Guild Wars 2

So…one month after the prybar buff, Anet has pretty much rendered it useless by destroying confusion damage. Pistol #3, bomb kit #3 and tool kit #3 will now be much less useful in WvW.

Thoughts? Comments? i know engis are not typically confusion based, but I very much was enjoying stacking thieves/rangers etc with confusion since it punishes primarily those who do not pay attention or the skill spammers and not smart players.

Hate this change personally.

I paraphrased the devs a few hours on this:
To help diversify engineer builds, they have been looking at the hgh builds because of the intense condition pressure.

They think we put out too much condition pressure. I don’t know what to say. In a game where two classes burst anything down and the others don’t, I can’t see why they’d be bothered with a full condi build.

If I were to give my honest opinion, I didn’t like how engis could apply 10 seconds of confusion (with runes and gear of course) and wreck people. Then again, nor do I like how thiefs can get free rides to take out most of our health if we’re not careful. It all comes down to how the devs want this game to be played. If it doesn’t go their way, they’ll make us.

The two WvW builds I like to play, tankcat and HGH with TK, are hurt by the confusion changes pretty hard. Heck even any changes to retaliation are gonna hurt because it’s a defense against being bursted down. I think I read something about unblockable stuns…that hurts pretty bad. With the HGH build I probably won more 1v1s and survived being outnumbered more times than makes sense for my skill level, in large part due to confusion. With tankcat I can’t kill anyone, but at least I don’t die unless focused by more than 5 people…usually more.

My concern is that I actually found the above builds to be rather fun, and do the upcoming changes make those builds less fun? The nerfs look like they’re going to hurt survivability a little, damage a little more. I don’t like the idea of dying more often and killing fewer people. A person of my mediocre skill level has enough trouble as it is. Does that mean I need to roll a profession that takes less skill? Maybe, but I’ve tried them all and I keep coming back to engi, which I mained since BWE 1, because I find the playstyle most fun. I have no enthusiasm for any other professions, and I’m worried I’ll be losing enthusiam for engineer soon too.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not all doom and gloom for me. I’m not gonna quit because my favorite builds aren’t as good as they used to be. Perhaps my feelings about the changes we see coming so far can be expressed by the word “lackidaisical”. They certainly don’t make me feel like I’m going to want to play this game more.

Yeh, now that you mention it Eviator, pretty much every currently viable thing about Engineer is getting nerfed either directly on indirectly. To compensate…. we get another useless turret buff.

At least engineers have good condition builds apart from confusion. Imagine all the mesmers who will be salvaging their condition gear next Tuesday.

I don’t really mind too much that it will be nerfed, since it’s not the most fun mechanic to play with or against. I never really felt it was OP though. It is unfortunate that WvW build variety will shrink as a result. It’s getting harder and harder to avoid running HGH/nades.

The confusion and retaliation changes will definitely hit defensive-minded builds. One of the main ways I dealt with d/d eles in WvW was using confusion, but now that will only be half as effective.

Keep in mind that this also helps us out too though. We won’t get hurt as much from retaliation or confusion as well (good news for FT users, for sure).

Maybe the defensive builds will get some other tradeoff (my fingers are crossed for super elixir buff, but I think it’s unlikely). But this set of changes might finally make me decide to start running a p/p roamer instead of my current spec.

I just know I won’t be taking toolkit anymore, Box o Nails just isn’t good enough to warrant it lol!

Gizmoitus.7241:

I just know I won’t be taking toolkit anymore, Box o Nails just isn’t good enough to warrant it lol!

That skill definitely needs some love… Either longer duration or a wider radius, or maybe fast cast time. It’s so unusable the way it is now… I mainly just use it when running away, but it’s not particularly effective at that either (elixir gun KR is better).

I don’t think the confusion damage nerf is a reason not to take toolkit. It’ll just be putting out the same numbers in sPvP is all. Plus it still has high direct damage with prybar, plus the 3 second shield and our pull skill… Man, I must’ve magneted over a thousand people in WvW by now.

I use HGH/409 with TK so the Confusion nerf along with any kind of nerf to Might is really going to suck.

I have a hard time understanding the whole thought process of it though.
Since I lack any kind of Direct Dmg burst I have always considered Confusion to be my counter to super bursty professions like Warrior and Thief.
Meaning if I can get confusion on them right before they spam their burst I will win.
Otherwise I have to try and avoid their burst or die.
So it seems perfectly fair to me that they have to do the same.
Avoid my Confusion or wait it out so they don’t die.
Seems fair and balanced.

Soon even if you apply Confusion they will still burst you down before they kill themselves.
To add to that Anet has given the 2 of the Burstier classes the ability to strip away the Might stacks that make Confusion so powerful in the first place.

