Curse

moriz · Sep 24, 2009, 06:20 PM // 18:20

i think the main problem with these stances is that they are too reactionary. they are still effective even if used after the fact.

they need to become more proactive. as in, they are only effective if used just prior to a hit landing.

Reverend Dr · Sep 24, 2009, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

http://www.gw-memorial.net/nav/b_mat_i.php?id=256
http://www.gw-memorial.net/nav/b_mat_i.php?id=208
http://www.gw-memorial.net/nav/b_mat_i.php?id=193

High-armored targets and Aegis chains existed at the same time.

OH MY GOD! Their build has TWO warriors AND a ranger!!?!?!? I've never seen that before in my life

Builds need defense. Aegis fills some of that. High armor fills some of that. Stances fill some of that. Lose one and to keep the same level of defense you have to add more elsewhere, its not exactly rocket science. Giving up defense in GW is usually a very bad move. This game has so much offensive powercreep that you really don't need all that much to score a kill, might as well bring just as much offense as necessary and then fill the rest with defense.

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Of course there are other problems that just boost stance potential and effectiveness, such as the current Heal monks there is simply way too much red bar potential even after you fake out a stance or land skills at opportune times, this wasn't the case before woh/patient.

In the old days getting someone to around 25% health meant something. But then again back then before a lot of the powercreep, it was much harder to get someone below 25% health. Current red barring power really has dropped a lot of the need for effective protting.

lutz · Sep 24, 2009, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Reverend Dr

OH MY GOD! Their build has TWO warriors AND a ranger!!?!?!? I've never seen that before in my life

Builds need defense. Aegis fills some of that. High armor fills some of that. Stances fill some of that. Lose one and to keep the same level of defense you have to add more elsewhere, its not exactly rocket science. Giving up defense in GW is usually a very bad move. This game has so much offensive powercreep that you really don't need all that much to score a kill, might as well bring just as much offense as necessary and then fill the rest with defense.

In the old days getting someone to around 25% health meant something. But then again back then before a lot of the powercreep, it was much harder to get someone below 25% health. Current red barring power really has dropped a lot of the need for effective protting.

The whole point was that "losing Aegis" didn't lead to "high armored targets", because they existed at the same time.
Also, I don't think you realize that rawrspike was centered around high armored targets. 2 warriors, a ranger, a rit with +24 armor from the pot and +10 from insignias, a mesmer with armor insignias that never left shield set, monks with specced Tactics shields... have you been to GvG in the past year?

However, your point is valid, and it's the point I'm pushing across. Stances are necessary. If anything, buff the amount of stance removals (maybe 1 or 2 more - there are already a lot of viable options out there like Wild Throw and Whirling Axe) - don't nerf the stances. As it is, Wild Throw requires Balanced Stance to be used almost perfectly to work. If you don't twitch the knockdown, you're pretty much going to get chain knocked.

Kaon · Sep 24, 2009, 10:55 PM // 22:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

However, your point is valid, and it's the point I'm pushing across. Stances are necessary.

Wait, i'm sorry but i'm not getting you. Why are stances necessary?

Also on anyone saying wild throw owns balanced stance:

How much wild throw owns balanced stance is up for debate, but even if it's godalmighty against it, it is - completely - irrelevant. The moment i'm forced to dedicate 1 of my 64 skillslots just, with the ONLY purpose of shutting down 1 of your skillslots, then we're talking about overpowered skills. Wild throw will never 100% shutdown balanced stance, it's always going to have use, so I will never use my skillslot as well as you do. Next to that, i'm of the opinion wild throw isn't really good against balanced stance because by the time i've removed his stance i've made my target so clear it's swarming with prots. Not to mention I have to dedicate a profession and slot for the stupid skill.

lutz · Sep 24, 2009, 11:11 PM // 23:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Wait, i'm sorry but i'm not getting you. Why are stances necessary?

Also on anyone saying wild throw owns balanced stance:

How much wild throw owns balanced stance is up for debate, but even if it's godalmighty against it, it is - completely - irrelevant. The moment i'm forced to dedicate 1 of my 64 skillslots just, with the ONLY purpose of shutting down 1 of your skillslots, then we're talking about overpowered skills. Wild throw will never 100% shutdown balanced stance, it's always going to have use, so I will never use my skillslot as well as you do. Next to that, i'm of the opinion wild throw isn't really good against balanced stance because by the time i've removed his stance i've made my target so clear it's swarming with prots. Not to mention I have to dedicate a profession and slot for the stupid skill.

