Discussion about Confusion [merged]

[Kiza.5630]

@Karl McLain.5604 said:

With that said, we'll be moving weapons like Mirage's Axe toward Torment, rather than Confusion, as soon as the process allows.

But isn't that kinda going back to where everything started? In the end Mirage will spam a lot of Torment instead of Confusion and everything will be almost the same, only the name of the condition changed.

[Astralporing.1957]

@"Rauderi.8706" said:There's already a Confusion discussion: https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27366/discussion-about-confusion-merged#latest

But yes, ANet, either restore the PvE version of Confusion, or make the activation damage actually worth the DPS loss from the time ticks.That second option is not realistic. The mobs differ way too much between each other in how often they activate skills. You'd have confusion doing no damage on MO at one side, and completely devastating the few skill-spamming mobs we have on the other.

They just need to realize (again, because they've already realized this once, they just seem to have forgotten about it), that it simply doesn't work as envisioned in PvE.

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Changes looked more targeted too wvw and pvp

[JanTar.5961]

After reading the dev posts here I have to say I'm really sad. The confusion condition is dead in PVE again and if you didn't want to split the functionality because it would be too different and people would be confused going from one game mode to the other then you don't have to worry any more, no one will even touch confusion in PVE now.

I don't think swapping confusion for torment on mirage axe (and possibly elsewhere) will fix anything in the long run, because as someone already said then it will be possible to stack multiple torments in PVP and torment will eventually receive the same "upgrade" as confusion now. Besides as someone already mentioned, you don't kite with axe, so giving it more torment makes zero sense thematically and is really indicative of the fact that the change to confusion was not thought out properly.

I really like the idea someone posted before me, where the part of the condition that is scaled with condition damage depends on game mode (confusion dot scales in PVE, confusion damage-on-skill-use scales in PVP/WVW, same with torment).

[Walhalla.5473]

@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.

After a bit thinking, it seems that you want to give confusion a unique identity. Problem here, by doing this, you just killed this condition in one game mode. This "hex" style punishment of using skills doesn't work at all in PvE since mobs do work differently. It still seems odd that you made this choice and revert it basically on how it worked in Vanilla, after adapting this condition to the PvE environment. Most PvE players want things to work first. If something works AND is unique, then its of course better then just working but having a game element working is very important. Uniqueness doesn't bring anything to the game if that uniqueness makes certain things not work anymore. Right now Cunfusion is unique again but it doesn't work anymore in PvE. Its basically a PvP condition right now.

Also a change this big should have been announced with a statement post, like the ones for the Phantasm and Alacrity changes. Doing these posts was great as they showed us what kind of thoughts went into it, the reasoning behind them, and what we should expect. And the Alacrity change was really great, something that was needed for a long time. The confusion change was a fundamental one and it would have needed a post like other changes, especially since this was going to be a contraversial change.

I hope the weapon changes are coming quite fast and since confusion is not working anymore in PvE, perhaps changing the utility skills would also be nice.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Laila Lightness.8742 said:Changes looked more targeted too wvw and pvp

Or at least they would if confusion weren't so weak that I can literally swap in a greatsword and deal just as much damage as axe...and that's using a full condi build optimized for axe! Yes. It's THAT bad. It doesn't even keep up with the bleed stacking from Sharper Images on a power weapon.

[Oglaf.1074]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@"Rauderi.8706" said:There's already a Confusion discussion:

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/27366/discussion-about-confusion-merged#latest

But yes, ANet, either restore the PvE version of Confusion, or make the activation damage actually worth the DPS loss from the time ticks.That second option is not realistic. The mobs differ way too much between each other in how often they activate skills. You'd have confusion doing no damage on MO at one side, and completely devastating the few skill-spamming mobs we have on the other.

They just need to realize (again, because they've already realized this once, they just seem to have forgotten about it), that it simply doesn't work as envisioned in PvE.

The funny thing is that they did this with Torment a while back: the base damage was increased because mobs don’t move about like enemy players do.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Walhalla.5473 said:

@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.

After a bit thinking, it seems that you want to give confusion a unique identity. Problem here, by doing this, you just killed this condition in one game mode. This "hex" style punishment of using skills doesn't work at all in PvE since mobs do work differently. It still seems odd that you made this choice and revert it basically on how it worked in Vanilla, after adapting this condition to the PvE environment. Most PvE players want things to work first. If something works AND is unique, then its of course better then just working but having a game element working is very important. Uniqueness doesn't bring anything to the game if that uniqueness makes certain things not work anymore. Right now Cunfusion is unique again but it doesn't work anymore in PvE. Its basically a PvP condition right now.

