Confuse, and the XP loss

Alot of people don't like confuse, for the obvious reason of XP loss. But from what I understand, the XP lost is a fraction of the HP of the enemy taken by the confused enemy. In english:

Enemy get confused and smack it's buddy in the face. If you never touch it, you get no XP.

If the confused enemies do 50 of the damage to each other it not (from what I understand) 50% XP, which would be a waste if your goal is to gain XP. From what I understand, you lose a fraction of XP/HP taken. So if, for arguments sake, it's 3%XP/25%HP (don't know if that's it) It would be, 3% XP lost for every 25% HP lost. So if you damage the enemy for 50%, you get 94% of the XP for doing half the work. Which makes, [Mass Confusion] awesomesauce.

Three questions:
A) Do I have the concept right?
B) What is the percentage of XP/HP lost?
C) Since you know the answer to this, you may know the answer to this:
Does the contagious confuse proc follow target cap rules? I.E., if you slot it in your aoe confuse, does it hit 30/40/50 targets with a confuse if you have that many in range?

I ask question C because I forgot what my original question was

According to Paragon Wiki 75% of all damage dealt to a foe by Confused foes is simply not counted. You don't really "earn" the XP for the damage the Confused foe did, but his "share" is only 1/4 what it normally would be.

Thus, if you each do 50% of the damage, you get 80% of the XP. The foe is treated as if he had 5/8 of the hit points, and you do 4/8 while your Confused foe did 1/8. Likewise, if you only do 20% of the damage, and Confused foes do 80% of it, you will still get 50% of the XP. When divided by four, your Confused foes did the same damage you did, so you get an equal share of the XP.

The short version is, if you do anything more than 50% of the damage, your loss of XP is insignificant, compared to the savings in time taken to kill the foe. Your time taken on the fight was anywhere from one half to 3/4 of the time it would have taken you. Even if you do less than 50% of the damage, the savings in time taken means you are still earning more XP per second, as long as you're doing about 25% of the damage.

In fact, the graph on that Paragon wiki page suggests that the ideal amout of damage to do is between 20% and 50%. While you will be losing a good portion of the XP for a given mission, possibly running out of missions prematurely, you will blow through them so quickly you will level faster overall. (Probably most people would prefer the 40% to 70% range)

My Illusion/Radiation guide has a long section discussing Confusion. THERE IS NO XP LOSS FROM CONFUSION. You don't lose any because you didn't earn it. If a confused foe kills off another foe, it is just as if that dead foe never spawned. At most, there is a reduction of XP available to earn. But in reality, you can get bonus XP from using Confuse powers as long as you do ANY damage to the foes attacked by confused foes, because you get XP you didn't earn.

Jade Dragon showed the formulas, but they aren't really needed to get the idea. If you do 50% of the damage, you get 80% of the XP. If you do 25% of the damage, you get 50% of the XP.

So, using confuse powers will acually get you bonus XP that you don't earn.

Yeah, I know it is semantics . . . but the misuse of the term "Lose XP" has caused a LOT of people to think that confusion is a bad power. It should be referred to as "reduced available XP"

There was a very old thread that shows Confuse actually improves XP gain in the long run because you kill quicker and you still gain exp at a decent rate (as explained by the two posts above).

1. Like others have explained, you still gain decent XP.
2. You and your teammates may gain exp faster because you don't die as often. Confuse is a HARD control.

3. Screw the Brute that is complaining about not getting enough Fury!

I've only seen one lack of XP hold water on that arguement.

And that was a friend in my SG with a PLant/Thorns, who said at the low levels they just found themselves not getting xp, because they were taking so long to kill one enemy, that the confused ones killed each other before they were done.

If you run into that, well...okay. Probably makes sense.

But later levels, on a team. Confuse becomes hard control and massive destruction!

