Guild Wars 2

So the new blinding befuddlement combines the current one with master of direction and becomes the new GM trait.
Cause confusion when you blind a foe. Confusion lasts longer. 5s cooldown

This is a condition damage related trait and will be directly competing with maim the disillusioned. Maim will be much stronger after IP made baseline. This trait, despite of benefiting from the new blinding dissipation trait, still looks like the obvious inferior one to me.

Even if they improve the numbers to make it on par with maim, I still feel people will go for maim because investing into two different types of conditions give better damage potential. Mesmer already has good access to confusion. Getting another high stack of torment will almost always help more.

How do you like this trait as an idea? Is there any creative way of using it that you can think of? Any ideas of improving it?

I am thinking about changing the trait to the following:
Cause blind and an extra stack of confusion when you confuse a foe. Confusion lasts longer. x second cooldown
So the effect is reversed and mesmer can have more access to blind which can be a great deal to improve the class survivability. And it will not be directly competing with maim by just pure fire power.

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 3 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 8 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 12 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Edited to match the traits correctly. We also apply confusion on our crits.

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Combining interrupt and confusion is a little bit counter-intuitive to me. Confusion is a condition that punishes foes that activate skills while interrupted foes can’t use skills. Similar story with blind. I just don’t see the synergy there at all.

But I do get the part that it can benefit players use non-shatter-centric condie builds. However, the question is that will it still be vastly inferior to the maim shatter condie build especially after Anet wants to push mesmer to use shatter more.

Interrupting and confusion go hand in hand since runes of perplexity exist.
But I agree. The new Blinding Befuddlement seems a bit underwhelming when compared with its trait competitors. Is there any information on how many stacks of confusion it will apply? From what I’ve heard, confusion will get overhauled with the specialization system. More stacks, “easier” application, but less damage per stack. Don’t ask me where I heard that, can’t remember.

Exciton.8942:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Combining interrupt and confusion is a little bit counter-intuitive to me. Confusion is a condition that punishes foes that activate skills while interrupted foes can’t use skills. Similar story with blind. I just don’t see the synergy there at all.

But I do get the part that it can benefit players use non-shatter-centric condie builds. However, the question is that will it still be vastly inferior to the maim shatter condie build especially after Anet wants to push mesmer to use shatter more.

Confusion damages on activation or the “cast” of the skill. This has nothing to with blind or interrupt. Both make the cast unsuccessful but confusion damage is not altered. The enemy still activated the the skill, it just didn’t work out.
Essentially your target is forced to use weaker skills or no skills at all. Which, having huge stacks of bleed and confusion on them, as well as constant immobilize, is painful either way.

@tetrodoxin
BB will put 2 stacks, on a 5 second cooldown.

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

I already made a sub post on this in a earlier thread but will happily participate here. The amount of confusion needs increased or it needs another way to add confusion that changes your playstyle to be a worthy GM, otherwise this ought to just be a master trait and compete with extra torment damage ( about the same effectiveness).

If we’re just tweaking numbers then changing it to 4 stacks are a lot more reasonable. The ICD are longer than confusion duration so it won’t be OP anyway. Currently 2 stacks just got outshined by confusing combatant.

If they’re afraid of the confusion stacks but fear that the trait is underpowered, then add a new effect that increase our blind access: charging mantra skill or each pulse of well cause blind on surrounding foes. Or like OP said, cause blind and confusion when you start confusing them.

Reason for this addition is because maim outshined BB in blind on shatter, and trading 5 stacks of torment on block with blind isn’t a very good option. I know opponent may wait for you or you have no AoE to proc it but that makes BB very niche.

The possible output of BB is just way too small when considering our rather limited access to Blinds (mostly CD gated) and the new Confusing Combatants or even Mistrust. Assuming they will keep Master of Fragmentation in some way I’d prefer a Phantasm related trait since they apparently won’t move Phantasmal Haste elsewhere.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

Fay.2357:

if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

Sadly this is the logical conclusion I also reached. When they threw out the blind on glamour trait they kind of got rid of the only reason for blinding befuddlement. The confusion buff should have been a minor or something and the confusion on blind, well, what pyro said.

It’s obvious thew got rid of blind on glamour and gave us wells and kind of forgot about this trait. Then late some night trying to wrap up the last skull sesh to get out mesmer traits, this thing was thrown on as a GM at the end.

“We need another GM for illusions.”
“Uhh, here these two traits are leftover, just bundle them into one and put that there.”

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

BB isn’t only about the blind; it’s also about the duration increase for confusion. Also very confused with you calling scepter 2 not low cooldown. I wasn’t under the impression it had to be. I can easily get the block to five seconds which is the ICD of BB. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the blinding aspect, obviously the devs designed it to be complementary and not central. But that is another matter entirely when a grandmaster is not strong enough to called so.

