Guild Wars 2

So the nerf to confusion was justified as it is the ultimate in cheese…

(cheesey attacks/builds negate you opponents skill, leaving them with no chance to win)

…but now mesmer is kinda lousy in spvp. All your damage comes from the clones, but then you are supposed to blow them up? It just so clumsy….

Anyway, I propose that we return confusion’s damage in full, but healing, dodging, and utility skills should not proc confusion damage.

So now confusion hurts, but players aren’t forced to just stand still or die.

Ezeriel.9574:

So the nerf to confusion was justified as it is the ultimate in cheese…

(cheesey attacks/builds negate you opponents skill, leaving them with no chance to win)

…but now mesmer is kinda lousy in spvp. All your damage comes from the clones, but then you are supposed to blow them up? It just so clumsy….

Anyway, I propose that we return confusion’s damage in full, but healing, dodging, and utility skills should not proc confusion damage.

So now confusion hurts, but players aren’t forced to just stand still or die.

Personally I feel Confusion is used wrong. At this point, it’s basically doing what Retaliation does but in reverse. I think it would be better of if, when applied, it interrupts the next skill the afflicted person uses instead of causing damage. That would validate its short application times, fit very well with the mesmer’s theme of disruption and, if it works through defiance, open up a huge possibility for mesmers in pve.

Crossplay.2067:

Ezeriel.9574:

So the nerf to confusion was justified as it is the ultimate in cheese…

(cheesey attacks/builds negate you opponents skill, leaving them with no chance to win)

…but now mesmer is kinda lousy in spvp. All your damage comes from the clones, but then you are supposed to blow them up? It just so clumsy….

Anyway, I propose that we return confusion’s damage in full, but healing, dodging, and utility skills should not proc confusion damage.

So now confusion hurts, but players aren’t forced to just stand still or die.

Personally I feel Confusion is used wrong. At this point, it’s basically doing what Retaliation does but in reverse. I think it would be better of if, when applied, it interrupts the next skill the afflicted person uses instead of causing damage. That would validate its short application times, fit very well with the mesmer’s theme of disruption and, if it works through defiance, open up a huge possibility for mesmers in pve.

You also have to include with that rework that other classes have confusion. Would you allow other classes the ability to have confusion, or make it Mesmer only? I like that idea though and I know my interrupt Mesmer would die for that

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

You also have to include with that rework that other classes have confusion. Would you allow other classes the ability to have confusion, or make it Mesmer only? I like that idea though and I know my interrupt Mesmer would die for that

It’s merely a condition so it should be available to all. However, because mesmers can benefit so much from interrupts, it would be considered the mesmer condition again.

Ezeriel.9574:

So the nerf to confusion was justified as it is the ultimate in cheese…

(cheesey attacks/builds negate you opponents skill, leaving them with no chance to win)

Eh, not to go completely off-topic, but if your class-based RPG has fair fights between different classes, you probably did something wrong when designing it. Especially in games which rely on a multiplayer-component.
You want to encourage grouping up. Part of this is making some classes (or builds, which are ultimately classes as far as your game design goes) way superior to others at specific tasks. It follows that in some engagements, one build can completely dominate another unless one player is asleep. This is not a design problem, rather it’s an integral component of the underlying nature of your game’s genre.

The key is to set up your system so that the class which is fighting uphill can group with someone who can make up for their downsides.

As a very basic example, say you have a class which can deal so much damage that it could easily kill anyone else, even as squishy as it is. However it has to do so from melee range and has no way to actually get there better than walking or stay there.
Anyone with any form of speed or disengagement could trivially stay out of danger, and with a ranged attack could kill this class without much risk.
But pair the DPSer with someone who is specialized into CCing targets, and all of a sudden you got an absolutely lethal combination as far as those kiters go. Really smart game design is then to have this effect chain (the kiter can group with a class which makes people immune to CC to counteract the CCer, etc…). This is how smart interlocked class design in class-based games work, a good example is TF2.

Anyhow, went way off topic now but the point is: “Cheese” is a terrible word. It’s basically synonymous with It killed me, and come no, I’m so good there’s no way it was my fault, k?. And that’s not a level of discussion we should really encourage.

Use “overpowered” – at least that’s a relatively hard definition which makes sense in a game design discussion: There’s a target baseline for power, and this one is above it, providing more character power overall than appropriate (it might still be too weak in specific situations, but overall it is too strong).

