Chronomancer lack of skill variety...
Interestingly what you mention is my issue with the following elite specs:
- Berserker
- Daredevil
- Tempest
These feel like Warrior v1.1, Thief v1.1 and Elementalist v1.1, respectively. They change absolutely nothing about the gameplay, if the base class had that weapon I doubt I’d really be able to tell the difference. In other words swapping from one already available weapon to another is the same as swapping from say, Thief to Daredevil. For all practical purposes.
“number-of-skills” seems a really weird metric to me. Because yes, Daredevil gets a fair few new skills, but they feel no different from the base skills. It’s even worse for Warriors, actually, who get F6-skill-v1.1, Physical-skills-v1.1 and Torch, which is a lot like an offhand sword only it illuminates the ground a bit.
Why I don’t feel Chronomancer is that way?
Because:
- Our shield is actually meaningfully different. A very powerful full block, something we’ve been asking for for a long time, ready access to lots of slow and alacrity, a very very powerful mass-interrupting in tight spaces. The shield with its 2 skills seems to provide ~2 more meaningful skills than the 5 skills of Thief Staff do, kinda.
- Wells are a genuine change to gameplay. They give us something we haven’t had in the past, and having access to them changes the way you set up your builds. Hence Chronomancer <-> Mesmer is actually different. I am aware that condi shatter builds generally don’t use wells, but I see that as a result of the need for so many specific skills on them more than anything. Plus ofc, this is an sPvP/roaming issue, where a set of AE-centric skills have heavily reduced value by their very nature.
- Time Split changes… a lot. It changes clone priority, it changes skill usage, it changes opportunity costs and skill combinations. That is because you want to maximize on the reset ,so skills formerly used with spacing are now ideally bunched together, but this means you have to first create situation where using 4-5 skills with medium~long CDs back to back even makes sense.
Sure, Druid for Ranger is the pinnacle of “Nothing like the base class”. I agree. But we’re not really that far behind. At least looking at all 8 elite specs.
I mean, it is still only an elite spec. It should still feel 2/3rd or more Mesmer, as 2 of our 3 trait lines are base lines, and most of our skills and weapons are.
And since gameplay changes a fair amount due to the changes in pacing with split and wells, group support changes, we get a proper defensive weapon and the traits make some formerly unsuitable things possible (Chronophantasma is the big one here), I can’t complain.
I wouldn’t play my Mesmer like I play my Chronomancer. Whether I feel Mesmer can be as strong as chrono… no clue. I think the power creep is strong with this xpack, overall, so I’m not going to judge this for a single class. :P
But comparing just what it gives me, I feel bad for Thieves, Eles and Warriors, while I’m more than happy on my Mesmer.
(edited by Carighan.6758)
Chronomancer is probably the single strongest and most useful elite spec of the bunch and you still think they are treated unfairly?
Of what I read, that an extra Ele is still more useful in a party than a Chrono)
Even if that’s true, do note that core eles are the single strongest and most useful profession. That will probably remain to be the case even after the introduction of the elite specs.
You go into great details of how the chronomancer is lacking in new skill diversity and high cooldowns on skills.
What you absolutely fail to mention or dive into, let alone analyse, is the huge synergy that chronomancer and mesmer skills share. Complaining about a 90 second 5th clkittenter skill is valid, but not as valid when that same shatter skill has the potential to reset a majority of your skillbar.
So now to Chronomancer… While I’m happy that there is now actually a Game, where a light armor class can both wield a Sword and a Shield, I am really disappointed of what the new Expansion has to offer for Mesmers.
Shield has only 2 new skills, one of which is a Blocking ability. We get a new Shatter ability with an insanely 90sec CD (of course Alacrity can help with that).
But now to the Wells. They all have the same radius and look totaly the same!
So from the looks of it, Mesmers only get 3 new different skills. (If you count Wells as one, because even the new Ranger Glyphs have a different look on them.)
So basically you major complaint is that we get less visuals compared to other classes. I’m sorry, while GW2 indeed has a huge fashion aspect to it, the game does not get balanced around visuals (that would be insane).