Guild Wars 2

Since confusion is currently the only counter in the game for a number of builds that will otherwise become extremely OP, it seems like we need there to be a few other tweaks now that confusion damage is being reduced by 50% in WvW:

1. Increase initiative cost of cloak and dagger to 8. Confusion is currently the best counter to backstab thieves. Hidden killer being nerfed won’t touch these, as most backstab builds don’t use it. Increasing the cost of C&D will force them to be much more careful with their hits and give other classes a chance.

2. Decrease base healing of all Guardian skills by 25%, let healing power bonuses remain the same. Confusion mesmers are also the primary counter for bunker Guardians. This would help to balance Guardians so they have to actually think about their builds a bit.

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

bunker guards also depended on retaliation in order to punish people attacking them. As that is now nerfed you should increase base healing of guardian skills by 25%.

Confusion was never the best method to counter backstab thieves. I don’t know where you got that from.

Confusion was never the best method to counter backstab thieves. I don’t know where you got that from.

I’ve probably killed 200 of them in WvW :P

It generally goes like this:
1. Thief approaches me and stealths
2. I target a nearby rabbit and hit Decoy
3. Decoy turns to stone, I hit mirror images then cry of frustration.
4. Thief does Heartseeker x 3, realizes 3/4 of its health is gone, drops shadow refuge.
5. Thief appears downed, and I drop a phantasmal warden to kill it.

OR

1) Thief approaches you and stealths
2) you decoy
3) he hits decoy
4) You hit MI + Mind Wrack
5) Thief is now down

Yes there are insanely stupid thieves that will spam through confusion, just add blurred frenzy to your list of things to do after cry of frustration and you will still down him.

1) Thief approaches you and stealths
2) you decoy
3) he hits decoy
4) You hit MI + Mind Wrack
5) Thief is now down

This could work if I threw away all of my equipment and my Lyssa runes and regeared to be a glass cannon shatter Mesmer. I honestly loathe that build though, so it’s not likely.

That’s why I said you can just Blurred Frenzy during your 4th step and achieve the same damage. If he is stupid enough to spam through confusion he will be dumb enough to spam an invulnerable target.

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

Let’s be real here. We get it. Your confusion got nerfed. I don’t think it should have been IMO, but that’s no reason to start throwing out more nerfs.

Also, a great counter that I’ve seen work well is “shattering” the clones as a thief uses CnD off them. Great tactic. I’ve seen mesmers shut down thieves entirely with this.

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

To be fair, roughly 1/2 of Mesmer skills cause confusion. We have a weapon that does nothing but that. We have a class mechanic that does nothing but that. Equivalent impact to other classes would be:

1. For rangers, pets no longer do damage.
2. For necromancers, bleed and poison now do 50% damage.

1. Increase Cloak and Dagger to 16 initiative.
2. Decrease stealth by 4 seconds.
3. Make Mug not crit

Edit: Seems 3 is already taking place.

So wait… you think confusion is the only counter to back stab thieves and bunker guardians?

greyblue.4962:

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

To be fair, roughly 1/2 of Mesmer skills cause confusion. We have a weapon that does nothing but that. We have a class mechanic that does nothing but that. Equivalent impact to other classes would be:

1. For rangers, pets no longer do damage.
2. For necromancers, bleed and poison now do 50% damage.

Yes, but then what is the point of a nerf in the first place, if you’re going to nerf other skills to bring it down to the same level?

Seeing D/D Bunker Elementalist and Condition Mesmer are my two main WvW toons I am not too happy about the changes coming down. I started playing both several months ago because they were fun to play not because I thought they were overpowered. I supported and expected some changes to Confusion because of all the complaint threads about it. I just didn’t think it would be severe as a 50% damage reduction. I don’t wish other classes to be nerfed just because Confusion has been. I do wish they would either change it to only reducing damage by 25% or if they keep the 50% damage reduction increase Confusion duration on all skills by 50%.

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Uhh, gaurdians are already getting nerfed pretty hard this patch. Retaliation nerf, unblock-able warriors with boon hate, boon stealing thieves and more unblockable necro abilities.

greyblue.4962:

To be fair, roughly 1/2 of Mesmer skills cause confusion. We have a weapon that does nothing but that.

Scepter actually does much more damage in a power/crit build then a confusion build. Confusion is a nice bonus when Scepter is used in say a crit Phantasm build.

greyblue.4962:

We have a class mechanic that does nothing but that.

Are you arguing the class mechanic ‘shatter’ does nothing but confusion? Again, a thing that is quite effective in other builds. Or are you trying to argue that the ‘glamour’ mechanic is only about confusion? Because every single glam skill – portal, nullfield, feedback – etc has a separate main purpose with confusion only as a secondary benefit.

dank.3680:

Are you arguing the class mechanic ‘shatter’ does nothing but confusion? Again, a thing that is quite effective in other builds. Or are you trying to argue that the ‘glamour’ mechanic is only about confusion? Because every single glam skill – portal, nullfield, feedback – etc has a separate main purpose with confusion only as a secondary benefit.

