Don't torment the axe!!!!!

[Galeskyring.9617]

Seriously........ WHAAAAAAAT!!!!!??????

 

Axe ambush and axes of symmetry now inflict torment on purpose instead of confusion?! Thematically for a mirage this makes no sense, in terms of execution it's trash in pvp related scenes, enemy's can laughably cleanse it off or stand still and take much less damage, just because the balance to confusion was fudged hard recently isn't a viable excuse to remove the condition entirely from the axe, PUT IT BACK.

 

Trading all mirage axe confusion for more torment was A: lazy to avoid the op status confusion now has over real balance, and B: makes axe mesmers in pvp related scenarios less threatening due to dolling out less conditions in an already cleanse heavy environment.

 

If the new weight of damage dealt from on skill use for confusion in pvp was to much then just REVERT THE CHANGE instead of swapping the condition out to avoid the problem.....

 

 

Yes this is a bit of a rant/vent post but it needed to be said, this swap from confusion to torment was absolutely out of the blue and uncalled for.

[Curunen.8729]

Agree with everything you said.

 

Put confusion back on axe. Split confusion properly between pvp/wvw and pve.

 

Right now it's pretty lame in pvp and in wvw - very sad. :/

[squallaus.8321]

maybe can come to a compromise. put confusion on lingering thoughts and axes of symmetry but leave torment on axe ambush imaginary axes because

1) in pve huge portion of dps for the axe comes from auto attack and imaginary axes. lingering thoughts is just to spawn clones and axes of symmetry is for evade and tracking target both not there to dps.

2) don't see imagine axes hitting enemies much in pvp scene against decent players.

[Zintrothen.1056]

Why didn't they just evenly split up torment and confusion so they're both applied, but in lower numbers? And then of course unsplit confusion from PvP.

[Curunen.8729]

> @"Zintrothen.1056" said:

> Why didn't they just evenly split up torment and confusion so they're both applied, but in lower numbers? And then of course unsplit confusion from PvP.

 

This would have been good as well.

[melrokk.5938]

Who knows when all the changes for mirage skills will **end**? :(

[theodor.3480]

Honestly i like the torment on axe instead of confusion. It's better after the latest patch, and you can still dish out decent damage, condi wise. I'm saying this from a wvw perspective.

If your torment is cleansed you can reply it pretty fast, so it shouldn't be a problem.

[Carighan.6758]

It also makes the change ridiculous overall:

 

* Yo, so Mesmer, liek, Confusion is meh as a simple per-second DoT. We're changing dat Confusion to be totally rubbish in PvE bois, bcuz feel, which never bothered us before but nao is importent. kek.

* Oh, Confusion is rubbish in PvE nao. That's exactly what we changed, but we didn't think it'd work. Dis kinda bad, no?

* We'll give u torment instead lulz.

* Oh, now your axe conditions do X damage per second from torment instead of X damage per second from Confusion. topkek.

* Well it works. lul. Job done, is weekend anyhow.

 

ANet Devs... you're not exactly shining a good light on yourself here. This seems like a manager decided **Confusion has to be changed**, and now, not wanting to go up against a managed, more and more complex changes need to be brought in to keep that broken confusion change up. Instead of, well, you know... just reverting it :pensive:

[NeroBoron.7285]

*[ironic]* Whats up next? remove confusion from scepter? And soon we have no more weapon that applies confusion... so why not remove confusion completly*[ironic]*

 

God damn, confusion belongs to the mesmers identiy!

Reminds me on gw1 mesmer with an empathie and backslash(?dunno the english name anymore) build and the change to confusion pushed it back in that direction.

 

I totaly agree that condition skill should feel more unique and not everything should be a simple ticking tot. If you then replace those unique things with other dot conditions this didnt really work out! Thing is i could imagine that torment will be pushed to more damage on moving as well, so it is more unique to bleeding / burning just like with confusion. And then we have the same problem again.

 

And now you start to change skills that cause confusion because it doesnt work out in PvE? Thats an overall problem with confusion in PvE then! And it will only be fixed if you fix the condition, not changing all skills that cause it.

 

We have now 3 skills one a onehand weapon that apply all the same condition... kinda boring.

