Guild Wars 2

http://www.tentonhammer.com/news/guild-wars-2/arenanet-reveal-mesmer-elite-specialization-chronomancer

http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/34744/Guild-Wars-2-Mesmers-Elite-Specialization-Revealed-The-Chronomancer.html

hype intensifies

Now to hope people won’t start mass playing mesmer!

Looks like chronos are getting better necro wells. :P

Sanderinoa.8065:

hype intensifies

Now to hope people won’t start mass playing mesmer!

We were fine as underdogs eh? x)

Quick Draw. And now this.

*happy *

So if i’m reading that correctly, they will essentially be able to cast 2 timewarps by casting tides of time? With the lowered cooldown thing… 4 warrior 1 mesmer party meta is coming BACK!!!

Probably not though, seems really strong though, i don’t see why anyone would stay regular mesmer with those abilities though.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Illusions

Infinite resets?

spoj.9672:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Illusions

Infinite resets?

will only give 1 loop, if you use it to reset your shatter, it goes on cooldown, when you unshift, you are back to the full cooldown.

Yeah true. So no infinite resets. But you can reset twice in a row it seems.

Mesmer finally gets better :O , Double Portals so good. Domination Dueling Chronomancer meta build.

You probably wont have enough time to double portal. Unless you are considering very short portals with blinks for the first one.

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

Ah, you, stop blabbering about meta for a second and just… enjoy this. Enjoy the introduction of something NEW that doesn’t SUCK (hopefully!)… of new mechanics on a class that is among the funniest to play, getting even more shiny toys.
I’m finally hyped to hell and back. It seems so interesting. Shield hype!!

I’ll wait for the druid to feel sad, demotivated and unhyped again.

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

the old traits is the new normal for powerlevel. I dont think Chronomancer will be 100% more powerful, and its likely that its skill ceiling is higher to achieve similar results. you would be giving up some powerful stuff if you have to drop a specialization.
focus reflects?
deceptive evasion?
shatter cool downs?

what are you going to give up that has no value for these abilities? Its definately more interesting, but more powerful? perhaps not.

The real question is…

Tormented shield or Chaos shield :’<

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

the old traits is the new normal for powerlevel. I dont think Chronomancer will be 100% more powerful, and its likely that its skill ceiling is higher to achieve similar results. you would be giving up some powerful stuff if you have to drop a specialization.
focus reflects?
deceptive evasion?
shatter cool downs?

what are you going to give up that has no value for these abilities? Its definately more interesting, but more powerful? perhaps not.

Aye, not talking just Mesmer, but more everything all put together, seems like the big picture we’re going to be much more powerful in the sense that as a 5 man team we will be doing more damage and have more defenses. But, I’ll shut up now and stop being a buzzkill I just hope the devs have a plan to address it.

Jerus.4350:

phys.7689:

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

the old traits is the new normal for powerlevel. I dont think Chronomancer will be 100% more powerful, and its likely that its skill ceiling is higher to achieve similar results. you would be giving up some powerful stuff if you have to drop a specialization.
focus reflects?
deceptive evasion?
shatter cool downs?

what are you going to give up that has no value for these abilities? Its definately more interesting, but more powerful? perhaps not.

Aye, not talking just Mesmer, but more everything all put together, seems like the big picture we’re going to be much more powerful in the sense that as a 5 man team we will be doing more damage and have more defenses. But, I’ll shut up now and stop being a buzzkill I just hope the devs have a plan to address it.

ehh they will likely rebalance all hp/downscaling, and upscale level 80 areas. the new place is supposed to be built more difficult, so it probably will be. We shall see

I agree with Jerus, the whole alacrity and ability to be able to dual timewarp, seems very strong, sounds like if you don’t do chronomancer, you aren’t going to be helping your team out.

Phantasm now come from off-hand weapons, this mean that the shield will probably gonna give a new phantasm. Wonder what it will be or if they gonna do something different.

