My experience with Hammer Huntress so far...

So,I just finished Campaign on Normal by playing Huntress+Hammer and wanted to share my thoughts.

In short, it was far more enjoyable than Warrior+Hammer, because the nodes Huntress provides are better for martial builds than the Warrior does.

What I mean by this is that in term of damage potential, the +attack damage mods are worth more than the +melee mods available at the start of the character's life span (1-10), because it allows for greater build flexibility, by allowing you to pair melee and projectile type skills together.

This is obviously important because, melee only suffer a lot during boss fights thanks to the plethora of missiles, pools of damage over time, phases where you are forced out of melee (Jamnra fight, where he calls the sandstorm and you are forced to take cover with Asala).

From this point on, I'm going to do a story recollection of my leveling path with a Huntress wielding a 2H Hammer like a Sister of Sigmar (Warhammer reference). Feel free to skip all the way down to where I wrote " [end of story] ".

I tried using a guide this time around, to see if the gem recommendations were any good and...they weren't good for me. For the end of Act 1, this guide recommended I get Perfect Strike, which from my point of view is perfectly ass.

The amount of time you lose, to channel a skill with the range of an auto attack, even by using support gems to reduce the channel time is so long, that it looses out in terms of damage potential compared to just landing a couple of auto attacks.

So I traded that gem out with Molten Blast. At first, I was taken aback by how weird it is to aim that thing, but I also had an epiphany... this skill, has a lot of stun buildup and a built in gap closer.

So to make the skill easier to aim, I added the Scattershot support gem, which generates 3 projectiles instead of one and it was dope, I was able to beat Geonor using Molten Blast like that + Shockwave Totem, Earthquake, Infernal Cry, Boneshatter, Herald of Ash and Rolling Slam.

From then on, I went to Act 2, where I swapped out Overpower from Molten Blast to the Hammer auto attack and added Chain to it, to make the shrapnel ricochet back on the front line mobs for extra effect and efficiency in clearing lanes of mobs. At this point I had ditched Rolling Slam and Earthquake in favor of Leap Slam and Earthshatter. Leap Slam was fine, but Earthshatter was very meh, even when I went through the hassle of doing the combo with Infernal Cry.

I did struggle with some bosses that had both High Armor and Fire Resistance here and was forced to switch to crossbow for those segments. For whatever reason, I didn't feel confident in using Armor Breaker at the time and didn't have the Int to unlock spells with level 3 skill gems.And this is the beauty of playing Huntress over Warrior, many of the nodes overlap in terms of efficiency, allowing you to swap out between Weapons without having to Respec.

I decided to delay getting my ascendancy at this point, because I wanted to see how far I can go without that power spike. It got me as far as the end of Act 3 on Normal, where I acquired Sunder for the build as my screen clear. I did also get Volcanic Fissure, but I opted not to use it, because it had a smaller range than Molten Blast, even though it was more damage, it couldn't be used to try and aim blindly in the hopes of hitting bosses.

By the time I reached Doryani, I had respeced to try and get more Inteligence so I can run a Curse of Flamability. The support gems I picked at first weren't great and I even burned a lesser jewler orb on it. I struggled with aiming that wretched skill, but I managed to beat him after around 13 tries.

[end of story]

Here is a video format of my build so far: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ba7a4UDrahQ

It does have some built in fail moments to show that it wasn't an easy fight for me, but the wipe sequences end at 11:38, for those who want to see Doryani getting beaten by a Huntress with a hammer.

Build overview is starts at 21:07, where I show I gave my Infernal Cry ability the power to make my melee attacks into Culling Attacks. I did this because I know most GGG staff don't play their own game.

What advice can I give to GGG?

In regards to Hammer, I've already made several recommendation in the past, however I would like to make two suggestions towards improving the Warrior Starting Nodes.

Replace the bonuses to Melee Damage with bonuses to Physical Damage, so that it's on par with Huntress, Marauder and possibly Duelist.

The difference between giving Attack Damage nodes and Physical Damage nodes is that for a Warrior, this is more restricting as it wouldn't improve the Warrior's proficiency with skills that convert physical damage to elemental damage like those from Spear, Bow, Quarterstaff and Crossbow.

Instead, this will improve the Warrior's ability to make use of several off meta build options such as the Bone Cage, Bonestorm and maybe Unearth, as well as any Physical damage skill Primal Spells may get along side the Druid.

...or at least, that's how I understand the stats would work, but as far as I am concerned, the nodes that give bonuses exclusive to melee damage, are currently the worst you can give a class during this stage of EA, because often times the risks of engaging in melee often outweigh the rewards, unless you are super mobile and running things like Disengage from Spear in tandem with Shield Charge.

Secondly consider swapping the Armor Nodes and Health Regen nodes at the start of skill tree because the nodes which provide bonuses just to armor are extremely weak and undesirable, when compared to Stun Threshold or Life Regen nodes.

Huntress with hammer....

And I thought my Merc with Arctic armor and Tame beast is unique
:D

"

And I thought my Merc with Arctic armor and Tame beast is unique
:D

Out of all my off meta weird builds, this is the one that I had most fun with because of it's accessibility to good damage nodes.

Also hats off to you sir, in respect for your unique combo.

Later edit:Sadly in the Warhammer universe this build wouldn't count as being unique, but a copy of a well established stereotype - the sister of Sigmar.