Confusion hits like a wet noodle in PvE now?

[Crossplay.2067]

I have to agree that confusion is really bad in PvE. What's even worse is that I make a full ascended trailblazer mirage just last month. Hundreds in gold and time... I'm hoping this is changed soon.

[MithranArkanere.8957]

The problem isn't as much the condition as the enemy AI. NPC behavior is way too different from player behavior. NPC enemies may attack once in a blue moon, but their attacks are extremely predictable, and they never stop attacking when they get confusion, and very few of them ever remove conditions, or heal themselves.

At the very least armies of sentient enemies should have skills that mimic full player builds with at least 10 skills, not have just 2-4 skills and that's it.

Against normal enemies you can basically stack Confusion on an enemy, drop a clone, and they get killed the next time they attack it, as long as the confusion lasts more than 2 seconds.But against veteran and higher ranks confusion often disappears without having triggered a lot.

Luckily enemies in new maps attack much more often, specially mordrem guard, forged and mordant crescent. But against most other enemies Confusion falls flat without doing much.

[Levetty.1279]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

You realize that the only reason confusion became useable in PvE in the first place, and therefore extremely annoying in PvP, was because of PvE whiners?

This is a two way street, and Anet can't for the life of them split skills properly.

Except PvP never got the last buff that made Confusion good in PvE.

[narcx.3570]

@musu.9205 said:

@narcx.3570 said:

@musu.9205 said:

@"Me Games Ma.8426" said:on certain bosses confusion will be extreme now. on others it will suck. Still hoping this is unintended.

not really people already did it on cairn the dps doesn't come close to what it used to be .

Cairn has a very slow attack though, so he'd fall into the "suck" category... I think it'd still be fine (possibly even better than before) vs other Mirage go-to encounters like Matt/SH. It's just people prefer to test against Cairn since he's easily accessible and is basically a dps golem.

but thing is which raid boss has faster attack speed ? matt and maybe xera .so in order to get confusion mes / axe mirage relevant in pve again , we need to sell bloodstone to get every future raid boss on drugs .its time for 500 chief bloostone recipe guess

Can't use confusion on Xera either though--albeit for a totally different reason... You'd cleave the adds, the adds would get it converted to retaliation by the bloodstones, and people would kill themselves.

[BrokenGlass.9356]

@Gaile Gray.6029

Also merge this one.

I mean... If you let multiple topics like this be all spread over the fourms... People might get the idea it isn't as bad is it is.

[Kari.9436]

Honestly since Anet has confusion split already anyway, why do they have to change them both in the same way?They shoulda just nerfed Mirage's condi application by a bit in PvE. Not make a full 180° and nerf it to shit.

I do kinda like the change in PvP though. I always liked the idea of the confusion damage on skill use part. I like how they converted some of that damage back to the skill use part. Too bad Mirage's confusion duration got cut in half though in PvP.

[Belishine.7493]

all i have to say is they fix one area pvp but breack pve for mes i feel like anet just hates pve mes a lot

[Hitman.5829]

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@"Hitman.5829" said:Did you read the patch notes? Here is the part where they change how confusion works:"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."

As you can see, confusion damage is redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. Confusion was too OP and still is too OP, now you get penalized for using skills and the "passive" confusion damage has been toned down but the damage is the same.

On this pic, the max damage i did on passive confusion was 300 and damage upon skill used was 1756. If we assume a linear relation then your damage of 491 transforms to 2874 upon skill usage.

On this other pic I was able to get 4k damage with confusion. And I am sure mesmer can do much much more confusion damage than 4K. Confusion is still OP.

I like videos and screenshots, too. But you should frame your argument with some context. The only way anything is "OP" is if it overperforms. Right now, axe is very clearly underperforming due entirely to the confusion nerf. Despite being the elite spec weapon unlock for mirage, the spec now deals better damage with staff. Where axe was competitive in raid DPS benchmarks prior to the patch, it is now not even close because the axe clone ambush build relies so heavily on confusion which is now completely broken in PvE.

Here's some more evidence for you to consider:

Following the 11/28/2017 patch: Mirage vs. Champion Chak Lobber

The same boss today:

Notice the first video I managed 7.4k DPS, while in the later video that number dropped to 5.6k. Also notice that confusion accounts for only about 15% of damage contribution, down from 32.5% in the first video! This strongly indicates what should be obvious, given the details of the nerf: 1) Confusion is dramatically weaker, and 2) This has resulted in a massive nerf to confusion-heavy builds (axe especially). Do you still believe confusion is OP?