Wild Throw actually counters 4/64 skill slots. I mean, of course, if one of your monks don't decide to run a stance, maybe 3/64. If your ranger doesn't run Lightning Reflexes or Natural Stride, 2/64. If Mantra of Resolve or Pious Concentration isn't run, then 1/64. Also, Wild Throw can be pretty flexibly run on a paragon, or run on a warrior. If you're in TA, it's pretty common to see mesmers and rangers run Wild Throw as well.

What you're really saying is:

BALANCED STANCE IS JUST GODMODE AND CAN NOT BE BEAT

Kaon, every point you've brought up lately is just plain incorrect. Balanced Stance helps monks not instantly explode to 3 melee characters running up to it and instantly killing it (though, if you have Wild Throw, that still might happen anyway). There needs to be some check to help keep monks alive. Without these stances, monks are going to need additional support, and you'll be right back here whining about people running super midline defense builds. You simply can't stay up at stand without a certain amount of defense. If you don't have monks contribute to it, you're going to have midline contribute to it, and the overall offensiveness of builds is going to drop dramatically.

Reverend Dr · Sep 24, 2009, 11:59 PM // 23:59

The only time stances have ever really worked well has been in synergy with frenzy.

scruffy · Sep 25, 2009, 05:15 AM // 05:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Balanced Stance is up less than 50% of the time. If Balanced Stance is affecting you so that you can only knock a monk 20% of the time (yielding 80% "Balanced Stance"), then you're probably playing a warrior incorrectly.

Assume it takes 15 seconds to gain adrenaline on a hammer warrior on average (which is reasonable imo), and assume he's using the stance properly only when you activate your knockdown. Unless you wait the stance's full duration to unload your adrenaline, you have ~0 seconds to knock him down depending on spec. This is okay for spike-based play where you only need to spike once every 15 seconds or so and can afford the wait, but for pressure you cannot afford to be waiting like this, you only have seconds to capitalize on minutes of work. Sure, you can do neat tricks with enraging charge and do 2 combos in a row if hes not protted, but the timing of your knockdowns in that situation is up to him. This is the real power of balanced stance and other stances like it, they eliminate entire windows of opportunity at the users choosing. Naturally they affect split and pressure builds more than spike. Maybe thats an indication that it's one of the reasons why physical pressure builds are non-existant, and split builds only win by the tiebreaker. (double paragon builds aside, they have issues of their own)

So, the only way to offset his usage of balanced stance is to wait lengthy periods of time without using adrenaline and do neat tricks with enraging charge timing, in which case he will adjust to your new pattern and make you wait another 15 seconds holding adrenaline the next time too for the rest of the game. Next thing you know the hammer warrior is camping the prot monk for the entire game waiting for balanced stance to end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

So, a Balanced Stance that's 3 seconds long with 6 second recharge would be balanced?
or 5 seconds long with a 10 second recharge?

50% is "okay", then? I mean, shit, according to you, your only problem with Balanced Stance is that it's 15 seconds long with a 30 second recharge.

no the uptime ratio on balanced stance is also overpowered, but thats a separate issue from stances in general.

3 uptime/15 recharge is a pretty good model for stances like this, that way if used skillfully they are worth bringing but not good enough that you could literally hit the button on recharge and it would still be semi useful.

the problem with long lasting stances in general is that they cover entire windows (more like holes in the wall) of opportunity at practically no cost(its almost always up when you need it anyways, unless the warrior waits a full 15 seconds - which kills physical pressure and encourages spike)

then again I have the bias that stances should be balanced to supplement passive defense rather than act as stand alone defense so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Does anyone else find it ironic that this skill is called 'balanced' stance? heh-heh-heh.

lutz · Sep 25, 2009, 06:51 AM // 06:51

Quote:

Originally Posted by scruffy

Assume it takes 15 seconds to gain adrenaline on a hammer warrior on average (which is reasonable imo), and assume he's using the stance properly only when you activate your knockdown. Unless you wait the stance's full duration to unload your adrenaline, you have ~0 seconds to knock him down depending on spec. This is okay for spike-based play where you only need to spike once every 15 seconds or so and can afford the wait, but for pressure you cannot afford to be waiting like this, you only have seconds to capitalize on minutes of work. Sure, you can do neat tricks with enraging charge and do 2 combos in a row if hes not protted, but the timing of your knockdowns in that situation is up to him. This is the real power of balanced stance and other stances like it, they eliminate entire windows of opportunity at the users choosing. Naturally they affect split and pressure builds more than spike. Maybe thats an indication that it's one of the reasons why physical pressure builds are non-existant, and split builds only win by the tiebreaker. (double paragon builds aside, they have issues of their own)

