Guild Wars 2

What ever happened to it? weren’t we supposed to get it on the sceptre auto attack or was that tool tip added one beta weekend just to screw with us? Will we ever get some rune/sigil support?

Are we ever going to get a reliable source of confusion? It’s kind of depressing when our two most sustainable sources of confusion are on our downed state and from trident clones; especially considering it makes up a nice chunk of our class. Sure we have Confusion Images, but that only lasts 5 seconds (though those 5 stacks only overlap for maybe 3 of those seconds) and has at least a 12 second cooldown. Without a reliable two-feet-on-terra-firma source of confusion, it seems to be a flashy gimmick on traits not worth taking.

Don’t believe me?
Lets do some maths.

Using generous estimates and a painstakingly theorycrafted “confusion build” viewable here we have some numbers to crunch

Condition damage: a whopping 1456. Makes some of those necros jealous.
Now we take the confusion damage formula: 25 + 0.5 * Level + 0.075 * Condition Damage per stack per skill use
We get a measly: 174.2dmg/stack/skilluse
Well one stack of confusion never got anyone anywhere so lets stack them up in a realistic scenario where our opponent has so generously decided to stand still and take a combo like a man. Lets assume we have the two mirror images clones and a iMage. You dropped both of your glamours on your opponent and your iMage cast his confusion on him. We’re up to 5 stacks. Now we Cry of Frustration our shatter fodder and iMage and give him another 6 stacks. Climbing to 11 stacks. And of course how could we forget our favorite source of confusion, Confusing Images. Where you have the fingers and hands to do all this at once I don’t really want to know. So now we got 16 whole stacks. I think a few jaws hit the floor. So what ungodly number of damage will we hit if the poor sap attacks shortly after this assault?

2787.2dmg/skilluse

Still a pitiful amount, but since when did anyone ever attack once? Lets say our opponent attacked maybe three times in our five second butter-zone. What are we up to now?

8361.6 damage.
That sounds like a high number right? Consider the following: you worked your kitten off just for a few brief moments of punishment. Punishment that probably didn’t kill anyone short of a button mashing elementalist. Punishment that can be immediately cleansed off. Punishment that your enemy could have just as easily avoided by not attacking for a moment. They may not have even noticed it. Punishment that you’ll have to wait another 20+ seconds before you can perform it again. 16 stacks of bleed for five seconds will do almost 1000 more damage and doesn’t rely on your opponent being braindead. The only one being punished is the mesmer.

Confusion is the forgotten condition. It has no rune or sigil support beyond generic condition damage and duration. It fills the nooks of the mesmer trees and skills and even appears to form feasible builds. So what is with the lack of rune support? we have at least three runes specifically for burning duration and most of that is dominated by elementalist and guadian alone. That’s not to mention the other handful of runes centered on bleeding and poison duration. Where’s confusion’s invite to the party? It doesn’t even get a single rune?

At long length and connecting back to previous statements, where is our confusion? For a class with so much confusion, we sure seem to be pisspoor at making it happen. The pitiful damage it causes would be excusable if only there were a way to consistently keep about a third of those stacks on a single target. As it sits now, while confusion isn’t too few, it’s most certainly too far between. Almost every one of our sources have a cooldown longer than 30 seconds even with traits. On a condition with a completely avoidable bite, 8 seconds of confusion on a 30 second cooldown just does not work. It leaves you a one trick pony who’s trick has a high probability of abysmal failure.

Confusion is supposed to be supplimentary damage, alongside your other damage abilities. It’s relatively easy to stack confusion with the right build and I’ve regularly ran with 10+ stacks on players (I really don’t like Scepter/Torch playstyle however). If you pair this with retaliation, it really can be amazing.

I guess the difference is that confusion can be applied as ae effect on a whole zerg, while u cant do this with bleeding. U can also pop a iWarden in one of the 3-4 combo fields for extra ae bolts.

Like noted confusion works best against trigger heavy classes in sPvP and it works surprisingly well in WvW, if also combined with reflection.

I still don’t like confusion builds personally, since its really hard to reliable do any significant dmg. U also have to abandon staff/gs in WvW, assuming focus is a must have for WvW and u want the iMage.

