Confusion should function similar to retaliation

Confusion and retaliation are essentially sister status effects. One is a boon, and one is a condition, but both serves the purpose of punishing enemies for attacking. Retaliation only stacks in duration, but confusion stacks in intensity. That makes confusion too strong imo because it affects all skills that does not cleanse it, even auto attacks. Some builds are able to build over 15 stacks of confusion in a single burst combo. It's broken. This would be fair if confusion did not cause damage from every skill that does not cleanse it, but it does.

As long as confusion continues to affect auto attacks, heal skills, and even cleanse skills that fail to cleanse it, it should not stack in intensity. It should only stack in duration, similar to retaliation. And classes/builds should be rebalanced around that.

If confusion will continue to stack in intensity, then it shouldn't affect auto attacks, heal skills, and cleanse skills even if it fails to cleanse the confusion.

I expect a lot of backlash from this post, but this is my opinion. Confusion is too strong, and should be brought in line to the same level as retaliation.

TLDR: Confusion should stack in duration, not intensity, similar to retaliation. Balance classes around that, or make confusion not cause damage for using auto attacks, heal skills, and cleanse skills.

Imo I believe heal skills and cleanses should be exempt from confusion damage. When you are loaded up with confusion and have some condis on top of it, you can literally kill yourself trying to cleanse it. I love condi builds (albeit I run a DPS build atm) but some condis are still unbalanced and you shouldn't kill yourself trying to cleanse.

Edited for grammar

Oh God please no.

Burning was a duration stacking effect back then and sucked. Specially when multiple people use that condition, only one deals actually damage and the others don't. Leaving all others rendered useless with a big DPS loss. There is a reason why all conditions are stacked now.

In its current state it is a short lasting condition meant to be for burst IF the opponent uses skills. And yes 15 stacks or confusion hit hard, just like 10 stacks of burning hit hard. Just don't spam your skills. Its like not dodging a burst from a power class, you have to be punished. The difference is you still have the chance to cleanse it.

And I know that feeling when other conditions then confusion gets removed pretty well. Specially when one has only access to skills that remove a single condition at a time. There should be more dedicated skills that remove only damaging conditions, as well as dedicated skills that remove only movement imparing conditions.

With that we would have more control that actually the condition that is hurting us right now is removed.

So skills could have effects like "Removing 2 damaging conditions" or "Removing all damaging conditions". There are already a few of those. Like engineers rocketboots for movement impaired conditions.

Further protection should actually reduce condition damage as well.

On this forum you can find excuse for having any broken sht in this game . As for complaint about confusion -> stop spam skills , you cant ? Too bad you deserved to die ;)Dealing damage while doing nothing(facetanking damage) and taking damage while spamming skills ? How its similar?

maybe retaliation should also stack in intensity...

How about no?

Confusion should remain stacking in intensity like all other damage conditions, but the stacking should have a cap of 25 stacks on players, and all damage conditions should have a total shared cap of about 50~60 stacks on players, so it's just not possible to have 25 of each damage condition on a player.

That way conditions can't over-stack on players, while not losing any effectiveness against NPCs.

Also, I would prefer if more boons also stacked in intensity, including retaliation.I would go as far as making Retalaition both stacking in intensity, and get is damage from a new stat instead from Power. Something like "Wisdom".Wisdom would increase the damage of all "indirect", "bonus" or "buffing" sources of damage: Life steal (affecting both damage and healing instead power and healing power), retaliation, pets, turrets, minions, spirit weapons, vengeful hammers, the added damage from Impossible Odds and One Wolf Pack, etc.And also increase the effectiveness of boons like might, so with 0 Wisdom a stack of Might would be a tad less powerful that now, but with 3000 Wisdom it'd be like 150% more effective than now. And of course just like when conditions were reworked to stack, the different sources of might would have their values adjusted.

