Guild Wars 2

The broken part of the rune is each interrupt adds 5 stacks of confusion for 10 seconds duration without internal cooldown, which allows you to stack 25 confusion without too much effort. They should be changed asap.

I had a feeling it would go exactly like this, i’m surprised they haven’t been nerfed to the ground immediately, it seems like the extra damage would be worth getting the runes even if it isn’t your focus.

As I posted on the video, makes you time your skills and punishes skill spammers… Working as intended, it’s pretty clear that Anet wanted to have this kind of play included in the game especially if you look at all the on interrupt traits mesmers have gotten as an example. In the hands of a good player it’s deadly, in the hands of a bad player, well I guess the confusion duration is nice…..

”In the hands of a good player” whaaaat..... It requieres 0 player skills to make this rune deadly specially as an engi.. This rune is very scary and eventually will have to get nerfed. In the meantime it is very fun easy mode to play with them

NERF has at least two engineers with this rune. One is an FT engi and the other specializes in popping Elixir X, the build really being defined by the rune. We are waiting for the nerfhammer…

LightningBlaze.4913:

”In the hands of a good player” whaaaat….. It requieres 0 player skills to make this rune deadly specially as an engi.. This rune is very scary and eventually will have to get nerfed. In the meantime it is very fun easy mode to play with them

Bad players that just spam skills when they are on cd will not get the most benefit from this runeset since you have to actually interrupt in order to get that 6/6 bonus. Yes on a engi we do have more opportunity to interrupt (if we build for it) than some other classes but that doesn’t make the runeset itself op. I mean hell, you could already stack that much confusion with a mesmer and everyone largely ignored confusion as a condition after the nerf, granted they typically had slower timing in generating cover conditions. It’s just everyone is pointing to this runeset and showing edited video"evidence" with conditions favorable to the build and runeset and claiming it needs to be nerfed into oblivion. If you look at this video, that guy who was attacking the dolyak, literally didn’t even know anyone was around him….you can’t seriously expect that someone with that kind of level of awareness would have won anyway with or without this runeset being used. My personal opinion is that it needs to be considered from all perspectives not just in a 1v1 scenario, give it time to develop and if people can’t figure out a way to counterplay it then and only then should it be nerfed. These callings for “nerf xyz because it’s op” before giving people time to adjust and actually figure out ways to deal with certain scenarios results in wild swings and shifts in balance or Anet missing their mark entirely when they get to swinging the nerfhammer. Just as likely that anet would look at this and go hmm engineers have too many interrupts we need to fix that

I fully expect anet to ruin this by doing something dumb like adding an internal cooldown. I really hate icd for on crit, hit, or interupt skills, because it automatically makes them single target. Instead, they should lower amount of stacks and/or the duration and keep the rune for it’s intended purpose.

As overpowered as a rune set can get.

Build?

15char

Man, koroshi, that deer was really out to get you.

ShadowPuppet.3746:

LightningBlaze.4913:

”In the hands of a good player” whaaaat….. It requieres 0 player skills to make this rune deadly specially as an engi.. This rune is very scary and eventually will have to get nerfed. In the meantime it is very fun easy mode to play with them

Bad players that just spam skills when they are on cd will not get the most benefit from this runeset since you have to actually interrupt in order to get that 6/6 bonus. Yes on a engi we do have more opportunity to interrupt (if we build for it) than some other classes but that doesn’t make the runeset itself op. I mean hell, you could already stack that much confusion with a mesmer and everyone largely ignored confusion as a condition after the nerf, granted they typically had slower timing in generating cover conditions. It’s just everyone is pointing to this runeset and showing edited video"evidence" with conditions favorable to the build and runeset and claiming it needs to be nerfed into oblivion. If you look at this video, that guy who was attacking the dolyak, literally didn’t even know anyone was around him….you can’t seriously expect that someone with that kind of level of awareness would have won anyway with or without this runeset being used. My personal opinion is that it needs to be considered from all perspectives not just in a 1v1 scenario, give it time to develop and if people can’t figure out a way to counterplay it then and only then should it be nerfed. These callings for “nerf xyz because it’s op” before giving people time to adjust and actually figure out ways to deal with certain scenarios results in wild swings and shifts in balance or Anet missing their mark entirely when they get to swinging the nerfhammer. Just as likely that anet would look at this and go hmm engineers have too many interrupts we need to fix that

http://youtu.be/rsQbe_BPjmk

As much as you want to believe it’s true, 21 stacks of confusion for just using your CC’s is absurd. I’m posting this video half as proof that stacking this confusion requires no co-ordination, and half because maybe this is the video you were talking about in your post.

