Steady Stance

[Marveric]

Just saw a monk using this skill in RA. Yea I know, its RA, but still; it does seem to have some potential. Many spikes rely on KD's, such as thumpers, shadow prison, hammers, etc. The energy gain refuels the cost, and the adrenaline could later fuel Bonetti's Defense or something else.
Is this skill worth it as an elite? You would lose ZB or BLight but it grants you invulnerability to most of the spikes out there. Yea there is balanced stance, but that doesn't last forever, and Fleeting Stability's KD at the end if not recast can be a drain, especially with 10 energy activation.

[Foreseen Era]

I use it on my warrior. Steady stance plus Drunken and Desperation Blow pwns. Never thought about it for PvP on a monk though.

[Ajaala]

Imo steady stance on a monk is a bad idea. why sacrifice a good monk elite for some protection? Balanced stance is enough for me in RA, with 6 tactics i get it to 13 secs and after those 13 seconds the warriors usually get tired of me and switch to a new target, or I just kite as much as i can.

[Ragnarok-]

On a monk, no. Kiting is efficient enough in RA, but if you really want KD prevention, try Fleeting Stability. At 5 Earth Prayers you can keep it up indefinitely (supposing there is no enchant removal [which, in RA, is a pretty safe assumption]). Dervish secondary is great since you can also have a run stance, or Armor of Sanctity (which is great, since it's also in Earth Prayers).

Edit: I didn't notice the part up there where you mentioned FS. But, in all honesty, you have quite a bit of time (at 12s duration [14 with 20% enchants]) to put it back up, and if you can't remember something as simple as that... I won't go on.

[Goldfish God]

Minor point, Steady Stance only partially prevents Horns of the Ox, if even that. Horns of the Ox is a Dual attack so it actually KDs twice, Steady Stance will only prevent the 1st KD (generating the adren and energy), while the 2nd strike will KD you.

[Marveric]

On a monk, no. Kiting is efficient enough in RA, but if you really want KD prevention, try Fleeting Stability. At 5 Earth Prayers you can keep it up indefinitely (supposing there is no enchant removal [which, in RA, is a pretty safe assumption]). Dervish secondary is great since you can also have a run stance, or Armor of Sanctity (which is great, since it's also in Earth Prayers).

Edit: I didn't notice the part up there where you mentioned FS. But, in all honesty, you have quite a bit of time (at 12s duration [14 with 20% enchants]) to put it back up, and if you can't remember something as simple as that... I won't go on.

Its the 10 energy of FS that makes it not so great... since you can't go /Me for channeling energy could possibly be a bit tight, especially if using BLight. And I don't use 20% enchanting because every bit of extra health is better.
Eh forgot about horns being dual.. oh well
I just saw someone using this and it wasn't such a bad idea at first... certainly prevented me from killing him until he used Bonetti's Defense.

[Ragnarok-]

Its the 10 energy of FS that makes it not so great... since you can't go /Me for channeling energy could possibly be a bit tight, especially if using BLight. And I don't use 20% enchanting because every bit of extra health is better.
Eh forgot about horns being dual.. oh well
I just saw someone using this and it wasn't such a bad idea at first... certainly prevented me from killing him until he used Bonetti's Defense.

I use a weapon switch that I hit for Protective Spirit and other things that can benefit from it. To be honest, I have way too many weapons on my monk now. It's getting ridiculous.

Edit: Yeah, BL will make your energy very tight, but I've really started to like some other elites...

[VILenin]

If you want to waste your elite on anti-KD, why not use Balthazar's Pendulum? It's used rarely enough (read: never) that no one will ever see it coming.

[windcaller]

i used it lol. was experimenting...in fact, i really think it was me :))

I was annoyed by the fact that i lost the previous 3 matches due to k/d warrs :))

Had fun with it tho ;)

[Tristan Chapin]

I doubt I'd take Balthazar's pendulum even if it wasn't an Elite.

[windcaller]

try Steady Stance :) just for a laugh. It also annoys warriors like hell. *stay down god dammit* :)))

[Marveric]

Steady Stance activates instantly, so when you see that W/E using Shock or that hammer warrior using Hammer Bash or that Assassin using Shadow Prison you don't have to wait 1 second in order to get your defense up.