That way we would have 3 main 'damage' stats: Power, Condition Damage and Wisdom. Spreading damage source a bit, which would slow down power creep and allow AI builds to be stronger by having a stat that increases their damage, but also without being too strong, since the player gets power from Power, but AI from Wisdom.

@Namless.4028 said:maybe retaliation should also stack in intensity...

ultimate Guardian meta confirmed B)

@"NeroBoron.7285" said:Oh God please no.

Burning was a duration stacking effect back then and sucked. Specially when multiple people use that condition, only one deals actually damage and the others don't. Leaving all others rendered useless with a big DPS loss. There is a reason why all conditions are stacked now.

In its current state it is a short lasting condition meant to be for burst IF the opponent uses skills. And yes 15 stacks or confusion hit hard, just like 10 stacks of burning hit hard. Just don't spam your skills. Its like not dodging a burst from a power class, you have to be punished. The difference is you still have the chance to cleanse it.

And I know that feeling when other conditions then confusion gets removed pretty well. Specially when one has only access to skills that remove a single condition at a time. There should be more dedicated skills that remove only damaging conditions, as well as dedicated skills that remove only movement imparing conditions.

With that we would have more control that actually the condition that is hurting us right now is removed.

So skills could have effects like "Removing 2 damaging conditions" or "Removing all damaging conditions". There are already a few of those. Like engineers rocketboots for movement impaired conditions.

Further protection should actually reduce condition damage as well.

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion. If you try to wait it out, you end up with more stacks on you in the current meta. You can try to get lucky by cleansing it, but with the cover conditions, you may not get it, and instead you'll cleanse the wrong conditions, thus killing yourself by even using the skill. Confusion is overly punishing in its current state.

Confusion can't be compared to burning because burning does not punish you for using skills. Confusion can only be compared retaliation.

@Hot Boy.7138 said:I expect a lot of backlash from this post, but this is my opinion. Confusion is too strong, and should be brought in line to the same level as retaliation.

The only backlash I'm going to give is that mesmer is the only class stacking confusion too much, so only their confusion application should be nerfed. The confusion application is fine on everybody else, so the condition shouldn't be nerfed directly.

@Hiki.9310 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:I expect a lot of backlash from this post, but this is my opinion. Confusion is too strong, and should be brought in line to the same level as retaliation.

Who is to say there won't be another class/build next meta that will be stacking confusion just as high or higher? That's why i think classes should be rebalanced for confusion only stacking in duration for the future.

Just because boon removal is far less frequent than condi removal it cannot happen. I do not like confusion as condition as well, but I agree with sugestion that cleanses and heals should not be triggering confusion. I would go even further. Punishing people for using their skills leave them in quite bad but manageble situation in 1v1 scenario. In 2v2 or above they are just free kills and more then 5 stack of confusion should be absolute maximum of stacks that target should have at the same time in pvp. Give mesmer tools to sustain 5 stacks for longer time rather than make them burst targets for 15 stacks fo lr 4 sec or so. It would give the target more time to react.

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

@Odik.4587 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

Yet, confusion continues to be an issue. Hence, I've come up with a solution.

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

@"NeroBoron.7285" said:Oh God please no.

Burning was a duration stacking effect back then and sucked. Specially when multiple people use that condition, only one deals actually damage and the others don't. Leaving all others rendered useless with a big DPS loss. There is a reason why all conditions are stacked now.

In its current state it is a short lasting condition meant to be for burst IF the opponent uses skills. And yes 15 stacks or confusion hit hard, just like 10 stacks of burning hit hard. Just don't spam your skills. Its like not dodging a burst from a power class, you have to be punished. The difference is you still have the chance to cleanse it.

And I know that feeling when other conditions then confusion gets removed pretty well. Specially when one has only access to skills that remove a single condition at a time. There should be more dedicated skills that remove only damaging conditions, as well as dedicated skills that remove only movement imparing conditions.

With that we would have more control that actually the condition that is hurting us right now is removed.

