Guild Wars 2

I’m one of the few remaining skullcrack warriors out there. I love this style of play. However, the nerfs really hurt. When unsuspecting foe got moved to master tier, I accepted it. Then the casting time got increased, which sucks big time. Of course that’s not enough so they made the animation obvious so my opponents can avoid it. Without cc, I could barely land it. But the bright side is even though I miss, I could attempt it again after the cooldown is over. Now with the adrenaline gone, my opponents will know I have no adrenaline to skullcrack them and they can do as they please. Skullcrack has been reduce to a subpar build after those earlier nerfs. But I fear after the change to adrenaline, skullcrack warriors will probably go extinct.

I really like mace mainhand and I hope Anet will consider reverting some of the nerfs to skull crack. I would love for the casting time to be back to the old version or perhaps increase the range of skullcrack to 200. That will certainly help.

They will not reduce casttime back to the old 1/4 second. To be honest, 1/4 second casttime for a potential 4 second stun is pretty crazy.

The telegraphing is something warriors have to work with. Skullcrack was just behind in this evolution. This is supposed to be a warrior weakness, and in the case of skullcrack, the rewards more then outway the risk. You need to count dodges, watch for aegis and other blocks, stability, maybe a bit more then other specs.

That’s just the thing reallym skullcrack is a one trick pony. Most people will not die to it a second time.

Which leaves mace mainhand somewhat useless, unless provided with either teamsupport or other forms of cc.

Mace 2 can rebuild your adren as long as you arent in counter blow range

I’m kinda with Doon on this one. Mace was already somewhat underused, the next updates are going to be even worse. I’m not sure if reverting the cast time is the right thing, but something should be done.

Yeah, Mace should go the way of the dodo after the patch. It will still be used w/ Perplexity runes, I guess, but it’s only left to corner cases.

a series of direct and indirect nerfs have made mace a less popular choice. the adrenaline loss on miss will definitely make it a less popular choice. You need to gap close, be in range and blow dodges for this skill to have a decent chance of hitting. Even then, blinds, teleports, stealth, being cc’ed yourself. And if that isn’t enough, even if you do land the skill, most people pack at least 1-2 stunbreakers.

It simply isn’t that great versus classes with high incombat mobility and evasiveness, i.e: Rangers, Thieves, Mesmers, Rifle Engineers. It honestly isn’t that great versus other warriors because they have high stability uptime and at least 2 stunbreakers. Even against certain guardians with their combo of aegis, blind and stunbreaking.

If you do catch somebody, don’t get me wrong it is a very good skill in that scenario. However it is a shame that the mainhand mace doesn’t really have much else going for it besides the F1. The autoattack sucks, #2 is OK, #3 is ehhh.

Hi, I use mace.

I think you are right Doon, mace is already hard to use against players that watch what they’re doing. I would increase its range a little bit, and rework mace 2, I mean, the adrenaline is okay, but I would change that for a knockout on counter, and add the same effect of sword block (blocks all projectiles until cast ends). I think that would make mace viable with the upcomming nerfs.

What a mace needs is some kind of gap closer or pull so that you are not forced to take bulls charge with it ….

Mace F1 is one of those really hard skills to balance because if everything lines up and it actually lands on a target that has wasted stun breaks.. That target is dead.

Vermillion.4061:

Mace F1 is one of those really hard skills to balance because if everything lines up and it actually lands on a target that has wasted stun breaks.. That target is dead.

That’s basically the main strategy to get ur opponent to waste their stunbreaks. Good players don’t though, they can avoid ur attempts. And due to the condi-meta, many opponents are quite tanky so one skullcrack is not enough to finish them. Skullcrack is mainly effective against inexperience players. Against good players, it was still viable since you still had adrenaline to try another attempt if you miss. But now that we will lose our adrenaline on miss, then skullcrack builds will be terrible in pvp.

Tremor Should be the f1 skill.

The skullcrack build was revitalized in the previous patch that rebalanced all the runes and sigils. Since the duration bonus on sigil of paralyzation was boosted, the stun duration is almost the same as it was pre-skullcrack nerf.

The cast time that it has now is what it should have been all along. The version of the build pre-nerf was just way too much in one package. It definitely feels much more balanced out now. If there weren’t so many “necessary” traits to be competitive, there’d be a lot more flexibility in how you could tweak the build, which is what the real problem is. But that affects pretty much any build.

I’m a bit concerned for how mace will fare after the adrenaline changes, but in all honesty it probably won’t be that much worse than axe, definitely not as bad as rifle.

I’ve been trying Mace + shield / GS since a few days and I just can’t stop playing. This is way too much fun but I admit that the Adrenaline nerf will hit pretty hard.

The auto isn’t that bad tbh (and it’s getting slighty buffed) but the 2 and 3…. especially the 3. A ONE seconde melee daze on a 15 sec cd.. it’s pretty obvious it needs some kind of buff.
And like someone suggested already, I would be up for a stun on the #2 counterattack, it really wouldn’t be too good and would be quite handy.

EDIT: I actually never played Mace when it was 1/4 cast time on f1, that sounds way too good, holy.

It was a bit too good.

I don’t know why people dislike mace 3. It’s a quick interrupt on a fairly short CD. I guess it becomes bad if you compare it to other classes interrupting skills.

I think the nerfs were in place tbh. It’s still viable though you would need a bit more skill and planning to actually land the entire combo. Maybe it will be a bit too much with the upcoming changes. I mean that they have worked a while with making it harder to land/easier to avoid. Now comes a patch that will make actually landing the bursts essential to in some cases winning the fight.

So no, It’s not been over nerfed, but it will take a bigger hit than most other weapons from the upcoming patch. The hammer will obviously also take a hard hit from this patch.

Cygnus.6903:

It was a bit too good.

I don’t know why people dislike mace 3. It’s a quick interrupt on a fairly short CD. I guess it becomes bad if you compare it to other classes interrupting skills.

It’s because they just toss it out there without thinking. I’ve seen numerous people use it on people they just hit with shield bash or bull’s charge, which is a complete waste. It’s exceptional for interrupting heals or other important skills, though you do have to be right on top of your opponent.

Though perhaps if the daze was a bit longer (i.e. 1.5 seconds) it would be a bit better without being too much.

#3 mace is underwhelming in my opinion.

It is only a one second daze and you have to be on the person for it to connect. Most people who are trying to heal usually create some separation before doing so. At best, this skill is only a minor annoyance to somebody when it lands, and it does zero damage.

killahmayne.9518:

1. mace is underwhelming in my opinion.

It is only a one second daze and you have to be on the person for it to connect. Most people who are trying to heal usually create some separation before doing so. At best, this skill is only a minor annoyance to somebody when it lands, and it does zero damage.

I agree. Mace #3 is isn’t very good. It should be minimum 2 seconds daze with longer range. I wish #5 and #3 swap places. Tremor is far more useful for skullcrackers. IF they move Tremor to skill 3, or give us something as good, I wouldn’t mind the adrenaline lost change.