Guild Wars 2

is the current skull grinder balanced and fine as it is?
is it doing not enough damage ?
is it doing too much damage ?

do we need to rework it ?
discuss !

anyway, currently, we have:
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Skull_Grinder

Skull Grinder
“Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions.”
Damage: (1.5)
Blind (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.
4 Bleeding (8s): 704 Damage
4 Confusion (4s): 198 Damage On Skill Use, 160 Damage
Crippled (8s): -50% Movement Speed
Daze: 1s
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 300

from the forums, it seems that we have people claiming that the damaging condition (4 bleeding, 4 confusion) are too much while we also have people claiming that it is balanced, and that the victims merely need to dodge the skull grinder or simply kite the warrior and stay in ranged avoid melee etc.

so, back to the topic, do we need to rework skull grinder to take out 4 bleeding, 4 confusion and add in other things ?

we could over buff it, more damage, more range, more non damaging conditions etc.

the over buffed version:

Skull Grinder
“Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions.”
Damage: (3.0)
Blind (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.
Weakness (8s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)
5 Vulnerability (8s): 5% Incoming Damage, 5% Incoming Condition Damage
Immobilize (1s): Unable to move.
Crippled (8s): -50% Movement Speed
Daze: 1s
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 600

doubled damage, added weakness, vulnerability, immobilize and doubled range. so we removed 2 damaging conditions and added 5 new things. over buffed ! won’t happen.

so if we remove 2 things (4 bleeding, 4 confusion) it would be fair if we add back 2 items right ?

for example,
(more damage and range) Damage: (3.0) / Range: 600
(more utility) Weakness (8s) / 5 Vulnerability (8s)
(more range and lock down) Immobilize (1s) / Range: 600
(more damage and more) Damage: (3.0) / 5 Vulnerability (8s)

etc

discuss!

Increase power damage by 20 % and give it a 1s stun not daze. Remove all conditions except blind and it´s done.

Skullgrinder isnt the issue.

Smash Brawler trait → reduce to 25%.

Reduce bleeding duration of Shattering Blow by 50%.

Wolfric.9380:

Increase power damage by 20 % and give it a 1s stun not daze. Remove all conditions except blind and it´s done.

you mean this ?

“Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions.”
Damage: (1.8)
Blind (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.
Stun: 1s
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 300

a bit over nerfed i think. there are quite a number of traits skills runes that reduce stun duration but not daze duration. if you remove all other conditions then you need to rework the description as well since it clearly said inflicts multiple conditions.

i would like to revise your proposal as below instead:

“Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions.”
Damage: (1.8)
Blind (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.
Weakness (8s): -50% Endurance Regeneration, 50% Fumble (Unrestricted)
Crippled (8s): -50% Movement Speed
Stun: 1s
Combo Finisher: Blast
Range: 300

Yasi.9065:

Skullgrinder isnt the issue.

Smash Brawler trait -> reduce to 25%.

Reduce bleeding duration of Shattering Blow by 50%.

smash brawler is fine as it is, there is no need to change it.

there is nothing wrong with shattering blow as well.

The skill is overloaded with effects for something so spammable.

The 1 second daze plus the blind makes it more annoying than anything giving the condi zerker enough time to charge another one.

Remove the blind. Plz plz plz

Daze duration reduced to 0.50 seconds single target
or 0.25 and the daze effect is in an AoE.

This far is actually good enough to make the skill much more tolerable imho. However if further nerfs are needed then could consider…

Remove the cripple.

Confusion stacks are too much. Remove 1 stack
Compensate with additional 2 bleed stacks and 1 confusion stack on ’ruppting the target.
Even when the daze becomes AoE the main load of the skill remains single target.

I do not mind condi zerkers doing massive damage if they chose strength since they forgo defense or dicipline

Its impossible to know what is OP and what isnt in GW HOT. That very mace/shield condi combo was useless in season 1-2. It wasnt until they gave warriors the huge buff to life/sustain in the defense base trait line.

Having been playing vanilla warrior yesterday and today. You realize how spammy HOT is.

Just for quick instance the new zerker trait line gives adrenaline(discipline), boosted damage from going into the zerk mode(power) and then they made the F1 skill spammable.