So, the only way to offset his usage of balanced stance is to wait lengthy periods of time without using adrenaline and do neat tricks with enraging charge timing, in which case he will adjust to your new pattern and make you wait another 15 seconds holding adrenaline the next time too for the rest of the game. Next thing you know the hammer warrior is camping the prot monk for the entire game waiting for balanced stance to end.

no the uptime ratio on balanced stance is also overpowered, but thats a separate issue from stances in general.

3 uptime/15 recharge is a pretty good model for stances like this, that way if used skillfully they are worth bringing but not good enough that you could literally hit the button on recharge and it would still be semi useful.

the problem with long lasting stances in general is that they cover entire windows (more like holes in the wall) of opportunity at practically no cost(its almost always up when you need it anyways, unless the warrior waits a full 15 seconds - which kills physical pressure and encourages spike)

then again I have the bias that stances should be balanced to supplement passive defense rather than act as stand alone defense so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Does anyone else find it ironic that this skill is called 'balanced' stance? heh-heh-heh.

Right, because there's absolutely nobody else to hit when the monk has Balanced Stance up. You're just going to have to sit there doing absolutely nothing with 100% adrenaline. You have to hit the monk. There's no midline or frontline to hit. It's just warriors versus monks.

Balanced Stance doesn't block anything, and it doesn't reduce damage by a significant amount. You can still hit something that has Balanced Stance on it, and you can still do damage. The only thing the monk prevents with Balanced Stance is you knocking him down for 3 seconds. Unless, of course, you believe that anyone who wants to run a skill and a secondary specifically against a (primarily) warrior effect (which doesn't even prevent significant damage) shouldn't be able to. Hammer warriors have become increasingly reliant on being able to knock down their opponents, largely due to Flail and Enraging Charge instead of Frenzy and Rush nowadays. As a result, Balanced Stance has become more popular due to this change.

A bigger problem is probably Aura of Stability, since it has a similar uptime but can be used on anybody, which is another issue altogether.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 25, 2009, 07:24 AM // 07:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Right, because there's absolutely nobody else to hit when the monk has Balanced Stance up. You're just going to have to sit there doing absolutely nothing with 100% adrenaline. You have to hit the monk. There's no midline or frontline to hit. It's just warriors versus monks.

The point is that as long as the monks are free to cast it's very hard to kill shit as 5e (WoH or RC) can push most bars back to full/near full.

Basically you're left with spiking, doing lord damage or running some kind of hex build that punishes monks for casting and/or makes healing less efficient.

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Balanced Stance doesn't block anything, and it doesn't reduce damage by a significant amount. You can still hit something that has Balanced Stance on it, and you can still do damage. The only thing the monk prevents with Balanced Stance is you knocking him down for 3 seconds.

I believe it lasts 15 seconds, sure you can switch targets but that doesn't change the fact that YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY KNOCK HIM DOWN.

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Unless, of course, you believe that anyone who wants to run a skill and a secondary specifically against a (primarily) warrior effect (which doesn't even prevent significant damage) shouldn't be able to.

That's a terrible argument, KDs are very powerful yes, counters should exist against it yes, Balanced Stance is way too easy to use and too effective even when used randomly/on recharge.

And it's not like going /W and speccing into tactics isn't a good thing for a monk anyway.

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A bigger problem is probably Aura of Stability, since it has a similar uptime but can be used on anybody, which is another issue altogether.

Additionaly it can be removed and requires being cast, and it can't actually be used on anybody as you can't use it on yourself.

Aura is arguably problematic as well, but at least it requires a little more thought and planning to use than Balanced Stance and can be removed easily by a large number of skills of which pretty much every build packs at least one.

lutz · Sep 25, 2009, 07:31 AM // 07:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

The point is that as long as the monks are free to cast it's very hard to kill shit as 5e (WoH or RC) can push most bars back to full/near full.

Basically you're left with spiking, doing lord damage or running some kind of hex build that punishes monks for casting and/or makes healing less efficient.

