Why the odd change to iMage?

Why the odd change to iMage?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

3 stacks of Confusion for 3 seconds at a 6 second attack rate. That’s still not even close to the damage of other phantasms, and the duration will pretty much guarantee that often the target won’t even trigger damage from a hit outside PvP (the attack rate of most mobs in PvE falls well below that threshold).

No changes to the scepter either. The scepter and torch still go on the garbage bin of weapons I’m barred from using. At some point I expect to be able to play as something other than shatter DPS as my mesmer. We’ve got weak support builds relative to other classes, and we’re pretty much stuck with sword/sword/pistol+GS or GS+staff.

Please, do something about build variety and weapon viability. And Cry of Confusion is still blatantly inferior to Mind Wrack despite having a longer cooldown.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Hildebert.4196

Hildebert.4196

Confusion in general is awful, but Cry of Frustration can be great if you’re traited/at the right time/Mind Wrack is on cooldown.

Also, I most definitely consider the change to iMage to be a nerf. Yes, you get two extra stacks, but it only lasts for about 1/3rd of its original duration. This is probably the dumbest thing they could have done with it as it was the only long duration confusion we had. Now it’s just another bit of confusion that ends before it even gets the chance to do anything and can basically be ignored. At least when it was a single stack lasting 9+ seconds you would likely get something out of it. Evidently Arenanet’s idea of fixing things is just arbitrarily nerfing it.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

3 Stacks is great, phantasmal damage is irrelevant, people just cant help but thinking in terms of iBerserker, power/crit DPS glass cannon raw raw hulk smash builds (they dont even make a pill for the disorder). 3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

Love confusion, great approach to combat. As my WvW group mates say “I don’t understand what it is you do, but whatever it is it works”. Just hoping I can make this new iMage work well enough.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Embolism.8106

Embolism.8106

If Illusion conditions are affected by +condition duration, for example Master of Misdirection’s +33% Confusion duration; then the iMage change is great.

As it is? 3 seconds quite often will result in no damage at all.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: E Tan.7385

E Tan.7385

Confusion had always been the worse and the most useless conditions in GW2.

Too short to be usefull, and too low damage except if, by miracle, you succeed to have MIN 10stack.

In GW1 the curse skill who had the same effect as confusion WAS really usefull
( 25% of the total life if the foe was casting a spell, and about 10% of the total life if the foe was attacking, and all that during 10sec… with a 30sec reload and 10sec reload, and i dont speak about somes others skills / elite with the same function. )
You was sure to see the foe stop casting / stop attack.

Actualy, who really care about having confusion on him ? seriously.

Really awfully made and thought.
Except doing burst damage / randomly daze / group haste / feedback. ( and play at “where is charlie” ) the mesmer is good for nothing. ( very saddly )

“we leave the grind to other MMOs.”
Mike Obrien
Legen – Wait for It – dary joke

(edited by E Tan.7385)

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Lumpy.8760

Lumpy.8760

3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

it’s not, and it never was affected by condition duration from any source

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Hildebert.4196

Hildebert.4196

3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

it’s not, and it never was affected by condition duration from any source

but it was.

When playing with an experimental confusion build about a month ago, I could get the confusion to last about 14+ seconds. Both in the tooltip and experimentally.

I’m not sure if it still does this, but it most definitely did.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Ross Biddle.2367

Ross Biddle.2367

3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

it’s not, and it never was affected by condition duration from any source

but it was.

When playing with an experimental confusion build about a month ago, I could get the confusion to last about 14+ seconds. Both in the tooltip and experimentally.

I’m not sure if it still does this, but it most definitely did.

Wiki had said that via a bug, it wasnt effected by CD duration buffs. The wiki has since been updated (today), but has no information on bonus CD duration.

Either way, it can be done, and if it’s not in effect it should be.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Hildebert.4196

Hildebert.4196

Confusion had always been the worse and the most useless conditions in GW2.

Too short to be usefull, and too low damage except if, by miracle, you succeed to have MIN 10stack.

