Guild Wars 2

AlphatheWhite.9351:

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.

Right now, if you produce 3 illusions then shatter them you get 3 secs of alacrity. With my proposed change you would be getting 2.25 secs in that same time. So, in optimal situations you’d be getting less than you get now, but in non-optimal shatter environments you’d be getting a hell of a lot more.

DE and IR would definately count as illusion summoning skills… Chronophantasma idk about.

Numbers also could be adjusted, its just an idea.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

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?

CP + IR indeed might have been the problem. But CP + StM would be a new one. I don’t think that bringing up Phantasms more quickly is an issue but the other stuff you could do.

CP will make it a lot easier to get off 2-4 full shatters chained together. The amount of Quickness you’d get from that would be insane. IR + StM might have been faster to set up, but the sustained Quickness/Alacrity from CP+StM would be higher.

Quick feedback from playing this weekend.

Echo of Memory – 2 one hit blocks are just bad in a game where a large amount of the moves come at a fast pace and hit multiple times. Definitely needs to be a channeled block since in terms of off-hands it is hard to give up the torch on Mesmer just because the stealth gives you a better defensive option in PvP. You have to make it compete with torch or it won’t see much use. If a channel is to much, then maybe let the Mesmer enter stealth on a successful block. Or maybe some kind of ability to swap places with the iAvenger on block kinda like a reverse sword 3. Speaking of iAvenger it needs to come out faster. I think there are a lot of options here to improve the defensive properties of the skill.

Wells – Calamity and Action are in good spots, don’t think you need to touch these. Precog and Recall need some work. Lots of good suggestions in this thread. Gravity could be bigger, shorter cooldown, or the float could be added back in. One of these needs to be done to truly make it an elite skill where you must take a trait line to use it. I think even the developers forget that you must take a trait line to use this elite and you give up other synergistic traits to use it and thus should be a bit better then other elites.

Traits – I think the traits are in a good spot. I still think the Well trait is lackluster in both beta weekends.

here’s my addition. I tried to cover everything, but there are a lot of specs and not much time, so I’ve not been able to go as in-depth as I’d like. I mostly stuck to solo PvE, which will reflect some of my opinions, but hopefully this helps.

Specialisation: Chronomancer
Overall:

• Was it fun: Quite fun.
• Did it change how I play mesmer in a meaningful way: Yes, though not completely. it’s a versatile class with a lot of offensive support.

Mechanic (Continuum Split):

• quite a nice shatter skill, with a lot of potential for powerful use, but tricky enough that it’ll take time to master. the low duration means it’s not just a pop all your skills twice button, so it feels like it’ll have a high skill cap.

Weapon (Shield):

• Overall: A nice, somewhat offensive weapon, with damage and utility.
• Echo of Memory → Deja Vu: one of the more offensive blocks I’ve seen, the block is decent, the phantasms useful and the second skill is a fitting bonus. no complaints
• Tides of Time: easily one of the top 3 weapon skills in the beta for me. the stun is nice but not groundbreaking, the quickness is short but widespread and the damage is nice. the animation is wonderful, and the idea is just nice.

Skills (Wells): For the most part, I couldn’t see myself using many of these in solo play, but their party-play potential is quite high, and they really seem to help you control the flow of a team fight. the damage done isn’t exceptional, but the effects can subtly shift the advantage to your party.

• Well of Eternity: a nice skill. the initial heal alone doesn’t compare to other heals, but the final heal is pretty sweet, and the AoE effect means it’s actually a really powerful group heal
• Well of Precognition: a good skill for keeping your team in the fight where you might otherwise not be. the unblockable feels quite nice against certain enemies, and the blur at the end helps to deal with the consequences of going full offensive.
• Well of Calamity: quite good for turning a mob of enemies into a much lesser threat. between impairing their movement and cutting their damage, you can severely hamper their effectiveness.
• Well of recall: a decent skill, though I feel it’s probably more geared to PvP than PvE. the well decreases allied cooldowns and increases enemy cooldowns, giving your team the advantage. the idea’s nice, and the numbers are small enough to not be broken.
• Well of action: similar to the above, this increases friendly skill usage speed while decreasing the same for the enemy. helps shift the balance of power in your favour.
• Gravity Well: I was a big fan of the original gravity well, so I’m a little sad to see this change. that said, it does make a little more sense now, with the focus being more on team-based control and buffing. (note, I preferred the old version due to it’s better use in PvE, so this change is worse for my personal playstyle, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad change for the spec overall)

Traits:
Adept:

• Minor – Time Splitter: gives all the Chronomancer stuff, not much else to say.
• Major – Delayed Reactions: makes interrupts more powerful, and works well with the short stuns on tides of time, as well as the dazes available on diversion
• Major – All’s Well that ends Well: gives a lot more access to Alacrity, which seems to be the Chronomancer’s thing. quite nice, and promotes well usage.
• Major – Time Catches Up: pretty nice, makes shattering more effective at long range.
  Master:
• Minor – Flow of Time: more alacrity. more reasons to shatter. it rewards you for playing mesmer. it’s straightforward, helpful and does the job. not much else to say.
• Major – Danger Time: bonus damage against slowed enemies. gives damage, promotes slowing, nothing to dislike. crit chance increase is nice.
• Major – Illusionary Reversion: 50% cashback on your shattered clones! nah, but this is nice, keeps the illusions coming.
• Major – Improved Alacrity: does exactly what you’d expect. nothing special by itself, but definitely works well with all the other alacrity traits.
  Grandmaster:
• Minor – Time Marches On gives a general movespeed increase, makes you harder to slow down. something mesmer needed, and it works pretty well.
• Major – Chronophantasma Can I get a refund? un-shatters phantasms once. what’s not to like?
• Major – Lost Time: more crits means more slows. works beautifully with danger time, which gives more crits from slows. the feedback loop here helps.
• Major – Seize the Moment: Quickness on shatter. makes shatter better, and gives more skill use. what’s not to like?

