Guild Wars 2

What is the logic behind the creation of the Phantasmal Mage? Or in other words, what was going through the minds of the people who designed the skill.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the torch and its part of my favourite build so far (conditions) but there is just one thing I have never understood.

The Phantasmal mage has the worst DPS out of all the phantasms (probably loses even to defender LOL), the 3 stack of confusion it applies is almost non-existant as it is useless in PvE and easily ignored in WvW/PvP. The retaliation that it grants to yourself and allies lasts only for 4 seconds, barely enough time for an enemy to get one or two hits in (since as a mesmer you are trying to kite most of the time). Yet despite all of its shortcomings, it actually works. It really does work in my condition build and I love it.

My question is: WHY DOES IT HAVE THE LONGEST COOLDOWN OUT OF ALL THE PHANTASMS? 30 kittenING SECONDS. The absolute worst phantasm in the game, has the longest cooldown. LOGIC? NEVER HEARD OF IT.

Please reduce it to 20-25, and I will be a happy sylvari.

Probably because as a whole, ANet – and players – are really really really afraid of Confusion.

The condition is quite weak – even before the nerf – due to how easily it could be avoided, but with the available amount of +conditionduration in the game – a general issue IMO – it can become dangerous in an exponential fashion (Confusion doesn’t scale linearly with duration due to opportunity cost of avoiding it).

In other words, if we were to remove the potential +100% duration we can get, we could easily buff it by 150% or so in damage.

But because of the way it works now, ANet is afraid of it. Hence most of our skills applying it are so weak.

That’s what we get when ANet balances based on the idea of mostly “casual” players. Fact is, moves like Confusion/Retaliation/Torment are higher-skill level techniques, since all three punish thoughtless actions. We could also add Reflection to that mix, as well.
And it honestly makes 0% sense … I would think with the massive obsession they have with pvp, which logically should be all about player skill triumphing, they’d enjoy moves like the aforementioned four.

I’d love to see some change to iMage.

2 more stacks of confusion making it a 5 stack(still not great, but better)

Maybe random conditions on cast and faster attack speed, something.

If it would cast some aoe poison I’d marry it =)

1. Who ever said confusion was weak is just wrong. Confusion is an amazing condi and is one of the few condis that you can burst with and the best part is mesmers can get 10+ confusion stacks on a person very quickly and with ease.
2. The skill just needs a short cd like how the op mentioned 20 seconds would be great but if this skill gets a cd reduction it is going to be 25 seconds.

Confusion is still my favorite condition. Calling it amazing is a stretch however. It only bursts if your opponents make it burst. Confusion is interesting as it completely puts how much or how little damage it does out of your hands.

Agreed that for iMage to be “amazing” it needs to apply faster or cast faster or give more. They can even take out the retal part and make it only bounce on enemies.

@Drps, confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage. So if you do happen to max it out a stack (without it being removed) and your foe uses a skill, you are only looking at 5k damage. Many professions can hit one skill and do more than that kind of damage on a foe.

I like having confusion to add even more punch to my condition spec, but the poison, bleeding stacks, and burning I do are the bulk of the damage my condition spec does and it’s not even close.

Granted, Confusion used to be quite strong pre-nerf in WvW. In theory it could still be strong (due to unchanged damage) in PvE, only the duration is the issue there, not the damage. They could “fix” Confusion for PvE by doubling all durations but halving all damage, IMO.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage. So if you do happen to max it out a stack (without it being removed) and your foe uses a skill, you are only looking at 5k damage. Many professions can hit one skill and do more than that kind of damage on a foe.

I like having confusion to add even more punch to my condition spec, but the poison, bleeding stacks, and burning I do are the bulk of the damage my condition spec does and it’s not even close.

You know how difficult it is to max confusion stacks on a enemy.

You sum up so well why confusion & confusion/glamour builds are dead since the WvW nerf.

