Talk:Confusion (status condition)

Confusion Duration

The duration count has changed a few times and I just changed it recently so I thought I'd lay out the reason for the confusion and the 4 potential notations. Confusion, unlike most other volatile status effects, has its duration based on the affected Pokémon's actions, not the general turn count. As such, if applied after the Pokémon has already acted that turn, it can seemingly last for an extra general turn as the Pokémon's first action will be on the next general turn rather than the same one.

To summarise, this so far gives us two potential durations:

• 1-3 actions, then snapped out of next action
• 1-4 turns, then snapped out of next action

The primary advantage of basing it around actions is that Instruct can cause a Pokémon to act twice in one turn, and this bonus action counts towards the confusion duration.

There is another way to notate the duration though, and that is to consider the turn it is snapped out of on a part of the duration and to simply specify that on the final turn the Pokémon snaps out before it acts. This is the currently used description. The main advantage of doing it this way is that, well, its more accurate. A Pokémon is considered to still be confused until it snaps out and that occurs before it acts.

This gives us another two potential durations:

• 2-4 actions (currently used), snapped out of before expiring action
• 2-5 turns, snapped out of before expiring action

Personally I think the 2-4 actions notation is the most useful so its what I've used, but I'm curious if other people will agree. --Jump Drive (talk) 13:03, 26 December 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for this clarification! I was confused (haha) by the conflicting answers I saw online for exactly how long confusion lasts, and this makes it a lot clearer what's actually happening. I tweaked the wording under the Effect section to specify "its own turns" rather than just "turns", because I thought that cleared up the ambiguity somewhat without sounding too technical. I also thought about adding a sentence to clarify that the Pokémon only has 1-3 actual chances to hit itself, but I think having two completely different numbers for what sounds like the same thing could be... confusing. Maybe there's a better way? zaffre 01:46, 12 March 2024 (UTC)