He’s referring to Cry of Frustration. Granted it’s not the whole mechanic, but Mind Wrack is obviously intended for power builds and CoF for condition builds. Nerfing confusion makes shattering almost redundant for condition-based builds.

I can think of a few ways to balance it:

- Guardian burning damage reduced by 50%
- Theif dagger damage reduced by 50%
- Elementalists 50% less damage for each attunement change (stacks)
- Necromancer condition damage reduced by 50%
- Warrior melee damage reduced by 50%
- Engineer kit damage reduced by 50%
- Ranger bow damage reduced by 50%

There you go, its so simple even Anet could think of it!

greyblue.4962:

1. Increase initiative cost of cloak and dagger to 8.

Go kitten yourself.

Dawdler.8521:

I can think of a few ways to balance it:

- Guardian burning damage reduced by 50%
- Theif dagger damage reduced by 50%
- Elementalists 50% less damage for each attunement change (stacks)
- Necromancer condition damage reduced by 50%
- Warrior melee damage reduced by 50%
- Engineer kit damage reduced by 50%
- Ranger bow damage reduced by 50%

There you go, its so simple even Anet could think of it!

Lol @ ele change. @ 3rd attunement swap all attacks start healing the opponent?
I can already see it now – guilds sending their eles on opponent servers and having them sign up for wvw.

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Its a bit of a nerf to cantrips eles but not much really, its just going to force more people into playing a bunker ele.

morrolan.9608:

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Its a bit of a nerf to cantrips eles but not much really, its just going to force more people into playing a bunker ele.

That’s what I would do if i just had an ele. But since i have other classes i’ll just play them more instead

morrolan.9608:

Carzor Stelatis.9435:

greyblue.4962:

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

What elementalist nerfs? Genuine question, just came back to the game after a month and a bit.

Its a bit of a nerf to cantrips eles but not much really, its just going to force more people into playing a bunker ele.

Ah that’s OK (for me anyway), not a cantrips player myself. Was just worried I’d miss some dreadnought-class nerfbat on the horizon :P

Raptured.9307:

Lol @ ele change. @ 3rd attunement swap all attacks start healing the opponent?
I can already see it now – guilds sending their eles on opponent servers and having them sign up for wvw.

No, stacks in GW2 are multiplicative not additive/subtractive. So after the third attunement swap the attacks would do 1/8 of their normal damage (1 × 0.5 × 0.5 x 0.5).

Doomdesire.9365:

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

Let’s be real here. We get it. Your confusion got nerfed. I don’t think it should have been IMO, but that’s no reason to start throwing out more nerfs.

Also, a great counter that I’ve seen work well is “shattering” the clones as a thief uses CnD off them. Great tactic. I’ve seen mesmers shut down thieves entirely with this.

it’s a typical vicious cycle MMO, a group of gamers kittened and moaned about something, the recipient of the nerfs will get back at them for something else. To add insult to injury, we have a group of developers that dont have a clue on balancing classes in WvW, if you cant beat the system, you join it. Hence I will “+1” on supporting those looking for blood on the next nerf. Thieves getting buffed and reveal reverted, that’s just too much love, it’s beyond comical. So I wish nothing but the worst to happen to that class.

greyblue.4962:

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

To be fair, roughly 1/2 of Mesmer skills cause confusion. We have a weapon that does nothing but that. We have a class mechanic that does nothing but that. Equivalent impact to other classes would be:

1. For rangers, pets no longer do damage.
2. For necromancers, bleed and poison now do 50% damage.

Would anyone actually notice if ranger pets did 0 damage? You really want to compare an op’d mechanic with the most godawful pet execution I’ve ever seen in any mmo?

Mesmers need to stop whining so much.

greyblue.4962:

Since confusion is currently the only counter in the game for a number of builds that will otherwise become extremely OP, it seems like we need there to be a few other tweaks now that confusion damage is being reduced by 50% in WvW:

1. Increase initiative cost of cloak and dagger to 8. Confusion is currently the best counter to backstab thieves. Hidden killer being nerfed won’t touch these, as most backstab builds don’t use it. Increasing the cost of C&D will force them to be much more careful with their hits and give other classes a chance.

2. Decrease base healing of all Guardian skills by 25%, let healing power bonuses remain the same. Confusion mesmers are also the primary counter for bunker Guardians. This would help to balance Guardians so they have to actually think about their builds a bit.

