Guild Wars 2

(PvE!)

Somehow I think the best support for the party is to have a great dmg and quickness well uptime. What do we do to achieve it? Having alacrity. How do we get it? F1, F2, F3, F4, well 1, well 2, well 3, well 4, F1, F2, etc…

I fell like I only want to provide quickness, alacrity and dmg with my wells as a chrono. So I want to have perma alacrity to keep this up. The results are simple: I have no Illusions anymore. No phantasms since I keep spamming F1-F4. I even should trait for shatter skills to stack vuln and boonstrip etc while spamming them :|

What I mean is it feels much less complicated to play chrono in PvE than to play Mesmer. Mesmer had so much to do, Chrono seems just about spamming wells.

I think the evil source of this behavor is the trait that grants us alacrity on shatter. This needs a change if you ask me:

right now you get alacrity for pressing F1-F5. I suggest to remove the persona affection of this trait and instead give 0.5 sec per clone and 1 sec per phantasm you shatter. This way you still can or rather should keep up your clones / phantasms. Just a short thought.

What do you think? Do you feel annoyed by the “to play” aspect of the chrono too?

greez :/

Xyonon.3987:

(PvE!)

Somehow I think the best support for the party is to have a great dmg and quickness well uptime. What do we do to achieve it? Having alacrity. How do we get it? F1, F2, F3, F4, well 1, well 2, well 3, well 4, F1, F2, etc…

I fell like I only want to provide quickness, alacrity and dmg with my wells as a chrono. So I want to have perma alacrity to keep this up. The results are simple: I have no Illusions anymore. No phantasms since I keep spamming F1-F4. I even should trait for shatter skills to stack vuln and boonstrip etc while spamming them :|

What I mean is it feels much less complicated to play chrono in PvE than to play Mesmer. Mesmer had so much to do, Chrono seems just about spamming wells.

---

I think the evil source of this behavor is the trait that grants us alacrity on shatter. This needs a change if you ask me:

right now you get alacrity for pressing F1-F5. I suggest to remove the persona affection of this trait and instead give 0.5 sec per clone and 1 sec per phantasm you shatter. This way you still can or rather should keep up your clones / phantasms. Just a short thought.

What do you think? Do you feel annoyed by the “to play” aspect of the chrono too?

greez :/

Your answer to being annoyed by the spam-oriented nature of Chronomancer is to effectively nerf it?
I don’t get it.

Additionally, your solution is only not terrible for people who take Chronophantasma. Making the value of a minor trait depend on a specific GM trait is bad design.

In short, I hate your idea with a bloody, fiery passion (I don’t hate you. You’re okay. I just don’t like your idea.)

Of course Chronomancer feels spammy, the whole nature of alacrity and time mechanics is to get you casting spells faster. It’s going to feel spammy.

In terms of PvE, I feel actually using your Shatter skills is preferable to ignoring them and letting your Phantasms do all the work.

I just thought of it as faster game play. It only feels spammy to me if I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m mashing buttons. I’d rather think of it as active tactical play benefitting my party or self. Which there’s nothing wrong with that nor does it have to change.

I believe 100% our abilities are going to make all the other classes fall in love with our presence during raids.

Guards provide roughly 20% quickness uptime with 40ish % fury uptime + cleansing + other pretty powerful stuff cause theirs is a shout. Just curious, how does chrono provided quickness stack up to this ?

I would love the trait to be changed to “Gain .75 secs of alacrity after using an illusion summoning skill”.

-Rewards us for setting up and using shatters tactically, not just for spamming them.

-iReversion could probably be changed back to its original form now that you wouldnt be able to hit F5-> then piano f1-4 for 10+ secs of alacrity.

-Works in every build for ever game mode. (like WvW ZvZ or high AoE PvE instances where your illusions are smashed instantly)

Edit: changed to .75 secs… right now a 3 illusion shatter gets you 3 secs of alacrity If changed you would get 2.25 secs worth in that same time. Less, but way more reliable.

Tongku.5326:

Guards provide roughly 20% quickness uptime with 40ish % fury uptime + cleansing + other pretty powerful stuff cause theirs is a shout. Just curious, how does chrono provided quickness stack up to this ?

Better. Much better.
But with more investment required.
It pretty much takes a dedicated build, but it’s a lot more potent support if you do.

Mikkel.8427:

I would love the trait to be changed to “Gain .5 secs of alacrity after using an illusion summoning skill”.

