Guild Wars 2

So one thing that I’ve never been able to get to “work” on my mesmer is using confusion in PvE. Even with traits that help it, it just seems like mobs attack so slow that they only get like 1 or 2 hits from confusion and that’s it. And even with a ton of stacks of confusion…this isn’t really all that much damage. It’s decent, don’t get me wrong, but compared to my DD and bleeds, it’s nothing.

Players, on the other hand can get absolutely destroyed by confusion, especially if they are a spammy build.

So has anyone here been able to somehow make confusion effective in PvE? Or is it basically relegated to PvP only?

Eh, it sort of works. Though ironically I get MUCH better mileage out of it with my Engineer than I do on my Mesmer.

The main thing is to apply the confusion as close to the enemy attack as possible, and remember that if you do with with F2 shatter, this will kill the illusions and the only thing to swing at will be YOU. So it helps to be really close to the mob when you apply confusion – that way he’ll hopefully swing right away.

My personal spec involved confusion and retaliation on shatters, and I’m usually holding Blurred Frenzy ready. So as soon as illusions are gone from a shatter, the mob(s) turn to me, I damage them with Blurred Frenzy while invulnerable, and they eat both the confusion and the retaliation damage.

But on average, you’ll get just that – only one attack at most. Then the confusion will fall off. Even with 33% duration trait it falls off way too fast for my liking. Maybe if Scepter sucked a little less, it would work better.

One way to apply a few stacks is Illusionary Warden along with an Ethereal Combo Field. They’ll throw out some confusion bolts and you’ll get 5-6 stacks on a target that’s in melee range of the Warden. Not the greatest, but it can still do a fair amount of damage.

ShadowbaneX.6273:

One way to apply a few stacks is Illusionary Warden along with an Ethereal Combo Field. They’ll throw out some confusion bolts and you’ll get 5-6 stacks on a target that’s in melee range of the Warden. Not the greatest, but it can still do a fair amount of damage.

Yep, I’ve done that before. Fields are probably the best way to get confusion.

If you have 2 iDuelists on a mob, put a field up, then F2 shatter them plus scepter 3 that is a lot of confusion. Maybe even 15 stacks. And it will definitely hurt when the monster attacks.

The problem I have encountered is that it just isn’t that powerful all in all considered, the opportunity cost of intentionally stacking confusion is too high. In that time you spend to stack confusion, you could have been doing so many other things that produce so much more damage.

It’s kind of like confusion is okay as a supplemental source of damage that just happens due to stuff you are doing in PvE…but I really don’t think it’s viable to try to depend on it as any kind of mainstay damage in PvE. Instead, our condition builds typically center around bleed which we get from one trait. Which is kind of annoying considering that confusion is mesmer’s bread and butter condition, and bleed is not.

I would love if there was another condition in the game that was kind of like Wastrel’s Demise from GW1 that would do damage if the enemy did NOT use a skill. This would work wonders against monsters.

maybe a solution would be to make confusion different in PvE so that it did damage if the enemy moved or stayed still or something…so that way it would be much more viable, but would still require some kind of planning and me “mesmer-y.”

Creslin.1758:

The problem I have encountered is that it just isn’t that powerful all in all considered, the opportunity cost of intentionally stacking confusion is too high. In that time you spend to stack confusion, you could have been doing so many other things that produce so much more damage.

Yeha, this is definitely the point right here. I love my Mesmer, but it does take a while to get going. Pulling that sort of thing against a Champion or against another player in PvP or WvW might be worth while, but anything could usually killed much easier.

I think once the Devs have everything balanced out to their like and all the Live Bugs figured out they can start to focus more on a PvP/PvE split which would make things more more reasonable. Once that happens hopefully things will be better.

I was wandering around Straights of Devastation the other night and the Temple of Balthazar chain was happening. I joined in and man, I got I think three drops all the way up the mountain. I just couldn’t do enough damage, either with the sword, greatsword or staff. There was just no way I was doing anywhere near as much damage as the other classes. I did eventually get Gold for participating, but I think that was more the Illusionary Warlock than me. Those guys hit hard when there’s like every condition in the game on a target.