[polly]

All of the other stances for Demon Hunter provide a small, yet without a doubt meaningful buff related to the style of gameplay that it's supposed to support.
Reaver gives you +5 SWA, Matador gives you +5 Armor and Desperado gives you +5 Hit.

+5 SWA is undeniably universal. It's just 5 more damage. +5 Armor is great. +5 Hit is also something you'd generally benefit from.

But the +5 dodge on Cobra Stance is something that easily loses all value. Most if not all evades are already hardcapping Evade buffs. Meaning that any competent dodgie wil lget no benefit whatsoever from it.

Simple suggestion;

Turn Cobra's +5 evade from a Bonus to a Base buff, similar to the Rogue main class skill.

This makes would easily elevate it from being "basically useless if you evade cap" (99/100 times you will) to "universally great for any dodge build", without being far too powerful.

[Shujin]

From the Perspective of someone, who tries to make a Dodge Kensei/Demon Hunter work?

I think that 5 Dodge is not really enough to make something even a pseudo dodge class. Game is pretty much balanced around the fact that you have capped Evade when you play the Hit versus Evade game.

A personal preference on my end is also to give Cobra, Matador and Desperado a "When in stance at turn start"-MC Skill like Reaver does. For Cobra how about its when MC has 5 base dodge and get 5 evade, per round you start in Cobra. Make it not instantly drop if you choose to start a round in another stance, but give it a short enough duration (I am thinking 2-3 rounds) so that you still have to occasionally slip into it to keep it up.
I understand the concerns of dodge buffs feeling at some point meaningless, but I also think that dodge should be made more viable between different classes that have clearly a dodge part in their kit.

Just my personal gripes with it.

[Rendar]

I'm not even sure where to begin on making Cobra a good 'dodge' buff.

Right now it's 5 dodge, and 15 if you have mirage walk and winged serpent. This is the maximum that this class can give. Meanwhile, Rogue is sitting over there with

Base addition: 5
Southern Wind: (20/26)
If VA: Blotch (16/19) -- Can be used on yourself for +16, or on enemy for -16 hit
If Spellthief: Distortion (20/25), RoP (15/20), (15/20 + 50% Scaled Luc, in my case. Fortune Wind is +38 evade. 43 if spirited)
If Engineer: Upgrade(Jetpack) (15)

I understand that DH isn't meant to be a dodge class, but giving it +5 evade is a joke that more-or-less will never be relevant. Hell. DH/Solblader can barely reach evade cap! That requires Wings of Light (15) + Holy Aura Speed of Light (15) + Mirage Walk (15) + Cobra Stance (5). Which requires momentum per round to KEEP up said dodge buffs.

The dodge master classes are Rogue (Spellthief in particular), Shapeshifter, and like. Verglas with Ice stacked (+30 if you hit with ice in the right stance 6 times).

Other classes have ways to lower your hit (Kensei has -hit, Locking Guard, Smoke screen, Light Shafts)... but.. to be a dodge. REQUIRES that you cap out dodge. And hopes/prays that your opponent doesn't have a way to cap out their +50 hit.. or a way ONTOP OF THAT to also add half their guile to a back-attack on you (which goes beyond the +50 hit cap).

Giving Demon Hunter's Cobra Stance a stackable buff that is.. iunno. A Trickery effect if it's gotta be... or a "Use Cobra Skills" passive? Something that would allow it, as a class, to give an evade buff so that you're able to properly use the class as a dodge, and not instead having to rely on rogue (Spellthief) to deal with it.

[Autumn]

I think the elegant answer is to have Snake Dancer grant a pretty sizeable evade buff (like +25) towards enemies in your line of sight, hearkening back to it's previous role.

[Poruku]

Yeah, I think cobra giving 5 evade is totally fine. I don't understand what you mean by it being useless and everyone already has capped evade... DH struggles to cap evade, that's the issue. Instead there should be some kind of relevant evade buff.

[polly]

I'm saying that if you cap evade, it does nothing for you. Every half competent evade maxes out their evade. Yeah, a more relevant evade buff would be nice.
I was suggesting that it's base buff of +5 evade gets turned into base instead of +5 bonus. Similar to the Rogue passive.
So it's useful no matter what. Just like how all the other 3 stances are.

Whether you are capped or not, +5 base evade is invaluable. Incredibly good, even.

[Poruku]

Yeah every half competent evade maxes out their evade, and +5 can definitely help with that. Only rogue and archer can cap out evade on its own, so any evade buff on other classes is great. I mean this argument doesn't make much sense, might as well say that any evade buff become a base buff because "evade builds already got it capped".

Even for a solid evade build, any kind of evade buff is always useful, especially one that doesn't require any momentum. But generally speaking, evade demon hunters are either rogue or magic gunner. So you're either casting fortune wind and capping it instantly with sarasha gi, or you're rogue MC with like spirited RoP and Southern Wind. Sure, those builds can cap evade without needing +5, but that doesn't mean the +5 is useless. In some cases, +5 will allow you to reach cap, and if you aren't yet capped it's also great of course. For instance if you're a ST that has RoP and southern wind, both spirited, that's like 44 evade. +5 is 49, perfect!

I think cobra stance being a buff is really not an "issue". The "issue" here is that demon hunter cannot play evade on its own, or with less generous evade classes. For instance you might wanna play monk demon hunter. Sounds pretty evasive but nope, not enough evade so the build is dead. Kensei DH? Nope, not enough evade so you can't play that. Maybe a wind mage dh? Nope, no evade buffs.

So I really just don't think giving the already good DH builds a buff to base evade would be a great move. DH needs some evade buffs so that it can make proper evade builds without relying on fortune wind, and so it can play more than 2 class combos.

[Shujin]

No. No. +5 is definitely useless.

It means the only way you can cap evade is to run it with Verglas, Spellthief, VA or Archer promos. Even Solblader, the paladin, has solid evade buffs attached to a arieal enablement and a 1M movement, better than rouges can.

Cobra stance needs some way to at the very least enable buffcaping with another class, and not be 100% carried.

[Poruku]

If +5 was useless we wouldn't white spirit the ring of pearls. We're saying the same thing here; it needs more help. I'm just saying that turning it into a base buff isn't the right move

[Shujin]

thats a wrong way to look at it. We spirit it so it gives 20. not +5. Its so that the investment is more worthwhile and you reach the cap with less momentum. But if you whole kit only has 5 evade, its useless.

The real problem with Speedy Dodgers is actually, that they need way more time to set up than Tanks do. So they lose in two fronts. any momemtum you can shave off from that, is huge for dodgies. but you ain't using DH for the 5 evade, thats just ingenuine.