In GW1 the curse skill who had the same effect as confusion WAS really usefull
( 25% of the total life if the foe was casting a spell, and about 10% of the total life if the foe was attacking, and all that during 10sec… with a 30sec reload and 10sec reload, and i dont speak about somes others skills / elite with the same function. )
You was sure to see the foe stop casting / stop attack.

Actualy, who really care about having confusion on him ? seriously.

Really awfully made and thought.
Except doing burst damage / randomly daze / group haste / feedback. ( and play at “where is charlie” ) the mesmer is good for nothing. ( very saddly )

The only way confusion looks useful is in WvW where you get the more potent PvE formula for confusion damage and there are enough idiots that ignore it.

In sPvP it’s pointless because it does so little damage over a duration that could easily be waited out with little consequence or even cleansed off.

In PvE it’s pointless because monsters attack maybe once every three or four seconds.

GW2 Mesmers are not mesmers.
They can’t backfire.
They can’t shutdown.
They can’t do anything.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Lumpy.8760

Lumpy.8760

3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

it’s not, and it never was affected by condition duration from any source

but it was.

When playing with an experimental confusion build about a month ago, I could get the confusion to last about 14+ seconds. Both in the tooltip and experimentally.

I’m not sure if it still does this, but it most definitely did.

you must be thinking of something else; several other sources of confusion were certainly affected by condition duration from anything that wasn’t food, but Illusionary Mage’s could never be boosted. same applies for Confusing Combatants, and conditions from clones

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Hildebert.4196

Hildebert.4196

3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

it’s not, and it never was affected by condition duration from any source

but it was.

When playing with an experimental confusion build about a month ago, I could get the confusion to last about 14+ seconds. Both in the tooltip and experimentally.

I’m not sure if it still does this, but it most definitely did.

you must be thinking of something else; several other sources of confusion were certainly affected by condition duration from anything that wasn’t food, but Illusionary Mage’s could never be boosted. same applies for Confusing Combatants, and conditions from clones

I knew Confusing Combatants wasn’t affected, but I swear I was able to make that confusion last 14 seconds. Maybe it was more than a month ago, I haven’t been in sPvP in a long kitten time, but summoning a single iMage and letting him go about on his business on a golem lasted the full duration listed when I timed it.

You’re making me think I’m crazy. Are you a mesmer?

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Pyroatheist.9031

Pyroatheist.9031

It is blatantly obvious that the rebalancing devs have absolutely no idea what they are doing. They obviously thought that taking a 9 second, 1 stack confusion and changing it to a 3 second, 3 stack confusion is essentially the same, and possibly a buff since 1 attack during that time will result in the same damage as 3 attacks in the previous time.

However, what they fail to consider is that you will rarely actually get an attack in those 3 seconds, which means that overall, this change makes the iMage go from worthless to …..still worthless. AKA business as usual over here.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Surbrus.6942

Surbrus.6942

The 9 second confusion was the only reason I considered that Phantasm to be anything more than a poorly disguised clone with a slower attack rate. Since a three second confusion is almost worthless when I don’t have complete control over when it is used, the Illusionary Mage is nothing more to me than shatter fodder…. too bad we couldn’t at least get two of them on use of the skill, so that it could work as a poor man’s Mirror Image, so that it could be half decent.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Nuka Cola.8520

Nuka Cola.8520

iMage was only good at shattering and guess what? now its only good for,,,,,,,,,,shattering lol anet. Here’s an idea. Completely remove its stupid confusion and replace it with same affect as iWarlock BUT damage increases per bleed stack for example. Remove its ******* 5 years recharge time and set it same as Warlock. Set Prestige to 17-20sec cooldown and people WILL finally find out that torch was even equipable on a mesmer lol.

Fact: every Thief tells you to “l2p” when the subject is to nerf stealth.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: TheRamosOnline.2670

TheRamosOnline.2670

Scepter/Torch is now king of my arsenal.
If I can get some videos up, I will.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: etiolate.9185

etiolate.9185

It would be better if it was attacking at 6 second rate with improvement from Phantasmal Haste, but Mage is attacking at 7.5 second rate with no benefit from Phantasmal Haste.

Zed Zebes – SBI Mesmer

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Godmoney.2048

Godmoney.2048

I’ve been running a confusion/shatter build that uses 1580 cond damage in WvW.

