Skullcrack needs a buff

For those of you who don't know, Skullcrack is like Concussion shot, but worse. It is a warrior non attribute elite that requires 9 adrenaline to be able to use. Further, it requires an interrupt to daze, but does not have the typical 1/4 second cast time of most interrupts.

Looking at the new elites in Factions of Broadhead Arrow (Ranger), and Temple Strike (Assassin), I have come to the conclusion that Skullcrack is way underpowered. Both of those elites (BH Arrow, T Strike) daze and interrupt as a bonus, not interrupt and daze as a bonus. Also, skullcrack would actually be a good way for warriors to be able to combat spellcasters, but it is just ineffective because of the int requirement (and running off of regular attack speed) and the 9 adrenaline cost.

It is thus that it would appear that Skullcrack falls onto the list of near useless elites, perhaps being surpassed by even Keystone signet with the release of Factions coming up. It seriously is in need of a buff.

Personally, I think it should be modified to function much like the other two dazed causing elites, in that it applies the dazed upon a successful hit and interrupts as a bonus. Perhaps the duration should be decreased from 15 to balance it's lack of a tied attribute, but as it stands, it is near useless. If anyone has found a way to effectively use it, I would like to hear about it.

(Note: being somewhat new here, I don't know if this is the exact proper forum for such a thread/post, if it belongs eslewhere, I expect that the mods would likely move it, and I would thank them doing so.)

Put this in Sanitarium and I'll be happy to sign it. Skull Carck is a front runner for worst Elite in all of Guild Wars. it needs a fix like my T-Bird need a new paint job: bothare waaaay overdue

EDIT: it's here? TY JR

/signed!

Ah, thought it might go there. Could a mod move it please?

I think skull crack is fine, just have Flurry so you can get Interupt and have 'For Great Justice' for your adrenaline problems(if you have any)

No Skullcrack is pure crap.

Elite Status + High Adrenaline cost + must hit WHILE target foe is CASTING A SPELL in order to take effect = EXTREME CRAP!

This skill needs to be changed to the following effect:

Skull Crack - SKILL
Cost: 7 Adrenaline
Cast Time: Instant
Effect:
Target Foe is Interupted. Target Foe is Dazed for 15 seconds.

It would deal no damage as a Skill instead of a Melee Attack, but this skill is supposed to be an interrupt to begin with. This change would cement it's status as "THEE" melee interrupt.

Then this skill is worthy of an Elite.

So ,you need 2skils so that an elite could work Why is it an elite then,i never used it and i will never use it until it get's better

Done.

/signed -- it really does need a buff...

As far as PvE is concerned, skullcrack is cool!

But with broadhead arrow coming out etc, it could probably use a bit of a buff.

There have been many suggestions to fix, and on how to fix some of the worst skills in the game. Skull crack, chaos storm, holy wrath, seems as if every class has one. The funny thing is that you can name the worst skill in existence and you get noobcakes like lambda trying to argue with you and making up imaginary scenarios where it might be usefull.

And then we get idiots who can't think of everything properly. What other elite would you use on a sword warrior in a group (one where you don't noob around with book)? Charge? Hundred Blades? Please.

Skull crack is a decent skill, I'm sorry it doesn't have instawhack function but mobs cast on a cycle that is predictable anyway. From watching warriors that use it (including Lambda), I've seen that they usually don't have trouble dazing the enemy on their first crack.

The only reason Skull Crack needs an upgrade is because of the relative power of the Factions skills. As far as PvE Prophecies is concerned, it's far from the 'worst skill'.

Avarre, I would disagree on your Sword warrior using only Skullcrack thing. Many Sword wars use Charge.

Wait, predictable mobs equate PvE. Ignore the above.

But Skullcrack does have a large gap to being viable in PvP.

skull crack is decent at best in pve for most but in the hands of the highly skilled (not me btw ) a devastating pve skill. In pvp it just sucks.

so /signed it needs a buff to really compete with all the other new elite to be effective in pvp.

