It's not me, it's you: A guide to playing with a Sgt. Hammer, from a Sgt. Hammer main

General Discussion
22

Shh… playing Hammer takes insane levels of skill :laughing:

23

Show me your replays of your awesome Hammer games doing that. I’ll wait.

24

So much this!!! The most irritating thing ever is having team mates move outside of my range and then wonder where their artillery support disappeared to. Even if I’ve taken Hover Siege, every hero in the game can base walk completely out of her range.

And another +1 for Concussive Blast-- especially if I’ve also taken Barricade (which is fairly likely if I’m facing a melee heavy comp with little in the way of CC or a lot of divers). In fact, both her Mines and Blast are good peeling tools-- if you see some mines laying somewhere, run to them. A 25% slow is often enough for you to easily get away, unless they have an engagement ability they haven’t burned yet. And if the Mines or Blast aren’t enough to discourage them, a huge BFG to their face is generally enough to make them regret all of their life decisions.

Something else I want to also point out: Terrain means very little to Hammer when it comes to attacking enemies. Yes, I’m aware I’m parked behind a wall. I’m parked there because its another obstacle that the enemy has to get around if they expect to get to me. I do not need to be in an open, easily assaulted area to do my poke damage. Leave me be, and don’t get upset at me because I’ve placed myself in a position where I’m decently safe for that team fight. Just because my tank isn’t in the thick of things doesn’t mean I’m not contributing.

1 Like
25

Thank you! i actually forgot to mention mines!

26

Don’t even put a false equivalence. If you are slower getting to the objective than the hammer, that is a colossal failure. Either the hammer goes to the objective or he doesn’t and then you yell at the hammer for not coming.

3 Likes
27

I used to almost always take hyper-cooling when it was just a flat -15 sec. that meant I could use thrusters for 4 sec and then only 11 sec after use it again unconditionally. Now it’s a trap talent because the only way it does something is when you siege up without the thrusters available and start hitting heroes. which you shouldn’t do. That talent was a huge nerf

28

Uh you absolutely should do that a great deal of the time. With hammer’s range, you can easily boost to a safe location near a teamfight, siege up and put out damage then be gone (again with thrusters, thanks to hyper-cooling thrusters). Hell, most teamfights post-13 i use thrusters 4 or more times to reposition and dodge attacks. What are you doing differently? Are you playing the ‘never siege up unless i’m 100% safe’ style? Because if so, the problem with that is every second you aren’t shooting something is time you’ve lost, damage you aren’t dealing, structures not being destroyed, enemies not being killed.

Seriously, add me on Bnet and i’ll show you the right way to use this talent. Not saying you’re bad or anything, but what you’re saying doesn’t mesh with my experiences at all.

29

Now I feel like we need a guide for people playing with an Aba on their team when they act like it’s Lost Vikings and they let people like Zagara and Sylvanas AFK-push down Forts in under 2 minutes making it near-impossible for them to gain any XP or siege value when there are early-game catapults threatening them.

30

Huh.
The forums have assured me that permanently lacking minions in an entire lane is completely fine, easily counterable, and actually disadvantageous to the enemy team instead of my own.
How odd… :thinking:

31

My qualms against Sgt. Hammer still remain, but this was very insightful. Thank you

32

As Garrosh, I usually throw hammer into ennemy team. is this ok

33

What was the false Equivalence?
I merely stated the fact:
If you arrive before your team at the objective as Hammer which I agree should probably not happen. But if you do so, and choose to engage it is your fault for engaging without your team.

There are plenty of reasonable ways you could be 5-15 seconds behind a hammer. Say if the objective is close to their lane, and the other team got camps before objective. Say on Sky Temple.

So you clear the wave before arriving.

Hammer is female.

Let me get this straight:

  1. Hammer does or not does no to the objective
  2. You yell at Hammer for not coming either way

???

That isn’t what you meant to type–I believe–but that is what you typed.

1 Like
34

Medivh + Chen is one of my favorite combinations with both and Keg Toss Chen w/ hammer is suprisingly good too. Hmmmm :slight_smile:

35

Pointing out something so obvious and tangential is irrelevant to the point of me mentioning my pet peeve and the topic of how to work with a hammer. This is more uniquely a Hammer problem because of her inability to mount up.

You mentioning that you shouldn’t engage is almost akin to blaming the victim for doing the right thing by going to the objective, which is why I brought up false equivalency. You can arrive at an objective without a hard engage, but still be neutered to uselessness, or be dived on, or you just give away an objective, all of which are bad, and isn’t the Hammer’s fault in the first place for doing her job. It isn’t necessarily the Hammer’s fault if they die.

Although I could have had better usage of commas, it seems pretty obvious with context, because I specifically said you yell at hammer for not coming. As Hammer, you have to commit to either going to the objective or you just don’t go at all because you can’t get there as quickly. So to just conveniently say don’t engage or don’t go is kind of naive to how Hammer functions. You either go, or don’t and get yelled at.

36

I find this list accurate.

I usually play with a friend and we always play within the zone of death, depending on who is hammer. Sometimes I’m hammer so I have a friend baiting the enemy team into the circle of death and sometimes he’s hammer where I’m doing the same.

I think people get a bit overzealous, tunnel, and run out of the ring of advantage to chase down a kill only to get mobbed and embarrassed for stupidity.

I almost always take the slow moving siege talent so I can reposition. With her huge range, she doesn’t need to move far to reposition so a little at a time works for me and therefore, the reduced move speed is not much of a hindrance.

The theme of your thesis is that Hammer sucks when left alone. Pretty much, ‘kinda’, true. Based on circumstantial evidence but for the most part, it does hold true.

Hammer is a real enabler, allowing you to really turn the tides if you play within the ring of death so if you forfeit that advantage, it better be for a good reason.

1 Like
37

I haven’t played this game in 16 months. And Hammer even longer. I didn’t used to do the YOLO siege ups like you have to nowadays if you want hyper-cooling talent to do anything. For me the old Hammer worked because I could constantly reposition and make sure I have the thrusters available without yolo. How can the play style you describe, work if your opponents don’t suck? I have never seen it work out the way you describe, in high level matches. To be fair, in the gameplay I have seen the player might be good but they are never someone who play Hammer a lot. I would be happy if you were right. Kinda curious to see some replays on that style and not only easy stomps because the oppo sucks but if I install just to watch replays, I would be tempted to play LOL I turned into flex anyway and it’s kinda hard to justify Hammer over other characters.

38

Have you ever considered not offering advice when you’re a year and a half out of practice?

40

I offer advice quite often. I have lots of practice.

2 Likes
41

I leave that to someone who knows Aba better than I do. I’m self-admittedly an excellent Hammer player, but I only dabble with the slug.

43

Guide updated. Probius guide coming soon.