Confusion (Again)

[AliamRationem.5172]

So, I hate to ask what with everything else you guys are likely trying to work on with mesmer at this point, but confusion is still horribly broken in PvE. The axe torment fix saved Mirage from becoming obsolete, but Cry of Frustration, Scepter, and Trident (and really anything else that uses confusion) are all still broken. Do you guys have some sort of plan to resolve this?

[Roda.7468]

also our downed 1 skill.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"Roda.7468" said:

> also our downed 1 skill.

 

Thanks, yeah. Anything with confusion. It is straight busted in PvE and does practically nothing no matter how much condition damage you bring.

[Belishine.7493]

ya that is becouse they turned confusion from a dot( damage over time) to just on skill use witch for pve makes one of our good skills/ condis tank and makes it useless so.... ya i know it does need fixed but it has been like 2 months so i dont see it geting a fix anytime soon.

[eldenbri.1059]

I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

[Levetty.1279]

I'd be very surprised if they did anything to the actual condition itself, maybe the next big balance pass before the next expansion.

Trident isn't being touched unless they release a water themed expansion.

Doubt Cry of Frustration will be touched since its always been the weakest shatter and they have never done anything to buff it except for a direct damage buff in PvE.

Scepter might get looked at since its a fairly mediocre weapon overall that isn't used anywhere. Probably not for a while though.

[OriOri.8724]

> @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

 

Wouldn't help all that much in PvE. Would still take forever to kill anything with confusion, so no one would use it in PvE regardless.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> > I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

>

> Wouldn't help all that much in PvE. Would still take forever to kill anything with confusion, so no one would use it in PvE regardless.

 

^This. The issue is that the primary damage component in PvE is the regular damage-per-second rather than the on-skill-use effect. The patch removed condition damage contribution from the per-second damage tick, as I understand it. In other words, you could have 5000 condition damage on your gear, but if you're using confusion in PvE you might as well have 0 condition damage. PvE enemies do not use skills frequently enough to make this work and confusion cannot be used as a control effect either (i.e. discouraging skill use) because AI does not change its behavior based upon the presence of confusion.

 

This has all been covered before and the emergency fix to axe was tacit admission by ANet that they have completely broken this condition in PvE.

[OriOri.8724]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > > @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> > > I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

> >

> > Wouldn't help all that much in PvE. Would still take forever to kill anything with confusion, so no one would use it in PvE regardless.

>

> ^This. The issue is that the primary damage component in PvE is the regular damage-per-second rather than the on-skill-use effect. The patch removed condition damage contribution from the per-second damage tick, as I understand it. In other words, you could have 5000 condition damage on your gear, but if you're using confusion in PvE you might as well have 0 condition damage. PvE enemies do not use skills frequently enough to make this work and confusion cannot be used as a control effect either (i.e. discouraging skill use) because AI does not change its behavior based upon the presence of confusion.

>

> This has all been covered before and the emergency fix to axe was tacit admission by ANet that they have completely broken this condition in PvE.

 

Wasn't even completely broken, just a little too powerful. It only needed to be dialed back a little bit, not destroyed

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > > > @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> > > > I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

> > >

> > > Wouldn't help all that much in PvE. Would still take forever to kill anything with confusion, so no one would use it in PvE regardless.

> >

> > ^This. The issue is that the primary damage component in PvE is the regular damage-per-second rather than the on-skill-use effect. The patch removed condition damage contribution from the per-second damage tick, as I understand it. In other words, you could have 5000 condition damage on your gear, but if you're using confusion in PvE you might as well have 0 condition damage. PvE enemies do not use skills frequently enough to make this work and confusion cannot be used as a control effect either (i.e. discouraging skill use) because AI does not change its behavior based upon the presence of confusion.

> >

> > This has all been covered before and the emergency fix to axe was tacit admission by ANet that they have completely broken this condition in PvE.

>

> Wasn't even completely broken, just a little too powerful. It only needed to be dialed back a little bit, not destroyed

 

They did what they did for the sake of PvP. Players use skills much more frequently and are capable of changing their behavior in response to the presence of confusion stacks. This makes confusion significantly more powerful in PvP than PvE. Since they apparently can't split them as is clearly necessary in this case, they chose to kill it for PvE.

[OriOri.8724]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > > @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > > > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > > > > @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> > > > > I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

> > > >

> > > > Wouldn't help all that much in PvE. Would still take forever to kill anything with confusion, so no one would use it in PvE regardless.

