Discussion about Confusion [merged]

[Rauderi.8706]

Throwing out yet another idea here (in case just fixing it back to what it was is a problem):

Okay, so... Remove tick damage. It's obviously not what was desired. And in PvP, it's hardly noticed until skill activation.

Do the same for PvE. Only let Confusion do high damage on activation, keep the duration extended for enemies.

And then, for PvE only, adjust every skill with Confusion to also do equivalent levels of Bleed. There, tick damage done is entact on the most standard DoT and Confusion can retain its ideological purity.

[IndigoSundown.5419]

At this point, I'm thinking, "Get rid of confusion and torment." Replace them with applications of poison, bleed or burn. Mobs and players do not behave the same. Conditions that spike with activity are always going to under-perform versus mobs or over-perform versus players.

What's the point of having so many damaging conditions? Applying different conditions does not feel different in play. It's all just using skills. The only difference in PvE as far as damage goes is the appearance of more numbers. Is the current situation not variety solely for the sake of variety?

What about immersion? As it is now, players must use their imaginations to picture any difference between confusion and say, bleeding. Why can they not use their imagination to picture a bleed as caused by an illusory wound? Different colored skill effects can still be applied to different professions' application of whatever condition.

Mobs don't cleanse, so cover conditions are not really necessary in PvE. Players do cleanse, but have been complaining about how OP condition damage has been for years. Cutting back on the number of different damaging conditions would make cleansing more effective, offering some relief for PvP/WvW complaints.

[b k.1648]

I do still wonder why torment needed to be added in the first place. The damage-on-movement component would have made more sense as a change to bleeding, but instead we got some "magic condition" that doesn't have any physical analogue in its nomenclature, yet has quite an obvious one in its implementation, were it not taken by something else that's ironically less suitable.

[Feersum Endjinn.4179]

@"Gaile Gray.6029" said:Sorry, I understand what you've said, but it's a bit off the topic I was posting about. The point here is this:

• Questions will not be answered because someone tags.
• The chances of an answer do not increase if someone engages in a tag-fest or repeats posts.
• A tag doesn't influence whether a question is or isn't answered.

In relation to responses to comments/questions/input: I do see dev answers and comments. For other points, conversations may be taking place behind the scenes about a concern expressed here; answers may be being formulated; the input members are providing may be collected to use in a future discussion. Forums are not, and cannot be, a one-for-one communications medium. There are millions of account holders, and only a tiny percentage of that number of developers. I truly do understand that everyone would like an answer to his/her question or concern, but I'm concerned to see "I asked this question, I'll ask it again" or even, perhaps, "I'll keep tagging until I get an answer. Both are counterproductive to our shared purposes and that's why I posted, just to ask that we keep things on track.

And speaking of "on track," mine was a general comment about forums, and I apologize if it took this thread in any way off the topic. Back to the topic at hand: Confusion.

I have tagged no one, but can understand you were talking to someone else in the thread who is. My point was, we have had one comment basically telling us mirages that we were screwed and that it was intended to screw us. Yes, there might be conversations going on behind the scenes, but these are conversations that should have happened before this change was made, not after! Its now been a couple of days since the patch and you know what, I haven't played anywhere near as much as I usually would due to this change. I can't really say I am missing it either. The last time something of this magnitude happened (the Karka debacle), I didn't come back to the game for nearly a year, simply down to your customer service. I came back in the hope that it had improved, but looks like I was wrong.

[Jojo.6590]

I have my opinions about how I feel about the current changes to confusion, to keep this part short I dislike them. I came up with a few concepts of my own that would require a fair amount of rework of the confusion condition that may make for a much more competitive/ enjoyable condition. The main idea is to remove the damage burst on skill usage to allow for the condition to be countered in a PvP setting and still make it viable in a PvE setting.

Confusion rework ideas:I have two ideas for how to change the way the confusion condition works. The main concept for both ideas is to give Confusion a flat duration, say 10 seconds. This duration is not affected by anything that would affect condition duration. With this in mind, the idea is to turn confusion into a type of punishing exploding condition that benefits from the condition damage stat as well as any buffs/ debuffs that affect this stat too.