I wouldnt mind if axes of symmetrie were like, "you and clones shadow step to a position around your target which confuses them, afterwards leaping to them cause bleeding" and keep the change on the ambush but removing it completly just sucks.

I would have wished some adds of confusion to staff phantasm and/or chaos armor as well.

 

So please overthink that changes and just make confusion itself relevant in pve again. double/triple the duration, revert the changes to confusion for pve only, something like that

[Thornum.8607]

> @"Curunen.8729" said:

> Agree with everything you said.

>

> Put confusion back on axe. Split confusion properly between pvp/wvw and pve.

 

I don't see how this was not the most obvious solution in the first place. While I'm no expert, Mirage (and their application of confusion) seemed to be in a good place in PvE before the patch. Then they changed the PvP/WvW confusion back to how it was designed, which is absolutely great. It's a fun and interactive mechanic that also fits thematically. Then they insist on breaking it in PvE, followed by replacing it with Torment. Just accept that its PvE implementation is different from its PvP implementation and go from there. Don't fix what isn't broken, and embrace the splits between different game modes.

 

 

[Curunen.8729]

To further add to this being a significant nerf in wvw/pvp, consider the axe combos.

 

Typically you'd be using various combos of axe 2, ambush, axe 3 and shatter - and depending on trait/skill selection would have different amounts of both torment and confusion on your opponent - usually medium stacks of torment and high stacks of confusion. Especially straight after a full axe 3 shatter burst with an ambush thrown in before so the axes land at the same time as axe 3 hits - and gameplay wise it is a burst leading into shutdown for the opponen, which is good design. It challenges the opponent to consider what they do after being burst - the perfect time when they would need to use some skills for survival, but now they are loaded with high confusion so have to consider cleansing first.

Now it is simply brainless high torment stacks which can be randomly cleansed leaving no challenge or skill on either end, whether for the axe player or the opponent to counter it/cleanse it.

 

This is why moving axe 3 and even axe ambush to torment is bad - it homogenises the gameplay and counterplay in pvp/wvw, with less thinking required.

 

Unless you trait F2 and land it along with Jaunt, or happen to use Riddle of Sand (but I'd wager many players use self deception or renewing oasis), you're going to have problems. Even then the confusion stacks are few and far between. So most of the time you've just got insane stacks of torment, with medium stacks of bleed and maybe a bit of burning from staff or torch.

 

Now consider the sheer quantity of cleanses available. I'll just stick to Mesmer as an example - between Elusive Mind, Jaunt, utilities like Mantra of Resolve, Restorative Illusions and Sympathetic Visage plus Mender's Purity, Prestige, Cleansing sigils if you like... yeah it's a lot of cleanse, even if you don't take Inspiration. At the very least power mesmers can build for more than enough cleanse to negate all the torment stacks whereas previously two cleanses would be needed to deal with both the torment and confusion.

 

To summarise changing axe to all torment homogenises gameplay and counterplay into less thinking required. The fact there is mainly one condition to cleanse rather than two is a severe nerf to axe mesmers given the amount of cleanse available in the game.

[Zania.8461]

While the "split confusion between PvE and PvP" might sound like a trivial task, I suspect it might not be so. Mechanically what would most likely need to be done is creation of completely new condition (lets call it confusion_old) and then splitting every single confusion applying skill between PvE (where the skill/trait would apply confusion_old) and PvP (where it would apply confusion_new). And then they would need to keep track of all of that every time they patch individual skills/traits.

 

Before all they had to do is tweak the actual confusion skill and it made changes for the entire mechanic, or tweak a few duration/stack numbers for individual skills.

 

On top of that ANet was always iffy about having major difference in functionality between different game modes, and in this case it would be a pretty major gap.

 

At this point I feel that torment fix is just a emergency band aid to fix something they didn't realize they broke, without undoing the condition change. The current form will likely work even though it is neither fits the class nor has any synergy with traits/skills. Now the question is whether ANet will carefully re balance and revert to original functionality of confusion or keep the band aid forever.

