So this is coming from my other thread, which I ran a test comparing damage of Ricochet when using Oath and Power Stance

The result show that Oath and Power Stance does not affect the damage output of Ricochet, even when the display information show a increase in damage.

Testing condition:

8 Dex toon, 16-24 damage crossbow (starting crossbow)
Against first engagement in game, 3 skeleton facing front (ignoring the 2 bowman at the back)
Note that the bow skeleton in front has resistance and takes low damage

10 sets Ricochet shots are taken, With Stance, with Oath and with nothing.

Here's result !!!

Average damage

Nothing
Display Damage (16-24)
Actual average damage 13 / 19.8 / 19.7

With Stance
Display Damage (20-29)
Actual average damage 12.8 / 18.1 / 18.2

With Oath
Display Damage (23-34)
Actual average damage 13 / 17.4 / 18.5

So I assume this is the same across all Marksman/Man-at-arm skills? They all display increase damage after using power stance and oath but the actual damage is not increased at all!? Can someone else run more test with different skill please.

This is serious bug, I believe many players hybrid build into Witchcraft for boost damage, mainly on their AOE damage skill. Now I know I've been Adding Int to 8 on my ranger and casting Oath before Ricochet and splinter arrow for the last 30 hours all for nothing haha.

Average damage of Whirlwind on 3 targets with 3 tries, in the brackets is absorbed.

1st scenario: Oath of desecration
51(12)
60(15)
47(13)

2nd scenario: Oath+Power stance
53(13)
59(12)
47(16)

3rd - Power stance
55(13)
54(13)
51(12)

4th- no buffs
61(14)
59(14)
56(13)

The most damage is without buffs lol but it may be due to a statistical error.
I have to add that with power stance there were 3 "miss" hits form 9 so the lowest damage is with power stance but I didn't include that miss hits in the calculation.

It's not just the average damage, in the test I ran, the highest damage in oath and power stance shots are exactly the same as with no buff, which is 22, this is close to statistically impossible if those spells and skills have effect on damage.

In conclusion, it's best not to use Oath and/or Power Stance, correct?

Hmm... I can try running some tests of my own, 10 attacks each, to see if I can confirm that. Three tests might be statistical noise, but 10 tests are less likely to be so.

Quick update: I did 10 shots with Madora with no buffs, and then moved to Power Stance. There was an immediate improvement in her damage with Power Stance as well as with Oath of Desecration.

BUT, I was only testing Normal attacks at first. So it might be the case that the damage-boosting things no longer work with skills, but only normal attacks.

Is that surprising? I could have sworn I read this somewhere already, in which case it's working as intended.

I'll see if I can find it.

Edit: It may have been the wiki. It explains there that stances only impact normal attacks and not skills (which makes sense since they can't miss, meaning the hit-chance penalty for the stance would be meaningless). This is wiki info from the original D:OS, by the way, suggesting it's always worked this way.

Damn, that's awfully counter-intuitive. Using a +chance to hit stance with 100% chance to hit devices was stupid, but using a +damage stance with damaging skills is a... reasonnable thing, on paper.

Oh well...

I actually never used stances, neither in the original game nor now on the EE. I consider them rather useless in general but sure, they should of course at least work the way they are intended.

Power stances were useful if you could minimize the chance of missing (through your attributes or doing something to the opponent that grants a guaranteed hit, e.g. knocked down) and you absolutely needed that opponent to die that turn. Toggle it on, land a heavier than normal hit, target dies, toggle it off.

With the toggle function being removed now I don't really like power stances that much.


It's not +chance to hit with 100% hit chance that was the problem (although you're right, that would be a stupid time to use a precision stance), it's the fact that skills/spells don't miss, and how it makes the 20% increased chance to miss penalty on power stances meaningless.

Following some advice, I'm now using Power Stance and Precision Stance with my rangers, because in the early game my displayed chance to hit is very low. There is now a 2-turn cooldown on the stances, but I'm getting the hang of managing them, and I haven't had a problem with not being able to switch when I have to. That's not a terribly big cooldown, just enough that you have to think slightly more tactically than you did before.

I turn on precision to hit enemies from afar, and once there are a couple who are hard CC'ed, I switch to power stance to do heavy damage. By the time the CC's end, the cooldown on precision stance is over and I can swap to that. Repeat. Funny enough, I'm making more use of those now than before the toggle.

But I am still early on, I'll have to see if that continues to work.

I like power/defense stances (and other stances, except the one that return back damage).

I use them for
guerilla-sniping on my rangers (marksman offensive stance).
buffing armor or movespeed on my mages (man-at-arms stances).
buffing backstab damage (and movespeed) on my scoundrels (man at arms offensive stance).
improving armor on my tank at the end of his turn, if needed.

Ok so in original game I remember Power stance doesn't increase skill damage, but I'm pretty sure Oath did. So now both of them won't increase skill damage? If so, the information display is wrong, saying splinter arrow does 500 - 800 damage but it never went above 350.

Actually in my test Whirlind CAN miss with Power stance ( read my previous post) so It looks like we have double standard- with power stance we got the penalty but not the buff part and with Oath we miss the benefit.