> > >

> > > ^This. The issue is that the primary damage component in PvE is the regular damage-per-second rather than the on-skill-use effect. The patch removed condition damage contribution from the per-second damage tick, as I understand it. In other words, you could have 5000 condition damage on your gear, but if you're using confusion in PvE you might as well have 0 condition damage. PvE enemies do not use skills frequently enough to make this work and confusion cannot be used as a control effect either (i.e. discouraging skill use) because AI does not change its behavior based upon the presence of confusion.

> > >

> > > This has all been covered before and the emergency fix to axe was tacit admission by ANet that they have completely broken this condition in PvE.

> >

> > Wasn't even completely broken, just a little too powerful. It only needed to be dialed back a little bit, not destroyed

>

> They did what they did for the sake of PvP. Players use skills much more frequently and are capable of changing their behavior in response to the presence of confusion stacks. This makes confusion significantly more powerful in PvP than PvE. Since they apparently can't split them as is clearly necessary in this case, they chose to kill it for PvE.

 

They had confusion split between PvE and PvP prior to the change that destroyed it. They have the ability to do that, but for whatever reason decided to just destroy the condition entirely

[Simonoly.4352]

Struggling to understand the point of confusion now in all game modes. Obviously redundant in PvE again, but in WvW/PvP they reduced the durations to make it more bursty, but then removed the burst by making it on skill activation damage again (the DoT in PvP/WvW might as well not be there it's so low). It's super weird and I wouldn't be surprised if Anet are thinking of removing confusion entirely now, which would be sad.

 

What I'd like to see for PvP/WvW (not much help for PvE though) is either:

 

1) Much much longer durations on all confusion application skills. It needs _time_ to do its thing, just like when the game was released. A clone using Ether Barrage and landing 1 stack of confusion for 1 second...hah! Even a Mirage using Ether Barrage only applies if for 2 seconds, it's almost entirely pointless.

 

2) Only slightly increase the duration of all confusion application skills (nothing should be below 2-3 seconds), but make it do more damage. If a player has a stack of confusion on them for 3 seconds, make it an actual threat if they choose not to cleanse or can't.

[ReaverKane.7598]

Well, at this point the only fix for confusion would be to split its numbers from PvE and PvP, making it more DoT-Heavy for PvE, and keep as is for PvP.

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> Well, at this point the only fix for confusion would be to split its numbers from PvE and PvP, making it more DoT-Heavy for PvE, and keep as is for PvP.

 

You would think. Yet here we are, with confusion still broken and no plans announced to fix it. This is amateur night, ANet. How long are you going to allow this to continue?

[OriOri.8724]

> @"Simonoly.4352" said:

> Struggling to understand the point of confusion now in all game modes. Obviously redundant in PvE again, but in WvW/PvP they reduced the durations to make it more bursty, but then removed the burst by making it on skill activation damage again (the DoT in PvP/WvW might as well not be there it's so low). It's super weird and I wouldn't be surprised if Anet are thinking of removing confusion entirely now, which would be sad.

>

> What I'd like to see for PvP/WvW (not much help for PvE though) is either:

>

> 1) Much much longer durations on all confusion application skills. It needs _time_ to do its thing, just like when the game was released. A clone using Ether Barrage and landing 1 stack of confusion for 1 second...hah! Even a Mirage using Ether Barrage only applies if for 2 seconds, it's almost entirely pointless.

>

> 2) Only slightly increase the duration of all confusion application skills (nothing should be below 2-3 seconds), but make it do more damage. If a player has a stack of confusion on them for 3 seconds, make it an actual threat if they choose not to cleanse or can't.

 

The problem with increasing its duration, is that makes it easy to reach ridiculous stacks of confusion., high enough to nearly instant kill a player who uses a skill with that many stacks. Plus, its fundamentally a control condition, not a damage one. Its meant to punish players for using their skills, aka its meant to push players towards either not using their skills, using a cleanse in order to use an important skill without taking huge damage, risk taking the large damage because they need to use an important skill now.

 

If balanced correctly around those ideas, confusion is an incredibly useful condition. See someone gearing up for a burst? Drop a ton of confusion on them, and prevent them from using their burst unless they want to take massive damage. But, in order to be balanced like this, confusion **_needs_** to be a short lived, very bursty condition. It is, fundamentally, a control condition, and it only achieves that goal when its short lived and bursty

[AliamRationem.5172]

> @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > @"Simonoly.4352" said:

> > Struggling to understand the point of confusion now in all game modes. Obviously redundant in PvE again, but in WvW/PvP they reduced the durations to make it more bursty, but then removed the burst by making it on skill activation damage again (the DoT in PvP/WvW might as well not be there it's so low). It's super weird and I wouldn't be surprised if Anet are thinking of removing confusion entirely now, which would be sad.