I believe it lasts 15 seconds, sure you can switch targets but that doesn't change the fact that YOU CAN'T ACTUALLY KNOCK HIM DOWN.

That's a terrible argument, KDs are very powerful yes, counters should exist against it yes, Balanced Stance is way too easy to use and too effective even when used randomly/on recharge.

And it's not like going /W and speccing into tactics isn't a good thing for a monk anyway.

Additionaly it can be removed and requires being cast, and it can't actually be used on anybody as you can't use it on yourself.

Aura is arguably problematic as well, but at least it requires a little more thought and planning to use than Balanced Stance and can be removed easily by a large number of skills of which pretty much every build packs at least one.

I still don't understand what's wrong about not being able to knock one single person down less than 50% of the time, or having a skill that's incredibly easy to counter considering the viable skills/builds in this meta.

Should you not be able to avoid chain knockdowns?

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 25, 2009, 07:43 AM // 07:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

I still don't understand what's wrong about not being able to knock one single person down less than 50% of the time, or having a skill that's incredibly easy to counter considering the viable skills/builds in this meta.

Should you not be able to avoid chain knockdowns?

15/30 is 50% of the time last I checked.

There's other ways of avoiding chain KDs that aren't hard counters and that actually involve more than pressing one button and having 5 energy.

You could you know, blind (blurred) the warrior, guardian (warding) his target, interrupt the KD.

Wild Throw and Whirling Axe are the only somewhat viable skills atm, Wild Throw is very likely to miss when used by a paragon since it's so easy to dodge spears on hammer warriors it's not so bad but it forces you to run a specific bar to counter 1 skill. The problem with Whirling Axe is that you can't have it on a Primal Rage bar.

KDs, especially non attack based ones are on the strong side and I wouldn't mind to see small nerfs to skills like Shock and Wastrel's Collapse. Balanced Stance however is pretty out of whack too, it's even a decent skill to bring if the other team has 0 KDs just because of immunity to crits and having a specced shield is pretty damn useful for a monk.

I still don't understand how stances are apparently desirable defense and Aegis isn't. As a guild that primarily plays pressure builds we much preferred playing against Aegis monks as that could actually be stopped.

urania · Sep 25, 2009, 08:03 AM // 08:03

at Mitch, so its np for aura, since your team always always carries enchant removal, but its not ok for balanced stance, since u dont wanna bring stance removal too.
stances have been hit once already and are cool as they are. especially since we have this thing called shadow stepping and 3-4 kd hammer warrios and prages yada yada.
at the end, running wild blow on prage is viewable too.

lutz · Sep 25, 2009, 08:12 AM // 08:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

15/30 is 50% of the time last I checked.

There's other ways of avoiding chain KDs that aren't hard counters and that actually involve more than pressing one button and having 5 energy.

You could you know, blind (blurred) the warrior, guardian (warding) his target, interrupt the KD.

Wild Throw and Whirling Axe are the only somewhat viable skills atm, Wild Throw is very likely to miss when used by a paragon since it's so easy to dodge spears on hammer warriors it's not so bad but it forces you to run a specific bar to counter 1 skill. The problem with Whirling Axe is that you can't have it on a Primal Rage bar.

KDs, especially non attack based ones are on the strong side and I wouldn't mind to see small nerfs to skills like Shock and Wastrel's Collapse. Balanced Stance however is pretty out of whack too, it's even a decent skill to bring if the other team has 0 KDs just because of immunity to crits and having a specced shield is pretty damn useful for a monk.

I still don't understand how stances are apparently desirable defense and Aegis isn't. As a guild that primarily plays pressure builds we much preferred playing against Aegis monks as that could actually be stopped.

15/30 is 50%, but 14/30 is <50%. I'm pretty sure most monks don't actually run 9 spec.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Balanced_Stance

If you've read before, Wild Throw and Whirling Axe counters a lot more than just one skill. It counters Natural Stride, Lightning Reflexes, Pious Concentration, Balanced Stance, Disciplined Stance, Distortion and any other stances that you could possibly want to remove. Whirling Axe being "not available on a Primal Rage bar" ... I won't even comment.

Defensive stances aren't really brought on midline casters (other than E/Me Distortion templates), and really should then help your team be able to push midlines harder than when Aegis was around. Balanced Stance doesn't really help all that much against axe warriors, and if removed, leaves your monks extraordinarily vulnerable. In addition, stances require a lot more skill investments than Aegis did.