So skills could have effects like "Removing 2 damaging conditions" or "Removing all damaging conditions". There are already a few of those. Like engineers rocketboots for movement impaired conditions.

Further protection should actually reduce condition damage as well.

The burst comes from cry of frustration. Which has a base duration of 3 seconds. With 66% duration incrase we are at 5 sec. With 1400 condition damage confusion deals 186 damage per stack with 15 stack this is 2790 damage per skill. So using 4 skills is similar to a heavy burst skill, like warriors axe f1.

So if you get hit by the burst that is the punishment. And 4 skills are still a decent usage. If you cleanse it with less then 4 skills it is still weaker then a power burst. And there are options to sit it out.

Using a block or invul covers you for 3 seconds against further application (yes confusion will hit you once)

Porting or leaping away and start kiting will help (yes confusion will hit you once)

Dodge can still be used to evade the follow up damage without confu proc.

And there is still resistance, negating the effect of confusion. Yes most classes beside the spellbreaker have limited access to it.

Im not saying that it isn't strong, but that there are way better ways to handle that. And imo other stuff like protection that has to be adjusted instead. Or limiting the confusion procs to 1 per second.

If you get confusion usually your team mates should cleanse it. In gw1 it was handled the same way with backfire and empathy.

And no retaliation and confusion are different. Retaliation procs on hit basis. So using rangers longbow 5 hitting 5 targets 5 times, will proc retaliation 25 times. While confusion only procs once, due to skill basis.

Ever tried an engineer with grenades in a wvw Zerg fight? Each skill throws 3 grenades hitting 5 people. Triggering 15 times retaliation. With about 250 damage per trigger, it deals about 3750 damage to yourself per grenade skill. Which is even more then 15 stacks confusion.I can't recommend using grenades in Zerg fights due to this ? same hard retaliation hits are caused by many other skills like guardians symbols or mesmers greatsword autoattack. And retailation got nerfed by 33% due to this in wvw and PvP. Else the damage would even be higher.

And yes confusion could work on a hit basis as well and so on. But...

... You totally ignore the main aspect why I compared confusion with burning. Your idea would render the usage of multiple confusion sources useless. And that was already a no go for burning before and why it got changed to its current state. So I'm 99,99% sure that anet will not change any condition back to the state burning was back then.

@"NeroBoron.7285" said:Oh God please no.

Burning was a duration stacking effect back then and sucked. Specially when multiple people use that condition, only one deals actually damage and the others don't. Leaving all others rendered useless with a big DPS loss. There is a reason why all conditions are stacked now.

In its current state it is a short lasting condition meant to be for burst IF the opponent uses skills. And yes 15 stacks or confusion hit hard, just like 10 stacks of burning hit hard. Just don't spam your skills. Its like not dodging a burst from a power class, you have to be punished. The difference is you still have the chance to cleanse it.

And I know that feeling when other conditions then confusion gets removed pretty well. Specially when one has only access to skills that remove a single condition at a time. There should be more dedicated skills that remove only damaging conditions, as well as dedicated skills that remove only movement imparing conditions.

With that we would have more control that actually the condition that is hurting us right now is removed.

So skills could have effects like "Removing 2 damaging conditions" or "Removing all damaging conditions". There are already a few of those. Like engineers rocketboots for movement impaired conditions.

Further protection should actually reduce condition damage as well.

"Damage over time (DoT)" should really mean "damage over time." Stacking conditions was very arguably the worst decision made in post-launch GW2 because it only further bloated the DPS-only game which already functioned optimally with (only needed) 3/8 of its original classes. The only decent thing to have done with the worthless conditions would have been to make them much rarer and turn them into conditional triggers as was done in GW1, but instead they just became "the other DPS," which opened the door for powercreep and exponential bloat generation. Now GW2 has more worthless skills, traits, weapons and gear options than ever.

