Discussion about Confusion [merged]

[Alex Shatter.7956]

I liked the patch and I'm neutral on the confusion thing. But I think with the massive changes to mesmer, there needs to be a few paragraphs from the balance team explaining what their vision/goal is for mirage, chronomancer, and mesmer in general. is chronomancer now a DPS spec? is mirage now supposed to be a PvP spec? what are they being designed towards?

[Sharkey.9805]

Yeah, this confusion change in PvE was just plain bad. I'm still wondering if this isn't just a bug that carried over from WvW or PvP, but assuming it's not this is a huge step backward in what was otherwise a pretty big step forward game-wise.

The damage coefficient doesn't do anything in PvE anymore. You way overnerfed this one - enemies do not use skills actively enough in PvE to make confusion relevant. You do not design encounters to allow classes to take advantage of confusion, and considering the purpose of the condition, you probably shouldn't! Having a pulsing DoT was a suitable compromise, even if a little boring. This change isn't. And as a result, you've effectively managed to kill a spec in PvE for the time being.

Great patch otherwise, but you should either seriously reconsider this confusion change, or start baking torment back onto mirage abilities. With confusion as it is, you'll only disappoint PvE mesmers by adding more confusion to their weapons.

[Bugabuga.9721]

@"OriOri.8724" said:People need to calm down.

I do not like the change to confusion in PvE. That said, mesmer DPS was not affected by it, you just have to change your build and rotation. Go to the mesmer forum. People have benchmarked power mesmer hitting 32k after this patch, and staff condi mirage has a SS of hitting 34k dps. This did not ruin mesmer's DPS, but it does make confusion suck in PvE and I don't agree with nerfing it so harshly

As of right now, it's, basically "don't play condi mirage because it's now like Reaper in DPS due to confusion changes".Or "maybe you could theoretically get okay damage with staff clones build". Which will be funny -- we go from "passive" play of spawning pistol phantasms (not allowed! Horrible! Turn it off immediately!) to "have staff clones only, mirage cloak, press 1" ("engaging and dynamic play" with just one particular kind of clone being used, ha-ha)

I wish PvP/WvW would be truly, really split. Keep PvE confusion as it was. Give PvP/WvW currently nerfed version. Everyone happy, phantasm condi builds sent to trash, power mesmer is great again, we cheer, we go home happy.

[Lalainnia.3598]

I personally just don't understand why it was made that the passive damage part was nerfed in that it doesn't scale with condition damage but the skill activation does. This isn't really what pve wanted or needed as its still pretty strong in pvp and wvw as ppl will use skills regardless if its cleansing or trying to escape recoup etc. On the other this full on crushed confusion as a condi in pve vs anything that doesn't have a high attack rate which is a lot things not even just raids.

So I think at least the changes that we have now are pretty appropriate for spvp/wvw. While the changes for pve were nothing short of overkill, removing condition contribution to the passive damage tick of confusion is nothing but horrible and it needs that back, not at the strength it previously was but there needs to be some level of condition damage contribution towards the passive stacks.

[gonandro.4768]

I'm gonna be short: confusion changes por PvP/WvW: Had to be donefor PvE: overkill.consequences:

1. Confusion is basically the same useless condi we had years ago.
2. Axe mirage was murdered. and axe 3/all the mobility/stealth was all that made a mirage a mirage

[zealex.9410]

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@zealex.9410 said:The change is good. The previous way confusion worked made the condition overpowered and was complitely ignoring its flavour.

I totally agree that the pervious version ignored the flavor. I did like the condi at launch... But it was amazingly underpowered.

Are you bothered by the ticking damage being unaffected by the condition damage stat?

Confusion was just busted before this change now ot has counter play. Its up to the mesmer now to time thier skills to make sure the player will use somethig and get punished for it.

[zealex.9410]

@Astralporing.1957 said:

@zealex.9410 said:Confusion was supposed to be bursty hence the shorter cd but more quantity of stacks.First, last we heard conditions were supposed to be a slow ramp up longterm sustain types of damage, and burst was supposed to be power's domain. Second, there is no burst if there's no damage. And there's no damage if there's nothing to trigger it.

Just for an extreme case, please do consider confusion damage on Mursaat Overseer now.

Not all of the conditions work like that. When the changes to the conditions happened and the devs were asked why confusion didnt get the same treatment the answer was because confusion aplies for less time but deal more dmg. The problem was thats wasnt good atm since confusion had a big dot on top of skill activation.

In pvp its all about timing the aplication of confusion to make sure the other player wont have an opening and will have to use something, getting dmged in the process.

Problem is this had to be split because like prehot this doesnt work in pve and i jope they will so confusion can finally be put to the side and focus on other stuff.

