2 replies to this topic

[Acidicore]

So like a normal person, I was browsing the internet looking at funny pictures, because my time isn't worth much. Came across a plethora of old jokes about the Zubat cave from Pokemon Red/Blue classic...you know the one. So anyways, I had a brief bit of childhood nostalgia, thinking about the ball-crushing frustration those bats and their confusion ailment caused, which somehow triggered the cogs in the GW2 section of my brain to turn. While confusion acts similar between the games, causing damage when an opponent tries to attack, you were sort of streamlined to use an ability to make the confusion usable in Pokemon. With GW2, that works wonders in sPvP and WvWvW,  but of course in PvE, a whole different story comes to light.

Since monsters don't utilize attacks other than auto-attack, you have to time it properly so that confusion is on the mob before hand, unless you're running a clone factory build. So I began thinking about how to make it more effective without overpowering it in sPvP, so brace yourselves, my tinfoil hat is a bit tighter than normal so this might come out sounding crazy.

What if confusion caused the mob to be redirected to clones, it could theoretically increase mesmer control and survivability. The way it would work "in theory" is as confusion stacks, it causes the mob to have a chance to change it's target on a random chance it's attacked, scaling with the stacks and how many clones are present. Let's say it goes by 2% per application, so 3 stacks means a 6% chance with a single clone, but three clones equates out to 18% chance. Now, you still have the chance to hijack the mob back, but considering it's redirected to a clone, even for a few seconds would mean it's not attacking you, or allies.

This would only apply to the clones and not phantasms, as clones appear more like the caster while the phantasms have the ethereal, ghostly purple-pink look, the illusions appear to look similar to the caster, hence the illusion. Also, giving more logic, because the mob becomes increasingly more confused, it has difficulty figuring out which one of those pesky [Insert Race/Gender Here] is the real one! Also, it's balanced in sPvP (and yes, even WvWvW) considering the other player won't be affected by this buff, since they have a working brain...well, some of the time.

The great part about this is that it would add a bit more flavor to builds, say you've dropped a couple of clones, and an iWarden, the combined dps from you and the clones would increase the survivability rate of the phantasm. Not to mention, you know the complaints how the mesmer's scepter can't really find that right niche in the profession's repertoire? Did you forget that Confusing Images applies confusion, well, now it can be used as a control, and for more fun, slap a focus on that bad boy.

Like to know what you all think! Apologize for the rather lengthy post...

Edited by Acidicore, 27 September 2012 - 11:42 PM.

[RyuujinZERO]

What about causing the NPC to redirect instead to a random nearby TARGET.

This would compensate for the NPC's slow rate of attack and thus confusions lack of damage by causing them to possibly inflict damage on one of their allies. If that sounds Op, consider that reflect deflects an attack back onto the attacker wholesale, you're just redirecting the damage reflect-like onto an nearby target instead of themself; possibly an ally, possibly a clone, possibly still you.

City of Heroes did a similar thing with their confuse condition, and even went so far that it affected buffs, if an NPC tried to cast a buff while confused sometimes they'd cast it on YOU which was always hilarious xD

[Acidicore]

RyuujinZERO, on 27 September 2012 - 10:09 PM, said:

What about causing the NPC to redirect instead to a random nearby TARGET.

This would compensate for the NPC's slow rate of attack and thus confusions lack of damage by causing them to possibly inflict damage on one of their allies. If that sounds Op, consider that reflect deflects an attack back onto the attacker wholesale, you're just redirecting the damage reflect-like onto an nearby target instead of themself; possibly an ally, possibly a clone, possibly still you.

City of Heroes did a similar thing with their confuse condition, and even went so far that it affected buffs, if an NPC tried to cast a buff while confused sometimes they'd cast it on YOU which was always hilarious xD

I thought about that, but when you consider some mobs, such as dungeon bosses, could easily one shot their opponents, they can remove them from the loot table and increase the length of events. The idea is to redirect the mob in general to attack something else, and clones are easily created time and again. You, your allies and your phantasms still could take the mob back from the clone to yourself, it gives more breathing room, and it allows more use from if the clone is killed instead of over written or shattered.

I considered other possibilities, like you said, they attack slowly (though some do attack rather quickly), even a few seconds would allow you to distance yourself from the mob, getting out of harms way. This is especially true for ranged clones. Plus, how cool would it be to do a dungeon with five mesmers using one as a clone factory control tank.

Also, you could see this as more strategy, properly placing your clones for maximum effectiveness, effectively kiting without the target chasing after you a good chunk of the time. Plus, when they kill the clone, it adds more confusion with traits, and with your clones spread out (considering ranged clones here) you can add bleeds and and more stacks of confusion; increasing the effectiveness of your clones, increasing survivability and control simultaneously, opening new venues for the mesmer to delve into and stacking more conditions effectively. Not to mention, the shatters might be more effective, as the target is running towards your clones, you can set that up for shatters while maintaining distance. Of course, this changes against ranged targets, but I feel players would find ways to use this redirection to their benefit regardless.