Guild Wars 2

Damage breakdown-highest damage from confusion,CC ability that can be spammed also does highest damage and with no consistent counter ( no healers to heal and cleanse and cc/cond removal on high cd ).Can pvp in this game get any more frustrating?

confusion has one of the shortest durations of all conditions, either use a utility or heal to cleanse the debuff or just outlast it max 2-3 seconds from what i’ve seen. Confusion punishes people for not checking your debuff’s if a around 5 stacks on my engineer from a confusion bomb will do around 300-400 per attack that the enemy uses which is more than avoidable.

Hope this helps

Edit: Confusion cannot be spammed mesmers can deal alot of confusion in a short time frame however there is a CD of around 15 seconds – 20 seconds before it can be done again same with engineers so it’s definatly not a spammable condition.

If its a highest damage its a spam.

If it’s highest damage that simply means you spammed your own stuff while debuffed with a lot of confusion stacks – probably cause you didn’t notice.

That said, there are situations where it’s unavoidable cause your condi removal decided to remove something other than confusion and casting nothing can sometimes be worse than casting something w/ confusion up.

Just gotta deal with it. It’s hardly the biggest offender in the realm of hands-off damage anyways… you’re probably better off kittening about retal or air runes.

Noctred.6732:

If it’s highest damage that simply means you spammed your own stuff while debuffed with a lot of confusion stacks – probably cause you didn’t notice.

That said, there are situations where it’s unavoidable cause your condi removal decided to remove something other than confusion and casting nothing can sometimes be worse than casting something w/ confusion up.

Just gotta deal with it. It’s hardly the biggest offender in the realm of hands-off damage anyways… you’re probably better off kittening about retal or air runes.

Or 25 stacks of bleeds from a condition necro and death blossom thief :p

I play as ranger and use signet to cleanse conditions and stun but its on high cd.If i am for example defending henge point in tpvp i cant run from retaliation or mesmer cc fields which means guards and mesmers can abuse their inherently unfair retaliation and cc abilities.I think that is ridiculous.If someone spams cc or conditions on me every 5 or 10 seconds i should be able to counter that every 5 or 10 seconds.CC and conditions should be auxiliary abilities used tacticly especialy with no healers o heal and cleanse and with toughness not mitigating cond dmg.

CC fields? if you mean etherial combo fields for example null field , time warp and chaos storm have quite high cooldowns also there are not classed as CC as there are not control based skills with the exception of chaos field which is a 1 second daze. Really though for point defense at this moment in time rangers are not usually the prefered profession as they provide a better presence in team fights.

Also in regards to retalliation the damage back from retal is minor from what i’ve seen it’s around 20%-30% i think correct me if i’m wrong. I understand that it’s frustrating to die to conditions believe me dying to two necro’s in foefire is not fun at all, however conditions can be countered you just need to find what works for you.

again hope this helps.

Confusion (as has been mentioned) is by far not as bad as you (the OP) wants to make it look. It has a short duration, so if you get confusion stacked just dodge roll for 1 sec and wait another second and then you are good to go.
I would pick retaliation over confusion every time of the day. Sure the enemy must be attacking You to get damaged but retaliation should only be used when you have someone attacking you anyway.
Both pretty much does the same thing, and almost the same damage (if not the same, don’t know the alghoritm for them). It’s just a matter of being aware enough to notice when they are being used.

In my eyes the buff/condition is good and well balanced. Sorry to say this, I know it does not sound good, but it is just a matter of skill to be able to notice and counter it. Practice makes perfect.

Infinitus.3712:

CC fields? if you mean etherial combo fields for example null field , time warp and chaos storm have quite high cooldowns also there are not classed as CC as there are not control based skills with the exception of chaos field which is a 1 second daze. Really though for point defense at this moment in time rangers are not usually the prefered profession as they provide a better presence in team fights.

Also in regards to retalliation the damage back from retal is minor from what i’ve seen it’s around 20%-30% i think correct me if i’m wrong. I understand that it’s frustrating to die to conditions believe me dying to two necro’s in foefire is not fun at all, however conditions can be countered you just need to find what works for you.

again hope this helps.

