Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I was playing around with the ineptitude trait and I noticed that the confusion application also uses the trait’s internal cooldown. Reading the trait however it sounds to me as if the internal cooldown is supposed to only affect the applying blind on block and evade part.

Clear description: 1. I apply a blind with mind wrack (Blinding Dissipation Trait) —> 2 confusion stacks are applied (1 from the skill itself with the Illusionary Retribution Trait) and 1 from the Ineptitude trait.
2. Right after, I use Distortion --> only 1 stack of confusion is applied at this point. the one from the Illusionary Retribution Trait. It does not apply the confusion stack for me applying a second blind to the enemy through the Blinding Dissipation Trait.
3. Right after that, I use Diversion —> once again only 1 stack of confusion is applied to the target, even though I once again applied a blind to him.

I typed out the scenarion as clearly as I could, so I hope you all understand exactly what I mean.

Is the Ineptitude Trait supposed to only let you apply confusion once every 10 seconds? Or is this a bug that should be reported to Arenanet?

Thank you for reading.

The cooldown on confusion application is intentional. See the July 2016 patchnotes

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2016-07-26#Mesmer

They specifically mention that ineptitude will now track the ICD for confusion application on a per target basis, indicating that the CD is intentional.

OriOri.8724:

The cooldown on confusion application is intentional. See the July 2016 patchnotes

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2016-07-26#Mesmer

They specifically mention that ineptitude will now track the ICD for confusion application on a per target basis, indicating that the CD is intentional.

RIP the usefulness of this trait then.

This was way overpowered prior with stacking a large amount of confusion very early on against any target (even if stunned) with the standard spam the clones, F5, immobilize, F3, F2, F1, end F5 early, do it again normal burst rotation (F5 optional) with a condi chrono build, perplexity runes and other confusion application factors. The opponent’s reaction for a single condition clear (to have a chance to remove the confusion condition stacks or even a stun break) basically killed your opponent or put them in a situation of run or die. It was really OP.

It’s still a good 1v1 GM level trait and it’s basically guaranteed to be used on every 10s CD as is. 5s internal CD is probably where it needs to be though.

That being said, all Illusion GM traits are situational in nature based on build and need help. I’d say Illusions line could use that ole’ clone death trait piece back and this is where it should go. (Phantasmal Haste added to Illusionist’s Celerity, Malicious Sorcery to Master tier, On clone death (random condition) GM trait added)

Artaz.3819:

This was way overpowered prior with stacking a large amount of confusion very early on against any target (even if stunned) with the standard spam the clones, F5, immobilize, F3, F2, F1, end F5 early, do it again normal burst rotation (F5 optional) with a condi chrono build, perplexity runes and other confusion application factors.

You know, you actually sum up a huge balance problem GW2 has, really well: Things are not overpowered on purpose.

If I go full-on-out confusion, that Confusion better be kitten overpowered. That’s the whole point. I should be a confusion machine, blanketing entire WvW zergs in it. After all if I cannot do that, what’s the point of giving me the option to hyper-specialize like that.

To be fair, the opposite is also a good (and solid) way of designing, but needs to be actively decided for. So:

1. Either embrace the amount of hyper-specialization the stack of gear, weapon, skills, traitlines, traits, runes and sigils allows, and intentionally over-balance these aspects and provide a class-vs-class balance by making everyone “equally overpowered” (so ti say).
2. Or, remove many of the customization options because frankly – right now – they add ~nothing to the game. They just complicate things for factually no depth to the class system. It’s just a lot of noise.

Uhm sorry I don’t remember the days where this trait was ever OPd, and I was there for it. As far as I remember the ICD per target was always there for the Blind off block/evade, and that I fully agree with was balanced and needed. However, we don’t have nearly enough access to Blind for the Confusion part of this GM to matter; not with a single stack per target on a 10 second ICD. That’s just ridiculous. That’s not a GM, that’s a kitten bad joke is what it is.

I don’t ever remember it being OPd either. Maybe in WvW, but in sPvP there were no popular builds using it that I remember, and I do remember that this nerf was a bit puzzling for that fact. However, the wording of it was so vague that I’m not sure that most people realized (or cared) that they actually meant that all Confusion application was now on a per-target CD.

I know I only noticed that a while later when theorycrafting a new build out of sheer boredom with the meta, and I was totally dumbfounded how this trait was performing. A GM that applies 1 stack of Confusion every 10 seconds when you Blind, Block, or Evade a foe, are you kidding me?

That’s barely worth an Adept trait…but par for the course sadly. When Anet has it in for you, they always tend to “balance” with a hatchet rather than a scalpel.

With that ICD it needs to be at least 3 stacks of Confusion to be a remotely worthwhile GM trait.

Eh I’d rather just change the trait at that point. Mesmer has enough access to confusion imo

Ineptitude used to be very strong when paired with Blinding Dissipation. Confusion would be applied each time a foe is blinded. You likely didn’t see this very often in sPvP as most Mesmers at the time were using Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono instead of Dueling/Illusions/Chrono. It was a similar story in WvW, with many condition Mesmers preferring to run Chaos or Inspiration.