First concept: (two interaction concepts)A type of punishment system. For this, confusion would work like most other dots in that it’s damage pre-tick and not action. The catch here is when someone cast a skill, one of these two interactions will happen, or maybe create a way to incorporate both.

With the time duration a constant, it can be rest pre-each or X amount of skill uses. For example; for each skill the affected target uses the duration of the condition/stack increases by 0.5 seconds. The idea here is that instead of taking damage for using a skill you increase the duration of the condition and thus prolong your suffering. Adding more confusion to the stack however will NOT affect/reset the duration but will only increase the stack amount thus increasing the conditions damage pre-tick. Remember that for this concept only skill usage by the affected target will rest/ increase the duration of the stack and that confusion will also need a stack limit too (say about 5-10) since its duration mechanic may make it more “confusing” (pun intended) to deal with.

The seconded idea for this concept is that in stead of refreshing/ adding duration you add X amount of confusion pre-each or X number of skills used by the affected target. For example; once your afflicted with the confusion condition pre-each skill you use another 1 stack of confusion is applied to you, if you’re affected by 3 stacks of confusion and then cast 2 skills you’re now affected by 5 stacks of confusion. This can become very deadly quickly, because of this adding more stacks would not increase the duration (again a flat constant duration) and the ticking damage for a small stack would be low but increase as the amount of confusion increases, or a limit how much confusion can stack.

Seconded concept: (this can work in tandem with the seconded idea of the first concept).

I happen to like this concept a lot! The idea is to turn confusion into a type of time bomb condition. Remember this still uses the set duration concept stated way above at the beginning. The idea is to stack as much confusion onto your target as possible (with in a reasonable limit) before its time duration ends. When confusion’s duration is over the affected target takes X amount of damage pre-each confusion stack (i.e. 1) that was consumed. For example; 1 stack of confusion equals 200 damage, you’re afflicted by 10 stacks of confusion that have just ticked off of you causing you to take 2,000 damage. With this concept you can turn confusion into a really fun condition that works for both PvP and PvE. You could make traits that play around with this as wells as skills too! For example; let’s say the target cleanses the stack(s) before it ticks off, you can have a trait that would heal you for half the damage that would have been done to your target if it was to tick off, or the target takes half of the stacks damage if they cleanse it. Another fun idea is to have the confusion spread! After the stack explodes it applies X amount(s) of confusion pre-each stack consumed to the 5-10 closest targets of the originally affected person. To keep the punishment concept of confusion alive what could also be done is add a charge count to the confusion stacks. The way this charge count would work is that for each skill or X amount of skills used a charge will be placed on the current confusion stack. When the confusion stack detonates the charge count can act as a damage multiplier so that 2,000 damage you were going to take is now 6,000 because you had a charge count of 3. I did have another idea for the charge count but it seems to have slipped my mind, if it comes back to me I'll add it latter!

Thanks for reading my extremely long post!

[Rauderi.8706]

Cross post from someone's reddit idea:

If you're dead set on making confusion different from other conditions in PvE, then please just make it reliable in PvE. Pick the damage you want it to do, and make any skill used consume the stack and do that much damage immediately. It doesn't make sense for a skill to do different damage to enemies entirely based on how fast their skills are, or for it to do no damage if they're stunned.

This would be an interesting technical shift between PvE and PvP, but I'm very curious about it. Instead of punishing every attack, and thus making the PvE/PvP split necessary and then borking it hard, for reasons, it could behave like Blind and discharge on the next available action used. Keep the durations standardized: something like 2 sec in PvP and 5 seconds seconds in PvE, and Expertise is insurance against being waited out or Defiance breaking at an inconvenient time.For PvP, it still discourages using actions under threat of pain.For PvE, it ensures the damage will eventually trigger if used even remotely judiciously.

[ThomasC.1056]

@"Rauderi.8706" said:Cross post from someone's reddit idea:

If you're dead set on making confusion different from other conditions in PvE, then please just make it reliable in PvE.