Maybe Mesmer are gonna be good party offensive booster now for Dungeon. More Time Wrap and some alacrity could boost enough the dps of a group to be worth it.

Its basically arcane echo but better. And i was hoping for Arcane echo as the new elite for chronomancer. So im happy because this means you can echo timewarp aswell. Also i expect it to work with conjure skills aswell. Double Ice Storm meta? Assuming it isnt completely overnerfed.

Also they mention a way to trait for giving alacrity to phantasms, does that mean alacrity + phantasmal haste = huge phantasm dps increase? If they could survive more often (aegis every 10 seconds?), I could see mesmers being very welcome for all parties.

At any rate, necromancer will still be bottom, but its specialization has hope! Maybe… Right?

Gyler.8150:

I agree with Jerus, the whole alacrity and ability to be able to dual timewarp, seems very strong, sounds like if you don’t do chronomancer, you aren’t going to be helping your team out.

That wasn’t really what I was getting at, but you have a point. I was saying more that between all the changes we’ll be able to kill things faster and easier than ever before it looks like. That’s all.

RIP Mesmer. 2012-2015

Iris Ng.9845:

The real question is…

Tormented shield or Chaos shield :’<

no crazy clock shield?

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

Power creep is normal with MMO expansions though.

Ofc, they’d have to give us new difficult content to keep the challenge even partially alive. :P

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

Power creep is normal with MMO expansions though.

Ofc, they’d have to give us new difficult content to keep the challenge even partially alive. :P

Aye, just without really having faith in any new challenging content (no matter how much they repeat it I won’t believe it till I see it) this power creep is going to hurt doing the current content.

We’ll see though, and I really should shut up and stop being a downer.

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

Power creep is normal with MMO expansions though.

Ofc, they’d have to give us new difficult content to keep the challenge even partially alive. :P

It’s maybe normal with MMO expansions, but that doesn’t make power creep a good things. It’s an horrible concept, but most people like it when they see it first and don’t really think about the bad side they will bring with it. It’s like giving junk food to kids. They gonna love eating it, but they gonna get fat and slow pretty quickly.

What do we hear the most about dungeon? It’s easy, zerker meta make it brain dead because stuff die so quicly, etc, etc. How does increasing the power of everyone will make that better?

At this point, I just hope they gonna only give like 50% (or whatever %) of you trait stats back with gear. At least this way, they can balance out the power creep from trait and keep current content relevant.

The power creep in this case is more of a new strategies rather than a raw numbers increase. So its less impactful. And it will only really feel like a power creep to organised groups.

spoj.9672:

The power creep in this case is more of a new strategies rather than a raw numbers increase. So its less impactful. And it will only really feel like a power creep to organised groups.

True, but teams that do harness it, wowza. And it’s not just kill times I’m thinking of, honestly I don’t think that difference will matter all that much, it’s more the ease of things I’m concerned with. With Guardian buff for instance we’ll be able to do the quick kills AND have the support now, that’s more what has me worried about hwo it will end up. Fast kills AND easier to do it.

Either way, we’ll see.

Thaddeus.4891:

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

Sounds awesome, but is anyone else pretty worried about the power creep effect with the new trait buffs and now things like this? Eek. (I know I’m a party pooper)

Power creep is normal with MMO expansions though.

Ofc, they’d have to give us new difficult content to keep the challenge even partially alive. :P

It’s maybe normal with MMO expansions, but that doesn’t make power creep a good things. It’s an horrible concept, but most people like it when they see it first and don’t really think about the bad side they will bring with it. It’s like giving junk food to kids. They gonna love eating it, but they gonna get fat and slow pretty quickly.

What do we hear the most about dungeon? It’s easy, zerker meta make it brain dead because stuff die so quicly, etc, etc. How does increasing the power of everyone will make that better?

At this point, I just hope they gonna only give like 50% (or whatever %) of you trait stats back with gear. At least this way, they can balance out the power creep from trait and keep current content relevant.