To add insult to injury, with the new superior rune of perplexity other professions can stack confusion better than a mesmer because it’s easier for them to interrupt…

For starters if you want to get the basic logic of the Phantasmal Mage you have to look to the very trait line that it is in. Domination. What stat boosts does domination apply? Power and Condition Duration… I’m sure at this point you like duh what’s your point?

My point is that Power buffs ones Retaliation and the other increases the duration of conditions. All very obvious knowns… The problem that many fail to realize with in the Mesmer community is that a lot of our abilities are meant to be concerted together…
If you play for power you condition durations are supposed to be long to increase the viability of control and damage increasing conditions such as cripple and vulnerability which is associated with the individual traits in the Mesmer: Domination line. Having long duration on confusion when your condition damage is low also helps with confusion dps.

Most Condition players over emphasize the usefulness of Condition Duration when applying conditions which should only be the icing on the cake after stacking enough condition damage into a build…most will not agree with me… but I digress…

Phantasmal Mage is intended to bolster a Mesmer’a ability to apply a diverse peripheral damage through Retaliation/ Confusion. In application with low condition damage and high Power, Retaliation and confusion should be doing comparable dmg. If you get hit and you enemy activates a skill they take damage from 2 damage sources.

Let’s round up and say retaliation does 200 base damage and you have some good might stacks or a reasonable condition damage and your confusion ticks for 300.
Anytime the enemy attacks you they have the potential of taking 500 dmg per attack, 1k per 2 attacks and so on… as these small hits land, it adds up quickly as long as they continue to attack. Meaning the assault on your enemies HP does not end when you go on the defensive… Remember this does not take into account the damage you’re already dealing by other means whether it be through shattering or phantasms. Meaning as a mesmer when you are on the defensive or the offensive your enemy will have consistent pressure on their HP.

When it comes to the duration of retaliation/confusion from the Mage itself it negligible in the grand scheme of things because depending on your build/traits mesmer apply Retaliation/Confusion in their sleep… there are so many ways to apply either as a mesmer to lay that as a fault on the I-Mage is meaningless.

Last… I don’t know why a long CD is needed on Phantasmal Mage but what I do know of what builds I have tested in the right hands it can be extremely powerful against enemies who rely on #1 skills and channeled damage abilities.

Ps. As a disclaimer I know that many don’t like my Mesmer philosophy so I stay away from the forums but I felt compelled to write… for a different perspective… Just remember that Mesmer is a Profession that has depth that we are all slowly beginning to grasp how deep we can employ our deceptive strategies. Mastery of the Scepter another disliked and misunderstood weapon that I use extensively and of course torch will be a journey that we need the most patience and innovative application to get the most out of it…

There’s none. They seems to have ran out of ideas and gave use a piece of kitten.

Honestly, with all the nerfs the mesmer has suffered through I would not accept anything less than that when iMage is spawned every opponent in visible range dies, the iMage bows, and then bursts into pink butterflies.

Hardbrain.8067:

Nordic Natedog.4360:

Confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage. So if you do happen to max it out a stack (without it being removed) and your foe uses a skill, you are only looking at 5k damage. Many professions can hit one skill and do more than that kind of damage on a foe.

I like having confusion to add even more punch to my condition spec, but the poison, bleeding stacks, and burning I do are the bulk of the damage my condition spec does and it’s not even close.

You know how difficult it is to max confusion stacks on a enemy.

You sum up so well why confusion & confusion/glamour builds are dead since the WvW nerf.

To add insult to injury, with the new superior rune of perplexity other professions can stack confusion better than a mesmer because it’s easier for them to interrupt…

Iduelest with trait, feedback or any ether combofield and scepter then shatter. Boom almost max stack of confusion.

Nordic Natedog.4360:

@Drps, confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage. So if you do happen to max it out a stack (without it being removed) and your foe uses a skill, you are only looking at 5k damage. Many professions can hit one skill and do more than that kind of damage on a foe.

I like having confusion to add even more punch to my condition spec, but the poison, bleeding stacks, and burning I do are the bulk of the damage my condition spec does and it’s not even close.

