Guild Wars 2

Hello all,

Making this post in regards to the BW2 Event for Chronomancer. Any questions, comments, and concerns about the Chronomancer should be made here for the Developers to analyze and review. Thank you.

-Purecura

The change to Illusionary Reversion is not great.
While it successfully prevents the original problem it was designed for, it neuters the trait in some content (multi-target pve and any high-cleave environment generally), and makes Deceptive Evasion and Chronophantasma even more important to chronomancers than it was before. Many (most?) of us were hoping it would be a decent replacement for DE, and that we could afford to take IR without taking Chronophantasma.

Some different suggestions that have been made that I personally think would be viable alternatives, while still dealing with the original chain-shatter issue:
1. Move IR up to GM to compete with Chronophantasma, revert it to the original form, and move Seize the Moment down to Master (StM doesn’t really belong in GM, especially as long as it doesn’t give quickness from Illusionary Persona).
2. 1s icd
3. 1-2s icd, unless you have 2 illusions out, then no icd
4. 2s icd, but instead of creating a clone after you shatter, it creates a clone as part of the shatter. So if you have 2 illusions, and shatter, a new clone appears and immediately runs up to shatter alongside the already-existing 2.
5. Some combination of the above.

Many of us felt that IR was fine before, so it really only needs a light touch to bring it down. The biggest problem in BW1 was when you combined DE+Chronophantasma+IR, and that can be cut off a lot by moving IR to compete with Chronophantasma directly. ICD solutions also solve the problem, as even a low icd like 1s makes a full-shatter chain take a very long time to execute, effectively neutering the pvp potential of the full chain.

I just have to say it, but double Moa is simply pure aids in a 1v1.

my only complaint that others haven’t really voiced elsewhere is that wells feel kind of on the small side and could use a radius increase, maybe somewhere around 33-50% size increase 240→ (300-360)

Just some mesmer skills in general need tuning:

Domination:
Confounding suggestion – this trait still seems really strong even with 5sec ICD

Dueling:
Mistrust – increase amount of confusion

Chaos:
Mirror of anguish – reduce CD
Chaotic interruption – might need adjusting
PU – Make it 50% not 100%

Jedge.3619:

Just some mesmer skills in general need tuning:

Domination:
Confounding suggestion – this trait still seems really strong even with 5sec ICD

Dueling:
Mistrust – increase amount of confusion

Chaos:
Mirror of anguish – reduce CD
Chaotic interruption – might need adjusting
PU – Make it 50% not 100%

None of those have anything to do with Chronomancer. There’s some real discussion/changes that are needed for Chrono, let’s not get bogged down in yet another (for example) PU thread debacle.

Well of Recall seems to have become obsolete with the glorious changes made to All’s Well that Ends Well. I propose to buff its Alacrity amount with 2 seconds or alter its use to something like a group wide Continuum Split for hp and up its cooldown with 60 sec (though this might be a dream)

Well of Precognition seems to be underwhelming mainly due to the fact that the blur appears after the well ends. My proposition would be to remove unblockable and make it a well that pulses blur on a 1 sec interval, when it ends grant fury/stability

Well of Calamity seems to be in a good place, same goes for Well of Action.
As for Gravity Well, not sure how I feel about it.

Ooo and take a look at Illusionary Reversion, it’s a bit iffy at the moment. Perhaps an internal cooldown and reversion to the original trait will do it more good!

Overall the Chronomancer is a well designed spec which reminds me why I fell in love with mesmer in gw1, I couldn’t be happier

Can’t really say I agree that the IR nerf was bad at all. I am playing Condie shatter even, which means spamming shatters like crazy, more so than a Power shatter ever would/should, and I’m seeing solid results from IR. I am playing w/o dueling so no DE, and relying solely on IR + Chronophants for illusion generation.

There are still times I have all shatters down, and 2-3 illusions up.

Chronophantasm is simply awesome, and that’s what makes IR still work well IMO.

I was a proponent of a 2s CD on IR before, but at this point the current change seems more fluid actually. I’d hate to see a 5 sec CD on it as some have suggested, as this would severely cripple its effectiveness in ways that the 2 illusion limit simply doesn’t.

Now a 2s CD would work just fine, and I wouldn’t mind trying that out, but if it’s anymore than 2s CD, I’d rather keep this 2 illusion limit.

Be careful what you ask for…I guess.

Windwalker.7421:

Can’t really say I agree that the IR nerf was bad at all. I am playing Condie shatter even, which means spamming shatters like crazy, more so than a Power shatter ever would/should, and I’m seeing solid results from IR. I am playing w/o dueling so no DE, and relying solely on IR + Chronophants for illusion generation.

There are still times I have all shatters down, and 2-3 illusions up.

Chronophantasm is simply awesome, and that’s what makes IR still work well IMO.

I was a proponent of a 2s CD on IR instead before, but at this point the current change seems more fluid actually. I’d hate to see kitten CD on it as some have suggested, as this would severely cripple its effectiveness in ways that the 2 illusion limit simply doesn’t.

Now a 2s CD would work just fine, and I wouldn’t mind trying that out, but if it’s anymore than 2s CD, I’d rather keep this 2 illusion limit.

Be careful what you ask for…I guess.

Yeah I’m feeling exactly the same way.

It does rely heavily on having Cp – I haven’t tried playing using IR without Cp but I imagine doing that would cause serious problems. So it seems that if you take IR, you kind of have to take Cp.

I don’t think that rigidity is a good thing though, but the end result currently “works”.

FYI, 2 tooltip errors in BWE2:
1. Well of Eternity’s activation time is 0.25s but shows 0.5s.
2. Echo of Memory and Deja Vu do not show the damage change from Empowered Illusions, even though the damage does increases. (This existed in BWE1 as well)

1 unmentioned change:
Well of Action activation time 0.25s → 0.75s.