Meh, old content is old and generally gets ignored after an expansion hits. After 3 years perfecting playstyles everything is easy anyway. Sure nerf stats, make everything take a whopping 5min longer and realise that doesn’t actually make things harder, just more annoying.

Face it, the only way you’d actually find a real challenge in GW2 at this point are new encounters.

Eh, well…sad to say but let’s be honest. Dungeons and fractals are supported but not really developed. And at the moment introduction of things like Chronomancer will not break them – it’ll take clearing from 10 minutes to 7 minutes for an organized group.

Chronomancers can improve team play but the organized team content is barely present in GW2. In the grand blob of things, chronomancer will not do much. And based on what little has been revealed, it will likely be a fairly high skill ceiling specialization, reducing the effective yield of an average chronomancer to almost 0.

Zania.8461:

Eh, well…sad to say but let’s be honest. Dungeons and fractals are supported but not really developed. And at the moment introduction of things like Chronomancer will not break them – it’ll take clearing from 10 minutes to 7 minutes for an organized group.

Dungeons agreed, fractals we’re getting a mastery line and from what we heard at PAX a reward rework at least. They’re doing something with it, so I’ll wait around to see what that something is. As for the chrono I highly doubt the spec will up dps so much that there’s a 3min difference.

spoj.9672:

The power creep in this case is more of a new strategies rather than a raw numbers increase. So its less impactful. And it will only really feel like a power creep to organised groups.

Not really. There is the concentration of stats. With stats from trait you couldn’t have max dps stats. At best with a Thief 6/6/x build you had 300 power, precision and ferocity, but that would still leave you with 500 points of stats that are not really usefull in PvE (toughness, vitality, healing power, etc ), or half interesting (condition damage, boons duration, etc). Of these 500pts, 148 will be transformed into vitality and toughness, but the remaining 352pts will be a power creep for zerker build. And that’s the minimum possible. For the standard dps warrior it will be 502 additional direct damage stats.

cranos.5913:

Meh, old content is old and generally gets ignored after an expansion hits. After 3 years perfecting playstyles everything is easy anyway. Sure nerf stats, make everything take a whopping 5min longer and realise that doesn’t actually make things harder, just more annoying.

Face it, the only way you’d actually find a real challenge in GW2 at this point are new encounters.

They won’t make dungeon more challenging and nerfing out damage isn’t a good solution. But a power creed isn’t the solution either, it’s worst. Now, not only dungeon won’t be challenging, but mobs will die quickly without needing you to do anything more.

Thaddeus.4891:

cranos.5913:

Meh, old content is old and generally gets ignored after an expansion hits. After 3 years perfecting playstyles everything is easy anyway. Sure nerf stats, make everything take a whopping 5min longer and realise that doesn’t actually make things harder, just more annoying.

Face it, the only way you’d actually find a real challenge in GW2 at this point are new encounters.

They won’t make dungeon more challenging and nerfing out damage isn’t a good solution. But a power creed isn’t the solution either, it’s worst. Now, not only dungeon won’t be challenging, but mobs will die quickly without needing you to do anything more.

Compared to the 1 icebow that’s needed now? =/ At the very least this chronomancer looks like it’ll have to be played more skillfully to be effective then pressing 4 on ib. We’ll see, I doubt there will be much difference in kill times. It’ll be just as boring as it is now.

See Icebow nerf will actually be nice IMO, like FGS it’s something that is just too good (at least imo). Again, my concern is more how much support we’ll be able to have no while doing high damage. Either way we’ve gone quite off topic, sorry

Jerus.4350:

See Icebow nerf will actually be nice IMO, like FGS it’s something that is just too good (at least imo). Again, my concern is more how much support we’ll be able to have no while doing high damage. Either way we’ve gone quite off topic, sorry

Every class brings support though. Ele has currently the highest damage and incredible support. Most powerful CC in game, perma chill, water fields, a very powerful blind, etc.

Looking at the core specs it doesn’t look that bad of a power creep, especially with ib probably getting nerfed into oblivion to where it’ll be more useless then FGS. Some classes got nerfs, some classes buffs.

