Mods, don't move this topic to item balancing please. Nobody reads that section. I want to get attention to this.
Before you -1, please read the arguments.
I am a long time maul user. I have used all mauls, mostly the great mauls, but also other mauls.
The change itself is this: before you overhead, you have to hold the attack for a second to allow a crushthrough. Else it will just bounce off. For every second you keep holding the maul, the damage you do is reduced (thus the chance of CT is also reduced). The initial damage was upped supposedly (but not sure by how much) compared to before the nerf.
Now, I am trying to figure out the reasoning behind this change. From asking around, I found a veeeeery disturbing mentality that says that mauls are group weapons and nothing more. The change in the maul seems to stem from this mentality. It completely kills any 1v1 capabilities the mauls had while leaving them as very slow, shorter, bar maces. On the other hand, in group fights where 1 second isn't as huge, mauls are not affected or even buffed-ish (due to the damage increase).
Great mauls are less affected due to weight, but mallets and peasant mauls (yes, there are people who actually use them) are absolutely devastated by this. This change completely killed 2 fun weapons. Great mauls are already far superior to mauls and mallets in group fights and their strength stemmed from their speed. Sure, you got the occasional bounce but now you can CT maybe one out of 10 overheads. GM suddenly became better both in 1v1 and group fights so gg any maul variety, welcome all maulers switching to great mauls.
That this change will kill variety and will cause everyone to switch to great mauls should be enough for you to oppose this change. However, the worst effect is that it changes our class (and mauler is a class) to something we didn't sign up for: support. I don't
want to be yet another support for 2h heroes to shine. This idiotic and disturbing mentality is that only 2h is deserving of being able to duel. Why? Just give me one reason why that should be the case. If people like to duel with mauls, why not let them?
"But I don't like dueling against mauls, boooo". Then you can choose not to press F. I do it frequently.
"But mauls are OP in duels". That is silly. Mauls are very easy to outspam. If I get an overhead on you it means you did something wrong. Maul overhead is one of the slowest attacks in the game.
tl;dr: maul change kills mauler variety, makes great mauls the only viable maul weapon and degrades mauls to yet another 2h support weapon.
Please reverse this change for the sake of variety, fun and choice. Even if you don't like mauls, surely you wouldn't like a place full of great mauls?