Thoughts on DrK stances post 4-18-07 patch.

DrK · 04-18-2007, 10:52 PM

Armor of Darkness: This stance is a lot more worthwhile now. Can't really say anything bad about it.

Shadow Meld: Although the changes to this stance are pretty cool, it's still lacking.

I ran a whole bunch of tests fighting identical caster mobs, and then non-caster mobs switching back and forth between shadow meld and armor of darkness.

I ran tests both mezzing them beforehand and getting DC up to full at the beginning of each fight and without doing that at the beginning of each fight.

I used no self healing in any of the fights.

The results were that hands down, vs caster or non-caster mobs I took far less damage in Armor of Darkness and didn't do noticeably more damage in Shadow Meld.

Most surprising was that I took so much less damage vs. caster mobs using armor of darkness rather than shadow meld. Reason being that caster mobs still melee, and they melee hard. The spell resistances didn't really seem to do much.

I think the stance would probably be ok if the parry and block bonuses were restored to start at least at 5% and scale up like they used to, rather than starting at the current 1% (I thought Xaices said this was supposed to be fixed?).

Ebon Blade: This stance needs help. Now that the endurance penalty is working it's very evident that this stance either needs to provide more of a bonus or the penalty needs to be removed.

I think that endurance costs were balanced for the dreadknight class without this endurance penalty ever working and as a result the measly 5% penalty really puts endurance costs over the top thus actually decreasing dps by a very large margin.

Certain other classes *cough paladin* have offensive stances which provide vastly more benefit and which carry absolutely no penalty whatsoever.

My vote at this point is to at least just remove the 5% endurance penalty from this stance and add an accuracy boost.

Warspawn · 04-19-2007, 01:44 AM

It's annoying that they reduced Shadowmeld down to 1% base. I don't think it'll be used much, if at all. Really needs to start at least at 5%, if not higher.

Contemptuous · 04-20-2007, 03:25 PM

I'll personally never use shadowmeld...if they boost it to 5% to start, I might consider it, but armor of darkness seems like it'd be superior in the long run regardless.

They *really* need to do something with ebon blade...it used to be my solo stance, since the patch I havent used it at all...the end cost sucks, and the dps is nothing compared to the mitigation from aod.

Also, you'd think they could fix the stupid animation when dc goes up...glad I managed to get a feline veil last night so I don't have to look at it anymore.

DrK · 04-20-2007, 06:02 PM

Warriors just had all penalties removed from their stances.

They now get:

Offensive Stance - 20% damage bonus, 15% accuracy bonus, no penalty

Defensive Stance - 15% mitigation bonus, 15% block bonus, 40% hate bonus, no penalty.

It was also made so that they can use their abilities that were previously only available in offensive stance while they are in defensive stance.

They are also going to get a self healing line.

Paladins have stances that are as or possibly even more incredible as theirs buff the entire group and have no penalties.

Dreadknight stances really need to be boosted, the discrepancy is pretty pathetic.

Inruku · 04-20-2007, 11:33 PM

Warriors needed some love

We can hit some of the above percentages, just takes some work.

IE a big raid mob > pull > use instant DC5 ability > Insta crit ability if we had one > use shield of fear/dark bastion > use abilities as normal to get back to DC5 > (would have used bane if it was worth a crap to give me instant aggro to help) > work back up to DC5

however, because we have to work up to these percentages.. we need more.

Ebon blade is not in the least bit impressive and probably eventually costs you dps due to endurance cost

theres so much that needs to be covered, I fear we will never cover it all.

Warriors needed help, but this may mark them as the supreme tank (especially big races with lots of con/str)

Not speaking from a jealousy pov but rather a hardcore raider mindset.

how can sigil fix this? make it so DC plays more of a role and gives us a higher bonus because we have to work up to it. Also make it stack on all mobs near and SHOW the raid on their buff bar that they are doing more crit etc.

hawnz · 04-21-2007, 08:24 PM

i'm using def stance for everything now. soloing, grouping, AEing. it's so much better than the other stances that i wouldn't even miss not having the other 2.

DrK · 04-22-2007, 12:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawnz

i'm using def stance for everything now. soloing, grouping, AEing. it's so much better than the other stances that i wouldn't even miss not having the other 2.

Same here, the other two stances are crap right now.

The worst part though is that even our defensive stance is far weaker than pal/war defensive stances.

Warhead · 04-22-2007, 01:25 AM

I play 100% Of time in defensive stance also. Bloody shame!!

Zuul · 04-22-2007, 12:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hawnz

i'm using def stance for everything now. soloing, grouping, AEing. it's so much better than the other stances that i wouldn't even miss not having the other 2.

The funny, or not so funny part is that's how it used to be with Ebon Blade.

I haven't done a lot of grouping since the changes, but for soloing I find myself using all three. I start in Shadow Meld til I get halfway through DC3 (I only have DC4 at level 34) then switch to Ebon Blade for max damage. I only find myself switching to AoD if my Harrow or Cull miss and I'm hurting for health. But as far as soloing is concerned at my level these two stances are useful and worth using, and I don't find I need the extra mitigation over the faster DC building (the only thing I use SM for as the block/parry bonuses are nigh on worthless) or the extra damage. I don't find that the 5% End cost on EB is all that noticeable to be honest.

But I realize I'm only 34 and things change drastically from level to level.

xythalia · 04-22-2007, 08:09 PM

right now, all three stances have a purpose, though def stance is probably the best one.

Def stance - 10 - 15% mit is great, that is almost like shield if you are wearing a two hander, or nearly 2/3 of a set of armor if you are wearing a sheild.

Shadowmeld - nice for soloing / two hander use. If you can pull at 45 range, you should beable to cast DV a few times and get up to dc2-3 netting ~70-80 resists, +4% block / parry, and +8% acc (don't know if this works, though). at dc5, 100 resistance , 10% acc, 6% block / parry is quite good, but only for a two hander really.

Ebon blade - besides for the cool flames (on anything without its on glow... otherwise its the mold flames on my axe) you use it when you are dps, or going for the big numbers on WoD / torture / IoH / trying desperately to break 5k on bane :wink: True the one end cost it adds really throws up the rhythm we've all had for 30-50 levels, and is way worse then It sounds while tanking, its not too bad as dps.