Every other thread is about how OP a terrible aspect of the new HOT spec lines. Guardians with simple traps that do big damage, engys with incredible tank abilities that forces them into hammer, thieves with pick which spam 3 or 5, etc etc etc.

Ill give 1 more example of how OP the new specs are, I and 1 friend tried going 2 vs 1 on 2 different types of vanilla warriors. I went with mace/shield- axe axe with power-defense-discipline. My team mate went sword-sword longbow with shouts(basiclaly old shoutbow) and we tried to kill the meta ele. We couldnt do it and it took forever just to decap the point. Why are we doing this? Because we have 2 guild members who didnt pay for HOT and were thinking of coming back. When we talk to them in game or face book its impossible to tell them what to expect. The speed of the game flew up X2, the graphics of the different abilities went the same and meta builds are simply far superior to other builds. When you tell that to old players coming back or new players coming in, what should their response be?

So i rambled a bit but to answer the question, is skull grinder OP? Yes and no, its Op because warrior now has great sustain, boon application, condi removal, stun breakers and traits that give increased damaged,stability and spam. To even take away a little of of any of these would bring it in line with necros,thieves, and DH but without other nerfs mesmers,rev,rangers, and ele would have no problems facing warriors.

Warrior’s Skills are so predictable, you can just dodge it.

XerMeLL.6042:

Warrior’s Skills are so predictable, you can just dodge it.

Yeah, you only have to Dodge shield bash, headbutt, skullgrinder… Easy if you are a daredevil

I think they should follow One of these 2 option:
- remove non damaging conditions
- lower the stack of confusion and bleeding to 2

lucadiro.4519:

XerMeLL.6042:

Warrior’s Skills are so predictable, you can just dodge it.

Yeah, you only have to Dodge shield bash, headbutt, skullgrinder… Easy if you are a daredevil

see and the funny thing about that is thief loses to DH (not usable in Pro leagues other then tage) engy, mesmer, rev and for the most part necro. Then to top it off it would take thief a long time to kill a good warrior with shield, 2X endure the pain even if they did everything right.

You take away 1 stack of bleeding and confusion ok maybe its fixed but its still OP, you take away 2 stacks and now its worse then the other classes.

Reason is every class has so much get out of jail free cards. Take away 2 stacks and a warrior in a 1 vs 1 with a ranger. It couldnt do it with the pet taking condi and cele form to full health. Same thing with the engy and ele and necro.

When HOT skills for warrior is zerker stance, F2 then f1, wait 2 sec then F1 again into headbutt into another skill. The class is now dependent on quick condi damage reapplication. Just like thief has to spam 5-dodge-5-dodge, on staff etc etc on alot of other classes.

This burst quick application meta has huge consequences to classes. For instance if they put even 1/2 timer on Dh putting traps down. The DH trait line is now useless in PvP. That goes for all the classes, it either has to actual balance across all the classes. If Anet picks 3-4 things from 1-2 classes that are OP they will screw the meta like they have been since before HOT.

kdaddy.5431:

see and the funny thing about that is thief loses to DH (not usable in Pro leagues other then tage) engy, mesmer, rev and for the most part necro.

For reference thief eats necro / mesmer / rev alive.

But in reference to the skill, the skill needs a larger telegraph and less unique condis inflicted. Daze duration needs to be reduced

thanks for the feedback everyone.
however, it seems like many people believes that skull grinder is over powered and are asking for quite extremely heavy handed nerfs.

personally, i think they should replace bleeding, confusion with weakness 8s, 5 vulnerability 8s and it should be fine.

Topher.5631:

kdaddy.5431:

see and the funny thing about that is thief loses to DH (not usable in Pro leagues other then tage) engy, mesmer, rev and for the most part necro.

For reference thief eats necro / mesmer / rev alive.

But in reference to the skill, the skill needs a larger telegraph and less unique condis inflicted. Daze duration needs to be reduced

Ill just use the ESL level for instance, how many times did toker beat a player 1 vs 1? Well he downed a few players but was never able to finish. Everyone casting/playing basically said that toker is the best thief in the game and he barely got to eat.

Also someone posted a thread about legendary mismatches and caed was in the match. Someone found the caed stream and posted the match on the forum. Caed said when he was about to engage a necro "ok lets see if we can figure this out) or something like that. He killed the necro in 5 sec and said “ok he sucked”.

