Guild Wars 2

Even as a Warrior main, it has often bothered me how I can have multiple stances activated at once. In GW1 you could only have 1 active Stance at a time, which makes sense. Right now, Stances don’t feel like Stances, they feel like Signets with no passive. Of course, you can’t just have Stances override each other with no change to their active, it would make them far too weak. So here are some ideas I have:

• Endure Pain and Berserker Stance get longer durations. Rather than being flat immunity to one type of damage, have them be a certain % reduction. It should be fairly high in the 75-80% since you can longer activate both at the same time. I main War but I play other classes enough to know how annoying it is to have a build focused on dealing one type of damage and to be unable to do anything for a duration of the stance. Having it be a reduction means that while you aren’t doing a lot of damage to them, you’re at least doing something.

• Frenzy needs the damage taken increase to be lowered more for it to ever be seen as viable. With the buff to Brawler’s Recovery you MIGHT be able to have a build that doesn’t need Berserker Stance but as it currently is I don’t see it getting a ton of use in this upcoming patch.

• Alternatively, the CDs of Stances get a reduction to make up for the new restriction. It’s a more simple change and one I find much less interesting but probably much easier to implement.

• Balanced Stance is going to need to be an actual stance that gives the same effect as Stability. The potential problem from this is that Dolyak Signet might become the obvious choice. The CD might need a slight reduction to make it still look attractive.

• The Defy Pain and Last Stand traits would need to be changed. You don’t want a Stance being overwritten when you need it most. Last Stand could be swapped to Dolyak Signet with maybe a 5 second shorted ICD to make up for the lack of Swiftness. Or you simply have it give the Swiftness for free. I always disliked traits like Defy Pain but in keeping with the theme perhaps it could have a damage reduction vs physical damage bellow 25% health, similar to Automated Response (which got overnerfed btw).

• It would be nice to see your characters actual fighting stance change when using different stances. It gives a more obvious visual cue so you wouldn’t have to keep an eye on their health bar (something the Devs have said they want to minimize as much as possible). Some examples would be Balanced Stance being your typical L-shaped Karate stance, Berserker would be sort of hunched forward like some sort of wild animal, Endure Pain some form of macho horse-riding stance, and Frenzy as a slightly bouncing boxing stance. I know this would probably never happen because there’s multiple races so adding all those animations would be work intensive but it wold really go a long way in making it feel like your character just changed their fighting style and didn’t just get a glowy aura.

• I almost forgot about Defiant Stance…honestly it would need to be buffed before I even worry about it. I don’t like the idea of a stance with a cast time, especially when it’s so circumstantial as it is. There’s currently a little bit of synergy with Frenzy atm but it’s still not good and the new system would invalidate it. To even make it viable it needs to be instant cast so you can use it while being spiked and probably even need a longer duration to justify that CD.

I liked it until the end.

Longer duration on a no cast heal skill. Yehp, seems fair.

Esplen.3940:

I liked it until the end.

Longer duration on a no cast heal skill. Yehp, seems fair.

A long CD heal that is only useful if you are taking heavy damage. It would still only see use in WvW for Zerg Surfing since in PvP it would just be unreliable. Unless you’re being focused it’ll still have less HP/Sec than Heal Sig.

I’m also not talking a huge increase, just enough so that you’re more likely to get a decent benefit from it. Also, it would override any other stance you have on, so there’s still a significant downside.

It HAS to be instant to be even remotely useful. Most of the time when you’re being hit hard you are also being CC’d. Having to stun break/recover before being able to activate it is what makes it useless.

Not all heal skills are used for hp/s. If they were, people wouldn’t run Healing Signet.

Esplen.3940:

Not all heal skills are used for hp/s. If they were, people wouldn’t run Healing Signet.

Heal Sig has a high hp/sec, it’s just weak vs burst but that’s where Endure pain comes in. The reason no one uses Healing Surge is because it punishes you for using your Adrenaline. This this upcoming change to Adren makes Surge totally worthless because if you don’t get that T3 heal you got almost nothing from it and you have a long CD. Mending also doesn’t heal enough to be viable despite you being able to trait it to be almost a full cleanse. If it had a shorter CD I could MAYBE see a Bull’s + Frenzy + 100b build with mostly offensive traits working but as it currently is the hp/sec is pitiful.

