Confuse (Status Effect)

Overview

Confuse (or Confusion) is a Status Effect. An enemy under the effects of a Confuse power is unable to correctly distinguish friend from foe.

Confused critters will typically use beneficial powers on targets they normally consider enemies and harmful powers on targets they normally consider allies. (Exceptions to this include foes that have rez powers, who always use the rez power on their true allies.) Confused critters do not actually switch sides, become pets or teammates, or become controllable in any way by the thing that Confused them. Confused critters technically remain enemies to player teams and can still be targeted and affected as such, even though they won't return fire while the Confusion lasts. Attacks made by Confused critters cause no aggro.

Confused player characters lose their ability to reliably target their powers. When activating a power that effects others, it will be applied to a random target within range—sometimes friend, sometimes foe—regardless of what is currently targeted. The random targeting can include teammates, pets, critters, enemies in PvP, and allies in PvP.

While a player or critter is Confused, all his pets and pseudopet powers (such as Rain of Fire, Ice Slick, and Force Field Generator) also act as if Confused. This happens regardless of whether they were summoned before or after the Confuse effect began, whether or not the Confuse power targeted them too, or how much Protection from Confusion they have. This behavior starts and stops on the fly every time the summoner becomes Confused or un-Confused.

Confusion does not shut off toggle powers.

Confusion and Experience

An enemy defeated entirely by Confused critters is worth no experience. An enemy that's partially damaged by Confused critters is worth partial experience. However, the split is not perfectly proportional, like it is when multiple competing teams fight the same enemy. When a Confused critter damages another, only 1/4 of its damage counts toward "stealing" experience. The other 3/4 is removed from the target's maximum health before comparing how much damage everyone dealt to it.

Example: If an enemy has 240 Health and you and a random passer-by each do 120 damage to it, you will get half the normal experience (120 / 240). However, if we replace that passer-by with a Confused enemy, experience is distributed as if the Confused helper only dealt 30 damage (1/4 of 120) and the target only had 150 Health to begin with (its real Health minus 3/4 of the confused damage, or 240 - (3/4 of 120)). Since you still dealt 120 damage, your portion of the XP will be 120 / 150, or 80%.

Magnitude, Resistance, Protection

Except for Slows, all status effects work the same way. The target has both Resistance and Protection. In order for the attack to take effect, it must have a big enough Magnitude to overcome the Protection. Once the Protection is overcome, the duration of the effect depends on the target's Resistance. Attacks can stack in order to overcome a target's Protection. No Slow Protection exists, only Resistance.

PVE: Minions have a Protection of 1. Lts are 2. Bosses are 3. Elite Bosses are 6. The Purple Triangles of Doom on an Archvillain or Hero add 50 to all but Sleep while they are up. Some specific enemies are resistant to fear.

PVP: As of Issue 13, Protection does not exist in PVP, only Resistance.