I… really like this idea. I’m not entirely sure that the numbers would be balanced, though. (Particularly with DE, if that were to count as a summon.) And I worry that ANet is kind of invested in tying us to our “unique class mechanic” by attaching alacrity to shatters, instead of summons.

But I still like this idea.

I’m not into having my phantasms to do all the work, but it annoys me that as a chronomancer having phantasms is inefficient for the group. The cast time is too long and not rewarding enough if you shatter every 8 sec at least once.

I don’t like a 100% phantasm gameplay, I never did. But I hate a 0% phantasm gameplay even more, that’s my point. What I want is a efficient gameplay that has some phantasm balance, that’s all

You hate a low phantasm gameplay because your damage is total crap for the sake of being an alacrity buffbot to your group.

They went and buffed the hell out of autoattacks for the revenant and reaper, yet mesmer and ranger sit with some of the worst autoattack DPS in the game and nothing is done to remove our reliance on phantasms for DPS.

youre not alone. my guildie mains mesmer and hates chrono because of how it plays. He thinks its good and effective, just hates it.

Zenith.7301:

You hate a low phantasm gameplay because your damage is total crap for the sake of being an alacrity buffbot to your group.

They went and buffed the hell out of autoattacks for the revenant and reaper, yet mesmer and ranger sit with some of the worst autoattack DPS in the game and nothing is done to remove our reliance on phantasms for DPS.

Except to complain that we’re not shattering enough, lol.

I think chronophantasma should have been baseline to the class, period.

Our shatters are a class mechanic that should not be gimping us in PvE when we use them. I want mesmers shattering, I just don’t want to be utterly punished for it in terms of killing my sustained damage in PvE.

I still would like the possibility to press F1 twice – first time all clones run to the target – for 3 sec I can activate it again for also sending the phants to death. But yea that would be complicated (but efficient) so it will get hated anyway

Well let’s see what they do – I doubt they will do any major changes anymore.

Xyonon while i haven’t tested if alacrity affects the rate at which phantasms attack, if it doesn’t then shattering and summoning a new one might actually be better dps wise.

example berserker has a 6 seconds between attack well if you have the greatsword cooldown trait it can be summoned every 16 seconds with alacrity up you can summmon it every 5.3 second with a .75 cast time it comes out about even, plus you get the shatter damage so damage wise your ahead berserker attacks come out even

second example warden attacks every 9 seconds traited summons every 20 with alacrity goes to 6.6 seconds with a cast time of 1 second and the shatter damage means we come out ahead attack and summon speed.

which you can use the 16 seconds of alacrity that you get without using shatter to just summon the three phantasms and continue keeping wells up near constantly.

Somone overestimates alacrity a bit :P “Increases recharge ratio by 66%” isn’t the same as “Reducing recharge by 66%”. You can’t just reduce 16s by 66% and say it’s 5.3 sec That’d be totally op^^. You have to divide 16s by 1.66. Every 1s with alacrity passes 1.66s. This means the berserker would still have 9.64s cd.

During that time he’d attack multiple times ofc. This said, the problem is, it won’t be good dps wise if one does shatter 3 phantasms in order to get alacrity to resummon them. The time you require to resummon 2 or 3 phantasms could be used to just use your sword auto attack and you’d outdps your phantasms for a long period of time. The problem now is, that this period of time doesn’t exist, because you SHATTER your phantasms again right away, since you keep your shatter skills on CD to get alacrity in order to be able to spam your wells to provide damage and quickness or other effects or to be able to have a time warp every 54 seconds.

On 2nd thoughts I’d change the trait that grants alacrity on shatter to alacrity on illusion summon. Each time you summon an illusion (including traits ofc) you’ll get alacrity. This would still allow us to use phantams, with chrono phantasma even to shatter them once and it would remove the urge to press F1-F4 constantly.

I really hope someone from ANet reads this … sigh but I doubt they will do major changes anymore. Sadly … This trait is a huge bummer imo.

I would agree with that trait change because it benefits both sides of play

I have actually tested the cooldown part f1 shatter goes from 12 to 9 secs in 1 seconds which means the recharge rate is tripled so time for it to recharge is a third of normal I’ve checked this for shatter phantasms and one of the traits
Specifically illusionary inspiration it had a cooldown while alacrity was up of 8-10 seconds which is a third of normal

EDIT:
so something odd i just noticed went back and timed the recharge rate of f1 the first second of alacrity takes 3 seconds of the cooldown timer, 2 seconds of alacrity takes it to 6, 3 seconds take it to 4 and 6 seconds completely recharges it.
alacrity seems to be giving diminishing or increasing returns when it affects a cooldown timer.