No offense but i will take the evidence from the ESL/ Pro leagues and the words of imo the best thief in the game.

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

personally, i think they should replace bleeding, confusion with weakness 8s, 5 vulnerability 8s and it should be fine.

Spoken like a power Warrior.
I think it’s better for build diversity to keep some damaging condis on. Condi/Hybrid builds like CC, too, ya know!

perko.8309:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

personally, i think they should replace bleeding, confusion with weakness 8s, 5 vulnerability 8s and it should be fine.

Spoken like a power Warrior.
I think it’s better for build diversity to keep some damaging condis on. Condi/Hybrid builds like CC, too, ya know!

Sword is/was the warrior condi weapon. What i hate is the big difference in “style” between Skull Crack and Skull Grinder. Skull Crack suits a power build while Skull Grinder is a condi build burst. Yet its the same weapon so if you spec power you lose a lot of the benefit of the primal burst F1.

Skull grinder is a truly overpowered skill. It Literally removes any reason to ever take the strength line. It is one skill on an extremely low cool down which negates three traits, one of them which is a master and the other is a GRAND Master.

I’ve said this before, but elite specializations were entirely mishandled by Anet. Elite specializations should have never been designed to stack with the core mechanic of a class. they should have completely overhauled the core mechanic of the class. This skill just illustrates the point.

it was literally designed by it’s creators with the knowledge that they did not want players to use the strength line. So they added all the stuff from Blody blow, and distracting strikes to the skill, added in blind, and bleed, and called it a day.

Look,I’m seriously pro warrior, but i can admit when a skill is just silly. This fits the bill.

warrior seems to be the only forum that calls for nerfs, there are loads of overpowered skills, greater than this, I hope anet looks at what players are using rather than these sour grapes posts that drop in. If it was massively op, then everyone would be using it….
simply not the case, aren’t even loads of warriors around.

Miko.4158:

warrior seems to be the only forum that calls for nerfs, there are loads of overpowered skills, greater than this, I hope anet looks at what players are using rather than these sour grapes posts that drop in. If it was massively op, then everyone would be using it….
simply not the case, aren’t even loads of warriors around.

HoT has been out for a long time. If you think this is the only forum that’s called for it’s own nerfs then it’s evident you haven’t read other forums.

Miko.4158:

warrior seems to be the only forum that calls for nerfs, there are loads of overpowered skills, greater than this, I hope anet looks at what players are using rather than these sour grapes posts that drop in. If it was massively op, then everyone would be using it….
simply not the case, aren’t even loads of warriors around.

LOL i love warrior and i have more pvp matches on that class than any other and even i admit skull grinder is just too OP.

oops nearly drowned in your evidence.

Two things are currently the warriors “Problem”. Frist defence became mandatory. Warrior was the last class that had a bit more build diversity and is now forced to defence like other classes.
Second skull grinder is OP and does not fit a weapon that used to be defensive control.

Its really just to many condis they can bury stuff under so many non damaging condis. Poison if they take doom sigil vul if they take frailty then you have the blind cripple bleeding confusion and most likely burning from longbow switch all this is on a crazy low cd if discipline is taken.

I also don’t see the issue with defense trait line being taken so much to do exactly what its intended purpose is and that staying alive longer. If someone wants to go strength discipline then fine will do huge damage but lack sustain always has to be trade offs and some will work better then others doesn’t mean something is broken or bad. I’m personally not sure how condi removal is done saw someone say its random doesn’t feel that way in my experience.

I actually think a better compromise might be how condi removal works in general and maybe make a priority system for it based on what’s currently on you like removing certain damaging condis before non damaging condis. Which would give a much needed way to fight condi specs and highlight the importance of condi cleansing all without actually nerfing condi damage. If that was done though classes specifically such as ele, druid and eng that have amazing TEAM cleanse potential should be adjusted.

What should be reworked is conditions in GW2 that are too strong in general.
Mace primal burst is fine.

It could use a longer CD but his functionality or efects should remain.