Pick the damage you want it to do, and make any skill used consume the stack and do that much damage immediately.

It doesn't make sense for a skill to do different damage to enemies entirely based on how fast their skills are, or for it to do no damage if they're stunned.

This would be an interesting technical shift between PvE and PvP, but I'm very curious about it. Instead of punishing

every

attack, and thus making the PvE/PvP split necessary and then borking it hard, for reasons, it could behave like Blind and discharge on the next available action used. Keep the durations standardized: something like 2 sec in PvP and 5 seconds seconds in PvE, and Expertise is insurance against being waited out or Defiance breaking at an inconvenient time.For PvP, it still discourages using actions under threat of pain.For PvE, it ensures the damage will eventually trigger if used even remotely judiciously.

Great minds meet. I like this idea. It'd also feel more "punishing", if confusion is indeed supposed to be a punishing hex.

[Dope.7093]

@ThomasC.1056 said:

@"Rauderi.8706" said:Cross post from someone's

reddit

idea:

If you're dead set on making confusion different from other conditions in PvE, then please just make it reliable in PvE.

Pick the damage you want it to do, and make any skill used consume the stack and do that much damage immediately.

It doesn't make sense for a skill to do different damage to enemies entirely based on how fast their skills are, or for it to do no damage if they're stunned.

This would be an interesting technical shift between PvE and PvP, but I'm very curious about it. Instead of punishing

every

attack, and thus making the PvE/PvP split necessary and then borking it hard, for reasons, it could behave like Blind and discharge on the next available action used. Keep the durations standardized: something like 2 sec in PvP and 5 seconds seconds in PvE, and Expertise is insurance against being waited out or Defiance breaking at an inconvenient time.For PvP, it still discourages using actions under threat of pain.For PvE, it ensures the damage will eventually trigger if used even remotely judiciously.

Great minds meet. I like this idea

. It'd also feel more "punishing", if confusion is indeed supposed to be a punishing hex.

Can confirm I also like it. PvE damage needs to be a lot higher than it is at the moment so you get real big critical strikes in order to achive fair DPS numbers.If you make a Mesmer-only change you could also consider to rework a trait to "If you hit an enemy with an ability you deal extra damage based on how much stacks of confusion you gave him." edit: or for mirage axe skill 3 (Axes of Symmetry): "...This attacks breaks enemy targeting and convert every individual stack of confusion that you applied to the target into a random other condition (Bleeding, Burn, Poison, Torment). Your Illusions then change focus to the targeted foe."

Or change it too a condition-boon-combo so you get the same amount of confusion stacks as a boon and they increase the amount of damage you deal with other abilies.But yet I like the time idea of a "time-bomb-condition" the most.

In the end changing confusion to torment on mirages axe is no solution. Too much other spells and even classes rely on confusion and they won't be happy with it.

My Mirage is my main and only character with 150 agony and other alts are just for PvP/WvW/Open World. I spent lots of gold today for 2 viper staffs for the staff build but its very boring and not even that good in real fights (tried it in 99CM today). Currently I really don't know what to play thats why I'm only reading the forums and wait for a change.

[Zoltar MacRoth.7146]

It seems like at least once a year Anet does something that is ...mind-boggling. It's like a tradition. Do some good things, do a ..not so good thing. Maybe it's a cosmic balance thing. The eternal alchemy of anet's balance. Or maybe it's that intern penguin they hired from the zoo who does all the balancing behind the scenes.

[Rauderi.8706]

Not patched.

Imaginary Axes: Now applies torment instead of confusion. Previous durations unchanged.Axes of Symmetry: Now applies torment instead of confusion. Previous durations unchanged.

This is just disappointing.Just change all the Confusion in PvE to Torment, change Perplexity Runes to reflect that change, and just admit Confusion was never going to perform as 'intended' in PvE.

[Astralporing.1957]

...seems Anet completely misunderstood the problem.

No, it's not about the axe. It's about Confusion. All of it in PvE. Don't think you have solved the problem by changing two skills. You didn't.

