[Suggestion] More Confusion, Less Bleeding

When Mirage came out, I decided to take an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach to the condition meta and made myself a set of Viper's gear. And y'know what? Condition damage Mirage is fun. It's a lot of fun! It's mobile, flashy, and, at least in the open world where I can create dozens of clones and shatter often, really flavorful.

But it got me thinking about other condition damage builds--specifically, Firebrand and Elementalist condition builds. Not their power, per se, but their flavor. Both of them have clear identities focused around burning. That's especially cool with Firebrand. Burning defines the Firebrand. And that's really cool--it creates a strong identity for the spec. If a Firebrand with tons of fiery abilities relied on poison, that'd feel weird, right?

Confusion should have the same relationship to Mesmer, I think. And yet when we make a PvE condition build, we're a lot better at applying bleeding, of all things, largely thanks to Duelist's Discipline and the Phantasmal Duelist. For a while, that was a blessing, because confusion wasn't designed to be particularly functional in PvE. However, now it does respectable damage. In my opinion, we don't really need bleeding anymore.

What if we replaced every application of bleeding on any Mesmer skill or trait with an application of confusion instead? That includes skills like Lacerating Chop (maybe it'd need a new name, like "Confusing Chop" maybe), traits like Duelist's Discipline (maybe rename it "Duelist's Trickery" or something?), Dune Cloak, and Sharper Images, anything like that. It'd let Mesmer focus more closely on a single, defining condition. That'd probably be a DPS upgrade for us, but I don't think it'd be a massive one. But it would improve our flavor, I think. Mesmers are confusing, tricky illusionists. Why are we relying on bleeding, of all things?

For what it's worth, I get it with torment--it's an explicitly magical and ethereal condition, and Mesmers have quite a bit of "pure magic"-type spells to our name, so it fits much better than bleeding does.

This would probably need some considerations for PvP, of course--confusion's a very different beast over there--but I don't think it'd require too massive of an adjustment.

What do you all think?

@"Agent Noun.7350" said:When Mirage came out, I decided to take an "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach to the condition meta and made myself a set of Viper's gear. And y'know what? Condition damage Mirage is fun. It's a lot of fun! It's mobile, flashy, and, at least in the open world where I can create dozens of clones and shatter often, really flavorful.

But it got me thinking about other condition damage builds--specifically, Firebrand and Elementalist condition builds. Not their power, per se, but their flavor. Both of them have clear identities focused around burning. That's especially cool with Firebrand. Burning defines the Firebrand. And that's really cool--it creates a strong identity for the spec. If a Firebrand with tons of fiery abilities relied on poison, that'd feel weird, right?

Confusion should have the same relationship to Mesmer, I think. And yet when we make a PvE condition build, we're a lot better at applying bleeding, of all things, largely thanks to Duelist's Discipline and the Phantasmal Duelist. For a while, that was a blessing, because confusion wasn't designed to be particularly functional in PvE. However, now it does respectable damage. In my opinion, we don't really need bleeding anymore.

What if we replaced every application of bleeding on any Mesmer skill or trait with an application of confusion instead? That includes skills like Lacerating Chop (maybe it'd need a new name, like "Confusing Chop" maybe), traits like Duelist's Discipline (maybe rename it "Duelist's Trickery" or something?), Dune Cloak, and Sharper Images, anything like that. It'd let Mesmer focus more closely on a single, defining condition. That'd probably be a DPS upgrade for us, but I don't think it'd be a massive one. But it would improve our flavor, I think. Mesmers are confusing, tricky illusionists. Why are we relying on bleeding, of all things?

For what it's worth, I get it with torment--it's an explicitly magical and ethereal condition, and Mesmers have quite a bit of "pure magic"-type spells to our name, so it fits much better than bleeding does.

This would probably need some considerations for PvP, of course--confusion's a very different beast over there--but I don't think it'd require too massive of an adjustment.

What do you all think?

well i can do 40 stacks of confusion with mirage "pretty sustained"- not really sustained , but 40 into 10 to 30 to spike 40 again. This is due to confusion usually havin a little less duration the bleeding for example. If we change our Bleedings into Confusion , pvp and wvw - foes would insta die, when trying to cleanse, cause if i remember, when cleansing confu, u first get one full dmg stack ? ( could be wrong , just read that somewhere).

Imagine 60 stacks confusion bombs xD.

I would like too see more confusion in traits instead of weapons/ambushes for example.Probably dune cloak should be confusion. Confusion on Ambush should always apply and be higher if u shattered, like 2 stacks always , 3 if u shattered in the last 3 seconds.

I was playing wiht the obnoxious idea that deception skills on mirage get passives, which dont go on cooldown.

Jaunt would have ; Periodically inflict Confusion on ur attacks ; Intervall 10 sec, 2 Confu (4 sec)False oasis ; periodically heal urself ; intervall 1 sec , 234(+ 10%Healingpower)Illusionary Ambush ; Periodically restore Endurance ; Intervall 1 sec, 3 EnduranceSand through Glass, periodically gain Stability ; Intervall 10 sec, 2staby(4 sec)Mirage Advance: Periodically blind enemys arround u, intervall 10 sec , blind (3 sec)Crystal Sands: Periodically do another cool thing which cant be the same then Jaunt sadly, even if it would fit, intervall ; Notorious BIG

You only take damage if the cleanse is a secondary effect, and you use the skill first, then cleanse. This is the case usually when you are cleansing via a trait (generic "using x skill type cleanses 1 condition") and for a few utility skill cleanses. But the majority of cleanses in game that are primarily cleanses will cleanse first, so when you use htose you don't take the confusion damage.

@OP I had an idea for a GM trait that would change all of our bleed stacks into stacks of confusion. It gives us the option to go almost full confusion, making us lose a cover condition (and 20% condi duration from dune cloak in solo play), but in a condi build could do a lot to build up how much confusion we can pump out.