Even without being specced for Confusion or having much +conditiondamage, a 3-Illusions AE Confusion on a zerg is a fair amount of damage. Coupled with a well-timed Feedback bubble, it reduces everyone to 50% or less HP within that duration.

so.. i use a confusion spec as well, but do not know excactly how to gear for it.
My instincts say i have to go for condition dmg + duration and precision..

so.. i use a confusion spec as well, but do not know excactly how to gear for it.
My instincts say i have to go for condition dmg + duration and precision..any toughts ?

Maybe I’m missing something but I think confusion is the most powerful condition at the moment.

I’m level 66 and without much effort I get condition stacks of 4 or 5 on PvE foes. A single tick from that stack does over 1000 pts of damage which is gravy on my DPS train. I usually get one tick before it expires, but 1000 pts is more than any of my other attacks or skills. The only thing in the same arena is iWarden if he lands his full AoE whirly attack (around 1500-1800 pts for me at lvl 66). I’m spec’d with Carrion Armor and Carrion weapons and I think all that +condition dmg helps with confusion.

In WvW it’s amazing. If an opponent is at 30% health (ish), hit them with Scepter 3 and watch them self-destruct. That’s powerful.

I think it’s a clever mechanic that rewards skillful play and situational awareness.

@juno.1840

In PvE i always prefer a bleeding build over a confusion build, because its much more reliable and spamable, than a confusion build.
In my full crit/bleed build, i apply like 10 stacks of bleeding in like 3-4 seconds to 1-3 mobs, which if i’m lucky can ramp up to 15-20 stacks. This needs nearly no skills or setup at all, compared to how confusions work. Also in PvE most mobs wont attack once per second.

The only exception in PvE, where i wished i had a confusion build is on crazy fast attacking bosses, that already have 25 stacks of bleeding.

I don’t mean to single you out Juno, but your post seems to sum up what a lot of others have been saying.

juno

In WvW it’s amazing. If an opponent is at 30% health (ish), hit them with Scepter 3 and watch them self-destruct. That’s powerful.

Phantasm specs do better. Significantly better. Just pop an iBerserker and watch as your opponent’s blended pulp gets smeared across the ground, say from 50% to zilch in under a second. No suicidal intention required. Butthis is beside the point.

Remember when I said confusion relies on your opponent being braindead? That’s why I don’t consider its use in WvW seriously. Almost everyone in it is braindead and confusion will kill them just as easily as anything else. People in WvW will actively stand in elementalist meteor storms, let pets maul their faces, and spam inside feedback bubbles because they don’t even realize they’re there. I’ve pulled countless people off of cliffs consecutively with Into the Void (if you haven’t tried it yet do it now, it’s possibly the funniest thing you will ever see) but just because it culls the sheeple does not validate it as a viable strategy anywhere else.

juno

Maybe I’m missing something but I think confusion is the most powerful condition at the moment.

You’re correct in the point that it does more damage per tick, thereby in a loose definition the most powerful. HOWEVER, it relies on an opponent using skills in its duration, which more than likely will not happen every second considering animation and channel times and awareness that the condition is upon them so in reality it ticks far fewer than once a second. This translates in to far less dps in the long run. You’d be better off using a condition like bleed.

juno

I think it’s a clever mechanic that rewards skillful play and situational awareness.

The problem here is already hinted at by AndyPandy. Confusion isn’t as rewarding as bleed which requires neither skillful play nor situational awareness. What is the incentive to work your kitten off for confusion damage when bleed damage is higher, more reliable, and easier to get?

One (and only ONE) of two simply solutions would fix the problems and give us a viable punishment playstyle option, Hildebert. Either:

1. Allow any clones conjured with the Scepter equipped to inflict Confusion – exactly like how it works right now with the Trident underwater; or,

2. Allow the Mesmer (and only the Mesmer, not clones) put on 1 stack of Confusion for each Ether Bolt attack (without changing the third attack to stop conjuring a clone) – and let those single stacks of Confusion last for 4 seconds. The deterioration rate would keep the stacks from climbing up to the moon just from spamming Ether Bolt, but would enable us to maintain enough Confusion on an enemy to make it far more worth while than it currently has been.

I dont think its ok to make confusion spammable with scepter. A well timed confusion stack already can almost instakill squishy professions like thieves and elementalists. With a easy confusion stack option you could completly shut down any none vitality stacking build in the game.

People that say confusion builds rely on your opponent beeing braindead dont play it right. You need to FORCE situations in which the enemy has to use skills to survive but at the same time has like 5 stacks of confusions on him.

