Two very different things.

Anyone want to explain how to use stances to the fullest though?

To use stances, you must know your enemy. For example, if I were to fight one of the pythons in Balach swamp, and if I had previously fought them and knew that they attacked my legs, I would enter a stance to protect my legs. In fact in this case at least, it cuts the damage about 30%, which is pretty good. So just apply that to all aspects of combat and you're set.

Well considering Fain asked about the stances for Knighthood I guessed that He was talking about the CombatStyles.

I think combat stances are useful enough, but I would like to see a -bit- less limitation on them. I can't imagine it would hurt things much to let you keep one while moving or something.

I'm not a combat monster, but I do know a fair bit about triggers and things, so I can manage. But I'm just thinking, some people might not be able to or know how to set up a suitable system for such things. And if you don't, it's really hard to keep on top of your stance, it tends to get lost in confusion. I know, triggers, big part of combat and such, you probably won't be much good without a system of some sort, but I do believe that everything should have -some- decent way to use it without having it done via robotic computer brain.

So, that's my thought. I like stances, I'd just like to see some way to keep one even while moving. Perhaps a command that let you keep your current combat stance when moving, but made it take balance to switch? So you could switch them freely but have it change when you move, or concentrate on one, but have it harder to switch. "Concentrate vitals" or something.

I was asking more about Combat Stances, from the Combat skillset, and how effective they actually are when standing up against a warrior archetype.

Now that I am looking over my initial post, I probably should have removed the word "Knighthood" so not to confuse with COMBAT STYLES. Sorry.

Most of my fighting so far has been group combat. When I'm being webbed by two people, cosmicfired by two people, and staffed by another, then hit by a random knight, there isn't a combat stance in the world that is going to help me survive. I'm sure after more one-on-one experience I'll have more to say, and I do thank you for the work to make them viable and useful.

But.

1. I've visually seen anyone go into a combat stance. It may be that just no one uses them much, but more likely my guess is that it doesn't show a message to others. If it does not show a message to others, then there is no way your opponent can watch you stance and choose to fight around it.

2. It does use your balance or eq to stance, but you lose stance when you move.

The combination of these two things seems sort of strange to me. If your opponents can't see you stance, and you can just restance whenever you move, why not have it set up like combatstyles as a 'defense' you set up once? All the current situation seems to do, to me, is encourage people to make reflexes to auto-stance when they move and gag the send and response lines. If it is supposed to be that easy and unseen by others to stance, why make us do it every room? It can't be because it hurts your opponent's strategy, if (1) is true (I can't test right now, I might be wrong).

I have a log somewhere of two one on one duels against Rafael, a Paladin as you probably know, outside the Arena.

I was lost very quickly both times, but interestingly he only targeted my gut. So for the second duel I just put on 'stance gut' and 'parry gut 100'.

I did nothing but sip, launch a few tarot cards then die in both fights, but I lasted easily three times longer with stances and parrying than without. I'd have to go back through the log and have a look at how much was parrying and how much was missing due to the stance. But I've never really seen a knight miss me unless I was in a stance.

I'll certainly be integrating fluid stances into my scripting, once I have enough knight triggers.

Knights are roughly as effective as the other classes ordinarily, assuming they hit pretty much every time.

When you have a good parry / combat stance strategy going, it can reduce the frequency of my hits up to about 50%

That effectively means we're fighting at about 50% effectiveness. Even a 10% reduction in overall effectiveness is good. Combat stances and parry have alot of potential to be used well. If you're not good at using them, of course they're going to do next to nothing.

I personally like the way its set up now. It may effect my class negatively, but only alot against the best of the best (which is how it should be).