[Corporeal Ghost]

The problems with Steady Stance outweigh the benefits for anything more than gimmicky fun.

-It's elite. This is going to detract from your efficiency, which means in practice that you're still plenty strong enough to take Arenas, PvE, possible Heroes' Ascent.

-It offers no significant advantage over Balanced Stance.

-Activations cost 10, which may be hard to come by under pressure, or something like Shame-->Gale.

Still a neat idea, though.

--me

[cranialexodus]

I'd rather take DH, as far as specific counters go. In RA KD isn't a threat, merely an annoyance. Very occasionally you might get a thumper and a hammer spiker who manage to coordinate 3 KDs+daze which could be very painful but only melee KD is typical (still annoyed what they've done with that gale:angry: ) and melee is very easily countered without using an elite. Simply that KD itself isn't a massive threat in small arenas and won't be used to incapacitate you sufficiently to prevent you preventing a spike.

The skills great for adrenaline generation but it's nothing special for KD preventation. The adrenaline generation is wasted, unless adding adrenal skills, and then the adrenal skills are too conditional, unless guaranteeing yourself a way to KD yourself... which is about the point where you realise you've wasted half your skill bar. Fleeting stability is imo way too expensive for realistic monk use, I'd rather go for balanced. Or brace yourself! on a team member (if not RA).

[Ragnarok-]

I'd rather take DH, as far as specific counters go. In RA KD isn't a threat, merely an annoyance. Very occasionally you might get a thumper and a hammer spiker who manage to coordinate 3 KDs+daze which could be very painful but only melee KD is typical (still annoyed what they've done with that gale:angry: ) and melee is very easily countered without using an elite. Simply that KD itself isn't a massive threat in small arenas and won't be used to incapacitate you sufficiently to prevent you preventing a spike.

The skills great for adrenaline generation but it's nothing special for KD preventation. The adrenaline generation is wasted, unless adding adrenal skills, and then the adrenal skills are too conditional, unless guaranteeing yourself a way to KD yourself... which is about the point where you realise you've wasted half your skill bar. Fleeting stability is imo way too expensive for realistic monk use, I'd rather go for balanced. Or brace yourself! on a team member (if not RA).

Riposte would be a nice channel for that adrenaline. It beats Shield Bash in terms of usage... Well, as in it can block anything, not just skills... although they don't get knocked down. Either way, a Steady Stance->Riposte would seem useful enough.

[Marveric]

Would sure be a laugh if a lone monk manages to kill a wammo with that =P

And in RA most people just charge straight for the monk anyway.

[Age]

Imo steady stance on a monk is a bad idea. why sacrifice a good monk elite for some protection? Balanced stance is enough for me in RA, with 6 tactics i get it to 13 secs and after those 13 seconds the warriors usually get tired of me and switch to a new target, or I just kite as much as i can.They did when the boon/protects were around used a mesmer elite.

[Ragnarok-]

They did when the boon/protects were around used a mesmer elite.

You have to realize that these are different circumstances. Boonprot'ing would still be around if every aspect of it didn't get nerfed. The original BP setup got the following nerfed: Boon (which got hit really hard semi-recently), OoB (which led to MoR[which got nerfed]), Mend Ailment (which got hit hard), and some other skills that got pretty downgraded. Boonprot'ing didn't need a monk elite only because of the sheer efficiency of it. The ability to pump out 100+ each and every heal at spammable (speed, not ecost) heals pretty much guarantee that you don't need a monk elite to cope with.

Not only that, but you have to consider when the BP's were prominent. The only semi-decent prot elite during that time was SoD, and even that was fairly bad compared to Guardian at the time.

The BP monks had to have an elite from another class. They had no true energy management otherwise. Pumping out heals at 7e per is very costly, but in the end it was efficient enough to keep the team up.

You can't compare the BP monk to current monks only for the lack of versatility back then. There weren't many ways to monk competitively. Healing was far too slow, not energy efficient, and unable to cope with spikes (with exception to Infuse). Active protecting wasn't powerful enough without an actual heal, so boonprot was the way to go.

Of course that changed with the BL trend, but that's another story.