I think most people who run Cond builds “think” they have a lot of cond. Confusion gets amazing once you’re over 1400.

I don’t need 10 stacks to hurt.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: TheRamosOnline.2670

TheRamosOnline.2670

I should check my stats, really. All I checked was my toughness as I’m a Condition Bunker.
I’m also waiting for an Arcane Thievery fix :v

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Sabin.4590

Sabin.4590

That change to the image is due to how Anet sees confusion. Consufion instead of being a condition where you apply few stacks on a long run ( 1 stack for 9s, or the one stack out of #1 trident) you should apply a huge amount of confusion stacks in a short period of time ( 5 from scepter #3 , 3 from image and 8 from cry of frustation). Which is still a terrible mechanic for pve and even worse for dungeons.

Why the odd change to iMage?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Hildebert.4196

Hildebert.4196

That change to the image is due to how Anet sees confusion. Consufion instead of being a condition where you apply few stacks on a long run ( 1 stack for 9s, or the one stack out of #1 trident) you should apply a huge amount of confusion stacks in a short period of time ( 5 from scepter #3 , 3 from image and 8 from cry of frustation). Which is still a terrible mechanic for pve and even worse for dungeons.

Anet is trying to make Confusion like Backfiring skills from GW1; something you put on the enemy just before the go button mashing. The problem is that in GW1 that could be done with a single button press. In GW2, stacking significant amounts of confusion is a complicated and lengthy process with rewards that don’t even come close to the damage GW1 backfires had.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Zenith.7301

Zenith.7301

3 Stacks is great, phantasmal damage is irrelevant, people just cant help but thinking in terms of iBerserker, power/crit DPS glass cannon raw raw hulk smash builds (they dont even make a pill for the disorder). 3 seconds is short unless its effected by +CD duration effects, in which case its not so bad.

Love confusion, great approach to combat. As my WvW group mates say “I don’t understand what it is you do, but whatever it is it works”. Just hoping I can make this new iMage work well enough.

I’m not on Berserker gear, I use p.Warden or iswordsman mostly while occasionally switching to Berserker on GS, and I have 20 points in Inspiration with support traits and Knight gear for durability.

I’m not on Rampager gear or “accustomed to OP mechanics”. Drop the presumptuous attitude and try to keep your posts on my thread without the dismissive tone. There’s GW2Guru threads to fulfill your heart’s desire to lecture and talk down to people you disagree with if that’s what you get on the internet for.


As for people discussing 33% duration traits, assuming it works, it’d be 33%+maybe 20 points in dom for 20% extra duration. That’d be 4.59 seconds, or one or two attacks at best in PvE and dungeons. At 3 stacks at 80 in PvE that’s about 1k damage per attack in a balanced build. Maybe a bit higher if you push condi damage, but in turn you kitten your power/precision stats, which affect all other phantasms and Mindwrack that make a larger part of your PvE contribution than Cry of Confusion and iMage.

The iMage should really mirror Confusing Images from the scepter attack. Then it’d be actually competitive with other phantasms.

Why the odd change to iMage?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Embolism.8106

Embolism.8106

As for people discussing 33% duration traits, assuming it works, it’d be 33%+maybe 20 points in dom for 20% extra duration. That’d be 4.59 seconds, or one or two attacks at best in PvE and dungeons. At 3 stacks at 80 in PvE that’s about 1k damage per attack in a balanced build. Maybe a bit higher if you push condi damage, but in turn you kitten your power/precision stats, which affect all other phantasms and Mindwrack that make a larger part of your PvE contribution than Cry of Confusion and iMage.

The iMage should really mirror Confusing Images from the scepter attack. Then it’d be actually competitive with other phantasms.

You assume the only possible PvE build is a Power-Precision based build. Full condition builds, using Staff Clones and/or iDuelist/iWarden for Illusion-based condition damage, are perfectly viable. Although given how good condition-based iDuelist/iWarden are iMage will need to be like 2x better to even be considered.

Why the odd change to iMage?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Lewis Burnell.2493

Lewis Burnell.2493

I’ve been running a confusion/shatter build that uses 1580 cond damage in WvW.

