Curse

LifeInfusion · Aug 29, 2005, 04:55 PM // 16:55

I tend to use tactics for "Watch yourself!", Bonetti's Defense, and of course Healing Signet. I tend to have a bias against energy heavy skills on a warrior, which is why “Watch Yourself!” is rather useful with its 4 adrenaline cost.

Here is a comparison between the baseline for most shields (9 tactics) and the most Tactics you can get , which is 16 (12 +3+1) which basically requires a level 12 attribute in tactics with headgear and superior Tactics Rune.

Here is a comparison of warrior buffs requiring energy, and their recharges. Some are rather decent for their recharge versus duration. Others are atrocious, considering Wild Blow can decimate any stance-user’s current stance.

“Shields Up!”: 10 energy
30 seconds (21-second duration at 16 Tactics, 16 seconds at 9 Tactics)
This is great for fending off arrows with 50AL extra vs. piercing, and it is a shout (that cannot be removed with Wild Blow). Fine as it is.
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Balanced Stance: 5 energy
30 seconds (21-second duration at 16 Tactics, 16 seconds at 9 Tactics)
Reasonable for the duration, anti-knockdown, and prevention of critical hits
Many runners use this skill for the journey from Beacon’s Perch to Droknar’s Forge
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Deflect Arrows: 5 energy
30 seconds (21-second duration at 16 Tactics, 16 seconds at 9 Tactics)
75% block chance, ends if you attack. In general, this is useless unless you are “tanking” arrows, which is unlikely. “Shields up!” is 5 more energy and affects all allies, without the effect of not being able to attack.
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Gladiator's Defense (Elite): 5 energy
30 seconds (12-second duration at 16 tactics, 9 seconds at 9 Tactics)
Considering the effect it has, decent elite for PvE “tanking” if the enemy lacks “Wild Blow” Overly used by people, IMO.
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Defensive stance: 5 energy
45 seconds (12-second duration at 16 Tactics, 9 seconds at 9 Tactics)
Gives 24 extra armor and 75% evasion of melee attacks
Ends when you use a skill
The ideal recharge would be 30 seconds, since it would mean 1/3 of the time at 9 Tactics, and somewhat less than ½ of the time at 16 Tactics.
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Disciplined Stance: 10 energy
60 seconds (12-second duration at 16 Tactics, 9 seconds at 9 Tactics)
Gives 24 extra armor and 75% blocking of melee attacks
Ends when you use an adrenal skill (most of the axe/hammer line)
The ideal recharge would be 45 seconds, only because of the ending when you use adrenal skills compared to Defensive Stance’s condition of “when you use a skill”.
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Shield Stance: 5 energy
60 seconds (21-second duration at 16 Tactics, 16 seconds at 9 Tactics)
75% blocking (and it slows you down) but it does not end when you use skills.
The ideal recharge would probably be about 30 seconds
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Wary Stance: 10 energy
60 seconds (12-second duration at 16 Tactics, 9 seconds at 9 Tactics)
All it does more than Bonetti's Defense is it gives adrenaline. Even with 16 tactics, it only lasts about 10 or so seconds, not to mention the 10 energy cost. It also ends if you use a skill.
The ideal recharge would be about 30-45 seconds.

Perhaps it is because of the fact that you can have multiple stances and cycle them out, there are long recharges for some defensive buffs in the Tactics line. However, I fail to see who carries a skill bar with more than a couple of stances, since stances cancel each other out and with decent tactics there is no need for swapping between stances that often. Even assuming a 60 recharge and a 10 second duration, a couple of stances means there will be time with stances off.

Is there a proper way of using stances that I'm missing the point of?

Phades · Aug 29, 2005, 06:40 PM // 18:40

Speaking in a purely defensive orientated setup, you wont need more than 3 defensive stances in pve. These would be bonettis, gladiators, and disciplined stance. I only suggest disciplined, as it allows for non-adrenalin skill use like healing sig, which is useful if soloing (adds AL in addition to block rate, which is a nice cover for healing sig). At 12 tactics skill, each has a 10s duration allowing you to cycle through them or chain bonettis as needed.

Shield stance is usable if you know you dont need to move and combos alright with dolyak for instances where knockdown are a nuicance. A situation doesnt really come up often where you dont need to move as a warrior and be dealing with an opponent that specializes in chain knock downs.

Watch yourself is more of a party skill, which helps other people in melee take less damage, but you really dont need more than 1 warrior in a pve party. This makes things like shielding hands or armor of earth more useful as they can be cycled in durring an off point in a non-bonettis chain useage. The minimal +AL gains do not help a whole lot in the late to end game encounters either, nor do they help against the obvious things that warriors are already weak against and merely help create more efficiency in situations where warriors were already strong.