Esplen.3940:

Not all heal skills are used for hp/s. If they were, people wouldn’t run Healing Signet.

Ah, but Warriors must!

Feel free to pull up the gw2 wiki, but without going into any good healing power, Signet is still superior by a couple thousand health over the course of a minute, or even 30 seconds for that matter.

Healing Surge might be a burst heal, but it is outpaced because it is designed poorly for the Warrior (Less healing gained with low Adrenaline, so we don’t need to use burst skills right?). And even if the Warrior popped a 3rd bar heal every best time possible, it would still heal for less in the grand scheme of things. Not to mention it can be interrupted…

Mending is worse because we have already gained a wonderful amount of condition cleanse since Launch, and it has not even remotely CHANGED since then either. The healing is pitiful as well.

Defiant Stance at least has the redeeming factor of being situational, there is no situation that Mending and Healing Surge will outweigh Healing Signet.

Which is all the more reason to look into those skills as well…

…My apologies, I got side-tracked. Stances right? Provided I did not misread you on how you don’t think we need to have a ‘1 stance at a time’ clause, I agree with your points.

Defiant Stance is a niche heal with a niche usability. It’s working as intended.

If you want to address that heal skill, then you’re also going to want to address

Skelk Venom
Signet of Restoration
Signet of the Ether
Well of Blood
Signet of Vampirism

Now, all of these healing skills, including defiant stance, are used in GW2. They’re not used regularly (bar SotE), but they’re used. They all have advantages and shortcomings, and that’s the whole point of having variety. Not everything is supposed to be as good as the next thing. They’re supposed to be good at specific things.

Also, in regards to getting a longer duration, grab Sure-Footed to have 3.75s of health gain.

The whole point of Healing Skills having cast times is so players know what you’re using. If you didn’t have to cast, well… there’s no counterplay.

“Oh that Warrior is charging his kill-shot. Let me wait a minute. Okay, he’s done casting- DEFIANCE STANCE, ty for full heal” That’s intuitive play on the Warrior’s stance, which is more fitting with… Thief or Mesmer who play reactionary games.

However, in regards to your OP/topic. If stances are like that, they should add minute effects based on the stance and replace burst skills.

I think the vast majority of classes only has 1-2 viable heals, so yes I want to address many of them.

Also, Defiant Stance doesn’t gain benefit from Sure Footed if I recall correctly.

Try it in the mists. I would, but my Warrior doesn’t have it unlocked I don’t think.

Considering how conditions work, i don’t think changing berserker stance that way is a good idea. Whatever reduction is it, if the condition ends up being under one second, it is nullified anyway. For any condition with less than 4 seconds in duration, a 75% reduction is the same as being immune. And that’s without considering any condition reduction.
It would be likely to end up quite more powerful than it is now, due to the longer duration and reduced cooldown.

Manuhell.2759:

Considering how conditions work, i don’t think changing berserker stance that way is a good idea. Whatever reduction is it, if the condition ends up being under one second, it is nullified anyway. For any condition with less than 4 seconds in duration, a 75% reduction is the same as being immune. And that’s without considering any condition reduction.
It would be likely to end up quite more powerful than it is now, due to the longer duration and reduced cooldown.

You run into the same problem as Automated Response though that if you reduce it much more it’s practically worthless. You are right though that it might be better to keep the current duration/effect the same and just slightly reduce the cooldown to compensate for the change. Most conditions builds are fairly tanky anyways so if you can’t survive 8 seconds then you probably did something wrong.

I still want EP to just be a damage reduction, or at least change the way Defy Pain works. Having both Endure Pain and Defy Pain is almost a guaranteed win against burst classes. You have EP for the first burst, OK that’s fine, you play defensive until you can burst again. However, when you hit the burst a second time they can be saved by a trait that activates AUTOMATICALLY. With the utility EP you have to activate it which means if you get caught out you may still eat most of the burst. With Defy Pain there’s 0 player input.

This sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to buff the strongest utility type Warriors have in PvP. >_>

Neko.9021:

This sounds like a thinly veiled attempt to buff the strongest utility type Warriors have in PvP. >_>

It’s going to always be a nerf. Not being able to have 2 stances on at once is going to mean you are ALWAYS weak to SOMETHING. This should make WvWers happy, it will mean that they can’t pop all stances and escape as easily. If they pop Balanced Stance/EP they can be Immobilized, if they pop Berserkers they can be CC’d. They’ll still have strong escape, but it’ll be weaker.