All in all I hope these specs will bring something new and interesting (mesmer certainly looks good) because the core spec changes don’t so much give a power creep as they oversimplify current gameplay. For example group might stacking has now been reduced to swinging a GS and ele meta will be basically snorefest staff only, making the current meta that much more boring than before.

That last sentence is what is bugging me.

It’s not so much that I think things will die so fast that they are boring, I mean we already have that if we stack up all of our offenses correctly and deep freeze.

It’s that the easy play styles are going to just tear through things where at least currently to blow things up you have to glass up quite a bit so when you do make a mistake you pay for it.

Hammer 60066 guard, 66060 War GS camping PS war, 66600 Staff Ele, Some kind of Thief, and new mesmer. You’ll tear through things and have all the safety nets you could ever need in place.

I hope that makes sense. It’s not the new max damage I’m concerned with, it’s how easy you’ll be able to replicate the speed we currently go at in a casual tour. Not that it’s all that hard right now, but at least you can die, I’m not so sure that’ll hold true when you have all this new stuff.

Thaddeus.4891:

spoj.9672:

The power creep in this case is more of a new strategies rather than a raw numbers increase. So its less impactful. And it will only really feel like a power creep to organised groups.

Not really. There is the concentration of stats. With stats from trait you couldn’t have max dps stats. At best with a Thief 6/6/x build you had 300 power, precision and ferocity, but that would still leave you with 500 points of stats that are not really usefull in PvE (toughness, vitality, healing power, etc ), or half interesting (condition damage, boons duration, etc). Of these 500pts, 148 will be transformed into vitality and toughness, but the remaining 352pts will be a power creep for zerker build. And that’s the minimum possible. For the standard dps warrior it will be 502 additional direct damage stats.

Im not following. We have 700 stat points in traits now. Part of that is going to base and the rest is going to gear. They have stated that your stats should be about the same as they are now. Theres no power creep if they do that right. The only classes that might get a stat increase are classes that specced into their vitality and toughness traitlines. The rest will probably lose a few stat points. And we havent been told how much is going into gear so you cannot say a class is getting X bonus stats. We can only guess.

The only thing we know is the base stats are getting upped to 1000. If they are redistributing exactly 700 stat points then 404 will go into gear and 296 will be baseline. With148 going into toughness and vitality we only have 552 going into offensive stats when wearing offensive gear. Thats less than what most meta builds have in traits currently (6/6/x is 600 offensive stat points). So its not a power creep. Its the reverse.

PS. Phalanx warrior, LH ele and a mesmer that runs 4 or more in inspiration are the only meta builds that are getting bonus offensive stats with these assumptions.

Jerus.4350:

That last sentence is what is bugging me.

It’s not so much that I think things will die so fast that they are boring, I mean we already have that if we stack up all of our offenses correctly and deep freeze.

It’s that the easy play styles are going to just tear through things where at least currently to blow things up you have to glass up quite a bit so when you do make a mistake you pay for it.

Hammer 60066 guard, 66060 War GS camping PS war, 66600 Staff Ele, Some kind of Thief, and new mesmer. You’ll tear through things and have all the safety nets you could ever need in place.

I hope that makes sense. It’s not the new max damage I’m concerned with, it’s how easy you’ll be able to replicate the speed we currently go at in a casual tour. Not that it’s all that hard right now, but at least you can die, I’m not so sure that’ll hold true when you have all this new stuff.

Makes perfect sense and it’s bugging me too, but that’s the way they wanna go with the game it seems. TBH you could see it coming from a mile away as soon as they introduced the PS warrior. Everything, from trait changes to the new defiance system is to simplify gameplay. Better to accept it or find a new game. I sure will if there’s no new content in HoT. The only thing left for me to enjoy atm are fractals.