Don’t quote me on this one, but I am pretty sure that the damage taken from retaliation and confusion is based off of power. Not a percentage of the damage done or anything such, so it should be consistent.

Infinitus.3712:

CC fields? if you mean etherial combo fields for example null field , time warp and chaos storm have quite high cooldowns also there are not classed as CC as there are not control based skills with the exception of chaos field which is a 1 second daze. Really though for point defense at this moment in time rangers are not usually the prefered profession as they provide a better presence in team fights.

Also in regards to retalliation the damage back from retal is minor from what i’ve seen it’s around 20%-30% i think correct me if i’m wrong. I understand that it’s frustrating to die to conditions believe me dying to two necro’s in foefire is not fun at all, however conditions can be countered you just need to find what works for you.

again hope this helps.

On more than 1 occasion damage breakdown would show retaliation as highest damage when i die to guards and recently to mesmer too.So that damage is not minor at all.Moreover it should not be part of the game at all.I f i am defending a point and opponent has ret buff i cant run and i cant hit him.I should just stand there and take hits? Cant even strafe properly around him to avoid his damage cause for some reason you cant turn while holding right mouse button or use endurance for short movement speed burst like in AoC.Plus you actually slow down when movinfg in combat when it shoul be the opposite ( adrenaline kicks in etc).

@ Rythgar: cheers for clarifying that for me, that would make more sense then a straight percentage.

@ Khyras I do see where you’re coming from when it comes to retal, however i only see large retal numbers if i’ve been in a 5 minute team fight at most, if not it’s a very small amount to what accounted to my death. Really when it comes to guardians especially mesmer’s not so much cause mesmers only retalliation is on the phantasm’s. The problem with guardians is that they just outlast you and your pretty much kill yourself on them if you’re a power build especially (conditions work alot better as tick don’t count toward retal hits.) The best advice? if there’s a guardian point sitting by himself and you’re by yourself leave him alone go else where it’s just not worth it.

confusion i use as a mesmer:
etherial combo field(4x of those) + projectile finisher => confusion
F2 => confusion
some traits=>confusion

run and hide. run and hide

and about counter. for me its enough to have null field+ cleanse on heal trait. also if i wanted to be team player, i could get condition removing mantra (removes 2 conditions for all allies, 10s cooldown)

Infinitus.3712:

Really when it comes to guardians especially mesmer’s not so much cause mesmers only retalliation is on the phantasm’s.

if you think mesmers get retaliation only from phantasm, you are gonna have a bad time.

light field+leap => retaliation

often used with sword+focus, temporal curtain for light field, and then leap twice with (3) sword skill.

EDIT: ow that kind of reminded me that light field+whirlwind => cleaning bolts combo, kind of tricky to pull off, but its temporal curtain on iWarden (mesmers will know)

Saulius.8430:

confusion i use as a mesmer:
etherial combo field(4x of those) + projectile finisher => confusion
F2 => confusion
some traits=>confusion

run and hide. run and hide

and about counter. for me its enough to have null field+ cleanse on heal trait. also if i wanted to be team player, i could get condition removing mantra (removes 2 conditions for all allies, 10s cooldown)

What he said proves my point.

Khyras.8021:

Saulius.8430:

confusion i use as a mesmer:
etherial combo field(4x of those) + projectile finisher => confusion
F2 => confusion
some traits=>confusion

run and hide. run and hide

and about counter. for me its enough to have null field+ cleanse on heal trait. also if i wanted to be team player, i could get condition removing mantra (removes 2 conditions for all allies, 10s cooldown)

What he said proves my point.

Read before giving a seal of approval.

Those are all the skills…no mesmer has them all available at all times.