Also a change this big should have been announced with a statement post, like the ones for the Phantasm and Alacrity changes. Doing these posts was great as they showed us what kind of thoughts went into it, the reasoning behind them, and what we should expect. And the Alacrity change was really great, something that was needed for a long time. The confusion change was a fundamental one and it would have needed a post like other changes, especially since this was going to be a contraversial change.

I hope the weapon changes are coming quite fast and since confusion is not working anymore in PvE, perhaps changing the utility skills would also be nice.

Well, given that the statement they did finally make amounted to "Yes, we broke it, but now it works as intended. We'll just give you a better condition when we get around to it." I can see why they might not have wanted to trumpet that change.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Bofouci.1320 said:

@Bofouci.1320 said:

@Bofouci.1320 said:

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

Mesmer

Chaos Vortex: Instead of inflicting vulnerability, this attack now inflicts 1 stack of torment for 5 seconds.

HOLY KITTEN.

@Robert Gee.9246 @Karl McLain.5604 @Gaile Gray.6029I just need to take a moment here, and eat a bit of crow.

I'll share my journey on the way, in hopes that other mesmers might change their minds on condition builds post patch...

I spent the last hours creating, using level up scrolls, swapping gear, making weapons and otherwise gearing my new condi weaver, (wearing my mirage's old gear) and was happy to hit 28k with a sloppy rotation. Seriously fun. Probably not very survivable in raids, but that's probably a l2p issue for me fat fingering keys in a complex rotation. I was starting to settle down and get used to the idea of maining another class. It felt how I wanted it to, it was still raid viable (more so than my renegade even) and my mesmer's skins looked good on it.

Then this patch dropped. RIGHT AS I WAS CLICKING IN THE LAST EXPENSIVE SIGIL. I mean really? The freaking timing of you people! (/sarcasm)

I had tested the staff/staff build being tossed around on reddit, and I had found it totally wanting, the best dps I could hit was 23k. I mistakenly thought this was due to the poor bouncing of the auto attack.... Turns out it was the vulnerability making the auto do 0 condition damage 25% of the time. This

ONE

paltry stack of torment fixed condi mesmer.

Let me get nitty gritty for a second.

• spam ambush on cooldown -
  check
• spam 3 skill in between combos from the same weapon -
  check
• spam weapon swap on cd to restore endurance via 'sigil of energy' -
  check
• use deception skills that create mirage mirrors to make more ambush attacks. -
  check

That's the rotation.

Same bloody thing

, and you wont be teleported outside the arena in VG. It

feels

like playing axe mirage, while using phantasms... standing

mostly

still. Also, Chaos storm on cd, for more bonus poison damage. Staff cooldown trait in chaos which were taking anyways. I was stacking 72 bleeds all by my lonesome. Though, let me be extremely clear

AXE MIRAGE IS COMPLETELY CASTRATED OUTSIDE OF PVP

. I'm not happy about this. But I can deal with my Veilrender being useless to me. I'll go finish Bo. I cant fully express my sympathy for those that made Astralara... I can only suggest trying it on a Condi Renegade. (I know, but... they've been buffed a few patches in a row, give it a whirl) Axe Mirage totally fine in open world pve. Not because confusion is any good. It isn't. But because the power damage on viper's gear and the survivability of mirage, make it easy to live forever while winning the war of attrition. But... I wouldn't take axe Mirage into fractals, open world bosses, or raids. Havent tested it in PvP, but I'm honestly excited to try it.

PvP was never the issue

However, with this one tiny change, confusion

isn't needed

in pve.

I hit 31k. With a sloppy rotation... and right as I logged off, I realized I can distort shatter and pick up

3 mirage mirrors

. So... there's

more

ambush potential than before... because we don't need that bloody axe trait.

I haven't worked that into my rotation yet. But.... holy cow.

A statement of intent would have been nice. I mean... you were killing a really

fun

meta build. You had to know that.

But... Nice spare.

