Guild Wars 2

Confusion is more than weak enough that we can add it back to the scepter auto, especially with clone death traits gone and the developers having axed the confusion on critical trait. Three illusions and the caster maintaining one stack of confusion each would not be overpowered by any stretch of the imagination.

I feel a bit lost, having picked up the game last year. Did scepter inflict confusion instead of torment in the beginning?

expandas.7051:

I started playing the game last year, so I’m a bit lost. Did scepter used to inflict confusion instead of torment?

Yes, waaaaaay back in beta. And yes, it was insane in PvP and was removed before the game even launched. And the scepter basically sat for a year and a half or so with neither conditions nor power scaling before they finally tacked torment on.

But the developers always stated they like the scepter being the mesmers confusion themed weapon, and would like to see it return one day, but it just wasn’t possible under the old confusion.

I believe it is not only possible but ideal under the newly redesigned confusion. For perspectives sake, with maxed out condition damage, four stacks of confusion deals about 300 damage per second, and a little over 600 damage per skill activation. Meanwhile, we’re seeing guardians that deal 4000 damage per second with six stack of burning.

Well but we have even less access to torment. What I would like is for staff to apply some confusion and/or torment. Currently the scepter and shatters are our only reliable sources of both conditions.

Silverkey.2078:

Well but we have even less access to torment. What I would like is for staff to apply some confusion and/or torment. Currently the scepter and shatters are our only reliable sources of both conditions.

Honestly I really don’t see torment as something that suits our base class, we’re tricky, even vindictive, but not dark and torturous; it is definitely something I would like to see on a darker themed mesmer specialization. And the staff already has a niche that a lot of players like as the chaos weapon.

Confusion on the other hand is the iconic condition for our class, in fact at some point in Alpha we were the only class to have access to it, similar to how necros were with fear. Now engineers, warriors, and thieves all have more direct access to confusion than we do, while most of ours is indirect application squirreled away down some trait path or other.

And in my opinion, that is totally fine for most confusion builds, namely the prismatic understanding line of builds, which are meant to be indirect application because of their use of stealth.

BUT, the scepter was always meant to fill a different niche, that of an area control flooding tactic. Basically get a ‘clone factory’ going, and punish your opponent for picking wrong between you and your clones with confusion damage. However such a tactic was too punishing with the old confusion on the scepter auto, not punishing enough with the clone death traits (which relied more on Deceptive Evasion+Vigor and utilities than the scepter auto for clone generation), and now with neither confusion on the auto nor on clone death the tactic isn’t punishing at all.

(And sorry for bumping an old topic, I meant to get back to this sooner but finals got in the way, then a road trip, then fourth of july weekend… it just kept adding up)

Well torment in the idea that we punish players for playing, that is very similar to what confusion does and is a form of soft lockdown. Now the theme “torment” is indeed darker, and that’s probably why the revenant ends up having it (especially with Mallyx).

I am definitely using the staff, and I think it is a great weapon in the mesmer kitten nal. The scepter on the other hand while not bad feels like it could be improved condition-wise.