Also i totally ignored classes like thief and ele which get 900 offensive stat points just from 6/6. Critical strikes and air magic give 300 precision and 300 ferocity. So they get hit pretty hard with this change. Again only if we assume they are redistributing 700 stat points. They could do it completely differently. But it will most likely cause a slight nerf in most cases.

cranos.5913:

Jerus.4350:

That last sentence is what is bugging me.

It’s not so much that I think things will die so fast that they are boring, I mean we already have that if we stack up all of our offenses correctly and deep freeze.

It’s that the easy play styles are going to just tear through things where at least currently to blow things up you have to glass up quite a bit so when you do make a mistake you pay for it.

Hammer 60066 guard, 66060 War GS camping PS war, 66600 Staff Ele, Some kind of Thief, and new mesmer. You’ll tear through things and have all the safety nets you could ever need in place.

I hope that makes sense. It’s not the new max damage I’m concerned with, it’s how easy you’ll be able to replicate the speed we currently go at in a casual tour. Not that it’s all that hard right now, but at least you can die, I’m not so sure that’ll hold true when you have all this new stuff.

Makes perfect sense and it’s bugging me too, but that’s the way they wanna go with the game it seems. TBH you could see it coming from a mile away as soon as they introduced the PS warrior. Everything, from trait changes to the new defiance system is to simplify gameplay. Better to accept it or find a new game. I sure will if there’s no new content in HoT. The only thing left for me to enjoy atm are fractals.

Yeah… at least right now you use fast hands, so swapping axe/mace doing the full rotation you can get vuln out as well, with the change you’ll likely be going 66060 meaning no more quick swap rotations and just pure faceroll GS…

It’s just a bit sad. I hope the content is actually fun.

Could still start off with mace for vuln application and then go pure GS yolo.

Gyler.8150:

Could still start off with mace for vuln application and then go pure GS yolo.

True, and that’s so much more interesting

I think at this point I may just say kitten the meta and play sub par builds that are more fun. D/F even though it’s taking a hit. Axe/mace+Axe/Sword rotation? I don’t know, but this meta while it won’t have FGS/IB OPness I think may be the most boring meta we’ll have for some professions. At least Engi will still be fun, and to get back on topic Mesmer sounds like it’ll be quite interesting.

PHIW detected!

:p

And you haven’t seen other elite specialization yet. It’s still too soon to say anything.

Iris Ng.9845:

PHIW detected!

:p

And you haven’t seen other elite specialization yet. It’s still too soon to say anything.

Very true. God I hope Tempest is as fun as D/F and good enough to not make me feel like I’m a dope for not using staff.

Engineer I’m not sure if I even want a specialization, they’re amazing as is!

I’m just being a pessimistic person today

What if they are nerfing D/F, to make tempest sword new meta so more people buy the expansion? /conspiracy

Jerus.4350:

Iris Ng.9845:

PHIW detected!

:p

And you haven’t seen other elite specialization yet. It’s still too soon to say anything.

Very true. God I hope Tempest is as fun as D/F and good enough to not make me feel like I’m a dope for not using staff.

Engineer I’m not sure if I even want a specialization, they’re amazing as is!

I’m just being a pessimistic person today

Honestly if they put as much creativity into each specialization as they have into mesmer, HoT will actually make me extremely optimistic! Can’t wait to see tempest!!

Also perfect timing on the drop in prices for tormented shield!

I dunno. Its pretty hard to top time manipulation ideas for fun new mechanics.

Wow, Jesus, you sound more of a downer than me on a mildly bad day – that’s saying a lot. Stop stealing my role, will ya? I deleted an entire wall of text of whining just so the world wouldn’t implode from our combined pessimism.
(It just annoys me when people drag out the “setting an example” card, or the “I’m telling you what x and y words mean, gonna decide for you” deck. kitten that….)

You shouldn’t think that every class specialisation will get fun mechanics like the mesmer, b.t.w… mes has always been pretty special. Keep your expectations low. No, not that low. Lower. Right-here-in-the-mock low.

P.S. How inappropriate would the Flameseeker be on a mesmer fashion-wise, from 1 to 10? I want it ç_ç