[trooper.2650]

I personally love axe and will keep using it regardless of the confusion nerf.I play 80% of my time doing pvp. Yesterday, after 10 ranked matches in the top tier gold braket (8 won, 2 lost), I came out to be highest in damge in most of those matches. I do not remember exactly but I brelieve it was 60-70%.In pve, I mainly play open world events and bosses and I think the damage is still ok.I also like most of the changes to mesmer, so no problem for me

[JanTar.5961]

I just REALLY don't understand why this change was also made in PVE. Were the raid bosses complaining too much that confusion is hurting their little feelings? I bet it was Matthias he's a confused little boi. The PVE condi clone mirage was the best thing that ever happened to mesmer in this game and now I have to give up the up-close, personal and dynamic gameplay of the axe and take the slowish staff. Don't get me wrong, staff as an option is great but don't take axe away from us. I just really hope this change for PVE is not intentional because relying on mobs to attack often enough to get some dps is just not good and the fact that we had confusion like this previously which clearly wasn't working for PVE and now it's back to useless just doesn't make sense to me, at all.

[miriforst.1290]

It's a good change.

Remember what confusion was supposed to be from the beginning, it was a replacement for all the hexes like backfire and empathy which punished people for taking a certain action. So they had to always evaluate the least painful action and it was up to you as a mesmer to make sure to capitalize and steer them towards a certain point. Bleeding and burning are there if you want generic degeneration, and skills should be modified for that if damage over time is their purpose.

I lost a little bit of trust when arenanet implemented torment as a semi bleed when not moving and lots of damage when moving thing. This was similar top the "half old" confusion change where you where damned if you do damned if you don't outside of clearing conditions without further input from the players.

The compensation for this should be:1: A much longer duration in pve due to enemies using skills at a drastically slower rate.2: In the case of mesmers further tools to capitalize on your enemy taking a certain action like not attacking or moving. The later because that's what the original mesmer was all about, not butterflies or clones. It had proper mindgames. If you where under the effect of backfire/empathy and wastrels worry when the enemy could also interrupt your countermeasure for a solid chunk of damage you where bound to stress and make further bad decisions for the mesmer to capitalize on. Instead of being a purply back stabber assasin which just go boom. Scourges already got tools for capitalizing on torment with the impending doom of shades if you do not move.3: Replace torment and confusion with bleed for builds/skills that use it as its main form of damage (the boring illusion mesmer conjure phantasm builds so to speak). As i said if you want to do ramping damage over time there is a condition for that already. Why does it have to be purple? (This is also why i dislike the burning/poison stacking change).

This change brings us back a little to more purity of purpose for conditions again where each condition had a specific purpose.

[Hyper Cutter.9376]

@zealex.9410 said:Confusion was just busted before this change now ot has counter play. Its up to the mesmer now to time thier skills to make sure the player will use somethig and get punished for it.Again, the problem is in PVE, where monsters attack too slowly for the damage on skill activation to matter.

[Turin.6921]

While confusion changes kill the clone mirage build in PvE (if not a bug) condi mirage does not look useless as a whole as some think:This came up on reddit yesterday.

https://i.imgur.com/ZjS33DD.jpg

[Trae.2384]

I just geared fully and fell in love with my mirage, now Im considering it a berry farm/bag mule toon. What a waste of time and effort. This was completely unnecessary, let the droves crying about mirage in pvp effect pvp not blanket the entire game. Who in their right mind would have ever thought this was even reasonable let alone a good idea.

[Ansilon.6230]

I’ve maimed Mesmer for almost 4 years, and with these changes I plan on playing Ele as main for a bit. Hopefully the Mesmer play in PvE improves. Sad day :(

[Laila Lightness.8742]

Confusion is now best used in pvp and wvw in pve it could as well be non existant

[Oglaf.1074]

I don’t understand. I really don’t. They buffed Torment’s passive damage because PvE enemies didn’t move around enough to make it viable in PvE.

Makes no sense to have these changes to Confusion affect PvE as it goes against the design philosophy they displayed with Torment - like Torment, it just doesn’t have the potential to work on mobs like it does against other players.

Why wasn’t this a PvP-exclusive change?

To me, they broke Confusion in PvE with this. It ticks for 200-500 damage on Raid bosses with full Ascended Viper.

[Bugabuga.9721]

Also as a possible alternative, this could be compensated by giving PvE mirage a trait that provides bleeding instead of confusion; or modify one of the other traits -- Mirrored Axe could be renamed into Gritty Confusion: In addition to an extra seeking axe, each stack of applied confusion causes enemy to bleed for the same duration (given that it's axe build that got demolished by this change).

[Astralporing.1957]

@zealex.9410 said:

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:

@zealex.9410 said:The change is good. The previous way confusion worked made the condition overpowered and was complitely ignoring its flavour.

I totally agree that the pervious version ignored the flavor. I did like the condi at launch... But it was amazingly underpowered.

Are you bothered by the ticking damage being unaffected by the condition damage stat?

Confusion was just busted before this change now ot has counter play. Its up to the mesmer now to time thier skills to make sure the player will use somethig and get punished for it.You're talking about PvP. I was talking about

PvE

where nothing you speak off apply. This change is probably one of the best proofs that splits between those gamemodes are absolutely necessary, because a fix meant for PvP has completely butchered this condition for PvE.