Ethereal combo fields with confusion and whirl will apply confusion, but we barely have any projectiles skills. And if we do they have no place in a condition build since confusion scales with condition damage. F2 still has a cooldown and shatters all the illusions which again a mesmer also killing of his phantasm dps in the process. And yes some traits apply confusion when you ENTER or LEAVE a 3 different utility skills…which no one mesmer will have on his bar…again only in the rare case he is playing some home brewed condition build.

TL;DR. No mesmer can simultaneously make use of all the above skills in a efficient manner without serious sacrifice in burst damage.

And considering the previous you are basically complaining of a skill that can be avoided and deals less damage over time then other DoTs which condition build classes can apply easily without making combos like mad.

Your only issue here appears that you hate it when someone stacks 8 confusion on you and your attacking with a short bow while using quickness inside a feedback bubble.

Hastur.6231:

Those are all the skills…no mesmer has them all available at all times.

TL;DR. No mesmer can simultaneously make use of all the above skills in a efficient manner without serious sacrifice in burst damage.

agree with you. i have no burst. as i’m tank. not condition based player.

but i have them all available in my bar when in spvp (chaos storm+ feedback/null field + timewarp)
projectile combo gets triggered by my staff and ranged clone autoattacks (well 20% of them duh)
the only trait i use, is confusion when clone gets killed, well + other random condition when clone killed. (tho works only vs dumb or aoe opponents)

its defensive build that does more damage the harder opponent tries to kill you.
and to sum it up. its tie or die build. for the opponents that is.

Hastur.6231:

Your only issue here appears that you hate it when someone stacks 8 confusion on you and your attacking with a short bow while using quickness inside a feedback bubble.

that made me laugh love to see them killing themselves on feedback bubbles(notice the plural, <3 revive bubbles), temporal curtain and iWarden

Hastur.6231:

Khyras.8021:

Saulius.8430:

confusion i use as a mesmer:
etherial combo field(4x of those) + projectile finisher => confusion
F2 => confusion
some traits=>confusion

run and hide. run and hide

and about counter. for me its enough to have null field+ cleanse on heal trait. also if i wanted to be team player, i could get condition removing mantra (removes 2 conditions for all allies, 10s cooldown)

What he said proves my point.

Read before giving a seal of approval.

Those are all the skills…no mesmer has them all available at all times.

Ethereal combo fields with confusion and whirl will apply confusion, but we barely have any projectiles skills. And if we do they have no place in a condition build since confusion scales with condition damage. F2 still has a cooldown and shatters all the illusions which again a mesmer also killing of his phantasm dps in the process. And yes some traits apply confusion when you ENTER or LEAVE a 3 different utility skills…which no one mesmer will have on his bar…again only in the rare case he is playing some home brewed condition build.

TL;DR. No mesmer can simultaneously make use of all the above skills in a efficient manner without serious sacrifice in burst damage.

And considering the previous you are basically complaining of a skill that can be avoided and deals less damage over time then other DoTs which condition build classes can apply easily without making combos like mad.

Your only issue here appears that you hate it when someone stacks 8 confusion on you and your attacking with a short bow while using quickness inside a feedback bubble.

Do not put words in my mouth i never said i use quickness and i dont use it actually.Point is i dont run from a fight and i dont want to stand in one place ( while defending a node) while his clones are dpsing me I can only cleanse myself of conditions once per average fight and i can dodge twice after that i am free target.Entire confusion/retaliation concept is crap imo and should not be part of this game.

Khyras.8021:

Infinitus.3712:

CC fields? if you mean etherial combo fields for example null field , time warp and chaos storm have quite high cooldowns also there are not classed as CC as there are not control based skills with the exception of chaos field which is a 1 second daze. Really though for point defense at this moment in time rangers are not usually the prefered profession as they provide a better presence in team fights.

Also in regards to retalliation the damage back from retal is minor from what i’ve seen it’s around 20%-30% i think correct me if i’m wrong. I understand that it’s frustrating to die to conditions believe me dying to two necro’s in foefire is not fun at all, however conditions can be countered you just need to find what works for you.

again hope this helps.