The warrior in this video is simply using his CC skills. He’s not timing his interrupts as you seem to believe. They just happen. And every time they do, 9 stacks of confusion are added. He can, theoretically (and I believe he does at one point) put 21 stacks on someone instantly. To put that in perspective: 4,036 (21 stacks on confusion in the video) damage every skill. That’s the average Thief’s backstab on balanced players every time you use a skill, without all the set up.

Oh, beware of the massive amounts of memes in the video. It isn’t mine.

Hmm. My Mesmer can already stack 25 stacks of Might and Vulnerability with one press of F3. Sure, let’s add a crap ton more confusion to that as well. I’ll call it my buffet button.

Can anyone test if it work with the turret knockback as well? Be interesting to see.

Considering that turret-based skill interruptions (Accelerant-Packed Turret detonations, Thumper, Rocket and Net turret overcharges) don’t count toward the Skill Interrupter trait, I feel it unlikely that they’ll trigger the Rune of Perplexity.

It’s possible that I’m wrong, though, if anybody happens to have a set and be willing to use Turrets for a minute.

Anymras.5729:

Considering that turret-based skill interruptions (Accelerant-Packed Turret detonations, Thumper, Rocket and Net turret overcharges) don’t count toward the Skill Interrupter trait, I feel it unlikely that they’ll trigger the Rune of Perplexity.

It’s possible that I’m wrong, though, if anybody happens to have a set and be willing to use Turrets for a minute.

Well that would make sence.

1100 hours on my Engi and a T1 roamer, I feel I have enough ethos to say that this rune is blatantly overpowered. Shield 5 toss alone has a solid chance of dropping 10 stacks of confusion on somebody, the rewards for a very experienced player in trying to interrupt somebody are marginal when an inexperienced player can “spray and pray”, so to speak, and usually turn up positive results.

Our class is currently the most difficult to play when using 2+ kits, and these runes are so rampant amongst our ranks that they rip that honor from us.

I posted this in another thread, so I’ll repeat it here:

I have been wondering why the runes didn’t have an internal cooldown. Something like 15 seconds or so. The reasoning for this is quite simple: the proc on the x6 bonus is superior to every confusion skill in the game.

Every. Single. One. Let me give some examples:

Confusing Images: 5 stacks for 5 seconds. 15 second recharge.
Pry Bar: 5 stacks for 5 seconds. 15 second recharge.
Concussion Bomb: 5 stacks for 5 seconds. 18 second recharge.
Pain Inverter: 3 stacks for 5 seconds, 30 second recharge.
Sonic Shriek: 5 stacks for 5 seconds. 25 second recharge.
Cry of Frustration with Illusionary Retribution: 6 stacks for 3 seconds. 30 second recharge.

Notice a trend? Highest is 5 stacks for 5 seconds, at a 15 second recharge.

The rune set gives 5 stacks for 10 seconds, no recharge. The only limit to this is whatever access you have to interrupts, and many classes can stack a whole lot of interrupts. This rune set gives confusion twice as potent as every other confusion skill in the game, and it does this as freely as your ingenuity permits.

There is nothing about it that doesn’t scream “overpowered”. Those runes are awesome, and I want to have them on nearly every condition set I own. The only thing stopping me is the fact that I am almost certain that they’ll be nerfed in the future. If they aren’t nerfed, then the entirety of 1 vs. 1 combat becomes dictated by a rune set from strictly temporary content.

I used the runes the day after they were released, it worked well, but I didnt like how gimmicky it felt.

My experiences fighting people who use it have been hilarious. they keep expecting to win by simply stacking confusion, I’ve humiliated every single one of the guys I’ve seen use it. Today we had a 2v5 where 4 out of the 5 were using perplexity… 3 of them thieves, 1 mesm … and they still lost. In fact they lost so badly they swapped toons/builds after the 3rd defeat or so.

It’s a cheesy gimmicky rune set and it should be op… but all it takes is some paying attention. I stil think it deserves a cooldown, it doesnt make sense otherwise. on a related note, epidemic on those 25 stacks is hilarious :p

Chaba.5410:

NERF has at least two engineers with this rune. One is an FT engi and the other specializes in popping Elixir X, the build really being defined by the rune. We are waiting for the nerfhammer…

yup im the elixir x engi and pretty much use and pray for tornado(wink wink eles) to wreck zergs however i dont really have a build specified for the runes my build is pretty much bunker grenadier

if Anything all this runes have done is highlight how broken confusion as a condition really is .

