Curse

swordfisher · Feb 01, 2008, 02:37 AM // 02:37

No one in their right mind uses staggering blow. A hammer only has so many slots, and though Anet has tried to make skills for 'dps hammers,' every single serious hammer build I've seen is packing an elite KD, most likely with a followup KD as well. Staggering fits in...nowhere. Not on a KD bar, not on a DPS bar, not in a condition spam build.

So here's my idea- make it inflict cracked armor. Right now the realistic options for inflicting cracked armor are two: shell shock and aggressive refrain. I understand that no class was meant to be able to both inflict and exploit cracked armor, and that this is one of the biggest reasons it's really not seeing useful play. Myself, I'm still not convinced I would run the new staggering blow anyway- but at least I would be tempted to put together a build and try.

edit: it occurs to me that this might belong in 'suggestions,' but that place is a cesspool, and this is really more of an obvious and glaring truth anyhow.

Riotgear · Feb 01, 2008, 04:50 AM // 04:50

The real problem is that Weakness is crap.

TheOneMephisto · Feb 01, 2008, 02:22 PM // 14:22

Why would you want to give up your elite KD on a hammer bar?

zling · Feb 01, 2008, 10:27 PM // 22:27

who said give up your elite? [skill]Staggering Blow[/skill] never was an elite and never will be, or at least never should become.
having KD, DW and Cracked Armor on the same bar is pretty scary but yeah I guess it will finally make [skill]Staggering Blow[/skill] useful...
also, you forgot the original skill that caused Cracked Armor, [skill]Weaken Armor[/skill]

TheOneMephisto · Feb 02, 2008, 05:41 AM // 05:41

Quote:

Originally Posted by swordfisher

every single serious hammer build I've seen is packing an elite KD, most likely with a followup KD as well.

Sounded like he was suggesting giving up his elite. Meh, I might've misinterpreted.

swordfisher · Feb 02, 2008, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Ok, the full significance of making staggering blow cause cracked armor is that staggering->body blow then becomes a deep wound path, much like sever->gash. This reduces the reliance of a hammer warrior on consistently knocking things down, without actually taking away their ability to do so. In other words, if there were any good nonKD hammer elites available (and there aren't), it would push them into viability.

C2K · Feb 03, 2008, 11:15 AM // 11:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by swordfisher

Ok, the full significance of making staggering blow cause cracked armor is that staggering->body blow then becomes a deep wound path, much like sever->gash. This reduces the reliance of a hammer warrior on consistently knocking things down, without actually taking away their ability to do so. In other words, if there were any good nonKD hammer elites available (and there aren't), it would push them into viability.

I think you would have to make the changes to Forceful Blow rather than Staggering Blow. If Forceful Blow gave Cracked Armor or both CA and Weakness, it might be up to par with weak KDs. Even then, nothing can really replace a KD elite when using Hammers, as the DPS and spike of Hammer builds rely heavily on KD to obliterate their target. Also, Hammers KD elites don't make you lose adrenaline like non-elite ones, that important when you consider how important adren is to the warrior class in most builds.

red orc · Feb 03, 2008, 02:14 PM // 14:14

A warrior skill that cause cracked armor is overpowered, end of story.
And if you wanted to use the cracked armor mechanism, you could. You just need to spend a skill slot for that. For example, there is no problem puting it on an ele if you have one.

FoxBat · Feb 03, 2008, 06:08 PM // 18:08

Cracked armor is designed to force caster->fighter interaction (even if it's not atm). You can't put cracked armor on a warrior even if it would save a bad skill.