The "Cannot be stunned" -mentality, is it even necessary?

Foreword: This question does not concern glasscannon builds, nor Hardcore.

For the last 2 leagues I've played tanks almost solely, different kinds. 2h, shield, DW and so on, all in the 84-93 level range.

The first few were stun immune or avoided stun via Heart of the Oak or Unwavering Stance, the rest did not. And I could do any maps just fine, I mean just fine. So is Stun avoidance really even necessary?

Usually I see this "Get IR+Unwavering or Chayula or you're a noob." -mentality around. I've found in cold, hard practice that you can be fine without either.

My last IB Marauder had 68% block, 4,5k HP, 5k Armour, 32% chance to Evade and Mind Over Matter. I purposefully did not get Iron Reflexes and Unwavering on him just to see things out, and he seemed to last longer than his stun immune, non evasive counterparts. ( This is currently popular in the meta as many have probably noticed, Evasion is held in a higher regard than before and Armour is overrated. )

Basically that Mara of mine ( in Domination ) who's stats were only average, couldn't care less about getting stunned and he very rarely did. Personally I think not being stun immune isn't a must for a tank build these days, and people should shake that old belief off their backs. You can do fine even if you occasionally get stunned.

Like I mentioned before, no map was over difficult even without stun immunity. Ofcourse, your build needs to be okay otherwise and the same goes for gear. I feel I'd take Evasion over Unwavering+Iron Reflexes any day now on a tank, and put those points elsewhere in good use.

I feel you. My first lvl 76 tank marauder with Unwaving stance back in Dom was alot squishier than my lvl 90 ele ST now. Of course evasion is better scaling for any class.

It's not about stun, it's about desync.

Stun opens up the can of worms that is desync, which is one of the deadliest things in the game. RT+US+IR is about as close as you can get to desync-proof, no evasion checks, no stun checks, no accuracy checks, and the ability to tank lots of physical damage.

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CookieVortex wrote:

It's not about stun, it's about desync.

Forced sync on stun in a patch made this argument less important though.

Stun isn't necessary for every build, it's just necessary for builds which rely very heavily on leech for survivability (beyond the simple "I don't like dying to reflected damage" deal). With these builds, leech stopping (because of stun) = regen gone = risk of death greatly increased. So if you're, say, dual-wielding claws, I'd say you're very much interested in stun prevention.

And relying very heavily on leech is the generic cookie-cutter thing to do.

If you are a bit of a free thinker and come up with a build which survives just fine even with your leech turned off, you don't need stun avoidance.

With my current duelist I dropped US/IR in favor of armor/evasion hybrid and block chance, 82 right now 3.9k health 11k dps with reave and I can clear maps no problem solo up to 72.

Haven't gotten any higher map drops yet so 72 is all I've done.

Higher life builds don't really need it, but if you're taking IR and going through that area anyway, it's really a no brainer.

There's no question that CI needs it. Try playing CI without stun immunity, you'll want to pull your own teeth out with pliers.

High block builds that don't necessarily have a ton of life do very well by having it too. The block stun animation is a real bastard.

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Spysong192 wrote:

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CookieVortex wrote:

It's not about stun, it's about desync.

Forced sync on stun in a patch made this argument less important though.

When did it happen? Which patch. Looks like I missed sth.

I wish flasks will have "Remove stun" mod, but right now i have to stuck with Unwavering Pants, it a must have passive for me