Overall, the Chronomancer is a nice elite spec. it’s clearly geared towards offensive group support, but many of the benefits work well in solo play too. my biggest complaint would be that the spec feels a little like an upgrade, and didn’t change my playstyle all that much – but perhaps my lack of party-based play was the reason for this. all in all, a solid expansion to the profession.

Oh, now the beta’s finished.

Sad not to be able to play chrono for another month.

Curunen.8729:

Oh, now the beta’s finished.

Sad not to be able to play chrono for another month.

D: back to PoE I guess.

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

Oh, now the beta’s finished.

Sad not to be able to play chrono for another month.

D: back to PoE I guess.

God I tried just now to play some pvp without chrono as a condition shatter and… it’s no fun and so much less effective.

kitten, just going to log on for dailies until the next BWE at this rate.

My main issues are:

All is Well that ends Well
Ok change, but, not we once again rely 99% on speccing Inspiration to have any sensible amount of condition cleanse. None of our inbuilt condi cleansing options are all that good (and Arcane Thievery is downright terrible), so being Chrono really limits here. I mean I get the balance idea, granted, we’re vulnerable to condis. Still, not really happy with this change.

Well of Recall
This one is pretty straightforward: Now that the trait gives 2s on every well, 3s alacrity on such a long CD is very, very lackluster. It either needs to give more alacrity, or be much stronger on the end-effect.

Well of Precognition
Fairly strong, but the annoying part here is how difficult the ticking effect is to utilize. Maybe change it so that it gives charges but with a very long duration?

I find that I don’t summon Illusionary Avenger a lot of times because I interrupted my channeled block with my own skills if I am not blocking.

Fanolian.8415:

I find that I don’t summon Illusionary Avenger a lot of times because I interrupted my channeled block with my own skills if I am not blocking.

This sounds like a personal problem, not an issue with the skill itself.

My earlier feedback suggested allowing the Mesmer to end his wells early by reactivating them – thereby allowing them to trigger the much needed end-effects like Blur or Float.

With Gravity well now a pull-per pulse effect I think that, failing skill redesign (as much as I would like them to be a more unique skill type), it might be simpler to just make effects need to be timed to be effective the pulse effect as was done with Gravity well.

Perhaps just take Well of Precognition and make the Blur the pulse effect (pulse 0.5s of blur every 1s) then add the unblockable effect to the end. In this way the Mesmer can time the Blur effect better on his allies with the added unblockable bonus at the end.

Wells
General Well Suggestions

Normalize wells cast time. Same way you reduced Well of Eternity cast time. I think the same explanation apply to all, except elite because strong cc/game changing effect.

• Well of Eternity: I like the idea of subing vigor pulse with condi removal. But vigor is also good. Regeneration also… Since its a more team oriented heal, changing well type to water… Just few ideas.

• Well of Precognition: Pulsing blur and giving a burst of unblockable+stability makes more sense to me.. It feels lacking and in a long cd at the present state.

• Well of Recall: Another unfortunate lacking well.. Setting this well 3s previously so after we can chill enemies and give them a minor dmg doesnt feel rewarding enough considering a 45 seconds cd…. And pulsing alacrity with new wells trait seems irrelevant.

• Gravity Well: With it 1s cast time wich already causes enough counterplay, it could benefit from a wider radius. At least the pull radius. Also it could scale the dmg increasing as close as you are to the center so it wouldnt be completly negated if enemies have 3+ Stability stacks.

Traits

• Illusionary Reversion: By itself and after the change it become hard to get to use the potencial of this trait. Building illusions take time/cooldowns and illusions are fragil things. I agree the previous form was over the top by itself. A 0-illusion shatter would generate a clone is same than counting 1 illusion (+ IP) in each shatter after the first one. I would change it to 1 illusion requirement and a small ICD (1s probabily) to avoid mindless shatter chain. It would open combo possibilities with some skill/management gap.

• Danger Time: The biggest disapointment in this awsome specialization, it is such a redundant trait… You have to have a good critical chance to reliably build Lost Time charges to apply slow on next hit. Yet we this trait awards more critical chance on slowed targets.. Mesmers already give critical chance a lot of weight when deciding their builds… ( reflects, ferocity bonus on sword trait Fencer Finesse, Sharper Images, then we have Master Fencer and Phantasmal Fury to support it), i feel mesmer doesnt need more critical chance.. I think it would be proper if it was a dmg modifier for mesmer and its illusions, or a simple bonus ferocity increase versus slowed targets, again, for both mesmer and its illusions. Slow is a short time condition, so i guess it wouldnt break the game if our dmg source (mesmer+phantasm) hit harder on slowed enemies. It would also fit its name better. And it would make a chronomancer potencially more dangerous inside a Time Warp, see? win-win theme synergy.

• Lost Time: Unless it synergies better with rest of traits and we really have a bigger reward to make our target few more times slowed, this trait wont compete with the others in its category… Between Time Warp, wells, phantasms, and even minor Delayed Reactions we have enough slow application mechanics and they are at least as good as this trait in applying slow and we dont give up so much picking them. Unless, and for example, Danger Time decently rewards having few more slow applications on our targets, this trait will be forgotten.

Shield

• Echo of Memory: Making it a channeled continous block would make up for the delayed phantasm summon. It would also allow to better positioning setup to proper summon the phantasm cause i found it failling due to LoS/range.. We got to be always moving you know.. And kitten rangers hitting from horizon makes the phantasm fail to summon. It would also make up for the skill overall since phantasm is a bit underwhelming. I just feel sorry for Deja Vu, such a great name and if this sugestion gets implemented 2nd phantasm + this have to go…

• Tides of Time: Could you make it instantly return back when a it encounters a wall/obstacle in its path? FeelsBadMan when you have to cast it in narrow zones yet losing more than half of it potencial (the returning stun/projectile block and the cd reduction).

