Guild Wars 2

Is there a build thats good at this?

I mean, duelist+ethereal field is only 20% now.

so its only scept, confu shatters, and traited glamour which now suck. and of course perplexity.

In order to truly stack confusion to levels that matter, you must sacrifice all other aspects of the build, instantly making your stacked confusion completely vulnerable to the /dance defense.

There should be a trait in chaos at the master tiers wich say:

“applying a stack of confusion extends the duration of current confusion stacks by 3 sec”. ö.ö

That’s the issue with a condition build based on a single condition: it’s easily cleansed. When it’s confusion, the issue becomes more frustrating: go afk.
Dhuumfire shoulda been a Mesmer trait

Oh well. Ever since that double nerf all is but lost.

I remembered what happens if you feedback a pistol thief? I mean their attacks are projectile finishers right? So do they get confused too?

The new torment on shatter trait may allow for this to work, but pyroatheist is correct atm.

Are u talkin p/p? Its jst projectile bounce not confusion also focusing on confusion isnt to good seeing how it relies on the enemy being oblivous to the fact that they have confusion on. A good player that gets confusion on them knows better to swing like a mad man

Pyroathiest.4168:

In order to truly stack confusion to levels that matter, you must sacrifice all other aspects of the build, instantly making your stacked confusion completely vulnerable to the /dance defense.

Hmmmmmm… IP Condi-shatter can pretty much instantly get 12+ stacks of confusion (3-clone mindwrack, followed by mirror images and a dodge, then Cry of Frustration), while still putting decent general condi pressure with burns/bleeds.

In anticipation of the feature patch, I played the build (20/20/0/0/30) last night to pretty good effect. Folks are so conditioned for the war of attrition style condi mesmer (think Blackwater) that they aren’t really expecting the condi burst from a staff mesmer. Had a great time. :-)

Dhampyr.2104:

Pyroathiest.4168:

In order to truly stack confusion to levels that matter, you must sacrifice all other aspects of the build, instantly making your stacked confusion completely vulnerable to the /dance defense.

Hmmmmmm… IP Condi-shatter can pretty much instantly get 12+ stacks of confusion (3-clone mindwrack, followed by mirror images and a dodge, then Cry of Frustration), while still putting decent general condi pressure with burns/bleeds.

In anticipation of the feature patch, I played the build (20/20/0/0/30) last night to pretty good effect. Folks are so conditioned for the war of attrition style condi mesmer (think Blackwater) that they aren’t really expecting the condi burst from a staff mesmer. Had a great time. :-)

Yes, the build works against bad players. The confusion lasts 4 seconds. All it takes is for them to pause momentarily and your burst is completely wasted. Anyone with even passable skill will never die to confusion burst shatter.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Dhampyr.2104:

Pyroathiest.4168:

In order to truly stack confusion to levels that matter, you must sacrifice all other aspects of the build, instantly making your stacked confusion completely vulnerable to the /dance defense.

Hmmmmmm… IP Condi-shatter can pretty much instantly get 12+ stacks of confusion (3-clone mindwrack, followed by mirror images and a dodge, then Cry of Frustration), while still putting decent general condi pressure with burns/bleeds.

In anticipation of the feature patch, I played the build (20/20/0/0/30) last night to pretty good effect. Folks are so conditioned for the war of attrition style condi mesmer (think Blackwater) that they aren’t really expecting the condi burst from a staff mesmer. Had a great time. :-)

Yes, the build works against bad players. The confusion lasts 4 seconds. All it takes is for them to pause momentarily and your burst is completely wasted. Anyone with even passable skill will never die to confusion burst shatter.

While I agree with you in theory, in practice, it hasn’t been working that way. Folks in WvW are so conditioned to seeing PU condi mesmers whose only strat is to outlast their opponent that they don’t expect to see 12+ stacks of confusion, on top of other conditions (soon to be torment and extra bounces from staff clones as well), and by the time they realize it, they’re on the defensive pretty hard. Also, with perplexity runes, the 33% trait, 20 in dom, and the 40% food, the duration is doubled (along with 60% duration increase to all your other condis).

I guess it pays off to not run the PU condi meta (at least, it has been that way for me). Mesmer mind games ftw.

