Skull Grinder

Primal Burst. Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions. — In-game description

Skull Grinder

Profession

Warrior (skill list)

Specialization

Berserker

Slot

Profession mechanic

Weapon

Mace

Type

Primal Burst

Game link

API

29679

“

0.5½  5  

Skull Grinder

Primal Burst. Unleash a powerful skull strike that dazes your target and inflicts multiple conditions.

  Damage: 550 (1.5)^?

  Damage: 367 (1.0)^?

  Blindness (5s): Next outgoing attack misses.

 ₄ Bleeding (8s): 704 Damage

 ₃ Bleeding (8s): 528 Damage

 ₄ Confusion (4s): 176 Damage, 198 Damage on Skill Use

 ₅ Confusion (3s): 165 Damage, 247 Damage on Skill Use

  Cripple (8s): -50% Movement Speed

  Cripple (5s): -50% Movement Speed

  Daze: 1 second

  Defiance Break: 100

  Range: 300

— In-game description

Related traits

Strength

• Building Momentum — Burst skills restore endurance on hit.
• Body Blow — Stuns, dazes, knockbacks, pulls, pushes, and launches inflict bleeding and weakness.
• Berserker's Power — Gain increased strike damage when you use a burst skill; this damage increase is based on your adrenaline.
• 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

• Unsuspecting Foe — Increased critical-hit chance against disabled or defiant foes. Disables include stun, daze, knockback, pull, knockdown, sink, float, launch, taunt, and fear.
• Sundering Burst — Burst skills inflict vulnerability if they hit and inflict additional vulnerability if the attack is a critical hit. Can only occur once per interval per target for multihit burst skills.
• Bloodlust — You have a chance to inflict bleeding on critical hits, and bleeds that you apply last longer.
• Burst Precision — Burst skills have an increased critical chance.

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.

Tactics

• Leg Specialist — Immobilize a target when you cripple them with a skill. Deal increased strike damage to foes affected with movement-impairing conditions.

Berserker

• Primal Rage — Gain access to berserk mode and primal bursts.
• King of Fires — Increase the duration of burning you apply. Gain fire aura when you critically hit an enemy. Berserker skills detonate fire aura, damaging and burning nearby foes.

Version history

For a detailed skill history, see here.

Patch	Changes
February 28, 2022	End of Dragons release: (Undocumented) Added tooltip fact Defiance Break.
July 07, 2020	Icons for daze and stun are now displayed in light purple in skill and trait tooltips.
February 25, 2020	Competitive content update: (Competitive split) Reduced bleeding stacks from 4 to 3. Reduced cripple duration from 8 seconds to 5 seconds.
May 08, 2018	The bleeding this skill inflicts is no longer split between game modes and will now use the higher duration of 4 stacks for 8 seconds in all modes.
February 06, 2018	The previous PvP split of this skill has been extended to WvW, with confusion now added to the list of split conditions. Confusion application has been modified from 4 stacks for 4 seconds to 5 stacks for 3 seconds.
May 17, 2017	The blast finisher delivered by this attack has been removed, as indicated in the original release note.
May 16, 2017	The damage of this skill has been reduced by 33%. Bleeding has been reduced from 4 stacks for 8 seconds to 3 stacks for 6 seconds. The blast finisher on this skill has been removed. All changes apply to PvP only.
October 23, 2015	Heart of Thorns release: Skull Grinder has been added to the game.