Overall feels like a solid specialization. Glad i could test it and participate in it tunning/refinement with my feedback.

I really loved Chronomancer this weekend, and played it exclusively in PVP testing out a few different builds. My feedback will reflect ONLY PVP gameplay. I tried out Chrono Shatter, Clockdown and eventually fell in love with and perfected a terribly fun Chrono-Bunker build utilizing wells.

Continuum Split:

• This skill felt so appropriate for chronomancer and very unique. It can be used in so many different ways for offense or defense that I really think ANet hit it out of the park. There were a few buggy instances when something would happen to prevent me from returning to the original timeline, leaving my continuum split to linger on the battlefield. Once, I got stomped at the far point during a continuum shift and after I respawned at my teams base, I warped back to the far point before I could even walk back onto the battlefield. I can’t say if my split had been destroyed by an enemy or not, but it was extremely convenient for getting back into the fray, and presumably an unintended, overpowered function.

Weapon (Shield):

• Overall: I have a fondness for the mesmer bunker playstyle and absolutely LOVE the shield as a weapon for mesmers.
• Echo of Memory -> Deja Vu: I really love the way this skill synergizes with Mental Defense. Proccing both blocks summons 2 Avengers and 1 Defender in a very short period of time allowing for some quick and effective bunking. I do think that the two separate, single-hit blocks were underwhelming and I would love to see this skill function as a channeled block more like the original Mimic but with a phantasm summoned at the end or beginning of the block.
• Tides of Time: This skill is a 10/10 for me right now. It serves as effective yet balanced utility, support and offense with an appropriate level of counter-play. I love the animation and the chance to double-stun an enemy if they cant dodge the super obvious wave heading their way.

Skills (Wells): Playing a support/bunker mesmer is endlessly fun when using these wells and I am so happy that the defensive mesmer playstyle is being supported. I love that the wells reward skillful play and that makes them much more satisfying than our other utility skills because they require more thought and strategy to pull off with maximum efficiency. Some wells were definitely better than others and I think some further tweaking is needed for each of them to be at 100% in balance and function.

The biggest issue I came to in regards to wells was that my teammates didn’t understand or know how to benefit from them. More often than not my allies would go about their combat as if the well wasnt there at all because they didnt have any visual cues to let them know that it would benefit them to fight on the wells. For one, since the Chronomancer is still in beta, many of the players simply weren’t familiar with the skills or their function and therefore couldn’t know how to play around them to get their support perks. Second, to chronomancers and non-mesmers alike, the wells all look essentially the same (except for Gravity Well, with its stand-out animation). This leaves allies in the dark as to whether they should stick around on a particular well or move on. I think if each well had a more unique animation that was more telling of its effects, this could help significantly. For example, if Well of Eternity had a more blue-ish tint to it and had some misty water effects, it would be more apparent to everyone that it was a healing skill, and any allies looking for health could know to advantage of it. Also a well like Calamity that provides allies with no incentive to stick around (outside of traited alacrity) has no visual cues to indicate that they have nothing to gain from fighting on the well. I think that since these skills have so many team-support properties, there should be a more obvious way for allies to identify which well can Heal them and which well can grant them Quickness etc.

Finally, I really think there needs to be an offensive condition well, lest that style of gameplay get left in the dust in regards to these utilities. Obviously it needs to be more Mesmer and less Necromancer so, something that pulses confusion and finishes with torment or even retaliation for allies would be perfect. I think just one confusion-based well could open up even more builds for the chronomancer.

• Well of Eternity: My new favorite heal-skill hands down. There is so much play involved with this heal and so much team support that can come from skillful use of it. My only issue with this skill was the vigor. It seemed sort of random and ineffective to me and I never made use of it. If the idea is to enable the mesmer to dodge within the well in order to survive long enough for the final burst heal, that job is better done with a simple Blurred Frenzy. Since the condition removal trait for wells has been removed, and Chronomancers lack any real cleansing without taking the Inspiration trait line, I would suggest that instead of pulsing vigor, each pulse could cleanse 1 condition. Otherwise I wouldn’t change a thing.
• Well of Precognition: I tried to find something to love about every one of the wells since I was so smitten by their concept and animations, but this one felt the most useless to me. I wanted to like this one more-so than the others since its the only well that also acts as a stun-break, but the functionality just isn’t there at this point. Precognition implies a preemptive, proactive sort of play, but the stun-break and final blur of this skill make it much more reactive than it should be. The unblockable buff seems really trivial and the final blur was seldom beneficial enough to myself or my team to warrant us sticking around on the well until its completion. Finally, a 45 second CD on a utility skill with so little impact just didn’t warrant its use in any build for me. Perhaps this well could pulse Aegis and finish with a blur to support a more defensive ‘premonition’ like feel?
• Well of Calamity: This well ended up making into my final bunker build. The short cooldown made it easy to maintain weakness/cripple on enemies when holding a point, and for slowing enemies heading your way. The damage seems balanced, though I never played a high-power build so for me it was more consistent/dps and less burst-like.
• Well of recall: This well seems like a must-have for Chronomancers. Paired with the Alacrity from AWTEW it really made me feel like I was making an impact in supporting my team. With skillful play, I was also able to maintain a decent amount of Alacrity uptime for myself which made me love the elite specialization even more. This well rewards skillful play more so than others and was extremely satisfying to use. The chill at the end is really nice since anyone standing there when it ends deserves to be punished.
• Well of action: I went back and forth with this well, eventually deciding that it felt right. It worked really well in a build I used that made the most of Slow, and its utility was versatile enough that I found myself using it a variety of other builds. The quickness at the end rewards the user and allies enough that it can make a significant impact in battle if the team is aware of its effects and knows how to take advantage of it.
• Gravity Well: I really love this elite, but I miss the float so much. If we could remove the final pull in favor of a shorter float I would be thrilled. The floating aspect is what made this skill so unique and really held the flavor of the skill in my opinion. I got a lot of players complaining that it was OP when I hit them with 2 Gravity Wells back to back (they didnt know about the skill either so they didnt know how to escape/avoid it), but the smarter players knew that a simple blink or stun break with stability protected them completely, so the counter-play is definitely balanced. Also the long cast-time is easily interrupted by the players who knew what to look for, so I feel like that is in a good place as well.