I get what you're saying here and understand what you're saying. Yes, it's possible that an alternative exists, but. We were given an elite spec with the opportunity to go for an elite spec weapon which many of us did. We spent hours and some i'm sure spent hard earned money to gear up. I'm not okay with not being able to use the axe I worked for and we shouldn't have to roll up every other class to work for their elite spec weapons just to move them to another class where they actually make sense and work as intended. When the mirage spec was released I rolled up a mesmer and actually kept it this time because it was finally good at PVE; to date i have logged 388 hours over the past 70 days to get it where I wanted and be proficient with the rotations for raids. That can't be for nothing... They can't keep crapping on our investment into this game like this. At some point they need to take a page from Amazon and realize that it is always about the customer. If it does not benefit all of the customers then it should not be done. We are their stakeholders and should be valued as such.

edit: we weren't given the elite spec.. we bought it. we payed money for that spec with the expansion.

The more I think about this the more I see it even worse from a consumer position. What would you do if you bought a car with leather seats in it because you really liked the performance of the leather seats. You get it home and drive it around for a couple thousand miles then the mfg posts on a forum that they believe cloth seats are better for everyone and they should be positioned in such a manner that fits the 50th percentile of drivers and that's a change they've decided they're going to do to all of the cars like the one you just bought regardless of when the purchase was made. So one day out of the blue just after you get home from work a tow truck pulls up and takes your car and brings it back a couple minutes later with cloth seats. You'd be pissed.

Bad analogy. However, it's undeniably poor form to completely break a condition in an entire game mode, and then tell players that it was intended and that the fix for it is not only ridiculously stupid, but thematically off and worst of all - not even here yet with no estimate on when we can expect it! I left the last MMO I played for doing exactly this. Keep it up, ANet! It's a study in how to turn fans into haters overnight!

[Laila Lightness.8742]

I think mesmer specially mirage is intended for power build now confusion as condi in pve is not worth it

[Astralporing.1957]

I seriously doubt they have "intended" anything like that. I'm 90% sure that the current situation is simply because of their incompetence. They had some "great" plans (well, at least they seemed to think those were great, seeing how they claimed to be excited about them), that were based on a fluff concept of the Confusion they've had in their head, but completely forgot to even consider the impact of those ideas in PvE.

The explanation we've heard (and the "plans" to fix the problem they've mentioned) clearly suggest they've got completely surprised by the outcome of that change, and are engaged now in some fast damage control, but do not want to admit how badly they've kittened it up.

[Sharkey.9805]

@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.

To add on my last post - in this past year or two, you've created in PvE 3 encounters in fractals and raids that incentivize heavy burst damage. The Keep Construct in raids, which has a stun phase; the adds on Siax CM, which you are given a time window to kill before they explode; and the Anomalies in Shattered Observatory CM, which do the same.

What do all 3 of these burst scenarios have in common?

The NPCs don't act. At all. Your "burst hex" would never activate in these scenarios where burst is actively encouraged.

In fact, every scenario in PvE content where burst damage would be incentivized - those periods where you break a boss's defiance bar, and they're standing around stunned for 5 seconds and take additional damage during the duration?

Confusion would do nothing.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it than that. You're creating a lot of unnecessary work for yourselves in PvE, your encounter design is a direct contradiction of your stated goal.

This has nothing to do with mesmer. Just set confusion back to how it was in PvE, or switch it to work like one of the other conditions entirely. This change is a massive waste of time.

Or, if you're really dead set on this route, increase the coefficient on confusion by about a hundred times. That would match it up with other dot mechanics again, though it would also break Vanilla Tyria. But whatever, right? Balance!

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Sharkey.9805 said:

@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.

To add on my last post - in this past year or two, you've created in PvE 3 encounters in fractals and raids that incentivize heavy burst damage. The Keep Construct in raids, which has a stun phase; the adds on Siax CM, which you are given a time window to kill before they explode; and the Anomalies in Shattered Observatory CM, which do the same.

What do all 3 of these burst scenarios have in common?

The NPCs don't act. At all. Your "burst hex" would never activate in these scenarios where burst is actively encouraged.

In fact, every scenario in PvE content where burst damage would be incentivized - those periods where you break a boss's defiance bar, and they're standing around stunned for 5 seconds and take additional damage during the duration?

Confusion would do nothing.

I'm not sure how much clearer I can make it than that. You're creating a lot of unnecessary work for yourselves in PvE, your encounter design is a direct contradiction of your stated goal.

This has nothing to do with mesmer. Just set confusion back to how it was in PvE, or switch it to work like one of the other conditions entirely. This change is a massive waste of time.

Or, if you're really dead set on this route, increase the coefficient on confusion by about a hundred times. That would match it up with other dot mechanics again, though it would also break Vanilla Tyria. But whatever, right? Balance!

