Guild Wars 2

Hello,

its been stated more than once by the devs they like constructive information. I’m the esoteric type, not empirical, so this is my way of attempting to garner at least some consideration.

The strength of confusion is of particular concern to a Mesmer. While not an avid pve or wvw player it seems to me that confusion requires a different metric for each type of gameplay.

This is regarding s or tpvp.

Please take into account the series of actions and apply them to the subsequent questions. Assume a condition damage-focused amulet is being used. I invite people to do this for themselves, and relay their experiences in this thread.

I am not saying this should be a viable spec or that it needs a boost. I am simply asking what results should the following extreme course of events provide in the opinion of the players and the devs (should they be kind enough to read, try, and comment).

You may or may not presume that we have the grandmaster illusions trait that gives us a 4th shatter.

create 3 clones -> cry of frustration -> create 3 clones -> mindwrack -> activate signet of illusions -> create 3 clones -> cry of frustration -> create 3 clones (admittedly a larger space of time to do at this point) -> mind wrack

question #1 – should this create a devastating effect if your targets receive and retain that amount of confusion and continue committing actions?

question #1a – should a cry of frustration executed by a condition damage focused Mesmer be roughly equal to the damage of a mindwrack from a power/crit mesmer? Power only?

question #1b – if no to 1A and we changed it to a CoF+MR; should that be roughly equal?

question #2 – after utilizing this series of actions do you feel that you are making an impact that correlates to the amount of resources and actions being committed?

question #3 – taking into account either all meta environments since inception or no meta-driven environment, what are you thoughts on the likelihood of a confusion stack being cleansed vs. a mindwrack being blocked, dodged, etc.

question #4 – after experiencing this method of mesmer’ing did you have fun? do you think this type of Mesmer gameplay should be encouraged?

The “best” way to execute these actions is to:

1. use sigils of energy
2. take trait ‘X’ in the dueling line and trait ‘III’ in the inspiration line

“best” trait distributions:

10-20-0-10-30
20-20-0-10-20

“best” utilities:

decoy – mirror images – signet of illusions

Any experienced mesmers around here could already give you their impressions of crit vs confusion. Aswell as debate the issues related to both, not to mention the excessive nerfing of confusion in WvW.

Confusion could use some work, no doubt, but that doesnt mean it’s ever meant to be on par with power/crit in the devs meta mind.

no confusion should not be in comparison to a power/crit, but the bb nerf and the 50 percent was way too much and now we cant spec into it anymore eventhough our traits would allow a glam build. glam build was fun to play as it was more aoe based. u would not deal any dmg apart from confusion and reflection as your power was around 900. i like conditions, but i dont want to play a necro…sry its not my type of class as i dislike dead stuff and all that. it’s just not me, but glam was me and i miss it!

if it needed a nerf, then the bb nerf was sufficient, but to be quite honest confusion should not be treated like other conditions, as it doesnt trigger if u dont attack and it is hard to stack(not for an engi they could get higher confusion in 1 hit than we could) now after the nerf in wvw (and im only talking wvw here so no spvp comments to this please) people get a slight tickle if hit with confusion, that barely stacks and with food and givers and 1.7k condition dmg, i barely get anything. the ticks are 216, 216, 216,0,0,0,0,,456,456,0,0,0,and maybe if i get luck 1k…..

question #1 – should this create a devastating effect if your targets receive and retain that amount of confusion and continue committing actions?
Yes.

question #1a – should a cry of frustration executed by a condition damage focused Mesmer be roughly equal to the damage of a mindwrack from a power/crit mesmer? Power only?
I think it should, but it willb e very hard to balance due to confusion being kind of a gambling thing, you never know how many times it will proc. Cry of frustration is also double the cooldown of mind wrack.

question #2 – after utilizing this series of actions do you feel that you are making an impact that correlates to the amount of resources and actions being committed?
Not at all. Signet of illusions has a cast time and long cooldown, eating one of my utility slots, and the combo takes way too long to go through, kind of disturbing the flow of the fight.
Oh, confusion is also not worth it.

question #3 – taking into account either all meta environments since inception or no meta-driven environment, what are you thoughts on the likelihood of a confusion stack being cleansed vs. a mindwrack being blocked, dodged, etc.
cleansing depends on the player, but doing just MW – cry – MW – cry adds only 1 or 2 conditions without cover conditions, so itd be easy to cleanse.

question #4 – after experiencing this method of mesmer’ing did you have fun? do you think this type of Mesmer gameplay should be encouraged?
Confusion mesmer? I did try it once and i enjoyed people being total kittens and killing themselves. Most of the times theyd have died atleast twice as fast if i used shatter though…

edit: we need more ways to apply confusion, confusion should have a longer duration and lower stacks, maybe then it would be worth traiting (but not compeltely focussing on only confusion)

It should be more like burning, Short duration but high damage and rather then make it stack intensity, make it stack duration instead. The problems with Confusion are to many, either they fix it or might as well remove it because in its current state it is pointless.

I would like to see it changed to something like (math is example)

500 Condition Damage: 400 Damage
1,000 Condition Damage 900 Damage
1,500 Condition Damage 1,200 Damage

The damage dealt being done when they attack. The Duration for a simple attack that inflicts it should be say 4seconds. Have it so that it lasts longer when more are applied. Currently it doesnt do enough damage and it doesnt last long enough for us to make it actually worthwhile using.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

500 Condition Damage: 400 Damage
1,000 Condition Damage 900 Damage
1,500 Condition Damage 1,200 Damage

You mean 1000 CD 800 D

Esplen.3940:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

500 Condition Damage: 400 Damage
1,000 Condition Damage 900 Damage
1,500 Condition Damage 1,200 Damage

You mean 1000 CD 800 D

I meant that with 1,000 Condition Damage the damage done by Confusion would be 900 per a skill they use. Of course this math isnt 100% correct and its just used as an example.