The whole argument that "you can put it up for 15 seconds and just prot yourself for the other 15 seconds", by the way, is a really bad argument, so please stop making it. (this isn't directed towards Mitch; it's towards Kaon and Feanor)

Kaon · Sep 25, 2009, 09:32 AM // 09:32

I don't understand what makes you say it's up 50% of the time. It isn't. In reality it's up like 30% of the time, but as scruffy mentioned, it's effectively up 80% of the time.

I hope you're not RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing serious with your switching target argument because that is direct proof of the stance being overpowered. A 5energy instant use always up skill that forces me to switch targets? Very balanced indeed. For your information lutz, hitting anything but the monk is completely pointless because it will just receive easy prots and heal. Yes it's possible to spike something out while the monk is knocked down, but that's precisly the goddamn problem. YOU CANT. Then there are the countless situations where the monk is the only character you want to kill, like when you're collapsing from a split. Seeing the monk holding up for 30seconds against a 6-7 offensive team is just a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing joke.

If this makes you say that actually RC, superprots, and WoH are the problem because they force us to hit the monks and the monks only, then you are completely right. They are the most overpowered skills in the game.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 25, 2009, 10:05 AM // 10:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

at Mitch, so its np for aura, since your team always always carries enchant removal, but its not ok for balanced stance, since u dont wanna bring stance removal too.

There are about 84523759348576396 forms of enchantment removal, there are 4 forms of stance removal 2 of which are pretty much completely unviable, the other two are an elite and a very specific skill that requires you to run a paragon or a hammer w/p.

And I never said Aura was fine, I said it was less deserving of a nerf than Balanced Stance.

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stances have been hit once already and are cool as they are. especially since we have this thing called shadow stepping and 3-4 kd hammer warrios and prages yada yada.
at the end, running wild blow on prage is viewable too.

Oh, stances have been hit before, that must mean they're fine then right??? Lingering Curse was hit like 4 times and it's still a good skill.

No hammer warrior runs 4 KDs, out of the 3 KDs they do run, 1 is conditional and widely considered as the paramount example of a well balanced and skillful skill and all 3 have to actually hit the target to KD it, there are plenty of ways to prevent a warrior from hitting, using any number of them wouldn't be a problem nor would it reduce variety.

Not really sure where shadow stepping and primal rage fit into this discussion, I agree they're overpowered though (Primal Rage at least, I don't agree with the concept of shadow stepping but I don't think any of the shadow steps are particulary broken atm).

None of the future changes will matter for you anyway as TA will get removed next update anyway and that's all you ever base your arguments on in the first place.

And Kaon is 100% right that monk skills (mainly WoH) are the root of the problem, if those get toned down I wouldn't care so much about Balanced Stance, right now it makes it insanely hard to kill shit in any other way than spiking or running hexes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

15/30 is 50%, but 14/30 is <50%. I'm pretty sure most monks don't actually run 9 spec.

Unless they have a r7 shield they should, risking an 8 armor loss by getting weakened because you spec 1 less into an attribute is pretty retarded.

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If you've read before, Wild Throw and Whirling Axe counters a lot more than just one skill. It counters Natural Stride, Lightning Reflexes, Pious Concentration, Balanced Stance, Disciplined Stance, Distortion and any other stances that you could possibly want to remove. Whirling Axe being "not available on a Primal Rage bar" ... I won't even comment.

How exactly does it counter Pious Concentration, Distortion and Disciplined Stance? Are you really this thick? Natural Stride is fine, there's other counters to it that are a lot more accessible, Lightning Reflexes and Balanced Stance are really the only stances worth using stance removal on, because they're too strong.

Running any axe/sword warrior and not running Primal Rage is severly gimping yourself, basically when people choose a different elite over Eviscerate en masse, you know there's something wrong.

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Defensive stances aren't really brought on midline casters (other than E/Me Distortion templates), and really should then help your team be able to push midlines harder than when Aegis was around. Balanced Stance doesn't really help all that much against axe warriors, and if removed, leaves your monks extraordinarily vulnerable. In addition, stances require a lot more skill investments than Aegis did.

Are you even aware of the builds that are winning right now? It's either split builds that don't care much about wether or not they can hold up 8v8 as long as they can do lord damage and survive a push on their backline, builds with a lot of high armored targets (usually little to no midline casters) that don't really need stances anyway (sometimes combined with skills like Stand Your Ground) and then there's defensive spike builds which have enough defense to not need stances on midliners, and the monks run stances in EVERY single build.