Yes, can you guys please just listen to reason on this one? Alternatively, if you know something we don't, then please tell us what it is we're missing in your grand design.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

@"Marcel.1857" said:I asked Gaile Gray.6029 on February 6, 2018 about the meaning of the split part his answer:

"This is a question you must ask on the forums, not through PM. Thanks."

I felt like kitten he wrote the deam patchnote so he should know but i done like he sayed and linked him with this discussion, hopefully he feels like clear things up!!!!!!!

Actually, I post the patch notes, but I seldom write them. Patch notes are a combination of input from many team members, across a lot of disciplines, such as WvW, Balance, PvP, Fractals, Raids, Living World, Gem Store, etc. I'm sorry if I disappointed you in my response, but discussing patch notes (after hours, in the game) just isn't a conversation we can have. I will explain: If someone asks me a question in the game, or PMs a dev, or somehow reaches out for an individual response, that person may get information that everyone would like to have. If I had been able to answer you -- in this case I would not have been able to do so, not knowing the facts -- then you would have had information that others were lacking, and that would be unfair and, to be honest, inefficient. Consider a dozen players could privately ask the same question, and if they get an answer, that's the end of it.

When you ask a question or make a comment on the forums, everyone who comes here gets information or is able to join a conversation, and that benefits everyone.

That is very reason why we have forums: So that we can communicate broadly with our players, so that everyone gets all the info we can share. And that is why I ask that questions of this kind be brought to this medium, not asked via a PM to a dev, or an in-game message to me. Thanks for understanding.

[Blaeys.3102]

While Gaile is 100 percent correct - this conversation should take place primarily in these forums, it is good to see the community isn't letting up on this issue. In the past few years, Anet has taken a battleship approach to design (move deterministically and only turn when absolutely necessary).

While that makes development sense much of the time, there are times when quicker adjustments are needed to avoid minor or even major screw-ups (eg, you wouldn't pilot the battleship into an iceberg). This is one of those times.

The change to confusion Is nonsensical no matter the direction you look from. It was never meant to be a situational ability, or it wouldn't have been used as the primary condition tied to shatters nor would it have been placed on the autoattack for main hand weapons (Mesmer scepter and, more recently, the axe). Additionally, as others have noted, it was never intended for spikey damage either - enemy attack patterns almost always call for heavy spike damage to stunned targets. Finally, since the beginning, they have intended for Mesmers to be the primary class bringing confusion - to the point where it was even part of the early profession descriptions and dev videos. Surely they never intended for Mesmers to only be useful in a small percentage of fights.

Again, people need to keep making noise (which shouldn't include PMing devs in their off hours, of course). Far too often, we see these kinds of changes persist for weeks or even months without being addressed - unless the community makes enough noise to force the issue.

We need to make that noise.

[Jew.4981]

@Karl McLain.5604 There are a lot of overreactions on both sides of the coin. I'm mainly a PvE player, though I have enough knowledge of PvP to grasp PvP and WvW situations. When I speak of PvE, I don't mean just raids. Raids have separate issues Anet attempts to work around because the issues come from the raid community's mindset. Almost entirely another topic that this isn't the place to address.

I believe the reason to try and make Confusion more burst, less sustain, may be related to Mirage. One of my characters is a Mirage and another is a Weaver. Both use conditions for a DPS role. I have long since noticed that while the Weaver can reach a bit higher peaks of damage, the Mirage's damage is extremely steady even in actual combat. Almost unchanging usually. Most builds, Power or Condition based, ramp up and down generally revolving around cooldown timers. The Mirage however can keep such steady damage that in the end they can out damage other classes generally. This is especially made true by the fact that Mirage can keep roughly half (depends on situation) of its damage source (clones applying conditions) going for varying lengths of time without attacking themselves. An example, when attacking, 3 clones are up and an ally goes down. The Mirage can help revive the ally, evade while reviving to prevent being interrupted, cause the clones to evade, and cause the clones to use Ambushes. The Mirage can upkeep a lot of damage while other classes usually cannot.

I believe the reason for Torment and Confusion to have both constant and triggered damage is because they needed to be adjusted separately between PvE and PvP/WvW. In PvP/WvW the triggered aspects give uniqueness to Confusion and Torment, as does the healing reduction of Poison. Meanwhile Burning has the short duration but heaviest damage, and Bleeding has the longest durations. Because enemies in PvP/WvW do not have massive amounts of health, the term 'sustain' is somewhat different and burst damage is very useful.

