I’m sure that this has been discussed before, but I can’t find related topics as typing in “stance” into the search will yield a lot of junk.
I may be doing it all wrong, but I believe that Warrior stances are very weak. Those familiar with the original Guild Wars series should understand how powerful stances are in that game. Here though, not so much. Why? Because you’ve got a very long recharge time for an effect that lasts for a short duration. I looked at a recent thread regarding warrior stances within the Warrior subforum and I thought of this:
Why not combine stances with adrenaline?
I feel that adrenaline plays a very small role for the warrior. Other than the burst skills (which are no doubt powerful), there doesn’t seem to be anything else that uses adrenaline. There’s Healing Surge, the only other ability that is dependent on adrenaline and… nothing else other than passive traits. Having stances consume bars of adrenaline may be a solution to bringing down the recharge timers.
Here are some rules that I think must be in place for this to work:
- Only one stance can be used at a time.
- The player must have the adrenaline necessary in order to use the stance.
- Adrenaline consumed for the stance is lost (as in you must regain it).
Onto the stances, here are some ideas:
- Frenzy: Cost – 1 strike of adrenaline – Duration – 4 seconds – Recharge time – 15 seconds
- Endure Pain: Cost – 3 strikes of adrenaline – Duration – 5 seconds – Recharge time – 45 seconds
- Balanced Stance: Cost – 2 strikes of adrenaline – Duration – 8 seconds – Recharge time – 25 seconds
Not all stances should use adrenaline such as Beserker Stance. Using adrenaline to get more adrenaline doesn’t make much sense.
So here I have suggested the usage of adrenaline and the lowering of the recharge timers. The adrenaline is there to promote combat and to prevent usage of the skills without any combat interaction, and the recharge timer is still there to prevent any heinous spamming. There will also be some decision making in whether the player should use a stance, or the burst skill. Those familiar with Frenzy from Guild Wars may question why I still put a recharge timer longer than the length of the stance. My reasoning: warriors with ranged weapons. Imagine a warrior just firing off like a machine gun from the back all day. That’s just overpowered and not right. However, the ability to use Frenzy more frequently will open up a lot of opportunities for Warriors. This may require Frenzy users to take double damage (100% more) instead of 50% more though.
I know that I’m not exactly covering all bases – there are a lot of gaps in my suggestion – but I’m not being paid to think that far ahead.
I hope you guys will consider this suggestion. Please discuss on how you view this.