Sorry, pet peeve rant over. :P

I still wait for the day we get a complete revamp of our confusion traits. I kinda doubt that confusion gets revamped completly because other classes have access as well. Just look at the mess perplexity runes created.

I really would like to know what the devs want us to do with confusion. Is it still supposed to punish people by dealing spike damage or are we supposed to deal consistent low amount of damage with confusion. None of the traits support either anymore.

Anyhow, as far as Confusion goes, I’d first change it baseline:

• Charge-based. An attack applies X stacks of Confusion, which are charges with a flat duration which is shared among all players (3s base, see below).
• Using an ability while you are affected by Confusion refreshes the duration, but drains a charge, dealing the listed amount of per-charge damage (the damage no longer stacks!).
• Damage is increased substantially to compensate.
• To drop Confusion, simply don’t use a skill for 3s. The stack runs out, done.
• Adding to the stack-count does not refresh the current duration of the stack. If someone is halfway to waiting it out and you’re adding stacks, they only got 1,5s left to wait, period.
• In PvE, base duration is doubled (damage is the same, remember damage is buffed significantly and should be high~veryhigh, even in PvP).
• Duration-food interacts differently with Confusion. The longer it lasts, the lower the per-stack damage gets. Consequently if it lasts shorter, the more dangerous it becomes. Effectively you trade safe damage vs soft-CC. This should probably have a tutorial ingame to not be overly confusing, but then I’d add a tutorial for every condition to clear up the Poison stuff etc.
• Our 33% Confusion Duration trait would be unique in that this gives 0,5s (I’d change it to that) flat Confusion duration which does not change the damage value. 1s in PvE, ofc.

Anyone remembers the sick animation you had when those toxic confusions happened? Image this at 10 stacks confusion, and again at 20 stacks. o.o I’m just dreaming

We should add hallucinations too ala toxic campaign

They will never totally rework the condition because that would affect the game way too much as confusion is much easier to come by for a lot classes and it would need a lot rework on a lot skills.

Not only that but confusion on other classes is actually balanced, due that 1 skill or ’’effect’’ as in interrupt on warrior with trait causes instant 4-5 stacks confusion. Mesmer has at max a skill that applies 3 confusion by a phantasm that has a way too long cooldown and often fails to hit it’s bolt.

Soooo… solution: Increase the amount of stacks and/or duration on (almost) all confusion applying skills and traits for mesmer. Easy fix and no major reworks.

Really, the skill inflicting confusion on interrupt feels so much like a mesmer skill that warriors should feel ashamed to use it.
Interrupts and Confusion is characteristic of mesmer gameplay, as highlighted by our f1-f4 skills. i’d happily give up Master of Misdirection for such a skill.

“Personally I feel Confusion is used wrong. At this point, it’s basically doing what Retaliation does but in reverse. I think it would be better of if, when applied, it interrupts the next skill the afflicted person uses instead of causing damage. That would validate its short application times, fit very well with the mesmer’s theme of disruption and, if it works through defiance, open up a huge possibility for mesmers in pve.” – Crossplay

I disagree. this would be an insane buff to any power based interrupt build because guranteed interrupts on every application of confusion would allow us to interrupt far too often ( assuming each stack is one skill ) making scepter the ultimate power weapon for the average 2k damage on interrupt using halting strike with easily 5 interrupts equals dead skill less foe in one skill. Chaos armor on staff would passively interrupt your foe dealing 2k average damage… scepter skill 3 could kill eles in one hit and permanent chaos armor builds would render one attacker useless… anyways i as a greedy mesmer I would be fine with this for about a day then find it no fund at all to simply watch people die on my skill 2. in WvW confusion on interrupt runes would make self producing interrupts causing chains of death… you did not list that they would be removed so i have to assume they would not.

• fixed some spelling

Though a version of this condition that had less interrupts might be a viable change, except for how they would have to rework weapon skills

Give me a GM trait that says “Doubles Confusion Damage” and I’ll be good. We’ll be able to do the same thing as before, but just requires a little more investment on our end.

BlackDevil.9268:

They will never totally rework the condition because that would affect the game way too much as confusion is much easier to come by for a lot classes and it would need a lot rework on a lot skills.

That’s really the current biggest issue I have, maybe. Any discussion on how we would like Confusion to work is ~pointless because we’re only the third-best confusion applier in the game. Despite it originally being our class debuff.
Ofc in turn, we have become the best torment-applier. What was supposed to be the necro class debuff. :P

Carighan.6758:

BlackDevil.9268:

They will never totally rework the condition because that would affect the game way too much as confusion is much easier to come by for a lot classes and it would need a lot rework on a lot skills.