Xyonon.3987:

Somone overestimates alacrity a bit :P “Increases recharge ratio by 66%” isn’t the same as “Reducing recharge by 66%”. You can’t just reduce 16s by 66% and say it’s 5.3 sec That’d be totally op^^. You have to divide 16s by 1.66. Every 1s with alacrity passes 1.66s. This means the berserker would still have 9.64s cd.

During that time he’d attack multiple times ofc. This said, the problem is, it won’t be good dps wise if one does shatter 3 phantasms in order to get alacrity to resummon them. The time you require to resummon 2 or 3 phantasms could be used to just use your sword auto attack and you’d outdps your phantasms for a long period of time. The problem now is, that this period of time doesn’t exist, because you SHATTER your phantasms again right away, since you keep your shatter skills on CD to get alacrity in order to be able to spam your wells to provide damage and quickness or other effects or to be able to have a time warp every 54 seconds.

On 2nd thoughts I’d change the trait that grants alacrity on shatter to alacrity on illusion summon. Each time you summon an illusion (including traits ofc) you’ll get alacrity. This would still allow us to use phantams, with chrono phantasma even to shatter them once and it would remove the urge to press F1-F4 constantly.

I really hope someone from ANet reads this … sigh but I doubt they will do major changes anymore. Sadly … This trait is a huge bummer imo.

I like that a lot better. In theory it doesn’t hurt the potential at all, but it shifts the incentive into a better place.
It still encourages shattering more than before, because you’ve got an incentive to summon more illusions, and extra illusions get wasted if you don’t shatter, but in a way that encourages more thoughtful play, which is good.

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

rogerwilko.6895:

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

with chrono when using alarcity you are encouraged by the trait flow of time to constantly cycle your shatter skills as well as any wells you have due to the trait alls well that ends well

with out chrono or alarcity your are encouraged to keep your phantasms up as long as possible in pve

Average GW2 Player

Average GW2 Non-Chrono Mesmer Player

Average GW2 Chrono Mesmer

Mikkel.8427:

I would love the trait to be changed to “Gain .5 secs of alacrity after using an illusion summoning skill”.

-Rewards us for setting up and using shatters tactically, not just for spamming them.

-iReversion could probably be changed back to its original form now that you wouldnt be able to hit F5-> then piano f1-4 for 10+ secs of alacrity.

-Works in every build for ever game mode. (like WvW ZvZ or high AoE PvE instances where your illusions are smashed instantly)

Illusionary Reversion wasn’t changed because it provided alacrity. It was changed because of the condition burst that happened from f5-f1-f2-f3-f4-f1-f2-f3-f4 with torment on shatter, blind on shatter, confusion on shatter, and confusion on blind immediately stacking well over 10 stacks of confusion and torment.

Besides, the offensive shatter playstyle was really underpowered in PvE to begin with. The new specialisation provides more of a buff to the underpowered playstyle over the phantasm builds that are currently far above every other build’s DPS.

Builds that revolve around shatter /need/ their alacrity in order to maintain sustained damage. With only two offensive shatters, only one of which is particularly effective for either direct damage or condition builds, if they can’t maintain their alacrity, their dps drops dramatically, as mind wrack is the skill that provides their greatest damage by a incredibly large margin.

If every build gained the exact same benefit from every single change, nothing new would ever become viable. Hopefully the chronomancer boosts our personal damage enough that we’re no longer forced to be minion masters.

The new traits have actually made mirror image and decoy feel worthwhile, as they help maintain the alacrity and clone generation that keeps my build fueled, as well as dealing with the whole illusionary reversion change issue, as I tend to want to shatter with at least two illusions by default anyway.

jarthur.3649:

rogerwilko.6895:

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

with chrono when using alarcity you are encouraged by the trait flow of time to constantly cycle your shatter skills as well as any wells you have due to the trait alls well that ends well

with out chrono or alarcity your are encouraged to keep your phantasms up as long as possible in pve

This sums it up perfectly.

jarthur.3649:

rogerwilko.6895:

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

with chrono when using alarcity you are encouraged by the trait flow of time to constantly cycle your shatter skills as well as any wells you have due to the trait alls well that ends well

with out chrono or alarcity your are encouraged to keep your phantasms up as long as possible in pve

I have to contradict. What you are describing is exactly what I did in the first few hours of the beta but by far not the most effective way. Now “illusionary Reversion” gives you a clone whenever you shatter at least two illusions, turning your rotation into

shatter – generate another illusion – shattter – generate another illusion – shatter

This way you have always a three clone shatter (counting in the auto illusionary persona). Now how you generate that other illusion is completely up to you. The chapest way is, to trait “Seize the moment” (quickness per shatttered illusion) and equip Scepter that generates the clone with a quick third auto attack.

But in PvP for example you have a pletora of possibilities and situational skills to fill that role. With chronomancer I now have a real incentive to shatter more often in comparison to before the specialization which is a good thing.

Miroe.2054:

I have to contradict. What you are describing is exactly what I did in the first few hours of the beta but by far not the most effective way. Now “illusionary Reversion” gives you a clone whenever you shatter at least two illusions, turning your rotation into

shatter – generate another illusion – shattter – generate another illusion – shatter

This way you have always a three clone shatter (counting in the auto illusionary persona). Now how you generate that other illusion is completely up to you. The chapest way is, to trait “Seize the moment” (quickness per shatttered illusion) and equip Scepter that generates the clone with a quick third auto attack.

But in PvP for example you have a pletora of possibilities and situational skills to fill that role. With chronomancer I now have a real incentive to shatter more often in comparison to before the specialization which is a good thing.

You’re right. From a PvE perspective, though (with or without IR), Chrono seems like it’s taking Mes from “spawn phantasms and never shatter” to “kitten phantasms, shatter constantly.” Maybe that’s not a bad thing, I don’t know; I wanted to be able to shatter outside of PvP/WvW. But I still wish we could have a middle ground of useful but shatterable phantasms.

AtomsOrSystems.9420:

Miroe.2054:

I have to contradict. What you are describing is exactly what I did in the first few hours of the beta but by far not the most effective way. Now “illusionary Reversion” gives you a clone whenever you shatter at least two illusions, turning your rotation into

shatter – generate another illusion – shattter – generate another illusion – shatter

This way you have always a three clone shatter (counting in the auto illusionary persona). Now how you generate that other illusion is completely up to you. The chapest way is, to trait “Seize the moment” (quickness per shatttered illusion) and equip Scepter that generates the clone with a quick third auto attack.

But in PvP for example you have a pletora of possibilities and situational skills to fill that role. With chronomancer I now have a real incentive to shatter more often in comparison to before the specialization which is a good thing.

You’re right. From a PvE perspective, though (with or without IR), Chrono seems like it’s taking Mes from “spawn phantasms and never shatter” to “kitten phantasms, shatter constantly.” Maybe that’s not a bad thing, I don’t know; I wanted to be able to shatter outside of PvP/WvW. But I still wish we could have a middle ground of useful but shatterable phantasms.

The issue is that they’ve decided shattering is the primary mechanic, but shatter damage has to be capped so the spike doesn’t go overboard in pvp.

The only solution, then, is to let us shatter a lot more. Anyone who has done the dps math comparing phantasms to shatters for sustained damage can tell you it’s no contest which has the stronger potential, and the rate is the reason.

We’re shattering a lot now, but that’s just what it takes for shatters to be a viable pve mechanic.

I don’t agree with the OP. Few things to tweak out for sure. But over all theres still a science behind it. & actually for the others, i bin spvp’ing in Chronophantasm & if your build is right & rotation is good.. Phantasm build is devastating. I’m still experimenting with the build & you should to cuz it’s to early to say phant dont work well. Maybe in pve, i’m not sure.

Xyonon.3987:

(PvE!)

PvP is a completly different story and every single shatter has a reason to be used.

For PvE tough, the Mesmer should not be completly forced to spam F1-F4, nor should a Mesmer be forced to never touch the shatter skills in order to have an acceptable dps.
That’s why it’s not good to have traits encouraging the only pressing of the shatter buttons. Traits should encourage shatter skills by buffing the overall result.

I think what needs to happen is CoF and Diversion becoming useful in Power builds. The beauty of Condi Shatter is that all three offensive Shatters are useful for damage, but in Power builds CoF is weak and Diversion (in PvE) extremely niche.

Now with the Defiant rework 4s of Daze may become generally useful, but CoF definitely needs something for Power builds.

It could apply 4 seconds of weakness per clone shattered and remove/transfer a condition per clone shattered. In addition to the confusion so don’t think I stole your condi mesmer stuff away ;p

Then power mesmers would have some use for it in condi removal. Which current meta PvE builds won’t have as they’ll be running all wells to keep alacrity uptime maxed for the group and no well removes conditions and neither does the heal.