[Night.8750]

From a PvE perspective (all types from raids to open world) This change has caused condi mesmer/confusion to lose its flavor. Skills/condis only have flavor if they are useful, and on skill-use dmg is not useful or reliable in most pve situations. The previous balance of "does consistent dmg plus a little more dmg on skill use" was better since the dot damage was enough that confusion was actually useful even when mobs were not attacking.

This change was good for pvp/wvw, but not for pve.

Putting torment on axe is sad, but will be needed if this change stays.

[Bofouci.1320]

Anet, thank you for making some changes to the axe so it is still a relevant weapon choice. Are there any plans to change confusion in Crystal Sands and Jaunt as well?

[Genesis.5169]

So confusion is finally balanced. Well played anet.

[superherofan.8042]

Again, just to restate without @-ing anyone, the problem is that Confusion is terrible in PVE. That is the problem that needs fixing, which today's balance update still doesn't address.

[Irokou.3215]

Unless I am ill-informed, the shift from confusion to torment regarding mirage in this manner seems, well, silly! Confusion is essentially iconic to mesmer, jeopardizing that confusion niche and making condition play essentially the same as rev/necro in that regard feels lackluster. It seems like a needlessly complicated fix for something exceedingly simple. The fix should have been, let confusion function as a DoT as usual in Pve, but make it skill activation damage ONLY in pvp. Thus it would have its use in both modes. Now it is a "work in progress" of shifting to a new condition which will likely cause more complaints (pvp or otherwise) than a proper confusion split. I guarantee torment will soon see a nerf for some arbitrary reason and the cycle will continue. I cannot fathom what runs through the minds of devs at times, it is akin to aimlessly throwing darts at a board hoping to score a bulls-eye; sigh. Things were looking great for the class as a whole too given the recent changes involving phantasms.

[Jojo.6590]

@"Irokou.3215" said:The main reason this change was done to confusion is because enough people complained on the forums that Mesmer (Mirage) was over powered because of confusion. The real reason why most people actually complained was because people assumed that the "big" condition change patch was going to be the end all be all of conditions. When people saw their class got nerfed and Mesmer got buffs in retaliation with in a few hours into the patch people started claiming Mesmer was OP. Say what you want but there are several other classes that were and still are way more over powered then Mesmer (Mirage). What is stated above is the main reason behind the confusion changes. The irony in all of this is that from a PvP stand point you now have the more potent version of confusion that was in the game back at launch. This will become more evident when/if the application amount and/ or duration of the condition is buffed a bit, as lowering both the application amount and duration as well as changing the way in how the damage spikes was too big of a hit to the condition.

[BrokenGlass.9356]

Make the activated damage tick when hard or soft cc is applied. (for small or large damage respectively)

[Astralporing.1957]

I'd rather they didn't try to make it better (and break it even further in the attempt) and just reverted it to pre-patch state for PvE, which is known to work well enough.

I simply don't believe they can make their idea for confusion work in PvE without it having some unintended negative consequences.

[zealex.9410]

@Blaeys.3102 said:

@zealex.9410 said:

The change to confusion in pvp was very much welcome and it made sense both balance wise and flavour wise. In pve tho you are correct.

Very true, and probably the root of the issue. They have to start paying more attention to how changes affect all game modes when they do this stuff.

Glad u called it like that. I heard if you say the word split ur in danger of being banned. :p

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:...seems Anet completely misunderstood the problem.

No, it's not about the axe. It's about Confusion. All of it in PvE. Don't think you have solved the problem by changing two skills. You didn't.

Its partially about the axe as well. Removing its confusions and giving it torment is a bad change .

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Irokou.3215" said:Unless I am ill-informedYou're not. That last axe fix was just Anet admitting there is a problem but refusing to see (or, at least, acknowledge) what the problem was.The Confusion remains as broken after it as it was before, which is something Anet will have to address eventually. I just hope it will happen sooner than later, before they will break other things trying to "fix away" the consequences of the problem, instead of its source.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:...seems Anet completely misunderstood the problem.

No, it's not about the axe. It's about Confusion.

