Barb vs. Hammer

[HappyAssassin]

Barb vs. Hammer

Hey yall, I've been doing a bunch of barb vs. hammer dueling recently and I have some questions. First I'll post my BvH setup though:

40/15 (Ed/IAS) Arreats
Angelic Ammy
Angelic Ring
Angelic Ring
Fort
Dracs
20 STR/OW/Life Belt
Gores
Grief/Beast
Widow

My barb has around 6k life in this setup, he tanks 3-4 hammers usually (often 3 will leave him slivered and the hdin will foh, holy freeze or even try to tele-smite). Most pub hammerdins aren't a problem at all, they eat arrows and then tele on top of a > WW. If they dont die, it gets repeated. Like everyone else, I've watch the mcm vids a couple times, and most of those hammerdins behave this way.

My question is, what about the ones who dont? Good hammerdins tend make long desyncs and they rarely teleport on top of you, they tele (or charge) below you, or they just jump real close to you. If I switch to widow at that close range (because I can't WW through a 1/4 screen of hammers), they can stomp me, if I just WW, I never hit them, and they play cat and mouse with their higher damage until i catch an invisible hammer. I'm having a roughly 1/4-6 success rate with paladins doing this.

Oh, and btw, like most BvCs I have a very high leap. How useful it is vs. hammerdins? I've been leaping every once in a while to see where they actually are, but can it be used in other ways?

Erm, I should probobly point out, this is a thread for the discussion of Barb vs Hammer tactics and tricks, not which one is better or who wins the matchup most of the time.

 

[tSDt]

Hm, leap vs. Most Hammerdins is useful since they get knocked back. Usually you have just enough time to land one ww just after you have leaped at them, considering you are fast enough to switch keys.

 

[mainaman]

if they desynch alot snipe with ga's, and leap as much as possible
be carefull for delayed namelocks though
sometimes its useful to duel them with enigma on.
try and place yourself ahead of them on their desynch path

 

[akumaxxyz]

the sneaky good hammerdins will usually wait for you to take out bow and do a delay nl tele hammer, they usually charge ahead of your ww to make hammers too, imo widow isnt that effective vs a good hdin. just leap nonestop until they get piss off attack when they go make new hammers or when they tele on you,

when you kb them with leap tele to blind spot and ww upwards you wont evne get hit like this if done properly if they desync just predict where they go and ww there.

sometimes you can nl them while they' are in mid charge and you can tele ww upwards with out being hit,

 

[MysticDragon]

*DB_MysticDragon
*MysticDragon

Whisper me sometime.

 

[wizAdept]

My question is, what about the ones who dont? Good hammerdins tend make long desyncs and they rarely teleport on top of you, they tele (or charge) below you, or they just jump real close to you. If I switch to widow at that close range (because I can't WW through a 1/4 screen of hammers), they can stomp me, if I just WW, I never hit them, and they play cat and mouse with their higher damage until i catch an invisible hammer. I'm having a roughly 1/4-6 success rate with paladins doing this.

My experience with this is its a game of guessing the hammerdin's desync. A lot of hammerdins have patterns, and as you duel the same hammerdins more, you see that players tend to fall into categories of how they like to desync. There are those hammerdins that like to desync to get to you, and hammer near you, and there are those hammerdins that like to desync past you, and set up invisible hammerfields for you to run/whirl into when you whirl away from where you would expect that first category of hammerdins to be at after desync.

If you can guess where the hammerdin's true location is, you can cut them off with prewhirls in that area. It's more difficult the better the hammerdin is.

Personally Im too great barb vs hammer, but I chose to build my barb without widow/fort. Most of the time I hang back and just avoid desync, waiting for the hammerdin to slip up to go offensive, trying to tele after someone charging away and spamming usually gets me killed, but those kills where you tele ahead of a hammerdin charging away, whirl air, and they die, are very gratifying. ~.~

Although it probably is best to go fort/widow and full defensive instead. As I mentioned Im not too hot barb vs hammer, but in my experience it's mostly a game of guessing desync if the hammerdin is gg. My guess is this remains true if you are using either type of equipment setup.

Every time you die to desync, take that as a lesson to what that player's gameplay style is with where they desync and how long it takes them to get there from where you last saw them on the map.

 

[ShazamLies]

Do the hdins you fight have super high def? I've found that highlords + guilliame's is a potent combo. Together you get 45+% DS which is quite hefty.

Barb vs. hammer is about guessing their desynch and whirling through. Because although they sometimes go invisible, you can still hit them if you ww through their path or sometimes a long WW will be super fast. Widow is really only there for OW + to make them not go super defensive. Don't try to kill them with it, you will get caught too much with your bow out. (Btw when you WW them, sometimes the graphic is just buggy and it looks like you're ww'ing through them but its just their after image, you sometimes ww through nothing, at the same time you can WW through the air and he'll still get hit, its just lag)

Running is very effective because its hard to hit a running character with hammers, especially one that can WW for crazy damage. Remember that if you catch them trying to charge in front of you and you WW through them, chances are you'll get hit by at most 1 hammer, while when they charge they lower their block/def.

If you have a huge life advantage and you feel like you can kill the hdin, don't be afraid to short whirl him back and forth on his south east side. I've found even against good hdins, 2-3 lucky WW's with high rolls and crits can devastate their life.

IMO I'm not a fan of defensive leaping, I always end up eating a hammer or something. I really only leap if I want to switch it up and go offensive, leap + namelock + clip ww. You have the advantage here because you have a 4 frame attack and so you can hit and run before their hammer even gets close to hurting you.

If they are setting up invisible hammer fields, just run away and don't get cornered (enigma tele helps here). Vs. a good hdin I'd honestly choose an enigma over a fort.

You have to play passive aggresive, widow from afar and guess WW when they're close. Only scary times is when they desynch and pop up somwhere you didn't expect but just ww/run the opposite way. Eventually they will charge through your WW on accident and thats when they get screwed. You will need lots of mana pots and just WW like nobody's business, they'll be too scared to get too close, just make sure not to WW long all the time and lure them in by running around like a chicken.

gluck :thumbsup:

Something surprising is that if they charge around and start setting up a hammer field. If they spam hammers in one spot, leap + tele ww really short like a "/" slash direction. If you do this right you will probably be able to out tank him, the leap will stop him from his continous hammer casting leaving you a small opening and after that he'll only be able to cast 1-2 hammers before he dies or has to run away.

 

[SicHalo]

leap is the key to a good desyncer as it stops them from desyncing then teleing ontop of u also i sometimes switch to doom aura this slows the pala making it harder to desync thats when im in a pub as i dont use widow much.

In private i usally put ga on left click and leap on right this works for me so i leap and spam gas, this is important and leap is uniteruptable so if u get namelocked tele hammer with bow out u can leap away and only take 1 hit instead of getting locked and then eating 3-4 hammers...

guillimes face is a good helm to use as u have alot of ds and a hit can rip through hammerdins fast

clip and run does not always work it usally can end up with u eating 2 unesscary hammers in pubs i go for tri-whirls vs mediocre hammerdins but vs anything decent they will spam a hammer field so the minute u tele in u eat some hammers.

As mainiaman stated enigma is needed for certain hammerdin fights a good hammerdin will creat hammerfield arround u and abuse the fact of ur lack of mobility and can put u in some serious trouble.. Also the frw helps can make a difference on how many hammers hit u etc