The runes are even more blatantly op on a warr who can get 9 stacks of confusion with each interrupt (and they have alot of them).

AsmallChicken.9634:

The runes are even more blatantly op on a warr who can get 9 stacks of confusion with each interrupt (and they have alot of them).

this so much i dunno why engineers are the ones getting all the hate to begin with

All in all this runeset is powerful 1v1. And this game is not balanced around 1v1. When this runeset becomes a problem for overall group play then we will see. I think if they were gonna nerf it “Because engineers can get 25 stacks sooo easily” they would have done so when they nerfed the torment runes because engineers could stack max stacks of torment. (Good times btw). At the very least I see them adding a small icd to this wich wouldnt change much, it still wont make much of a difference in group play and it will still be strong via single play.

Rezzet.3614:

AsmallChicken.9634:

The runes are even more blatantly op on a warr who can get 9 stacks of confusion with each interrupt (and they have alot of them).

this so much i dunno why engineers are the ones getting all the hate to begin with

Warriors keep playing the “oh, but i am sooooo underpowered card!”. Even tough theyve been getting solid, and big, buffs for a bunch of patches straigth now.

People feel like an idiot complaining about the oh so “underpowered” Warrior. Truth is with all the love theyve been getting they are now one of the biggest outliers, especially in WvW.
Honestly, they are as bad as Thieves when it comes to roaming. Roaming in WvW is just Warriors, Warriors, moar Warriors. And if you look the other way you wont see anything, but the perma-stealth Thieves are all there.

Rezzet.3614:

Chaba.5410:

NERF has at least two engineers with this rune. One is an FT engi and the other specializes in popping Elixir X, the build really being defined by the rune. We are waiting for the nerfhammer…

yup im the elixir x engi and pretty much use and pray for tornado(wink wink eles) to wreck zergs however i dont really have a build specified for the runes my build is pretty much bunker grenadier

if Anything all this runes have done is highlight how broken confusion as a condition really is .

I didn’t know you are using them too! Add another to the list… LOL!

lmao I dont get the point of this video. The first loss showed that it was indeed a powerful runeset kitten many inturupts and stuns lead to not only free damage for the opponent but the confusion hindered retaliation. It also went to show the points of the frequent application and duration being the problem but the second showed that he was just mad at a stalemate? I mean he didnt even notice that at 3:04 the inturupt on the turret didnt even register the confusion. And his explanation about the engie had complete control over the fight and was just applying confusion and conditions and running away….dude thats what weve been doing since day 1 have you never fought an engie This video seems to show nothing more thatn in some situations this rune is strong and in others it balances the matchups a bit thats all.

Ross Biddle.2367:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOT1oJEEwc

Watching you play a mesmer is painful.

Poorly timed dodges, poorly timed temporal curtains, poorly timed blocks, there is never any distance between you and your opponent, you’re using a focus in a condition spec which is laughable, and even then you only once made good use of Phantasmal Warden, most of the time you were trying to stealth shatter like a condition spec is made to insta-gib burst someone down.

That video showed nothing about the runeset’s effectiveness, only your lack of effectiveness.

Maskaganda.2043:

I used the runes the day after they were released, it worked well, but I didnt like how gimmicky it felt.

My experiences fighting people who use it have been hilarious. they keep expecting to win by simply stacking confusion, I’ve humiliated every single one of the guys I’ve seen use it. Today we had a 2v5 where 4 out of the 5 were using perplexity… 3 of them thieves, 1 mesm … and they still lost. In fact they lost so badly they swapped toons/builds after the 3rd defeat or so.

It’s a cheesy gimmicky rune set and it should be op… but all it takes is some paying attention. I stil think it deserves a cooldown, it doesnt make sense otherwise. on a related note, epidemic on those 25 stacks is hilarious :p

What’s ur current build? Any new vids coming?

Alkaholic.3875:

What’s ur current build? Any new vids coming?

still running 10-20-10-30-0 most times. I change some stuff around for duels or if I need more tankiness, but thats generally it.

no new vids for now, I haven’t been recording at all. if you want to check out some of my group stuff http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayx2XPJ7XvE&feature=player_detailpage#t=211 , not my pov tho.

about perplexity, I dueled a very good engie yesterday and it was very very tough when he got an interrupt in but I still won most fights once I adapted a bit and payed more attention. Ended up 5-3 for me or so. Like I said, while I still believe a nerf is required, its not exactly auto win :p

These runes are incredibly strong, probably one of the best options for a solo roaming p/s engineer right now.

