As you may know, I have been playing it alot, from WvW to tPvP tournaments. It really does have the potential to be one of those meta builds, the foundation is there. However it is lacking and there is a reason it would never be used for serious tournaments.
First let me talk about the mace stun. It is a 3 second stun on a 8-10 second CD. Awesome. It is even more if you put the sigil of paralyzation, again awesome. However, this skill is notoriously difficult to land. A random dodge, random blind, aegis, stability, even simply walking behind or side-stepping will cause it to miss. And even if you do land it, there is something called stunbreaks and teleports.
Now, I never found it a problem pre-adrenaline change. You missed it, no big deal, just wait another 8 seconds till it is back up. However gaining adrenaline in some cases is just difficult (you have to choose between taking more damage then you usually would in order to gain enough adrenaline for another stun, or awkwardly flail your greatsword hoping to generate enough adrenaline which lets be honest, doesn’t really work to your advantage).
In my opinion, they should just start out with this change and see how it goes. Extend the range on it a little bit. Perhaps to around 300 range. I can’t count how many times I would use the skill when I was in range only to have the opponent simply run a little faster just enough to get out of it. Just by running. It really feels like you need a set up, to set up your mace stun to set up your hundred blades. You can only reliably do that with the shield stun and Bulls Charge (and lets be honest, Bulls Charge overshoots you 50% of the time and is only really good for the gap close because of it). Also, give it the same treatment as the thief and necro daggers. Allow it to hit two targets. It is just so frustrating that literally clones, pets, AI, etc just get in the way.
Another thing is counterblow. Suffers much of the same problems as Skull Crack Great skill, can block and have the potential to reflect projectiles if traited. However the counter attack portion is mostly terrible. It is so incredibly slow and the range is so low that it almost never hits anybody. Worst part of it is you have no control of the attack.
A possible change to address this is to increase the range of the counterattack to around 300 range, and make the attack AoE radius. For example the warrior spins around with his mace in a 360 motion. Another thing you can do is give you control over the counter attack. If somebody attacks you and you block it, you gain a charge that allows you to use counter attack within a 4 second window.
A nice change would be to put weakness on the 2nd chain of the mace instead of the the 3rd chain. You can reduce the duration of weakness to three seconds since it is easier to land.
Also, make the #3 daze more interesting. It is basically a low damage daze, on a pretty good CD. For example, if the target has weakness this skill does double the damage and reduces armor of the opponent by 15% for 5 seconds. Kind of makes sense from a lore standpoint as well. Mace is a type of weapon that punctures and puts a dent in armour.
However, part of the reason why Mace isn’t used so much can be attributed just as much to the greatsword. Greatsword, great for mobility, not the best for damage though ironically most of the damage comes from the hundred blades after the stun. If they would only make Rush more reliable. Skull Crack + 100 blades can be risky sometimes because you are stationery for at least 3 seconds and can get bombed.
I honestly wouldn’t mind if they nerfed the mobility on Greatsword, if in exchange they did something to make the damage more reliable. I mean landing any skill on the greatsword can be a challenge. Rush will just miss, you can just side step GS #4, #3 isn’t very hard to dodge either. Arcing Slice isn’t absolutely terrible, but not great either.