In PvE, some of these aspects are lost because of design. It isn't necessarily a bad thing, nor a problem. It is just something that requires adjusting for. Enemies don't clear conditions in PvE except under special circumstances, like some phase changes. Enemies also have much more health than players, causing sustained damage capability to be of large import. Poison and Bleeding are essentially the same because of this, Burning requires less stacks, and Confusion and Torment require particular care in balance of their dual damage aspects.

All of this said, I believe the reason Torment and Confusion have passive and active damage is partially because having only active damage would make them useless in PvE. To balance them, the damage ratios in PvE leaned towards passive damage for both because relying on enemies to trigger the active damage isn't viable without altering enormous portions of the PvE environments. The damage ratios in PvP/WvW leaned towards active damage because players are constantly moving and using abilities, so they must use their own judgement to determine when survival means stopping movement or skill use for a short time.

I haven't a lot of experience in PvP/WvW, so I don't know how the balance of Confusion and Torment sat and/or now sit. If Confusion needed a performance boost, the ratios being adjusted would be expected. As stated above however, pushing that adjustment into PvE would upset the balance in that environment.While Mesmer is not the only class affected by Confusion changes, it is true that Confusion is a large part of the identity of Mesmer. Mesmers are illusionists after all, the combative style of whom usually involves confusing the senses of opponents through illusion. Changing them to Torment does seem to be removing an aspect of their identity.

A potentially more important issue lies under this however. Mesmers are likely the largest source of Confusion among the classes. If they are changed largely to Torment, a lot of the adjustment to Confusion will have been for naught. This will also leave both Scourge and Mirage with Torment among their largest condition damage sources (Revenant too? I currently have little experience with them and Engineers). If then Torment needs adjustment, such as because in squad combat in WvW stopping movement usually means annihilation, adjustment could then cause far more issue than that of Confusion currently.Immediately upon discovery of Confusion's now poor performance, I expected that plans to adjust for it would be made. Changing to another condition was not expected though, and may only serve to cause more issue than rebalancing Confusion on the PvE side. Regardless, I'm not a designer, developer, artist, or any other role working on the game, so hopefully my feedback is a helpful perspective.

[zealex.9410]

@Blaeys.3102 said:While Gaile is 100 percent correct - this conversation should take place primarily in these forums, it is good to see the community isn't letting up on this issue. In the past few years, Anet has taken a battleship approach to design (move deterministically and only turn when absolutely necessary).

While that makes development sense much of the time, there are times when quicker adjustments are needed to avoid minor or even major screw-ups (eg, you wouldn't pilot the battleship into an iceberg). This is one of those times.

The change to confusion Is nonsensical no matter the direction you look from. It was never meant to be a situational ability, or it wouldn't have been used as the primary condition tied to shatters nor would it have been placed on the autoattack for main hand weapons (Mesmer scepter and, more recently, the axe). Additionally, as others have noted, it was never intended for spikey damage either - enemy attack patterns almost always call for heavy spike damage to stunned targets. Finally, since the beginning, they have intended for Mesmers to be the primary class bringing confusion - to the point where it was even part of the early profession descriptions and dev videos. Surely they never intended for Mesmers to only be useful in a small percentage of fights.

Again, people need to keep making noise (which shouldn't include PMing devs in their off hours, of course). Far too often, we see these kinds of changes persist for weeks or even months without being addressed - unless the community makes enough noise to force the issue.

We need to make that noise.

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.

[Blaeys.3102]

@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.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

~snip~

Yet again, I'm going to tag @Gaile Gray.6029 and @"Robert Gee.9246"~snip~

Please do not abuse the tag system to, essentially, "demand an answer." All of us at ArenaNet read the threads we're able to read, and we'll provide the information that we can provide, or take the feedback you have given and look into the matter or consider it for the future. Tagging is visually disruptive and it actually serves no purpose, since most of us have disabled notifications because of the cultural proclivity to use the feature too heavily. If you have a question, please post to ask it. If you have constructive input, please provide it, with as much detail as possible. But please don't tag, especially repeatedly.

[jeffreyscottburke.9856]

We can generate clones like crazy now.

