Guild Wars 2

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Shouldn’t you call the build… clockdown? I’m sorry.

Chronomancer 4v5 Victory

Alacrity + Blink + Kyhlo = Shameless porting!

Skip the vid, explain to me what happened at 7:57!?

Crushing it on Chronomancer

BUILD

Sword + Shield / Staff or Greatsword (Runes of Hoelbrak ; Sigils of Fire, Energy, & Hydromancy )
Domination: Confounding Suggestions / Furious Interrupt / Power Block
Chaos: Master of Manipulation / Chaotic Dampening / Chaotic Interruption
Chronomancy: Slow-on-interrupt / Clone-on-shatter / Phantasms Resummon on Shatter

THOUGHTS

• Wells are interesting, but only Well of Calamity ( 3k Damage + pulsing cripple/weakness/damage) was the most consistently useful/reliable. The high damage is nice, but pulsing weakness is glorious along with Power Block. Second was Well of Action ( 3s Quickness + pulsing Slow/damage ) which was reliable for making it hard to stomp/rezz due to slow and damage. The other wells don’t seem to have much place in PvP, Alacrity well sucks (/shakefist @ levetty for being right) and Precognition requires extreme co-ordination.

• Chronomancer completely outclasses Mesmer it’s unfortunate but true. In its current state I can’t think of any reason to ever choose Mesmer over Chronomancer. Everything a Mesmer can do, except for boonsharing, a Chronomancer can do better.

• Chronolockdown is awkward at first, especially without DE but is much stronger, able to proc halting strike more, make better use of quickness, and inflict the brutal slow condition. Every single interrupt did … inhales .. Damage/Weakness/Vulnerability/5x Might / 2x Immobilize / 3s slow / 3s Quickness / Random Boon / Random Condition. So many people thought I was a condi build as a result!

• Shield is glorious! Tides of time rocks, it’s become one of my new favorite skills in the Mesmer toolset. It’s as versatile as the focus and quite possibly our best supportive offhand. I really do love it, especially the way the blocks work (take notes sword/scepter). I think shield is probably the best lockdown offhand, Tides not only does decent (about 1.5k each time) damage on hit, but when it interrupts it sets up for nutty bursts! (As seen in the 7:57 video)

• Phantasm play is interesting and takes actual thought. Chronophantasma ROCKS! summoning 2 Avengers, letting them attack and then shattering them for another two strikes of slow saved me more than a couple times. Also, iWarlock got some nice bursts from MantraInterrupt + Warlock hit (5k) daze shatter (interrupt with warlock) and warlock hit on immob’d opponent. It made both phantasms much more reliable and less fire-and-forget.

• f5 is hard and I love it for being so tough/versatile. Though with alacrity I think it could use a bit longer cooldown.

• Gravity Well is inferior to TimeWarp in like.. every way. Warlord had mentioned the same thing I was thinking once I first used gravity well: Give it a pull on the initial hit! Anet plz!

Overall Chronomancer Lockdown is great. Very distinct from shatter due to the lack of DE and still strong and effective. Played properly the amount of control you have over the entire battlefield (of.. 10 people) is phenominal. Not just because of interrupts, but Well of Calamity’s AoE weakness and area denial and Tides of Time’s projectile absorption.

This is going to sound odd, but the biggest thrill of Chronolockdown was the immersion. You can tell how much fun I was having in those clips (especially the “crushing it with chronomancer” clip) and it was largely due to feeling both challenged and unique. No one, not even a shatter Mesmer could do what I did, I felt such a high level of control and that was without even being fully proficient with the build yet. It’s also challenging, with new things to learn and master and a definitive role to play. Looking forward to the next beta!

Shouldn’t you call the build… clockdown? I’m sorry.

While I’m really digging all you have going for you, and also palyed around with something along the same lines, I’m just left asking: How did you deal with conditons? I allways ended up at the same spot: I have no condition removal!

Also I had a great time running a boonshare Chronomancer, they can for sure do that aswell =p

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Shouldn’t you call the build… clockdown? I’m sorry.

OH MY GOD! Treetoptrickster wins the forums today.

Tealots.6095:

Treetoptrickster.4205:

Shouldn’t you call the build… clockdown? I’m sorry.

OH MY GOD! Treetoptrickster wins the forums today.

