Guild Wars 2

I had to write this down somewhere here. During the first evening of the second Beta Weekend I was playing in PvE, PvP and WvW. Namely the following
- Mesmer with Chronomancer Spec
- Dueling/Illusions/Chronomancy
- Scepter/Shield and Sword/Torch
- Celestial Gear

I have to say that the handling of this Specialization goes way ahead of what I was used to. On a regular mesmer especialy using GS I am mostly concentrated on reflexes watching whats going on, being in the moment. Right now, I am anything but in the moment, constantly analyzing my cooldowns that are affected by alacrity and simoultaneously predicting the next few moves of my enemy, being the mastermind one level above whats happening and constantly hoping nothing too unexpected is going on.

It’s like playing an Esper Control Deck in Magic the Gathering as contrast to a Gruul aggro Deck if that tells you anything. I look at my skill bar and have answers to my opponents next 5 moves. Indeed, I stopped listening to dubstep during PvP and replaced it with House of Cards soundtrack.

The two blocks of the shield in combination with the block on scepter used in short succession gives me another time window comparable to another stealth ability exept that they produce Phantasms and dish out Torment.

The Shield skill 5 tides of time is borderline OP – especially in pvp. It creates a perfect window to shatter and at least gives me more time that I dont have to spend dodging

The improved blocks and the stuns in combination with the reduced cooldowns that come with alacrity take a lot of pressure away from me. And when I actually get in danger, surely blink or decoy or blurred frenzy or prestige or distraction or distortion or take root or portal is off cooldown to save me. And if not, I pop continuum split and walk a few steps aside to let them pump their bursts into the wrong timeline.

A Tipp for anyone trying Chronomancer this weekend: Try “Seize the Moment” as your grandmaster trait. (Quickness per shattered illusion) It’s extremely satisfying to burst someone down with shatters and then quickstomp them. Or get them into downstate, pop distrortion and then quickstomp them. Or if you have too many skills off cooldown because of alacrity and there is just not enought time to use them all.

Good Job, Devs.

Have a great Beta weekend.

I have a concern regarding the healing well and others.

I tried chronomancer in WvW on reset and my initial thought is that the 3 second delay before it heals allies is too long. Even as a self heal alone, I have to stand still and wait while everyone else is moving around (I know I can cast ahead of me but it’s sometimes hard to predict where we’re moving next). I’d much rather have the final burst be divided into 3 ticks along with the vigor, or just reduce duration to 2s.

Similar to the healing well, the end of well effects like alacrity on allies or other effects is abit unreliable and I’d much rather see those effects divided into the pulses themselves to make these skills more consistent.

Well of Precognition has kitten cd to give allies unblockable and blur at the end. Like I said above the unconsistent nature of the final burst makes this skill in my opinion, not worth taking in any situation (also due to the long cooldown).

As for our elite well, Gravity well, I’d like the field to be a bit bigger, maybe increase from 240 to 300.

If I’m not mistaken necro wells do more damage, so one has to wonder why you would prefer to have a mesmer well bomb over a necro well bomb (they can follow up with death shroud and staff marks, we kinda flop around)

Anyway just my opinion I’ve mostly only played mesmer in gw2 so take it as you’d like. Don’t forget my opinion was purely from a WvW standpoint (blob vs blob, no experience in organized fights yet)

EDIT: Also the #5 shield ability sometimes doesn’t return back, like for example near a gate in WvW structures which is kinda annoying if I’m trying to give quickness when attacking a gate

Eremoo.2785:

EDIT: Also the #5 shield ability sometimes doesn’t return back, like for example near a gate in WvW structures which is kinda annoying if I’m trying to give quickness when attacking a gate

This is something I noticed as well. Sometimes especially at a downed enemy, I will just get a “invulnerable” displayed and the shieldwall disappears entirely mid-flight. When being used from a higher ground, it will travel throught the air until it hits my target, then follow the ground and return to me along the floor until it hits the wall below. Then it disappears as well without giving me the cooldown reduction.