I would think non-Warriors would be happy about changing Defy Pain, even when on Warrior I hate fighting against it. Even if it’s changed so that it’s just a damage reduction at a certain health threshold that means you can still kill them if you’re power based. The reason why I didn’t give any firm numbers is because it’s going to take a ton of testing finding the right amount, it’s also something the players should be involved in imo.

I want to feel as skillful playing my Warrior as I do playing medi Guard. I want to have to carefully time when I use my skills and be rewarded when I do and be punished when I don’t

aye, i support this.

for balanced stance, maybe make it prevent physical control effects that removes your feet off the ground?
- knock down
- knock back / push
- pull
- launch

does not prevent
- fear
- stun
- daze

since it would be a “stance effect” and not a boon, the protection cannot be removed.

Coming from GW1, being able to have more than one stance active at a time always felt weird to me. I’d actually support stances all getting small buffs, but with a new restriction that only one stance can be active at a time. (Triggering a new stance ends the old one early.)

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

aye, i support this.

for balanced stance, maybe make it prevent physical control effects that removes your feet off the ground?
- knock down
- knock back / push
- pull
- launch

does not prevent
- fear
- stun
- daze

since it would be a “stance effect” and not a boon, the protection cannot be removed.

Yah, having it be unremovable might require it not being immune to all CC. The problem would again be though that Dolyak Signet would simply be preferred.

BurrTheKing.8571:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

aye, i support this.

for balanced stance, maybe make it prevent physical control effects that removes your feet off the ground?
- knock down
- knock back / push
- pull
- launch

does not prevent
- fear
- stun
- daze

since it would be a “stance effect” and not a boon, the protection cannot be removed.

Yah, having it be unremovable might require it not being immune to all CC. The problem would again be though that Dolyak Signet would simply be preferred.

well, each has its pros and cons i guess.
stability boon by itself, not covered up with other boons, can be very easily removed.

i suggested this way, well, because, originally, in guild wars 1, the one and only real control effect was knock down, and balanced stance prevents knock down. but stances are more plentiful, and can be removed (though very limited options) via wild blow (warrior attack skill) or wild strike (assassin chain attack skill) so i though making gw2 balanced stance immune to control effects that removes the warrior’s feet from the ground would be good enough.

but that’s just me, what does everyone else thinks?

BurrTheKing.8571:

Even as a Warrior main, it has often bothered me how I can have multiple stances activated at once. In GW1 you could only have 1 active Stance at a time, which makes sense. Right now, Stances don’t feel like Stances, they feel like Signets with no passive. Of course, you can’t just have Stances override each other with no change to their active, it would make them far too weak. So here are some ideas I have:

• Endure Pain and Berserker Stance get longer durations. Rather than being flat immunity to one type of damage, have them be a certain % reduction. It should be fairly high in the 75-80% since you can longer activate both at the same time. I main War but I play other classes enough to know how annoying it is to have a build focused on dealing one type of damage and to be unable to do anything for a duration of the stance. Having it be a reduction means that while you aren’t doing a lot of damage to them, you’re at least doing something.

• Frenzy needs the damage taken increase to be lowered more for it to ever be seen as viable. With the buff to Brawler’s Recovery you MIGHT be able to have a build that doesn’t need Berserker Stance but as it currently is I don’t see it getting a ton of use in this upcoming patch.

• Alternatively, the CDs of Stances get a reduction to make up for the new restriction. It’s a more simple change and one I find much less interesting but probably much easier to implement.

• Balanced Stance is going to need to be an actual stance that gives the same effect as Stability. The potential problem from this is that Dolyak Signet might become the obvious choice. The CD might need a slight reduction to make it still look attractive.

• The Defy Pain and Last Stand traits would need to be changed. You don’t want a Stance being overwritten when you need it most. Last Stand could be swapped to Dolyak Signet with maybe a 5 second shorted ICD to make up for the lack of Swiftness. Or you simply have it give the Swiftness for free. I always disliked traits like Defy Pain but in keeping with the theme perhaps it could have a damage reduction vs physical damage bellow 25% health, similar to Automated Response (which got overnerfed btw).