That’s really the current biggest issue I have, maybe. Any discussion on how we would like Confusion to work is ~pointless because we’re only the third-best confusion applier in the game. Despite it originally being our class debuff.
Ofc in turn, we have become the best torment-applier. What was supposed to be the necro class debuff. :P

False.

Torment was created to deal with mobility issues. In WvW the complaint at the time was the excessive thief stealth/withdraw + fight reset and no means to stop it. Torment was the birth child of that. What class got it first or who has the most application now is irrelevant.

So I guess the same could be said for confusion. Balance has nothing to do with what class has access to it or how much, rather the focus should be on it being balanced and viable on a per-class basis.

Hrm, well, maybe. I find it difficult to imagine that ANet ever spends any significant time on WvW thoughts, considering just how much humping of sPvP they do in their public display.

Even then, I prefer thinking in class concepts when designing games. The reason is that generally speaking balance in class-based games is a “second pass”-thing. First you need to get the concepts right so that everything makes conceptual sense and can easily provide this concept to the player via gameplay and class experience alone.
Then you can tweak numbers and detail implementations to provide balance, as necessary or warranted (class-based games suffer from “perfect” balance).

In other words, “Mesmers are the confusion-class” is a very easily conveyed and implemented concept. To then balance this in PvP scenarios is something which should not mess with “Mesmers are the confusion class”. That concept should be there, and stay there. The only thing which changes is how confusion specifically works, how we apply it (making sure the concept is intact) and how everyone else can counter it.

Carighan.6758:

Hrm, well, maybe. I find it difficult to imagine that ANet ever spends any significant time on WvW thoughts, considering just how much humping of sPvP they do in their public display.

Even then, I prefer thinking in class concepts when designing games. The reason is that generally speaking balance in class-based games is a “second pass”-thing. First you need to get the concepts right so that everything makes conceptual sense and can easily provide this concept to the player via gameplay and class experience alone.
Then you can tweak numbers and detail implementations to provide balance, as necessary or warranted (class-based games suffer from “perfect” balance).

In other words, “Mesmers are the confusion-class” is a very easily conveyed and implemented concept. To then balance this in PvP scenarios is something which should not mess with “Mesmers are the confusion class”. That concept should be there, and stay there. The only thing which changes is how confusion specifically works, how we apply it (making sure the concept is intact) and how everyone else can counter it.

This s fine but it assumes Mesmer was, or more importantly still is the confusion class. I think the trouble you have to face is that concepts like “confusion is part of the mesmer concept” have been watered down. “Confusion” is just another condition, and a condition to be stacked amidst many other conditions when utilizing conditions. Its from here that you get the state of the condition that we do now.

Arguments based on original concept become very unhelpful at this point. Time and effort is probably better spent coming at it from a different angle. Aew we willing to give up the idea that confusion is/should be a “mesmer thing”. If so, what possibilities could we obtain from a fresh outlook on the matter?

To be honest, torment is just as much “thematically” a mesmer condition as confusion is.

I think mesmers strength should be in the combined application of both these conditions (control enemy movement and skill usage) – together with interrupts and other control methods, though we certainly could do with more control utility skills among other things.

Edit: I accept glamour confusion is never coming back in the same way, so instead, just tightening up a few skills and traits here and there – for example cast time on confusing images (and maybe increase confusion duration), cry of frustration confusion duration, blinding befuddlemeent of course, and so on – just to level up both our torment and confusion application.

To be honest, I think confusion is still good even with the nerf, the main problem mesmers have is application, yes we have a lot of sources but they are being stacked 1 stack at a time.

EX: Scept 3 5 stacks for a channel < Engie prybar 5 stacks for a single hit
3 Stacks from Image < Engie 5 stacks concussion bomb
6 Stacks CoF shatter = Warrior 4 stacks on interrupt
(This still needs to be 3 clones)

Confusing Combatants is still situational if you kill your clones and all that for 25 pts in dueling, (I mean CMON!)

Confusing Enchantments (1 stack for entering and 1 for leaving) again- too situational, 1 get 1 stack, i won’t be bothering coming back and out again for more if I were the foe. (A master Trait too, CMON!)

If we had more reliable ways to apply it, (better than other classes, IT IS our staple condition anyway) i think we wont even need a damage buff again.

StickerHappy.8052:

To be honest, I think confusion is still good even with the nerf, the main problem mesmers have is application, yes we have a lot of sources but they are being stacked 1 stack at a time.