Do you get hit by the active damage of confusion when weapon swapping? It happens with Elementlist's Attument swapping. I always hated that.

@Tom.8029 said:Do you get hit by the active damage of confusion when weapon swapping? It happens with Elementlist's Attument swapping. I always hated that.

I had no idea that swapping attunements caused the active damage of confusion. It shouldn't be like that.

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

@Odik.4587 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

Nerfing something into the ground isn't a solution, or balance. You're better off making a thread about cleanse priority than coming up with a terrible solution, if you wanna call it that, for confusion.

@Trigr.6481 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

@Odik.4587 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

Cleanse priority is situational.

Not everyone will like the idea of making confusion stack in duration instead of intensity. Seems fair to me and keeps the function of the condition. And I did list two conditions which would be better for confusion than the way it is live:1) Confusion doesn't stack in intensity, affects all skills.2) Confusion stacks in intensity, doesn't affect auto attacks, heals, and cleanse skills.

Seems fair to me.

People say it's a l2p issue. "You have confusion? Don't attack random like a monkey!" -cit.

One problem, there isn't only confusion, there is torment, burning, bleeding, poison, cripple, chill together with confusion.

If mirage is the "confusion master" should have access only to confusion, stop. Maybe blinds and cripples too, but not 4 plus different damaging conditions which covers each other.

Same for scourge, maybe torment chill and cripple only. Stop.

The problem with condis is one, they are too rewarding, you do your rotation and the enemy is flooded with 10 condis and you can even stop pressing keys in the keyboard and win, instead of planning when to use your main burst skills.

For example if I play holo, which is overpowered and all, if I waste all my photon forge damage random into endure pain or stone signet I get punished for it.

Releasing all your condi burst on someone with stab or any other boons, except resistance (which is only good on warriors and firebrands) won't have any negative effect, most of the times you boonrip or corrupt resistance anyway, you keep spamming and spamming until the opponent is out of everything and eventually dies.

The most balanced condi class was probably burn guardian, it could oneshot you in few seconds, but you could react to it and cleanse it and fight back, burning was the only condi he was able to pull off and he had to play carefully and not spam all his main burst at once, else he dies.

Mirage instead can indeed spam all his burst at once and still survive if it fails, and repeat repeat repeat.

Agreed with the suggestion to confusion not affecting autos, heals, and cleanses. I don't get why cleanses should be punished when you have interrupts for that.

@"Outsider.6051" said:Agreed with the suggestion to confusion not affecting autos, heals, and cleanses. I don't get why cleanses should be punished when you have interrupts for that.Any of those are skill use . If apply same logic quickness/slow shouldnt work on heal/auto attacks , skills that cause cleanse (and retal shoulnt do damage on auto attacks lul) lmao xD (a hint : wont happen)

@Odik.4587 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

BAsically when you have 15 stacks of confusion , you have the choice on trying to clean it and die .... or not doing anything and die . Great gameplay tho.

AW AW ! Nvm you can hope for a random support firebrand to cleanse you or spam resistance that might be corrupted too . But basically you're dead alone.

i'm Quite exaggerating there just for the funny fact.

@Nath Forge Tempete.1645 said:

@Odik.4587 said:

@Hot Boy.7138 said:

You can't wait out 15 stacks of confusion.When you see 15 stacks you feel need to spam all skills you see ready on your skill bar? xDOh side note , mesmer confusion was removed from every shatter and put into f2 only . On top of that duraiton of confusion was heavily reduced ,like trait that prolonged confusion duration by 33%

You either have resistance/cleanse/dodge/pocket firebrand(use blink far away from mesmur)/do nothing this 3 seconds ? If you dont want then you clearly deserved to die ,like those who tank DJ (even if cuz of game desync doesnt show you laser or whatnot) thats just your problem :) . As I said before, we have excuses for invisible oneshots 60k WI(everything actually) ,but NERFED confusion ... ooo damn so op :D