Dhampyr.2104:

Pyroathiest.4168:

Dhampyr.2104:

Pyroathiest.4168:

In order to truly stack confusion to levels that matter, you must sacrifice all other aspects of the build, instantly making your stacked confusion completely vulnerable to the /dance defense.

Hmmmmmm… IP Condi-shatter can pretty much instantly get 12+ stacks of confusion (3-clone mindwrack, followed by mirror images and a dodge, then Cry of Frustration), while still putting decent general condi pressure with burns/bleeds.

In anticipation of the feature patch, I played the build (20/20/0/0/30) last night to pretty good effect. Folks are so conditioned for the war of attrition style condi mesmer (think Blackwater) that they aren’t really expecting the condi burst from a staff mesmer. Had a great time. :-)

Yes, the build works against bad players. The confusion lasts 4 seconds. All it takes is for them to pause momentarily and your burst is completely wasted. Anyone with even passable skill will never die to confusion burst shatter.

While I agree with you in theory, in practice, it hasn’t been working that way. Folks in WvW are so conditioned to seeing PU condi mesmers whose only strat is to outlast their opponent that they don’t expect to see 12+ stacks of confusion, on top of other conditions (soon to be torment and extra bounces from staff clones as well), and by the time they realize it, they’re on the defensive pretty hard. Also, with perplexity runes, the 33% trait, 20 in dom, and the 40% food, the duration is doubled (along with 60% duration increase to all your other condis).

I guess it pays off to not run the PU condi meta (at least, it has been that way for me). Mesmer mind games ftw.

Perplexity runes don’t work. You have 33, 20, and 40 for a total of 93% duration giving you about 6 seconds of confusion. Unfortunately, once you burst that confusion, you’ve now destroyed 100% of your other condition potential. You have no clones left. You’ve burnt mirror images.

Again, this works against bad players. By definition, only a bad player will kill themselves on confusion. You keep saying ‘people don’t expect the burst and so they kill themselves’. You are describing really bad players. If they don’t notice a Mesmer bursting confusion, if they don’t dodge easily dodgeable shatters then they are a really bad player.

My reaction to seeing 12 stacks of confusion would be to pop a condition removal immediately. Since my condition removals are on 20ish second cooldowns and your shatter burst is on a 36 second cooldown, you lose.

Pyroathiest.4168:

Perplexity runes don’t work. You have 33, 20, and 40 for a total of 93% duration giving you about 6 seconds of confusion. Unfortunately, once you burst that confusion, you’ve now destroyed 100% of your other condition potential. You have no clones left. You’ve burnt mirror images.

Again, this works against bad players. By definition, only a bad player will kill themselves on confusion. You keep saying ‘people don’t expect the burst and so they kill themselves’. You are describing really bad players. If they don’t notice a Mesmer bursting confusion, if they don’t dodge easily dodgeable shatters then they are a really bad player.

My reaction to seeing 12 stacks of confusion would be to pop a condition removal immediately. Since my condition removals are on 20ish second cooldowns and your shatter burst is on a 36 second cooldown, you lose.

Again, I agree with you and I’m not arguing. The only flaw in your statement is that you seem to be considering yourself the “average” player in WvW. Of course this wouldn’t work on you – but for the general populace that frequents WvW, it works great, especially when they’re figuring me, a staff mesmer, to be running PU and clone death. In a true 1v1 dueling situation, I don’t think this build would fare very well – but against the average players in WvW, it works fine in my experience.

Also, after the burst, I’m not without clones either – I’ve only burnt one dodge, I have vigor (most likely), and my Staff #2 is off CD for a total of three clones (or two clones and one iWarlock if I want to save a dodge) up very quickly AFTER the burst, hitting with burns, bleeds, and vuln. It’ll only get better after the fix to IE which will (hopefully) hit today.

I’m not saying this is the best build out there by any means – however, it has a ton of survivability, decent mobility for a mesmer, does decent damage, and the stacks of confusion in the burst can be very relevant, especially since they’re AOE (for a large group encounter). The OP was asking about confusion stacking, and this build does it about as well as any imo, while not relying on confusion as its sole source of damage.