How the heck do you play a Hammerdin?

I tried a Hammerdin a long time ago and hated it. I respected a level 65 Paladin into Hammerdin to try it again, and still it doesn't seem to make much sense.

The hammers just swirl around and are basically impossible to aim. It seems you just run around creating clouds of Destruction. But there are many cases when this doesn't seem to work well. For one, archers in rooms that won't chase you. For example, in

The Countess Tower there are many archers and if I know they are in a room there is no way to really bring them to me (like

Taunt), I can't shoot into the room as I would with other ranged classes, and I can't really attack them quickly like with

Zeal.

The hammers are powerful but they can be slow to find targets and get the job done. And sometimes I've got a single mob I'm trying to kill and I can't hit it. Are there any secrets to using these things, or is it just, run around and hope hammers hit stuff? Ranged attackers really seem to be difficult to deal with as are fast moving swarms with Mana Burn.

I think Hammerdins are one of those specialized builds that are great at certain things, but not others. Like an Explodocro or

Frenzy barb.

I've heard Hammerdins absolutely murder bosses and are extremely effective cow mowers. But, going into confined spaces puts them at a disadvantage.

Hammerdin is one of those builds that relies on Enigma to unlock it's full potential.
Hitting what you want becomes much easier once you can

Teleport around, that's the main secret.

Concur with what Zelym said. If you aren't swimming in Bers and Jahs, keep an eye out and see if something drops with

Teleport charges you can use on an offhand.

In terms of nuts &

Bolts gameplay, the hammers go out from where you cast them in an increasing circle, clockwise if I remember correctly. No, you can't aim them. They disappear whenever they hit any wall/column/obstruction, so if you are hugging a wall, you aren't going to be doing anything. Stick to the open areas to get the full potential. They count as magic damage, so the few things magic immune won't be affected.

Faster Cast Rate is your friend too, allowing you to get a cloud of hammers up and running.

You don't know the true

Terror of hammerdin gameplay until you bring an untwinked one to the maggot lair.

Hammers can be aimed indirectly. That is they always follow the exact same spawn point and flight path, relative to your character. As such, you can "aim" hammers simply by positioning yourself correctly in relation to your target (typically right below it).

That is why Enigma is such a critical piece of gear for a Hammerdin. Given, you can still position yourself decently quickly with just

Charge. But compared to simply teleporting there, it is still a royal pain.

Beyond that, a hammerdin farms with very much the same approach as a javazon:
Clear a ton of stuff fast but don't bother killing every single mob.

If you hammer down a pack surrounding you, you get a ton of kills in record time. However, there will quite often be one, two, maybe three mobs that managed to

Dodge your hammers. Much like a java explodes an entire screen of cows in one throw but 1 or 2 managed to magically survive because they dodged the Fury chain.
Going after those individual leftover mobs is not only annoying because now you really do have to aim but in terms of farming efficiency, it is a complete waste of time (unless the survivor happened to be a boss). Just leave the one or two mobs be and move on to the next pack to blow up.

It almost seems like you should not level as a Hammerdin at all, just respect after you defeat Hell and use it for farming. I've got decent gear for it currently, so I may just farm a few things with it and not try to progress much.

I'm using a Wizard Spike and

Monarch Spirit, though I could make a Spirit in a better Paladin shield. I've got Mage Fists, Lore and

Que-Hegan's Wisdom, which isn't great, but seems to be fine. I'm at +5 skills with decent resists, and 121% FCR. At level 65 it seems fine.

I found levelling my "rushed" hammerdin one of the quickest and easiest processes of all the classes I've levelled.

Just go to Chaos- spam hammers- reset- got me to level 75 to respec to smiter in record time...

Trying to level a barb was much harder! I ended up waiting in pub rush games to be g-rushed passed

Baal and then just followed people around in 8P Chaos games on Hell difficulty.

RMac85 wrote: 2 years ago

I found levelling my "rushed" hammerdin one of the quickest and easiest processes of all the classes I've levelled.

Just go to Chaos- spam hammers- reset- got me to level 75 to respec to smiter in record time...

Trying to level a barb was much harder! I ended up waiting in pub rush games to be g-rushed passed

Baal and then just followed people around in 8P Chaos games on Hell difficulty.

Yes, but that's very different then soloing the game. It seems quite difficult to solo with. Any time there are ranged attackers inside a room I die. There is essentially no way to lure them out and no way to attack them from the other room. As soon as you go through an entrance you die.

i'm using max block and he is pretty tanky. as people say. just skip those monsters you can't handle well.

Redemption from 30 helps a ton with mana and health.

Salvation when you need extra resistance.

