Guild Wars 2: Downed State, Stability, and Fear

Hello, this movie will discuss downed state, the importance of stability with respect to downed state, and the potential importance of fear for countering stability.  I say the "potential importance" of fear because it is not yet clear if fear is meant to be a counter to stability or not.  The tooltip for stability says that it works against fear but that is not the case in game.  IMO, I believe that it is the tooltip that is in error and that ArenaNet does intend for fear to be a counter to stability.  Time will tell.

I went through three phases with respect to how I felt about the downed state.  In the first BWE, it was "I hate this."  In BWE2, it was "Okay, I don't like this but I guess I can put up with it."  In BWE3 it was "Hrm, downed state introduces some interesting mechanics and tension to close fights in the game."  The dynamic of a fight changes drastically when a player is downed, and the stakes are very high when there are downed players on both sides of a fight.  There are mechanics and abilities specifically designed around the downed phase of a fight.  Teams and players who chose to ignore those mechanics and abilities will suffer the consequences.