Curse

Kaon · Sep 20, 2009, 11:39 PM // 23:39

Distortion
Mantra of resolve
Escape
Lightning Reflexes
Natural Stride
Dark Escape
Balanced Stance
Disciplined Stance
Ether Prism
Return

Instant activation skill that give you a huge bonus and are practically unremovable. Remember wild blow used to have a 4 second recharge, outside that it's crap anyway. I've completely had it with stances. Some of these got justfully nerfed, but many remain of which I think balanced stance is the most retarded one. So basically I state:

Stances allow people to cover up their mistakes. It is a failsafe mechanism to protect the bad players, that prevents rewarding skillfull play. They are far too powerful and need to be rigorously reworked.

Stances are really something for rangers or perhaps warriors. I think stances on anything but frontliners are a completely wrong concept. When a monk or ele overextends he should die or drain the entire monks energy pool, but not use an invincibility button. Currently i'm mostly annoyed by monks carrying balanced stance and rangers carrying lightning reflexes. Rangers can now overextend 3 agro ranges out of monk range and still make it out alive. Balanced stance allows monk to be almost completely invulnerable to knockdowns, with only a few seconds of downtime where you're FORCED to make your kill (but then he just uses guardian and shielding hands). It's just stupid.

Ideally i'd see balanced stance and lightning reflexes removed from play but that's not going to happen so they should have their recharges dramatically increased.

Balanced stance should either have a 1 minute recharge, or last for 5-6 seconds.
Lightning reflexes needs to go back to its original 45 second recharge, it always used to be completely fine then.

Discuss.

Note: Spare me the ad hominems. I do realize I mostly play sin or hammer warrior, classes that rely heavily on knockdowns. That's the reason i'm so RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing pissed off about balanced stance, armor of sanctity was much nicer to play against. But the point remains that stances are just retardedly powerful, when I see a ranger overextend in our NPCs far away from his monks I know I won't be able to take him down on time. I could cope with nat stride (either get lucky, or count for the downtime) but LR just allows bad rangers to get away from bad positions. Balanced stance allows bad monks to survive impossible situations.

Demigod Heracles · Sep 20, 2009, 11:49 PM // 23:49

I'm cool with making stances less powerful. It promotes a position oriented game; something without stances will get stomped if he gets too far up. This is good.

However, I think stances should stay in until they remove shadow steps. Shadow steps nullify positioning. This is bad.

Feel free to disregard this post because I have a serious hatred for shadow steps.

edit; I see you included return which I didn't see the first time...I agree, especially since offensive shadow steps are still strong but not totally ridiculous but defensive shadow steps are still kind of dumb.

I Angra I · Sep 21, 2009, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demigod Heracles

I'm cool with making stances less powerful. It promotes a position oriented game; something without stances will get stomped if he gets too far up. This is good.

However, I think stances should stay in until they remove shadow steps. Shadow steps nullify positioning. This is bad.

Feel free to disregard this post because I have a serious hatred for shadow steps.

edit; I see you included return which I didn't see the first time...I agree, especially since offensive shadow steps are still strong but not totally ridiculous but defensive shadow steps are still kind of dumb.

I'd agree with this also, though another thing I'd like to point out that I'd be wary about is the fact that paragons exist, as well as rangers that have large amounts of damage.

Even through all this good positioning and no stance talk, it doesn't matter if you have good positioning, if there are paragons. They can kill you wherever, and without stances, they would be free to dps the hell out of you freely.

There would also be absolutely no way to mitigate poison spread and interrupts from rangers, if there were no stances and no aegis. That would make their potency go up even more also.

Lux Aeterna · Sep 21, 2009, 12:24 AM // 00:24

Balanced stance = OP
Kind of annoying, monks put up balanced stance and think they're great because they pressed a button and now are unkillable.

It's a bit like playing Bsurge or something, it's kind of an easy-button to shut people down without requiring skill.
Also I liked playing against original AoS because it was actually easy to counter, nice to see someone else think that.

sk1134 · Sep 21, 2009, 01:23 AM // 01:23

Quote:

It is a failsafe mechanism to protect the bad players, that prevents rewarding skillfull play.

a skillful player, such as i, would switch targets if they can't hit through blocking or get a knockdown off. you don't have to pound the crap out of a monk to win a match. monks as with all other classes have a finite amount of energy.

The Cake Archer · Sep 21, 2009, 02:54 AM // 02:54

I agree lets remove all these annoying stances, including ones such as frenzy, rush, and dash.

king_trouble · Sep 21, 2009, 03:25 AM // 03:25

I agree with sk1134, stances, if your target puts up a defensive stance while your attacking them just switch targets. If your a kd sin that rellies of kds, all your doing is shutting down a character and if you get a kill in then kudoos to you. If you don't like stances do a simple thing for pvp, get a team that knows how to pressure and spike and problem solved. =P

Darth The Xx · Sep 21, 2009, 04:39 AM // 04:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Cake Archer

I agree lets remove all these annoying stances, including ones such as frenzy, rush, and dash.

QFT cant nerf defensive stances unless you nerf offensive ones too. Sorry but you cant have the best of both worlds.

I do agree that balanced stance/lightning reflex need a nerf, defensive stances should be more shorter in duration. Something like 3-5 sec up time with 12-15 sec recharge.

Revelations · Sep 21, 2009, 04:45 AM // 04:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Darth The Xx

QFT cant nerf defensive stances unless you nerf offensive ones too.

Um... yes you can.

