Hammer of the Ancients Leveling Guide - The Ancient Hammer

This guide is work in progress and more updates are coming in as we get more information closer to the Lord of Hatred launch.

If you're looking for a great starter build, without the use of Earthquakes, this is the build for you. It is a mobile build, utilizing Lunging Strike to proc defenses, offenses and runes. All this building up to an Hammer of the Ancients that will melt all the enemies in front of you.

Please read through the How it works section of the planner and if you have further questions you can join me live on Twitch, YouTube, TikTok and X. If you have questions while I'm not live, join Discord. We have a team and community ready to answer all your questions! You can also check out Cliptis.com for a collection of all my How-To guides.

1. Start with Leap to build Fury.
2. Cast Lunging Strike for additional Fury
3. Use War Cry to buff your damage and summon Ancients
4. Use Charge to gain Unstoppable if needed and summon Ancients
5. Cast Call of the Ancients to increase Damage, Attack Speed and generate more Fury and summon Ancients
6. Move out of the pack of monsters, make sure the monsters are in front of you and cast Hammer of the Ancients to deal damage and summon Ancients

Defenses

• Aspect of Might will proc the Damage Reduction by hitting an enemy with Lunging Strike. This has to happen once every 2 to 10 seconds, depending on how good your Aspect of Might is.
• Aspect of Disobedience gives you armor by attacking enemies with any form of damage or by taking damage from enemies. You'll need to do damage at least once every 4 seconds to maintain the extra Armor it gives you.
• Aspect of Numbing Wrath gives you Fortify for each point of Fury you generate over max. If you have 100 Fury and you use Lunging Strike and it generates 10 Fury you'll gain 10 Fortify. Fortify gives you 15% Damage Reduction.
• To maintain all of your defenses, you'll need to cast Lunging Strike at least once every 2-10 seconds.

Offense

• Aspect of the Expectant uses Lunging Strike to increase the damage your next core skill will do. In this case Hammer of the Ancients. Depending on the Aspect level you'll need to cast at most 6 Lunging Strike, as your aspect gets better you'll only need to cast Lunging Strike 3 times to get the full damage buff to Hammer of the Ancients.
• Edgemaster's Aspect increases the damage of your next skill cast based on how much Fury you have. Because we are using Lunging Strike to proc Aspect of the Expectant and Lunging Strike generates Fury, every time we cast Hammer of the Ancients we should get benefits from both aspects.
• Aspect of Berserk Ripping will make enemies Bleed as long as you are Berserking. Lunging Strike will grant Berserking if you land a Critical Hit. We are using Aspect of Berserk Ripping to proc the Slaking Aspect. This gives us a chance to gain 20 Fury when your Hammer of the Ancients does damage to a Bleeding enemy.
• Aspect of Aspect of Inner Calm will increase to your damage when you stand still, then cast Hammer of the Ancients after you've use Lunging Strike combined with Aspect of the Expectant and Edgemaster's Aspect, you'll line up your enemies and stand still while you cast Hammer of the Ancients.
• Aspect of Ancestral Echoes is just here to add a chance to spawn more Ancients with Leap and also increases the damage of your Ancients.
• Aspect of Ancestral Charge will add Ancients to your Charge and increase the damage to all your Ancients.

Leveling Walkthrough Document

Seasonal Leveling Strategy

Testing and Research Documents

• Level 2: Lunging Strike
• Level 3: Hammer of the Ancients
• Level 4: Ground Stomp
• Level 5: Lunging Strike
• • Fury Generation: lunging strike generates 1 fury for each enemy you lunge through
• Level 6: Hammer of the Ancients
• • Size and Damage Bonus: Hammer of the Ancients gains +25% increased size and 20%[x] increased damage
• Level 7: Ground Stomp
• • Additional charges: Ground Stomp gains 2 additional charges
• Level 8: Remove points from Ground Stomp
• Level 8: War Cry
• Level 8: Leap
• Level 9: Charge
• Level 10: Hammer of the Ancients
• • TBD
• Level 11: Hammer of the Ancients
• Level 12: Leap
• • Fury Generation: Leap now generates 20 fury
• Level 13: Charge
• • Unstoppable: You are unstoppable during Charge
• Level 14: Lunging Strike
• • Skewer: Lunging Strike deals 75%[x] increased damage and an additional 5%[x] increased damage for each target it lunges through up to 100%[x]
• Level 15: Hammer of the Ancients
• • Violent Hammer of the Ancients: Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards and deals damage
• Level 16: Hammer of the Ancients
• Level 17: Leap
• • Pull: Leap now pulls enemies in upon landing
• Level 18: War Cry
• • Modifier: Unknown
• Level 19: Call of the Ancients
• Level 20: War Cry
• • Krolic: War Cry summons Krolic who leaps at enemies dealing damage
• Level 21: Leap
• • Mosh: Leap summons 3 ancients that leap at a random enemy and deal damage
• Level 22: Call of the Ancients
• • Attack Speed and Damage Bonus: Whenever you cast Call of the Ancients you gain 15%[+] increased attack speed and 20%[x] increased damage for 6 seconds
• Level 23: Charge
• • Phalanx: Charge summons two ancients to charge with you and swing for damage
• Level 24: Call of the Ancients
• • Damage Bonus: You and each of your Ancients summoned from this skill increase each others damage by 7%
• Level 25: Call of the Ancients
• • Empowered: Your Ancients are empowered
  • Krolic creates an earthquake and deals physical damage over 4 second
  • Talic leaves behind dust devils that deal damage while he whirlwinds
  • Madawc ignites the earth, burning enemies for an additional damage over 4 seconds when he upheaves the ground
• Level 26: Hammer of the Ancients
• Level 32: Hammer of the Ancients
• • Remove: Violent Hammer of the Ancients: Hammer of the Ancients quakes outwards and deals damage
  • Add: Ancestral (lvl 32): Casting Hammer of the Ancients summons 2 ancients to hammer the same area for damage each. If burning enemies are struck, Hammer of the Ancients explodes dealing damage
• Level 32: Hammer of the Ancients (add level point)
• Level 37: Hammer of the Ancients
• Level 38: Call of the Ancients
• Level 51: Call of the Ancients
• Level 52: War Cry
• Level 65: War Cry
• Level 66: Lunging Strike
• Level 70: Lunging Strike

All remaining Seasonal Rank skill points will be added into Lunging Strike.

Updated and optimized for Season 12