Just look at the damage that you do with torment and bleeding. You are doing very decent damage and you want more?Just by reading all the comments in this post I can tell that you mesmer users want to "condi-face roll PvE."

• In the first video you killed the boss in 1 min 54 seconds
• In the second video you killed the boss in 2 min and 4 seconds (approximately)

There is a difference of only 10 seconds.

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

@Hitman.5829 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:Did you read the patch notes? Here is the part where they change how confusion works:"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."

As you can see, confusion damage is redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. Confusion was too OP and still is too OP, now you get penalized for using skills and the "passive" confusion damage has been toned down but the damage is the same.

On this pic, the max damage i did on passive confusion was 300 and damage upon skill used was 1756. If we assume a linear relation then your damage of 491 transforms to 2874 upon skill usage.

On this other pic I was able to get 4k damage with confusion. And I am sure mesmer can do much much more confusion damage than 4K. Confusion is still OP.

I like videos and screenshots, too. But you should frame your argument with some context. The only way anything is "OP" is if it overperforms. Right now, axe is very clearly underperforming due entirely to the confusion nerf. Despite being the elite spec weapon unlock for mirage, the spec now deals better damage with staff. Where axe was competitive in raid DPS benchmarks prior to the patch, it is now not even close because the axe clone ambush build relies so heavily on confusion which is now completely broken in PvE.

Here's some more evidence for you to consider:

Following the 11/28/2017 patch: Mirage vs. Champion Chak Lobber

The same boss today:

Notice the first video I managed 7.4k DPS, while in the later video that number dropped to 5.6k. Also notice that confusion accounts for only about 15% of damage contribution, down from 32.5% in the first video! This strongly indicates what should be obvious, given the details of the nerf: 1) Confusion is dramatically weaker, and 2) This has resulted in a massive nerf to confusion-heavy builds (axe especially). Do you still believe confusion is OP?

Just look at the damage that you do with torment and bleeding. You are doing very decent damage and you want more?Just by reading all the comments in this post I can tell that you mesmer users want to "confi-face roll PvE."

Just a quick question, do you raid or do end-game fractal?

[Hitman.5829]

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:Did you read the patch notes? Here is the part where they change how confusion works:"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."

As you can see, confusion damage is redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. Confusion was too OP and still is too OP, now you get penalized for using skills and the "passive" confusion damage has been toned down but the damage is the same.

On this pic, the max damage i did on passive confusion was 300 and damage upon skill used was 1756. If we assume a linear relation then your damage of 491 transforms to 2874 upon skill usage.

On this other pic I was able to get 4k damage with confusion. And I am sure mesmer can do much much more confusion damage than 4K. Confusion is still OP.

I like videos and screenshots, too. But you should frame your argument with some context. The only way anything is "OP" is if it overperforms. Right now, axe is very clearly underperforming due entirely to the confusion nerf. Despite being the elite spec weapon unlock for mirage, the spec now deals better damage with staff. Where axe was competitive in raid DPS benchmarks prior to the patch, it is now not even close because the axe clone ambush build relies so heavily on confusion which is now completely broken in PvE.

Here's some more evidence for you to consider:

Following the 11/28/2017 patch: Mirage vs. Champion Chak Lobber

The same boss today:

Notice the first video I managed 7.4k DPS, while in the later video that number dropped to 5.6k. Also notice that confusion accounts for only about 15% of damage contribution, down from 32.5% in the first video! This strongly indicates what should be obvious, given the details of the nerf: 1) Confusion is dramatically weaker, and 2) This has resulted in a massive nerf to confusion-heavy builds (axe especially). Do you still believe confusion is OP?

Just look at the damage that you do with torment and bleeding. You are doing very decent damage and you want more?Just by reading all the comments in this post I can tell that you mesmer users want to "confi-face roll PvE."

Just a quick question, do you raid or do end-game fractal?

I do fractals, I am not a fan of raids, with the 25 might stack and other buffs you get, you still do massive condition damage.

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

The massive condi damage that only hit 20k post-patch when combined with torment and bleed? Ah you mean the 34k damage that has confusion/torment/bleed before the patch. Well warrior could do 30k with just bleed and burn so what does that tell you?

I think we're just not on the same page here. People are talking about end game PvE content when you said condi-faceroll in open world PvE.