EX: Scept 3 5 stacks for a channel < Engie prybar 5 stacks for a single hit
3 Stacks from Image < Engie 5 stacks concussion bomb
6 Stacks CoF shatter = Warrior 4 stacks on interrupt
(This still needs to be 3 clones)

Confusing Combatants is still situational if you kill your clones and all that for 25 pts in dueling, (I mean CMON!)

Confusing Enchantments (1 stack for entering and 1 for leaving) again- too situational, 1 get 1 stack, i won’t be bothering coming back and out again for more if I were the foe. (A master Trait too, CMON!)

If we had more reliable ways to apply it, (better than other classes, IT IS our staple condition anyway) i think we wont even need a damage buff again.

Yeah, both traits are mediocre considering their placement in the trees.

Confusing combatants either needs buffing or moving. Confusing enchantments either needs buffing or some sort of merge with dazzling glamours.

Agree with Sticker. One main thing that annoys me is the glamour traits. We have two ways that glamour can apply confusion. The first makes passing through glamours cause confusion, which can help against zergs of players, but the amount is very insignificant. The second is nerfed below usefulness. This synergy between Blinding Befuddlement and whatever that other glamour-blind trait is was clearly intentional. It massively punished being mindless zergs in WvW. No idea why that’s bad, but I regress: I think they should have been smarter about it. Add a maximum amount instead of destroying this wonderful synergy. Wasn’t the confusion nerf enough?

Ah, getting frustrated, so pulling back. I think removing the ICD on BB could bring Glamour Mesmer back into WvW, a healthy expansion to mesmer variety.

Pretty much all the Mesmer traits and skills that apply confusion are outdated…

Phantasmal Mage has the longest cooldown of the all the weapon phantasms as I presume both the retaliation and confusion that it applied were considered ‘strong’ on release. However, even before confusion and retaliation were nerfed in WvW, Phantasmal Mage had terrible projectile tracking and an overly long cooldown that didn’t really suit Mesmer weapon skill rotations. With the subsequent nerfs it became an obsolete phantasm that is really only of any use as an unreliable source of condition removal….that requires 4 trait points.

The same tale can be applied to almost every form of confusion application Mesmer has. It’s all horribly outdated.

Simonoly.4352:

Pretty much all the Mesmer traits and skills that apply confusion are outdated…

Phantasmal Mage has the longest cooldown of the all the weapon phantasms as I presume both the retaliation and confusion that it applied were considered ‘strong’ on release. However, even before confusion and retaliation were nerfed in WvW, Phantasmal Mage had terrible projectile tracking and an overly long cooldown that didn’t really suit Mesmer weapon skill rotations. With the subsequent nerfs it became an obsolete phantasm that is really only of any use as an unreliable source of condition removal….that requires 4 trait points.

The same tale can be applied to almost every form of confusion application Mesmer has. It’s all horribly outdated.

Its not even outdated, These are the same traits as before except the BB ICD. The only difference is that even though our application was bad before, Even a few stacks dealt major damage. Now the damage is nerfed, combined with our pitiful stacking, GG.

Also, we had the Duelist Trait IX before that granted the iDuelist 100% Projectile Finisher, so combo that with an Ethereal Field, and it was certainly a more reliable way to stack confusion; and now, it was FIXED so yea.

StickerHappy.8052:

Simonoly.4352:

Pretty much all the Mesmer traits and skills that apply confusion are outdated…

Phantasmal Mage has the longest cooldown of the all the weapon phantasms as I presume both the retaliation and confusion that it applied were considered ‘strong’ on release. However, even before confusion and retaliation were nerfed in WvW, Phantasmal Mage had terrible projectile tracking and an overly long cooldown that didn’t really suit Mesmer weapon skill rotations. With the subsequent nerfs it became an obsolete phantasm that is really only of any use as an unreliable source of condition removal….that requires 4 trait points.

The same tale can be applied to almost every form of confusion application Mesmer has. It’s all horribly outdated.

Its not even outdated, These are the same traits as before except the BB ICD. The only difference is that even though our application was bad before, Even a few stacks dealt major damage. Now the damage is nerfed, combined with our pitiful stacking, GG.

Also, we had the Duelist Trait IX before that granted the iDuelist 100% Projectile Finisher, so combo that with an Ethereal Field, and it was certainly a more reliable way to stack confusion; and now, it was FIXED so yea.