Of course, but not every skill is going to be awesome in both. Regardless, I expect most warriors would be running eviscerate or Quivering blade in factions, not skullcrack anyways.

In PvE, currently it is quite good. Although it needs an upgrade to compete with Broad Headed arrors (maybe an adren drop).

Pve is a useless proving ground for what skills are usefull. You could have a skilled called "the barney song" which makes enemy dance and im sure it could be used in pve against the mindless retardedness of mobs. The reason no one runs skullcrack in pvp is because it sucks, and you cant tell me that its so good in pve that a buff would make it overpowered, so why are you arguing against a buff? Just to be obstinate? Evidentaly.

You remind me of the people who say mesmers suck in PvE, because they have no clue how to use them.

If something works well in PvE, it doesn't need to be buffed for PvP. And vice versa. Arguing against that, and tossing out insults and accusations only goes to show further you complete lack of understanding of anything outside of your little world.

It was used (very effectively) in the old SMS 3man fow-clearance to help overwhelm 2-monk groups.

Yes thats true, as a broad and general statement which doesn't apply in any way shape or form to skull crack. Evidentaly you just don't want to even try to improve skull crack for pvp at all.

Um... maybe thats because skull crack isn't even an OPTION in pvp as it currently is? duh.

Except on the whole, Mesmers DO suck in PvE. They just aren't designed for dealing with what the RP world throws at them. A very high level of disruption on a single target... great for PvP, but against mobs of enemies in PvE it isn't nearly as effective.

This game is balanced for PvP, because PvE has no balance at all. If you are talking about skill balance in PvE then lets nerf Spitefull Spirit and Prot Spirit to hell. That would solve a huge problem right there. Maybe make Spitefull AoE, make Prot Spirit cost you energy per hit... Possibly even make enchants like Live Vicariously not interact so well with Cyclone Axe...

No, lets not get silly. This game is balanced for PvP for a very good reason. PvP is the only place where skill balance matters, as it for the sake of the game it has got to be a level playing field. And skill balance determines if a skill needs 'buffing' or 'nerfing'. Tweaking skills for PvE use is just plain retarded, and a complete waste of time.

So please don't talk about "lack of understanding" when you blatantly have no idea what you are talking about.

Back to the case in hand; Skull Crack hugely needs a buff. It is a complete joke of a skill in PvP at the moment. It needs the adren cost reduced to about 4, either that or make it 8 adrenaline and auto-daze. Failing both of those suggestions, make it 6 adren and non-elite. Absolutely nobody who knows what they are doing would even consider using it as it is right now.

/Not signed

extreamly usefull already ..

And you remind me of the people who draw random conclusions with no relating evidence at all.

And in your little world you apparently think that making a skill usefull for pvp shouldn't even be attempted at all if its decent at pve. Why not? Please tell me. I want to know what glorious insite you have had that explains why, when with a minimum of effort skills can be made usefull for BOTH kinds of play, they shouldnt be. Arn't more skills/more variety, good for a game?

Thats like me having a hunting rifle thats good for short range, and I want to put a scope on it so it can be good for both long and short range, and your trying to stop me from putting the scope on it "because its good at one already". Seriously get a grip man, you need a more positive attitude. Your like the "no" man of the hour.

I wouldn't say he has no evidence in being a Mesmer in PvE. After all, Avarre did post the 55-Mesmer build in the Mesmer forum.

I think he was reffering to Avarre assuming he knew what kind of person Mared is.

My only problem is that skullcrack only interrupts spells currently.

I think all it needs is this description

"Interrupt target foes current action, if that foe was casting a spell they become dazed for 15 seconds"

I hate that its a high adrenal elite and if I try to interrupt a skill thats not a spell, it wont interrupt.