[Zenith.7301]

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

You realize that the only reason confusion became useable in PvE in the first place, and therefore extremely annoying in PvP, was because of PvE whiners?

This is a two way street, and Anet can't for the life of them split skills properly.

Cut the crap. Confusion was being whined about before the PvE change. It's not the first time it's been nerfed in PvP.

Fact is, mesmer is gonna be annoying in PvP no matter what because most people hate strong duelist classes as they care more about losing a duel to a class that's useless in zerg/guild vs. guild then they care losing to the guardian/warrior melee train that forms the backbone of large scale engagements.

The problem has always been with trying to balance WvW without actually addressing the problem : allowing PvE stats and food/consumables/runes on a PvP format.

sPvP caps should apply in WvW and food/consumables disallowed, alongside removing runes/sigils that have no place in spvp. The stacks would have never been a problem if people weren't able to bring in close to 100% condi duration to a pvp format.

[Jace al Thor.6745]

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

You realize that the only reason confusion became useable in PvE in the first place, and therefore extremely annoying in PvP, was because of PvE whiners?

This is a two way street, and Anet can't for the life of them split skills properly.

Cut the crap. Confusion was being whined about before the PvE change. It's not the first time it's been nerfed in PvP.

Fact is, mesmer is gonna be annoying in PvP no matter what because most people hate strong duelist classes as they care more about losing a duel to a class that's useless in zerg/guild vs. guild then they care losing to the guardian/warrior melee train that forms the backbone of large scale engagements.

The problem has always been with trying to balance WvW without actually addressing the problem : allowing PvE stats and food/consumables/runes on a PvP format.

sPvP caps should apply in WvW and food/consumables disallowed, alongside removing runes/sigils that have no place in spvp. The stacks would have never been a problem if people weren't able to bring in close to 100% condi duration to a pvp format.

I disagree in the last part. The reason I play WvW is because I can select what stats I want. I do not want the normalized junk that is in PvP. But the problem isn’t GvG or ZvZ with confusion, it’s the roaming and dueling where it was complained about which Anet has stated is not a supported game mode. If anything balancing should be done in a 3 way split. You can’t balance WvW which is large scale fights by using a 5v5 smale scale capture the point game mode it’s ridiculous. On the same token you can’t balance a PvP game mode on a mode where people stack on a nonmoving target and AA for the win.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@Hitman.5829 said:

@NICENIKESHOE.7128 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:

@AliamRationem.5172 said:

@Hitman.5829 said:Did you read the patch notes? Here is the part where they change how confusion works:"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."

As you can see, confusion damage is redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. Confusion was too OP and still is too OP, now you get penalized for using skills and the "passive" confusion damage has been toned down but the damage is the same.

On this pic, the max damage i did on passive confusion was 300 and damage upon skill used was 1756. If we assume a linear relation then your damage of 491 transforms to 2874 upon skill usage.

On this other pic I was able to get 4k damage with confusion. And I am sure mesmer can do much much more confusion damage than 4K. Confusion is still OP.

I like videos and screenshots, too. But you should frame your argument with some context. The only way anything is "OP" is if it overperforms. Right now, axe is very clearly underperforming due entirely to the confusion nerf. Despite being the elite spec weapon unlock for mirage, the spec now deals better damage with staff. Where axe was competitive in raid DPS benchmarks prior to the patch, it is now not even close because the axe clone ambush build relies so heavily on confusion which is now completely broken in PvE.

Here's some more evidence for you to consider:

Following the 11/28/2017 patch: Mirage vs. Champion Chak Lobber

The same boss today:

Notice the first video I managed 7.4k DPS, while in the later video that number dropped to 5.6k. Also notice that confusion accounts for only about 15% of damage contribution, down from 32.5% in the first video! This strongly indicates what should be obvious, given the details of the nerf: 1) Confusion is dramatically weaker, and 2) This has resulted in a massive nerf to confusion-heavy builds (axe especially). Do you still believe confusion is OP?

Just look at the damage that you do with torment and bleeding. You are doing very decent damage and you want more?Just by reading all the comments in this post I can tell that you mesmer users want to "confi-face roll PvE."

Just a quick question, do you raid or do end-game fractal?

I do fractals, I am not a fan of raids, with the 25 might stack and other buffs you get, you still do massive condition damage.

If condi axe mirage deals "massive" damage then everyone else is dealing massively massive damage. Objectively, it is weaker.

