Tome of battle question

[Smorgonoffz]

I've been reading the setting sun maneuvers, when i've noted shifting defences what's the stance utility? even the handbook reccomends it as [...] makes you almost immune to melee[...]. Could someone explain why it's useful?

[Doc_Maynot]

If you are in combat and someone tries to attack you, you can immediately take a 5ft step by expending an AoO attempt.

If you have multiple AoO Attempts in a round via Combat Reflexes, you can do this that many times in a given round.

Once you are no longer in the square, the attack fails. At least, non-reach Melee ones that is, not sure how it'd work with ranged attacks.

[Smorgonoffz]

O.o a very nice and powerful stance, now i understand it's usefulness.

[shadowseve]

O.o a very nice and powerful stance, now i understand it's usefulness.

^ this pretty much.

[Immabozo]

^ this pretty much.

mix it with reach and knockback, you will have the greatest defense a melee can have! I had a character that had a +40 and the build ended up with a +68 or so on his bullrush with knockback. Combat Reflexes giving like 8 AoO, anyone came close, they were almost always smacked away. With that, on the rare occasion they weren't, they still couldn't hit me! I would have loved to add that and see my friend's faces

[Smorgonoffz]

@Immabozo: would care to share the setup used to made that character?