I think if the adrenaline cost were reduced to say 5-ish, maybe 4, you would see it used on sword wars where an efficient damage/deep-wound elite is missing. My issue with skull crack is that it applies Dazed - a condition which is easily removable, and on top of that takes your elite slot, after which you need NINE strikes of adrenaline to build it. At 4 adrenaline, you would be able to do nifty things like wait to time a skull crack on a caster, get dazed, follow with sever/gash, etc.

So: /signed.

besides why take skullcrack if savage slash does a decent job in interrupting an action and does so unconditionally, meaning you don't have to wait for adrenalinebuildup...and really as an elite for a swordwarrior i would prefer warriors endurance or bulls charge even though these are less interesting then the elites a warrior would normally take (charge, eviscerate...)

This skill was probabaly made when all the Devs thought Dazed = instant win. Then they probabaly forgot about it because they never saw people using it ever. Otherwise Skullcrack should have at least gotten even a minor buff in the last 4 updates.

Anyway: Signed.

What about making it removing all adrenaline, scale the daze duration (4-8 strength attribute) and make it NON-elite.

This would make it as "powerful" as concussion shot...

They should rename the skill to Skull Crap. No offense.

The elite status, the 10 adrenline requirement and the fact that it's not like Distracting Blow.... everything goes against this skill.

Daze is great... one mend alignment, it's gone. Time to recharge again. I've tried it on Warrior and I hate it so much.

But the problem is if they change it to energy based skill, it's going to be overpowering when Ranger uses it. And if they change it to like Distracting Blow, it's going to be too easy to use. This skill will remain as it is right now and it's only useful to little degree. There are more and more skills that cause Daze and Skull Crap will remain so unpopular.

just make the cast time like 1/4 second and ill be happy. The only stuff you can interupt are like 3-4 seconds spells so you might as well only target MM necros with the way the skill is now.

JR-: Thanks for the move.

Part of the issue that I see with skullcrack (that I didn't fully address in the original post) is that it doesn't fill the role that it should.

When we look at spellcasters, they all have a way of shutting down a warrior in some manner (this is without drawing on secondaries at all, mind). Mesmers with a plethora of abilities (Ineptitude is definately a very strong one that way, as well as soothing images, which only targets warriors, as well as many others), monks have at minimum pacifism. Elementalists can do any number of things, including blinding with Blinding Flash (4 second recharge, I'd like to add), not to mention ward against melee. And necromancers can use price of failure, spiteful spirit, faintheartedness, shadow of fear, etc. the severely hits the warrior's ability to function properly in his manner of playing (attacking). Rangers are getting Broadhead Arrow, and already have concussion shot, which is arguably much better than Skull crack (not elite, cost can be reduced, much easier to interrupt with). Warriors lack such a shutdown (condition style one, in the case of comparing to blind) that the spellcasters can fling on it. I guess you could say that, while every other profession, which currently contains 4 spellcasters, can shutdown warriors in some way, warrior primary has little it can bring against them except death, which they can avoid by using skills previously mentioned.

Dazed, while a condition, can be hard to remove from oneself due to the fact that it it makes spells take twice as long to cast. That doesn't prevent an ally from removing it, or from using non-spell (or short casting spells) condition removal (such as CoP). Warriors are equally challenged in self removal of blind (pure warriors have no method of removing conditions, they have I Will Survive, but that doesn't remove the conditions.) The thing is, dazed is the spellcaster version of blind.

Blind: 90% chance to miss on attacks.
Dazed: Spells take twice as long to cast and are easily interrupted (or very similar to this definition).

Comparing them, it would appear to me that Blind = Dazed in terms of shutting down a target of the appropriate type. Skullcrack, in a PvP sense, is just useless. It is very hard to hit properly with it on either monks (which would be a primary target) or mesmers because of quick cast times. Necromancers, sure, but plague touch is a skill, and thus not slowed down or inted by dazed. Elementalists as well, but they have glyph of concentration that works through dazed.