How does balanced stance not help against axe warriors? Last I checked they had 2 KDs too and rely on them for a big part to score kills/create pressure.

I'm not really sure how an extra 8 armor makes a monk more vulnerable either, if Aegis gets removed/interrupted a Mo/E is a lot more vulnerable than a Mo/W with or without stance, it's also a lot more likely to happen than a stance getting removed.

Stances require a certain attribute investment (though Balanced Stance actually has a pretty solid duration at little to no spec too) you do however get a permanent unremovable 8 extra armor in return for said investment, I'm not sure if you've played this game lately, but more armor is a pretty big deal.

Stances are too much of a panic button and too effective at that, it allows you to save yourself when you screwed up, try getting off an Aegis in that situation.

urania · Sep 25, 2009, 01:34 PM // 13:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

I don't understand what makes you say it's up 50% of the time. It isn't. In reality it's up like 30% of the time, but as scruffy mentioned, it's effectively up 80% of the time.

I hope you're not RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing serious with your switching target argument because that is direct proof of the stance being overpowered. A 5energy instant use always up skill that forces me to switch targets? Very balanced indeed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kaon

Seeing the monk holding up for 30seconds against a 6-7 offensive team is just a RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing joke.

that's WoH+patient power.
and some additional heal from spirits/prot was kaolai.
without woh as it now, teams would literally explode if running ZB, for example.
Solution in case woh gets hit hard: more healers/defense.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

There are about 84523759348576396 forms of enchantment removal, there are 4 forms of stance removal 2 of which are pretty much completely unviable, the other two are an elite and a very specific skill that requires you to run a paragon or a hammer w/p.

And I never said Aura was fine, I said it was less deserving of a nerf than Balanced Stance.

there can be 2634275416 of ench removal, yet most teams carry max two, right?
right. Two very specific removals, even, cuz must suck.

wild blow seems very viewable on prage, so does wild throw on hammer.
unless u wanna run shock or iron palm on hammer as 4th kd, which happened to be pretty common (and super annoying) some time ago in TA.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Oh, stances have been hit before, that must mean they're fine then right??? Lingering Curse was hit like 4 times and it's still a good skill.

No hammer warrior runs 4 KDs, out of the 3 KDs they do run, 1 is conditional and widely considered as the paramount example of a well balanced and skillful skill and all 3 have to actually hit the target to KD it, there are plenty of ways to prevent a warrior from hitting, using any number of them wouldn't be a problem nor would it reduce variety.

Not really sure where shadow stepping and primal rage fit into this discussion, I agree they're overpowered though (Primal Rage at least, I don't agree with the concept of shadow stepping but I don't think any of the shadow steps are particulary broken atm).

as said, iron palm or shock as the 4th kd was fairly popular some time ago, only in TA though, it seems. for now.

given the fact that one cannot really kite effectively from a prage and therefore becomes an easy bulls "victim", you could consider balanced stance as a very secure solution for those little buggers.
here's some typical shadow steps that make prot impossible: wastrels collapse on sins, death charge (on hammer warrirors, for example).

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

None of the future changes will matter for you anyway as TA will get removed next update anyway and that's all you ever base your arguments on in the first place.

And Kaon is 100% right that monk skills (mainly WoH) are the root of the problem, if those get toned down I wouldn't care so much about Balanced Stance, right now it makes it insanely hard to kill shit in any other way than spiking or running hexes.

i did my share of gvg too, so im not basing my arguments solely on my TA exp, but the formats are similar in certain ways anyway.

yeah, woh is too strong (and ZB, in contrast, too weak), but so is patient - its actually worth using over woh (after its slight nerf) as long as the target isnt beneath 50 %, which is kind of ironic, considering its not even an elite.
but like many posters said, kill those two and leave rest as it is and most ppl will bring more defense in whatever form to compensate for the loss.

Quote:

Originally Posted by IMMORTAlMITCH

Stances are too much of a panic button and too effective at that, it allows you to save yourself when you screwed up, try getting off an Aegis in that situation.

as said, as long as there's things like shadow stepping, prage and similar, stances need to exists too. In their current state.

scruffy · Sep 25, 2009, 03:40 PM // 15:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by lutz

Right, because there's absolutely nobody else to hit when the monk has Balanced Stance up. You're just going to have to sit there doing absolutely nothing with 100% adrenaline. You have to hit the monk. There's no midline or frontline to hit. It's just warriors versus monks.

