Confusion

Confusion

Effect type

Condition

Stacking

Intensity

Game link

“

Damage received on skill activation; stacks intensity.

— In-game description

Confusion is a condition that deals damage each second and additional damage each time the affected target begins to activate a skill. The damage on skill activation is greater against NPCs than against players. Confusion stacks intensity. Like all damaging conditions, it will stack up to a maximum of 1500 times.

Characters suffering from confusion can be identified by twirling, purple tinted spiral over their heads. Additionally, the same effect will appear alongside damage dealt by confusion when using a skill.

The formulae for confusion's damage are:

Damage over time:

(0.1 * Level) + 2 damage per stack per second.

10 damage per stack per second at level 80.

Damage on skill activation (Player):

(0.0975 * Condition Damage) + (0.575 * Level) + 3.5 damage per stack.

(0.0975 * Condition Damage) + 49.5 damage per stack.

Damage on skill activation (NPC):

(0.195 * Condition Damage) + (1.15 * Level) + 3.5 damage per stack.

(0.195 * Condition Damage) + 95.5 damage per stack.

Confusion damage is applied on every skill activation, whether activated manually or automatically. For example, necromancers will take confusion damage when they create a Mark of Blood after dodging while equipped with the Mark of Evasion trait.

Related skills

See also: Condition#Related skills

Weapon skills that apply confusion

Axe

•  
  
   Temporal Rift

Pistol

•  
  
   Static Shot

Engineering Kit

• Bomb Kit
  •  
    
     Concussion Bomb
• Tool Kit
  •  
    
     Pry Bar

Pistol

•  
  
   Magic Bullet

Scepter

•  
  
   Confusing Images

Staff

•  
  
   Chaos Armor

Torch

•  
  
   Phantasmal Mage

Axe

•  
  
   Axes of Symmetry
•  
  
   Ether Barrage (while under the effect of Mirage Cloak)

Underwater weapon skills that apply confusion

Trident

•  
  
   Phantasmal Whaler

Trident

•  
  
   Wave of Panic (while under the effect of Mirage Cloak)

Utility skills that apply confusion

•  
  
   Crystal Sands
•  
  
   Banish Enchantment
•  
  
   Pain Inverter

Elite Skills that apply confusion

•  
  
   Jaunt

Profession mechanics that apply confusion

•  
  
   Skull Grinder (primal burst with mace while in berserk)
•  
  
   Confusing Speech (tool belt skill with Technobabble)
•  
  
   Crippling Anguish (Iboga family common skill)
•  
  
   Narcotic Spores (Iboga family common skill)
•  
  
   Sonic Shriek (Juvenile Reef Drake unique skill)
•  
  
   Throw Gunk (Forage (warthog); random)
•  
  
   Crippling Anguish (with Juvenile Fanged Iboga while in beastmode)
•  
  
   Narcotic Spores (with Juvenile Fanged Iboga while in beastmode)
•  
  
   Throw Gunk (Stolen skill)
•  
  
   Cry of Frustration
•  
  
   Rewinder

Skills that convert retaliation into confusion

Primary article: Condition#Skills that convert boons into conditions

Downed skills that apply confusion

•  
  
   Mind Blast

Combos that apply confusion

•  Combo Field: Ethereal ×  Combo Finisher: Physical Projectile
•  Combo Field: Ethereal ×  Combo Finisher: Whirl

Skills that remove confusion

•  
  
   Hide in Shadows
•  
  
   A.E.D.

Related traits

See also: Condition#Related traits

Traits that apply confusion

 Corruption

•  Spontaneous Destruction — Use Lesser Banish Enchantment when striking a foe that has at least as many boons as the threshold.

 Trickery

•  Bewildering Ambush — Stealing also applies confusion.

 Dueling

•  Ineptitude — Interrupting a foe inflicts blind, and blinding a foe inflicts confusion. This trait can only activate on enemies with defiance bars once per interval.

 Mirage

•  Riddle of Sand — When entering combat, your first Ambush attack applies confusion. This ability refreshes when you use a Shatter skill.

Traits that remove confusion

See also: Boon#Traits that convert conditions into boons

 Acrobatics

•  Guarded Initiation — Remove conditions when striking an enemy while your health is above the threshold.
•  Pain Response - Gain regeneration and remove conditions when struck while your health is below the threshold.

Traits that convert retaliation into confusion

Primary article: Condition#Traits that convert boons into conditions

Related effects

Effects that confuse

•  
  
   Chaos Aura (randomly when struck)

Related equipment

See also: Condition#Related equipment

Upgrade components that affect confusion

Runes

•   Superior Rune of Perplexity (rank 2, 4, & 6 – increase duration)

Player chatter

When confusion is applied to a character they will occasionally shout out one of the following lines, depending on their race and gender.

Race	Gender
	Male	Female
Asura	My mind is scrambled!	Where am I?
Charr	I can't remember my orders!	Can't remember my orders!
Human	Where am I?	What's going on?
Norn	Is this... a dream?	How many ales have I had?
Sylvari	Everything's so blurry.	Oh, what's happening?

Version history

Patch	Changes
March 05, 2019	No longer deals damage when a skill is prevented from activating due to an invalid position of the target relative to the caster.
May 08, 2018	This condition has been reworked and will now inflict more damage to nonplayer enemies than players instead of being split between game modes.
February 06, 2018	Heavily reweighted damage from this condition's base damage-over-time component to the damage-on-skill-use component. The condition-damage contribution has been removed from the damage-over-time component and redistributed into the damage-on-skill-use component. This condition remains split between PvE and PvP/WvW
August 09, 2017	Base damage has been increased to match bleed's base damage; skill-activation damage has been reduced to compensate for this. This change only applies to PvE.
February 22, 2017	Fixed a bug in which the player could take a massive amount of damage if holding a ranged autoattack down while their target is behind them.
June 23, 2015	Specialization update: All damage conditions will now stack up to 1500 times. This condition now has two damage components - damage over time, and the damage dealt when an ability completes. The damage has also been normalized between all game modes. The formula for this condition has been rescaled to account for the new behavior of damaging conditions and to put more focus on the condition damage stat. The skill-use damage will also now trigger when the affected target is interrupted during skill activation. New damage over time: 2 + (0.1 * Level) + (0.035 * Condition Damage) New trigger damage: 3.5 + (0.575 * Level) + (0.0625 * Condition Damage) Boon to Condition Conversion: Retaliation converts to 3 stacks of confusion for 5 seconds (+2 stacks).
January 27, 2015	The effect of condition damage on confusion has been increased by 33% in PvE.
June 25, 2013	Fixed confusion to no longer fire extra times on skills due to hidden script actions.
April 30, 2013	WvW: Updated confusion and retaliation effects to do the same damage as they do in sPvP.
August 28, 2012	Game release: Confusion has been added to the game.

Trivia

• This condition was changed to also deal damage each second in the June 23, 2015 game update.
• It is one of the few condition damage types that no enemies are immune against. The others are Bleeding and Torment.

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Effects (stacking)