Tell me about World of Confusion

OK, I know we went through this all the way back when Mental Manipulation was first introduced into the game, but since I'd never played a Psi Blaster to a good level, and wouldn't until now, all the commentary went completely over my head. Looking at it now... I'm not sure what to make of the thing.

Basically, World of Confusion looks like it's a control power. A very crappy control power. I had a quick glimpse through Red Tomax's City of Data entry on it, and its control element is listed as a 1.5 second confuse effect, with the power ticking every 4 seconds. It also "Must hit at -25%," whatever that means. In fact, here's my first question - what DOES that mean? Do I have 25 added to my to-hit roll for the purposes of determining whether a target is confused? Do I get 25 subtracted out of my to-hit chance? Does it work like a debuff? Is it affected by buffs and enhancements? How does that mechanic even work? Bebcause if it works like I think it will, then it caps my maximum to-hit with the confuse effect to 70%, since my final to-hit can't go over 95%, and 25% down is just that much.

So, basically, if I'm reading this right, the confusion aspect of World of Confusion is a less than half-time coverage confuse at a crappy accuracy, over a foot above melee range. Maybe I'm old-fashioned here, but does that honestly sound decent to anyone? Because to me it sounds like I'd be cheating myself out of an endurance cost. Then again, I've always had a VERY hard time justifying melee-range auras on Blasters, simply because I need to STAY in melee range for them to matter, and staying in melee range is not my favourite activity. At a four-second tick timer, it doesn't even seem like it'd work backup defence.

But if it's not ideal for control, then what is it good for? Damage? Err... Let me put it this way - I couldn't justify Blazing Aura, and this does less damage over twice the tick timer. I couldn't really tell Blazing Aura was doing anything, since I stayed the hell out of melee 90% of the time, and if I couldn't feel that, am I really going to notice World of Confusion's seriously inferior damage? I have a big problem with Blaster auras in general, as none of them are really quick-acting enough for my brief trips into melee to justify AND because they're offensive, they shut down whenever I get held. Which is all the time. In the end, damage auras on Blasters in particular never seem to be worth the cost.

Which brings us to the cost. It's minuscule! 0.52 per four-second tick comes down to about 0.13, which is cheaper than the bulk of other toggles. I'm a big believer in cost vs. benefit, and for that little cost, I can't exactly be picky. But here's the thing - even for that little cost, I still do, in fact, expect SOMETHING. And a slow-acting melee-range effect just does not appear to even register. What is up with this power, what is it good for and what can I use it to do?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

get out of trouble

Like almost all of the high end blaster manipulation powers, it's designed to buy you a few seconds to get out of melee range and back to a safe distance.

(this post here goes over some of the other high-end get-out-of-trouble powers: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showp...9&postcount=22 )

Think of it as a minor damage aura that can slot the extremely useful Coercive Persuasion set and has a minor mez to it. This set's really awesome powers are melee range (Drain Psyche, Psychic Shockwave), so having something on that can momentarily mez your enemies as you waltz in the middle for those pbaoes is a good thing, right?

It's really cool looking.

I believe that the intended purpose is for mitigation while using Drain Psyche.

World of confusion is a minion only (ie: mag 2) confuse. Unslotted for confuse it's duration is 1.5 seconds. The cast time for Drain Psyche is 1.33 seconds. Seems to me that it's intended to be used to get in, Drain, and get out again "relatively" unscathed.

It's endurance costs are quite low. For an SO only user, such as yourself, 2 Acc SOs, and 1 Confuse are all that you really need in the power to use drain Psyche on a clump of minions. (An end red is a waste of a slot here as it only saves you .04 end/sec)

If you slot it up (2 acc, 3 confuse) you can enter melee with the minions, Drain Psyche, then Psi Shockwave before the confuse effect wears off.

That's about the only real use for the power except as a set mule as was mentioned above.

The purple Contagious Confusion Proc IO is more effective than this entire power.

S_T: Your theory matches my wife's experiments.

