Pre/Post Nerf Comparison Videos

Mirage vs. Zintl Inquisitor (Post 11/28/2017 patch - a.k.a. "The Axe Nerf")

Mirage vs. Zintl Inqusitior (Today - Post 2/6/2018 patch)

It's possible arcdps isn't reading properly due to the patch (I haven't updated it), but taken at face value this indicates a ~15% DPS loss against a mix of enemies (normal, veteran, champion) in solo open world play. The obvious culprit for this loss is the rather conspicuous reduction in damage from confusion, which appears to have fallen from our most damaging condition by far to our least damaging condition.

One question I have: Why did it take me about 5 seconds less time to complete the same encounter with my supposedly 15% reduced DPS?

you probably managed the trash mob better the second video.As for the confusion nerf i don't think that it will have a major impact on solo play, but on boss, fractale, raid and the like it will probably destroy the mesmerthk for the hard work

I'm not sure why it was necessary to nerf confusion in PvE. Hopefully it's some sort of mistake.

i hope too, of buffing our other condition (the phantasm from torche is great now : cc and really high burn) but it's not enough to be usefullalternatively the staff is really great at condition damage now (no confusion anywhere)

More video results. This time we have the Mirage vs. Chak Lobber before and after. The relatively high contribution of burning and torment in the Zintl Inquisitor video softened the impact of the confusion nerf to 15% DPS loss. But this time there aren't so many additional targets and axe ambush with its heavy confusion stacking drives the engine. Now we see a 25% DPS loss!

With the raid build I expect this loss to be even larger as it uses only axe and confusion accounts for a very large portion of their damage. Unless this is some sort of mistake, condi axe mirage is in trouble!

Before:

After: