XanBie.3675

Mesmer is definitely the most prolific user of confusion. But the change should not be seen as a direct nerf/buff, but rather a way to make it an option in all builds. The other option at this point is to switch all confusion in PvE into torment or bleeding otherwise (which would be kinda sad!) Concerning the dragging of combat, I feel like that rings true for all condition builds as opposed to just confusion haha.

Hey all, this is going to be a lengthy case on where I think confusion should move towards, and I'd love to hear what the general population thinks! Being here since launch, I've seen confusion wave in the wind and lose its identity to an extent. The target for change here is directed at PvE, but I feel like the change can carry to all game modes. Current State of Confusion So currently as is public knowledge in the wiki, confusion hits on two fronts. The first is a damage over time (DoT), which was implemented to round out this condition as being more useful in areas like PvE where enemies typically attack slower. The second is a damage on skill activation, which is quite self explanatory 🙂 In the current state of the game, PvE modes will favor the DoT damage and reduce the skill activation damage, where PvP modes will do the reverse. And although this is a decent way of moving confusion from the "useless" category in PvE to "present", the condition itself is generally lackluster. It is a difficult condition to maintain on targets due to its duration, and when compared to something like bleed, its quick lackluster. Bleeds will tick higher per stack as well as last significantly longer then any confusion applications you can apply. And of course confusion has the skill activation damage to compensate, due to the attack speeds in PvE it will perform poorly aside from specific instances. Suggested Changes My suggestion is a tweak to how confusion deals its damage. The changes I would apply are as follows: Drop the DoT component of confusion. Put the lost damage from the dots into the skill activation damage. Make confusion stack(s) get consumed on skill activation. The third point in this list is the crux of my idea. In order to make the damage "fair" in multiple game modes, we would introduce the idea that taking activation damage from confusion will eat up stacks and deliver damage correspondingly. The amount of stacks consumed will need to be adjusted based on things like game mode and type of targets. To give a better example with arbitrary numbers: I apply 9 stacks of confusion on a target for 10 seconds The target performs an action In PvP/WvW every action will consume at most 5 stacks of confusion off the top of the pile and deal its damage. So the first action will lower the total to 4 stacks (dealing 5 stacks of damage), and the attack after down to 0 (dealing 4 stacks of damage) In PvE where mobs attack slowly, this number of stacks consumed will be at most 30 stacks in a single attack (so first attack drops the total to 0 (dealing 9 stacks of damage)). With this, I feel like the balancing act of PvE attack speeds will be easier to manage. Bosses like Twin Largos will not be extremely susceptible to confusion compared to KC for example. Of course this requires a proper look at the numbers or we risk dps craziness, but I think it is a worthwhile effort! The one area that is a bit difficult to solve with this change would be inanimate objects like barrels or WvW doors. In these areas, I would think we should either Consume all stacks immediately on application, Or Have the object "activate a skill" every X seconds (this second one I feel could cause many in game issues with things like combat, responsiveness etc, so I'm not keen on it). Curious to hear what you all think!

Can confirm, worked with @rsq.3581 and got it cleared with our run 🙂! Achieves all around! -Tzenker

Adding myself to the list of jaded people not getting the achievement they earned 🙂! As much as the meta can be cleared without the new version of this achievement, it pains me to not complete this section of my achievement log when I've done the deed 😮! Hopefully we get some response or compensation for this, I figure if you have the old one should be allotted the new one. Just worried the number of people doing this shrinks as time passes and players clear the rewards they wanted.

Interesting concept but a few pain points: Hammer Skill #3 -> The duration of the orbs is a bit too narrow, forcing you to cycle the entirety of your elements in quick succession to get the full benefit. It would be good to have a slightly wider window to allow for some skills to be used in between. Also as much as I love the idea of positioning yourself to have the orbs hit, it feels awkward if you land in Earth/Water because you need to choose to have the orbs connect or any of your skills to connect. Now because I don't want to completely dismantle the notion of close range for those elements, might I suggest the orb radius adjusts based on your attunement? This would also allow for more play in water/earth as a smaller radius would mean more frequent hits. Jade Sphere -> I think it was more of a shock due to seeing it in the demo vs in action. The gauge fills very slowly and depletes rather quickly. Because it is a stationary field, it would be interesting if the Catalyst could maintain the Jade Sphere so long as they continued fighting? So you continue to gain energy while it is deployed as your normally would. This would give incentive to an aggressive playstyle and have good counters for enemy players (i.e kite the Catalyst to time out there sphere). The above also links to the utilities extra perk feeling a bit lackluster due to the unavailability of the sphere. Another thought would also be allowing the elementalist to choose if the sphere switches element while deployed. As stated in the demo, the best feature is definitely the air version, but you will be forced to sit in air while it is deployed. Another possibility to fix this (but this may be overpowered) is to "build up" boons, so that every element the sphere had continues to pulse its boons. Just some food for thought!