On more than 1 occasion damage breakdown would show retaliation as highest damage when i die to guards and recently to mesmer too.So that damage is not minor at all.Moreover it should not be part of the game at all.I f i am defending a point and opponent has ret buff i cant run and i cant hit him.I should just stand there and take hits? Cant even strafe properly around him to avoid his damage cause for some reason you cant turn while holding right mouse button or use endurance for short movement speed burst like in AoC.Plus you actually slow down when movinfg in combat when it shoul be the opposite ( adrenaline kicks in etc).

This reply might sound a bit harsh, and I am also not trying to promote myself, just stating that it can be handled with practice and “skill” (for lack of a better word).

I hinted at it at my last post, and I will repeat it again. If you get retaliation or confusion you can either cleanse it (from yourself or the enemy) and lacking that you can simply avoid attacking!
The problem that occurs then (as you have stated) is that he can attack but not you. So, instead of calling the boon/condition OP you might want to think around the problem? The first (and perhaps most obvious, but still most efficient) option is to prevent the enemy from doing damage, putting you back on even ground. How can you do this? Well, perhaps some nice CC? Line of Sight? Dodge rolling?
As you brought up, while holding a point your options are limited, but I consider CC,Block,Evade being all good options, available for all.
Might be sour to get the answer “practice more” or “increase your skill and awareness” but in some cases (a lot of them tbh) it is the only real answer. Let’s not make GW2 into another child’s game, Please!

P.S. This all comes from someone who have a) learned it the hard way and b) uses it on a daily basis with great success. I never ever have ret/conf on the top half of my breakdown. D.S.

Rythgar.2896:

Khyras.8021:

Infinitus.3712:

CC fields? if you mean etherial combo fields for example null field , time warp and chaos storm have quite high cooldowns also there are not classed as CC as there are not control based skills with the exception of chaos field which is a 1 second daze. Really though for point defense at this moment in time rangers are not usually the prefered profession as they provide a better presence in team fights.

Also in regards to retalliation the damage back from retal is minor from what i’ve seen it’s around 20%-30% i think correct me if i’m wrong. I understand that it’s frustrating to die to conditions believe me dying to two necro’s in foefire is not fun at all, however conditions can be countered you just need to find what works for you.

again hope this helps.

On more than 1 occasion damage breakdown would show retaliation as highest damage when i die to guards and recently to mesmer too.So that damage is not minor at all.Moreover it should not be part of the game at all.I f i am defending a point and opponent has ret buff i cant run and i cant hit him.I should just stand there and take hits? Cant even strafe properly around him to avoid his damage cause for some reason you cant turn while holding right mouse button or use endurance for short movement speed burst like in AoC.Plus you actually slow down when movinfg in combat when it shoul be the opposite ( adrenaline kicks in etc).

This reply might sound a bit harsh, and I am also not trying to promote myself, just stating that it can be handled with practice and “skill” (for lack of a better word).

I hinted at it at my last post, and I will repeat it again. If you get retaliation or confusion you can either cleanse it (from yourself or the enemy) and lacking that you can simply avoid attacking!
The problem that occurs then (as you have stated) is that he can attack but not you. So, instead of calling the boon/condition OP you might want to think around the problem? The first (and perhaps most obvious, but still most efficient) option is to prevent the enemy from doing damage, putting you back on even ground. How can you do this? Well, perhaps some nice CC? Line of Sight? Dodge rolling?
As you brought up, while holding a point your options are limited, but I consider CC,Block,Evade being all good options, available for all.
Might be sour to get the answer “practice more” or “increase your skill and awareness” but in some cases (a lot of them tbh) it is the only real answer. Let’s not make GW2 into another child’s game, Please!

P.S. This all comes from someone who have a) learned it the hard way and b) uses it on a daily basis with great success. I never ever have ret/conf on the top half of my breakdown. D.S.

Do educate me. Example: Henge point fight in battle of niflhel.You are ranger fighting against confusion/ret mesmer to keep the point. What cc or block you use on him when confusion or retaliation is up and how do you los him without leaving the point? Keep in mind that wolf fear is bugged (simply goes on cd sometimes instead of executing) and is not instant plus wolf is a melee and i dont us it cause of bad pet ai.