I tried to give him so many +1s for that I broke my wristwatch. =[

Amadeus.5687:

While I’m really digging all you have going for you, and also palyed around with something along the same lines, I’m just left asking: How did you deal with conditons? I allways ended up at the same spot: I have no condition removal!

Also I had a great time running a boonshare Chronomancer, they can for sure do that aswell =p

By not getting hit! (just like normal shatter Mesmer. =P) Also, Hoelbrak (-20% condition duration applied) runes helped, especially compounding ontop of Time Marches On ( -25% Cripple/Chill/Immobilize )

What did you run for boonshare? How was it?

Chaos, you also experimented with Wells removing conditions, no? Was it noticeably better than we thought it was going to be?

Nice to watch. I’m probably going to use a very similar trait set up. I personally prefer Shattered Concentration over Furious Interruption. I guess I’ll be mainstream soon.

Really love how you can use iLeap/Swap to get ahead of ToT for the recharge …

Just to put it out there…

Vanilla mes still performs the roaming instakill role significantly better than chrono builds can. That being said, the roaming instakill is pretty much the only thing that vanilla Mesmer does well (other than boonshare, which is questionably necessary in a meta team with celery elery and guards spamming boons anyway).

Chrono introduces a lot of new mechanics and abilities to Mesmer that we currently don’t have, and this is pretty great. The thing to remember though, is this: vanilla Mesmer doesn’t lack interesting and unique things to do, they just all suck. Condie shatter is bad. Phant builds are bad. Mantras got neutered. Glamours only are able to serve niche utility roles. So much of our toolset that could be cool and useful just is flat out bad for various reasons, reasons that make me a bit hesitant to start applauding Anet for the Chronomancer yet.

That all being said…

Yeah, I’m enjoying what chrono brings. Wells allow you to do different flavor things than before, and slow in general is just a brutally crippling condition. A couple notes about the build:

Shattered concentration is absolutely better than FI, even in this build. Stripping boons is still such an incredibly important utility to have in the current meta. A bit of quickness is nice, but ripping 20+ might, stability, and protection off that ele is far far better. Plus, you’ve already got good quickness from shield 5 (shield 5 a downed person, start the stomp, and get a quickness stim to finish it rapidly while interrupting anyone ressing).

Another strong variant is taking dueling and dropping chaos. You lose the immobs and might from CI, but you gain dodge clones for more shattering (which means more alacrity, very important), permanent fury (which offsets the loss of might), and blinding dissipation (no explanation needed).

Edit: I experimented with wells removing conditions. In a word, it’s awful. When you need conditions removed, you need them removed now, not in 3 seconds plus cast time. You also need the removed wherever, not where you cast the well 3 seconds ago. It’s better than nothing…but it’s awful. It’s just horrid to use and unbelievably clunky. Rarely, if ever, will save you when you need it.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Amadeus.5687:

While I’m really digging all you have going for you, and also palyed around with something along the same lines, I’m just left asking: How did you deal with conditons? I allways ended up at the same spot: I have no condition removal!

Also I had a great time running a boonshare Chronomancer, they can for sure do that aswell =p

By not getting hit! (just like normal shatter Mesmer. =P) Also, Hoelbrak (-20% condition duration applied) runes helped, especially compounding ontop of Time Marches On ( -25% Cripple/Chill/Immobilize )

What did you run for boonshare? How was it?

But them burn guardians and all their instant burning!!! I just find it so hard to play without some condition removal on demand hehe

I ran this build: http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMEaAZYA-w~
I used Rune of the Pack, Sword/Shield (Strength/Fire) Staff (Strength/speed). The swiftness stacking wasn’t really for me, but for my team and the door breakers.

I went with the Healing Well, Blink, Well of Action and Signet of Inspiration and Time Warp!
Normally using Illusion or Dueling instead of Chronomancer I lost out on some might stacks or Fury, but I felt that were made up with the very positve effect Chronomancer had on my shattering rates! The Swiftness and slow uptime were simply amazing and I felt I had a much larger team fight impact beside just shareing my boons, now I had a lot more AoE to toss around + the AoE healing. I used a Marauder Amule, but a more bunkerish Boon share build might be what I toy around with next beta!

My stomping ability were great with all the slow/quickness/stability and when I played around with rune of mercy aswell, so were the ressing! I also used All’s well that end’s well, but it felt like overkill with our elementalist and guardian both bringing a lot of conditon removal aswell
So all In all I were very happy with it!