Upon reflection, there is the possibility that there might be some merit to Blaster control auras, provided the control is good enough. In the case of Hot Feet, despite my refusal to use it due to its cost and its tendency to make me do stupid things like go give a Tank Swiper a hot foot while he gives me a face-full of cloven gauntlet, the power still managed to mitigate incoming damage OTHER than the occasional straggler who wandered too close. The fact of the matter was that, even though I had to actively explose myself to melee damage, Hot Feet managed to mitigate some of that melee damage AND some ranged damage, as well, since the power's radius made even rangers turn tail and run for a while. Nevertheless, sticking my head in the vice still felt like it brought in more danger than it mitigated, as even left to his own devices, a hard-hitting boss would often tend to be a teddy bear at range. That, and it disrupted my play style greatly, because cones were harder to set up and I had to spend a lot of my time dashing after enemies I should be getting away from.

Basically what I'm saying is Hot Feet mitigated slightly more danger than it put me in for it to have any use, and that cost was just not justifiable. And that's a power with a two-second tick and over twice the range (which gives it almost ten times the land area), a potentially self-stacking control effect (Afraid instead of Avoid, perplexingly) AND meaningful damage output. So even if I could drive an argument that, more than just being an 8-foot-radius personal protection shield with more holes than a clump of Swiss cheese that has faced a firing squad, it can also work if I proactively went out looking for trouble. The problem is that the holes in its protection quality and its damage output don't, in any way, seem to make up for the colossal increase in damage sustained.

For instance, right now, I had a moment where I wondered if I shouldn't perhaps be using the power against this large group of range-centric Arachnos soldiers. That was a clever thought, except for the fact that the power's short range and craphsot guarantee I'll confuse anything at all meant I would accomplish very little, while at the same time placing my face uncomforably close to maces, talons and Blood Widow claws, on top of the various rifles and machineguns. In short, what sounds good in theory, and might actually be a good idea with a mystical Blaster aura that actually does anything, ended up being a pretty poor idea for World of Confusion, placing me in a world of confusion as to what the hell the power was designed to do. "Not much of anything" does seem like it was implied, but I want to doubt that.

Basically, even though I go out of my way to find uses for these powers and keep being told that they're kind of OK under the right circumstances if you squint a little, I've yet to find a use for these auras on Blasters that don't end up with me dead or much worse off than I was without them AND angry on top of it all. Again, for the cost of World of Confusion, I guess taking it would basically give me free slots to put in other, better powers AND a pretty bubble to play with (that DID have a 3D effect, right?) which is more than I can say for something like Repulsion field, a power which insulted my mother and openly mocked me for taking and slotting it.

...

I spend too much time on the internet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

There are times I want to go into my guide and give a more unvarnished opinion on WoC.

I'll start brief here. Skip it. It is bad. Never look back.

A Rad/MM or an Elec/MM who decides they want to live in melee range (they start fights in melee range, they stay in melee range, they end fights in melee range; CB and LB are recharged, but you run up and MP something instead) can barely get a decent effect out of it, occasionally. Really, any blaster who wants to live in melee could get this useful effect, but I am not sure why any of the other blaster primaries would make that choice combined with MM.

I have it on my Fire/MM. I never really use it. I turn it on and stay mostly at range. I want to respec out of it, but I don't care enough about that character to do so (when I want to play a level 50 Fire blaster, I'd much rather play my Fire/Fire, so my poor Fire/MM kind of languishes, only used rarely).

My guides more PC description:

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Originally Posted by StratoNexus World of Confusion Level 28 – PBAoE toggle, Minion Confuse, Negligible Damage, surrounds you in the pink bubble. This is not a damage aura; think of it more like a defense toggle. Some attacks will not be aimed at you or your team, because the confused enemy will shoot his friends instead. Without slotting, this power does not work well, so do not judge it before slotting. The confuse portion hits at a penalty, so this power requires good Acc slotting. The power only ticks every 4 seconds, and the confuse lasts 1.5 seconds, so it also needs good Confuse slotting. Once slotted with at least 2 Acc and 2 Confuse, you should notice a reduction in incoming minion attacks. This power is very playstyle dependent, and in many ways does not mix well with range attacks. Another problem is this power is really only useful vs. minons, and many blasters will have them destroyed so fast, that this power can become somewhat irrelevant. You will have to make your own choice about this power. I would take it on some builds, but skip it on others (an Elec/Mental who plans on sticking with a lot of melee and make use of the PBAoEs will see some decent use out of this, for example). The size of this effect is a bit small (a mere 8 foot radius), further limiting its usefulness. World of Confusion uses very little endurance, so at least that is not a concern. Mid-level slotting – 2 Acc, 2 Confuse Late Slotting – 2 Acc, 3 Confuse Useful Sets – There are not a whole lot of Confuse sets, so its not all that hard to choose what you want to do. While slotting the power for damage is useless (since it is very low damage on a 4 second tick), you could choose to use it as a place to put the PBAoE damage sets, if there are any set bonuses there you really want. 3 Endoplasms (Acc/Mez Hamis) – capped Acc and Confuse in 3 slots, good stuff. 5 Malaise’s Illusions, 1 Endoplasm, capped Acc and Confuse, +2.5% recovery, +2.5% Confused duration, +2.5% Damage, +6.25% recharge 4 Scirocco’s Dervish, 2 Endoplasm, capped Acc, great Confuse enhancement, +10% regen, +3.13% Neg resist, +9% Acc