The only time you should fear confusion is when fighting mesmers underwater. Those trident clones stack it like nobody’s business.

Wolf fear can be dodged/blocked and guess this its useless when a mesmer is distorting. I do this to kill downed necros with efficiency. And I was implying you were dying under a feedback bubble since that’s how you aoe kill rangers who can’t stop shooting cause they lost the ESC key on the keyboard.

And it might come as a surprise I have no condition removal on my bars at all and I never did complain about confusion/ret, since I avoid taking damage or depend on team mates to remove the conditions for me.

Also confusion scales with cond dmg and ret scales with power…another unlikely spec to meet in PvP.

@ Saulius.8430
Staff has no projectile skills.

Also as i’ve stated if you’re playing a ranger then at the current state of ranger you’re 10 times more useful in Niffel at mid from afar or from the top. Rangers at this moment don’t really have a great point defending capability, however there contribution to team fight’s is fantastic especially the bleed builds.

Does confusion effect stomps and revivals?

Any ability that makes you watch your UI and not the fight is poor design, IMO. Not sure why games are still putting in abilities like this… they don’t really add much as far as strategy but cause all sorts of weird stuff.

Zosk.5609:

Any ability that makes you watch your UI and not the fight is poor design, IMO. Not sure why games are still putting in abilities like this… they don’t really add much as far as strategy but cause all sorts of weird stuff.

Exactly i have enough trouble finding him in the first place then when i find him i should wait for ret/confusion to expire? What a joke.

what do you mean any ability that makes you watch your UI? If you’re talking about conditions then that’s a standard thing for MMO’s for example Unstabe affliction in WoW requires you as a healer to watch what to dispel. watching conditions are no different it’s the same with stability why would you try using a knock down when they have stability? it’s obervatin and the UI allows you to see these things in a 0.5 second glance you don’t need to stare at you conditions until they go away that would be silly.

The real issue behind buffs and debuffs are the lack of visual indicator on your character in the game world, not the UI that shows me all my buffs and debuffs. If these buffs and debuffs could be closer to my character, even small icons right next to my characters head I would find them much easier to deal with.

A size scaling slider bar for controlling how large the icons are (for people who like them tiny, and other people who can’t see) would allow for an easy way to see if you have a specific condition on you, number of stacks could be completely optional but also have a slide bar for controlling size, preferably under a drop down menu connected to if turning on the icons in the first place.

@OP: Condition Mesmers aiming for confusion rarely are used, and rarely assault a node protected by a Ranger anyhow, so these are very uncommon events. The complaints to the conditions and boons being in the game in the first place seem a bit unwarranted as I’ve seen similar things in many games in the past. As to defending on a node as a ranger, the best I’ve seen is the Sword/Dagger Ranger who just evades all my attacks on Mesmer and pretty much lets his pet beat me. This is because Ranger Pets are invincible, just swap it out when it gets low on health, or at least that’s what he was doing when I decided to beat his pet instead. No clue what build he was using, but it gave me troubles on my Mesmer, never finished the fight before both teams showed up so I can’t tell you how it plays out, I might have eventually got him. At any rate, maybe try a different build?

Just want to throw some things out there.

1- Winds of Chaos is a projectile
2- The cleanse mantra doesn’t cleanse allies, only yourself
3- Confusion is a condition, power does nothing for it…. welcome to gw2
4- Confusion can not have high stacks on you a majority of the time unless you’re getting chained with combos, or you’re in the water (trident clones spam bouncing confusion). If you’re in a 1v1 that means the duelist and staff clones need to die as they are the main sources of combo confusion with zerker and warden being minor sources. Confusion does hit hard at high stacks, but they tend to be short duration spikes unless you’re doing something wrong.

5- Pro tip, shooting feedback with a projectile will not only reflect back at you, but it will also put a stack of confusion on you…. so don’t shoot the reflect bubble.