I feel like a better solution to tone down Confusion would be to alter how many skills set it off. Like eliminate On-Dodge skills from triggering it and retal. dmg. Or even put a cap on Max stacks.

Otherwise why don’t we bring over all the other PvP class balances like the Healing Ability of some certain professions when spec’d for it.

I have always had a lot of fun and down half decent playing HGH P/P and I feel like alot of it is due to Confusion allowing me the time to buff and apply conditions. I can remember fights where I have whiffed my Prybar and had Static Shot dodged and it was like I was nekid all of a sudden when I get focused and I almost always end up popping Elixir S earlier than I would like to heal and reset. Seems like the gameplay is gonna be alot different now.

I hope they make WvW more fun so I might be able to muster some enthusiasm to try out my newly weakend build.

SmoothHussler.6387:

So…one month after the prybar buff, Anet has pretty much rendered it useless by destroying confusion damage. Pistol #3, bomb kit #3 and tool kit #3 will now be much less useful in WvW.

I utilize confusion a lot. Both in WvW and PvP. (and even PvE)
Putting the confusion damage on par with PvP in WvW is a good change.

You are acting as if confusion is useless in PvP, which it is certainly not.
“Destroying confusion damage” is a rather silly thing to say. It’ll still be good, just not this ridiculously good.
Oneshotting haste thieves with prybar was fun and it’ll still be very effective in WvW, you’ll only need to push out some more damage before they hit the dirt.

A good change, imo.

This will be much harsher on mesmers than it will on us, so it’s actually kind of good for us since it means we’ll probably stand a bit better chance against confusion-based mesmers.

As for group battles, mesmers can do a lot of AoE confusion, so I imagine the nerf to confusion damage in WvW was likely to handle that case. Now you will need two mesmers to cause a zerg to rip itself to shreds rather than just one.

Yes mesmers got nerf there but whats the purpose of tool kit now? use auto? 500 dmg with slowest dps in game?

Yamsandjams.3267:

This will be much harsher on mesmers than it will on us, so it’s actually kind of good for us since it means we’ll probably stand a bit better chance against confusion-based mesmers.

As for group battles, mesmers can do a lot of AoE confusion, so I imagine the nerf to confusion damage in WvW was likely to handle that case. Now you will need two mesmers to cause a zerg to rip itself to shreds rather than just one.

Yes and sticking a fork in our eye is actually a good thing…because imagine how embarrassing it would be at the hospital if it was jammed somewhere else.

Irony aside i don’t see why we have to suffer every time some other class needs to be nerfed. If confusion mesmers are the problem…nerf the traits that make the build..not EVERY confusion skill across the board.

Siofra Crumble.2098:

SmoothHussler.6387:

So…one month after the prybar buff, Anet has pretty much rendered it useless by destroying confusion damage. Pistol #3, bomb kit #3 and tool kit #3 will now be much less useful in WvW.

I utilize confusion a lot. Both in WvW and PvP. (and even PvE)
Putting the confusion damage on par with PvP in WvW is a good change.

You are acting as if confusion is useless in PvP, which it is certainly not.
“Destroying confusion damage” is a rather silly thing to say. It’ll still be good, just not this ridiculously good.
Oneshotting haste thieves with prybar was fun and it’ll still be very effective in WvW, you’ll only need to push out some more damage before they hit the dirt.

A good change, imo.

I agree, confusion was a bit over the top. I don’t think I could ever give up toolkit. Even if they changed 1-4 to Box o Nails and 5 Magnet. I would still love it just for magnet ha!

ikiturso.4026:

Yes mesmers got nerf there but whats the purpose of tool kit now? use auto? 500 dmg with slowest dps in game?

The auto-attack is actually a melee attack. People complain about not having a melee attack, but that is one right there (although it technically uses a utility slot). It also hits decently hard, but I think it could use some beefing up.

The nails aren’t that great, so we’ll ignore those…

But you’ve got your shield and magnet. The buffing of those two skills is what made toolkit relevant in the first place. Before the buffs to those skills, it was rarely used for anything.

Then there’s the toss wrench… nothing too impressive, but it has it’s place.

If you’re just using the kit for prybar, I’m not sure you were really making the best investment. It’s always been the usability of the kit that made me like it. It’s not like prybar will be useless either. Still good direct damage. It’s not like confusion doesn’t do any damage whatsoever now, although it will still probably affect a good number of builds (my build included). The same applies to you though, you won’t be hurt as much by confusion either, so you’re less likely to die through the same means.