FoxBat · Sep 21, 2009, 05:16 AM // 05:16

Short duration stances like the current disciplined force frontline to play smarter to get around it, and monks that use the skill poorly/early suffer badly for it. Fire and forgets like LR and balanced are more problematic, but that's easy to fix with duration and recharge adjustments. The overall concept is alright (if not perfect), just a few broken stances to tweak. Besides what would you rather monks do with their secondary?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 21, 2009, 05:22 AM // 05:22

I don't think Natural Stride and Dark Escape are all that problematic, Disciplined Stance seems ok since it got nerfed as well.

I would agree on Lightning Reflexes, Balanced Stance and Distortion (even at 8r) being too powerful though.

Then again, Wastrel's Collapse sins are pretty dumb as well, any idiot can play the template.

Also, bring back Aegis.

lutz · Sep 21, 2009, 06:03 AM // 06:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Instant activation skill that give you a huge bonus and are practically unremovable. Remember wild blow used to have a 4 second recharge, outside that it's crap anyway. I've completely had it with stances. Some of these got justfully nerfed, but many remain of which I think balanced stance is the most retarded one. So basically I state:

Stances allow people to cover up their mistakes. It is a failsafe mechanism to protect the bad players, that prevents rewarding skillfull play. They are far too powerful and need to be rigorously reworked.

You're completely right. We should only be able to avoid the (basically imbalanced) knockdown mechanic by DShotting the knockdown.

In fact, we should change Balanced Stance so it requires skill. Every time you activate Balanced Stance you should be required to DShot a 3/4s cast, do a sequence of 15 simple arithmetic operations in under 5 seconds, answer 12 trivia questions about Tyria, followed by a quick test where you have to quarterknock a foe 4 times in a row. Only then should you be able to activate Balanced Stance.

Darth The Xx · Sep 21, 2009, 07:00 AM // 07:00

also surprised SPD isnt on that list, if all that was nerfed what do you think everybody would use O.o

komma · Sep 21, 2009, 07:18 AM // 07:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

I don't think Natural Stride and Dark Escape are all that problematic, Disciplined Stance seems ok since it got nerfed as well.

I would agree on Lightning Reflexes, Balanced Stance and Distortion (even at 8r) being too powerful though.

Shhhhh Distortion is just fine.

Ghost Dog · Sep 21, 2009, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by sk1134

a skillful player, such as i, would switch targets if they can't hit through blocking or get a knockdown off. you don't have to pound the crap out of a monk to win a match. monks as with all other classes have a finite amount of energy.

Pretty sure kaon doesn't need your "advice".

urania · Sep 21, 2009, 08:23 AM // 08:23

uhm, without stances on monks they'd basicaly explode to things such as quandruple kd warrirors and prages.
u complain about balanced stance? it has a 30 s recharge and it ends halfway, i dont consider that SO overpowered, especially since most of the teams (ok, least in TA) carry some sort of stance removal.
i think doliaks is more overpowered, but lets leave that for later on...

u wanna nerf stances? fine, but dont forget to nerf the offense back to how it was when ppl didnt need stances to survive - when there was no such thing as defile that punishes protting with guard more than not protting at all, for example. thank god at least rip was toned down a bit..

and btw kaon, return isnt a stance.

Cantos · Sep 21, 2009, 09:11 AM // 09:11

^^^ well Ether prism isnt a stance either, I'm reading this topic as being about 'panic buttons', not just stances literally.

I remember way back in factions playing against PUG and seeing sadi always running balanced stance. This was when everyone was Mo/A Blight. It was kind of like haha that's kind of annoying oh well, then we rolled them off the stand anyway. I mean, it's not like PUG were a super awesome team or anything, but it certainly wasnt an amazing overpowered skill that needed nerfing back then, none of the good teams used it.

Monks have had balanced stance forever and only recently people have started running it, and subsequently complaining about it. What exactly has changed?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 21, 2009, 09:30 AM // 09:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

You're completely right. We should only be able to avoid the (basically imbalanced) knockdown mechanic by DShotting the knockdown.

What imbalanced knockdown are you referring to? Shock and Wastrel's Collapse aside all KDs used by physical professions can be countered by blinds, miss hexes, block skills, aura of stability, etc.

My biggest problem with Balanced Stance is that it lasts so god damn long, half the monks that play it activate it AFTER getting KD'd, the fact that it's still good when used like this should give an indication of the power of the skill.

Make it recharge faster and only last for 1..3..4 seconds or something so you actually have to time it well rather than using it when a warrior looks in your direction and be protected from KDs for ~15 seconds.

I wouldn't mind toning down skills like Wastrel's Collapse and Shock a bit either if Aura of Stability gets hit too.

kedde · Sep 21, 2009, 11:12 AM // 11:12

I don't think Disciplined Stance is a problem anymore.
It lasts 1/5th of the recharge and you can draw it's use if the player is bad.

The rest I can agree with.
Someone terribly out of position needs to die if people react to it properly.

Positioning in this game seems to have gone from one of the top priorities to simply moving 7/8 players around the map in a big clump whenever the opponent does the same thing.

I'm also surprised you didn't mention Stability.
I hate the skill and have always dreaded the concept of directly countering knockdowns.

Yes I'm aware that knockdowns are incredibly powerful at this point in the game, change those a bit as well, but for the love of whomever, RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing kill this skill.

It shouldn't be that easy to counter kd's, but neither should building up for a kd chain be so easy.

Borat_Best_Player · Sep 21, 2009, 01:19 PM // 13:19

Return is a spell, not a stance, so your thread is invalid!

(Prism is a "stancy" skill)

But yeah, simply renaming this thread: block stances would cut it.

Dark escape is hardly OP. It protects you against 1 spike every 30 seconds. All the other skills should be tomed down, starting with Imba Reflexes for Rangers. (11 seconds 33% IAS and 75% block every 30 seconds, lolwut?)