Nothing better than forcing a thief to use some escape/stealth skills to run aways and see him put in downed state because the only option he had was doing nothing.

savant

2. Allow the Mesmer (and only the Mesmer, not clones) put on 1 stack of Confusion for each Ether Bolt attack (without changing the third attack to stop conjuring a clone) – and let those single stacks of Confusion last for 4 seconds.

This option is mostly what I was getting at earlier. Anet even added “confuses enemies” in their tooltip for the sceptre 1 skill during one of the beta weekend events or stress tests, but nothing became of it. It would simultaneously bring the sceptre from the grave and give us options for confusion so we’re killing two birds with a single fix.

The number 1 option sounds like it could snowball far too easily, but it might be possible to balance. The only other solution I could think of would be an across the board increase in confusion duration but this seems hamfisted at best.

Mayama

People that say confusion builds rely on your opponent beeing braindead dont play it right. You need to FORCE situations in which the enemy has to use skills to survive but at the same time has like 5 stacks of confusions on him.

A few things wrong here. An intelligent player won’t let this happen. They will have enough condition removal to prevent it or will use clever dodging and crowdcontrol to keep a combo from happening in the first place. Second, and it has been mentioned before yet chosen to be ignored, why should I work so hard to get such a mediocre return? Why would I bother setting up an elaborate Rube Goldberg device to catch a rabbit when I can just walk up and bash its skull in with a rock? Far less can go wrong with a rock and I’m not completely SOL if something does go wrong.

Hildebert.4196:

A few things wrong here. An intelligent player won’t let this happen. They will have enough condition removal to prevent it or will use clever dodging and crowdcontrol to keep a combo from happening in the first place. Second, and it has been mentioned before yet chosen to be ignored, why should I work so hard to get such a mediocre return? Why would I bother setting up an elaborate Rube Goldberg device to catch a rabbit when I can just walk up and bash its skull in with a rock? Far less can go wrong with a rock and I’m not completely SOL if something does go wrong.

I run a power/condition hybrid and confusion is very powerfull. Its very easy to force people to use skills even if they dont want to. They need to kill my phantasms if they want to win but at the same time get damaged by confusions. If they use condition removers it means they use time dealing with the conditions, the phantasms will deal damage. The scaling of phantasms makes them hit hard even in hybrid build. If the enemy decides to do nothing so the confusion wears of I have tons of time to do whatever I want.

I play such a build because phantasm/power builds are boring as hell, at least for me. I played my mage in WoW with a fire not frost spec in arena so I guess im not the cookie cutter type of guy. The other reason is that a hybrid or condition mesmer cant be hardcountered so easily like a pure power/phantasm build with aoe spam.

Confusion is at a good place at the moment, it’s legitimately powerful supplementary damage. The scepter confusion is kind of so-so, but traited shatter confusion is good. If confusion were weaker and longer duration, it’d just be boring for the mesmer and annoying for the enemy. Retaliation in a nutshell.

The real problem is that the only real condition damage weapon is staff, which is a defensive weapon with low damage potential. You’re annoyed with the confusion not dealing enough damage because you can’t really stack those bleeds like rangers and necros do. The closest I get to that is by aggressively traiting clones and staff and only using scepter for 2, 3, 4, 5.

TL:DR; I wouldn’t buff confusion, I’d make scepter an actual condition weapon.

Great thread OP, just my thoughts aswell!
It’s a shame the Confusion condition is lacking (compared to e.g. Bleed), I really like the concept of it and would like to see Mesmers get a real viable Confusion build. Right now it doesn’t really cut it, it’s more of a “for fun” build.. not really viable when you actually look more into it.
I hope we see some changes here

One thing to note is that Confusion is about 2x as powerful in PvE compared to sPvP: there’s a damage split between PvE and sPvP to compensate for slower mob attack rates.

Another thing to note is that in WvW, Confusion uses the PvE damage. This is why Confusion seems so powerful in WvW: IR CoF + Confusing Images can easily deal 4000 damage per activation.

Confusion, therefore, is literally twice as powerful in WvW as it is in sPvP.

Embolism.8106:

Confusion, therefore, is literally twice as powerful in WvW as it is in sPvP.