“Chronomancer completely outclasses Mesmer it’s unfortunate but true. In its current state I can’t think of any reason to ever choose Mesmer over Chronomancer. Everything a Mesmer can do, except for boonsharing, a Chronomancer can do better.”

Sorry but i disagreement, PU still have more survivability, chronomancer have more utility and maybe a little more damage, that is all

Chronomancers can trait for PU.

At 7:57 you pressed F3. RIP Chaos, forgetting he pressed buttons while pressing buttons.

Very cool videos! I love the idea of lockdown with Chronomancer.

You’re definitely the master of buzzwords.

;)

Loved the vids! Have subscribed!

@Pyro: On the subject of Furious Interrupt (FI) vs Shattered Concentration (SC), I don’t know if I agree on how much better Shattered is. SC is definitely superior, but I had to try out FI and originally I combined it with the quickness-on-shatter trait along with shield to see how much quickness uptime I could stack. Was cool and all, but chronophantasma simply far outclasses it. Furious Interruption, though, works so well with the shield that I just couldn’t drop it. I knew that SC is great and would likely always be my “meta” choice, but landing 6 seconds of quickness almost every time I interrupted with the shield was really, really enjoyable.

Problem was, for me, that I was using the wrong weapon.

Staff doesn’t benefit nearly as much from quickness as greatsword, and scepter moreso than sword. Granted, I did like how it sped up my wells/mantra and was tons of fun to use. Furious Interrupt is a really good trait IMO, but hamstringed by its competition with Shattered Concentration. For the beta I wanted to climb out of SC’s shadow and give FI some time to shine, and I definitely didn’t regret it.

Chaos was a must for me in this build, mostly because of the staff. Alacrity + Dampening made my cooldowns wither, especially with both wells and shield granting an Ethereal field. It was more of a playstyle thing, but also because since Dom/Dueling works with everything, I knew it’d already be great with Chrono. The changes you’d be suggestion would turn the build into the upcoming “meta” chronomancer build.

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[
(Edit: OK, now I’m like 78%)

@Tealots: Like Pyro said … Alls Well that Ends Well is such a disappointment. I tried so hard to like it and make it work but it is actually pretty rare that you’re able to predict a condi dump AND standing in the well for the last pulse. Siiigh. Rework plz.

@Armadeus: Gonna have to try that next time!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

Interesting. I didn’t consider the effect Lost Time would have on GS. I assumed it was the next target hit. So if you have the buff ready and hit MindSpike or iWave, would that hit all targets with Slow?

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

Interesting. I didn’t consider the effect Lost Time would have on GS. I assumed it was the next target hit. So if you have the buff ready and hit MindSpike or iWave, would that hit all targets with Slow?

Just saying that using GS means you have the most efficient method to proc Lost Time because the AA is so much quicker than the other weapons (esp if cancel casting), and due to the nature of how GS is used (kiting, piercing beam etc). Mind Stab helps build stacks as well.

Now when you have your five stacks charged, if the “next attack” is an AoE, I’m unsure if slow would apply to all.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

skcamow.3527:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Domination: Confounding / Shattered concentration / Power Block or Anguish
Dueling: Phant Fury / Blinding Dissipate / Deceptive
Chaos: SlowInterrupt / CloneShatter / PhantasmShatter

I’m 99% positive that’ll be the meta shatter spec for Chrono, and I’m allergic to cookie-cutter. =[

You meant chrono instead of chaos there …

I think chrono will likely be IllusionSuperSpeed / LongerAlacrity / SlowOnThirdCrit. Supcutie was running this with GS/Sw-Sh

Either is good but especially for GS builds (which will always be meta), using Lost Time is much more worth it due to the frequent crits due to high AA frequency. With that much accessibility to slow, illusion super speed is much more enticing in adept. This increases dps by a fair amount in guaranteeing shatters that before would have been destroyed by AoE cleave.

If you don’t use GS though, Lost Time is much less valuable, making the adept choice much more difficult between SlowInterrupt / IllusionSuperSpeed.

The master choice is very much up in the air depending on what is chosen in adept/GM, and again further depending on which weapons are used.

Interesting. I didn’t consider the effect Lost Time would have on GS. I assumed it was the next target hit. So if you have the buff ready and hit MindSpike or iWave, would that hit all targets with Slow?

No.