Just thought I would mention for IR there is always that option of changing it to one illusion required instead of two and adding a 1 sec ICD if a 1 sec ICD by itself isn’t enough.

Xstein.2187:

Just thought I would mention for IR there is always that option of changing it to one illusion required instead of two and adding a 1 sec ICD if a 1 sec ICD by itself isn’t enough.

This is important, I think. Incremental changes are called for when it’s not clear just how close we are to the line between Overpowered and Underpowered.
1 illusion req alone isn’t a huge nerf, but it is a nerf. If players can kill the illusion before you can shatter again, IR fizzles.

If you add a 1s icd, that becomes a pretty large window for counterplay. At that point, even kitten or .75s icd could be enough to do the job.

I certainly don’t think it’s worth trying that combination next, but it does make trying 1s icd more attractive, if there’s a clear next step in case it’s not good enough.

Continuum shift:
I think it gets a bit boring in that its best use is to cast elite skill twice.
Why not disable elite use during its duration but increase its overall duration a bit.
It should have some more strategic use rather than trying to spam every cool down within its duration

Exciton.8942:

Continuum shift:
I think it gets a bit boring in that its best use is to cast elite skill twice.
Why not disable elite use during its duration but increase its overall duration a bit.
It should have some more strategic use rather than trying to spam every cool down within its duration

That is indeed a problem, although at the same it’s what makes it so awesome.

Echo of Memory
Now, summoning two shatterable phantasms every 30 seconds is pretty okay, but the iAvenger just isnt up to scratch.
The effect is not all that impactful, the damage is rather low and its attack speed is to low for what it does.
Furthermore, I don’t think I need to go too deep into why a bouncing projectile is the worst thing ever, since there is already a thread on that matter.

To top it all off, the block doesn’t really do anything other than summon the phantasm, who throws out a piddly little projectile.
Using the skill just kind of feels flaccid as a result.

BORING.

Remove the projectile, instead the phantasm should leap and strike the ground at its target, creating a blast finisher, dealing its damage in AoE, slowing enemies and giving alacrity to allies.

It would also be pretty neat if said blast effect emminated from the Chronomancer upon a successful block, to further reward using the skill properly.

Tides of Time
Its a fun skill in all sorts of ways, all in all I like it.
Terrain bugs like being unusable in in a few WvW camps due to stuff on the ground.
The only change I could really say is that it should simply stop instead of depawning when it cannot move forward (either through terrain or physical objects) and return to the Chronomancer as it normally would.

As for traits, IR really needs a 1-2 second ICD as opposed to the 2 clone requirement.

Also the lack of a shield trait is kind of unfortunate, it would be nice if something befitting the shield got tacked onto delayed reactions or improved alacrity.

regarding IR

i think ppl always forget (sometime it seems anet too) that you never compare trait as op without seeing it from your enemy eyes.

lets assume 1 icd to the trait without 2 illusion demand. do the power shatter still can do huge burst – yes as of today without IR
does the condi mesmer will able to do nice burst – no same of today. becuase you dont wnat to shatter 1 clone for 2 torment stacks as i can build up 3 clones and get more dmg. so condi shatter wont abuse those shatter ability even when IR was without any icd or illusion demand.

as for now with 2 illusion condi shatter suffer the most. power shatter not so much as thier burst is waiting for the perfect time so its easy to proc izerk and 1 clone . so again it didnt hurt them much

to compancete the nerf on condi shatter mtd must be back to its glory. we need 2 stacks or 50% more dmg while moving. every other class has 33% more poison dmg or burning dmg or 20% bleeding dmg etc. we dont!
also we need more burning stack with AA just 1 more and with torch 3 stacks to par with others

only than 1-2 sec icd can fit both power and condi shatter from spamming shatter

see here you didnt see any power shatter complain about IR only the condi shatter players.

i tested the rev compare to mesmer and other condi build. mesmer i think almost at the bottom with group play (not 1v1)

believe me i will be the first to say OP condi shatter if it will comes to that

Mesmer is one of my main chars, so I want to provide some feedback:

Shield
I think the Shield is in a good place.
Echo of Memory maybe should block multiple attacks over 2 seconds and summon the phantasm in the end. So it feels more different and defensive then Illusionary Riposte and Illusionary Counter.
I think Tides of Time should be ground targeting or follow the target. I often made the experience that it didn’t hit my target because it was moving.

Continuum Split / Continuum Shift
Sorry, but in my eyes this can / is / will always be a high potential source of broken game balance. Perma invisible, double moa, spamming phantasms. That is something I’m always afraid of, would like to see a complete rework of it.

Well Skills
The problem with all wells is that you have to remain in place to get all the bonuses of it. That’s something you usually don’t do as a mesmer. That is a big deal specially for the heal skill.

Well of Eternity
Is really nice for group support.

Well of Calamity
The pulse damage could be a higher since it’s our only pure offensive well.

Well of Action
Never used it.

Well of Precognition
This is a stun breaker and that’s why you usually use it defensifly. On pulse it makes you next attacks unblockable which is an offensive effect. And on the end it applies blur which is defensive.
This should be swapped so you can use this as a true defensive skill for your group:
Breaks stun on use (maybe even for allies). Apply 1sec of blur per pulse. And in the end a offensive effect like unblockable attacks is fine for counter attack.

Well of Recall
Never used it

Gravity Well
I really like it. Cooldown could be a little bit lower, like 75sec or pulse damage could be increased a little bit.