See the thing is 2 things happen to people when they have a lot of confusion on them.
1. The continue spamming their skills and end up doing that 5k damage tons of times extremely fast and they kill themselves
2.OR the stop attacking you completely stopping all their pressure on you and allowing to be safe for a bit.

Carighan.6758:

Probably because as a whole, ANet – and players – are really really really afraid of Confusion.

The condition is quite weak – even before the nerf – due to how easily it could be avoided, but with the available amount of +conditionduration in the game – a general issue IMO – it can become dangerous in an exponential fashion (Confusion doesn’t scale linearly with duration due to opportunity cost of avoiding it).

In other words, if we were to remove the potential +100% duration we can get, we could easily buff it by 150% or so in damage.

But because of the way it works now, ANet is afraid of it. Hence most of our skills applying it are so weak.

It was just the glamour spec that was op. You couldn’t really avoid the confusion spammed through glamours, but of course Anet didn’t realise that this was the actual root of the problem.

Master of Timespace.2548:

Carighan.6758:

Probably because as a whole, ANet – and players – are really really really afraid of Confusion.

The condition is quite weak – even before the nerf – due to how easily it could be avoided, but with the available amount of +conditionduration in the game – a general issue IMO – it can become dangerous in an exponential fashion (Confusion doesn’t scale linearly with duration due to opportunity cost of avoiding it).

In other words, if we were to remove the potential +100% duration we can get, we could easily buff it by 150% or so in damage.

But because of the way it works now, ANet is afraid of it. Hence most of our skills applying it are so weak.

It was just the glamour spec that was op. You couldn’t really avoid the confusion spammed through glamours, but of course Anet didn’t realise that this was the actual root of the problem.

But then they nerfed every aspect of the problem making a Glamour Confusion spec worthless along with any other Confusion Mesmer spec at the time. Heck, the nerf still exists pretty blatantly as most condition specs barely touch on confusion, since the applications of confusion are so far and few (and they last barely any duration).

And then this is where the new Runes come into play because they effectively grant a higher duration Confusion than a Mesmer could inflict at any point + it’s relatively easy to access, meaning that it looks at a nerfed build and then sits on a high chair and laughs at it.

backfire was op

Nordic Natedog.4360:

@Drps, confusion is not a burst condition. It procs with skill usage of our foe and hits for a whole 200 damage per stack with 1800 condition damage.

Are you sure that you are looking at the right damage? I constantly get 300+ from Confusion with just over 1,100 Condition damage. I have even seen it go as high as 1800 damage.

I can get 8-10stacks pretty much all the time and can burst to about 17-18 stacks if i do everything right. That does ALOT of damage. I was able to down and kill a Warrior through them being silly and trying to burst me down with Retaliation on Me and 15 stacks of Confusion on him….

I’d change it althogheter to a new functionality.

With Confusion and Retal so spanked in pvp, wvw and useless in pve, a little cut in CD or up in stacks/duration will not make it viable.

My changes:

Cool down: 25 seconds (20 traited)
Confusion per attack: 5 Stacks for 3 seconds
Retaliation per attack: 4 seconds
Attack: Every 6 seconds
Projectile: Increase speed by 50%

I think iMage should just throw a purple fireball that explodes doing burning + confusion. It fits the Torch theme better and would be more reliable.

The problem is that they are stuck on iMage being the GW2 iteration of ‘Backfire/Empathy’. (I forget what the skill it casts is called, I think Backfire). So they want it to do confusion + retaliation so that it really penalizes actions like those skills did in GW1.

lupercaleb.6041:

backfire was op

Out of curiosity, what did that skill actually do?

In GW1, it was a curse that did damage to the target each time he cast a spell. It could do up to 140 damages, on a base health pool of 500. Nasty.
More info

Ooh, you meant the GW1 one. Yeah I know that one, I just remember that Phantasmal Mage used to be called Backfire early in GW2 development and was wondering whether it used to be the same ability.

