Difference between Stun and Off Balance?

Zama666 · November 2023

Hello,

In PvP would someone please share the difference between Stun and Off Balance and THEN...

How do you use them? In what cases? Please let me know your class (or how you benefit from them)

I know Shield Assault stuns, and Dizzying Swing puts one off balance, and if hit again stuns.

My assumption is you want to stun your opponent, so why put them off balance?

Did that make any sense?

Tankz,

Z

Necrotech_Master · November 2023

stun is a hard cc, which prevents the opponent from performing any actions until they cc break or the effect ends

off balance is not a cc, its just a bonus effect that makes the target take additional dmg from heavy attacks or the CP slottable (dont remember the name)

some skills such as dizzying swing will only stun if the target is off balance, if the target is not off balance, then it applies off balance

the DK flame lash is kind of the same, you get the bonus only when the target is immobilized or off balance

the target automatically gains 20 sec of off balance immunity when they get off balanced (so off balance cannot be applied permanently and there will be some downtime)

OBJnoob · November 2023

Yup, what he said.

Additionally-- if you heavy attack an off balance opponent (and they don't block,) then you stun them. And it doesn't have to be a fully charged heavy either, any medium weave will do.

So, for example, say you're a NB. Your opponent is pretty good and keeps breaking free of your Incap and dodge rolling your AW. BUT... Eventually one of your Concealed Weapons is going to register as a flank and set the enemy off balance. So now you can "animation cancel" a heavy attack into your AW and be much more likely to hit. For two reasons. 1) Incap has a very recognizable sound and heavy attacks are fairly innocuous. 2) Since you didn't Incap first your skills aren't on cooldown. You can AW as soon as you heavy attack, instead of having to wait 1 second as you would if you had Incapped. So since AW has a minimum travel time an opponent will have basically 2 seconds to dodge it IF you Incapped first. If you used AW after weaving a medium-attack-off-balance-stun then the opponent only has 1 second to dodge. Which is very hard to do when you have to break free first.

That's kinda the only super relevant example. A DK that uses Flame Lash instead of Molten Whip will let you stay off balance instead of heavy-attack-stunning you. Because the stun consumes the off balance and puts you on a lengthy cooldown as mentioned above. The DK would rather benefit from the powered up lashes than stun you cuz DKs have easy access to stuns anyway.

The CP star that gives you an extra 10% damage against off balance targets is called Exploiter.

Zama666 · November 2023

@Necrotech_Master & @OBJnoob ok...this helps A LOT
I think this happens to me quite often without realizing it.

in this case, I would use Dizzying Swing, which would get them unbalanced, if I HA them they get stunned AND take more damage?

DKs and stuns...yeah, found that out the hard way...

Right not I feel I am not skilled enough to Off Balance someone and then stun them, or even take advantage of it. I can see myself really messing that up.

Will work on stuns for now