• It would be nice to see your characters actual fighting stance change when using different stances. It gives a more obvious visual cue so you wouldn’t have to keep an eye on their health bar (something the Devs have said they want to minimize as much as possible). Some examples would be Balanced Stance being your typical L-shaped Karate stance, Berserker would be sort of hunched forward like some sort of wild animal, Endure Pain some form of macho horse-riding stance, and Frenzy as a slightly bouncing boxing stance. I know this would probably never happen because there’s multiple races so adding all those animations would be work intensive but it wold really go a long way in making it feel like your character just changed their fighting style and didn’t just get a glowy aura.

• I almost forgot about Defiant Stance…honestly it would need to be buffed before I even worry about it. I don’t like the idea of a stance with a cast time, especially when it’s so circumstantial as it is. There’s currently a little bit of synergy with Frenzy atm but it’s still not good and the new system would invalidate it. To even make it viable it needs to be instant cast so you can use it while being spiked and probably even need a longer duration to justify that CD.

1. Can’t agree with a longer duration. Maybe a shorter cooldown as compensation but 75-80% is still a lot and it also harms their use on less defensive builds that use the stance to cover a weakness. I like letting some damage get through as an idea but no to a longer duration.

2. Frenzy is only for some 2 skills, whirling axes and 100b. Really all quickness utility skills are under used because of their downside effect and the effect quickness towards defenses on its own (shorter leap distance, shorter evade frame, etc).

3. again, prefer this over a longer duration. NOT BOTH HOWEVER. O.o

4. Balanced stance is highly used and is a great stance even if it isn’t a true “stance”. A 40 sec cooldown with 8seconds of stability(and swiftness), some people seem to undervalue stability but it is a very strong boon to have.

5. Swiftnesss almost has no purpose towards last stand (balanced stance), really no reason to touch the ICD for a free break stun. Nerf to passive immunities should be enforced, even if the ICD is “long”.

6. could be cool, although I’d hate to see my char slouched over even more.

7. Definitily could use a buff since it is highly telegraphed (bright blue, your numbers turn green, etc). It just needs a slight duration increase, its potential heal is phenomenal its just so easy to ignore.

As a player from gw1 this multi stance thing is funny

I can only see this working with f2/f3/f4 skills on warriors. And they would need to replace those utilities with something usefull.
Without that you need to make all classes do the same otherwise warrior will be the only in that situation.

Example: turret enginier / spirit ranger / thief venon / elementalist summons / mesmer phantasms / necro pets / guardian spirit weapons.

I have an even better change.. get rid of them. immunity with 0 drawbacks should never be a thing and this will never be an esport while this trash is in the game.. what is skilled about click.. now you cant do anything to me gf

unlucky.9285:

I have an even better change.. get rid of them. immunity with 0 drawbacks should never be a thing and this will never be an esport while this trash is in the game.. what is skilled about click.. now you cant do anything to me gf

I cant remember a single immunity in this game without drawbacks.

Personally, I do not see a need for a change at all. Particularly one that will buff any individual stance in the long run. I have no problem with any warrior stacking stances and blowing their cool downs all at once if the so chose.

Although I can appreciate the comparison to GW1, this game is a bit different in design and mechanics. So I feel using GW1 as a baseline in a bad idea.

Gw1 was good skills and mechanics. Building something similar is nota bad idea. 10sec godmode just not a good thing (more with the new heal stance)

me am fix stances

- Stances will now put your other stances on a cooldown equal to the duration of the stance you are using.

Why?
1. You can’t faceroll and become immune to ALL THE THINGS simultaneously. While it is horrible play to actually do this, it makes individual stance use more of a choice- you’ll pick one mechanic to become immune to rather than becoming immune to everything simultaneously. The other guy will go “right, he’s popped his Endure Pain, load him up on conditions” or “right, he’s popped Zerk’s, lay on the physical damage”.
2. Endure Pain + Frenzy. Haste effect penalties probably shouldn’t be negated by other skills, especially ones that use the same traits.
3. It’s silly. I would hardly call someone who is in a Berserker’s Stance capable of also being in a Balanced Stance at the same time!

Supported as it will make things so much more interesting.