That explains a lot! I’ll have to run a test between the two, but right now using scepter 3 is a guaranteed kill in WvW when a foe is at 25% health. (ok, maybe guaranteed noob kill, but it works quite often in my experience).

I’ve done really well in sPvP with confusion actually, the trick is to combine it with a lot of blinds. Confusing an enemy without blinding them and they will probably to tear through you like rice paper long before the confusion does any damage. Confuse an enemy with blind and you can let them swing at you, deal craploads of damage to themselves, and deal no damage to you.

Traited right, you can get 21 stacks of confusion (if I remember correctly) with five blinds, two dodges, and 6 evasions to rotate through on your bar.

EDIT: My mistakes 20 stacks of confusion, just checked Potentially more, since whenever they pass through a glamour field they get two more stacks of confusion and blind.

How can you buff mesmers confusion without making him OP?
——
Good enough for me

The answer to this problem is simple, turn the trait Sharper Images into a trait known as Baffling Images. Then replace the Bleeding in the description and functionality into Confusion.

I also like the word Befuddling, that’s also a good word.

@Ritz
That …
That is sheer genius!

Yep, I am a genius. The #2 skill on the Downed bar was my idea too. RITZ FOR SKILL DESIGN PRESIDENT 2012!

Ritz

The answer to this problem is simple, turn the trait Sharper Images into a trait known as Baffling Images. Then replace the Bleeding in the description and functionality into Confusion.

that smells a little ridiculous with greatsword clones and looks like it could get really overpowered really quickly. Plus, dueling already has every other really useful trait. I’d like to see usefulness spread out a bit.

Also I’m terrible at detecting internet sarcasm, so I can’t tell if you were joking or not.

Embolism

Confusion, therefore, is literally twice as powerful in WvW as it is in sPvP.

That actually makes a lot of sense and further supports my reasoning to disregard all WvW builds.

Ki Bear Punk

How can you buff mesmers confusion without making him OP?

Hildebert

Anet even added “confuses enemies” in their tooltip for the sceptre 1 skill during one of the beta weekend events or stress tests, but nothing became of it. It would simultaneously bring the sceptre from the grave and give us options for confusion so we’re killing two birds with a single fix.
The only other solution I could think of would be an across the board increase in confusion duration but this seems hamfisted at best.

Conncept.7638:

…
Traited right, you can get 21 stacks of confusion (if I remember correctly) with five blinds, two dodges, and 6 evasions to rotate through on your bar.

EDIT: My mistakes 20 stacks of illusion, just checked Potentially more, since whenever they pass through a glamour field they get two more stacks of confusion and blind.

care to post this build? I was toying with the idea of confusion mesmer, I know it’s less powerful than bleeding but I like the idea of enemy killing himself

Poplik.8697:

Conncept.7638:

…
Traited right, you can get 21 stacks of confusion (if I remember correctly) with five blinds, two dodges, and 6 evasions to rotate through on your bar.

EDIT: My mistakes 20 stacks of illusion, just checked Potentially more, since whenever they pass through a glamour field they get two more stacks of confusion and blind.

care to post this build? I was toying with the idea of confusion mesmer, I know it’s less powerful than bleeding but I like the idea of enemy killing himself

Sure.

http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/mesmer#6|20|2681|8134|4091|4085|8987|30|1751|2299|2300|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|10|2316|0|0|30|2310|2312|2411|2|2|1|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

Those are the basics, but this is a pretty maleable build.

1. You can switch out the off-hand sword for an off hand pistol. Get in melee with your opponent, cast Phantasmal Duelist then cast Feedback on top of your opponent and the duelist, followed by casting null field in the same manner. This gets a guaranteed 4 stacks of confusion and two blinds on him, and from two to eight confusion stacks from the phantasmal duelist.

2. You can switch out Portal for Signet of Midnight, which I frequently do depending on the situation. Signet of midnight has a much lower cooldown, but gives 1 less stack of confusion, and it is more reliable. While portal gives another stack of blind and confusion, it persists for longer than any other Glamour (giving another stack of blind and confusion every time the enemy enters), and allows you to kite very very well.

3. You can take ten points out of Domination and put them in inspiration to get either Temporal Enchanter or malicious sorcery. Temporal enchanter is better if you go with the sword/pistol combo, otherwise I like malicious feedback more. But if you do so, you’re going to have to drop Cleansing Conflagration.

EDIT: Whoops, had the traits wrong, fixed.