▲ The seldom seen ranged assassin, Sgt. Hammer, has potential in the eyes of some.

Few professional Heroes of the Storm players strike fear into their opponents like Jae Won “Rich” Lee. On any given day, the game’s official Reddit page will feature a clip of Rich performing a series of mind-numbingly fast moves with an Assassin hero, making his opponents look completely lost. His mechanical genius has earned him the reputation of one of the greatest Heroes of the Storm players in the world during his tenure with, recent Mid-Season Brawl champion, Gen.G esports.

During the aforementioned tournament, Gen.G was up against the top team in North America, Tempo Storm, during group play. What started out as a typical draft on Volskaya Foundry turned interesting when Rich locked in Sgt. Hammer. The casters didn’t really know what to make of the pick and neither did the audience, or Tempo Storm for that matter as Hammer has not been seen in the competitive circuit more than a handful of times in the past year.

As for the decision to bring Sgt. Hammer “back” into the spotlight, Rich sat down to talk with me at Mid-Season Brawl in Sweden through an interpreter.

“After Hammer’s re-work people hadn’t really done much research into her but players in the Korean Hero League started looking into her and how to use her and when I faced them I thought, “Man, this is kind of tough to face,” said Rich. “I tried it myself and thought, “‘Hmm, this is pretty good’ so I brought it to a tournament.”

And brought into a tournament he did...the biggest one of the year thus far.

Coordinated play resulted in a victory for Gen.G and for those at home who want to replicate the success that Rich has, he has some pointers.

“You really, really want to take the solo lane and play 1v1,” said Rich. “If possible, before (level) 10, you don’t want to get in any team fights, just focus on sieging.”

Rich’s preferred talent build for Hammer is below, in addition to some insight into why each talent is preferred in each tier.

Ambush (Trait) -- Gain Stealth when entering Siege Mode or after not taking or dealing damage for 3 seconds while in Siege Mode. Basic Attacks while Stealthed deal 100% more damage. Remaining stationary for at least 1.5 seconds while Stealthed grants Invisible.

“Right now the meta is one in which you use Hammer by herself in the off-lane and, to make her strong in the off-lane, you have to select this.”

Siege Tactics (E) -- Using Neosteel Plating while in Siege Mode grants Unstoppable for 2 seconds.

“If Hammer is in Siege Mode, she can’t move and that makes her really vulnerable to enemy crowd-control abilities so this helps you get over that. It’s a must-take talent here.”





Hover Siege Mode (Trait) -- Sgt. Hammer can move as 40% Movement Speed while in Siege Mode.

“Just the fact that she can move in Siege Mode is so good that you can’t think about taking anything else at this tier.”

Blunt Force Gun (R1) -- (Cooldown: 70 seconds) Fire a missile across the battlefield, dealing 500 damage to enemies in its path.

“Hammer is really good at laning but she’s not that good outside of that. It’s not like picking Napalm is going to make her that much better in a team fight so taking the BFG helps her nuking ability.”

Hyper-Cooling Engines (Z) -- While in Siege Mode, hitting Heroes with Basic Attacks reduces the cooldown of Thrusters by 5 seconds.

“Her “Z” escape is her only escape and it has a really long cooldown time so having something to shorten that is useful. Also, it encourages you to be more offensive with your damage instead of so defensive.”

Giant Killer -- Basic Attacks against enemy Heroes deal bonus damage equal to 1.5% of the Hero’s maximum Health.

“This is one of her few talents that actually increase her damage so it’s something that makes up for her lack damage. If you don’t take Giant Killer she doesn’t have much of a presence (damage wise).”

Orbital BFG (R1) -- Blunt Force Gun’s missile orbits the planet every 5 seconds. Only the last missile fired orbits.

“Most of the objectives in the game are close to the lanes so just having that there pushing the lanes, it pressures the opponents and buys you a time advantage.”