I’m not opposed to a complete Condition and boon rework, to be honest. In my Guild Wars 2 Redone thread (very out of date now) I mentioned that the idea of stacks was silly, and that conditions should have flat effect and deal flat rate damage based on your condition damage. It was a little more in depth than that, but the was the gist of it. but as it stands now, Skull Grinder is very over powered. Just for effect, lets list off what it does to the target.

• Damage 399 (1.5)
• +7% Damage and condition damage
• +10% damage if traited in Bloody Roar
• or Detonate fire aura if using king of fires
• Every 5.5 seconds if if not trait ed in Smash Brawler (including the cast time here)
• Every 3.5 seconds if Traited in smash Brawler
• It chases at range 300
• Breaks imobilize
• Blind
• Bleeding
• Cripple
• Confusion
• Burning, If traited in Last Blaze
• Daze
• Blast Finisher

If you are running Body Blow and distracting strikes for some reason you get the following in addition. (you can ignore this if you don’t run strength

• Bleeding
• Confusion
  with the right Sigils you can also apply poison, more bleeding, Vulnerability, Weakness, etc

That is one hell of a list, and even ignoring the synergy with body blow and distracting strikes i’m hard pressed to find a skill that has a more devastating single effect on a comparable cooldown to this skill. It is very overpowered.

It was mantioned abouve that the problem with warrior is that we are now required to take the defense line. I’m not going to disagree, but I will point out that by giving our profession a dedicated defensive line Arena net opened the warrior up to many many new builds. no other profession has the variety of viable builds that the warrior does. Of course there are going to be builds that are MORE viable than others, but the warrior has so many that can be competitive at higher levels of play that the difference is negligable. At lower levels of play (noob play) you likelly will nto notice a substantial difference because new players are new players, at higher levels of play, the skilled players can offset any power gap between viable builds with skill. its only when you wind up with a pro player, playing the best build that you are going to really see the difference, and a lot of that can be chalked up to experience.

Remove the blind
Remove the cripple
Nerf the daze duration

Should be somewhat ok and useable still after

Actually the blind cripple, and daze are not the problem. Its the Bleeding and Confusion which make the kitten thing overpowered. In order to get those things you should have to take body blow and distracting strikes.

overkill on the drama, you can’t have bloody roar and king of fires on the same build, its a bit like listing all the signets and saying you could have this much damage.
mace is supposedly a defensive weapon, so it stops ur opponent.
blind, crippled and dazed, leaving you bleeding and confused for damage.
in order to keep build diversity I think is should have multiple conditions stop -I have no issue with loosing the bleeding, the confusion seems in sync with the skill ,however the base damage could get a nerf not fussed.
however I don’t think its that op, I face necros in WVW all the time and deathly swarm is nasty, whilst you might argue the cool down isn’t comparable, all their other skills are adding conditions aswell (+they aren’t having to gain adrenaline or light up like a xmas tree) where as you are tap tap tapping with the mace for a fair amount of the time, meaning the points you put into condition damage have less return. I dropped mace from my WVW build as if you stand still enough to pick up the same character for to long you are minced, so the stops weren’t that useful. However I can see in PVP it could be more of an issue. IF it needs nerfing and I’m not sure it does then reduce the damage so its a set up skill making it more difficult to use, and not dangerous spammable on it’s own.

Miko, I specifically listed Bloody roar and king of fires as Either/or. never said you could have both at the same time. I don’t necessarily disagree with you on your other points, but I still feel the skill of very much so overpowered.

agreed, but its still a fair amount of what if. In wvw you have to take eternal champion so neither are an option, post stability changes its the most important trait of all. Conditions damage post the cap removal is an issue, I don’t see how that’s resolved by removing warriors biggest condition giver. That’s not a balance. What cheese’s me off is the continual nerf calls in Warrior, as we are considered the lowest skill class it seems free reign to come and kick our tyres. It’s getting old.

Warrior as a whole is fairly balanced right now, it’s just this one skill that is completely silly. And luckily, the weapon it’s on has very little going for it outside of skull grinder. I’m not really sure i agree with mandatory eternal Champion. I personally never use it. The stability IS really nice, but as a warrior you have lots of access to stability anyway.

I should also mention that the only reason Berserker is balanced is against other Elite Specializations. I personally feel that almost all elite specializations are overpowered compared to their Vanilla counterparts.