That's precisely why the skill is overpowered, man. It forces you to not spike the monk for an entire 15 seconds. If they have a bsurge or something you would spike him instead, but if they are running the double paragon build the monks are the only people really worth spiking, aside from warriors. That's not what I'm arguing about, though.

This discussion is straying from my original argument that the stance is up when the monk become the other teams primary focus, when they -have- to knock him down. I never said that if they just arbitrarily spike him it will always be recharged.

(Cool trick for hammer warriors btw, if you can get their monks using balanced stance on different intervals, so that one's starts just as the other one's ends, you can go back and forth spiking each one every time you get adrenaline without waiting at all. Try and avoid them both using balanced stance at the same time, so you always have at least 1 to spike.)

I'm not claiming that balanced stance is actually up all the time, and I'm not claiming that there aren't ways to deal with it, but the skill totally gives the shaft to pressure and split builds who have stricter limits on who they can hit at specific times to produce results.

Obviously the skill isn't actually up 100% of the time, the point is that once you factor in things like gaining adrenaline and waiting for prots/weapons to wear off there is very little time if any to actually do anything. This is where the lol wild throw lol corrupt enchant mesmer argument comes in I guess.

I Angra I · Sep 25, 2009, 04:45 PM // 16:45

I haven't read a lot of this thread, and I know I already posted on the first page but I just want to summarize some of my opinion on the matter still from what I've scanned over, even if it's been said already..

Stances are used heavily for two reasons at the moment: 1, because there are no other viable options against physical damage, and 2, because skillbars have become so much more potent in what they do either offensively or defensively, that you can afford to fit stances everywhere because you only need 5-6 skills rather than a full 7-8 to accomplish the job a bar is designed to do.

However, if you don't have stances, aegis needs to be back in the game, or other passive/active defense needs to be buffed back to an at least usable level, for example ward against melee. There's no other way around this. It's either one or the other (or both I guess, but not the best option), but having neither of them won't work.

One of the reasons stances have become so important, in addition to aegis being gone, is because characters like bsurges and water eles have become so much less effective in terms of shutdown. Yes they help, but there are a ton of things brought these days (heavy enchant strips, life sheath/rc, cure hex, spotless mind, pnh, etc) that reduce their effectiveness, including ranger interrupts that are able to hit everything because there is no aegis and you cannot blind rangers (mendtouch). Even things like cripshot, a long time ago, worked for melee shutdown because you could cover it with poison. Now almost every condi removal being used besides dismiss condition removes multiple conditions, so covering cripple has absolutely no effect anymore.

On the subject of balanced stance/hammer warriors, hammer warriors are insanely powerful in recent times. While I think balanced stance could use a small nerf, I don't think making it unviable will be good whatsoever. Hammer warriors became superpowered after nightfall because of flail, but at least there was still aegis then to deal with it. However, then magehunter's smash was buffed, and you could kd a monk on a spike no matter what, all the time, unless you had perfect blinds on the hammer war every single kd (nice joke). Without balanced stance in the game preventing at least some knockdowns, monks will be just raped into the ground because of the power of hammer warriors. Aura of stability, while powerful, isn't an option by itself to prevent hammer warriors from stomping all over monks.

So while removing all powerful stances from the game is an interesting idea, in the context of how the game is at present, it seems really silly. There needs to be a lot of other changes to how the meta and game is at present before you can just go changing a huge part of the game like stances, which are so heavily used because every other viable shutdown option against physical damage has been taken out.

As an ending note, I do agree however, that lightning reflexes is way too powerful and warrants a nerf without needing to change anything else like previously mentioned.

IMMORTAlMITCH · Sep 25, 2009, 04:46 PM // 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by urania

that's WoH+patient power.
and some additional heal from spirits/prot was kaolai.
without woh as it now, teams would literally explode if running ZB, for example.
Solution in case woh gets hit hard: more healers/defense.

Primal Rage and some hexes need a hit too obviously, and reverting Aegis, buffing LoD and bringing some passive defense/party healing that's actually prone to shutdown back will compensate for the loss of WoH against the builds that are being run currently (the non split builds at least).

Builds that lack shut down are going to have a lot harder time dealing with these skills, paragons are pretty out of whack in terms of 8v8 damage output AND spike potential atm.

Quote:

there can be 2634275416 of ench removal, yet most teams carry max two, right?
right. Two very specific removals, even, cuz must suck.