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Esplen.3940:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

500 Condition Damage: 400 Damage
1,000 Condition Damage 900 Damage
1,500 Condition Damage 1,200 Damage

You mean 1000 CD 800 D

I meant that with 1,000 Condition Damage the damage done by Confusion would be 900 per a skill they use. Of course this math isnt 100% correct and its just used as an example.

500 CD —> 400 Damage.
1500 CD —> 1200 Damage

500 CD = 400 Damage (Check)
500 * 3 = 400 * 3
1500 = 1200
1500 CD —> 1200 Damage (Check)

1000 CD —> 900 Damage
500 * 2 = 400 * 2
1000 = 800 (Not check)

Personally.. and this may be a VERY bad idea or a good one, up to you guys, but I would like to see something like torment done, it does a base damage tick, like any other condition. But the ticks don’t require skill use it ticks for a certain amount any way and then when they use a skill. its just extra damage. Makes it so it doesn’t hit outlandishly hard when they use a skill. But makes it so it is still a reasonable condition.

Kaamau.5341:

Personally.. and this may be a VERY bad idea or a good one, up to you guys, but I would like to see something like torment done, it does a base damage tick, like any other condition. But the ticks don’t require skill use it ticks for a certain amount any way and then when they use a skill. its just extra damage. Makes it so it doesn’t hit outlandishly hard when they use a skill. But makes it so it is still a reasonable condition.

Why not have it tick 1x per second, but if/when they’re casting, it ticks 2x a second. Additional bonus damage upon completing of a skill. Stacks intensity.

Keep in mind, this would render the damage from Confusion to not be a nuke in any form or way, but put the damage into a way so it’s more pressure, similar to Torment.

The damage from Confusion ticks would be equal to half a bleed stack, so if they’re casting it’s essentially X more bleed stacks. Cast/Attack finish damage would be less than the current damage of Confusion.

Esplen.3940:

Kaamau.5341:

Personally.. and this may be a VERY bad idea or a good one, up to you guys, but I would like to see something like torment done, it does a base damage tick, like any other condition. But the ticks don’t require skill use it ticks for a certain amount any way and then when they use a skill. its just extra damage. Makes it so it doesn’t hit outlandishly hard when they use a skill. But makes it so it is still a reasonable condition.

Why not have it tick 1x per second, but if/when they’re casting, it ticks 2x a second. Additional bonus damage upon completing of a skill. Stacks intensity.

Keep in mind, this would render the damage from Confusion to not be a nuke in any form or way, but put the damage into a way so it’s more pressure, similar to Torment.

The damage from Confusion ticks would be equal to half a bleed stack, so if they’re casting it’s essentially X more bleed stacks. Cast/Attack finish damage would be less than the current damage of Confusion.

But I feel like players don’t spend enough time casting for that to be reasonable, torment works because people move, but with cast times as shot as they are, the bonus damage wouldn’t shine. It would be just as weak if not weaker.

There once was a Mesmer who wanted a buff.
Anet said no.

The End.

But seriously, that’s exactly what I said by the time when confusion was nerfed, and I’m actually happy that someone brings up the discussion again. Confusion damage is in no way worth the effort you have to put into it. As you stated in the OP, in order to make it do some reasonable damage (and even then it still sucks compared to other condis), you have to do ALOT. Now compare with our new Illusionary Counter.
Five Stacks of torment are so powerful, it’s not even funny to compare it with 5 stacks of confusion. Block a skill, there ya go, 12s torment. Massive damage.

We have so many confusion traits that would allow new builds, only if confusion was buffed in a healthy, not-overpowered way. 50% more damage was OP back in the days, but… lets say, 25% ? Like ArmageddonAsh said, stacking in duration would also be a good option here.
Confusion wasn’t viable or useful in PvE, it wasn’t in PvP. It was powerful in WvW, it got nerfed to make it also useless there. If it stays this way, please, remove the condition completely and give us torment instead. It’s just not funny to have a condition with such a short duration doing almost no damage only when the enemy decides to attack and doesn’t spam any cleanses.

Back to your questions, yes, it should have a similar effect if you put that much effort into your build and use that many skills. Sadly, it does not. Not even close.
Don’t know if you played Confusion Mesmer in WvW before the nerf. It was amazing.

To all those people telling that confusion should just be “additional” damage. Why are there so many confusion traits if it’s just meant to be additional damage? Doesn’t make sense to me. Also, in a Mesmer condition build there isn’t really a reliable way of stacking conditions other than confusion (well, we have 5 stacks of torment now).

Don’t expect an answer from arenanet. They didn’t after the nerf, so I guess they are happy with confusion as it is.

And these are the Mesmer forums, after all.

actually the 25 percent is still not enough due to the bb nerf! the bb nerf already hit confusion builds very hard and then the “fixed” something about a bug and now where are we at? all we have seen was nerfs nerfs nerfs and a few useless(appart from torment that i love btw…probably is gonna get nerfed soon too)buffs. then i am happy nullfield got buffed…so what is anet gonna nerf next?

I think confusion is the poster-boy for having different rules in different modes of gameplay.

Making a case for an alteration to confusion (at least in s+tpvp) is made difficult without an accurate method of tracking its damage. There is little else a player can do outside of the esoteric approach when judging it.

what I am hoping is that someone of import attempts the skill chain I’ve laid out multiple times in a hot-join and tournament environment and takes some time to give the results an honest evaluation.