I’ve only played PvP so my thoughts reflect that game mode.

Wells
Wells are pretty much subpar with maybe the exception to Well of Calamity.

Well of Calamity:
It’s turning out to be such a good utility (in place of Decoy) that the final damage critting for over 4k and being able to lock people in place is providing good damage.

Gravity Well:
I’m still on the fence with Gravity Well – the pulls are fine but the damage needs to be higher per pulse and when it expires.
The Dark Field is nice but give us access to another blast finisher at least.

Weapons
Shield:
Echo of Memory should spawn the iAvenger as soon as we activate the skill. Change it to a channeled ability that blocks attacks for the duration and not just one attack.

Traits
Illusionary Reversion:
This needs to be changed back to one clone and have a 2-3 second ICD on it. As of now, Improved Alacrity is proving to be much better.

Chronophantasma:
Lose the daze on the resummon. As of now, it’s not worthless to take because they’re 1-2 auto attacks of being destroyed while dazed. Have them resummon with no daze but still follow the attack cadence of the previous phantasm (probably not possible but the daze definitely needs to go). Seize the Moment is just leaps and bounds better due to the daze.

I’m loving Choronomancer more than before now.

Gravity Well is a lot more useful now (wvw & pvp wise. PvE wise time warp will remain the best.)

Loving the new well trait now. But some of the wells are still kind of underwhelming.

Well of Recall feels so… mmh now with wells giving alacrity when they end.

Well of Precognition… i feel like blur effect at the end doesn’t feel good to use. Blur is something you want to use in reaction to a large incoming attack. Not something you get after being in a circle for 3 seconds.
I feel liek the unblockable attacks & blur effect should be switched around.

Well of Eternity… just doesn’t feel useful at all. by the time the well ends people are dead already or have moved away from it. Not sure how this could be made more useful. having it pulse aoe heals would be better i think but still wouldn’t make this great.

For the shield skills… PvE wise shield seems very underwhelming but I don’t think it was designed to be really useful in PvE anyway. I can see it having some use in WvW or PvP though.

Trait wise everything seems amazing.

I am totally loving chronomancer, almost everything about it is simply fantastic! My two main concerns right now though is how the stun from tides of time has no interaction with things that increase stun duration like paralyzation runes and confounding suggestions. Although I wonder if this is intentional since you don’t even see the “stunned” status effect on mobs after tides of time has passed through them. Secondly the shield block is a bit harder to get off when ‘channeling’ while having quickness since it makes your block duration much shorter. Of course with more skillful use of the block the shorter duration is not a problem but not sure if this was how it was intended to function or not.

Honestly IR seems to be working just fine to me and I think the fix was sufficient on its own. I think the ICD version would be worse in function. Currently, it has been more than sufficient for my uses in replacing DE in my builds.

Gravity well is amazing at the moment. Other wells are useful in their niche at best and borderline useless at the worst.

Trait-wise everything seems great!

Entropy.6784:

Well of Recall seems to have become obsolete with the glorious changes made to All’s Well that Ends Well.

Yeah, I agree. But, I admit I’m seeing it from a PvP perspective.

In PvP, Well of Recall just can’t compete with Well of Calamity or Well of Action. In PvE, I could see the extra Alacrity potentially being worth more than the damage from WoC. But I’ll let the PvE experts settle that one.

tobascodagama.2961:

Entropy.6784:

Well of Recall seems to have become obsolete with the glorious changes made to All’s Well that Ends Well.

Yeah, I agree. But, I admit I’m seeing it from a PvP perspective.

In PvP, Well of Recall just can’t compete with Well of Calamity or Well of Action. In PvE, I could see the extra Alacrity potentially being worth more than the damage from WoC. But I’ll let the PvE experts settle that one.

In PvE, take all 3.

Gotta agreewith glenndevis (and the others) here. I love All’s Well that Ends Well, but some wells are clunky or underperforming the way they are.

Precognition sounds nice in theory, but with the delayed blur it’s simply not intuitive to use. The unblockable part doesn’t really matter when most classes can evade/blink/walk away anyway (especially when there’s a huge, flashy well on the ground), and if you’re using the skill for the evade… it’s probably too late. Not a good skill, and the CD makes it even worse. Switch the functionality and this skill would be golden: On demand AoE blur, unblockable buff afterwards.

Well of Eternity, same problem. Upon casting this skill it’s probably too late! Suggestion: Make this well a water field, so it can be used for some active, on-demand healing. Would be a non-issue for “too-tanky” mesmers, since we lack blast finishers ourselves.

Well of Recall kinda lost its shinyness with the new well trait. CD and cast time kills this well… you’re better of with traited Calamity atm. Maybe give it a combo-field treatment as well?

Well of Action, Calamity and Gravity Well are fine imo.

Concerning Illusionary Reversion: I think this trait should stay the way it when it comes to clones, but shattering one phantasm should count as two clones. Would make an awesome combo with Chronophantasma and DE wouldn’t be necessary at all anymore. Shattering multiple Phantasms with CP and IR equipped would be a non-issue since we only have 3 slots.

Gravity well needs it’s float back. Why not make the 3 pulses to first pull then second pulse to inflict some movement condition and then the last pulse to float the enemy still standing inside the well.

i tried 3 builds without DE
bunker and power shatter suffer the most with IR . i need to be able to proc fast 3 clone to be able to reduce dmg by 9%. with IR simply imposibble if i am on point.
with power sometimes it seems i dont really need IR at all for the burst rather for the escape and misplace of me which is where it hit the build the most as it more easy to see where i am.

for condi it hurst little bit cuase now i shatter slowy now. at the former beta i shatter fast for great burst and now i w8 few sec to pop clones and phantasm so my dps is too low over time. sure i can do dmg but taking into account mtd nerf and no DE compare to before . in a big NERF

put it on 1 illusion or add 1 sec cd to the trait

Some people have covered these points already but: (an opinion based on WvW)

Shield #4 should proc the phantasm regardless if it blocks or not. Also it should block for the whole duration, one attack is useless in WvW. If you do implement this change, remove the second block + phantasm

All wells should last 2 seconds total, OR have the final effect split into all 3 pulses. Damage is also low in my opinion.

Gravity well needs a radius increase and I’m not liking that it can be blocked either (casted a well on a huge group, all I was getting was blocked

Lost time grandmaster trait should affect up to 5 targets (near your initial target) since there’s no useful grandmaster trait for WvW big fights. I don’t care about quickness, and phantasms die instantly anyway, doesn’t matter that they are resummoned after shatter

Well of precognition is unusable in any situation, 45 second cd for an unblockable effect? Self stability for 1 second on it also seems kinda random. Maybe pulse stability instead for a kitten cd?

Like I said above, well of recall is an example of a well that should pulse chilled, not just on the final pulse. By the time it ends, no one is standing on it.

Well of eternity, again 3 s to pulse is too long, I’d rather use a normal heal

IR as it is now rewards long term thinking instead of just spamming. Its already good as it is. With the old version of IR, Chrono is a bit OP, nerfs will be coming and they may be not as thought out as the new IR.

Miroe.2054:

IR as it is now rewards long term thinking instead of just spamming. Its already good as it is. With the old version of IR, Chrono is a bit OP, nerfs will be coming and they may be not as thought out as the new IR.

Try it without Chronophantasma.

Has anyone here noticed that mantras don’t work with continuum split?

The skill only refreshes the cooldown which the mantras don’t have, it would be nice if it also reverted the charges as well.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Miroe.2054:

IR as it is now rewards long term thinking instead of just spamming. Its already good as it is. With the old version of IR, Chrono is a bit OP, nerfs will be coming and they may be not as thought out as the new IR.

Try it without Chronophantasma.

Im using “Seize the moment” for quickness and more scepter clones

The biggest disappointment with Chrono is not being able to play it again until next month’s beta weekend! xD

I still think Illusionary Reversion was fine how it was at first. If people are going to sit on the PvP forums and whine that Mesmers can actually use their shatters then Anet can remove all resource generating skills from every class.

Levetty.1279:

I still think Illusionary Reversion was fine how it was at first. If people are going to sit on the PvP forums and whine that Mesmers can actually use their shatters then Anet can remove all resource generating skills from every class.

Nah, IR was definitely a bit overboard before the change. I love shatter mes, I play it in a couple different flavors in WvW and PvP. But the initial IR trait literally just let you piano across your shatters with little set-up or forethought for insane damage (usually condi).

Curunen.8729:

The biggest disappointment with Chrono is not being able to play it again until next month’s beta weekend! xD

Yep! This is my complaint too! And I wont budge about it until someone fixes it. XD

phokus.8934:

Traits
Illusionary Reversion:
This needs to be changed back to one clone and have a 2-3 second ICD on it. As of now, Improved Alacrity is proving to be much better.

Having now switched and played quite a bit with Improved Alacrity instead of IR in a Duelling/Illusions/Chrono condi shatter build, I can also say IA is MUCH better.

I find Chronophantasma and DE are enough to ensure full or almost full shatters and the increased alacrity uptime from IA is very noticeable.

IR plus Cp is ok if not taking the Duelling line, but you kind of have to take both together then for it to be worthwile.

All’s well:
I like this trait so, so, so much better than the original. Please, please don’t change it. This was a great change and exactly what the chronomancer needed.

Illusionary Reversion:
I can go through shatters like crazy with dom/ill/chron using imagined burden, illusionary reversion, and chronophantasma. You definitely don’t need deceptive evasion with the current IR and Cp, which is what the initial main complaint was before we saw how it played in an actual beta. I personally like the way the trait is right now and don’t want it changed. You can use improved alacrity to summon illusions faster or you can use illusionary reversion to have an extra clone right away for another shatter. You can also use danger time for all the slow. Right now, imo, these traits compete very nicely. We all know IR was overpowered before and Improved alacrity didn’t seem to help that much. Overall, great changes.

Gravity Well:
I enjoy gravity well in this beta much better than the original beta. However, there were sooooo many great ideas suggested by many in the community. Why did you do something so simple as removing float and adding back the pulls? I would still like to see a hybrid between the two where the last pull is removed and instead there is a 1.5 sec float. However, this was still an improvement from the past beta.

Well of Eternity:
I would perhaps like to see vigor replaced with one or two conditions removed. Right now, we need this more than vigor. Especially when we have skills like blurred frenzy.

Shield:
1. As some of us have suggested before, I would also like to see the phantasm on echo of memory summoned 1 sec after channeling the block or at the end of the skill, whichever one is faster. Right now it seems like chronomancers are forced to be as speedy as possible with skills due to the short time in continuum split and trying to activate a good burst for continuum split as quickly as possible. This doesn’t seem to match at all with with a skill that potentially takes 2 and 1/4 seconds to summon a phantasm.

2. Would also like to see the alacrity pulsed in an aoe to allies instead of the bounce.

Both of these shield changes are very small and I don’t think they would be that big of a deal to implement (balance wise). However, overall, I really love the chronomancer feel they did a fantastic job with the class.

Since I am done playing for this BWE I will share a few things I am concerned with from the PoV of a Condition Shatter Chronomancer, which is what I mostly played this WE.

1) I am still annoyed at a lot of the nerfs Conditions have taken. One that I think is particularly unfair at the moment is how badly Torch was nerfed…and in all the wrong ways. I mean The Prestige Burn being basically reduced by ~50% or more in damage for Condition Mesmers, far worse for Power ones. This absolutely should and must apply 3 stacks of Burn to be back up to par where it was. It was never the Burn that concerned people and now it’s plain weak. Same goes for the Torch Phantasm Burn, it should also apply 3 stacks of burning for 3s. (Or at least 2x for 5s.) That the damage was nerfed, while the Stealth portion was significantly boosted, is just a tad ironic.

2) Shield OH. Pretty bad, sorry. If adding another bad OH was the point of this expansion for Mesmers, then I’d call it a success I guess. I really wanted to like it, I gave it a serious try and almost did kinda like it, but it is fundamentally flawed like pretty much all Mesmer OHs are. I would love to see the Shield #4 turned into a plain old 2-3 second full block that summons the Phantasm after ~1 second, or of course when canceled. (With an additional effect when canceled?) The 2x single blocks are a tad less bugged then our other blocks, and the summoning of the Phantasms is much smoother, but 2 blocks that each have to be actively engaged to block just a single attack is plain silly in a game with such a high pace of combat. You can easily take 5+ hits in the time it takes you to physically activate it just to block a single attack. We need a reliable defense on the OH, or it is IMO fatally flawed. That a Shield OH has such a poor defense is quite frankly silly design. Both the 2x Phantasms and the #5 are IMHO pretty gimmicky and not that useful…that’s a bit harsh. I mean in relation to the lacking defense, they simply don’t give a proper payoff reward for losing the much-needed defense that Torch provides. (At the very least the Shield Phantasm should outclass Torchs’ then, but it’s hard to say who would win the race for being the second worse Phantasm. Bounce attack. Sigh. We wanted less of it, not more…or at least increase the projectile speed of all of our bounces by 33-50%. )

3) Mistrust is also way too weak to be a GM. Not going to make any suggestions, but it’s plain bad. If we were just creating new useless GMs, I fail to see the point of the overhaul. There should be a concerted ongoing effort to eliminate bad GMs. I’m not talking about “less popular” ones, I mean BAD ones. This one is plain bad for a GM trait.

4) The 15% attack speed from Malicious Sorcery should be baked into the otherwise even more broken Scepter. The only reason this sees any use is the lack of other options for Condie Mesmers. If you had implemented the improved Confusing Combatants, which you should have btw, then you would have seen people choose Sword over Scepter as a Condition weapon. Sad that we didn’t get that choice just becasuse of GS (I guess?), which easily could have been solved differently. (Although the Fury is absolutely lovely! )

I didn’t care much for the Elite well, I liked the Float one better. It was more unique and cool, too bad we got ourselves nerfed there. I guess an interrupt Mesmer would love it, otherwise I found it fairly minimal impact as compared to TW, MI, or Moa. Outside of Calamity, the wells are all fairly uninteresting IMHO. I also don’t like the change to All’s Well that Ends Well. It’s not terrible, but also not terribly interesting.

Despite all this complaining, I had a blast during the beta though!

I think Condie Chronomancer is in pretty good shape, but it wouldn’t be OPd to fix up TP & iMage Condition damage.

Last BWE I mostly played Power Shatter and also had a lot of fun with that too. So despite all the nagging, things are looking pretty good for Mesmers.

Wells
General Well Suggestions

Wells are still too similar to Glamours. It’s basically a ground AoE and they don’t fit the Chronomancer concept except for the clock face, but you could tack that graphic on to any of the current ground targeted fields.

Instead, give them longer durations and allow the Mesmer to end them early by reactivating them. Scale the ending effect based on how long the well was out. Now you have a skill type which fits much better with the Chronomancer since they ‘wind-up’ before being let go. Note: This might require adjusting the graphics to better represent when the skill would naturally end. (i.e. the 12 O’clock tick).

Ideally a skill would reach maximum potency at approximately 3 seconds but would continue to ‘tick’ for another 3-4 seconds. This allows accurate timing of the end effects like Precognition’s Blur to prevent damage to your allies.

• Well of Eternity: This change would allow the Mesmer to build up a heal in advance or get the heal immediately if necessary.

• Well of Precognition: This would allow the Mesmer to time the allied blur to help his allies avoid effects. See a downed ally about to take a big hit? Throw precog on them and trigger it to blur them.

• Well of Calamity: Make the trigger a blast effect, thereby giving some incentive to trigger it early.

• Well of Recall: This allows you to land the chill before the enemy can exit the area, but you give up your alacrity to do so.

• Well of Action: Allows you to trigger quickness at need to speed-up a rez, or position it for maximum effect on someone who is about to get stomped.

• Gravity Well: Firstly, bring back the old version with the Float for the ending effect. It’s a “Gravity” well, the Float was thematically awesome. In addition, with the effect being triggerable early you can use it for interrupts or try to land it on an enemy before they can escape.

Traits

Minor

• Flow of Time: Update the skill fact to indicate it is based on per illusion shattered.

Adept

• All’s Well That Ends Well: I like the update, much better than the condition removal – we have plenty of that. However, consider having the amount of Alacrity granted be determined by how long the skill is allowed to tick (see Wells section).

Master

• Illusionary Reversion: Remove the two-illusion limit and put in an ICD. Consider moving this up to grandmaster (swap with Sieze the moment) to compete with Chronophantasma. This would create a very clear Slow/Interrupt, Illusion Shatter, and Phantasm option for GM.

• Improved Alacrity: Change this to a Shield trait. Every other elite profession has a weapon trait, so might as well not make Mesmers be the odd man out. Basically just tack on a shield CD reduction.

Current gravity well is in a very good place. Not good idea to ask for adding back float and make it complicated. I like its current form, simple and effective. The pull effect also fits the theme pretty well-strong gravity that sucks you in.

I’m completely blown away, I’ve never had this much fun in GW2 yet (just joined beta this weekend).

Wow. The graphics alone sold me, with the ticking sound and everything, but there’s just a lot of flexibility. Currently looking towards a Dom/Illu/Chrono interrupt centric build, relying on Shield and GS with AE F3 as the main fodder plus Gravity Well for even more interrupts.
Upside is that I retain my ability to know people off of cliffs in WvW.

I think overall the chronomancer is really fun to play at the moment. However, it does still have some issues.

I think well of precognition should be changed so that it gives blurr at the start of the well instead of the end, i think a chronomancer should be able to time this well correctly but at the moment it takes 3 seconds to apply the blurr and when you see a big aoe from bosses you would have to be able to give blurr right away in order to avoid the damage plus you will have to communicate with your allies since the area of the well is fairly small. I don’t think you will be able to help many allies with this well since most aoe deals damage in less than 3 seconds after you see the aoe circle. In the end of the day the mesmer has other options as stun breakers on a far lower cooldown, so giving this well the blur at the start would atleast make it compete with the other options. Since all wells have an ending effect consider making this well give blur to yourself and allies and then when it ends it makes your attacks unblockable.

I don’t think the changes in Illusionary reversion were really effective since you can always combine it with DE to generate clones fast. In pvp chronomancers still have insane burst at the moment. I agree with what some people said above, giving this trait an internal cooldown or making it compete with chronophantasm in the grandmaster tier would be better options.

A slight increase on the radius of wells would be nice especially on the ones that affect allies. At the moment, everyone stacks in a spot to do most dungeons making wells effective in the current content but I believe that won’t be the case in Heart of thorns. With all the dynamic fights, the small radius might make wells not that effective at all in upcoming battles. In conquest mode, however, the radius is already big enough to keep control of a point. So it might be reasonable to make this a PvE only change.

My overall impression was that chrono is now a less ridiculous, and fair enough! A cele well build last time using chaos/illu/chrono was quite reminiscent of the notorious d/d eles and worked better than it should have without really learning to use it.

Condi removal
The condi removal change was the biggest impact – now a well build with sustain really needs Inspiration for cleansing and forces some trickier choices. Unfortunately I think this went a bit too far.

This is a particularly important issue as chrono tilts towards builds with higher sustain/support and less burst, which unfortunately melt to conditions without either inspiration or otherwise drastic measures (Chronophantasma + Persistence of memory + IDisenchanter + another utility kinda worked, but not in big fights. Mantras don’t fit chrono well so our best condi removal utility is lackluster – you are too busy casting everything else repeatedly to charge it)

Well of recall/Precognition
These still seem a little lackluster. Recall could use a hefty end effect to reward getting an enemy to stand there long enough.

Precognition is tricky, because it may end up being very powerful in a bunker-style build. I don’t think it needs much to be taken on a regular basis. My preferred idea is simply that it teleports you to the well when it ends.

Shield
Since the traits were fixed, I tested this out a little more. Tides of time is a really solid skill.
Echo of memory and the avengers don’t feel very impactful with such slow attacks. Each individual effect, alacrity, damage and slow seems quite minimal. Maybe I’m just not seeing what happens when they add up? If I had to pinpoint something, the buffs it applies just don’t compare to other sources of alacrity (not even close!)

Traits
After testing, an ICD on illusionary reversion seems better to me. 2 reasons:
1. I actually know if it will work, regardless of clones continually dying (as they do)
2. The “fix” didn’t exactly work perfectly. If you stand at range, you can spam all the shatters. Clones from earlier shatters still haven’t reached the target so they count towards the minimum of 2.
This is still dependent on a short ICD (eg 2 seconds)

Danger time would be much more compelling if it affected illusions too.

The rest seems fine as-is, but there are probably fun extras you can think of

Elfiest.4031:

I don’t think the changes in Illusionary reversion were really effective since you can always combine it with DE to generate clones fast. In pvp chronomancers still have insane burst at the moment.

I don’t see the point here. If you’re taking both DE and Chrono, then you should have very strong Clone generation. Anything less would mean DE remains a must have. In the scenario you give, DE+IR+CP is totally overkill. The “insane” burst you allege, is solely due to Mind Wrack for Power Shatter Mesmers, which will be on a 15s timer in the build you describe. (minus Alacrity) Only through F5 will you ever need 3 more Illusions for a near instant follow-up MW, which of course is the whole design of Chronomancy. (And has plenty of counter-play, as this combo is among the most Telegraphed combos in the game! See a Rift appear? React! Dodge/block/invuln/evade)

Besides, the second 3-Illusion MW is easily achievable in other ways, and doesn’t have anything to do with IR. (No matter how you nerf it, it’s easy to get 2x 3-Clone MW off in short order using the F5 Shatter. You can use MI to make it trivial even, but CP+DE alone are also enough even without IR.)

Elfiest.4031:

I agree with what some people said above, giving this trait an internal cooldown or making it compete with chronophantasm in the grandmaster tier would be better options.

You can’t nerf IR enough to avoid this “insane” burst aspect of the F5 shatter and the Chronomancy line as a whole, so why completely nerf IR into uselessness? Sorry, moving it to GM would be a terrible idea! It can’t hope to compete with Chronophantasm and would clearly be redundant!

A CD is also a bad idea in general, unless you make it 3s or less, and even then it’s clunky and less reliable than the current IR. Most of all, such a nerf would be targeted at nothing! It would amount to a random nerf to a decent & competitive trait, possibly leaving it un(der) used. It wouldn’t change a thing as far as Power bursting goes, and Condie bursting is an absolute non-issue anyway.

I played a Condie Shatter all BWE and we’re still significantly weaker at Condition damage output then Burn-based Eles, Guardians, and Engineers. It’s still viable and fun, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a Confusion or Torment tick of over 2k on a player all BWE. Now compare that to any of the above professions, who constantly apply 2500+ Burn ticks on you! Even one tick hurts a lot and outside of a Cleanse/Resistance there is NO counter play option! Totally unlike Confusion and Torment, both of which have a very simple counter play option that halves their DPS! (It’s ludicrous to imagine why we keep seeing Condie Mesmer getting nerfed over and over again, while all these Burning lunatics are left untouched!)

Please, leave IR alone! The requirement of 2 Illusions is fine and together with Chronophantasms allows for a realistic alternative to DE. The fact that you can still choose to take both DE and IR+CP is no different for any other resource-based class with multiple traits to boost that resource. There are significant trade-offs in doing that!

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

But 2 torment on shatter is wayyy op.

Windwalker.7421:

Elfiest.4031:

I don’t think the changes in Illusionary reversion were really effective since you can always combine it with DE to generate clones fast. In pvp chronomancers still have insane burst at the moment.

I don’t see the point here. If you’re taking both DE and Chrono, then you should have very strong Clone generation. Anything less would mean DE remains a must have. In the scenario you give, DE+IR+CP is totally overkill. The “insane” burst you allege, is solely due to Mind Wrack for Power Shatter Mesmers, which will be on a 15s timer in the build you describe. (minus Alacrity) Only through F5 will you ever need 3 more Illusions for a near instant follow-up MW, which of course is the whole design of Chronomancy. (And has plenty of counter-play, as this combo is among the most Telegraphed combos in the game! See a Rift appear? React! Dodge/block/invuln/evade)

Besides, the second 3-Illusion MW is easily achievable in other ways, and doesn’t have anything to do with IR. (No matter how you nerf it, it’s easy to get 2x 3-Clone MW off in short order using the F5 Shatter. You can use MI to make it trivial even, but CP+DE alone are also enough even without IR.)

Elfiest.4031:

I agree with what some people said above, giving this trait an internal cooldown or making it compete with chronophantasm in the grandmaster tier would be better options.

You can’t nerf IR enough to avoid this “insane” burst aspect of the F5 shatter and the Chronomancy line as a whole, so why completely nerf IR into uselessness? Sorry, moving it to GM would be a terrible idea! It can’t hope to compete with Chronophantasm and would clearly be redundant!

A CD is also a bad idea in general, unless you make it 3s or less, and even then it’s clunky and less reliable than the current IR. Most of all, such a nerf would be targeted at nothing! It would amount to a random nerf to a decent & competitive trait, possibly leaving it un(der) used. It wouldn’t change a thing as far as Power bursting goes, and Condie bursting is an absolute non-issue anyway.

I played a Condie Shatter all BWE and we’re still significantly weaker at Condition damage output then Burn-based Eles, Guardians, and Engineers. It’s still viable and fun, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a Confusion or Torment tick of over 2k on a player all BWE. Now compare that to any of the above professions, who constantly apply 2500+ Burn ticks on you! Even one tick hurts a lot and outside of a Cleanse/Resistance there is NO counter play option! Totally unlike Confusion and Torment, both of which have a very simple counter play option that halves their DPS! (It’s ludicrous to imagine why we keep seeing Condie Mesmer getting nerfed over and over again, while all these Burning lunatics are left untouched!)

Please, leave IR alone! The requirement of 2 Illusions is fine and together with Chronophantasms allows for a realistic alternative to DE. The fact that you can still choose to take both DE and IR+CP is no different for any other resource-based class with multiple traits to boost that resource. There are significant trade-offs in doing that!

I hear you.

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

Yep, people’s ideas about condi mesmer damage is often grossly exaggerated.

The only thing condi mesmer’s have over other classes’ condi builds is the ability to engage/disengage and in combat mobility. Damage wise, other classes such as revenant, ele, guard, and so on do much more than mesmer when it comes to conditions.

Condi rev is particularly disgusting – I hate fighting them as a condi mesmer. It’s almost a hardcounter.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

But 2 torment on shatter is wayyy op.

Yeah, it’s silly. :/

I find it silly that we have to chain shatter spam just to get a decent amount of confusion/torment stacks on anything – I’d rather have more thoughtful/slower/timed burst but with increased condi application.

Shield
Echo of Memory I wish it had some more flavor since we have a LOT of block skills (scepter 2, sword OH, and now shield). It’d be nice if it pulsed a little AoE damage while channeling or something. But I like the phantasm; Alacrity up-time is great and 2 phantasms in one skill is nice as well.

Tides of Time Absolutely fantastic skill. It’s super buggy, however. It doesn’t always return in the right direction, sometimes randomly shooting off at a 45 degree angle. It has trouble with inclines and objects. Sometimes it’ll disappear through a door or wall and never come back.

Continuum Shift
I noticed a lot of bugs with this one this weekend. Sometimes it didn’t last as long as it was supposed to (3-clone shatter would only give me 2s of continuum shift even if my Rift wasn’t destroyed). Other times it would last too long… at one point I had a shift last about 20 seconds.

I’d also like a timer, if possible. It’s hard to tell how long I have left and it’s annoying to look at the little icon and judge based on how rapidly it’s flashing.

Wells
Generally I like the concept of wells, but some are just so inferior that I rarely/never used them. A few tweaks to emphasize each well and give it a more direct purpose would be nice.

Well of Eternity The reduced cast time really helped! I would like to see a condi clear on well completion since it was removed from the trait line.

Well of Action Just never felt this one was useful enough. Short quickness on each pulse would help make it more impactful. Or maybe add a damaging condition like confusion or bleed to make this the “condition build well” or something.

Well of Calamity LOVE this skill. Nice short cooldown, solid damage. Fantastic.

Well of Precognition Another one I just never used. Blocking isn’t a thing that happens reliably enough for this to have an impact on combat. I wouldn’t mind seeing this give pulsing Fury or something to make it the “boon providing” well.

Well of Recall I liked this well a lot. Alacrity was strong, especially when traited. Cooldown feels a little high… but I was happy with this one.

Gravity Well I miss the float, but I like the pulls more. Great skill and I loved this in WvW battles!

Traits
Minors All the minors are pretty solid for me. The Alacrity-on-shatter change really hurt, however. I think it functions well in PvE where it’s very possible to get multiple illusions up, but I struggled a lot with that in WvW where I could rarely get more than 2 illusions up in time for a shatter.

Alls well that ends well Really liked the change here. I miss the condi removal, but I loved this combined with Well of Recall for a strong supportive well option.

Illusionary Reversion I agree that this one suffered a lot from the change. I like the idea of trying out an ICD rather than relying an illusion count threshold. It’d be great to have an alternative to DE for augmenting clone generation.

Improved Alacrity Definitely gives a boost to Alacrity up-time, which I feel is maybe a touch too short by default. It’d be fun to bake in some more ability to share Alacrity with allies here… maybe give allies .25s of Alacrity per shatter in addition to its current effect.

Overall
Generally, I was really happy with where the Chrono was. A few things felt underpowered or awkward, but mostly things felt like they were in a great place.

The biggest concern I have right now is WvW related. I’d really hoped Chrono would be the AoE king and able to boost our performance in group WvW. However, the fragility of our illusions and the continued need for veil/portal duty are still thorns in my side.

Both chronophantasma and IR directly rely on illusions staying alive for a significant period of time, which just isn’t possible in large battles. Our class’s reliance on shatters to activate side effects like boons and alacrity also cripple us severely in situations with abundant AoE.

I’m not sure what the solution is there. Perhaps stability on shatter in addition to Protection in the Inspiration line. Maybe Chronophantasma causes the phantasms to resummon at your side rather than next to the target. Maybe built-in AoE damage reduction on illusions. It continues to be frustrating to have the profession’s performance change so drastically when there are more enemies on the battlefield.

Wells, Tides of Time, and Alacrity go a long way towards helping our performance in those situation and the Chrono stands out to me as a big step forward in that direction. I still think more could be done to address our ability to successfully land a shatter in large, hectic battles.

Based on the feedback given so far, I’d like to make a couple notes about IR’s current state:

1. With DE and/or Chronophantasma, IR is still pretty strong. Maybe just as strong as it was before.
2. Without DE or Chronophantasma, IR is remarkably unreliable/weak.
3. The 2-illusion req actually makes it really hard to use in any situation where illusions die fast. Like the WvW zerg, or fighting on point in sPvP, or any PvE boss with regular aoe.
4. Consequentially, I’d say that IR as it is makes Chronophantasma is almost a required pick if you want IR to be worthwhile. This is, I think, both unintended and undesired. It is also, imo, undesirable, though clearly some of the posters here disagree.

• Frankly, it makes sense that this would be the case. By nature, CP guarantees you’ll have an illusion up right after the shatter, which is exactly what you want with IR. Using DE rather than CP would require taking time to dodge (.75s) to get back up to 2 illusions after a shatter, which is in essence creating an ICD or resource cost (mirror images/decoy/phase retreat, perhaps) on the next shatter. Without that, though, IR’s 2-illusion requirement would be wayy too burdensome to be worthwhile. Improved Alacrity will outperform 90% of the time if we didn’t have DE or CP available.

4. Because of the above, I’d agree with the icd pushers, BUT: it really needs to start at a 1s icd, and get reevaluated after that. Clone generation from IR is already rate-limited by shatter cooldowns, we don’t need the icd to control how many clones you get. The icd is specifically to prevent too-rapid chain shattering, and 1s should do that. So start at 1s, reevaluate, and only raise it if absolutely necessary.

5. I still think that original IR would be just fine if it were in GM tier alongside Chronophantasma. I don’t understand the people who think it wouldn’t be worth taking over CP, they both have significant use cases, and the interaction between them is really strong.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Based on the feedback given so far, I’d like to make a couple notes about IR’s current state:

1. With DE and/or Chronophantasma, IR is still pretty strong. Maybe just as strong as it was before.
2. Without DE or Chronophantasma, IR is remarkably unreliable/weak.
3. The 2-illusion req actually makes it really hard to use in any situation where illusions die fast. Like the WvW zerg, or fighting on point in sPvP, or any PvE boss with regular aoe.
4. Consequentially, I’d say that IR as it is makes Chronophantasma is almost a required pick if you want IR to be worthwhile. This is, I think, both unintended and undesired. It is also, imo, undesirable, though clearly some of the posters here disagree.

• Frankly, it makes sense that this would be the case. By nature, CP guarantees you’ll have an illusion up right after the shatter, which is exactly what you want with IR. Using DE rather than CP would require taking time to dodge (.75s) to get back up to 2 illusions after a shatter, which is in essence creating an ICD or resource cost (mirror images/decoy/phase retreat, perhaps) on the next shatter. Without that, though, IR’s 2-illusion requirement would be wayy too burdensome to be worthwhile. Improved Alacrity will outperform 90% of the time if we didn’t have DE or CP available.

4. Because of the above, I’d agree with the icd pushers, BUT: it really needs to start at a 1s icd, and get reevaluated after that. Clone generation from IR is already rate-limited by shatter cooldowns, we don’t need the icd to control how many clones you get. The icd is specifically to prevent too-rapid chain shattering, and 1s should do that. So start at 1s, reevaluate, and only raise it if absolutely necessary.

Yeah I completely agree with this.

I’m going to mention it again here…

I’d really like to see Flow of Time changed to “Gain .75 secs of alacrity when using an illusion summoning skill”

I hate being forced to spam my shatters to maintain the effect, i want to ‘feel’ like im shattering tactfully. I also really dont like having the effect neutered in large scale combat where illusions dont survive very long.

While I already posted several feedbacks, yet another short one.

Shield

• I’d love to see Echo of Memory becoming a channeled block. 1-hit-blocks are meh.
• Tides of Time is great but buggy (terrain/walls). Please fix this or lower the CD.

Wells

• Eternity: As discussed, please consider a condition cleanse instead of Vigor.
• Action: Fine by me.
• Calamity: Fine by me.
• Precognition: I’d rather see the effects being reverted to make it more applicable.
• Recall: The CD is way too high for its offensive effect. Maybe add Confusion?
• Gravity: A larger radius or lower cooldown would be appretiated.

Utilities

Not much to say here since I feel most are in a good spot. But IR needs adjustments.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Some different suggestions that have been made that I personally think would be viable alternatives, while still dealing with the original chain-shatter issue:
1. Move IR up to GM to compete with Chronophantasma, revert it to the original form, and move Seize the Moment down to Master (StM doesn’t really belong in GM, especially as long as it doesn’t give quickness from Illusionary Persona).

Personally, I’m absolutely against this suggestion. StM + Chronophantasm would be way more powerful than StM + IR ever was. I also feel that StM would easily outperform the other Master traits. They just need to balance IR properly and everything is fine.

Non-Chronomancer-PU-CS-issues I’d like to see adressed:

• Duelling Adept tier mess
• Underperformance of Mistrust
• MI-reflect interaction
• Lack of availability of utilities underwater

I have only played for about 2 weeks prior to beta (Level 25 in live) so don’t have enough experience to really comment on the changes but I really enjoyed playing around with the various builds and had a lot of fun, which is the entire point of the game so I think a “well done” is deserved.

Loving Alacrity

Maybe wrong but I thought a Staff based condition build was most fun, and felt the most powerful too. Just going to be hard when I do reach level 80 and don’t get all that gear for free!

Mikkel.8427:

I’m going to mention it again here…

I’d really like to see Flow of Time changed to “Gain .75 secs of alacrity when using an illusion summoning skill”

I hate being forced to spam my shatters to maintain the effect, i want to ‘feel’ like im shattering tactfully. I also really dont like having the effect neutered in large scale combat where illusions dont survive very long.

Just a couple notes about that:

• While in theory they provide the same alacrity, in practice alacrity on shatter is reduced by illusion death. If every single illusion creation granted .75s alacrity, you would end up with more alacrity straight up.
• Specifically calling out “illusion summoning skill” means DE, IR and Chronophantasma would not provide any alacrity, meaning any build that used one of those (every chronomancer that cares much about alacrity?) would be neutered. This is bad, and flow of time would become dramatically less valuable than it is right now.

If an ICD isn’t in the cards for IR, maybe just cutting the requirement down to one illusion instead of two? I get that the point currently is to require setup to use IR, but really the dependency on having DE and/or Chronophanstasma to make IR work effectively is just a bit too steep.

Xaylin.1860:

Personally, I’m absolutely against this suggestion. StM + Chronophantasm would be way more powerful than StM + IR ever was. I also feel that StM would easily outperform the other Master traits. They just need to balance IR properly and everything is fine.

I admit, I hadn’t thought too much about the interaction between StM and CP, but I suppose the quickness helps get the phantasms back up a lot more quickly.

That said, it wasn’t StM+IR that was the problem, it was really CP+IR, enabling full-illusion chain super-shatters. Removing the ability to take both together dramatically limits the potential of the IR chains by removing the primary means of supplying more than 2 illusions per shatter in the chain.
Do you think the ability to bring up phantasms more quickly is that much more powerful?

As far as StM in the master tier, there’s been plenty of discussion that Improved Alacrity has jumped in value with the addition of All’s Well That Ends Well, and Danger Time is specifically a slow-build trait, which means slow builds will probably be taking it over StM regardless.
Choosing between StM and Improved Alacrity becomes all about which you need more: quickness or alacrity. Choosing between StM and Danger Time becomes about whether you’re on a slow build or not…which was already the case in choosing between Lost Time and StM.
I don’t understand the issue, as it certainly doesn’t look like choosing StM over Danger Time or Improved Alacrity is an easy choice.

Xaylin.1860:

Non-Chronomancer-PU-CS-issues I’d like to see adressed:

• Duelling Adept tier mess
• Underperformance of Mistrust
• MI-reflect interaction
• Lack of availability of utilities underwater

Your lips to Gee’s ears.

tobascodagama.2961:

If an ICD isn’t in the cards for IR, maybe just cutting the requirement down to one illusion instead of two? I get that the point currently is to require setup to use IR, but really the dependency on having DE and/or Chronophanstasma to make IR work effectively is just a bit too steep.

Functionally, though, how is that different in terms of the chain super-shatters Robert suggested were the reason for the change?
Pop one illusion at the start, then start shattering, another shatter every .25s. IR gives you a new illusion after each shatter, letting the next shatter create another illusion, and so on.
There are only 2 differences, then:
1. You have to have an illusion up when you start the chain. Whoop de do. The CP+IR builds that made this a problem in the first place certainly do that already.
2. If all your illusions get cleaved in the .25s between shatters, you don’t get IR. That .25s isn’t really a large window, though, and as easy as clones are to kill, they’re not THAT easy.

In short, 1-illusion requirement is an extremely minimal nerf, and I’m sure that’s exactly why they went with 2-illusions.
It also does nothing to rein in the potency of CP+IR, which imo is why this was a problem in the first place.
So sadly, I just don’t think 1 illusion requirement is gonna do it.