I think most people who run Cond builds “think” they have a lot of cond. Confusion gets amazing once you’re over 1400.

I don’t need 10 stacks to hurt.

I get 1500 condition damage dealing…355 per stack of confusion. That’s relatively good.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: alanis.6094

alanis.6094

My condition damage tanky IP build just does stupid things to people in WvW. I barely ever see the thieves…they just spawn, get hit by CoF, stealth — and then just appear several seconds later on the ground throwing daggers at me.

Drusilla Ina Alanis
<The Undead Lords>
Since 1994 – undeadlords.net

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: ManCaptain.3154

ManCaptain.3154

I’ve been running a confusion/shatter build that uses 1580 cond damage in WvW.

I think most people who run Cond builds “think” they have a lot of cond. Confusion gets amazing once you’re over 1400.

I don’t need 10 stacks to hurt.

I get 1500 condition damage dealing…355 per stack of confusion. That’s relatively good.

-In spvp confusion only deals 170.
-In pve monsters attack slowly as hell.
-Most confusion abilities inflict 3 seconds of it and it’s harder to stack than bleeds.

In spvp for instance a necro can drop 10 stacks of 110 per second bleeds of around 8-10 second duration on an area in seconds. Confusion just can’t compare. WvW is the only place you can actually kill someone with confusion, but the low durations still make it less viable than bleeds.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: ManCaptain.3154

ManCaptain.3154

It would be better if it was attacking at 6 second rate with improvement from Phantasmal Haste, but Mage is attacking at 7.5 second rate with no benefit from Phantasmal Haste.

The joke is that anet said they nerfed attack from 5 sec to 6 sec, but it wasn’t 5 sec ever in the first place.

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Killyox.3950

Killyox.3950

Confusion in general is awful, but Cry of Frustration can be great if you’re traited/at the right time/Mind Wrack is on cooldown.

Also, I most definitely consider the change to iMage to be a nerf. Yes, you get two extra stacks, but it only lasts for about 1/3rd of its original duration. This is probably the dumbest thing they could have done with it as it was the only long duration confusion we had. Now it’s just another bit of confusion that ends before it even gets the chance to do anything and can basically be ignored. At least when it was a single stack lasting 9+ seconds you would likely get something out of it. Evidently Arenanet’s idea of fixing things is just arbitrarily nerfing it.

Confusion in general is actually pretty strong. All those times thief spammed his autoattack and getting ~1200 dmg per skill use… .

Why the odd change to iMage?

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Posted by: Killyox.3950

Killyox.3950

It would be better if it was attacking at 6 second rate with improvement from Phantasmal Haste, but Mage is attacking at 7.5 second rate with no benefit from Phantasmal Haste.

The joke is that anet said they nerfed attack from 5 sec to 6 sec, but it wasn’t 5 sec ever in the first place.

But haste finally works so they should still use their skills 25% sooner aight?

Why the odd change to iMage?

in Mesmer

Posted by: Killyox.3950

Killyox.3950

I’ve been running a confusion/shatter build that uses 1580 cond damage in WvW.

I think most people who run Cond builds “think” they have a lot of cond. Confusion gets amazing once you’re over 1400.

I don’t need 10 stacks to hurt.

I get 1500 condition damage dealing…355 per stack of confusion. That’s relatively good.

-In spvp confusion only deals 170.
-In pve monsters attack slowly as hell.
-Most confusion abilities inflict 3 seconds of it and it’s harder to stack than bleeds.

In spvp for instance a necro can drop 10 stacks of 110 per second bleeds of around 8-10 second duration on an area in seconds. Confusion just can’t compare. WvW is the only place you can actually kill someone with confusion, but the low durations still make it less viable than bleeds.

NO no no no no no no.

I devastate people with confusion in pvp often seeing 1200 dmg done per skill use with 5 stacks. 1400-1630 condi dmg depending on stacks of corruption sigil.

iDuelist + feedback bubble at the end + confusin images (and trait +33% conf dur) = 13 stacks of confusion….

I had people deal ~2300 dmg back to themselves.