Discussion about Confusion [merged]

Nighthelm.6427 · February 7, 2018

Not sure what's there to discuss. Confusion in pve is worse than any other damaging condition by large margin and it renders builds that rely on confusion 'dead'.

Proposed fix? Revert changes to confusion for pve only.

Major example is Axe Mirage dealing way less damage than what it used to. I am aware that Staff Mirage is now competitive to Axe Mirage pre-patch but why ruin an elite spec weapon and make it unusable? There are already plenty of elite specs that don't use their elite weapon because it's not competitive enough.

DaVid Darksoul.4985 · February 7, 2018

Not sure what everyone is crying about. I get burst down now faster then before balance. Y'all want to feel nerfed try roaming a necro, (each spec). Seems all others actually got buffed while we got a crap buff to a traitline no one uses, and scrounges advantage at surprise shrouds was wiped away. Oh and PvE, whats the big deal? You get to kill a npc slower because you cant adjust. Talk to a WvW mes for pointers, they know their shit better then y'all.

Rauderi.8706 · February 7, 2018

While I understand the change brings Confusion back to its intended purpose, the changes show ANet's typical over-compensation pretty clearly. :disappointed:For Mesmer specifically, not only was Confusion nerfed in PvE, at least a few of the traits that supported it were gutted, and Confusion durations came way down.

Zero condi scaling for passive ticks?Look, after a "buff" of shifting damage to activation damage, it's still only a sad 9%. I seriously thought it was a typo when I saw 6% on the wiki before the update.Can we at least get a sad-sad 1% per tick to our scaling?

ardhikaizecson.3697 · February 7, 2018

PvE and PvP/WvW Split is a lie, I'm still hoping the confusion nerf in pve is indeed not intended as I read the tooltip is still the same as it used to be.

Vicko.1204 · February 7, 2018

Revert changes to confusion in PvE.I don't know what was the logic behind the nerf there,it was the most random and uncalled for change in the patch notes.Confusion wasn't strong in PvE,it was ok.You basically made axe almost useless since it's a pure confusion weapon and its main use was in PvE.

Everyone understands and agrees confusion was strong in PvP/WvW so the changes there were needed,even though some of them were kinda overkill.Still,understandable.

You can't just completely change core features like that without warning randomly.Why did you give us info about alacrity and phantasms before the patch but not confusion?

What's the purpose of axe and confusion in general in PvE now?Use it only when you see the mob trying to hit?I could just crit it randomly for 7k at the start of the fight with a power build.Not everyone plays high end raids or top lvl fractals here who theorycraft and find different builds with staff etc,ditching confusion and weapon fun for optimal damage.Some and possibly most of the people in this game enjoy the solo PvE content.And for those people,like me,a fun build got nerfed without reason.It wasn't overperforming in anything.It was just ok.

I can still clear solo content with axe.I can also kill things with sword auto as a condition mirage.That doesn't mean it feels nice though.Why did you keep the DoT confusion since it hits for like 10 damage per stack?Do you feel 10 damage per tick serves any purpose?Or is it better than nothing I guess?Nothing makes sense.

Please,I don't know what the idea behind all these is,if it is a bug or not,but revert the changes in PvE.I don't know what your vision is,but you should have the player's fun factor as your aim.And if your vision ruins that fun,then you have to change your vision."Will this change be fun for the players?"

That's all.

AliamRationem.5172 · February 7, 2018

@"Rauderi.8706" said:While I understand the change brings Confusion back to its intended purpose, the changes show ANet's typical over-compensation pretty clearly. :disappointed:For Mesmer specifically, not only was Confusion nerfed in PvE, at least a few of the traits that supported it were gutted, and Confusion durations came way down.
Zero condi scaling for passive ticks?Look, after a "buff" of shifting damage to activation damage, it's still only a sad 9%. I seriously thought it was a typo when I saw 6% on the wiki before the update.Can we at least get a sad-sad 1% per tick to our scaling?

That isn't going to fix the problem. The issue is that the way they want confusion to work is completely incompatible with PvE play.

Pie.2167 · February 7, 2018

Great change for PVP. However, confusion is now nearly useless in PVE, and therefore so is condi mesmer. As a life long mesmer, changes like this are just disheartening and really destroy my will to play the game. I'm a casual gamer, I have a full time job, I'm a parent and a husband. All the condi gear I just worked for a year to obtain in PVE has been rendered obsolete overnight. It's not as if playing a confusion based condition mesmer in PVE I was somehow taking advantage of the game or abusing the system. It already felt under powered to begin with. Lesson learned. For me, this is a tough reminder on how I should and should not be spending my time. Time to step away from the game for a while.

Bloodgruve.6038 · February 7, 2018

God, this is just the worst. I loved Axe Mirage... Please ANet, tell is this is just a mistake. Please tell me I didn't just build Viper twice to play this wonderful new Axe Mirage thats no longer competitive. Please tell me Axe Mirage will be made competitive in PvE again...