All

of it in PvE. Don't think you have solved the problem by changing two skills. You didn't.

Its partially about the axe as well. Removing its confusions and giving it torment is a bad change .Yes, you're right. Now it is also about the axe.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Irokou.3215" said:Unless I am ill-informedYou're not. That last axe fix was just Anet admitting there is a problem but refusing to see (or, at least,

acknowledge

) what the problem was.The Confusion remains as broken after it as it was before, which is something Anet will have to address eventually. I just hope it will happen sooner than later, before they will break other things trying to "fix away" the consequences of the problem, instead of its source.

@zealex.9410 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:...seems Anet completely misunderstood the problem.

No, it's not about the axe. It's about Confusion.

All

of it in PvE. Don't think you have solved the problem by changing two skills. You didn't.

Its partially about the axe as well. Removing its confusions and giving it torment is a bad change .Yes, you're right. Now it is also about the axe.

Not "now". Since the 6th its been about the axe/mirage as well.

[Walhalla.5473]

@zealex.9410 said:

@Astralporing.1957 said:...seems Anet completely misunderstood the problem.

No, it's not about the axe. It's about Confusion.

All

of it in PvE. Don't think you have solved the problem by changing two skills. You didn't.

Its partially about the axe as well. Removing its confusions and giving it torment is a bad change .

Thing is, if Anet isn't going to change confusion back to its useful state in PvE then changing Axe to applying torment is much better then leaving it with a condition that completely useless and seeing that Anet changed it I guess Confusion will stay like this for a long time, at least for this expansion.

Still the best action for the game itself would have been to revert the confusion change for PvE.

[Thornum.8607]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

@Walhalla.5473 said:

@Karl McLain.5604 said:The "This condition remains split between PvE and PvP/WvW" part has unfortunately caused unintended confusion.

To Clarify: Condition damage contribution of the damage-over-time component of confusion has been removed from ALL formats. 'Remains split' was meant to indicate that the base damage ticks are higher in PvE still, even without condition damage contribution.

Ok Karl. First question. Why did you do this in PvE? Especially AFTER you made that condition useful in PvE in the August 2017 Patch?

And base damage in PvE is horrible, a damage tick less than 20 in PvE is not good, you could have unsplit the base damage and it wouldn't even matter.

Moving Confusion to have condition damage contribution ticks made it a damage-over-time condition in addition to its 'hex' style punishment of using skills. We needed to make a choice as to whether or not the condition was going to be used as spammable DOT, or rarer/shorter, with more potency. We've decided to push Confusion to be burstier and once again focus on punishing skill activation. The reason for keeping any dot component is to message that you're under the effects of the condition, so you can be informed of it without looking at your buff bar.With that said, we'll be moving weapons like Mirage's Axe toward Torment, rather than Confusion, as soon as the process allows.

Late to the discussion, but wanted to add my share. Karl, you say you needed to make that choice, which obviously is untrue. You wanted to make that choice, and rather than going into a discussion of semantics, I want to ask the question of whether that choice truly had to be made? In PvE people were happy with how confusion worked. In PvP I can respect the choice to make it a 'hex' style mechanic (actually, I enthusiastically support that decision). In addition, you guys have shown with increasing frequency that splitting skills based on their game mode is a positive thing. Has it been considered to keep PvE confusion as it was while changing the PvP/WvW mechanics to the 'hex' style, especially taking into account the considerations that were used to make the August 2017 change to confusion (which to my knowledge have not changed since)?

Note that I am a casual player, and do not care about damage benchmarks at all. Nerf confusion in any game mode all you want to the level that you're comfortable with. I am simply disappointed that the feel of playing my Mirage has changed so significantly. Replacing confusion with torment is not a solution, it's a band-aid. Confusion fits the Mesmer thematically, I have enjoyed using the old version with Glamour builds in WvW (which is why I applaud the recent change), and I have thoroughly enjoyed using confusion on my Mirage in PvE. Can those things not coexist simply because internally you guys decided there was a need to make this choice?

Edits: grammar.