Mask is right though, if you pay attention and turn auto-attack off (if you watch koroshi’s video closely you’ll see he gets most of his interupts while the opponent is auto-attacking the air) you can beat this build.

It kind of reminds me of the perma-stealth full zerk backstab thief. When I first encountered one in wvw I thought I was literally fighting a god-mode class. After a few months (yes I’m a slow learner) I slotted in some toughness, adjusted my build, timed my dodge rolls better, and started to AoE more. Now I pretty much beat any zerk thief I come across.

The question is though is that do these runes illicit the same community response as perma-stealth thieves? Do they punish casual players as severely?

Well, they certainly punish casual players, but as of right now, the wvw forums do not have 10 threads regarding these runes, and perma-stealth thieves used to get 10 threads a day asking for them to be nerfed.

RIP elementalists.

I don’t think this set of rune is that op, it’s true that 25 stack of confusion is some sort of daze or die situation but is also true that except shield#5 all other interrupt engi have are knockback that can be easily prevent with stability, from this point of view mesmer and thief are a lot better with direct daze but it still have limitations, mesmer diversion has ~45 secs cd, mantra of distraction has 30 and 2,75 sec of cast, magic bullet have 25 sec cd and a thief spamming head shot with his x/P setup is probably just autoattack the rest of the time.
Elementalist have lots of condition cleansing(ether renewal just to say one) or can just take distance from you while confusion run off, warrior and guardian have shout to cleanse aoe+stability, ranger’s healing spring remove condition every sec, necro will just spit confusion back to you or convert it into boon, mesmer…well depend on the build he can shatter or heal to cleanse or just use null field, arcane thievery or mantra of resolve, thief will suicide for sure if he spam something in your face instead of stealth and wait it to run off.
I think in the end is more an overkill, I mean, it will kill faster bad players, but average or good player can play around it.

It’s not that OP, but with it’s lack of ICD, it’s very class-imbalanced. Some classes can interrupt very quickly, others nearly not at all.

And between that…

I love how people try to defend these. They are so blantantly OP its not even funny. It doesn’t take actual skill to “time” an interrupt, because in a fight someone will always be at least auto-attacking. These runes actually make playing even more mindless. “Ok, I use my interrupt skill, he gets a ton of confusion… I spam more interrupts, he gets confusion…etc.”

And to people who say “stop spamming skills,” two points:
1. How do you kill someone if you don’t use any attacks
2. Heals/cleanses/everything (attunement swaps, dodges as an ele) proc confusion. Using your heal skill can kill you.

These aren’t fun to play against, and there really is no defense to just massive confusion stacking. I am staying out of wvw until these get fixed.

The only issue is, ANet will end up nerfing Confusion (as a whole, again), not the runes specifically. When both the Runes and non-Mesmer confusion is already superior to Mesmer-based confusion. :’(

Even though Runes of Perplexity aren’t some automatic god-mode switch that makes you win every fight, it’s pretty obvious they’re not in balance with other rune effects. There’s just no way they’re going to be left in their current form for long.

Carighan.6758:

The only issue is, ANet will end up nerfing Confusion (as a whole, again), not the runes specifically. When both the Runes and non-Mesmer confusion is already superior to Mesmer-based confusion. :’(

Mesmers were (are) over-powered, primarily because they have access to the 4 biggest things in the game that matter: boons (perma protection for one), damage mitigation (while attacking), DPS/Condition builds (and tankiness with either), and stealth. Not just stealth, but 2 group stealth skills while moving, a 10-second AoE haste, portals… seriously.

The amount of confusion a single mesmer can drop on an entire zerg at a time is ridiculous, and despite the 5-target limit imposed on most other skills, several mes skills don’t have that cap.

The confusion nerf WAS misplaced, because other professions and racial skills should have been left alone and MESMERS should have been nerfed instead.

Ross Biddle.2367:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbOT1oJEEwc

First fight demonstrates how you are beaten easily in a 2v1 situation, second fight is a stalemate as a tanky Engi who knows how to sustain fights a Mesmer who needs to practice more.

The confusion didn’t kill you, playskill did.

I think if you have a good condition removal skill, you can go around this and live. And yeah, I agree it only weeds out the bad players.

I tried this in WvW for about 30 minutes but in zerg on zerg battles, you can only interrupt like one guy at a time with the shield, maybe a few with elite supply. I don’t see this as a game changer but that may be because zergs have stability and on top of that, dump stun and daze on other zergs so you have to work around the red aoe circles too while trying to focus on a random guy to interrupt and stack confusions on but even then, the enemy zerg train moves around so you have to watch out for them and move around them too.

