Very simply, the skill is either bugged or it sucks, but it’s bugged.
The armor break supposedly inflicted by this skill subtracts a flat value, as opposed to a percentage, like the real armor break status inflicted by every other skill.
it’s only 10% armor break.
Yes, it sucks now that’s why there are builds that leave it only at HL C2. Builds that go HLC3 are those wanting vertical slash
I wonder who made up the idea of giving this skill a very short duration with very long cd as opposed to devaluate/umbo thrust
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The skill was fine a long time ago when Swordmen armor break durations were based on the number of point you putted in it.
After combat system changes, we obtained the best armor break on the defensive class with better cd/duration/OH and damage if other ranks are taken into account (murmillo).
Highlander need a lot of love with better class flexibility:
- Cross guards with any 2 handed weapons? it works mounted but no class can use 2 Handed swords mounted
- Reducing moulinet/Skull swing cd to match their combo pieces (30 for the first one and 25 sec for the second one)
- A better skills management with mount: Skyliner yes and crosscut no? Skull swing yes and vertical slash no?
- A better uptime for crosscut like removing the OH but drastically reducing the cd
With peltasta changes, highlander feels so left out 
Yeah still waiting a rebalance/buff on skull swing, Highlander and barb deserve more love.
Yeah I was HL3>Barb1 prior to Shinobi bunshin changes but I was vastly disappointed with Skull Swing, I switched to SW3 Barb 2.
Although HL3 does provide a decent amount of filler options to go with since anyone playing shinobi for a long time would know that bunshins scale badly on high end content, it’s more like x2-x3 of your actual skills rather than x5-x6 total.
I like both Highlander and Barbarian too, and agree both left out of the balancing circle because they somewhat feels “balanced” or strong despite being a class rank 2 and 3 classes. In my opinion HL needs a few changes, but not a serious rebalance, only increasing debuff durations, decreasing cooldowns, more overheats, etc would be enough, but ofcourse more is appreciated. Barb on the otherhand has problems: Embowel, Stomping Kick, Pouncing, Giant Swing are HARDLY, NO RARELY used skills, most of the players neglect these skills because these are less interesting and are more of a utility skill, situational. BARB needs more love :3