Most all Mesmer fixes over the last two years = nerfs :p

^I don’t wanna blame the devs, but I think they didn’t think of mesmer traits thoroughly, in fact I think they were made in a hurry, so it calls for such fixes, and you know other FIXES comes from nerfs too when people can’t find the real mesmer.. boohoo

StickerHappy.8052:

Its not even outdated, These are the same traits as before except the BB ICD.

It is, indirectly. What changed is everyone/everything else:

• Engineer Bomb 3
• Warrior interrupt
• Runes of Perplexity

These allowed others to easily surpass us in Confusion application. Both Engineers and Warriors are just flat out better at it. More reliable interrupts available to proc runes with, too.

Well… The max we can do is do a mass petition to rewind a couple nerfs and buff certain confusion based skills/traits.

BlackDevil.9268:

Well… The max we can do is do a mass petition to rewind a couple nerfs and buff certain confusion based skills/traits.

Petitions are terrible for that. Though right now I’m going into WoW-balance-expectations-mode. That is to say, it took them 4 years to react upon the endless stream of threads asking for Demo Warlocks to be able to transform into a demon, and 8 years to implement secondary resources to differentiate them from Mages. Not expecting anything anytime soon.

Or well at least keep a forum post alive with proposed changes and put them in the OP post, if the OP wants to agree with this of course.

Guess I’ll start off:
I-mage reduced cooldown 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

Make a grandmaster trait that lets it scale with power kinda like guardians retal trait. Or make it just trigger once like blind and do way more damage…

BlackDevil.9268:

Or well at least keep a forum post alive with proposed changes and put them in the OP post, if the OP wants to agree with this of course.

Guess I’ll start off:
I-mage reduced cooldown 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

A buff is a buff i guess, but no offense Doiid, I would rather have the Image Shoot a laser and deal 6 stacks of confusion directly, the projectile is what makes it a bad phantasm. Also that’s gonna be 16 seconds traited. might be a bit too much, since you will have that 16 second cd removal. <—- Good for us mesmers but, I will hear a lot of crying from the community for this one if it ever happens.

StickerHappy.8052:

BlackDevil.9268:

Or well at least keep a forum post alive with proposed changes and put them in the OP post, if the OP wants to agree with this of course.

Guess I’ll start off:
I-mage reduced cooldown 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

A buff is a buff i guess, but no offense Doiid, I would rather have the Image Shoot a laser and deal 6 stacks of confusion directly, the projectile is what makes it a bad phantasm. Also that’s gonna be 16 seconds traited. might be a bit too much, since you will have that 16 second cd removal. <—- Good for us mesmers but, I will hear a lot of crying from the community for this one if it ever happens.

Give the iMage confusing images. Get a couple of those bad boys up spamming that every 6 seconds would be a major head trip for enemies. Those slow channels might suck on a Mesmer trying to get his skill off, but coming from a third party source would be hard to mitigate much of.

Ross Biddle.2367:

StickerHappy.8052:

BlackDevil.9268:

Or well at least keep a forum post alive with proposed changes and put them in the OP post, if the OP wants to agree with this of course.

Guess I’ll start off:
I-mage reduced cooldown 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

A buff is a buff i guess, but no offense Doiid, I would rather have the Image Shoot a laser and deal 6 stacks of confusion directly, the projectile is what makes it a bad phantasm. Also that’s gonna be 16 seconds traited. might be a bit too much, since you will have that 16 second cd removal. <—- Good for us mesmers but, I will hear a lot of crying from the community for this one if it ever happens.

Give the iMage confusing images. Get a couple of those bad boys up spamming that every 6 seconds would be a major head trip for enemies. Those slow channels might suck on a Mesmer trying to get his skill off, but coming from a third party source would be hard to mitigate much of.

Oh! this is a wonderful idea, altho better than what we have right now, i like the instant 5-6 stacks of confusion, for more reliable application.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Torment was created to deal with mobility issues. In WvW the complaint at the time was the excessive thief stealth/withdraw + fight reset and no means to stop it. Torment was the birth child of that.

It was fail, because thieves got this condi too and thieves are pretty good on cleansing conditions. Also, it is not affecting teleporting

SilverWF.4789:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Torment was created to deal with mobility issues. In WvW the complaint at the time was the excessive thief stealth/withdraw + fight reset and no means to stop it. Torment was the birth child of that.

It was fail, because thieves got this condi too and thieves are pretty good on cleansing conditions. Also, it is not affecting teleporting

We can all be good at cleansing conditions if we want. Thief build meta certainly changed over the last two years though. Now condi cleanse on thief is a must.