Rend, Strip, Rip, Drain are the most popular, Shatter and PoD still see a decent amount of play too.

The difference between stance removal and enchantment removal is that the former more or less defines your character build and is a hard counter that isn't very versatile whereas the latter is something you bring regardless because of the broad range of enchantments that see play it will always be useful.

Quote:

wild blow seems very viewable on prage, so does wild throw on hammer.
unless u wanna run shock or iron palm on hammer as 4th kd, which happened to be pretty common (and super annoying) some time ago in TA.

Viewable? I assume you mean viable, I've never seen a Primal Rage warrior with Wild Blow, maybe it's how TA warriors choose to gimp their bars, in GvG however you'll have to cancel your Primal Rage before using Wild Blow or you'll simply get spiked without being able to cancel it, not to mention losing DChop/Agonising and having another energy skill with only 2 pips to fuel them.

I don't really care much about TA, apparently neither does Anet, you've got your Dolyak Signet to deal with knockdowns anyway, nerfing Balanced Stance wouldn't really make much of a difference for TA.

Quote:

given the fact that one cannot really kite effectively from a prage and therefore becomes an easy bulls "victim", you could consider balanced stance as a very secure solution for those little buggers.

Or you could deal with Primal Rage and Balanced Stance simultaeniously by nerfing both, no one in their right mind would defend Primal Rage to begin with and the nerf to it did very little to it's viability.

Quote:

here's some typical shadow steps that make prot impossible: wastrels collapse on sins, death charge (on hammer warrirors, for example).

Wastrel's Collapse fair enough, I don't like the skill but as long as you keep a guardian or prot on you while in range of the sin and renew it before it runs out you should be relatively safe. It's not like the sin can actually pressure in between Wastrel's Collapses.

Death's Charge hammer warriors shouldn't really give you any problems, with the aftercasts to teleports it's quite easy to kite away and/or prot yourself before their attack actually hits.

Quote:

i did my share of gvg too, so im not basing my arguments solely on my TA exp, but the formats are similar in certain ways anyway.

When? In 2007 smurfing with vD?You haven't GvG'd much if at all lately and certainly not at a decent level of play. The formats are similar in that in both formats most people choose to play some overpowered gimmick, that's pretty much where the similarity stops.

Quote:

yeah, woh is too strong (and ZB, in contrast, too weak), but so is patient - its actually worth using over woh (after its slight nerf) as long as the target isnt beneath 50 %, which is kind of ironic, considering its not even an elite.

It's not so much ZB being too weak, WoH is simply much too strong, you could easily shave a 25 off of both heal numbers of WoH and the skill would still be the elite of choice for healing monks.

Patient is a different issue, it heals too much and the alternatives are actually underpowered (not just in comparison), tone it down and buff skills like Dwayna's Kiss, Words of Comfort and possibly even Orison of Healing (to heal more, leave them at 1c).

Quote:

but like many posters said, kill those two and leave rest as it is and most ppl will bring more defense in whatever form to compensate for the loss.

How is this such a bad thing? Just make sure said forms of defense are actually counterable and there's no problem, wards and aegis were, after a few adjustments, perfectly fine skills. It's things like Watch Yourself, Shields Up, Partygon skills (mending refrain is), Stand Your Ground, old PwK that were a problem.

Quote:

as said, as long as there's things like shadow stepping, prage and similar, stances need to exists too. In their current state.

How does Shadowstepping relate in any way to stances? Wastrel's Collapse aside, how are any of the shadow stepping skills even problematic atm? Primal Rage is broken, this is obvious to everyone that isn't employed by Anet or a member of rawr, what 'similar' skills are you referring to? Cause that's really pretty much it.

Revelations · Sep 25, 2009, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Angra I

characters like bsurges ... have become so much less effective in terms of shutdown.

Not entirely sure I agree with this. A couple of years ago there was a very distinguished line between a good bsurge and a bad one.

Now you can just throw one of your baddies on the bsurge and watch him happyspam his way through a match. Ele's have so much energy management now that without dom in the meta you can afford to spam on recharge, and what's more - you get good results for it.

OT: I would like to see some sort of passive defense back in the meta - it made it actually fun to play the game on a disruption oriented template, rather than just mashing your tab and savage keys. Part of the balanced stance problem that no one has really mentioned is enraging charge. I don't think you can just kill balanced at this stage without toning that down a decent amount also.