Concentration and act 2 merc helps to clear normal maggot lair fine, you can just shop a

Teleport staff and skip it easy too. or sticking to

Holy Fire /

Zeal to you clear it and respec later.

Charge the pack of ranged monters and get right underneath them before spamming hammers.

Hdins don't truely shine until outfitted with the right gear.
- 75%+ FCR
- 75% block rate
-

Teleport
- CTA for the extra life/mana (my lvl 93 has 3k life)
- tanky merc with Insight

rgp151 wrote: 2 years ago

It almost seems like you should not level as a Hammerdin at all, just respect after you defeat Hell and use it for farming. I've got decent gear for it currently, so I may just farm a few things with it and not try to progress much.

I'm using a Wizard Spike and

Monarch Spirit, though I could make a Spirit in a better Paladin shield. I've got Mage Fists, Lore and

Que-Hegan's Wisdom, which isn't great, but seems to be fine. I'm at +5 skills with decent resists, and 121% FCR. At level 65 it seems fine.

That is a very.... unoptimized build. 121% FCR basically does you no favor since the breakpoint is at 125. You might as well drop 46 FCR points for more + skills or just commit to the full 125 breakpoint. As for "you can't aim" the hammers, that is not true at all. Hammers always follow the same Pattern, they spawn on the north of your character and go clockwise. If you want to hit a specific target you need to reposition to be on the south of them (south west best location) and you'll be hitting them with every single target. There are also optimisations where you can hit a single target twice with a hammer but that is way too complicated to get into now. And yeah, you should def ditch the

Monarch, Paladins have so much better shields for not nearly as that much str required. Fewer str points -> more points into vita which is quite helpful given that you'll be running around and positioning yourself into the enemy's face. Also using a pala shield is good since they have high + block rate and combining these with

Holy Shield gets you to the 75 FBR breakpoint quite easily, so archers would be missing you a lot more.

And you're right hammerdin is difficult if going through the whole content solo, not that I see the point of it now that b.net is active but you _can_ do it, just not easily. The main issues with the hdin are confined spaces (hammers can't swing properly) and magic immune monsters. Now... the first one you cannot avoid if you are getting through the content solo. Maggot lair, Flyer dungeon are always gonna be pain in the a**. For the second issue, as long as you are willing to skip the act 2 zombies and get a good merc or invest a point into

Holy Bolt you can kill

Baal wave 2, and that's about it.

I have played every charcter and Hammerdin was one of the most boring ones. I transfered my pala to a

Smite uber pala to make use of him

Dudi wrote: 2 years ago

I have played every charcter and Hammerdin was one of the most boring ones. I transfered my pala to a

Smite uber pala to make use of him

I'm inclined to agree. Good as they are at what they do, they're unbearably annoying and boring to play.

Then again, that is of course extremely subjective.

I played Hammerdin for a long time without Enigma. It’s fine, use

Charge to get where you need to go, and an Insight merc for mana.

Dudi wrote: 2 years ago

I have played every charcter and Hammerdin was one of the most boring ones. I transfered my pala to a

Smite uber pala to make use of him

Agreed, I’ve respec’d my paladin way too many times hoping i would enjoy hammers. The best token he used was the final one that made him a(n) (insert anything except hammerdin).

My first hammerdin was in remaster. I played D2 classic years ago before patch 1.10 and no one used hammers before that patch, or at least no one I saw. The build doesn't work without Enigma. I made the character and got it to 86 and stopped using it because it wasn't very fun to play. Once I got Enigma, It became a lot more fun. Max block, max resist, easy ~400 MF, lots of life and mana. As long as you position below and to the left of the enemies you are targeting and spam hammers, you should be fine almost anywhere that's open. Hammers don't do well in enclosed spaces so keep it to wide open areas like pits, cows, Chaos, worldstone, and it is one of the easiest at

Key farming I've ever used.

Something I've found useful for confined spaces is to Shift+Click in the opposite direction of what you're trying to hit. The hammers seem to come more out of your back than front. It makes places like the maggot lair... I won't say good, but less awful.

I don't understand people who say hammers aren't fun.

Is it monotonous? Sure, but so is everything else in the game.

Spamming Blizzard /

Lightning Fury /

Zeal over and over and over again killing the same monsters in Pit / AT / Chaos / WSK / Cows over and over and over again isn't monotonous?

Beyond a certain point in this game after you've defeated the game in Hell Mode, everything in this game is monotonous.

The reward comes in finding ultra-rare end-game loot that makes your character marginally stronger.

And yes, that psychological reward makes the game fun despite the monotony, but it doesn't change that almost every single other build is just as boring and monotonous to play as a Hammerdin is.

For some reason, spamming

Lightning Fury is a lot more fun than hammers. I don't know why it feels that way.