Guild Wars 2

Hello everyone!

Lately, with all the new players coming into this wonderful game, I wanted to touch a little on the issue of Defiance on champions.

Most champs (with the exception of the Svanir Shaman at Maw) have a Defiance debuff on them. It’s located under their health bar where the condition icons show. When the Defiance is not active, it’s greyed out. However, when it is Active, it shows as a bright yellow with a number in it. This number reflects the amount of stacks that the champion has and can vary from as little as 3, all the way up past 30.

Now, some people might say that you don’t need to worry about Defiance in large groups because you can generally get those stacks off rather quickly, but I would argue differently.

With certain meta-events, like the Hydra Queen (Taidha in Bloodtide Coast) or Megadestroyer (in Mount Maelstom), we are given much less time than the rest and these events are generally much more time consuming. In such events, stacked Defiance can certainly make a full zerg NOT succeed at the event, even if you’re looking at 20-30 players working on it. Why? Simple- The events scale. More players means it scales higher. It would be silly if more players meant that Defiance didn’t matter because than what would be the point of the Defiance?

To back up a little bit, I want to explain Defiance. Defiance (as stated above) is a debuff on certain champions. When a champion has Defiance stacked, they gain an effect called Unshakeable. With this active, Blind is 10% less effective while Weakness and Vulnerability last 50% less time. In addition to this, they become immune to crowd-control effects.

However! While they are immune to crowd-control effects, this is the only thing that will remove those stacks.

Crowd-Control abilities that will remove (and also apply) Defiance includes any skills that will knock-back, daze, stun, pull, fear, and knockdown.

When Defiance is stacked on a Champion, it is important to nearly spam your CC (crowd-control) abilities to get those stacks off. Once those stacks are completely off, it is important to never use one of those skills as it will bring Defiance back to full stacks. If a Champion like Taidha or Megadestroyer have no stacks of Defiance, a well organized group can easily bring them down in the allotted time with very little difficulty because let’s face it, Weakness and Vulnerability can make all the difference in the world! I have personally seen many events fail simply due to Defiance.

I also know that it’s hard not to simply spam all your skills when you’re fighting a world boss, but doing so can be a very negative thing (unless you’re fighting someone like Svanir Shaman in Maw who does not stack Defiance).

This truly makes players need to understand their skills and what they do. When I first started playing, I knew no better. I used every skill once it came off of cooldown! However, when I really started to learn and notice those horrible stacks of Defiance, it made me need to learn my skills and know what each of them does -before- using them. For example, my main character is a Shortbow Ranger. I know that her #5 skill (Concussion Shot) is a stun. Therefore, when there is no Defiance stacked on the enemy, I simply do not use my #5 skill.. at all. That skill is completely ignored by me unless Defiance is somehow reapplied to the champion.

Now that I’ve touched on what Defiance is as well as how one applies and removes it, I wanted to give a few example of skills that are considered CC (crowd-control).

Shortbow Ranger- #5 (Concussion Shot) is a daze/stun.
Longbow Ranger- #4 (Point Blank Shot) is a knock-back.
Greatsword Mesmer- #5 (Illusionary Wave) is a knock-back.
Dagger Elementalist- #3 Earth (Magnetic Leap) is a pull.
Greatsword Guardian- #5 (Binding Blade) is also a pull when the skill is activated again.
Hammer Warrior- #5 (Backbreaker) is a knockdown.

This list is very short as there are far too many to list. Just remember, any skills (or even utility skill) that dazes, fears, knocks back, knocks down, launches, pulls, and stuns, will have an impact on Defiance. When there is 0 Defiance, refrain from using any of those skills and when Defiance is stacked, use them as often as you can. Just remember to be aware of those Defiance Stacks! It is usually a safe bet to stop using any CC abilities when Defiance is around 3 stacks if you’re in a larger group. Why? Because generally there will be someone who does use a CC skill.

Someone might be wondering.. “Why is she going through all of this?”.. Well, as I stated above, Defiance can definitely make teams lose events. We might look at it and think it makes no difference, but it really does!

(Since I had to break up my post, it’s continued here )

Look at those Weakness and Vulnerability conditions-

Weakness – regeneration decreased by 50%; 50% of all attacks are glancing blows (50% damage- which means you take 50% less damage when struck by that champion!) Stacks duration.

Vulnerability – increases damage the target takes by 1% for each stack, up to a maximum of 25 times. <- This means that while Vulnerability is stacked at 25, the target takes 25% MORE damage from attacks! That’s a LOT!

When Defiance is on a Champion, these two wonderful conditions that we can stack on that Champion is greatly diminished. This means it takes more time to kill them, it’s harder to kill them, and it makes it EASIER for them to kill US.

Another reason for me taking the time to type this out is for a link to share with others. We all need to be aware of our skills and debuffs (or buffs) that stack on enemies. I’ve gone through several meta events where I’ve tried to coach people through Defiance (which isn’t easy when facing down someone like Taidha!). I’ve also had many many people whisper me after an event has failed (due to Defiance) to ask about what Defiance is, what it does, how one applies and removes it. Well, truly, it would be much easier to have something concrete to link them to rather than spam their tiny map chat with an explanation on something so in-depth.