> >

> > What I'd like to see for PvP/WvW (not much help for PvE though) is either:

> >

> > 1) Much much longer durations on all confusion application skills. It needs _time_ to do its thing, just like when the game was released. A clone using Ether Barrage and landing 1 stack of confusion for 1 second...hah! Even a Mirage using Ether Barrage only applies if for 2 seconds, it's almost entirely pointless.

> >

> > 2) Only slightly increase the duration of all confusion application skills (nothing should be below 2-3 seconds), but make it do more damage. If a player has a stack of confusion on them for 3 seconds, make it an actual threat if they choose not to cleanse or can't.

>

> The problem with increasing its duration, is that makes it easy to reach ridiculous stacks of confusion., high enough to nearly instant kill a player who uses a skill with that many stacks. Plus, its fundamentally a control condition, not a damage one. Its meant to punish players for using their skills, aka its meant to push players towards either not using their skills, using a cleanse in order to use an important skill without taking huge damage, risk taking the large damage because they need to use an important skill now.

>

> If balanced correctly around those ideas, confusion is an incredibly useful condition. See someone gearing up for a burst? Drop a ton of confusion on them, and prevent them from using their burst unless they want to take massive damage. But, in order to be balanced like this, confusion **_needs_** to be a short lived, very bursty condition. It is, fundamentally, a control condition, and it only achieves that goal when its short lived and bursty

 

Exactly right. Unfortunately, it is not possible for Confusion to serve this function against AI that does not change its behavior based on the presence of Confusion stacks.

 

I don't see any way this can work without completely separate functionality between game modes.

[ReaverKane.7598]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"ReaverKane.7598" said:

> > Well, at this point the only fix for confusion would be to split its numbers from PvE and PvP, making it more DoT-Heavy for PvE, and keep as is for PvP.

>

> You would think. Yet here we are, with confusion still broken and no plans announced to fix it. This is amateur night, ANet. How long are you going to allow this to continue?

 

To be fair, the balance team hasn't been stellar, but it's not the most imbalanced game in the world. But i really don't like where it's heading...

 

[Bod.8261]

As I've stated before, the only easily achieveable solution for confusion would be to revert the change (aka reintroduce condition damage scaling) and then set the modifier for PvP to the lowest possible value. My guess (based on other values for conditions) this should be a modifier of 0.005, maybe even lower.

 

This gives us a new formula for PvP

_(0.005 * Condition Damage) + 2.5 damage per stack per second._

This value is chosen so that with 1500 condition damage (which is almost the maximum you can get) you'll only have 7.5 + 2.5 = 10 damage per stack per second (the flat value we currently have).

 

As the modifier is now introduced again, we can have a proper value for PvE, for simplicity let's go with the previous values of 0.0375 or maybe even 0.05 to balance out the nerfs to Master of Misdirection and other stuff.

 

And done - it was that easy.

Either Anet is blind or there is another technical hindrance for this simple solution?

[OriOri.8724]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> > @"OriOri.8724" said:

> > > @"Simonoly.4352" said:

> > > Struggling to understand the point of confusion now in all game modes. Obviously redundant in PvE again, but in WvW/PvP they reduced the durations to make it more bursty, but then removed the burst by making it on skill activation damage again (the DoT in PvP/WvW might as well not be there it's so low). It's super weird and I wouldn't be surprised if Anet are thinking of removing confusion entirely now, which would be sad.

> > >

> > > What I'd like to see for PvP/WvW (not much help for PvE though) is either:

> > >

> > > 1) Much much longer durations on all confusion application skills. It needs _time_ to do its thing, just like when the game was released. A clone using Ether Barrage and landing 1 stack of confusion for 1 second...hah! Even a Mirage using Ether Barrage only applies if for 2 seconds, it's almost entirely pointless.

> > >

> > > 2) Only slightly increase the duration of all confusion application skills (nothing should be below 2-3 seconds), but make it do more damage. If a player has a stack of confusion on them for 3 seconds, make it an actual threat if they choose not to cleanse or can't.

> >

> > The problem with increasing its duration, is that makes it easy to reach ridiculous stacks of confusion., high enough to nearly instant kill a player who uses a skill with that many stacks. Plus, its fundamentally a control condition, not a damage one. Its meant to punish players for using their skills, aka its meant to push players towards either not using their skills, using a cleanse in order to use an important skill without taking huge damage, risk taking the large damage because they need to use an important skill now.

