Guild Wars 2

I am just curious as to what people are doing to counter this skill. Currently Mesmers are the main source of this spell, however Engineers are a close second (Ele has it, but it is hardly if ever used).

Personally i am aware of when this spell is put on me however, i have yet to figure out a “proper” counter.

I have the choice to clear the spell with condition removal, however, against a mesmer this is folly as there is sure to be another 1-2 stacks coming.

Which leads me to my current strategy of holding my fire, which causes problems as i have to spam my escape button to try and stop my auto fire, which leaves me doing NO damage to the opposing player, as well as having a menu in the middle of my screen.

I wonder what other people are doing? The Mesmer has enough damage output from himself as well as his illusions that i HAVE to pressure him/kill illusions or i simply will die myself. But trying to fire through Confusion is a surefire way to die a very fast death.

Thoughts?

Condition removal is your only hope. This is the biggest reason why its so hard to 1v1 a good mesmer. Its not hard spotting the player among the clones, but who needs clones to hide amongst when you can blow them up and throw 4-8 stacks of confusion on your enemy?

Of course, not standing near the clones when they blow up helps too, but I know its hard. It’s not that bad when I’m on my ranger since I have range and mobility, but when I’m on my engineer I’m lost as to what I can do about it.

Or you can try rolling a necro – just toss the confusion back to them! I love doing that.

Bind draw/sheathe weapons and use that to cancel your attacks instead of esc.

Thats how the mesmer is designed, it gives you multible bad choices. Kill the phantasms and get damaged by confusion or dont attack and get damaged by the phantasms.

Mayama.1854:

Thats how the mesmer is designed, it gives you multible bad choices. Kill the phantasms and get damaged by confusion or dont attack and get damaged by the phantasms.

This reminds me of the GW1 mesmer, there you could attack and get damaged by empathy / backfire or not attack and get damaged by wastrel’s… but getting damaged by confusion in GW2 is a lot less bad than empathy and backfire were in GW1, so I would just ignore it and attack.

Condition removal is your only hope. This is the biggest reason why its so hard to 1v1 a good mesmer. Its not hard spotting the player among the clones, but who needs clones to hide amongst when you can blow them up and throw 4-8 stacks of confusion on your enemy?

Blow them up for 3-6 stacks actually, depending on spec and which ability you use. Also then you have to be a condition mesmer which is actually the weaker variant of mesmer.

Veldan.4637:

Mayama.1854:

Thats how the mesmer is designed, it gives you multible bad choices. Kill the phantasms and get damaged by confusion or dont attack and get damaged by the phantasms.

This reminds me of the GW1 mesmer, there you could attack and get damaged by empathy / backfire or not attack and get damaged by wastrel’s… but getting damaged by confusion in GW2 is a lot less bad than empathy and backfire were in GW1, so I would just ignore it and attack.

I dunno my condition mesmer can constantly keep 5 stacks of confusion on an enemy thats around (out of my head) 1800 damage every time you hit a skill and its possible to get it up to 15 for a short time. The phantasm still hit like a truck so they arent push overs either. As a mesmer its possible to kill low vitality builds with confusion alone, thats 18k damage if you press 10 keys thats ALOT of extra damage on top of phantasms, burns and bleeds.

Malakree.5912:

Blow them up for 3-6 stacks actually, depending on spec and which ability you use. Also then you have to be a condition mesmer which is actually the weaker variant of mesmer.

They arent weeker it just takes longer to kill enemys, on the other side you cant hard counter a condition mesmer as easily as you can a power/phantasm build.

When i was on my ranger i would just have to face away from the mesmer to cancel my auto attack really fast, i can kill myself in a few seconds with a stack of 3 confusion.

So far the consensus seems to be, nothing.

Mesmer is my most hated class to PvP against due to Confusion.

If I don’t notice I have a few stacks I kill myself very quickly, which is infuriating. Playing a ranger, my build doesn’t have much room for condition removals (and I hate our heal that has it due to me needing to move around so much)

It’s gotten to where I double guess my self so much that I spend half the match staring at my condition area waiting to see it, and wind up getting killed by direct damage instead.

Retaliation and Confusion are the single most frustrating thing in PvP for me. A skill where you can beat your opponent without doing anything? Crazy.

Lately I’ve resorted to a stupid (but effective) tank-style build which I can toe-to-toe with Mesmers, but I dislike using it as it’s not my personal playstyle.

Strongfort.2451

Mesmer is my most hated class to PvP against due to Confusion.
If I don’t notice I have a few stacks I kill myself very quickly, which is infuriating. Playing a ranger, my build doesn’t have much room for condition removals (and I hate our heal that has it due to me needing to move around so much)
It’s gotten to where I double guess my self so much that I spend half the match staring at my condition area waiting to see it, and wind up getting killed by direct damage instead.
Retaliation and Confusion are the single most frustrating thing in PvP for me. A skill where you can beat your opponent without doing anything? Crazy.
Lately I’ve resorted to a stupid (but effective) tank-style build which I can toe-to-toe with Mesmers, but I dislike using it as it’s not my personal playstyle.

Interesting. So far the only tanky Ranger builds I’ve found didn’t have nearly enough damage output to go toe-to-toe with anyone. The survivability is higher so you last longer, but they just longer still because of my lower DPS.

