Fighting stances

[Sick1]

<DIV> <DIV>OK, now before i say anything I'm gonna preface by saying that I have read everything that I can on stances but still dont have a clear idea in my mind on which ones are good.  So saying that, I have found that to lvl 30 I have mostly used either brawlers stance (the majority of the time) or thundering fists.  My question is:  At higher lvls, what stances do monks use, when do they use them and why?  Is there one main stance that people continue to use the majority of the time?  Tanking vs. DPS or Solo?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sheer</DIV></DIV>

[Computer MAn]

At either lvl 43 or 44 you get spider stance which is the stance that most monks use for tanking. It gives +15 defence with no downsides to it besides using 5 concentration slots. <div></div>

[Gaige]

I use spider stance most the time and dragon stance adept 3 while raiding.

[Sick1]

Good to know, so did you use sweeping crane then up until you get spider stance then for defense?

[Gaige]

Yup.

[i3ry]

I use Spider Stance when tanking and Winding Dragon + Sacrifice casted on healer/chanter when dps/raiding. <div></div>

[Dandeli]

<P>Spider stance tanking - gives higest defense/deflection. The haste is pretty useless.</P> <P>Dragon stance - DPS. The +13 you get in adept3 just so far out weighs the negaive 10 to combat and +5% dps you get from winding dragon. In helps increase your accuracy by a huge amount especially when fighting epics. I use dragonstance ad3 over my master I Winding dragon.</P>

[Swordmage]

For those of us who are not at the spider stance level, could y'all say something about the sweeping crane vs bruiser's stance trade off.

[Lareal]

 I personally much preferred BS to SC. Was mostly soloing and tanking and I took MUCH more dmg from an encounter when using SC. Have seen quite a few others that had the same experience, but I've also seen folks who prefer SC.  Try it out for yourself. Use each in whatever manner you normally prefer(Solo, Group, Tank, Etc) and see how each works for you. I found that I preferred BS almost 100% of the time over any other stance up till Spider Stance. The only time I switched out of it is when I was in a Pure DPS role, with very little chance of needing to tank/off-tank a mob. Usually when I was in a tank heavy group. <div></div>

[bonesbro]

I preferred using SC over BS.  It's a higher +defense bonus (which is the really critical stat), and the lack of +deflection is compensated for by using Karmic Focus.  KF gives a higher +deflection, and it also provides +parry.  Finally, you (theoretically) get some sort of boost from +tranquility

[Se]

I'm kinda like Gage on this one. I use Spider Stance when i'm in single group instance and x2's and when soloing/doing writs. In raids I mostly use dragon stance with the rare occasion if a chanter is in my group I'll use the winding/sacrifice combo. It really does come down to personal preference though.

[stfields]

<DIV> <HR> I use spider stance most the time and dragon stance adept 3 while raiding. <HR> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Quiet Purity gives almost the same attack bonus as Dragon Stance w/ no downside (I have adept III of both).  The difference on my persona window works out to be 8 attack (8 out of about 1000).  QP and DS don't stack.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>However, when we pull hate w/ dragon stance, we are dead, period (since our defense/mitigation drops significantly).  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You still use Dragon Stance for the few extra attack?  Is the value of 8 attack much greater than what we think?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Just curious.</DIV>

[Gaige]

<P>QP adept 3 is +11 to offense stats, DS adept 3 is +13 to offense stats.  So yes, I use DS when I'm not in MT group.  Honestly I'm usually buffed enough to be in the green for mit/avoid even with DS up.</P> <P>When I'm in the MT group using TV on Noah, I use SS with QP and my ACGF (+8 parry) to give Noah the highest avoidance check possible.</P>

[stfields]

<DIV> <HR> Honestly I'm usually buffed enough to be in the green for mit/avoid even with DS up. <HR> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Well that would eliminate the "poor mit/def when you get hate" issue I was thinking about. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks for replying.</DIV>

[Se]

<P>QP and DS do stack just not in their entirety. DS drops your mit vs physical and drops your defense, it increases all of your offense by much more i personally get 14 more attack with DS then I do with QP. The things that dont stack is that the plus + to pierce slash and crush. thats why when you stack them together you only get the bonus fromt eh stronger buff. DS gives you + to ranged and plus to melee. QP gives you plus to raw DPS and + to mental mit. THese effects do in fact stack. in your persona window check the difference in your mental mit after putting up DS then putting on QP. QP also gives a DPS bonus. To see it for yourself that it does infact stac up type /show_window mainHUD.Character and scroll down to the line the says DPS then put up DS (you'll see a 0 in the DSP column) then put up QP on top of it and walla depending on the quality of your QP you get a nice raw dps upgrade. If your not tanking useing DS and QP combo is gonna net you the largest offensive increase when you add everburning fire into the mix. I lose about .8% avoidance when having DS up if you put up Transcendent Vision and pop Control Breathing guess what you get that back in a pinch. Plus if you have a bruiser with you they hit ya with shrug off anf walla puts ya back up in avoid get a fury in your group and guess what it dont matter no more that you have DS up. AS for the loss of 300 or so mitigation vs physical. Our mit sucks so bad 300 aint gonna keep you alive anyway. get the right group make up and the downsides to DS aren't even thought of. a monk when buffed up to over 86% avoid no matter how low your mit if you gonna get 1 shotted by the mob your dead regardless of what personal buffs you got up. If your main worry is that with DS up you might get smoked by an add, my advice is this slow your roll. Space out your CA's a litle more and you wont pull agro from the MA. Even if you do put your dragon stance hotkey number on a key that you can get to very fastand walla you'll eat one hit from that add before you have it cancelled. </P> <P>I know I went a littel far with that one but hehe back to the main point. With many buffs there are quite a few that think the buff doesnt stack cause most fo the effects of a buff arent seen in the inspect and persona windows. many times to turly see what a buff is giving you type in that /show_window mainHUD.Character and you'll see the raw bonus from every buff and you'll see many more things stack then you think.</P>