The devs have now updated us on the situation: The confusion nerf is intended and it is also intended that axe be buffed with more torment application "when the process allows." So I guess axe is too weak now. Go figure?

[Zenith.7301]

@Jace al Thor.6745 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

You realize that the only reason confusion became useable in PvE in the first place, and therefore extremely annoying in PvP, was because of PvE whiners?

This is a two way street, and Anet can't for the life of them split skills properly.

Cut the crap. Confusion was being whined about before the PvE change. It's not the first time it's been nerfed in PvP.

Fact is, mesmer is gonna be annoying in PvP no matter what because most people hate strong duelist classes as they care more about losing a duel to a class that's useless in zerg/guild vs. guild then they care losing to the guardian/warrior melee train that forms the backbone of large scale engagements.

The problem has always been with trying to balance WvW without actually addressing the problem : allowing PvE stats and food/consumables/runes on a PvP format.

sPvP caps should apply in WvW and food/consumables disallowed, alongside removing runes/sigils that have no place in spvp. The stacks would have never been a problem if people weren't able to bring in close to 100% condi duration to a pvp format.

I disagree in the last part. The reason I play WvW is because I can select what stats I want. I do not want the normalized junk that is in PvP. But the problem isn’t GvG or ZvZ with confusion, it’s the roaming and dueling where it was complained about which Anet has stated is not a supported game mode. If anything balancing should be done in a 3 way split. You can’t balance WvW which is large scale fights by using a 5v5 smale scale capture the point game mode it’s ridiculous. On the same token you can’t balance a PvP game mode on a mode where people stack on a nonmoving target and AA for the win.

WvW should be balanced around ZvZ/GvG play, not duels or roaming. Roaming in WvW is pretty much impossible to balance without breaking the other game modes or the performance of classes in ZvZ/GvG itself.

Seriously, no game should ever be balanced around dueling and hurt ego's around it.

[Miroe.2054]

If you compare mesmer damage to a wet noodle, maybe it's time for the noodle to get a buff and shine for once. Ever thought of that? Typical Mesmer players...

[Zoser.7245]

I really was considering change my gear to a power due to this because I lost a lot of effectiveness in my builds now, but I like the hybrid builds and take profit of conditions too, as a fan of scepter and liking the axe, pistol, torch, etc... I'm sad that they simply didn't made a split keeping the confusion as it was in pve. As they prefer keep it conceptually... and Karl told us that they are going to change our weapons's skills in the future keeping us in the actual state, I refuse to update my Mirage, so from now till the announced changes in the future, and I hope they include the scepter too in pve, my Mirage is again relegated to only crafting purposes, with perhaps some time for gather materials. Sigh... what patience we need!

The good news is that they will update our weapons skills to restore the diversity that we have lost in pve, at least being as viable as we were, I hope. But confusion generate us a lot of collateral problems, shatters, utilities , Jaunt... we lost too much. They still have a lot of work to do with us about this.

[Lazze.9870]

@Oglaf.1074 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@"Zenith.7301" said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

Funny, considering the change that made Confusion useable in PvE in the first place came via PvE whine.

.... is it really "whine" if it is a valid complaint? No, no it isn't.

Who used the word "whine" first? Him or me?

Yes, that's right. He did.

[Oglaf.1074]

@Miroe.2054 said:If you compare mesmer damage to a wet noodle, maybe it's time for the noodle to get a buff and shine for once. Ever thought of that? Typical Mesmer players...

Not Mesmer.

Confusion.

Other classes have it too (even Warrior but nobody picks that garbage trait, lol) and it is equally useless in PvE for all of them.

[Lazze.9870]

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Lazze.9870 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:Always count on PvP whine to ruin the game for the vast majority of people who play PvE.

You realize that the only reason confusion became useable in PvE in the first place, and therefore extremely annoying in PvP, was because of PvE whiners?

This is a two way street, and Anet can't for the life of them split skills properly.

Cut the crap. Confusion was being whined about before the PvE change. It's not the first time it's been nerfed in PvP.

Fact is, mesmer is gonna be annoying in PvP no matter what because most people hate strong duelist classes as they care more about losing a duel to a class that's useless in zerg/guild vs. guild then they care losing to the guardian/warrior melee train that forms the backbone of large scale engagements.