[TwilightSoul.9048]

The change should've been for WvW & PvP only, keeping Confusion in PvE as it was - as many others have said.

But there is one confusing change that has not been adressed here, related to the Confusion condition:Confusion on Merciless Hammer Trait (Warrior) got buffed. Why? Which part of the Hammer weapon for warrior strikes anyone as a condi weapon? How is the Confusion condition on Merciless Hammer ever gonna matter? How does that even make sense in any way? I mean I get it, when you get interrupted that's kind of confusing but then why does Mesmer get Vulnerability through interupts in his traits while Warrior creates Confusion? (Please don't switch it around, I like my Vulnerability on Interrupt for Mesmer) Please just switch Confusion on Merciless Hammer for Cripple, Slow, Vulnerability, Daze, Bonus Damage on interrupt, or even just "gain Fury on interrupt" or ANYTHING that makes sense for a power-based-cc-weapon.

[Oglaf.1074]

Yes, Merciless Hammer is one of the most pointless Warrior traits ever. Hammer is not a Condi weapon. Even if using a Hammer with the Strength line there’s absolutely no reason to pick it over Berserker’s Power - the raw 33% damage boost beats the crap outta the Confusion and far too niche/situational 20% on M.Hammer.

Really disappointed we didn’t get a rework of the trait to remove the Confusion and a rework to make it able to compete with B.Power as a viable choice.

[MetalGirl.2370]

Changing confusion in PvE is unnecessary because mobs don't equal players.

[Walhalla.5473]

The thing is. This change makes confusion a PvP condition again. It completely nullifies the changes Anet did in August 2017 to make that condition useful in PvE. This change back then was PvE only and with the new Confusion its like that change never existed.

First problem of new Confusion in PvE: Mobs aren't using skills as fast and often as we players do and some mobs aren't even using a skill. Players on the other hand are using skills constantly and quite fast so that "on skill use" effect will hit mobs not that often but players much more. On some mobs this won't even activate once since they are using nothing. It wouldn't really matter that much if the second problem wouldn't be there.

The ticking damage profits from absolutely nothing right now. Thats right. Having full Viper's and being naked makes no real difference in how much damage you do with the ticking damage and if there is a difference its more like 2 points of damage per tick. Since the first problem is there it makes investing in Condi Damage non-rewarding since this condition doesn't profit at all from that stat. Players want to be rewarded for investing in stats and they want to see a difference. Investing in Condi damage makes no real difference in how damaging that condition is in PvE, and seeing like ticks for 20 damage in full vipers feels.... well really bad

Also Mirage: Mirage is an Elite-Spec that is dishing out quite a lot of confusion. With the August 2017 changes Confusion was finally a good condition in PvE with some niche applications like it should be from gameplay perspective. And I guess Mirage was created with the improved confusion in mind. Now the Confusion giving skills are rendered mostly useless.

A change this big, if this was intended for PvE, should have been comunicated with us before the balance patch, like you did with Alacrity and Phantasms, so that we could see and understand why you suddenly nullified the good changes a few months ago and went a big step backwards.

From a PvE standpoint this change now represents one of the following. A bug, an oversight or a complete lack of thought. I still hope its either a bug or an oversight.

[Rezzet.3614]

this is an excellent welcome change i wanted since 2013

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

Confusion certainly has gone a long way around back to the beginning. Let's have a look shall we?

We've gone from OP confusion to nerf in damage and application after glamour build in WvW. Then stayed more or less useless for few years until it got doubled the damage in PvE. Still awful in PvE because mob usually either get torment or confusion damage but not both consistently, and in both setting they either don't move for long duration or attack too slow. Hence they added passive aspects to it and scale torment to passive more.

Confusion as a damage in end-game PvE has only made into mesmer's main damaging condition when PoF release, but the bug of double axe hit made it 45k (which QT didn't update before they left the game so probably why dev nerfed it so badly). Bug was fixed and mirage rarely hit 25k in PvE. Then application got buffed and mirage can hit 32-34k and become a dps class. Things were looking up for mesmer, where it can finally be consider a legitimate dps class that doesn't rely on bug or niche boss behaviour/mechanics.

Then this patch hits, which shouldn't affect PvE since mesmer is just in middle of benchmarks.

You simply just can't fault confusion/condi mesmer lovers for angry over this. When you make drastic changes because you're on 3 months schedule the least people wanted you to do is going in circles.

Anyone who said staff mirage can maintain condi pressure is fooling themselves. Both bounces from staff auto will hit allies so the "34k" is a very unrealistic setting. They really should put their theory into actual group raid.

[Astralporing.1957]

@Rezzet.3614 said:this is an excellent welcome change i wanted since 2013You couldn't, since the prepatch confusion only worked like that for a year, before that (so, for example in 2013 you speak of) it worked prety much as it does now. And the (now reverted) change happened because it has became clear that the original version simply wasn't working in pve.I have no idea why someone got the idea that it might suddenly start working now.