Hmm, sheathe weapon, good idea.

And yes, confusion kills me VERY quickly if i attack through it, so that is not an option…

I suppose i will just have to chalk it up to : You can’t beat a well played mesmer?

Lewk.8359:

Hmm, sheathe weapon, good idea.

And yes, confusion kills me VERY quickly if i attack through it, so that is not an option…

I suppose i will just have to chalk it up to : You can’t beat a well played mesmer?

As far as I’ve ever heard, the best option is to use high damage per attack abilities while eschewing less efficient ones. The problem is that many classes simply don’t have any big nukes.

Skolops.2604:

Lewk.8359:

Hmm, sheathe weapon, good idea.

And yes, confusion kills me VERY quickly if i attack through it, so that is not an option…

I suppose i will just have to chalk it up to : You can’t beat a well played mesmer?

As far as I’ve ever heard, the best option is to use high damage per attack abilities while eschewing less efficient ones. The problem is that many classes simply don’t have any big nukes.

What about… a condition removing skill. The thing you use to fight ANY condition using build.

Mayama.1854

What about… a condition removing skill. The thing you use to fight ANY condition using build.

Just like when fighting any condition build, you only have so many – and for some classes, very few indeed – options to remove conditions and so the opponent can just replace what you cleanse fairly easily. The difference is that at least when you’re being bled or burned, you can fight back, whereas against some of the Confusion Mesmer builds that are out there, you take just as much damage as the bleeding/burning if you don’t fight back, and absurdly moreso if you do try to fight back.

bleeding/burning is more dangerous than confusion because damage ticks even if you don’t do anything. what is the point of this thread lmao.

what about condition removal and condition removal comboes?
what about play your own build and put some condition removal on your character instead of copy streams, builds on forums?

Shukran.4851:

what about condition removal and condition removal comboes?
what about play your own build and put some condition removal on your character instead of copy streams, builds on forums?

I’ll quote my post (from only 2 posts up):

Just like when fighting any condition build, you only have so many – and for some classes, very few indeed – options to remove conditions and so the opponent can just replace what you cleanse fairly easily. The difference is that at least when you’re being bled or burned, you can fight back, whereas against some of the Confusion Mesmer builds that are out there, you take just as much damage as the bleeding/burning if you don’t fight back, and absurdly moreso if you do try to fight back.

building around condition damage force you to waste something or you will be paper.
it’s a fact.
if you lose vs a massive condition damage build is ok because maybe they overcame your build.
try to kill them before they can apply so many conditions, try to split them, try something, or at least, play too condition spam build and see what is good and what is bad in that composition.
u learn from these things too.

If they are built with condition damage in mind, don’t use abilities when you have over 4 stacks of confusion. The duration on confusion is extremely short and spiked occcurances of confusion are rare, – Engi Bomb, Mesmer Shatter 2 w/ traits, and Mesmer Scepter 3. Stalling combat defensively for around 4 seconds is easy, or better yet as everyone else has noted just use your condition removal at this point.

When confusion isn’t stacked very high, then don’t even worry about it. It’s like having 1 to 6 bleeds that only last a few seconds, probably not worth the worry.

So far it sounds like there is no counter. Mesmer’s REPEATEDLY and CONSTANTLY apply confusion through their own attacks, as well as through pets that apply this condition. And they don’t just apply confusion and stand around hoping you are going to kill yourself with it. They are still dishing out HUGE numbers (9k pet crits) from their pets as well as potentially very high dmg themselves (quickness, etc).

Confusion is much worse than a bleed, bleeds tick for 50-150 dmg, confusion is hitting myself for much more. Stopping my attacks means that the mesmer’s pets aren’t dying, and that there is no pressure to force him to stop dpsing and to roll/heal/stealth/teleport.

I was hoping there was some secret out there, some trick that someone had found to help me not feel like Mesmer was just a complete BS class, but it appears that is not the case.

Mesmer is the best 1v1 class, thats the point of the Mesmer
Way to kill them? Kill them very quickly, but you will most likely lose to a good Mesmer

Shadowgurke.5813:

Mesmer is the best 1v1 class, thats the point of the Mesmer
Way to kill them? Kill them very quickly, but you will most likely lose to a good Mesmer

Except they don’t JUST excel at 1v1. They lose nothing in a group fight, and in fact outperform most any other class in a group fight as well.

confusion is really strong right now.
But the Mesmer nerf is coming.. I’m sure.

yangshindo.1527:

confusion is really strong right now.
But the Mesmer nerf is coming.. I’m sure.

Let us hope.

What to do? Nothing.

Confusion damage is almost always outperformed by bleeds.

You’re making it sound much easier than it is to apply gigantic stacks of confusion. Even if you do, it runs out so quickly. The only time this happens as you’re explaining it is if a Mesmer uses his 3 on Scepter, and shatters confusion on you… this can’t happen all the time. Even then, the stacks required only last like 2 seconds. Dodge/Wait it out? Really isn’t that hard to do.

Confusion isnt even worth while in the least. It drops quicker than bleed and is much harder to stack than bleed. Honestly complaining about confusion is silly.