Guild Wars 2

Let’s face it: Confusing Images won’t hit anyone with a little knowledge of a function, called dodging. Sometimes you get a lucky hit, sometimes the target has no block, invulnerability, evade or endurance left, but more often the skill is a wasted slot when fighting anyone playing above beginner level. The attack channel can be avoided by one good doge and the cast animation + the sound is very characteristic and makes it impossible to hit this skill.

So what would be a sensible way to rework the skill, so that it basically works like now, but has actually a chance to hit something?

For what it is worth here is my take on it …

I understand confusing images can be difficult to land during the best of times, but just how bad does that make the skill? First, if it does get altered, what are the chances it won’t be worse (bugged Mesmer abilities and all that …)? Second, consider ways of improving (though not guaranteeing) your chance to land it (Chaotic Interruption, Chaos Storm, etc.). Third, if it almost always baits out a dodge can you find a way to take advantage of that? Sometimes abilities are better because of their unintended results rather than the initially intended ones …

If it were to be changed I think something like Necro dagger 5 would be awesome, applying 3 stacks of confusion to all enemies in a 900 range, 240 radius ground targeted AOE. If that were the case I would also prefer removal of most of its power damage for another condition or secondary effect (blind, weakness, torment, etc.) to better emphasize scepter’s condition emphasis.

Allarius.5670:

I understand confusing images can be difficult to land during the best of times, but just how bad does that make the skill? First, if it does get altered, what are the chances it won’t be worse (bugged Mesmer abilities and all that …)? Second, consider ways of improving (though not guaranteeing) your chance to land it (Chaotic Interruption, Chaos Storm, etc.). Third, if it almost always baits out a dodge can you find a way to take advantage of that? Sometimes abilities are better because of their unintended results rather than the initially intended ones …

I know what you are saying. And I used to run a pistol in off hand, so I can stun my target before using the skill and it would actually hit something. But it’s weird to be forced to stun your target to get such an essential skill to hit. There is nothing on Scepter to make it worth baiting out a dodge. Of course, if you use Pistol, with a strong hitting iDuelist, it might be worth to force your opponent to dodge so that your phantasms hit… but I have grown a bit out of my phantasm build phase and find, that scepter’s hard hitters are too easily avoidable.

So your argument is, Confusing Images can easily be dodged therefor it needs to change…

Just gonna point out the elephant in the room and say, all skills can be easily dodged. You just have to push a single key, V in my case, or whatever your respective dodge key is. To dodge confusing images you actually need to double dodge. At best you can dodge 3 pulses with 1 dodge.

In a power build confusing images is going to crit for 1k+. That’s 5k for a full channel, or 2k if the target burns a single dodge. If they burn both dodges…. well so what. That’s 2 dodges to avoid 5k worth of damage from 1 skill. You can dodge more than that avoiding an eviscerate or a backstab.

Confusing Images is good because it does play on the psychie of the target. Something about the animation and slow channel of it draws out dodges. The trouble is finding the breathing room to get it off without eating to much pressure yourself. There are a variety of methods to do this.

• Create space with stealth first. Start the channel from within stealth.
• Use a temporal curtain, start the cast, pull target to ensure they take the hits
• Pistol stun as mentioned
• Begin cast and as target closes, blink behind them (example https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=E9zUSHO0HQo#t=404 )

• Confusing Images long channel also gives you a bearing on those who’ve entered stealth, which allows you to chase in the right direction before they’re revealed.

It’s a great skill. It just requires a bit of thought before, and surroundings its use.

I thank you for your suggestions. But let’s be hones, the major damage from your build comes from the phantasms. I won’t deny that hitting Confusing Images adds some nice damage. But for your build it seems to be only a nice bonus. Your foes have already a hard time avoiding the AI damage you pressure them with.

I am currently working on a PvP confusion build, and I can be almost sure that the confusion from this skill won’t hit and the potential main confusion damage won’t be applied unless I outplay my opponent. Compare that to essential skill of other builds across all the other professions. They aren’t that hard to hit or they have more skills available allowing their build to work.

My current PvP build looks like that: Experimental PvP Confusion build. I can apply some confusion with this build by playing around with signets, blinds and chaos armor through combo finishers. But the biggest possible source of confusion won’t really hit anyone playing on my skill level (a bit above average) or higher. That is at least my experience up until now.

@TyPin, a suggestion – don’t run blinding befuddlement. In addition to the unnecessary 5s ICD and ridiculous master tree placement, it only applies confusion to one opponent instead of all that are blinded. Even then, it’s only 1 confusion stack. It’s completely worthless.

I know, but I really want it to work…

Sadly that doesn’t mean that taking it will make it work. IMHO Blinding Befuddlement weighs down any build it is in. I also wish it was worth it but the fact is that it isn’t.

As for the on topic discussion:

I don’t think Confusing Images needs to be reworked due to the ease of dodging argument. As an earlier poster said a lot of skills are easy to dodge. I do think, however, it needs to actually be an effective means of putting out multiple stacks of AoE confusion – something the so-called Masters of Confusion suck at.

To do this I think we need to drop the line “area of effect” and instead make the skill burst around your target in a medium sized radius (360? Whatever that standard is). Line type area of effects are nearly impossible to use and are mostly just luck if you can get it to hit the rather small hitboxes in PvP. I don’t even consider my line skills to be AoE but rather single target skills that sometimes happen to hit other people once or twice a match.

Turning this into a burst radius AoE on the target would make Confusing Images our go-to confusion application skill, which is what I feel it was designed as but sucks at.

The mechanics of confusing images are just fine. It’s a 5 target piercing beam which is quite helpful. The long slow channel actually makes it difficult to dodge all of the hits on it, as well as baiting dodges very effectively. This is useful in condition builds for landing torment, lockdown/phantasm builds for landing stuns, and shatter builds for landing shatters and iLeap.

Where the skill falls short is really the confusion itself, because confusion just isn’t very good, and Mesmer doesn’t actually have enough good ways to apply it to let a confusion build function at all. Perhaps if it were replaced with a slurry of cripple+torment or something like that it would have a bit more kick to it.