Guild Wars 2

The purpose would be to restore Confusion as the Mesmer condition, and thus provide viable builds with a heavy focus around the Confusion condition.

Master of Confusion
- Adds 1s base duration to all inflicted Confusion
- Increases Confusion damage by 20%/25% (This would still be a 40%/35% damage reduction from the pre-nerf levels!)

I don’t really care which line this is put in, but these seem to make the most sense:

- Domination, because that’s what it is, a form of dominating your foe. (and the Condie Duration ofc)
- Chaos would fit thematically too but it pretty overloaded with decent GM traits.
- Dueling would also synergize well IMO, due to the GM Minor and the fact that Condie builds for Mesmers generally need Sharper Images and thus crit chance to work.

This GM trait addresses the (IMO) main issues with Confusion from the PoV of a Mesmer:

1) Our Confusion durations are simply out of date. After the big Confusion damage nerf, the duration of pretty much all of our Confusion applications is simply too short to make it an effective condition to focus your build & play-style around. Adding a flat 1 second would IMO be best, rather then a percentage duration. This better addresses our generally short Confusion durations across the board.

2) The overly heavy nerf of Confusion damage in PvP will be somewhat mitigated for those who chose to trait up to GM level to focus on Confusion. This has precedents in other professions who can significantly increase their Burn damage (Guardian by 33%), Poison Damage (Ranger by 50%), etc. for speccing into a GM trait.

Confusion was always meant to be The Mesmer Condition, and we were meant to be the Masters of Confusion! Most people agree that the Confusion damage nerf was over the top, and most also agree that Mesmers are not currently the best at applying/maintaining Confusion damage. It’s time to change that!

Confusion is balanced enough at the moment. Lets not break it by making it overpowered with something like this.

Argon.1563:

Confusion is balanced enough at the moment. Lets not break it by making it overpowered with something like this.

It’s a grandmaster trait idea. I’m laughing internally, did you really even read the suggestion? You’d need to go 6 into something to get benefit out of it, that’s sacrificing effectiveness in other areas.

“Overpowered” doesn’t even come into the picture.

I can’t see any mesmer running this over power/condi pu builds or just plain gs kiting.

Some would run this, like me, who like the idea of punishment. I’d push for a 33% damage, but meh. Also, this seems to fit more into Illusions, however I can also see it working in Domination.

Well we already have a +33% duration, so any further duration increase probably wouldn’t be needed. But yes, a Grandmaster that adds +25% confusion damage would be great. Any trait line except Duelling would be good, this way you can’t take PU, DE and this trait.

Wouldn’t it need to be “Grandmaster of Confusion” ? :P

^ Always a wise guy!

If our existing 33% duration buff were enough, I wouldn’t have put the 1s added duration into this suggestion. Adding 33% to crap duration, still leaves you with crap duration. Adding 1s to the base duration will bump our durations up to “slightly less then totally useless crap” duration, and then add the 33% trait, you start to actually see a meaningful duration.

For example, Egineers get 5s base on their AE Confusion bomb (5 stacks), which they can drop every 18 seconds (14.5 w/trait). It also has a big AE when traited. Adding 30% duration gear to the 5 second base duration, ends up with a 6.5s duration.

Now in comparison our F2 CoF shatter has a 23s CD, smaller AE, and only a 3s duration. Adding our beloved 33% trait AND 30% duration from gear, you’re left with a whopping 4.89s duration! WHAT!? Master of Confusion? Hardly.

An even worse comparison would be using Engineers Prybar, and comparing it to our Scepter #3. (And Engineers aren’t the only other example of this duration & stacks disparity! Thieves traited Steal, Warrior’s Distracting Strikes trait, Runes of Perplexity, etc. )

We can not be the masters of confusion when our base confusion duration is so short that even when drastically augmenting it with +duration gear & traits, we still can’t get reach the BASE duration of other professions!

That’s the idea behind the 1s added to all base durations. Now CoF would have a 4s base duration, add 63% and you end up with 6.52s duration.

Although still not amazingly better, we have to remember of course that we can stack a little more AoE Confusion then Engies, but what good are 8-12 stacks of Confusion when the duration is so short that you can literally just ignore them with virtually no drawbacks?! With very few exceptions, most professions/builds can do exactly that…simply wait it out, and lose almost nothing. Another second or two makes a HUGE difference here, both in the potential damage Confusion can deliver, and the “denial” effect on an opponent who chooses to wait out the Confusion.

In short, our Confusion simply doesn’t last long enough to punish our foes adequately, especially since we can’t re-apply this condition nearly frequently enough as compared to AE bleeds, burns, and poisons of other classes.

This is just one way to solve that issue. There are many other ways, perhaps better ones, but I’d just like to see Confusion made a little more viable for Mesmers.