As others have said, it's really a "oh damn, get me out of this mess" power. You're not getting xp if the NPCs kill one another, and the primary purpose of most Blasters is killing everything in sight, so it can seem counter-productive.

Solo (or if you play pretty much for yourself in teams), I find its effectiveness weak. "Oh damn, zerged!" moments are often "hit the nuke!" moments for Blasters and most Blasters have better mitigation tools at their disposal, even if it's just flight to zip out of the melee.

If you're a Blaster who watches out for the rest of the team, you'll find more use for it. It's excellent for when a non-tank team-mate pulls a second, unexpected, mob into your team and the tank hasn't had a chance to grab the aggro.

I find more use for this power as Defender though, where my focus is more heavily on supporting the team rather than killing things. My Rad/Sonic/PM, for example, has saved a lot of teams from wipe by flying into a mob and toggling on WoC (and with Choking Cloud on at the same time, very few minions keep on fighting my team-mates).

Used by itself, I find WoC a nice way to help mitigate damage. My in-game experience is that it's not going to save you by itself in those moments, but will probably buy you a few extra seconds, and if you're more of a team-focused player, those seconds will help turn team-wipes into victories.

(Also, as others have said, it's one of the best set mules in the game.)

I used it as a set mule (6x Malaise) and for some mitigation. I suppose it chips in a tad with damage/confuse. It's not a fantastic power, but I thought it was ok.

So, essentially, take as a last resort, or skip if all else fails? OK, I guess I can work with that. I kind of wanted to get the Presance pool for this one, partly because being utterly terrifying is her thing, but I'm not sure I'll be able to work with that, since it requires a taunt to get to the fear powers. I guess I could take it and just not use it.

I really wish we had a Psi epic for Blasters right about now. Blasters already got Fire (and then they developed a need for electric...), so why not give Blasters a Psi one? I'm sure we could throw in a few Mind Control powers, since we're out of Psi ones.

So, yeah, I think I'll put this power off until I can decide what I want as an epic. Force Mastery didn't have a control power, did it? *edit* Oh, right, it has the insultingly awful Repulsion Field that I seem to feel compelled to trash-talk every time auras and/or knockback come up, and one I hadn't seen before - Repulsion Bomb. Now this sounds interesting for a Blaster...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

Aside: I don't think Sam can make an OP less than 5 paragraphs long

I have it on my fire/mind blaster. It's a very complete build with PVP IOs and Purple Sets... Soft Cap'd to Ranged and Smash/Lethal Defense, and nearly perma-drain psyche. At lower levels of survivability then that your milage may vary from my experience.

I have WoC slotted with 6 confuse purples, so it's got the Contagious confusion proc. I run it all the time when solo. Specifically, my experience with WoC is this:

Without it running I safely can wade into melee with difficulty +2x8 on the Council Empire map. +3 will get me killed frequently. +4 will kill me nearly every spawn.

With it running, I can safely wade into melee on +4x8 of the same map. Usually I click on aim before entering a spawn like that to make sure it hits on the first tick.

When I'm fighting other enemy groups that aren't so easy, I turn down the difficulty. But I still see the same results. I generally push my difficulty to as high as I can play. The thing that gets me killed most often is a stun/hold landing and knocking out WoC and keeping me from hovering away out of melee at the same time. If I use a breakfree before entering a spawn, with WoC running, my survivability is every bit as good as my soft-cap'd scrappers... often better. WoC is the peice that gets me "better" then scrapper survivability.