It really is to me, a balance issue. Spellcasters can easily enough make a warrior useless (though they may apply different methods). Right now, as it stands, warriors can only make spellcasters useless by making them dead, or chasing them around attempting to make them dead. And even dead, they can be of use. (Spells that target corpses, such as Consume Corpse, IWAY, Soul Feast, etc.) Dazed does require that the warrior stays on the spellcaster to keep intting them.

As I see it, so many other professions can throw out Warrior hate, but warriors are pretty much incapable of throwing out spellcaster hate (in the form of something that makes their life very challenging).

Remember, the above discussion is about primary skills. Obviously, a warrior could run into a battle with Migraine or some such, but seriously...

That is more or less why I think Skullcrack needs a buff. It is the only skill warrior's have (currently) to apply dazed, and it seriously sucks. Right now, dazed as a condition can pretty much be ignored, because nobody uses it. Think how things would be if the same went for blind.

To continue my rambling, look at how many abilities cause blindness. Let's start a brief list:
Ineptitude
Blinding Flash
Throw Dirt
Signet of Midnight (can be coupled with Plague Sending or Plague Touch)
Glimmering Mark (or is it glittering?)

Those are the ones I can think of at the moment (non-factions skills). Skills that can currently apply dazed:
Concussion Shot
Skull Crack

This is in my mind, a serious inbalance, and I applaud the devs for adding more skills to be able to apply the condition (and, as a condition, it can be removed somewhat easily, so that is important to remember).

To wrap this admitedly long post up, it just seems that Warrior's get the short end of the stick here. If it was somehow changed to actually make it useful, I do think it might be seen being used. I do come from a PvP perspective, since that is my main focus anymore (you can only beat the game so many times. :/), and I don't know of any builds that utilize this skill.

Yup, when you are blind, you can't build up adrenline.... and it's not like you can Skull Crack the caster before they cast something nasty on you. All these go against Skull Crack. The interesting thing is it is a general skill so maybe warrior is just not a suitable candidate for this skill?

Skull Crack does need a buff, but equating it to blind is not a good annalogy. Dazed condition leads to the death of casters, blind condition does not lead to the death of warriors, only 1/10 damage for a while. Dazed on a caster, especialy a monk, is a way better condition than blinding warriors. I would also point out that your almost required to have a blinding flash spamer to use against warriors because even with only "damage" as their option they still rock faces, heck they still rock faces even with blinding flash being spamed.

All that said, I do think skull crack needs a buff, to at least make it an OPTION to take intead of evicerate and whatnot. Also, skull crack is in the no attributes required section which makes me think that they had other classes use of it in mind? If so they might need to rework the entire skill.

Very true. A better skill to compare it to would be Concusion Shot. that's non-Elite, not conditional on a long adrenal build up, and with a decent short or recurve bow becomes a quick cast. Ranger's can get this skill off with some ease against a castor. Hammer warriors...not so much for what could be oneof the better Elites.

Because of melee range requirments, this is a non-PvP skill at best and a joke in PvE at worst right now. it will only work on slow cast spells due to Hammer's already slow attack speed. Any castor worth its sand knows better than to try to drop a nuke on someone when a KD hammer Maiden is whacking them. they kite or die; which means this spell sits and doesn't see use.

Now, not to stay negative, this skill could be a good one. Reducing the ammount of adreniline to use it would help a lot, creating a semi-spammable dazed on the order of cleave's damage.

But the biggest thing that would make this skill rock would be reducing the attack time to half normal hammer swing. That, however, might turn these calls for a buff into cries for a nerf. So I put the first option out as a compromise.

Even it it becomes overpowered, or more correctly, disproportinatly powered when compared to other warrior elites, it really isn't gona matter. So its used alot for all of about 3 days untill another patch comes out. With the frequency of patches that this game recieves fear of making a skill overpowered is a distant fear indeed.

Tried it one time and regretted wasting a skill cap signet on it. I am not sure why it is classified as an elite skill...

(The only person that was skull cracked was me for capping it.)