Gladiator's defense is really the only warrior defensive stance that lets you act normally while its up, which is a fairly sad commentary considering how many ranger stances do not end conditionally if they do anything other than let the auto attack run.

The entire tactics line is largely useless for primary warriors in pvp, while in pve many of them barely get by with situational use. Then you are left with conditional things like fear me, victory is mine, shields up, and charge. Even victory is mine could be more useful on a warrior secondary as an energy engine, due to how the energy gain is fixed instead of variable.

LifeInfusion · Aug 29, 2005, 07:25 PM // 19:25

I only use tactics for watch yourself and bonetti's (occasionally) and healing signet. A lot of the other skills have HUGE downtime.

Calibretto_9 · Aug 29, 2005, 08:25 PM // 20:25

If you're running a PvE build with stances, the huge downtime is often countered by the fact that you have plenty of stances to activate one right after the other. For instance, with tactics at 12, you can activate Gladiator's Defense, and the moment it's done Shield Stance. Right around when Shield Stance Ends, you can reactivate Gladiator's Defense. For the remaining time you're waiting for Shield Stance to come back up you can throw on Bonneti's Defense. I know that takes three slots just to keep your stances running, but from a tanking/farming viewpoint that's not such a bad thing. Also, in my opinion, why swords are useful in PvE. You can bleed your opponent and then throw on a stance, start healing, and when you come back bleeding has taken a chunk of health off for you. That's just how I tank/farm with my warrior.

LifeInfusion · Aug 29, 2005, 08:54 PM // 20:54

Uh, carrying more than 2 defensive stances is kind of killing all the other skills you could bring. I usually bring sprint, so thats one slot. Res sig, thats another. A self heal like healing signet so thats a third.

That leaves 5 skills. If 2 to 3 are defensive stances, it means I do little or no damage, which is why i propose a cut in the recharges.

Racthoh · Aug 29, 2005, 09:08 PM // 21:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calibretto_9

If you're running a PvE build with stances, the huge downtime is often countered by the fact that you have plenty of stances to activate one right after the other. For instance, with tactics at 12, you can activate Gladiator's Defense, and the moment it's done Shield Stance. Right around when Shield Stance Ends, you can reactivate Gladiator's Defense. For the remaining time you're waiting for Shield Stance to come back up you can throw on Bonneti's Defense. I know that takes three slots just to keep your stances running, but from a tanking/farming viewpoint that's not such a bad thing. Also, in my opinion, why swords are useful in PvE. You can bleed your opponent and then throw on a stance, start healing, and when you come back bleeding has taken a chunk of health off for you. That's just how I tank/farm with my warrior.

Same 3 I run, Gladiator's, Shield, and Bonetti's. I also however throw on Riposte and Deadly Riposte to utilize my sword. When you are facing much higher level warrior enemies (bladed aatxe are the first to come to mind) your normal attacks won't do much on those fellas. However, a Riposte striking for 42 damage ever 4 hits of adrealine and can block a nasty skill... I love it. Ditto for Deadly Riposte and the bonus of bleeding for 1/3 of a minute can't be beat.

Watch Yourself is a great asset IMO. In the FoW with my setup, the fire storm of a shadow elementalist hits me for 14. With Watch Yourself up, 7 damage. 50% damage reduction for 4 hits? Very nice. I can just stand in the fire storm with a vigorous spirit and actually gain life. If you're the primary tank, you want to maximize defense and it works nicely into the skill tree of tactics. You could even have a r/w with Watch Yourself to provide that boost to your party members in the back. Compared to Dolyak Signet which can't provide the same boost to AL (at least I don't believe so), you don't have to move 75% slower, and it doesn't have the 20 second cool down. 4 hits isn't the hardest thing to do.

Deflect arrows is probably as bad as Rust. Like you said, Shield's Up is far greater. Prehaps on a mo/w taking heavy ranger fire... no there really is no use for this skill.

Also, at 16 tactics, the skills you listed as 12 second durations are actually 11 seconds.

Calibretto_9 · Aug 29, 2005, 09:27 PM // 21:27

I apologize, I was under the impression this was a PvE build. If you're in PvE, you won't need Sprint or Rez Sig, as 1) People shouldn't be dying, and 2)If they do, monks normally bring Restore Life in PvE situations. There's pretty much no reason to run a stance warrior in a PvP setting. Max your weapon attribute out, put points into anything that will make you strike for more damage, and forget self healing.