Builds like SD builds commonly use toolkit as well, so you’ll probably still see it being used on them. I’ll likely still be using toolkit in WvW as well despite the nerfs to confusion damage. Besides, it’s only the really noobish or absentminded players that destroy themselves with confusion. Most competent players will have some method of handling it, so they were probably not taking a ton of damage from it in the first place.

Depending on what happens with healing turret, I might actually play around with the repairing aspect… not holding my breath on that though.

daweed.6520:

Irony aside i don’t see why we have to suffer every time some other class needs to be nerfed. If confusion mesmers are the problem…nerf the traits that make the build..not EVERY confusion skill across the board.

I think that’s a fair point, although my statments about why they made the adjustment are just speculation. They probably felt it was necessary across the board, and not just on mesmers.

What I’m curious about is it will affect the confusion damage on the NPCs as well as the players… I don’t really see why it would need to do less damage to the WvW NPCs, so hopefully it won’t. Not sure how it goes down in sPvP with Svanir and the Chieftan.

I just do not get arena nets thought process on things like this. I have No problem counter confusion on ANY of my characters, the need is too much and they are just catering for bad and lazy players. Confusion was my counter to quite frankly ridiculous burst thieves.
My engi stacks toughness on every single piece of gear and I still get hit by 7-8k back stabs, 4k steals, 4-5k cloak and daggers buts that’s okay isn’t it?? Anet are just coming off as a joke at the moment, they have no idea how to balance their game and are just dumbing down the game even further by continuing to nerf abilities like confusion and retaliation. While still favouring a number of professions over others. I think I am about done with this game.

Doesn’t a dedicated HGH condition build set around 1800 or so condition damage?

Fact is that, after being hit by the prybar, enemies will be taking 1000 damage for every action for 10 seconds. It’s not 2000 damage, but 1000 damage is still pretty good.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

Doesn’t a dedicated HGH condition build set around 1800 or so condition damage?

Fact is that, after being hit by the prybar, enemies will be taking 1000 damage for every action for 10 seconds. It’s not 2000 damage, but 1000 damage is still pretty good.

The issue is with the OTHER builds again.
Any non-HGH condi burst build using either tool kit or bombs, just saw one of their best damage abilities reduced quite a lot.
HGH did too much perhaps… but the other engi builds did NOT.

I expacted a confusion nerf and can understand it.
But they should give prybar something else for example (boonhate was a good opportunity… but they missed that boat)

I believe it would have been smarter to reduce the number of confusion intensity on skills or put a lower cap or duration to confusion (at least for PvP). In the video I saw they seemed concerned about people getting killed because they were taking way to much damage from high intensity of confusions. I personnaly never had any issues with that sinds damage only hit you if you fight back and you always have the option if you run in teams to run away until the effect wears off.

I think the biggest issue came from WvW, where people were dealing 8-9sec confusion with the extra duration from food, damage form gear and probably HgH, because it shuts down your character for to long. Thats why I think food and upgrades should be totaly left away from WvW, it creates a to big disparity between people with condition builds using it and people who don’t. In SPvp you usualy don’t notice it so much when you run with good players helping out with condition removal and you always have backup to protect you if you need to go for a run.

But I just have a question, sinds confusion looses 50% of its damage does it meens it has the exact same value of damage in PVE, sinds it was buffed previously for WvW, or does it deal even less damage than before?

I’m still hoping that what they mean by making the numbers the same is actually finding a middle ground between those numbers. Because Confusion did too much damage on WvW and almost no damage on PvP. If the number is actually the PvP one with maybe 20 or 25% increase i’d be ok with it. Confusion builds need to come back to sPvP and be toned down in WvW.

hey there, sorry for not knowing that, but where did you guys get those informations and upcoming patchnotes from?would love to take a look at it.thanks

aufdermaur.1290:

hey there, sorry for not knowing that, but where did you guys get those informations and upcoming patchnotes from?would love to take a look at it.thanks

From The State of The Game thing the do every month or so before the patch is released. The previous one should be viewable at http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2guru/b/396007412

GuilguiS.2738:

I’m still hoping that what they mean by making the numbers the same is actually finding a middle ground between those numbers. Because Confusion did too much damage on WvW and almost no damage on PvP. If the number is actually the PvP one with maybe 20 or 25% increase i’d be ok with it. Confusion builds need to come back to sPvP and be toned down in WvW.

this would be a lovely solution indeed:

25% more in pvp
25% less in WvW (pve)

Personally I think confusion should only proc on direct attacking skills, never on traited dodges, heals, blocks, etc…
It should punish you for attacking, without making you a sitting duck where the other can unleash 5-10 seconds of hurt on you while you sit it out.
But that’s a much bigger change than just adjusting the numbers a bit.