The problem has always been with trying to balance WvW without actually addressing the problem : allowing PvE stats and food/consumables/runes on a PvP format.

sPvP caps should apply in WvW and food/consumables disallowed, alongside removing runes/sigils that have no place in spvp. The stacks would have never been a problem if people weren't able to bring in close to 100% condi duration to a pvp format.

How can I cut the crap when you're the one always full of it?

Funny how you end a comment with what's essentially asking for split between modes when that was my entire point.

[Carighan.6758]

@Hitman.5829 said:Just look at the damage that you do with torment and bleeding. You are doing very decent damage and you want more?

Excuse me, but this is a thread about a design issue with Confusion. Whether or not you think Condi Mirage overall is too strong/weak shouldn't factor into that. It's a separate issue altogether. It really is. Because the change to Confusion isn't one of simple rebalancing (it didn't just change the balance), it reworked the design to something which is fundamentally not suited to PvE.

[atlashugged.7642]

@Carighan.6758 said:it reworked the design to something which is fundamentally not suited to PvE.

No. The old confusion was fundamentally unsuited towards fun. Dots are boring. The new confusion just needs a spike damage boost in pve to make timed bursts of it worthwhile. Nothing fundamental about it needs to change, just some numbers.

[AliamRationem.5172]

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@"Carighan.6758" said:it reworked the design to something which is

fundamentally

not suited to PvE.

No. The old confusion was fundamentally unsuited towards fun. Dots are boring. The new confusion just needs a spike damage boost in pve to make timed bursts of it worthwhile. Nothing fundamental about it needs to change, just some numbers.

So, how does that work exactly? When I use axe I have 100% confusion uptime. What varies are the number of stacks. So what are you proposing? That the increase in spike damage with additional stacks be non-linear and weighted toward the high end in order to facilitate timed bursts in a 100% confusion uptime scenario? That sounds tricky to balance.

Or are you suggesting that we cut down confusion duration and stacking capability to the point where it is essentially used with similar timing to an interrupt? How would this work for skills like the axe ambush that have a built-in delay?

It seems to me that there is a bit more to consider here than "just numbers." Have you considered working for ANet?

[Carighan.6758]

@atlashugged.7642 said:No. The old confusion was fundamentally unsuited towards fun. Dots are boring. The new confusion just needs a spike damage boost in pve to make timed bursts of it worthwhile. Nothing fundamental about it needs to change, just some numbers.

Sure. And if they ever want to add a raidboss who hits fast, they need to then either apply a special -75% confusion damage debuff to the raid, nerf it first again and re-buff it after the raid wing is outdated, or change its design again?

Why not... fix it? Why work on symptoms instead of causes?

Mind you, it's very easy to keep a skill-feedback design, it just needs to be a stable DPS output. Meaning self-scaling:Confusion*You are confused and will hurt yourself when attacking, causing 20% of the damage to yourself. This feedback damage is limited according to the condition damage of the person applying this to you. More stacks of Confusion increase this limit but not the damage itself.

Self-balancing. A stabby thief is hit by a thousand needles. A slow-swinging Guardian gets fewer feedback ticks, but they're big. Between both, the feedback DPS is ~the same, assuming they keep attacking. A raid boss takes huge hits of damage, but even then they're not killing themselves in seconds because of the cap.

And yes, I know, factually it might as well be an X-damage-per-second DoT then. My point exactly. See, other MMOs tried all this fancy shmancy stuff before, and they ended up with autoscaling effects, procs-per-minute and completely removed talent systems for a reason. ANet should sometimes rely upon experiences others already had instead of going through the same painful learning experiences, just in slow motion (due to the glacial balance speed).

(edit)I mean of course it can be done through pure numbers. Increase the on-skill-activation damage by... say... 900%. That ought to just about make it meaningful. Of course, the few mobs in the game who attack quickly I'd cause 200k-300k DPS to...

[OriOri.8724]

@atlashugged.7642 said:

@Carighan.6758 said:it reworked the design to something which is

fundamentally

not suited to PvE.

No. The old confusion was fundamentally unsuited towards fun. Dots are boring. The new confusion just needs a spike damage boost in pve to make timed bursts of it worthwhile. Nothing fundamental about it needs to change, just some numbers.

You could triple the on skill use damage of confusion and it would still be worthless in PvE due to how little mobs attack. There's no spike that will ever be justified in PvE, as long as you are stuck waiting for their attacks. For core tyria mobs, any power build will take down the mob before it gets its first attack off, why should condi builds that relied on confusion be shafted like this?