Test Update 10/21/2014

But, if the stances were innate, then how would they apply the unnecessary defensive skill penalties?

Meanwhile, on Test...

Phalanx of One:
"Reduces incoming damage slightly. Has a chance to proc Phalanx of Fury when struck in combat."
Permanent buff with no buff timer, and has a 5 second recast timer.

Defensive Proficiency interaction:
Proficiency completely overwrites the Phalanx buff. Cannot cast the Phalanx buff while Proficiency is active. Other than the unfortunate loss of the Phalanx of Fury, this looks to be working as intended.

Dual Wield Proficiency interaction:
Both the Proficiency and Phalanx buffs can be up at the same time. It does not matter which is cast first, they do not prevent each other from being cast. This seemed odd, so I did some quick parsing to check if the defensive bonuses were stacking: they are not, I received the same min and max hits. Not sure if it's intended that both buffs are on at the same time, but that puts Dual Wield as the multi-mob tanking setup now to take advantage of the Phalanx of Fury procs, except that this tanking Proficiency still has a counter-intuitive 40% dodge skill penalty.

2-Handed Proficiency interaction:
Activating the Proficiency removes the Phalanx buff. Once the Proficiency buff is on, you can cast the Phalanx buff. This happened every time, regardless of whether I was switching out of another weapon stance, if I was recasting the 2H Prof even though it was already on, or if I had no Proficiency on at all before casting Phalanx then 2H Prof. I also tried two different weapon types, slashing and blunt, with the same results. I am going to guess that 2H Prof is not supposed to remove the Phalanx buff, and this is a bug.

No Proficiency interaction:
Activating Last Stand discipline overwrites the Phalanx buff, and I cannot cast the Phalanx buff while that defensive discipline is running. However, Phalanx now suffers the same problem we were having with Defensive Proficiency: no overlap allowed. Once Last Stand fades, there is a period of time where no other mitigation is active other than the base 5% for being a Warrior. And because of server time syncing, you may have to wait a tick or two before being able to cast Phalanx, DW Prof, or Defensive Prof. That time gap matters during raids, and so far I have had to compensate for it by using Flash of Anger for the time between mitigation buffs. That wouldn't be necessary if these were working innate passives.

Speaking of raids, taking an additional 10% damage from Commander Galenth and Captain Kanteer promises to be... fun.

So... We can use proficiencies 100% of the time, and get them at level 85... Two of the three give an equal or larger boost than we can get with Phalanx of One at 100. Being unable to ever (effectively) use this with a shield means, at the very least, it needs a new name... Seriously, what kind of Phalanx contains no shields?

One more thing we have to click that we shouldn't need to with the added side effect of losing agro.

Don't make this go live... Remove the mitigation boost for now, leave it passive. If there's concern that people with VoA but not CotF will lose out because of it, make proficiencies available to them.

Wondering if we can get a Dev to give their reasons why they are putting a 6 hour lockout timer on all HA's, many people love them cause they not have to deal with, especially on high volumn days like next week will be, trains, people stealing mobs, constant bugging of others to join their group etc while they are trying to level up their toons,. Which to me and a lot of others this just really irks us, so a explanation would be nice.

Long discussion on it here:
Sense Heading: Grinding XP in The Darkened Sea

There are several posts in the thread where they explain their view on it. Whether or not you agree is another story. If you check SOE Post Tracker button above, you can quickly find the posts made by Devs about the lockout and the xp in old expansions by clicking on their posts to the Sense Heading thread.

Since last patch I am unable to assign a selected icon image to a hotbutton. Selection of any image in the SPELL page results in that icon being replaced with the image on page 1 slot 1 and displays the icon from page 1 slot 1. This issue has also had the effect of replacing a lot of random icon images (Note that most are "Gate" related icons) with the Heart and Hand Icon. The effect does not carry to the buff bar, only hotbuttons.

I love it how they say, It is not fun to grind certain HA's for hours of days at a time but also say we get to play the way we want to. How can that be true if they tell us how we are suppose to play. So on tuesday will be people that are forced to be in just a few zones fighting over mobs trying to level and get tasks done, yeah that sounds like a lot of fun.

Completion of void raid The Journey Home gave no chest.

Rogues no longer have the Shield Block AA on Archetype tab. Whether this is intentional or not, I do not know. But we were also NOT refunded the AA's already spent on the 12 ranks we had before. It was also not communicated to us that this change was intended.