Defensive Stance

Why does it reduce attack speed when it's a skill that is beneficial to all types of decks.
Mages don't get impacted at all by it vs other weapon types.
Could argue that it's less beneficial when wearing cloth vs plate but casters can also wear plate.
Balancing wise wouldn't it be better to impact everyone. Like -health / -focus instead of attack speed.

 

Mage setups work best with cloth, are very doable with leather (use of pets will kill your focus pool though) and manageable with chain if you know what you're doing and have high enough skills to reduce focus costs. Plate not so much though some magic trees have less fizzle rates than others.

Defensive stance means that you're on guard to block or parry attacks and and spending most of your time & energy doing that. Certain skills like flurry (light armor) , some potions (haste is one of them) and weapon tree skills (Blade speed for example) counteract the attack speed debuf that defensive stance brings on.

The balance and counterbalance is necessary since Offensive Reckless stance (also great with archery builds) has to be equally viable since this is the mirror skill of it's opposite twin.

*edited for clarity*

 

There is no such thing as Offensive Stance. I think you mean Reckless Stance.

 

Yet another example of the design philosophy for @Chris and @DarkStarr mages get the best archers are close behind and plate wearers and melee get ignored and nerfed and never have their issues looked at much less fixed

I agree that defensive stance should be made to make it unusable for casters and archers....how about making it literally impossible to cast anything other than earth or life magic with it on or make it reduce fire death and air attunement by about 200 and it can also reduce archery damage by 95%

 

You are correct - altering my post now. Thanks Barugon.