How are you supposed to beat certain Masked Carnivale fights?

[EusisLandale]

Yeah, that's not true.

What isn't true? That you'll do less than half the damage without the stun? Because I'm sitting here stabbing things in Azys Lla for around 3000 damage, Faze them and it shoots up to around 6300. And that's without trying to apply any other buffs or debuffs.
I'd also consider your gear and ask if anything changed. Just switching from Augmented Shire Earring to the Aetheryte Earring, which the game stupidly puts as optimal, cuts those numbers down several hundred.

Now if you're saying that the potencies of skills weren't buffed last time they messed with those isn't true, it is. Most things went from being around 100 or so to being in the 200s with the trade off being that Off-Guard went from "You do 50% more to this target, full time unless you get lazy" to "Everyone does 5% more to this target, but only for a few seconds"