If anyone has any advice or would like to add anything to this, feel free! If I have missed something or made a mistake, please feel free to correct me (I am only human, after all ^.^).

I do hope that this will help new (and old) players when it comes to that horrid Defiance! Some things in the game should not be ignored.

Nice read, actually pretty informative (I’m sure I once knew this, but was a nice refresher about the other buffs that defiance gives). Definitely useful knowledge for smaller servers, but in my experience on SoR, we haven’t had trouble with mega bosses because of defiance stacks.

I agree with Mystic. Nice write up, but I don’t think I have ever been at a world event that didn’t succeed other than teq but that wasn’t because of defiance.

Glad to hear that Mystic! ^.^

While my server is listed as Very-High, we generally lack the huge groups in events where players can easily remove Defiance. I have been in groups where it’s just about removed right as it’s applied, and in that case, it wouldn’t make a huge difference.

Lately, however, my server has been failing many events (mainly Taidha and Megadestroyer) and the one thing that both events have in common when they fail- Max stacks of Defiance. I’ve been in similarly sized groups who succeed in record time and the one thing that is different → Nobody stacks Defiance. Lol.

cranked.3812:

I agree with Mystic. Nice write up, but I don’t think I have ever been at a world event that didn’t succeed other than teq but that wasn’t because of defiance.

Hehehe. Teq is truly in a category of his own! I’m still waiting to succeed in a Tequatl event :P

I guess it would also be important to note that when Defiance only stacks 3 times (for example), it’s generally not a concern for groups as every third person is likely removing it within seconds of it being applied. It’s definitely a huge difference to one that gains 30+ stacks and takes 5 or more minutes to remove Defiance completely.

However, it’s a good rule of thumb (even if Defiance isn’t truly an issue) to practice with those Defiance stacks. Meaning that even if it is removed within seconds, this is a good time to practice and learn when to use CC (or even learn the Defiance icons and train themselves to keep an eye on them during events). It might not be an issue for most events or champs, but in a way, that teaches people to ignore Defiance because it really isn’t an issue there. However, ignoring Defiance on certain bosses like Taidha or Megadestroyer can really hurt the event (as my server has seen by the consistent failures of Taidha and Megadestroyer, lol).

Useful information but I don’t think it is necessary for either of those bosses. Especially if you have enough people to get to 30 stacks. There is inevitably going to be that one person who just spams all their skills so as soon as the stacks are cleared it will go back on anyway.

For Taidha you are better off with chaining anti-projectile skills.
For Megadestroyer it is even simpler, everyone stays at around 200 range to avoid the fireballs as well as the PBAoE. Stay behind it to avoid the knockdowns when it is close to death. Have at least one person who can burst down the adds as they spawn near its feet. Strangle anyone immobilizing it in the middle of the lava. -_-

Unshakeable is a permanent buff which will always reduce the effectiveness of blind, vulnerability and weakness. Defiant is gained via unshakeable, and it ‘only’ prevents CCs.

samanosuke.4508:

Unshakeable is a permanent buff which will always reduce the effectiveness of blind, vulnerability and weakness. Defiant is gained via unshakeable, and it ‘only’ prevents CCs.

He’s correct, and I’d also note that Defiant is unlike Stability – while Stability outright blocks control effects (attempting to CC a target with Stability will result in an Immune popup much like evasion or invulnerability), Defiant actually absorbs the effect completely rather than blocking it – the consequence of this is that Defiant stacks will decrease by one, and if the target is in the middle of using a skill when CCed, interrupt effects will trigger, even if the target does not appear to be interrupted.

In short, Defiant simply blocks control effects – it doesn’t block the consequences of being interrupted by one.

PS: There are 3 control effects that ignore Defiant:
– Sink
– Float
– Petrification

The first two are only usable underwater, while the third is a consequence of the Thief elite Basilisk Venom and certain mob skills.

Note what both samanosuke and Lindbur said. Blind, weak and vuln all do not apply normally on all champ+ mobs, permanently.

I agree that defiant should be kept near zero as far as possible, but not because of the erroneous reason that it supports those 3 conditions. Rather, this is so that you can interrupt certain attacks at will, because certain attacks are VERY dangerous. For instance, the Melandru Priest’s whirl. It CAN be interrupted, which can save your melee line quite a bit of grief.

For the megadestroyer specifically, you can prevent it from going Invuln and disappearing under lava if the megadestroyer is brought below the 75/50% hp thresholds while it is being affected by CC. In other words, if a player uses a 4 second cc on it (which is only possible to time well if Defiant is NOT there), and the zerg reduces its HP below the programmed threshold, you can very well turn a time-out into a victory.

Thanks for the explanation. I’ve never seen it clearly written out before.