Guild Wars 2

Fixing the page bug?

My feeling on the new Phantasmal Avenger depends entirely on how its melee attack works. If it leaps in and out like the Phantasmal Swordsman does, I think it’ll be an excellent PvE phantasm and workable in PvP. If it stays in melee range, the poor thing is doomed.

If the Avenger leaps, though, I could see the shield replacing off-hand sword in most PvE builds. You’d be trading some damage for the Alacrity and a superior block, but who brings a Mesmer to a dungeon for DPS anyway?

Hopefully quoting each chunk is a good idea, would like to make sure everything gets my personal input. Chronomancer will probably be the only elite spec I absolutely dedicate a character for and play until GW3 releases and beyond.

Robert Gee.9246:

Shield Functionality Updates

• Echo of Memory/Deja Vu: Changed functionality. Now blocks all attacks for a short duration rather than a single attack. If this skill fully channels, summon an Illusionary Avenger. Deja Vu is available if any attack is blocked during the channel time.
• Deja Vu: Fixed a bug which allowed players to constantly cancel cast this skill to get a longer than intended uptime of the block effect. Canceling this skill now removes the Time Echo buff.
• Illusionary Avenger: Increased damage of this phantasm by 20%. Fixed a bug which prevented this skill from displaying the benefit from Empowered Illusions. Increased alacrity given to 2 seconds per hit. This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.
• Tides of Time: This skill now attempts to bounce back if it hits a wall. Fixed a bug where the time freeze caused by this skill would not show a stun icon in the status bar.

This is all just amazing. I’ve already settled on using Shield just because I love the idea of the weapon on Mesmer. The annoying wall/cliff bug deleting the Tides of Time wave now simply bouncing it back early is great, I hate missing out on half of its effect and lowered cast time just because I accidentally shot it into a pebble poking out higher than the ground. I assume you can reliably use the Illusion exactly like iWarden, where you cast it just out of range as you’re running in and have it get created at/near your targeted enemy. As for iAvenger’s new tricks, I’m not sure if I like it… We already have a melee shield-bearing Illusion and it was nice to have a ranged Illusion on a melee-focused offhand, plus the name reference makes more sense to bounce the Shield off enemies. Changing the Alacrity to an AoE on hit is way better than hoping it triggers on someone that could use it. Maybe iAvenger could still toss the Shield and have the Alacrity be applied around each damaged target from up to 2 bounces or something?

Robert Gee.9246:

Well Tuning

• Gravity Well: Now performs a knockdown, float and then pull. No longer gives stability on end. Increased final damage by 50%
• Well of Action: Increased damage per pulse by 17%. Lowered aftercast by 0.2 seconds.
• Well of Calamity: Lowered aftercast by 0.2 seconds.
• Well of Eternity: No longer gives vigor per pulse to allies but instead removes conditions from them. Increased recharge to from 25s to 30s. Increased base initial heal by 25%
• Well of Precognition: Updated functionality. Now gives blur for 1 second per pulse during its active portion instead of on end. When it ends, allies within the well regain 35 endurance.
• Well of Recall: Lowered recharge from 45 seconds to 40 seconds. Updated functionality of this well. It now chills for 1 second and deals damage every pulse then gives 5 seconds of alacrity to allies when it ends. New pulse damage is 70% of previous end damage. Effects have been updated to reflect this new behavior.

Gravity Well sounds like the best skill in the game right here. Hopefully the Float duration isn’t super short since that’s where the PvE elite control is coming from (champion defiant & stability piercing), but the idea of seeing the whole skill as described on trash mobs (or defenseless pvp players) every 90 seconds makes me so glad I put $100 down on HoT to play Chronomancer. Well of Action getting increased power is definitely making me look at it more, and the aftercast reduction on the Wells is much needed since I always thought I was lagging after using one. Well of Eternity curing Conditions is a great way to replace our old trait for that and gives me a way to keep a cleanse on me, this one I’ll definitely be retrying to see if I like it now. Well of Precognition seems a little backwards, Blur on pulse is great but if you wont need to evade while its active why replenish Endurance? This also gets rid of our only option to gain unblockable which was why I think the skill was good in the first place; it also reflects the duality theme where we evade them while its active and they cant evade us when it’s over. Well of Recall I still don’t see a reason to take, now it almost feels like Well of Action.