Stacking charges of Lost Time can come from any individual crit. Multi-hit attacks can stack all 5 in one shot, for example, and GS AA can give a stack for every tick.
(That’s what makes GS AA so potent, btw: 1.42s attack cycle for 3 ticks is a lot more than you can get with any other weapon. Plus it’s conditionally aoe, so it can get you even more with the right positioning. Even at base condi duration you can keep up permaslow easily with GS AA. Add in just a little condi duration and you’ll be able to keep it up and also do a bunch of other stuff as well.)

Once stacked, Lost Time only applies slow to one target at a time. If you get the requisite stacks, even if your next attack is a 5-target MOP charge, only your current target will get the slow.

Also worth noting that even switching to full Berserkers and Scholar runes, Danger Time and Lost Time, greatsword AA does not do as much dps as sword AA.
So if you really like the slow, that’s great. But if the perma-slow isn’t doing much for you on its own, it’s not going to improve your dps by much.

As a result, I’m not sure how much it actually deserves a nerf. Someone suggested pvp slow just have a lower effect in general, and that sounds like a better idea than trying to track down sources of permaslow just because we don’t think that should be possible.
Without GS, applying slow with Lost Time is too difficult to justify building around LT/Danger Time, and with GS it doesn’t really change your damage potential all that much. Nerfing slow for pvp might just resolve the issue completely. It’s not like mixing GS autoattacks in with your burst is considered good practice in general.

One interesting consequence that I never got around to testing is the effectiveness of GS+Lost Time versus breakbars (I don’t even know if there were any breakbar encounters available during the beta).
Since Slow reportedly damages the breakbar (though probably at a smaller rate, as a soft cc condition), high applications of slow could theoretically have an inordinately high effect against it.
GS AA, Quickness, Lost Time and a high base crit rate (since Danger Time won’t proc on breakbar mobs) could be a decent Breakbar Killer.

As potentially strong as lost time is, it’s usually outclassed by the other two options, especially since the nerf to it. If the proc could be procced in an aoe with an aoe attack, it would be more competitive.

Fay.2357:

As potentially strong as lost time is, it’s usually outclassed by the other two options, especially since the nerf to it. If the proc could be procced in an aoe with an aoe attack, it would be more competitive.

I agree. Spreading aoe slow would be nice.
They’re probably gonna be deterred by the complaints about permaslow, though.

I love your videos so much Chaos! <3

What kind of gear would you recommend using with this? Also, if you were to take Dueling over Chaos (using Greatsword), would pistol be preferable because of Duelist’s Dicipline, or does Shield still offer better utility?

Stormbolt.7293:

What kind of gear would you recommend using with this? Also, if you were to take Dueling over Chaos (using Greatsword), would pistol be preferable because of Duelist’s Dicipline, or does Shield still offer better utility?

Are you talking PvE or PvP? If PvP, marauder is probably going to be the best choice (as it is for pretty much any power build these days). You could, of course, go glassier or tankier as you prefer.

I feel that shield would still be a better choice if taking dueling, for the slows and the wall. While low cooldowns on the pistol can be nice, the shield wall is just massively impactful, and the slow from the phantasms is even more so.

I loved how the shield wall worked on the stomps, but they definitely have to fix the terrain issues.

Fantastic stuff Clockdown looks awesome

Will the changes to Chronomancer post-BWE have any impact on this build?

Only the Ala changes because he does not use the traits that are being affected.

I’m planning on using this for WvW, which gives me the luxury of being able to mix gear. What spread of equipment will give me sufficient damage while keeping the survivability that Marauder’s gives? I’m thinking I should focus a little on vitality over toughness, since condition pressure is more of a problem than direct damage.

For the next beta I’ll be trying the build in WvW(along with wells!) I’ll likely be going berserker with cavs or knights or valk trinkets depending on which works best. Leaning towards valk.

Cav/Valk with some Berserker gear will probably be really nice if you are running dueling for the “permanent” fury. The Vitality is a nice buffer for condition damage, and the toughness always helps.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but recently I’ve been toying around with the idea of taking Inspiration or Illusions over Chaos for WvW roaming with this build. Clockdown is very Phantasm-heavy, and both of those trait lines do tons to augment your Phantasms. Chaotic Interruption is nice, but Phantasmal Haste, Master of Fragmentation, Protected Phantasms, and Mental defense are all very compelling options. It’s worth noting that GS is better than Staff for roaming in my opinion (can’t have people running), so Chaos loses a bit of it’s allure.