I think overall, it’s pretty OP 1v1 but in a WvW zerg setting (tier 1 server), not so much of a game changer. I’m sticking to my condition grenade build, I find I can tag more kills and dps that way against zergs. So yeah, unless you like to 1v1 in WvW or go in small 3-4 man groups and just roam around, I don’t really see this as OP compared to other professions like the condi necro who can stack tons of aoe conditions on you. You can easily remove confusion with a proper condition removal skill.

Superior rune of Perplexity murders children.
I’ll just leave this here.
http://puu.sh/49pDO.gif

lakdav.3694:

Superior rune of Perplexity murders children.
I’ll just leave this here.
http://puu.sh/49pDO.gif

rofl

Really, the main issue to me is the lack of ICD, or at least… actually, in general:

• I’d prefer a “taper off”-mechanic instead of a proper ICD. As in, the faster I proc again after having the last proc, the weaker the effect.
• In cases where the mechanic is too binary (say the smoke bomb drop), have the chance increase per second until it hits 100% again. This could also work for incendiary powder, critical hits have up to 100% chance to cause burning for 4s (instead of 100% chance to cause 1s-Xs burning depending on last proc). This way the proc serves to smooth RNG a bit, if you crit less, the next time you do the proc is stronger.
• In the case of defensive procs, maybe the opposite: if triggered rapidly in succession (like the Mesmer anti-CC trait), then it becomes stronger, starting out very weak. This serves to mitigate spam-CC.

lakdav.3694:

Superior rune of Perplexity murders children.
I’ll just leave this here.
http://puu.sh/49pDO.gif

THEY JUST WANTED TO HAVE AN INNOCENT SNOWBALL FIGHT YOU MONSTER!

Nerf this today.

All kidding aside after the big confusion nerf I am hesitant to call this OP. My reasoning is simple. It is cross class (a few of them at least) and is generally only good 1v1. What i saw in that video was a lot of players not dodging long CD skills and obvious animations. I saw very little clearing and as wee all know in group play clearing happens often.

The way I see it they will likely put an icd in to make things “fair”. that being said with the number of people running around with condition nullifying builds its kind of a non issue.

I do not use or have these runes btw just my outsider’s view.

Just some observations:

1) I haven’t seen myself losing or going down lately in WvW due to Confusion.

2) Are Engi’s calling for it to be Nerfed because it makes us too powerful? What’s OP for an Engi is Noob level damage for most other professions.

3) Since day one, if I have Confusion stacked on me, I either cleanse it, or wait it out. This makes the Rune OP? Lol. LTP and quit spamming.

Soon.5240:

3) Since day one, if I have Confusion stacked on me, I either cleanse it, or wait it out. This makes the Rune OP? Lol. LTP and quit spamming.

From day one until quite recently the longest base duration confusion in the game was 5 seconds and no build could put up more than 12 stacks of it in a short window.

Runes of Perplexity, when combined with multiple interrupt skills, like the engineer’s shield 5 skill, allow players to get 20+ stacks of 10-second base duration confusion in a matter of seconds. If they’re using a koi cake and 10 points in explosives plus the 30% confusion duration on the runes themselves that’s 17 seconds during which the target cannot fight back. Nobody can survive “waiting out” that kind of duration in the middle of a fight unless they get a lot of help from someone else or are using Melandru runes and Lemongrass Poultry Soup.

As far as cleansing options go, that varies a lot with classes and builds, but there’s a reason condition pressure builds were already so common in sPvP and solo WvW roaming before Runes of Perplexity were even added to the game. Condition stacking is generally stronger than condition cleansing right now, and Perplexity has just made it easier to stack another condition along with all the others.

Stice.5204:

Condition stacking is generally stronger than condition cleansing right now.

Isnt that working as intented?

How would you envision a balance where condition removal outshines condition application, wouldnt that make every single condition build redundant?

I actually think it’s great for the classes with pets because it makes people think twice before using continuous stuns.

Will obviously be nerfed

still… why is this on the engineer forums if its about a rune in general which anyone can use to such effect?

I thin you cant nerf the runes enough until you change the mechanics completely.. even when the 6 rune bonus gets a 45-60sec cd and thr 4 stays the same and tehy nerf the confusion duration to 15 % runes will be still strong enough to be used.

i think the best way is to remove them completely