Do what you will in PvP, please keep PvE fun for as many builds as you can...

Please don't make me run Staff/Staff...

Lyndina.7984 · February 7, 2018

Thanks for finally ruining my favorite class that i played since release with this nonsense patch. Allthough i could live with this shit in pvp,just quit it completly, i cannot stand that you ruined the whole gameplay in pve with it on mesmer. You know,i had fun with my mirage in pve, szepter/torch axe/focus...i really had fun and even invested arround 100 Euro in Diamonds for appropriate skins. But oh no,like allways you total fuck mesmer up to leave him in the garbage bin. I learned my lesson now,im not gonna invest one single coin in this steaming pile of ... . So thanks A-net,with this patch you lost a Member of your Journey that began with release of Gw1.

BrokenGlass.9356 · February 7, 2018

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

A-net's NEEDS to make a statement on this.

If someone uploaded an old version of the update instead of the real one, that's fine... But we ought to know about it.

If this was intentional, we need a statement of WHY.

You guys have to address 'what about the state of the game changed, that will allow you to backtrack to the worst state confusion has ever been in.'

9% buff to activated damage? And 100% nerf to ticks?

If you had the conviction to stand by the alacrity and phantasm changes with official explanation, then asking for an official statement here is pretty kitten fair.

Last night, I logged in to Gw2. I was so depressed about the confusion changes (even though I'm excited about phantasms and shatters... But condi shatter does confuse... Every 25 sec... So no reason to try any of the new shit in my vipers gear.) I didn't log into my mesmer at all. So... That gear will go to another toon. But then I logged in on deadeye, and saw that perfectionist only ever procs once in a long fight. And that the raid bundle control, was in fact, NOT added to the golem. So after a night completely unable to find this patch's silver lining...

I've decided I'm not spending any more money on gems.I'm not playing fashion wars 2. (outside of the transmutes I can farm)I'm gearing in crafted exotics only.

Because I can't trust A-Net not to completely waste my time and money.

AliamRationem.5172 · February 7, 2018

@BrokenGlass.9356 said:Yet again, I'm going to tag @Gaile Gray.6029 and @Robert Gee.9246
A-net's NEEDS to make a statement on this.
If someone uploaded an old version of the update instead of the real one, that's fine... But we ought to know about it.
If this was intentional, we need a statement of WHY.
You guys have to address 'what about the state of the game changed, that will allow you to backtrack to the worst state confusion has ever been in.'
9% buff to activated damage? And 100% nerf to ticks?
If you had the conviction to stand by the alacrity and phantasm changes with official explanation, then asking for an official statement here is pretty kitten fair.
Last night, I logged in to Gw2. I was so depressed about the confusion changes (even though I'm excited about phantasms and shatters... But condi shatter does confuse... Every 25 sec... So no reason to try any of the new kitten in my vipers gear.) I didn't log into my mesmer at all. So... That gear will go to another toon. But then I logged in on deadeye, and saw that perfectionist only ever procs once in a long fight. And that the raid bundle control, was in fact, NOT added to the golem. So after a night completely unable to find this patch's silver lining...
I've decided I'm not spending any more money on gems.I'm not playing fashion wars 2. (outside of the transmutes I can farm)I'm gearing in crafted exotics only.
Because I can't trust A-Net not to completely waste my time and money.

Yes, can we please get a response on this? This seems so glaringly stupid that we're all assuming it was just a mistake. The more this silence drags on, the more it appears that you straight up have no idea what you're doing over there!

ThomasC.1056 · February 7, 2018

@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:@Astralporing.1957 and @ThomasC.1056Except you failed to see this quote from Karl back in December.
@"Karl McLain.5604" said:The primary design for confusion is 'burst'; it's expected to deliver a lot of stacks at once for low duration, punishing skill usage for a short while and then falling off quickly. Due to this difference in nature, we chose to leave it alone in this patch.

This change is perfectly inline with Confusions design intent as stated by the Devs.

Thanks for the reminder. It indeed feels like it's what the dev intended. As a punishing condition, confusion is supposed to give "bursts" of damage, punishing skill usage, which makes perfect sense.

The thing is : the bursty behaviour was an issue with DoT conditions (bleed, burn, torment, previous confusion) : ramping stacks quickly can make bursty ticks, which is undesirable. For a pure punishing condition like confusion has become, it causes big issues. If one stack isn't punishing enough, you need to ramp a lot of them. Yet, with the short duration, it's a hard thing to do, which implies the whole confusion system loses a lot of efficiency, unless players manage to stack a huge bunch of them in a short amount of time : it's the return of the condi bomb, which is the reason why lots of players (rightfully or not) complained. Moreover, the short duration implies that slow enemies won't get any damage (the core issue with PvE). In a nutshell, I feel like confusion should have it's duration increased a bit ; since it's a punishing condition, it seems logical it lasts a bit more to increase the odds it triggers (and guarantee a fair bit of effectiveness).