[Feersum Endjinn.4179]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:~snip~

Yet again, I'm going to tag @Gaile Gray.6029 and @"Robert Gee.9246"~snip~

Please do not abuse the tag system to, essentially, "demand an answer." All of us at ArenaNet read the threads we're able to read, and we'll provide the information that we can provide, or take the feedback you have given and look into the matter or consider it for the future. Tagging is visually disruptive and it actually serves no purpose, since most of us have disabled notifications because of the cultural proclivity to use the feature too heavily. If you have a question, please post to ask it. If you have constructive input, please provide it, with as much detail as possible. But please don't tag, especially repeatedly.

Yet no one seems to want to answer the very valid questions that are on this post? If you use the forums to communicate with the player base, then try some actual communication. You have killed off a spec a lot of people paid your firm money to play as it was a fun class to play, yet all we hear is white noise from anyone at ANet.

[Blaeys.3102]

@jeffreyscottburke.9856 said:We can generate clones like crazy now.

The problem is the only conditions we can reliably spread via clones are bleeds via sharper images (and that only happens on crits) and confusion from shatters (which, as discussed prolifically in this thread, is horrifically bad in PVE following the recent change).

A change made primarily for PVP (which is obviously the justification) has pretty much invalidated the professions primary mechanic (clones and shatters) in PVE - to the point where Gaile is even having to come on and warn people about trying to communicate directly with developers too much on the issue. People are worked up.

This is something that they need to fix sooner rather than later - and something they need to openly and frequently update us on. It really is in a state that is detrimental to the health of the game for some players.

[Rauderi.8706]

Normally, I don't like to assume this in programming, but the resolution for this is not even that hard.

PvP is fine.

The skill is already split, so fix the PvE version. Fix the two or three little variables that would rebalance this damage.

If it's a "Purity of Purpose" issue, give it low tick damage and very high activation damage. That's it. Simple.

This can be done literally in a day's time.

[Gaile Gray.6029]

@Feersum Endjinn.4179 said:

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:~snip~

Yet again, I'm going to tag @Gaile Gray.6029 and @"Robert Gee.9246"~snip~

Please do not abuse the tag system to, essentially, "demand an answer." All of us at ArenaNet read the threads we're able to read, and we'll provide the information that we can provide, or take the feedback you have given and look into the matter or consider it for the future. Tagging is visually disruptive and it actually serves no purpose, since most of us have disabled notifications because of the cultural proclivity to use the feature too heavily. If you have a question, please post to ask it. If you have constructive input, please provide it, with as much detail as possible. But please don't tag, especially repeatedly.

Yet no one seems to want to answer the very valid questions that are on this post? If you use the forums to communicate with the player base, then try some actual communication. You have killed off a spec a lot of people paid your firm money to play as it was a fun class to play, yet all we hear is white noise from anyone at ANet.

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.

[Marcel.1857]

@Gaile Gray.6029 said:

@"Marcel.1857" said:I asked Gaile Gray.6029 on February 6, 2018 about the meaning of the split part his answer:

"This is a question you must ask on the forums, not through PM. Thanks."

I felt like kitten he wrote the deam patchnote so he should know but i done like he sayed and linked him with this discussion, hopefully he feels like clear things up!!!!!!!

Actually, I

post

the patch notes, but I seldom write them. Patch notes are a combination of input from many team members, across a lot of disciplines, such as WvW, Balance, PvP, Fractals, Raids, Living World, Gem Store, etc. I'm sorry if I disappointed you in my response, but discussing patch notes (after hours, in the game) just isn't a conversation we can have. I will explain: If someone asks me a question in the game, or PMs a dev, or somehow reaches out for an individual response, that person may get information that

everyone

would like to have. If I had been able to answer you -- in this case I would not have been able to do so, not knowing the facts -- then you would have had information that others were lacking, and that would be unfair and, to be honest, inefficient. Consider a dozen players could privately ask the same question, and if they get an answer, that's the end of it.

When you ask a question or make a comment on the forums,

everyone

who comes here gets information or is able to join a conversation, and that benefits

everyone

.

That is very reason why we have forums: So that we can communicate broadly with our players, so that everyone gets all the info we can share. And that is why I ask that questions of this kind be brought to this medium, not asked via a PM to a dev, or an in-game message to me. Thanks for understanding.

Thx for the explain. I wasent getting what you mean with the sentence "This is a question you must ask on the forums, not through PM. Thanks." now you explained it and i undersatnd the reasons why, would have been nice if you had formulate it out like this in the pm in order to prefent some misunderstanding. Because i understand it like if i wrote it here you would answer it what wasn´t ment.