Guild Wars 2

I’m looking for feedback to my planned build for chronomancer:

WvW: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse7cnknBlphloBufCEgiFcj6sFeharMASgfpuVn1dF-TFzDABifGAiRlCpUSgqSQg2fAATQNpMYKlYtouiTKF8Q/AEPEACBMaBA-w

PvP: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse7anknBlphloBufCEgiFcj6sFeharMASgfpuVn1dF-TJhFABAcSAAvMQCPBgc2fAA

The reasons for the weapon set is to have 2 defensive skills on both weapon swaps, sword 2, shield 4 / scepter 2, sword 4. It would generally play as a shatter mes looking to +1 fights and landing a burst combo by catching the opponent in well of calamity + sword 3-2 + shatter combo. Mantra of pain is there to add additional damage between hits and hopefully build charges for lost time. Also it adds to the AOE damage after catching 2-3 people with gravity well. The builds seem to be more conservative in having more sustain through healing and condi cleanses, and I was wondering if I should be more aggressive by changing inspiration to domination or illusions.

If I were to make it more aggressive: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse7cnknBlphloBufCEgiFWjiMBCggrMDChrpuYX2pF-TFzDABifGAiRlCpUSgqSQg2fAATQNpMYKlYtouiTKF8Q/AEPEACBMaBA-w

General playstyle would be to deal damage from multiple sources; mantra, phantasms, shatters while using active defenses to stay alive. WvW roaming would usually be with a small group of 2-3, whereas PvP playstyle would be putting pressure on the point, with AOE while surviving with active defenses.

Reasons for not using;

Chronophantasma: I think the trait’s a little too cheesy, being capable of doing huge damage spikes which is not the aim for this build. I plan to use it on a more bursty build with possibly GS & S/T or S/S

Illusionary Reversion: Deceptive Evasion is plenty enough clone generation, and I doubt I would need more than that as this is not a pure shatter build.

Domination or Illusion trait line: The condi cleanse from Inspiration: restorative illusions is quite hard to pass up and Dueling: deceptive evasion helps build the shatter combo much quicker + proc fencer’s finesse.

Hey hey with the “cheesy!”

All the chrono grandmasters are good, and all have their place. Don’t kitten yourself because of the obvious applications of one, especially if it would be the biggest help to your build (I dunno if it would, but just sayin..).

Besides, whether or not a trait is “cheesy” depends on the build its used in. Chronophantasma could be the saving grace that phantasm builds needed. Alternatively it could push shatter over the top. Let the devs decide what “cheese” they wanna allow, no need to kitten yourself for the sake of what may or mat not be “honorable.”

Also, build seems interesting but what is its primary goal? What does it excel at?

Ah, I didn’t mean it in that way, as all traits does have their places with different builds. I kind of meant that in a gimmicky sense, sort of like fresh air or killshot / eviscerate warriors in that it does one or two things well but if it gets played around, then you’re in for a tough fight (its more of a personal preference, and I’m not saying I would not run it ever; i just find that it will be better in another build that would have a greater focus in spike damage, phantasms and timing bursts from shatters [does power break work with phantasms? To get rid of that daze duration], rather than try to squeeze traits in and make a good-stuff kind of build)

The primary goal of the build just having multiple sources of damage from phantasms, wells , mantras and shatters, while applying soft and / or short duration cc, without focusing too much on any so that you always have a few options open. As previously mentioned, i think wells is good putting pressure on points and during teamfights. Also not sure if anyone plays dota here but gravity well reminds me of dota 2’s black hole or reverse polarity. Simply put it, it’s an amazing teamfight elite, that clumps the enemies to make them vulnerable to aoe such as warrior 100 blades, guardian whirling wrath , or engineer nade / bomb spam are just some of the combos that can be pulled off. Even in the scenario, where you are alone, clumping them up and following up with sword 3, sword 2 + shatter and power spike, (many ways to perform follow ups to both wells such as shield 5 first etc.) does alot of aoe damage.

While it seems to center on wells, just simply playing it as a shatter mesmer (albeit without illusions or domination) still does a fair amount of damage unless the enemy goes full bunk, and careful management of block skills should keep you alive from spiky one shot builds.

My personal opinion however, is that this build tends to do too many things that it sometimes falls short on burst dps and sometimes require good team awareness from both yourself and teammates to perform as well as I like it to be.