 

[Jace al Thor.6745]

> @"Zania.8461" said:

> While the "split confusion between PvE and PvP" might sound like a trivial task, I suspect it might not be so. Mechanically what would most likely need to be done is creation of completely new condition (lets call it confusion_old) and then splitting every single confusion applying skill between PvE (where the skill/trait would apply confusion_old) and PvP (where it would apply confusion_new). And then they would need to keep track of all of that every time they patch individual skills/traits.

>

> Before all they had to do is tweak the actual confusion skill and it made changes for the entire mechanic, or tweak a few duration/stack numbers for individual skills.

>

> On top of that ANet was always iffy about having major difference in functionality between different game modes, and in this case it would be a pretty major gap.

>

> At this point I feel that torment fix is just a emergency band aid to fix something they didn't realize they broke, without undoing the condition change. The current form will likely work even though it is neither fits the class nor has any synergy with traits/skills. Now the question is whether ANet will carefully re balance and revert to original functionality of confusion or keep the band aid forever.

>

 

So obviously I’m not a coder so I can’t speak to how harder it would have been to make a split like that but surely it would have been a lot easier all around to nerf the durations/application/intensity so that it maintained a passive tick in all game modes but weren’t as easy to maintain the stacks in PvP.

 

And I agree adding torment is a bandaid fix because it’s only going to cause the people running condi in WvW to swap to torment runes, PvP mez will start stacking high torment and this whole thing will start over again.

[Curunen.8729]

I don't feel rewarded very much for landing axe 3 on an opponent right now - it's just more torment on top of the torment.

 

Maybe at least just change axe 3 back to confusion and leave the ambush as torment if they don't want too much confusion spam?

[Amethyst Lure.5624]

I agree with you 100%. When i read the mesmer patch this time, I was so happy with absolutely 99% of what I read. Except that for some reason, confusion was being reverted to its low-performance state of the past instead of having split values through a % modifier depending on game modes. It really just baffled me so much.

[Angel de Lyssa.4716]

Very bad on the part of Arenanet, a weapon completely erased from the game, which does not create synergy with the Mirage specialization.

[Simonoly.4352]

Oh my is Mirage axe super boring to use now. Four different ways to apply the same condition whilst also stripping Mirage of some of its identity in the process. Surely this can't be a permanent change?

[nortask.8351]

so are you guys complaining because it is boring game play wise now? Or are you complaining because you think axe is weak now and you think mirage is weak? Because even post patch if you are losing any 1v1s it's purely an l2p issue. Mirage is still the best duelist out there. If it's boring I can definitely understand that, I was super stoked when they changed confusion back to how it should be, but then the took it off of the mainly used weapon! I definitely am guilty of spamming my auto attack the other day with 14+ stacks of confusion and I died nearly instantly. I was actually pretty excited, I didn't pay attention to it, so I lost. That is how the game should be. Had I noticed I wouldn't have attacked then I wouldn't have died instantly. I still would have died to the countless other condis while trying to chase down the hyper mobile mirage as he dodges, leaps and stealths all around as I did in all the other duels, but it's a start to the balance.

[Bigpapasmurf.5623]

Axes have become weaker and this is a big reason why:

 

Axes used to pump out 2 conditions reliably...confusion and torment. This wasnt optimal, however many condi cleanses only clear 1 at a time, so there was that pressure to play strategically as a mirage. Now that its only torment, any cleanse can negate your axe damage as its just 1 condi. There is no flavor to axe, its bland and tasteless now.

 

I liked the idea not to split PvP/WvW, however to just either lower the overall damage from confusion and torment and have both put back on (on the necessary skills it was taken from). The axe is overall weaker currently in damage and flavor and due to such, no real strategy when using it and easy strat when fighting vs it. 1 condi is ez clean and has every play as a counter play and boring to use, 2 is a bit harder and has a bit less counterplay and more flavor.

[Curunen.8729]

> @"Bigpapasmurf.5623" said:

> Axes have become weaker and this is a big reason why:

>

> Axes used to pump out 2 conditions reliably...confusion and torment. This wasnt optimal, however many condi cleanses only clear 1 at a time, so there was that pressure to play strategically as a mirage. Now that its only torment, any cleanse can negate your axe damage as its just 1 condi. There is no flavor to axe, its bland and tasteless now.

