i think thats the only talent that realy gives a problem.
You and caius tormenting poor hammer ?
Well that is something i would had loved to be able to see lol sounds hilarious too lol 
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You are in luck! Full credit to Narha for clipping and hosting this.
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Wait what there are subtitles ingame?
EDIT - this really surprised me lol… Is there something cool I turned off 5 years ago and forgot about?
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I loved how hammer was trapped there 
No where to go and completely surrounded !
You were absolutely not exagerating when you used the word “glorious” lol
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Sand blast: 3 second CD
Magic missiles: 3 second CD
Storm bow: 4 second CD
Flame strike: 7 second CD
Neosteel plating: 16 second CD.
She can stop the initial burst, she can’t stop the constant stream of spells and let me tell you, if she takes that 1 second to unseige and seige constantly, you’re making her waste her time. An AA assassin that can’t AA is a glorified lane minion.
Ok this is completely messed up.
You’re saying it’s not valid because hammer should never require more than 1 hero to dive her in order to “counter” her, when it’s rather undisclosed what you mean by counter.
Now I’m saying if you want to completely murder her, yes, engage as a group. It’s not like I’m saying you can’t scare her off, it’s just hammer shouldn’t just be dead just because one diver engages her either. What exactly do you want to happen here?
No, you don’t. Long range spells out range her, simple. If you are walking into her range and taking damage then thats on you.
Do I really have to quote myself with long range spells again
Ok, why?
It’s on a 16 second cooldown, the only displacement or long range spell that has that exact amount of CD is hook from stitches, everything else is a shorter cooldown, why does it need less armor.
That looks about right. My only question is did you go for the blind or the laser?
the weakness is there. if you wan’t to deal damage with him, you need to be stationary, there is no bigger weakness in this game than being stationary, granted the armor and blast provide an advantage, but there are counters.
Now obviously this is only ever true in ranked, and to be honest, i don’t think it matters anywhere else.
You see a hammer pick, you take every counter possible. Job done.
Stukov, etc, valla, garosh, all valid counters, of course only if you know exactly what you’re doing.
As always, anyone complaining about her, are people that do NOT refer to ranked play and only chance play[qm/brawl].
There are these heroes, heroes with blinds, either base kit, or talent op’d in, that serve as a good engage and generally can completely shut down a hammer, not quite a dive, but if you make her use her concussive, then blind her, she either has to blow her speed booster to get away or she’s going to die, cause she can’t do any damage.
Artanis’s Ult (50sec)
Cassia (15 sec)
Johanna (12 Sec)
LiLi (12 sec)
Valeera Cheap Shot (8 seconds to re enter stealth, cheap shot has no cooldown otherwise)
Ana’s Sleep Dart (14 sec, lvl 7 talent into a blind, after sleep wears off)
Auriel Sacred Sweep (8 second, lvl 13 talent, if you take the lvl 1 talent Righteous Assault, you can basically remove the cooldown by hitting 3 heroes, or bring it to 2 seconds by hitting just 2 at once, if your just attacking hammer, it’s down to 5 seconds)
Deckard’s Ult lvl 20 talent adds blind at the end of the sleep, granted yes I’ll give you that it’s certainly late game by that point.
on the other side, she cannot even target stealthed heroes until they unstealth, she can’t hurt protected or Evasive (Illidan) heroes, If your able to get her to blow her Concussive 12 seconds, and use her boosters, 30 secs, she’s pretty much dead, more then half her kit is blown trying to escape.
Edited: I don’t feel like listing all of the Root inflicting heroes, but yah, those folks shut her escape down, AND bring value besides “Hammer Counter” to the team.
Without having to back or requiring allied minions? I’d like to see that.
As a melee hero, you’d need to clear enemy minions whereas Hammer can just ignore them. Eventually you’d have to back.
I went for the Blind, as they were Ana, Nova, Jaina, Blaze, and Hammer, and Ana went Nano instead of Eye of Horus. Honestly, either ult is good on that team, but since we didn’t have any slows or roots to ensure a kill, I went with the blind. Both the Alarak and I talented into full damage, rather than CC.
In my experience, displacement hurts Hammer a lot. Stitches, Artanis, Junkrat, Garrosh with Unstoppable, Alarak with the extra range on W, Kel’thuzad, and similar heroes can make her pretty miserable, pretty quickly.