… not yet

Miroe.2054:

jarthur.3649:

rogerwilko.6895:

could anyone make a short description about the difference in gameplay ?
without the subjective ‘this I like, that I don’t like’

with chrono when using alarcity you are encouraged by the trait flow of time to constantly cycle your shatter skills as well as any wells you have due to the trait alls well that ends well

with out chrono or alarcity your are encouraged to keep your phantasms up as long as possible in pve

I have to contradict. What you are describing is exactly what I did in the first few hours of the beta but by far not the most effective way. Now “illusionary Reversion” gives you a clone whenever you shatter at least two illusions, turning your rotation into

shatter – generate another illusion – shattter – generate another illusion – shatter

This way you have always a three clone shatter (counting in the auto illusionary persona). Now how you generate that other illusion is completely up to you. The chapest way is, to trait “Seize the moment” (quickness per shatttered illusion) and equip Scepter that generates the clone with a quick third auto attack.

But in PvP for example you have a pletora of possibilities and situational skills to fill that role. With chronomancer I now have a real incentive to shatter more often in comparison to before the specialization which is a good thing.

this still means your attempting to cycle a shatter or two as quickly as possible

Xyonon.3987:

I’m not into having my phantasms to do all the work, but it annoys me that as a chronomancer having phantasms is inefficient for the group. The cast time is too long and not rewarding enough if you shatter every 8 sec at least once.

Not really. With Chronophantasm, your phantasms can readily attack despite being used for shatters.

That’s… perfect? Phantasm play in PvE without ignoring the class mechanic?

And with Persistence of Memory, your Phantasms will be off cooldown after they’ve been Shattered twice. It’s perfect.

I usually play a Thief (PvE) and I like the gameplay because is fluent, simple and smooth…
I leveled up a Mesmer to 80, clothed him in zerk and tried a few dungeons.
I use the Metabattle build and suggestions, and it feels ok.

I personally dislike the shatter mechanic, and I am currently trying to find a suitable profession that offers a bit more support for the party (buffs, reflects, condi cleanse) and that feels right for me (for example engi / ele seam to spammy, too many buttons, always agitated etc).

When chronomancer will land I will be able to ‘test’ more of it, for now I am just reading / watching

I think this aspect of the chronomancer makes it fun, now you don’t have to just sit there spamming ur phantasms you can actually use your class mechanic, your shatters! Luckily for you, you don’t have to play chronomancer you can still go back to spamming phantasms if you think that is more entertaining for you. But please don’t try to completely overhaul chronomancer just because you don’t like playing it… It is the nature of the chronomancer to have reduced cooldowns and to make you use your shatter skills and other abilities more often.

Elfiest.4031:

please don’t try to completely overhaul chronomancer just because you don’t like playing it… It is the nature of the chronomancer to have reduced cooldowns and to make you use your shatter skills and other abilities more often.

I don’t want to do that, and I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to
I’m just the average joe looking for a profession that suits him (in game, cause IRL I found it).

Sorry to sound ignorant, but isn’t mesmer standerd BS of spamming and hiding 90% with post-trait-changes? Sorry in advance, those builds just have no value in 1v1 or XvX fights.

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry to sound ignorant, but isn’t mesmer standerd BS of spamming and hiding 90% with post-trait-changes? Sorry in advance, those builds just have no value in 1v1 or XvX fights.

Eh? You mean you got killed by a PU Mesmer? :P

Carighan.6758:

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry to sound ignorant, but isn’t mesmer standerd BS of spamming and hiding 90% with post-trait-changes? Sorry in advance, those builds just have no value in 1v1 or XvX fights.

Eh? You mean you got killed by a PU Mesmer? :P

More like got killed by any mesmer. The way that person talks pegs them as the type to just complain and cry OMGPUOP when getting killed by a mesmer, even if they’re not even traited into chaos.

Firelysm.4967:

Sorry to sound ignorant, but isn’t mesmer standerd BS of spamming and hiding 90% with post-trait-changes? Sorry in advance, those builds just have no value in 1v1 or XvX fights.

What happened? I thought you were quitting for a year?

“Came back to pvp after nearly 1 year+,
nothing changes d/ds still win games,
2x d/d insta win.
9/10 games minimum 1x d/d ele
it’s just boring to fight them, where are GuildWars1 skill nerf rotations for builds?

I’m off for 1 more year, i hope they will do something about this disgusting unbalanced ele class, Cya in 2016

EDIT: Also msg for anet, never understood logic behind tanky-super-sustain LIGHT armor class."

In case you forgot… or do you just cry on the forum every time (insert X class) beats you?