Please remove light stun GGG

GGG, there are way to many CC's in this game, and light stun is by far the worst. There is no indication as to when it will occur, and will prevent us from using our only real escape tool in dodge rolling. Just ripped a HC character because I was stuck in a slow pool, which slows down the initial speed of the dodge roll and I frames, got light stunned by one slam to IMMEDIATLY get hit by another. No counter play options if I wanted to actually FIGHT the bosses because the stupid scorpion when it does its jumping shit makes about 1/4 of the arena covered in pools, and the worm blocks off another 1/3 with its indestructible and untargetable body (seriously, ONLY its head is vulnerable? In what world does that make sense?) There are so many different CC's and you love stacking them, but give players NO REAL WAY to counter them. The stun and freeze charms have AT BEST 2 uses before they are done with the only way to recharge them killing mobs OUTSIDE of boss arenas, or praying you get the +charges per second, although that is so slow you will be lucky to get a 3rd use by the end of a fight. Either remove some of these CC's, or give the player a real way to solve them. Cause charms are not it, and there is NOTHING else. (and before people say stack stun threshold, that will only DELAY it, and can still get insta procced by a slam attack even with a lot of threshold. So it is not a true solution for boss fights)

I have a question about light stun. It is not directly related to the topic, but I'm hoping someone can answer, so I can learn and join in the discussion. I did not notice the answer while reading the wiki.

Is light stun always indicated by squiggly indicator above players head? I am unsure, because in POE1, I believe player only gets an indicator when you are stunned for long stun time, over a certain threshold. In POE2, there is also heavy stun, which I think is indicated by character falling over, so I'm wondering if the squiggly icon in POE2 now applies every time you are light stunned? Or does it depend on how long the light stun is?

So for light stun, the ONLY indication you will have is that you are not able to do any action for about 1 second (not sure on the exact time, would have to dive deep to find it, but it is somewhere around there). If you are up against a single boss, it is not THAT big of an issue, but in the recent content they have added 5 new "double" boss fights, 3 in the first interlude 1 in the second and 1 in the third. Now, 2 of them are cheesable as you can split the bosses and fight them one at a time (The dueling witches and the 2 statues in the first interlude). You can KIND of do this sometimes with the final boss in the third interlude. But for the others, when you have 2 bosses right on top of you, you will see you have these instances where you press a button and nothing happens. THAT is light stun.

Usually it occurs right after a slam hits you, which kind of makes sense. Except when you have 2 bosses that BOTH slam right after each other it becomes an unbearable mechanic because there is no counter play. If you want to see how often it occurs, equip a stun charm and see how often it procs. Answer is, A LOT.

+1

I see. I have been making some post about this needing more indication, but wasn't exactly sure. I know in POE 1, base stun is .35 seconds, but you do not get the swirling stun icon until above .7 seconds. That is useful, to know when a long stun has occurred, but it means it is very difficult with no indication to know if you are being short stunned. It can often feel like a misclick, lag or any number of other things.

My suggestion is that since the wiki says you build up stun resistance innately based off how long you have been short stunned in the past 4 seconds, that there is an icon indicator for this. I don't think this is a complete solution, but I think it would be a step in the right direction. Player would know if they are encounter light stuns with more certainty and be able to allocate more resources to stun protection if needed. So the icon is up if you have been light stunned in the last for seconds, then perhaps it flickers if you get light stunned again while that is up, and the percentage value increases. Shown near debuffs, as it is from negative effects, even though stun resistance is building.

I think the charm does help with seeing, I have noticed as well, but I do not think it is a good design to need to equip this to get an indicator if the light stuns are occurring. I agree that there needs to be better indication. There are too many other things that are similar. I think the light stun mechanic is good to have, but not without indicators, for both feedback to build creation and gameplay purposes.

POE1 does have quite a bit of counters to stun. I agree that if the mechanic is in POE2, there also needs to be ways to counter it, not just the charm, which is helpful, but only a crutch. It seems like most the options are for increasing stun thresholds, which are more accessible on the tree, rather than total stun immunity, such as from ascendancy conditions. Unwavering stance at the cost of loosing dodge roll (and sprint) is a pretty high cost, and not easily accessible from most areas.

I have not played enough to know how important it is yet, I have only just started playing HC. I am not surprised with some of the boss mechanics that it is very dangerous, potentially being stunned by large hits, and in the manner you have described, with multiple enemies. I think the mechanic in general is fine, so long as there is a reasonable way to counter that sort of thing. If player is good enough to outplay the mechanics and wants to risk not having the protection, to maximise other resources, that is fine, but there needs to be reasonable options, at a reasonable resource cost otherwise.

Overall I think the main thing is the indication. Having players unsure if they are stunned or not, until they press something that doesn't proc, does not not seem like the best design to me. If it is as you are saying, and as it is in POE1, I think at the very least, the swirling icon should appear on all light/short stuns, then if another indicator like a debuff icon is needed for longer ones, it goes on top of the default stun indicator. I'm not sure the swirling indicator alone is a strong enough visual for the seriousness of having all character control interrupted. It is well known that visual clarity in POE is often a problem. That indicator is easy to see on many enemies when you hit stun a big pack. Not so much when it is just one small indicator in the middle of the screen surrounded by everything else in the game.