Confusion is fine the way it is

Do you have any idea how broken this would make perplexity pu condi mesmers in wvw? lol

The confusion is broken for mesmer, basic need longer duration, this feature should be. As an exclusive trait for mesmer, increased confusion damage is feasible only for mesmer. There should be no problem, help a lot to build mesmer scepter / torch or build confusion. A trait should exist so from now, after the nerf confusion, the confusion is broken mesmer.

The warrior and engineer this confusion well as this, pairs well with his other skills, but the mesmer will need more support in the confusion, is the main condition, and needs more damage with that.

An increase of 25% damage, it would be more feasible for mesmer confusion, since the nerf confusion is 50% for all the mesmer lost much ¿why not increase only half damage nerf confusion exclusively for the mesmer? There are many solutions for this. the proposed is viable.

To me I grand master trait " Migraine occurs"

Your confusion damage is increased by 15% and more when an elusive enemy, you receive double the damage of your confusion.

Another trait grand master " Wastrel´s Demise "

Your confusion causes damage per second to your enemy confused. The enemy takes double damage for every second of this confusion by not using any skills.

Damage confusion per second:

(0.05 * Condition Damage) + (0.5 * Level) + 2.5 per stack per second
(0.05 * Condition Damage) + 42.5 per stack per second at level 80

blitzkrieg.2451:

Confusion is fine the way it is

Do you have any idea how broken this would make perplexity pu condi mesmers in wvw? lol

It isn’t fine the way it is. It is an underwhelming specialty of mesmers. In the collaboration with the community that ANet did to balance the Rangers, a suggestion came up. Along the lines of “We have the most availability to poison than any other class. We should have a trait for it.”. Same thing. While we have a current trait with confusion, it is practically useless.

A while ago, there were a number of confusion mesmers. It was overwhelming. They nerfed it, which was reasonable, but now it is underwhelming. We want it balanced, not too powerful, not too weak. I feel that this, for the cost of a grandmaster trait slot, would help us bring back confusion mesmers as a reasonably viable build, the same as phantasm mesmers or shatter mesmers or lockdown mesmers.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Confusion is fine the way it is

Do you have any idea how broken this would make perplexity pu condi mesmers in wvw? lol

Remove perplexity runes. Problem solved.

blitzkrieg.2451:

Confusion is fine the way it is

Do you have any idea how broken this would make perplexity pu condi mesmers in wvw? lol

Even ignoring that the issue with that is in the Perplexity runes, PU Mesmers? Really? What do they do to you, tickle you while you just run past them?

Of all the possibly powerful roles a Mesmer cannot play in WvW, PU provides exactly none. It’s a nice spec if your enemy is silly enough to try force 1v1 combat, sure. But then, who in their right mind does, when they can just come back with friends instead?

If a Confusion grandmaster trait was introduced it should be in Illusions and not in Domination. Right now, Illusions is mainly used in shatter builds although it also should be an attractive choice for condition builds. Domination already got other uses.

A flat damage increase for Confusion would not help Mesmers. When it comes to durations, all Confusion durations besides maybe Sc#3 have to be revised. They are too low overall. Another trait increasing their duration would be silly. Especially since Mesmers already got one.

The main issue I see is that Confusion is a bit too conditional to be the main source of sustained damage which makes condition Mesmers so situational to play. I still favour Confusion being reworked completely. I would like Confusion to work like Torment, e.g. 50% damage dealt per stack all the time plus 50% additional damage when using a skill.

Of course, the downside would be destroying the only real burst condition. But I think this would be the best solution overall. People might argue that Mesmers could get a trait which exclusively made Confusion work this way. But no, that would not work. There would be no way for your foes to predict which kind of Confusion you whield which puts the Mesmer at an unjustifiable advantage.

Carighan.6758:

blitzkrieg.2451:

Confusion is fine the way it is

Do you have any idea how broken this would make perplexity pu condi mesmers in wvw? lol

Even ignoring that the issue with that is in the Perplexity runes, PU Mesmers? Really? What do they do to you, tickle you while you just run past them?

Of all the possibly powerful roles a Mesmer cannot play in WvW, PU provides exactly none. It’s a nice spec if your enemy is silly enough to try force 1v1 combat, sure. But then, who in their right mind does, when they can just come back with friends instead?

Do you honestly think adding this confusion trait will make them better in zerg play or tpvp which is what you’re implying that the PU role doesn’t fill (and i agree, it doesnt)? -40% condition food + consistent aoe condi clear from a zerg will make it useless anyway and tpvp it would have very little effect unless you’re running a shatter spec , in which case you wouldnt trait for the confusion. My point is, adding this confusion trait literally does nothing to open roles anywhere in the game EXCEPT trolling with a pu condi build or some random 1on1 condi spec in general.