On a side note, I did try this in 8 unranked matches and 2 ranked matches during the first Beta Weekend, and it perform relatively well but falls short on in between fights (mobility; perhaps I’m too used to having portals) and vs bunkers where you simply do not have enough burst damage. Also this iteration is taking into account the changes to chronomancer for the next beta weekend.

Lost Time and Danger Time synergise disgustingly well with the GS. If you aren’t using the GS I’d personally not go for those. Seize the Moment would give you on-demand Quickness (very, very handy for stomps and resses) and Improved Alacrity is just generally good.

On the other hand, you mention your reason for not taking Illusionary Reversion being because you have Deceptive Evasion. Have you considered using Illusionary Reversion + Chronophantasma and ditching DE instead? Chronophantasma to my mind isn’t primarily a Phant DPS trait, it’s a Shatter trait; and if you also go Illusions for Persistence of Memory (not to mention Illusionist’s Celerity) you can basically churn out Phantasms like they’re Clones.

The other benefit of Phantasma, seeing as you’re using Mental Defence, is you don’t lose Defender’s effect the moment you Shatter.

Hmm, thing is with Chronophantasma; being used as more of a dps trait, it simply beter to ditch one of the weapon sets for GS or an offhand pistol, and doing so gives lesser defense than what I imagined this build to be. If so… it would simply be much better to go all in burst shatter that aims to +1 fights and spike enemies down rather than contesting a point. Putting Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion on this build focuses on a more bursty set up rather than constant stable dps. I also am picking the Dueling trait line for both Phantasmal Fury and Fencer’s Finesse as they both give a more stable / consistant dps output than using phantasms (yes Chronophantasma isn’t only a phantasm trait but it deals mainly in phantasms and increased your damage based on phantams). I am aware that Lost Time and Danger Time synergy with GS auto attacks, and while this build does not hit as much, it is still able to get the crit bonus up for most of the fights albeit slightly slower.

TBH though, I feel that Mental Defense is a slightly wasted trait on this build as it seems to be a bonus rather than an outright feature that I can constantly use, but Restorative Illusion & Mantra gives quite a fair amount of sustain to teamfights.

Embolism.8106:

Lost Time and Danger Time synergise disgustingly well with the GS. If you aren’t using the GS I’d personally not go for those. Seize the Moment would give you on-demand Quickness (very, very handy for stomps and resses) and Improved Alacrity is just generally good.

On the other hand, you mention your reason for not taking Illusionary Reversion being because you have Deceptive Evasion. Have you considered using Illusionary Reversion + Chronophantasma and ditching DE instead? Chronophantasma to my mind isn’t primarily a Phant DPS trait, it’s a Shatter trait; and if you also go Illusions for Persistence of Memory (not to mention Illusionist’s Celerity) you can basically churn out Phantasms like they’re Clones.

The other benefit of Phantasma, seeing as you’re using Mental Defence, is you don’t lose Defender’s effect the moment you Shatter.

While I agree those traits arent that useful without the GS, but with his stats spread (in wvw setup) the fury from dueling+danger time, hes actually sitting at 100% crit which might make lost time worth it with those weapons.

The autoattacks are pretty terrible for that though. Scepter is too slow and staying in melee range with the sword doesnt seem to be what he had in mind at all.

While the cooldown reduction from fencers finesse is good, since this build has literally 0% stealth I have a hard time believing its going to survive at all. Condi clear is allright but not having blinding dissipation makes me feel like the plan of “one up” fights is just going to end up with him dead on the floor.

it might work with suprise attacks if no one sees it coming, which is unlikely.

Im not sure the sustain is enough is what Im trying to say, It might be better idea to drop the deceptive evasion for mantra stacks after all and go for healing mantra also. alltho running 2 mantras is generally bad idea since the build isnt exactly swimming in skills to cover the charge with.

it could work but you are going to need a group to hide behind most of the time, even then once you get hardfocused you are going to be in trouble quickly.

Might also have some slight issues with catching people, but for zerg fights this could work fine as a sort of a backline build, but then danger time will cease to function as good so theres a slight contridiction there.

I really think you should drop the scepter/sword combo for GS, or even possibly for staff.

Possibly also swap fencers finesse for BD, for extra sustain.

Also I am not sure if you have enough vitality to make wurm runes worth it, I believe even scholar would do a better job at what you are trying to do there.