Traits
Holy kitten. They are all really strong, some too strong. Thanks to Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma I could litterally spam my shatters. And I had nearly always 3 illusions up. It was not like before where you setup your illusions for a shatter. I had to wait for the cooldown of shatters, cause I always had so many illusions.
I could use Mind Wrack with 3 illusions, after that had 3 up again and could use Cry of Frustration with those 3 illusions. After that I had often again 2 illusions up. This felt really broken.
I guess Illusionary Reversion should be a grandmaster, it could swap places with Seize The Moment. Also Phantasms resummoned by Chronophantasma should inherit the attack cooldown from his “parent” phantasm. Another idea would be a cap of phantasms that can respawn on a single shatter or in a period of time.

NeroBoron.7285:

Mesmer is one of my main chars, so I want to provide some feedback:

Shield
I think the Shield is in a good place.
Echo of Memory maybe should block multiple attacks over 2 seconds and summon the phantasm in the end. So it feels more different and defensive then Illusionary Riposte and Illusionary Counter.
I think Tides of Time should be ground targeting or follow the target. I often made the experience that it didn’t hit my target because it was moving.

Continuum Split / Continuum Shift
Sorry, but in my eyes this can / is / will always be a high potential source of broken game balance. Perma invisible, double moa, spamming phantasms. That is something I’m always afraid of, would like to see a complete rework of it.

Well Skills
The problem with all wells is that you have to remain in place to get all the bonuses of it. That’s something you usually don’t do as a mesmer. That is a big deal specially for the heal skill.

Well of Eternity
Is really nice for group support.

Well of Calamity
The pulse damage could be a higher since it’s our only pure offensive well.

Well of Action
Never used it.

Well of Precognition
This is a stun breaker and that’s why you usually use it defensifly. On pulse it makes you next attacks unblockable which is an offensive effect. And on the end it applies blur which is defensive.
This should be swapped so you can use this as a true defensive skill for your group:
Breaks stun on use (maybe even for allies). Apply 1sec of blur per pulse. And in the end a offensive effect like unblockable attacks is fine for counter attack.

Well of Recall
Never used it

Gravity Well
I really like it. Cooldown could be a little bit lower, like 75sec or pulse damage could be increased a little bit.

Traits
Holy kitten. They are all really strong, some too strong. Thanks to Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma I could litterally spam my shatters. And I had nearly always 3 illusions up. It was not like before where you setup your illusions for a shatter. I had to wait for the cooldown of shatters, cause I always had so many illusions.
I could use Mind Wrack with 3 illusions, after that had 3 up again and could use Cry of Frustration with those 3 illusions. After that I had often again 2 illusions up. This felt really broken.
I guess Illusionary Reversion should be a grandmaster, it could swap places with Seize The Moment. Also Phantasms resummoned by Chronophantasma should inherit the attack cooldown from his “parent” phantasm. Another idea would be a cap of phantasms that can respawn on a single shatter or in a period of time.

i really dont know how you manage to get 3 up
is it in pve?
as in pvp on a point it hardly usable. as a necro or thief i will tr to kill the illusion first than the mesmer is really vulnerable

PVP: I tested it stronghold first. Was fine there, also pretty strong.
Then I played some duells vs d/d cele ele. He had no chance.
Then we changed the rules and we were like "who is going to cap that point and can hold it or will die " with these rules 2 times he died nobody could cap it, 1 time he got the point but died shortly after. 1 time i died and nobody had the point.

And d/d cele ele has already a lot of aoe and i currently pvp meta. Not sure how good this will be in a 5 on 5 or larger fights.

Edit: maybe its also a problem due to Persisdence of Memory shattering a phantasm recharges phantasms by 2 seconds.
Shatter 3 phantasms once , -6sec on them. All phantasms respawn with that shatter so can you shatter again, again -6 sec cd on them. Most phantasms got about 16sec cd. So you can basically reduce it to 4sec and then just spawn new phantasms.

I picked up Phantasmal Disenchanter to have another low cd phantasm. Also mental defense summons A Phantasmal Defender. So I got access to 4 phantasms.

In combination with enough skills to produce clones as well. I had nearly always enough illusions alive.

Thanks to inspiration I got some nice healing and condition remove.

The Basic Build was like this:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQBSSeGMUjlnj6sACgDreQP0FFdxA

It’s not the classical burst shatter, but more a pressure shatter.

I really love my mesmer, but It felt really unbalanced.

NeroBoron.7285:

PVP: I tested it stronghold first. Was fine there, also pretty strong.
Then I played some duells vs d/d cele ele. He had no chance.
Then we changed the rules and we were like "who is going to cap that point and can hold it or will die " with these rules 2 times he died nobody could cap it, 1 time he got the point but died shortly after. 1 time i died and nobody had the point.

And d/d cele ele has already a lot of aoe and i currently pvp meta. Not sure how good this will be in a 5 on 5 or larger fights.

how much time did you dueled? i guess more than 1 min. in 1 min thief can come helped him and you will die. the whole concept of pvp is not duel rather when to duel and when to support. see tcg. some of their fights they are losing in fights but winning the game by points cause they know when to decap and cap.

1v1 condi mesmer is fine as it is . but in group play they are useless.
try 2v2 versus 2 ele under 1 min fight rule. the will cleanse and hold the point while you do nothing to them.

sorry to say guard who can burst in 8-10 burn even if it cleansed after 2 sec its still 7k dmg. same as engi or dd ele who can sustain better. and now revenenat who can 5 burns 8 torment 4 confusion every 5 sec.

condi mes needs some love to be par with those or some other love to be better on other fields. see the necro who should be the master of condi … right ye

The fight where I lost was about 5min. All others fight in which I killed him was like 50~120sec. And I was playing that build for the first time. While he ran his dd ele for ages.

Condis were not a problem for me, check out my last edit with basic build information.
I guess the synergy between all these trait is what makes it so strong.
Usually I had no problem to remove multiple stacks of burning.

Also fought a friend of mine who played a similar build, with my engineer. And I also could not get rid of his phantasm army.