I love seeing Plant Trollers looking for teams

<confuses Sapper>

Sapper to Kronos: Tag! You're it! <zap>

<team giggles like a bunch of schoolgirls>


There's also the benefit of Crey Medics, Rikti Guardians and Priests, etc healing goes towards your own healing badge.

The only time my teammates said something about Confuse is when I hit Scirocco and he went after Ghost Widow, so not only did the tank lose aggro, it got Scirocco within support range of GW when he shrugged it off.

o.O

O.o

O.O


oops

Still see this old myth once in a while sadly, even got into it with a fellow SG member not long ago about it.

I always figured a lot of the hate was from the old MMORPG days where you actually had to "camp" spawns. If we had to wait around several minutes each time for spawns to show up then any exp loss would be bad. With this game, another mob is always seconds away so exp that confuse takes really becomes meaningless or even speeds exp/min up.

Try confusing the healing nictus in the ITF to make things that much easier...the only downfall is when the lieut. from the ambushes get the scream off.

Actually, the most disturbing thing I've had a confused enemy do... was having a Mortificator rez me.

If you know anything about the "ick factor" involved in how they do that with Cadavers... well, ummm... ick.

That was some time ago, since which I believe they've fixed that as a bug.

I've always tried to explain that confuse will actually increase xp over time but there's always someone to argue. Myself I don't mind confuse, but if I'm on my plant dom or fortuna and someone complains I just bite my tongue and let them have their way; that is until they all wipe and I cast a vengence and confuse and clean up their mess

This argument that some mistakenly categorise as a myth will continue because these are two separate arguments.

Yes, if you are doing endless farming, radio missions, or such, then sure, having Confuse used will probably increase the XP over time by a good percentage.

However, the argument that Confuse supporters are missing is that TFs and SFs are not infinite mobs and missions. If I run a TF that would normally give 15 bars of XP, then with a confuser on the team, that same TF will probably only give around 12 bars of XP, a 20% reduction.

Yes, I might finish the TF 20% faster, so a fifty minute TF takes 40 minutes, but that doesn't change the fact that the XP on any finite task will have been lowered.

Most teams are perfectly capable of taking out most mobs, without Confuse, and would strongly resent the idea that the addition of the Confuse power was doing anything to get them XP they would not normally get.

The stuff about 'bonus' XP is more like a Bogus XP argument. There can only be 'bonus' XP if you do bonus missions, or set for 'bonus' mobs. The same number of mobs give less XP with confuse, period.

To get any advantage from Confuse on a team, you really have to dial up the difficulty to introduce those additional mobs (or higher value mobs) that you can then kill in the same time. Then there's 'bonus' XP in the pool.

If you lost 20% of the XP, given the way the curve works that means that the confused foes did 50% of the damage. In that case, you probably finished the TF 50% faster, not 20%. And the confuse would only reduce the total XP you get if you then proceed to stand around doing nothing during the 50% of the TF's time you saved. It's not a choice between doing a TF for N XP and doing a TF for 0.8*N XP - it's a choice between playing for (say) an hour and getting N XP, or playing for a half hour and getting 0.8*N XP.

Total XP for any given task is irrelevant. There are always more tasks to do in the game, even if the current task has ended. If you're worried about XP, the only relevant stat is how much XP you get per unit time, and confuse doesn't decrease that.

"Confuse does not make you lose exp" really needs to be added as one of the loading screen tips.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BackAlleyBrawler That...was a Herocon 09 exclusive easter egg. The powerset will not have doves associated with it. Namely because you guys would want to color tint the damn doves, or make them hawks/ravens/flying sharks/etc and that's just a headache I do...not...want...to deal with.

Also, if you're killing mobs faster, you can kill MORE mobs and regain any "lost" XP. Given that very few TFs involve "Defeat-All" missions, any mission you DON'T defeat all the critters in can ALSO be considered "lost XP" so you've no one to blame but yourself.

Also, enemies attacking each other = enemies not killing you. You not being dead = no XP Debt. And no XP Debt = more XP for you!