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

1. Ok if we increase cooldown for phase retreat to 15 seconds -12trained , so mesmer won’t be able to spam dodge / phase retreat /dodge /dodge /phase retreat
2. ok but descrease retailation duration from COF with 30% . Mesmer should actualy invest in boon duration if they want perma retailation

confusion is op

greyblue.4962:

Since confusion is currently the only counter in the game for a number of builds that will otherwise become extremely OP, it seems like we need there to be a few other tweaks now that confusion damage is being reduced by 50% in WvW:

1. Increase initiative cost of cloak and dagger to 8. Confusion is currently the best counter to backstab thieves. Hidden killer being nerfed won’t touch these, as most backstab builds don’t use it. Increasing the cost of C&D will force them to be much more careful with their hits and give other classes a chance.

2. Decrease base healing of all Guardian skills by 25%, let healing power bonuses remain the same. Confusion mesmers are also the primary counter for bunker Guardians. This would help to balance Guardians so they have to actually think about their builds a bit.

Any other changes people can think of that might be needed? It seems like those two, along with the elementalist nerfs incoming should do the trick.

Neither of thsose are really needed, guards already have very hard time against shatter specs.
However, I do think that all stealth attacks should have a cool down of maybe 3 seconds to prevent them from being spammed. Like I’ve said before, thief should be about cunning and precision, not about mindless spam.

Scepter actually does much more damage in a power/crit build then a confusion build.

PredatoR.5247:

confusion is op

Confusion wasn’t op, some of the skills/traits that applied confusion were. They could have either fixed these or changed confusion as a whole instead of just nerfing it to the ground. They’re slowly reducing build variety instead of increasing it.

Draygo.9473:

OR

1) Thief approaches you and stealths
2) you decoy
3) he hits decoy
4) You hit MI + Mind Wrack
5) Thief is now down

Yes there are insanely stupid thieves that will spam through confusion, just add blurred frenzy to your list of things to do after cry of frustration and you will still down him.

what about?
1) Thief approaches you and stealths
2) you decoy
3) he hits decoy
4) You hit MI + Mind Wrack
5) Thief is not stupid and wait 1 seconds before approaching then down you in 1 hit

If you are not mind Readers you can t know when thief will hit….unless thief is uberbad

I don t think confusion needed a nerf.
Glamour fields needed but that would even be worse…

Oh yes!

i’m gonna cry like all the braindead idiots did who continued to mash skills and didn’t realize they they had a purple swirl.

Guardians are OP
Ele’s are OP
Thieves are OP

Nerf all 3 please.

Colly.4073:

Oh yes!

i’m gonna cry like all the braindead idiots did who continued to mash skills and didn’t realize they they had a purple swirl.

Guardians are OP
d/d Ele’s are OP
Thieves are OP

Nerf all 3 please.

corrected

Doomdesire.9365:

greyblue.4962:

Wait wait. Let me get this right. You wanted to nerf an entire class that was generally worse then yours just because one of your skills got nerfed?

To be fair, roughly 1/2 of Mesmer skills cause confusion. We have a weapon that does nothing but that. We have a class mechanic that does nothing but that. Equivalent impact to other classes would be:

1. For rangers, pets no longer do damage.
2. For necromancers, bleed and poison now do 50% damage.

Yes, but then what is the point of a nerf in the first place, if you’re going to nerf other skills to bring it down to the same level?

yeah i see your point.nerf is not the solution in this. why not buff other classes first before the big nerfs?Anet is about to destroy 80 percent of mesmers builds!

MEsmer traits are very much about confusion and all that, even our dwnstate is confusion and now we all have to spec into shatter and high dps which i think is not right.

spvp and wvw is very very different i could see a condition shatere mesmer downing people easily in spvp(before nerf), but in wvw there are 30+ zergs to face. the clones dont stay up for long if u dont shatter them fast enough.

scepter is a condition based weapon and anet just destroyed its viability.All our laurels were wasted and all the gear and weapons have to be replaced.
why nerf in the first place and not buff another class?

It just goes to show you, if you kitten and moan enough you will get your way with ANET…They have always been this way: squeaky wheel always gets the grease….And it is funny too because we all know many of those whining about confusion were thieves in the first place….

Someone said it best in another post on another thread: Mesmers are (were, maybe still are) the natural predators of thieves, and confusion was a nice deterrent to make them play their class and not just spam 2 ftw….The good news is that we will still kill them, it will just take twice as long.

Personally I am hoping it ends up being a good thing in the terms that some noobs will now see confusion as “nothing to worry about”, so when I drop 6 clones on them all at once they can try to DPS through confusion and we will see how that works out…I run a shatter/confusion combination, and it still works fine in sPVP so I am not that worried. However this does seem to hurt the viability of the glamour mesmer, I do not run it enough to say that for sure though, but in the past I never really thought it was that OP in the first place, but was fun to run in a zerg group.