Yeah condi mes needs some love for other fields, but that wasn’t the case here. A condi build wouldn’t kill him like that. Condi mesmer currently sucks against celestial ele. The problem for him was and me with my engineer was this unkillable always respawning illusion army, which I could shatter over and over again.

Edit: It’s already enough to shatter 2 phantasms to spawn 3 illusions, because it will trigger Illusionary Reversion to spawn a clone and Chronophantasma will respawn the shattered phantasms. And as mention with 4 phatasms + the cd reduce on shatter you have no problem to respawn more phantasms if they won’t respawn anymore by chronophantasma..
(We also get Alacrity on shatter, as well to reduce it further)

Yeah sure pvp isn’t about duelling, I know. Just saying that it felt unbalanced to me in stronghold and that testing duells.
Also this build should work for wvw as well. And there you usually can’t call for a mate from mid point to help you in wvw Small scale fights should be fine too since your aoes are shatter and you have some aoe support by your inspiration traits. Going to check that out in the next beta.

I feel that Chronomancer is in a good place, new IR is ok maybe not as strong as its previous version but its still good.
Wells are getting there however i feel that we lack a conditions well and that Well of precognition is under preforming, Maybe change the well to Pulse confusion and then end with a few torment stacks.
Would like tides of time to bounce back after going through an enemy because it so annoying when it hits a wall and disappears…
But apart from that Chronomancer feels awesome

Due to the nerf of IR long duration continuum shifts are in a practical sense impossible (PvP) and the cooldown has been turned into a secondary burst mechanic/double elite. Based on this functionality Chronomancer will serve kittenter 2.0 (shat.ter is a blcoked word wwwwwwwat?) as the most viable competitive build. Combine this with the nerf to alacrity on shatter, the minor trait is all but worthless unless paired with traited alacrity, which happens to be in the same line as IR.

**What this means is players will but the bullet and accept it/change the way they play the class, the next best alternative is to buff your alacrity (traited).

IR should be put back the way it was or re-purposed with something else at this point, removed and redesign a trait to take its place because due to the nerf the trait has no point what so ever.

The alacrity on shatter should also be put back at 1second. MINOR traits should not be made meaningful through the use of other traits. As it stands the traits is just taking up space until taken with traited Alacrity.

My impressions so far:

Continuum Split
Certainly difficult to balance, allows for some nifty play, seems to be neither too powerful nor too weak at the moment, only one thing, it’s still buggy sometimes, but I think that was mentioned already.

Shield 4
Having two blocks potentially available is nice, but the fact that there’s no damage on it, or no effect whatsoever other than the phantasm summoning, and no option to use it actively whilst already channelling like on sword 4, makes this skill a bit meh in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, the block can be really useful for avoiding big hits or hits that might stun you or so, the problem is that you only get the phantasm out of it. I guess there’s no need to say anything else about the phantasm, since it was mentioned enough previously. One more thing, the animation looks fancy, but it’s way too obvious against other players.

Shield 5
I really like that skill and it’s a lot of fun lining up the stuns forth and back. The only problem I have with it, is how unreliable it is on the new maps. As soon as it hits a wall it doesn’t come back, unfortunately you find yourself fighting in narrow spaces quite often, additionally the skill even gets caught on barriers/objects that you can jump over and disappears or bounces in the completely wrong direction, which happens with steep or bumpy terrain too. On the tree platforms it’s absolutely not working at all, because as soon as it hits the end of a platform it plunges off the edge, never to be seen again, so fighting up on those tree houses, you only get half the skill pretty much 90% of the time, since you’re either facing the tree, the end of a platform or a stairway up or down and in all of those scenarios the skill doesn’t return to you. That definitely needs some fixing.

Wells
As someone who likes underwater fights I’m sad not having them available underwater (correct me if I’m wrong, because I haven’t tested it :D). Generally I agree with what has been said, so I’ll keep it short.

Well of Calamity – seems useful and in a good spot

Well of Recall – was surprisingly good for alacrity uptime in PVE

Well of Eternity – Works in PVE stack situations, but other than that not amazing

Well of Precognition – Probably the worst well, I can only think of a few scenarios to use it

Well of Action – Good, situationally, for PVP/WVW

Gravity Well (why not Well of Gravity by the way xD) – I really like it, I mean, the float was cool, but it’s so much better as it is now, in all game modes

Traits
I’ll only comment on traits that I think aren’t quite right yet or could use another look.

Flow of Time
I liked it better in BWE1, but understandable why it was changed, without the traited alacrity duration it seems a little underwhelming though.

All’s Well that Ends Well
I can’t really make up my mind, which version I liked better BWE1 or 2, but the extra group alacrity is nice, although in my opinion the alacrity spam build was kind of boring to play.

Illusionary Reversion
So good in BWE1, too good I guess, but now I feel Improved alacrity is almost always the better pick. We had some good suggestions for IR already, so I won’t go into it any further. (just this, please don’t even think about nerfing Improved Alacrity to make IR more viable again .. although on second thought, yes go ahead, as long as you put the alacrity duration into Flow of Time ;D).

All the slow related traits,
something I was really excited about to play in PVE, a slow interrupt build, because I loved the potential of taking damage off the group, even though it means losing a decent amount of damage myself as a trade off. Then I realised as soon as there’s a breakbar on the enemy, all chronomancer traits I picked for that build are useless and the same goes for some other traits that work on interrupt in other trait lines. There are several reasons for that:

• The events scale up easily and probably will even more since once the expansion is released it will be crowded, so you’re fighting a lot of champions, who have breakbars of course.

• The way the breakbars work is not really functional at the moment, since once it’s broken the enemies stay invincible to any kind of CC for really long after it was broken. And even if you wanted to land an interrupt as soon as the bar is nearly broken, there are myriads of incoming CC’s , from other players, that are just being spammed (I’m talking about uncoordinated events) so you probably won’t hit your “on interrupt effect” anyway.