> >

> > If balanced correctly around those ideas, confusion is an incredibly useful condition. See someone gearing up for a burst? Drop a ton of confusion on them, and prevent them from using their burst unless they want to take massive damage. But, in order to be balanced like this, confusion **_needs_** to be a short lived, very bursty condition. It is, fundamentally, a control condition, and it only achieves that goal when its short lived and bursty

>

> Exactly right. Unfortunately, it is not possible for Confusion to serve this function against AI that does not change its behavior based on the presence of Confusion stacks.

>

> I don't see any way this can work without completely separate functionality between game modes.

 

Agreed. Its not possible to have a control condition feel fun to use in PvE and also have it be balanced in PvP as long as it shares the same functionality between both game modes. Easiest solution would be to replace all confusion access in PvE with other damaging conditions. Better solution would be to just split confusion again

[Kiroshima.8497]

What if confusion was like Blind and did its full damage in 1 skill activation, and then expended itself. It also makes the damage output of confusion consistent since 1 skill will use all stacks up doing full damage. With short durations, this form of confusion can be waited out making it perform like a longer Daze (you can still move around).

 

One thing though that has to go with it is cleansing skills must not trigger confusion, even if they don't remove it, otherwise cover conditions are going to be rage inducing.

[melrokk.5938]

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said:

> So, I hate to ask what with everything else you guys are likely trying to work on with mesmer at this point, but confusion is still horribly broken in PvE. The axe torment fix saved Mirage from becoming obsolete, but Cry of Frustration, Scepter, and Trident (and really anything else that uses confusion) are all still broken. Do you guys have some sort of plan to resolve this?

 

Independently this problem can not be solved.

It is necessary that the developers Anet fixed the confusion for PVE or the best option to replace it with any normal condi.

 

But there is no information about when this will be fixed and how! :(

[Nuka Cola.8520]

This game has pve???

[Carighan.6758]

> @"eldenbri.1059" said:

> I wonder if maybe the easiest tuning option is to make confusion skills have longer duration. In PVE, it seems like the issue is the mobs attack too infrequently, so a longer duration gives a better chance of getting the on-skill-use damage. In pvp modes, it would force more choice about cleansing or out-waiting the duration (or taking the damage for skill use)

 

If it were coupled with **significantly** higher (talking +300% or something though) on-proc damage in PvE, that could be made competitive, yeah.

 

As an example, Scepter #3 could last ~12 seconds, or Downed #1 could last 8 seconds.

 

> @"melrokk.5938" said:

> Independently this problem can not be solved.

> It is necessary that the developers Anet fixed the confusion for PVE or the best option to replace it with any normal condi.

 

Why not? Just change how it scales for PvE purposes.

 

In PvE:

 

* Bleeding-like scaling on the DoT, slightly lower than current scaling on the proc.

 

In PvP/WvW:

 

* No scaling on the DoT, normal scaling on the proc.

[Bod.8261]

> @"Carighan.6758" said:

> Why not? Just change how it scales for PvE purposes.

 

Anet has heavily implied this is not possible. The "formula" used for a condition has to be the same for all modes, usually

_(Modifier X * Condition Damage) + Flat value Y damage per stack per second._

As Anet got rid of the _(Modifier X * Condition Damage)_ for pvp, it's also gone for pve.

 

Now obviously there are ways around this (see my post before this), but at this point Anet is probably too stubborn to revert the change and admit they were wrong.

[Carighan.6758]

> @"Bod.8261" said:

> Anet has heavily implied this is not possible.

 

See, this is what I don't get. I'm a programmer by trade, we have this discussions constantly, the "cannot be done" just means you haven't thought about a feasible workaround yet. Now to be fair, in our case there **is** significantly money on the line, we can either gain a new customer or not. ANet doesn't have that motivation, I get that.

 

Still... why not just have **two** DoTs?

 

* One happens to be called *Confusion*, and deals X * Condi + Y flat, which is quite high due to X and Y, and a bonus z (being small) each time a mob attacks.

* The other, called *Confusion* in all tooltips etc, deals y damage per second, which is very small, and Z whenever someone attacks, a much larger number than the Z above.

* Mind you, those are two totally separate DoTs, they just happen to share the icon, name and description in their tooltips. Mechanically they're nothing alike.

* Skill-split all confusion-applications, making them apply the second one in PvP/WvW and the former in PvE.

 

I know, I know, probably some technical reason. Still, not buying it. Plus they could always just change the parts which result in them being unable to split the formula. They happen to have the code on their hands.