To be honest, I don't know in what extent my gameplay will be affected by that, given the whole Mesmer changes, I may shift my build to something slightly different. I'm just saying that there's something I feel is off with the message those changes bring.

BlaqueFyre.5678 · February 7, 2018

@ThomasC.1056 said:
@BlaqueFyre.5678 said:@Astralporing.1957 and @ThomasC.1056Except you failed to see this quote from Karl back in December.
@"Karl McLain.5604" said:The primary design for confusion is 'burst'; it's expected to deliver a lot of stacks at once for low duration, punishing skill usage for a short while and then falling off quickly. Due to this difference in nature, we chose to leave it alone in this patch.

This change is perfectly inline with Confusions design intent as stated by the Devs.

Thanks for the reminder. It indeed feels like it's what the dev intended. As a punishing condition, confusion is supposed to give "bursts" of damage, punishing skill usage, which makes perfect sense.

The thing is : the bursty behaviour was an issue with DoT conditions (bleed, burn, torment, previous confusion) : ramping stacks quickly can make bursty ticks, which is undesirable. For a pure punishing condition like confusion has become, it causes big issues. If one stack isn't punishing enough, you need to ramp a lot of them. Yet, with the short duration, it's a hard thing to do, which implies the whole confusion system loses a lot of efficiency, unless players manage to stack a huge bunch of them in a short amount of time : it's the return of the condi bomb, which is the reason why lots of players (rightfully or not) complained. Moreover, the short duration implies that slow enemies won't get any damage (the core issue with PvE). In a nutshell, I feel like confusion should have it's duration increased a bit ; since it's a punishing condition, it seems logical it lasts a bit more to increase the odds it triggers (and guarantee a fair bit of effectiveness).

To be honest, I don't know in what extent my gameplay will be affected by that, given the whole Mesmer changes, I may shift my build to something slightly different. I'm just saying that there's something I feel is off with the message those changes bring.

With Mesmer and by extension Mirage have been able to get upwards of 38 stacks of confusion quite reliably and can still hit those stacks in the matter of seconds consistently, even if they mess up or the opponent avoids some of the burst they easily apply 15-20 stacks which is very punishing, it is a Condition that punishes players twofold, if they use skills they take a large amount of damage, if they don’t use skills then the Mesmer/Mirage isn’t having any Pressure applies to them which allows the Mesmer/Mirage more opportunity to appply more pressure and control thebfight more, the Removal of the DoT was extremely healthy for Pvp/WvW since the high amounts of stacks that’s were able to be generated was to punishing even when the opponent wasn’t doing anything, and the amount of cover condis that Mesmer/Mirage can output almost Guarantees the Confusion not getting cleansed. They want Confusion to be the only Burst Condi and that is reflected in their statements and the skills have higher application stacks and lower durations and higher frequency of application on those skills.

At least now there is better counter play that rewards skillful and attentive play.

Marcel.1857 · February 7, 2018

@"BrokenGlass.9356" said:
"Confusion: Heavily reweighted damage from this condition's base damage-over-time component to the damage-on-skill-use component. The condition-damage contribution has been removed from the damage-over-time component and redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. This condition remains split between PvE and PvP/WvW."
What does this mean practically?

I understand it as the new system would only be in pvp/wvw but after testing in pve i saw it is atm in pve too. I hope it is just a bug and got fixed to pre patch in pve and after patch in pvp/wvw.

Marcel.1857 · February 7, 2018

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 wtf 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!!!!!!!

Conncept.7638 · February 7, 2018

@Rezzet.3614 said:this is an excellent welcome change i wanted since 2013

How... what? This is exactly how confusion worked in 2013, confusions passive tick wasn't even added to the game until 2015.

Bofouci.1320 · February 7, 2018

So friggin tired of PVP gameplay effecting my PVE experience. I play for PVE, Map metas and Raids. That's it! My experience is crapped on every time I turn around. Then to add insult to injury I have to keep wasting time on more gear changes to stay current just to participate. Least they could do is offer free ascended armor/weapon stat changes when making such profound changes to a single class. Please segregate PVE/PVP, WVW skills and builds and put the "Elite" back in the Mesmer Elite Specialization because the only part that exists right now as a Mesmer Mirage Clone is special. My mount may as well be a short bus.

dontlook.1823 · February 7, 2018

@"Bofouci.1320" said:So friggin tired of PVP gameplay effecting my PVE experience. I play for PVE, Map metas and Raids. That's it! My experience is crapped on every time I turn around. Then to add insult to injury I have to keep wasting time on more gear changes to stay current just to participate. Least they could do is offer free ascended armor/weapon stat changes when making such profound changes to a single class. Please segregate PVE/PVP, WVW skills and builds and put the "Elite" back in the Mesmer Elite Specialization because the only part that exists right now as a Mesmer Mirage Clone is special. My mount may as well be a short bus.