Robert Gee.9246:

Traits

• Illusionary Reversion: No changes.
  • There is a pretty clear division of people that would rather have an ICD on this skill and those that prefer the illusion requirement. After some thought we’ve decided we prefer the current version (illusion requirement) as it is an easier to understand limitation when compared to internal cooldowns. I know that some have asked that this requirement be toned down to 1 illusion required but this wouldn’t solve the original problem of being able to get large bonuses from your shatters without an investment.
• Lost Time – Added a 0.25 second delay between earning stacks of this buff. Fixed functionality: This trait previously applied slow on the first critical hit after generating 4 stacks. It now applies slow on any hit (does not have to be a critical hit) after 5 stacks are generated.
  • We’re still looking at good ways to limit some of the power from this trait. For now we are trying a small cooldown on the rate at which stacks can be generated. This primarily affects skills like Greatsword 1, and shouldn’t have a high impact on other weapon skills.

After being able to test iReversion it’s definitely not bad with the Illusions limit. I can go either way here, so if you guys think it’s just superior with the Illusions limit then I’m fine with that. Now, Lost Time. For investing completely into Precision (not as much power and less defensive stats) you’re able to keep Slow up with a GS for just under 50% uptime from my experiences both BWEs. This is on a target that can’t evade, block, or LoS you. I didn’t feel like Lost Time was too imbalanced trying Stronghold, but it was pretty good (as a Grandmaster should be) in PvE. It wasn’t the make-or-break reason we won any encounters, but it at least made me feel like I had impacted the fight a little bit. The cooldown on stack generation to slow down it’s effects on GS is understandable, but making you earn a 5th stack on top of it seems a little excessive. Maybe keeping the internal cooldown on stacks but dropping down to 4 stacks before the next hit applies Slow would be better. Chronophantasma is an incredible trait, but having nearly 50% bursts of tiny 2s Slows felt almost good enough to not build up right into double shatter-bomb. I can understanding making this Trait less powerful if there was some kind of Slow Rune set in the game giving increased duration & base Precision we don’t know about. Much like how I feel about Alacrity, the duration you get when you actually activate it feels way too small to begin with before we start talking about lowering its potential.

Robert Gee.9246:

Bug Fixes

• Continuum Split – Fixed a bug which caused the Continuum Rift to take no damage from attacks.
• Flow of Time: Fix the description to show it gives alacrity per illusion.
• Illusionary Reversion: Fixed a bug which caused this trait to fail when used with Continuum Split.

Bug fixes are always good. Besides the fixed Tides of Time wall/cliff annoyance I’ve had one other issue: Both BWEs so far I’ve experienced a few cases of not snapping back to the Continuum Rift when the duration ran out, and continuing like I never even used that shatter until I walk waaay out of range from it and suddenly snap back a mile with the HP & Skills I had when I dropped that Rift when the combat was still going on. If that’s fixable then that takes care of my list.

Robert Gee.9246:

Gravity Well: Now performs a knockdown, float and then pull. No longer gives stability on end. Increased final damage by 50%

Thanks <3, Gravity well once again worth it because of the float.

Great changes overall, but i do have 2 cents:

Robert Gee.9246:

• Illusionary Avenger: …snip…
  This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.
Also giving alacrity only to the melee part of the group.
In full melee range this phantasm wil be pretty useless in both PvE and PvP, making it easy to kill.
I would probaly want the old functionality back, with shorter range on the bouncing projectile (if that is the issue at all if it’s ranged.)

The overall theme of the chronomacer and wells feels like it synergies better overall with melee / power builds. I wish there was some confusion or torment on atleast 1 well for mesmers who like conditions.

Fay.2357:

I think I’m gonna cry, it’s so beautiful.

I believe in Geesus!

Dude.. I… I don’t even know what to say.

Its all so perfect! Thanks for listening to us!

Fnix.5608:

Robert Gee.9246:

• Illusionary Avenger: …snip…
  This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first, but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.

In full melee range this phantasm wil be pretty useless in both PvE and PvP

At least not everybody is blind.
But let’s see what they mean with initiate.

Looks great! Can’t wait to try the new and improved wells. Thanks so much!

Problem: Phantasms have a hard time surviving in group WvW battles or encounters with heavy AoE damage. Requiring the Avenger to stay in Melee will make its performance unpredictable in these situations. A phantasm only pulsing in melee also cripples its ability to support mesmers who choose to play at range.

Suggestion: Keep the existing ranged attack but still have it pulse Alacrity in a 240 radius.

Benefits: Allows players using ranged weapons (greatsword, scepter, staff) to play at their desired range and still benefit from the phantasm’s pulsing effect. Melee players (just sword!) could still block in melee range and receive the benefit.