^ Erm PU is a GM trait, so is this, it’s going to be hard making a decent build like that. (Depending on which line it’s in of course.)

Also, as someone else said, the problem is Perplexity, not Mesmer’s amount of Confusion. It’s already OPd on those classes whom are vastly superior in both Confusion and Conditions in general, so it would be more OPd on a Mesmer? Hardly. If you don’t clear 12 stacks of Confusion and spam skills you’re going to die just the same as if you had a few more stacks lasting another second. Big whoop!

The weakness in running Perplexity on a Confusion-focused Mesmer would be the fact that you’re putting too many eggs in one basket, and there is way too much condie clearing in the game for that to work. Especially with Confusion this is the case, as it’s the only condition whose damage you can avoid 100% without doing anything, regardless of how many stacks you have on you.

In Illusions it would probably have very little hope of competing with either IP or the new Maim the Disillusioned GM trait. Considering that Domination is the Confusion Duration line, it would seem to make sense there. (And the existing GMs there are pretty Meh, and certainly not useful for a Condie-build, so the whole line becomes very Condie unfriendly. This of course exacerbates the Mesmers lacking Confusion/Condition duration issue…a bit at least.)

Yeah it would be strange there, but the point of it would be to open up completely new builds, and a Condition focus with a Domination build is certainly highly unusual.

Would it work in a viable build? I think playing paper GW2 in such cases is pretty useless. This is not about creating a new meta, but rather to provide more options for more interesting builds and play-styles.

Mesmers were clearly intended to be the best at dishing out the Confusion condition, hence the 33% duration trait, but it’s obvious that the current Confusion options for Mesmers are inadequate and outdated, otherwise people would build around it.

Now we can hope for ANet fixing basically ALL our forms of applying Confusion, because each and every one of them is sub-par in some fashion, but personally I won’t hold my breath on that. This GM trait would be a balanced means to address the issue in one fell swoop, while at the same time forcing players to make tough decisions in their builds.

Windwalker.7421:

Also, as someone else said, the problem is Perplexity, not Mesmer’s amount of Confusion.

I agree on this one. A condition nor a class can be balanced around a single rune set.

Windwalker.7421:

In Illusions it would probably have very little hope of competing with either IP or the new Maim the Disillusioned GM trait. Considering that Domination is the Confusion Duration line, it would seem to make sense there. (And the existing GMs there are pretty Meh, and certainly not useful for a Condie-build, so the whole line becomes very Condie unfriendly. This of course exacerbates the Mesmers lacking Confusion/Condition duration issue…a bit at least.)

I guess you mean condition duration line, not Confusion. Arguing this way you could also put it into Illusions because it is the condition damage line. This is arguable a reason to choose Domination over Illusions.

As I said earlier, Illusions is mainly used in shatter builds which is extremly one dimensional. Domination is used in interrupt, lockdown and in power builds in general. It’s also used in stealth heavy builds because of the torch. It has several uses. Balancewise it isn’t a very sensible choice to put it into Domination because it overloads one single traitline with too many purposes. It already is. Don’t put even more into it. I really got to disagree with you on this one.

I can also understand the concerns voiced regarding condition PU builds. Because those are the only builds I see profiting from such a trait being placed in Domination. This wouldn’t be an issue if a Confusion trait was placed in Illusions because you would have to give up on a traited torch.

Windwalker.7421:

Mesmers were clearly intended to be the best at dishing out the Confusion condition, hence the 33% duration trait, but it’s obvious that the current Confusion options for Mesmers are inadequate and outdated, otherwise people would build around it.

Now we can hope for ANet fixing basically ALL our forms of applying Confusion, because each and every one of them is sub-par in some fashion, but personally I won’t hold my breath on that. This GM trait would be a balanced means to address the issue in one fell swoop, while at the same time forcing players to make tough decisions in their builds.

The real issues are the lack of sustained damage in condition Mesmer builds due to the nature of Confusion and also the insufficient ways of applying reasonable stacks of Confusion with a sufficient duration outside of 1vs1 scenarios.

While it might be a bit optimistic that ANet revisits all Confusion skills it would be the most reasonable way to do it. If not, they can still increase the value of Master of Misdirection instead of introducing yet another trait which does the same. I also doubt that a plain damage modifier for Confusion like it was done for Poison on the Ranger will help Mesmers. It just doesn’t adress the underlying issues. It will make it easier to spike careless people with Sc#3 but that is about it.

i kind of like the idea of a gm trait : 1 s or bit more increased confusion duration, and confu dmg increased, could probably bring back glamour builds

Confusion just needs a significantly longer duration in PvE.

ClinkyDink.9364:

Confusion just needs a significantly longer duration in PvE.

PvE yes, WvW/PvP absolutely not.