• Even if you’re on your own and you face one of the small wyverns (those that are not even veterans) it takes a lot of effort or in other words all your CC skills to break the bar just once to get an interrupt. I tested it and I needed 3 dazes (Mantra of Distraction and one from Diversion), 1 knockback (GS 5) and two stuns (Shield 5). Which seems a little ridiculous to me, considering it’s a “regular” bloke I’m fighting.

• Slow does not apply to enemies with breakbars, champions or not, as soon as there’s a breakbar slow is useless. I know, instead of applying the slow it’s supposed to take a bit of the breakbar off, but at the moment, that is such a minimal amount that this mechanic might as well not exist. Yes, slow can be strong on an enemy, but there are also downsides of having slow on enemies, since everything that is channelled by the enemy lasts longer (which can be good or bad for the group of course, depending on what type of skill is being channelled) and it can ruin the timing when it comes to dodges. Besides all that, as I already mentioned, the mesmer loses a decent amount of damage not taking other traits. I’m aware that it’s certainly not easy to balance such a powerful tool, but the way it works now, I don’t really see that much use for it, other than in PVP/WVW situations. In PVE you either don’t need it to fight off normal enemies, because pure damage (or the other Chronomancer traits) is still the better choice or it’s completely useless since you’re facing a champion/enemy with a breakbar. So please have another look at this whole issue, it would suck to see such a fun mechanic going to waste like that, or only being useful for very rare encounters, especially considering the amount of slow and interrupt traits we have (build diversity and such ^^).

Edit
Maybe you could make the slow on bosses/champions/enemies with breakbars work by letting us apply it, but reducing it’s effectiveness to 33% or something, but not letting us apply it at all is almost as if you make a third of the Chronomancers pickable traits useless, in PVE at least.
/Edit

Just one more thing in general, I really like what has been introduced to the game with the Chronomancer, seems so much more skillful than the Reaper (no offence) for example (although playing Reaper was really fun too, but I could just easily face-tank and kill almost everything in the beta map and I don’t even know how to play a Necro properly), anyway, what I was trying to say is, very good job so far Mr. Gee and Team and thank you.

I know I’m super late to the party, but I want to leave my feedback.
As usual, I’m thinking from a WvW / organized group perspective.

Wells

I think the design decision to have the well effects delayed to the last tick punishes the Chronomancer unnecessarily.
I cannot fathom why ANet wanted the chrono wells to work like this, but at the moment the only well that I would pick is Gravity Well because it gives me consistently a strong CC on EVERY tick.

Well of Calamity: the utility is nice, but the damage is absolutely not adequate considering it has 0.75s cast time and the “big” damage lands after 3 seconds. I don’t know what kind of enemies you fight, but my enemies tend to get away from red circles ASAP.
Well of Action: the utility is somewhat decent. The Slow application is ok, but delaying quickness to the last tick is just… clumsy. Counter-intuitive. The damage is ridicolously low and, again, 0.75s cast time. WHY?!
Well of Precognition: arguably our “strongest” support well, does ZERO damage. But for some reason it’s a stun breaker.
Well of Recall: so OP that needs a whole second cast time. A whole second. If you sit in the well for 3 seconds you lower the CD on your skills by… what… less than 2 seconds? WOW. Totally deserves a kitten CD.

Then we have our “look at me, I have a death wish!” healing skill that tells everyone that in 3 seconds we’ll be inside the circle and we’ll be in need of healing. It’s a trap!

Shield

I really liked the double block/double phantasm mechanic on shield for open world PVE and small scale WvW. It’s quite useless for large scale WvW where the phantasm won’t even spawn because the attackers are out of range and he would die to AoE anyway.
But the real deal breaker is Tides of Time. I wanted this skill so badly, I loved the concept, the unlimited targets you could stun. I used it profitably in some small AND large scale situations, BUT… but it’s so BUGGY that I can’t rely on it at all. If there’s a pebble, a tree or anything else on the path, the wall will disappear, leaving you often with the full cooldown. Terrible.

Traits

All’s Well that Ends Well: I find it extremely disappointing, but everybody seems happy with the 2 seconds alacrity rewarded for sitting in the well (or nearby) for 3 seconds. I don’t see any reason to pick it.
Delayed Reactions: the best thing I can say about this is that it doesn’t have an internal cooldown. Would be perfect if Tides of Time wasn’t so broken…
Time Catches Up: love it for shatter builds. But that means small scale WvW… in large scale your clones will die.
Flow of Time: love it, in general, but I’m a bit disappointed with the nerf. In large scale wvw it’s rare to have the luxury of shattering more than one illusion, so the amount gained from this (untraited) is quite low.
Danger Time: it’s really hard to tell how effective it is in large scale battles because I can’t really see how many enemies have slow applied to them
Illusionary Reversion: still love it for small scale, even after the nerf.
Improved Alacrity: very hard to tell if it’s worth taking over Danger Time with large scale pvp in mind.
Time Marches On: love it, of course…
Chronophantasma: with sub-second daze you could hope for a second run from izerker if you have the protected phantasms trait, but in the current iteration that hope is… shattered.
Lost Time: couldn’t really say how much Slow I was dishing out in enemy zergs using this, but it’s probably a fair amount
Seize The Moment: love it for both small and large scale. Quickness on demand is just lovely!

Chronomancer: yes or no?

It’s really hard to say. You have some obvious perks, but none of the traits or the skills feels “mandatory”. The current iteration of Gravity Well is really good for organized groups, but what to give up for going into Chrono? The support that comes from Chaos or Inspiration? Or the damage and CC you can provide with Domination?
It’s a hard bargain.

parisnicholson.3684:

I really loved Chronomancer this weekend, and played it exclusively in PVP testing out a few different builds. My feedback will reflect ONLY PVP gameplay. I tried out Chrono Shatter, Clockdown and eventually fell in love with and perfected a terribly fun Chrono-Bunker build utilizing wells.