Everything looks good, but the main problem I have with mesmer (which is not only related to the chronomancer) is:

- Mantra of distraction and powerblock are amazing, but you made both much worse by making them not recharge until all the stacks are down.
- The real Problem which made the build imba was confounding suggestions+mental anguish, which made it possible to abuse the mantra as a mindless stun, instead using it as the intended interrupt, which required tons of skill and timing and was a huge amount of fun.

- Now with the chronomancer, it’s even worse using the mantras, because chronomancer is really strong, but has no synergy with mantras: alacrity is nowhere near as good for mantras as for other skills, cuz the CD only gets reduced when all the stacks of the mantra have been used.
- Also, mantras now basically need harmonious mantras and powerblock which gives you little chance to tap into the more defensive traitlines, which makes the build even more squishier than it already is und makes one of the big synergies with the heal-mantra and menders purity fly out the window, or you just have 2 uses of the mantra, which is IMHO not good enough with the new “CD-mechanic” for the mantras.
- Continuum SHift also isn’t that great with mantras, cuz you only have time to fire off 1 interrupt and it’ll most likely just be fired off blindly cuz of the small time-window.

The only reason I’m so stuck with mantras is that during the time where the mantras where really strong and with powerblock, it felt so good playing mesmer and so similar to how certain classes in GW1 felt, that I really started to love GW2 again (I didn’t abuse mental anguish nor confounding suggestions, but actually tried to hit the interrupts on the important stuff).

Then mesmer became the simple stealth-class again and with chronomancer, it’ll just be a combo-beast that’s squishy as hell from what I’ve seen so far.

solution
- Make alacrity reduce CD on mantras while you still have stacks to use. Otherwhise, the whole chronomancer traitline will be completely useless for one skill-category of the mesmer.
- Confounding suggestions only stuns when you interrupt sth.
- Possibly think about switching out temporal enchanter, mental defense or illusionary inspiration for harmonious mantras, cuz it’ll be really hard to utilize the main synergy of the heal mantra when going for chronomancer….

all these changes look great for a chronomancer. One thing I am seeing though, is that alacrity is even better for elementalist in pve(if there was any question about its power before anyway). a chronomancer that can get 9 seconds of alacrity up (illusionary avenger + well of recall traited with “all’s well…”) puts icebow 4 on an 8.33 second cooldown. Maybe thats too long and it will still get dropped after going icebow 4 -> 3, but it still has the potential to even further increase its power.

That Guy.5704:

One thing I am seeing though, is that alacrity is even better for elementalist in pve(if there was any question about its power before anyway). a chronomancer that can get 9 seconds of alacrity up (illusionary avenger + well of recall traited with “all’s well…”) puts icebow 4 on an 8.33 second cooldown. Maybe thats too long and it will still get dropped after going icebow 4 -> 3, but it still has the potential to even further increase its power.

But at least they will need Mesmer for that (and perfecting the alacrity rotation takes some skill)

Korusef.3714:

That Guy.5704:

One thing I am seeing though, is that alacrity is even better for elementalist in pve(if there was any question about its power before anyway). a chronomancer that can get 9 seconds of alacrity up (illusionary avenger + well of recall traited with “all’s well…”) puts icebow 4 on an 8.33 second cooldown. Maybe thats too long and it will still get dropped after going icebow 4 -> 3, but it still has the potential to even further increase its power.

But at least they will need Mesmer for that (and perfecting the alacrity rotation takes some skill)

^
It gives the mesmer a place in support…which is good.
If alacrity happens to be too powerful specifically because icebow is powerful, doesn’t that say more about icebow than alacrity?
Also, having a mesmer means having 1 less icebow.

Fnix.5608:

Great changes overall, but i do have 2 cents:

Robert Gee.9246:

• Illusionary Avenger: …snip…
  This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.
Also giving alacrity only to the melee part of the group.
In full melee range this phantasm wil be pretty useless in both PvE and PvP, making it easy to kill.
I would probaly want the old functionality back, with shorter range on the bouncing projectile (if that is the issue at all if it’s ranged.)

The overall theme of the chronomacer and wells feels like it synergies better overall with melee / power builds. I wish there was some confusion or torment on atleast 1 well for mesmers who like conditions.

The wording is a little vague, but I think it means that every time it hits its target, or rather every time it initiates the attack, it does both the alacrity and the slow in the 240 radius. I could be wrong, it is a little vague, but that’s what it seems like to me.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

If alacrity happens to be too powerful specifically because icebow is powerful, doesn’t that say more about icebow than alacrity?
Also, having a mesmer means having 1 less icebow.

