Guild Wars 2

As is it stands right now, the only practical use for fear IMO, is interrupts. However the times where you need to use it( ie. interrupting BLOLOL Tornado Theifs, Bursting Warriors, or Boss stomps) it is completely negated by;

A) Stability
-Oh fear? No I’m just gonna keep bursting you nvm.

B) Defiant
-Oh snap, that boss is gonna finish off my buddies with a stomp! Gotta interrupt! Nope defiant. Now if you don’t mind I’m just gonna go ahead proceed to one shot your buddy with impunity.

So what’s the point of having a control ability when the times you absolutely need its effect, it’s negated?

Dang guys… for the last time.. guild wars is a game of skills, those defiant stacks can be withered down… you don’t mindless bash like a regular mob because you ain’t. Use CC wisely and keep the boss defiant stacks at the last one (which makes the next CC legit) and save one on a stomp or whatever crap that cannot be avoided for whatever reason. Then get his defiant stacks down again. You don’t just kittening spam skills and attacks like mindless hoogoo.

As for stability, there’s always a counter to everything, if they have stability why the kitten you go use your fear? Use your corrupt boon, well of corruption, and whatever that is that counter that.

edit – regarding fear-immune, well, what can we do? It’s Anet decision to kitten us up so we just suck it up and move on

Because stability in conjunction with certain Theif/Warrior skills effectively act as guaranteed kills and in some situations you don’t have time to cast off corrupt boon or you’re in death shroud.

Defiant is an obtuse mechanic, why do I have wait till defiant gets worn down before I’m able to use a condition that supposedly central to my class?

You know you’re right! And Warrior’s shouldn’t have to deal with Defiant either. Their CC should work immediately as well. Hell, lets just remove defiant altogether. It makes the boss fight too tactical. I’d rather just sit there spamming CC skills so that it can’t do anything until its dead.

Wait…

EDIT: In some serious, the only thing that irks me is the Fear Immune. That legitimately ruffles my jimmies when I’m fighting mobs in Orr. Other than that, this complaint is largely a ‘I don’t want to tactically co-ordinate CC usage in boss fights so that we can interrupt bosses when its important’.

I’m assuming that you’re building it squish, but thiefs generally have a hard time bringing me down, but then again I run soldiers/knights. And if you’re in DS while they combo off you, then you’re in a fantastic position, but let’s not go there.

Moreover a thief has to sacrifice so much vitality and toughness to get that insane burst, that anything worth its salt will bring it down. High risk/reward. Just remember a thief is as scared of you as you are of him.

I think if there’s no defiant stacks then generally CC will get out of control since this game has no diminishing returns. It functions more or less like the bleed cap. I think defiant makes the game more challenging strategically and it’s one of the very few things that I think Anet did right.

To be fair, if you know you’re going to face someone with Stability, you’re plenty equipped to keep ripping it right off. As for PvE… its staged encounters and not really that much of a challenge, go read a guide or something for ideas.

Our Fear abilities replace a lot of apparently useless stuff like Vigor, Cleaving weapons, Minions that actually work, Stability, power-specs, single target DPS… all that kind of stuff we’d never want to work or have in the first place because we’re all balling like coke beavers on the C/Dam spec.

1 second of fear is quite useless except on interrupts. I’ve actually been able to get over 1 minute of vigor with the Well of Power, not that it’s a reliable source by any means.

Our 1 1/4 second fear only exists so thieves can steal it and use their now 4 second fear on us…that is all. Did I mention that the stealing itself does anywhere from 1 to 3k damage as well. Makes perfect sense.

Thieves and warriors having a more effective fear is a sad state of affairs. Then again they are more fearsome than the average necromancer I guess.

Removing the interrupt capability of fear on bosses really hurt its usefulness. Adding more damage to terror was poor recompense. I agree our fear is nearly useless in WvW and PvP with such a long CD. If 1 second is all we get, then I would rather CD be cut in half, if not less, so it can become a more useful interrupt in WvW. Cast time is a bit too long for use as a reliable knock-back in an emergency and CD is too long for any significant effect in walled defense.