Backbreaker

Knock down your foe. Weakened foes stay knocked down longer. Recharges Fierce Blow if you control a foe with this ability. Recharges Fierce Blow if striking a target with a defiance bar. — In-game description

Backbreaker

Profession

Warrior (skill list)

Weapon

Hammer

Game link

API

14511

“

1  

25

20

 

Backbreaker

Knock down your foe. Weakened foes stay knocked down longer. Recharges Fierce Blow if you control a foe with this ability.
Recharges Fierce Blow if striking a target with a defiance bar.

 Damage: 605 (1.5)^?

 Damage: 4 (0.01)^?

 Knockdown: 3 seconds

 Weakened Foe Knockdown: 4 seconds

 Defiance Break: 700[sic]

 Range: 130

— In-game description

Related traits

Strength

• Body Blow — Stuns, dazes, knockbacks, pulls, pushes, and launches inflict bleeding and weakness.
• Aggressive Onslaught — Gain quickness when you disable an enemy. While you have quickness, your movement speed is increased. This stacks with other movement speed increases.

Arms

• Opportunist — Gain fury and adrenaline when you immobilize or disable a foe.
• Unsuspecting Foe — Increased critical-hit chance against disabled or defiant foes. Disables include stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, launch, taunt, and fear.

Defense

• Merciless Hammer — Hammer and mace skills deal increased damage when striking a disabled or defiant foe. Gain adrenaline when you disable a foe. Disables include stun, taunt, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, fear, and launch.
• Stalwart Strength — Gain stability when you disable a foe. Deal increased strike damage while you have stability.

Spellbreaker

• Dispelling Force — Dazes, stuns, pulls, knockdowns, knockbacks, and launches remove boons.
• Attacker's Insight — Gain Insight when disabling foes or removing boons. Full Counter refreshes all burst skills on hit. Disables include stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, launch, taunt and fear.

Notes

Bug:

The Defiance Break sums up both listed knockdowns: 300+400=700 instead of correctly displaying 300 on default and 400 versus a weakened foe.

• This skill can only hit one target.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
March 29, 2022	Reduced cooldown from 25 seconds to 20 seconds in PvP and WvW.
February 28, 2022	End of Dragons release: (Undocumented) Added tooltip fact Defiance Break.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: This skill now recharges Fierce Blow if the warrior knocks down a foe or strikes an enemy with a defiance bar. (Competitive split) Reduced power coefficient from 1.5 to 0.01.
October 02, 2018	In addition to its previous effects, this skill now knocks foes down for 1 additional second if the target is weakened.
July 10, 2018	The knockdown time of this skill has been increased from 2 seconds to 3 seconds.
January 26, 2016	The recharge of this skill has been reduced from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.
June 25, 2013	Reduced the aftercast by .25 seconds.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Backbreaker has been added to the game.

Trivia

• A Guild Wars skill bears the same name as this skill.