Are these two abilities even worth picking up ? Can you somehow force disengagement attacks reliably  

I'm currently using Battlemage Aloth, casting Ryngrim's Enervating Terror every fight. It makes for very effective tanking and he gets many disengagement attacks on terrified enemies trying to run away. Defender Stance is always on cuz his engagement sucks otherwise.

Question: does the upgrade for Guardian Stance only add a prone to the attack and nothing else? I was thinking of taking it but there's not much point in just proning a terrified enemy.

Edited September 19, 20196 yr by Jayd
forgot Defender is the base; Guardian is the upgrade

Well defender stance is obviously useful because of +3 engagement but the Guardian Stance upgrade seems kinda meh? Also since its higher level ability maybe its just better to spend those talent points elsewhere especially when multi classing 

doesn't guardian stance add damage?

overbearing guard adds +50%  damage to disengagement attacks, guardian stance does not mention any damage 

Edited September 19, 20196 yr by 3x0du5

it mentions that it hits all disengaging enemies at once I think. Is that an upgrade?

You always hit disengaging enemies immediately. Don't know why they wrote that. Guardian Stance indeed "only" adds the prone effect. You don't need it if you mainly trigger disengagemet attacks by terrifying enemies - but if you don't and want to keep enemies engaged and NOT run to your buddies and if your disengagement attacks are weak otherwise (e.g. when using a light main weapon) then it can be pretty handy.

maybe they should have added a small buff in acc or dmg to make it more worth it