33% increase in duration is in adept illusion right now and its hardly build defining, GM worthy…slapping 2 stacks of confusion on blind (with ICD!) won’t make it so either. You can achieve + 70% confusion duration with food+perplexity, and that’s very close to 100% uptime confusions for your weapon skills and traits. That extra 33% (around extra 1-3 seconds across all access) isn’t worth it when you can apply 2 stacks of torment (6s) for each illusion on shatter.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

BB isn’t only about the blind; it’s also about the duration increase for confusion. Also very confused with you calling scepter 2 not low cooldown. I wasn’t under the impression it had to be. I can easily get the block to five seconds which is the ICD of BB. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the blinding aspect, obviously the devs designed it to be complementary and not central. But that is another matter entirely when a grandmaster is not strong enough to called so.

If you’re saying that a duration increase on confusion is the central quality of that trait, then you’ve made my argument for me. There is not even a remote possibility of that being more useful than maim in any possible or conceivable build, especially with the recent focus on pushing more builds towards shatter.

I put these observations regarding blinding befuddlement on another thread, but will reiterate it here (as this thread seems to be more active).

More than half of the mesmer skills that blind (currently) impact multiple targets
Utility skill signet of midnight: blind nearby foes (up to 5 targets)
Torch skill the prestige: disappear in a cloud of smoke blinding nearby foes (up to 5)
Scepter skill illusionary counter / counterspell: shoot out a bolt that blinds foes in a line (up to 5 targets)

So many mesmer blinds impact MULTIPLE targets. Blinding befuddlement as it is now (and unless specifically stated otherwise, I think the default assumption would be that it retains this feature) confuses only a SINGLE target. I am guessing the cooldown triggers after the first target is infected – my experience with this has been that other targets in a group of (up to) 5 are merely blinded and don’t get the stack of confusion.

In my opinion, this multiple target blind, but single target confuse, is a fatal feature of this trait which makes it suboptimal.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

This benefits condirupt. I made a build that uses these types of traits, and the immobilize on interrupt you can get in chaos.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. blind with scepter 2, 2 stacks confusion
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear blind with pistol 5, 7 stacks of confusion
4. scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, 7 stacks of confusion

This chain can then be repeated. All you need to do is lock down condi cleanse.

Also remember that maim is for shatter builds.

Or, you take maim instead.

Start of combat, scepter/pistol+X, perplexity runes, rabid or sinister gear.

1. summon duelist, 8 stacks confusion 8+ stacks bleed
2. Proc scepter block, 5 stacks of torment
3. interrupt as they attempt to clear torment, bleed, and confusion with pistol 5, 5 stacks of confusion
4. Shatter and scepter 3, while interrupting with MoD, another 5 stacks of confusion and 11 total stacks of torment.

Ultimately, maim is just better. You get far more pressure from your play. Even if you’re not a shatter focused build, you’ll still get more mileage out of maim because it’s just so easy to proc it all the time, whereas another 2 stacks of confusion now and then on blind, when your primary access to blind is shattering…it’s not good.

It’s a confusion based build and the normal version has you interrupting, thus immobilizing, the enemy with CI. In that instance torment isn’t super amazing. Also I need to fix the chain because I forgot you put confusing on crit as well. Your version includes shatters which, unless you assume I am using chronophantasma, reduces phantasm uptime. And the phantasm you are shattering are at 1200 range.

I realize that it’s a phantasm build without close range setup for shatters. That doesn’t change how useless BB is though.

How are you blinding? Well, you’ve got an easily avoided blind on a not low cooldown on scepter 2. That’s it. All other good blind access is through shatters, and if you’re shattering for blinds…you could be shattering for torment instead, and get far more out of it.

BB isn’t only about the blind; it’s also about the duration increase for confusion. Also very confused with you calling scepter 2 not low cooldown. I wasn’t under the impression it had to be. I can easily get the block to five seconds which is the ICD of BB. Perhaps you should stop focusing on the blinding aspect, obviously the devs designed it to be complementary and not central. But that is another matter entirely when a grandmaster is not strong enough to called so.

If you’re saying that a duration increase on confusion is the central quality of that trait, then you’ve made my argument for me. There is not even a remote possibility of that being more useful than maim in any possible or conceivable build, especially with the recent focus on pushing more builds towards shatter.

In builds where you absolutely do not shatter. Maim is not helpful.

Koeder.2365:

I put these observations regarding blinding befuddlement on another thread, but will reiterate it here (as this thread seems to be more active).

More than half of the mesmer skills that blind (currently) impact multiple targets
Utility skill signet of midnight: blind nearby foes (up to 5 targets)
Torch skill the prestige: disappear in a cloud of smoke blinding nearby foes (up to 5)
Scepter skill illusionary counter / counterspell: shoot out a bolt that blinds foes in a line (up to 5 targets)

So many mesmer blinds impact MULTIPLE targets. Blinding befuddlement as it is now (and unless specifically stated otherwise, I think the default assumption would be that it retains this feature) confuses only a SINGLE target. I am guessing the cooldown triggers after the first target is infected – my experience with this has been that other targets in a group of (up to) 5 are merely blinded and don’t get the stack of confusion.

In my opinion, this multiple target blind, but single target confuse, is a fatal feature of this trait which makes it suboptimal.

Yeah it needs the icd lowered and made per target to have any real use.