Well, we obviously retain that ability, folded into current-day Confusion. As for the Mage:

• I had suggested changing his attack into an AoE, similar to the firestorm used by Ascalonian Mages. This would at least explain his craptastic attack speed.
• Also with that in mind, perhaps we should change damage type to short-duration Burn.
• I have no idea what to then do with Retal. Perhaps hose that concept, fold the Burn in with the current stacks of Confusion…make him a pure “attacker” Phantasm
• Modify the C/D to account for the now changed state of the Mage. At least with the above ideas implemented, it would have a reason for a higher-range C/D. as regards weapon Phantasms.

Advent.6193:

• I have no idea what to then do with Retal. Perhaps hose that concept, fold the Burn in with the current stacks of Confusion…make him a pure “attacker” Phantasm

Why not have it like this:

The Mage fires a Purple fiery ball at the target
When the ball hits the target it explodes

Target gets: 5 Stacks of Confusion for 5 seconds, Burning for 5seconds
Targets nearby: 5 Stacks of Confusion for 2.5seconds, Burning for 2.5seconds

Allies in the blast radius get Retaliation for 4 seconds

Radius could be the same as the Staff 3 from Elementalists think thats 180radius

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

My changes:

Cool down: 25 seconds (20 traited)
Confusion per attack: 5 Stacks for 3 seconds
Retaliation per attack: 4 seconds
Attack: Every 6 seconds
Projectile: Increase speed by 50%

This would just be completely overpowered, with condition duration you would have 5 stacks of confusion on enemies at all times. No way Anet is going to do that.

Stormbringer.5867:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

My changes:

Cool down: 25 seconds (20 traited)
Confusion per attack: 5 Stacks for 3 seconds
Retaliation per attack: 4 seconds
Attack: Every 6 seconds
Projectile: Increase speed by 50%

This would just be completely overpowered, with condition duration you would have 5 stacks of confusion on enemies at all times. No way Anet is going to do that.

Increase the attack cool down – every 9 seconds. Done.
Kill the Phantasm. Done

It needs to be strong enough that people actually FEAR it, not laugh at those that use it. Killing the Phantasm is the best way to remove the threat? kill it.

But if you do that Armageddon, you require Condition duration.

This isn’t the first time I mention this, but Condition Duration as a buff-food (not as the trait bonus!) or item stat is a rather big issue right now. It requires some things to be rather weak, because once you’re sitting on +100% duration, they have to be balanced.

I think as a whole, Confusion could benefit from removing any +Expertise except:

1. Trait bonus
2. Sigils

This would open up the way to increase a bunch of base durations.

Its easy enough to get to 100% Confusion Duration, getting 100% condition duration as in affecting all conditions isnt as easy. Possible yes but it would mean losing elsewhere though.

Increasing the attack cool down to 9 seconds mean that even at 100% Confusion duration it still would not be stackable

Yes but my point was that at 9s intervall and still only 3s duration it’d be really weak without any +duration. Uselessly weak.

I don’t like such hyper-specialized design. The torch should be useful as a “confusion” (and I don’t only mean the condition, I also mean the blind and the stealth) weapon for any Mesmer, so that depending on situation, you swap it in, even if it’s not ideal.
With such a change, and lacking enough +expertise, it’d be a inferior by a huge margin for anyone but Mesmers specialized for using it.

Plus, the problem is not Confusion-specific. The same happens with any other condition, but mostly matters for Weakness and Chill. Expertise has a fairly nonlinear effect on these, just as it has with Confusion.

See thats where the problem is, it will be very hard to have it balanced for non-condition builds and non-confusion builds but make it a bit stronger considering the traits, runes and such you need to make it stronger but again without making it over powered.

How about:

Base duration: 5 Confusion Stacks 3 seconds
100% Confusion duration: 5 Confusion stacks 6 seconds
Attack cool down: 7 seconds

Long enough for it not to be stackable via the 1 attack but 3 seconds every 7 seconds is still pretty decent. Retaliation would last for 4 seconds, every 7 seconds because you would have to get hit by the bounce for it to proc on you