Keep an eye on your conditions, learn the applications of confusion, learn to dodge the major applications when possible, learn to mitigate the effects of the abilities that do land, and kitten stop with the tears.

TLDR: Confusion is fine, l2p

Odaman.8359:

1- Winds of Chaos is a projectile

I think he meant it’s not a projectile finisher, like Necro staff 1 for example.

Zosk.5609:

Any ability that makes you watch your UI and not the fight is poor design, IMO. Not sure why games are still putting in abilities like this… they don’t really add much as far as strategy but cause all sorts of weird stuff.

“Characters suffering from confusion can be identified by twirling, purple tinted spiral over their heads. Additionally, the same effect will appear alongside damage dealt by confusion when using a skill. "

-GW2 Wiki

Rythgar.2896:

Don’t quote me on this one, but I am pretty sure that the damage taken from retaliation and confusion is based off of power. Not a percentage of the damage done or anything such, so it should be consistent.

retal is power based (slightly) and confusion is just a standart condition based heavily on condition damage

engi confusion bomb does 5stacks for ~8sec hitting you for ~800dmg for each action on a traited ~15sec cd (talking cookie cutter condition engi here)

now that would be 50% uptime where you are not supposed to do anything, that’s pretty good for a single ability and since the bomb just looks like all the other bombs completely indistinguishable you can’t reliable dodge it either

Cosmic Teapot.9162:

“Characters suffering from confusion can be identified by twirling, purple tinted spiral over their heads. Additionally, the same effect will appear alongside damage dealt by confusion when using a skill. "

-GW2 Wiki

Most of the conditions have a very subtle visual cue, but it’s no where near as effective as looking down at your bar. That said, it’d be nice to have control over the visual cue, to emphasis it more or to tone it down, and preferably for each particular condition as well. I personally don’t care about the cripple as it’s easy to tell I’m moving slow, but all the damage dealing ones could use a bit of an enhance (optionally) to increase visibility, easier to have little icons next to my characters head though, nice brightly colored or even just white and black.

Was just fighting mesmers in tpvp with warrior this time.I took 3 cond removers ( 2 shouts and a signet) Whenever im fighting mesmer confusion is almost constantly on me.I spend all 3 cond removers to remove confusion the i look at ui lo and behold 8 stacks of confusion on me.Entire fight takes less than a minute. Who ever designed this pvp system never spent a day playing pvp in any MMO.I think they are trolling us or something.

Confusion forces you to carefully consider your next moments, do you attack through it,knowing for certain that you will take damage but the target may not? Do you wait it out, knowing that you’re giving someone a break from pressure? Or do you cleanse it, with the knowledge that it will fade in 3-4s?

These are hard choices, and that is the whole point of confusion, to force you to make a snap decision that isn’t an easy call. If you’re constantly under large stacks of it, you either need to wait it out and reset the fight, or clean it if you wish to keep on fighting. Smaller stacks can be ignored depending on circumstances.

Numot.3965:

Confusion forces you to carefully consider your next moments, do you attack through it,knowing for certain that you will take damage but the target may not? Do you wait it out, knowing that you’re giving someone a break from pressure? Or do you cleanse it, with the knowledge that it will fade in 3-4s?

These are hard choices, and that is the whole point of confusion, to force you to make a snap decision that isn’t an easy call. If you’re constantly under large stacks of it, you either need to wait it out and reset the fight, or clean it if you wish to keep on fighting. Smaller stacks can be ignored depending on circumstances.

Wait it out for 3 or 4 seconds? 3-4 seconds is an eternity especialy with unchecked burst damage from thieves and condition stacks.I cant reset engagement like thieves.While im staring at him for 4 seconds his clones dps me and his cds are coming back up.I cant check him for retaliation check my ui for confusion and look for “real” mesmer all at the same time.Entire mesmer profession is a joke for any person who played pvp in any other online game. Some things that are unfair advantage you just dont allow when balancing pvp.