>

> I liked the idea not to split PvP/WvW, however to just either lower the overall damage from confusion and torment and have both put back on (on the necessary skills it was taken from). The axe is overall weaker currently in damage and flavor and due to such, no real strategy when using it and easy strat when fighting vs it. 1 condi is ez clean and has every play as a counter play and boring to use, 2 is a bit harder and has a bit less counterplay and more flavor.

 

Yes.

 

Cross posting myself from the confusion thread in general discussion:

 

I would be happy if they at least put confusion back on axe 3. Leave the ambush as torment if they don't want excessive confusion stacking.

 

But axe 3 is a burst skill which before this change was and should be burst into denial. They want confusion to be a burst application denial condition so axe 3 out if every skill I can think of should have this to support that gameplay.

 

It would also then be more rewarding to land axe 3, rather than right now you just get more torment on top of torment already there... boring play requiring little skill from the axe mirage because every skill inflicts the same condition - mash axe skills and pile on the torment. And little skill of counterplay by opponents because it's easy to clear one stack of torment, whether it's 10 stacks or 40 stacks. Currently with vuln removed from staff autos, the condition variety is reduced to mainly bleed/burn/torment, with a small amount of confusion here and there, and maybe some vuln depending on weapons/traits with random other short duration conditions. Sure it's nothing like as bad as burn guardian with only one condi to cleanse, but it does negatively impact the effectiveness, as well as making mirage condi application more boring and one-dimensional.

 

The idea being if you land axe 3 it challenges the opponent to react in the right way - usually after eating a burst players will need to use a skill to recover in some way - if axe 3 was a confusion burst as before it forces the opponent to think - do they wait out the short duration burst confusion while being at risk with lower health? Do they try to use skills to recover but eat confusion ticks? Do they use cleanses now to allow free skill use but be at risk of sustained torment/bleed/etc later?

 

For this reason I believe axe 3 (axes of symmetry) should be reverted to burst confusion application, if no other changes are made.

[yiksing.9432]

Yup. Agreed with Curunen on this one after trying various build after testing his hybrid build, full torment on axe is plain silly. There is not enough cover condition to keep torment sticking on enemy, we can use F2 but they are kinda slow to chase people for shatter unless you are already right on top of them.

 

Either make

1. Axe 3 hits confusion or

2. Make it cause higher direct damage depending on how many clones are out or

3. Make axe clone hit significantly harder on axe 3

[Blades of Sabatine.5639]

I am also in this boat of a bad change to to axe when you take the changes they made to our illusion. If we have the old Iduelist then we can have a bleed cover. But that is gone now. After one load it gone.

 

But and this is a but, I have been trying different runes to help with multiple condi like vuln, bleed and so on. It seem to work considering axe skills lets you hit and hit helping you generate those condi and keeping them up.

[MailMail.6534]

And I just bought the Alchemist Axe too. You're killing me, Anet.

 

The nerf to confusion in PvP is so ridiculous. I tried out my condi build, and there is 0 pressure at all considering the fact that we have a lot less cover condis now. It's just kinda sad. The only way to get consistent confusion output is to run Mirage scepter now. And scepter of course has its obvious drawbacks...

[Arlette.9684]

The problem now is not that we lost confusion on axe, it’s that we lost A CONDITION from the pool. Mesmer lacks cover conditions in general, now rolling with axe just dooms you to having torment and bleed. Regardless of how many stacks you can diss out, they still get cleansed completely and 100% reliably by every condi cleanse in the game. Best case scenario you might get a coin toss to get your torment or bleed removed.

I’d be perfectly happy with having either vulnerability added to axe, or even cripple. Axe in pvp needs a condition added to the pool. Till then swap back to sword, and play like it’s 2014.

[Galeskyring.9617]

The fact it's been nearly a week without a response to how much backlash there is to this change is very enraging, it was uncalled for and here inspite of the huge protest to it we are not seeing any sign of a legitimate fix or reverse of this blatantly bat change.

 

With every patch we get that does not include something to fix this problem is not rectified the more it feels like they don't care about mesmer diversity and just want 1 truly playable boring mesmer build for pvp at a time.