Continuum Split:

• This skill felt so appropriate for chronomancer and very unique. It can be used in so many different ways for offense or defense that I really think ANet hit it out of the park. There were a few buggy instances when something would happen to prevent me from returning to the original timeline, leaving my continuum split to linger on the battlefield. Once, I got stomped at the far point during a continuum shift and after I respawned at my teams base, I warped back to the far point before I could even walk back onto the battlefield. I can’t say if my split had been destroyed by an enemy or not, but it was extremely convenient for getting back into the fray, and presumably an unintended, overpowered function.

Weapon (Shield):

• Overall: I have a fondness for the mesmer bunker playstyle and absolutely LOVE the shield as a weapon for mesmers.
• Echo of Memory -> Deja Vu: I really love the way this skill synergizes with Mental Defense. Proccing both blocks summons 2 Avengers and 1 Defender in a very short period of time allowing for some quick and effective bunking. I do think that the two separate, single-hit blocks were underwhelming and I would love to see this skill function as a channeled block more like the original Mimic but with a phantasm summoned at the end or beginning of the block.
• Tides of Time: This skill is a 10/10 for me right now. It serves as effective yet balanced utility, support and offense with an appropriate level of counter-play. I love the animation and the chance to double-stun an enemy if they cant dodge the super obvious wave heading their way.

Skills (Wells): Playing a support/bunker mesmer is endlessly fun when using these wells and I am so happy that the defensive mesmer playstyle is being supported. I love that the wells reward skillful play and that makes them much more satisfying than our other utility skills because they require more thought and strategy to pull off with maximum efficiency. Some wells were definitely better than others and I think some further tweaking is needed for each of them to be at 100% in balance and function.

The biggest issue I came to in regards to wells was that my teammates didn’t understand or know how to benefit from them. More often than not my allies would go about their combat as if the well wasnt there at all because they didnt have any visual cues to let them know that it would benefit them to fight on the wells. For one, since the Chronomancer is still in beta, many of the players simply weren’t familiar with the skills or their function and therefore couldn’t know how to play around them to get their support perks. Second, to chronomancers and non-mesmers alike, the wells all look essentially the same (except for Gravity Well, with its stand-out animation). This leaves allies in the dark as to whether they should stick around on a particular well or move on. I think if each well had a more unique animation that was more telling of its effects, this could help significantly. For example, if Well of Eternity had a more blue-ish tint to it and had some misty water effects, it would be more apparent to everyone that it was a healing skill, and any allies looking for health could know to advantage of it. Also a well like Calamity that provides allies with no incentive to stick around (outside of traited alacrity) has no visual cues to indicate that they have nothing to gain from fighting on the well. I think that since these skills have so many team-support properties, there should be a more obvious way for allies to identify which well can Heal them and which well can grant them Quickness etc.

Finally, I really think there needs to be an offensive condition well, lest that style of gameplay get left in the dust in regards to these utilities. Obviously it needs to be more Mesmer and less Necromancer so, something that pulses confusion and finishes with torment or even retaliation for allies would be perfect. I think just one confusion-based well could open up even more builds for the chronomancer.

• Well of Eternity: My new favorite heal-skill hands down. There is so much play involved with this heal and so much team support that can come from skillful use of it. My only issue with this skill was the vigor. It seemed sort of random and ineffective to me and I never made use of it. If the idea is to enable the mesmer to dodge within the well in order to survive long enough for the final burst heal, that job is better done with a simple Blurred Frenzy. Since the condition removal trait for wells has been removed, and Chronomancers lack any real cleansing without taking the Inspiration trait line, I would suggest that instead of pulsing vigor, each pulse could cleanse 1 condition. Otherwise I wouldn’t change a thing.
• Well of Precognition: I tried to find something to love about every one of the wells since I was so smitten by their concept and animations, but this one felt the most useless to me. I wanted to like this one more-so than the others since its the only well that also acts as a stun-break, but the functionality just isn’t there at this point. Precognition implies a preemptive, proactive sort of play, but the stun-break and final blur of this skill make it much more reactive than it should be. The unblockable buff seems really trivial and the final blur was seldom beneficial enough to myself or my team to warrant us sticking around on the well until its completion. Finally, a 45 second CD on a utility skill with so little impact just didn’t warrant its use in any build for me. Perhaps this well could pulse Aegis and finish with a blur to support a more defensive ‘premonition’ like feel?
• Well of Calamity: This well ended up making into my final bunker build. The short cooldown made it easy to maintain weakness/cripple on enemies when holding a point, and for slowing enemies heading your way. The damage seems balanced, though I never played a high-power build so for me it was more consistent/dps and less burst-like.
• Well of recall: This well seems like a must-have for Chronomancers. Paired with the Alacrity from AWTEW it really made me feel like I was making an impact in supporting my team. With skillful play, I was also able to maintain a decent amount of Alacrity uptime for myself which made me love the elite specialization even more. This well rewards skillful play more so than others and was extremely satisfying to use. The chill at the end is really nice since anyone standing there when it ends deserves to be punished.
• Well of action: I went back and forth with this well, eventually deciding that it felt right. It worked really well in a build I used that made the most of Slow, and its utility was versatile enough that I found myself using it a variety of other builds. The quickness at the end rewards the user and allies enough that it can make a significant impact in battle if the team is aware of its effects and knows how to take advantage of it.
• Gravity Well: I really love this elite, but I miss the float so much. If we could remove the final pull in favor of a shorter float I would be thrilled. The floating aspect is what made this skill so unique and really held the flavor of the skill in my opinion. I got a lot of players complaining that it was OP when I hit them with 2 Gravity Wells back to back (they didnt know about the skill either so they didnt know how to escape/avoid it), but the smarter players knew that a simple blink or stun break with stability protected them completely, so the counter-play is definitely balanced. Also the long cast-time is easily interrupted by the players who knew what to look for, so I feel like that is in a good place as well.

I agree with some of the suggestions here.