I agree with Alpha: icebow is OP, Mesmer needs a nerf.

(Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

Morfedel.4165:

Fnix.5608:

Great changes overall, but i do have 2 cents:

Robert Gee.9246:

• Illusionary Avenger: …snip…
  This phantasm no longer shoots a bouncing projectile but instead initiates a melee attack that slows enemies and gives alacrity to allies within a 240 radius around the target. Removed old phantasm description.

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.
Also giving alacrity only to the melee part of the group.
In full melee range this phantasm wil be pretty useless in both PvE and PvP, making it easy to kill.
I would probaly want the old functionality back, with shorter range on the bouncing projectile (if that is the issue at all if it’s ranged.)

The overall theme of the chronomacer and wells feels like it synergies better overall with melee / power builds. I wish there was some confusion or torment on atleast 1 well for mesmers who like conditions.

The wording is a little vague, but I think it means that every time it hits its target, or rather every time it initiates the attack, it does both the alacrity and the slow in the 240 radius. I could be wrong, it is a little vague, but that’s what it seems like to me.

The wording is definitely imprecise. I’m reading it as a cleaving melee attack that applies slow that also does an aoe alacrity, but it could be just a single melee attack that does aoe slow and alacrity.

Or it could be a single target slow too. I’m sorta hoping that’s not the right interpretation though.

Oh hell yes, channelled block on shield is amazing!

And looking forward to tides of time wall fix.

Amazing changes overall, very excited to play next BWE (assuming first weekend of October?)

AlphatheWhite.9351:

It gives the mesmer a place in support…which is good.
If alacrity happens to be too powerful specifically because icebow is powerful, doesn’t that say more about icebow than alacrity?
Also, having a mesmer means having 1 less icebow.

I am not denying anything about it helping out mesmer. I am glad it does in fact. My point was actually about what is says about icebow exactly like you said.

What I dont want them to do in the future is to nerf alacrity because of how it interacts with 1 or a couple specific skills elsewhere in the game that are themselves too powerful

Wow you’re giving us a continuous Block :o Exciting! Shield could actually threaten Torch for PvP offhand with that change – though I’ll expect some push back from people with “Blurred Frenzy, Distortion, Block! Mesmers spend 50% of the time immune to attacks”

Also a Heal with Condi removal! weeeeeee

And AoE Blurr Well which is controlable to answer attacks ^^

Exciting stuff – gj.

Coulter.2315:

I’ll expect some push back from people with “Blurred Frenzy, Distortion, Block! Mesmers spend 50% of the time immune to attacks”

And I’ll just be hiding out in my Chronobunker. :P

Overall great changes!

About well of precognition. I like its current form for sure but also feel a bit sad losing the unblockable function. If it can end with an unblockable buff, the well would be much more useful in WvW where block is prevalent.

The shield block change is the single best thing I’ve read regarding Chrono over all the beta weekends.

Very excited for shield now.

tobascodagama.2961:

Coulter.2315:

I’ll expect some push back from people with “Blurred Frenzy, Distortion, Block! Mesmers spend 50% of the time immune to attacks”

And I’ll just be hiding out in my Chronobunker. :P

Between Blurred Frenzy, Echoes of Memory, Deja Vu, Distortion and Well of Precognition, with 100% alacrity and sword/illusion/shatter cdr traits, you can theoretically keep up 100% immunity to most attacks.
That would let you become an invulnerable capping brick on the point, except that the distortion part of the rotation would lose ground. And you’d be dealing 0 damage that whole time. It’s a hilarious thought experiment, though.

Arshay Duskbrow.1306:

Another point-blank melee phantasm that will die almost instantly? Please no. Give Avenger its range back.

This!

So why not a kind of combination of „both“ Illusionary Avengers?

Illusionary Avenger: Increased damage of this phantasm by 20%.
Summon a Phantasm that attacks enemies from distance.
The Illusionary Avenger throws a shield at its target (no bounces).
The shield causes an explosion on hit. Radius of the explosion: 240.
Affected enemies are slowed and suffer damage.
Allies within the area of the explosion receive Alacrity.
After the explosion the shield will fly to the Mesmer, granting him Alacrity and Fury/Quickness.

The explosion, caused by the shield, could also leave a field on the ground, that grants Alacrity to allies and slows enemies.

In addition to that, the Illusionary Avenger could also grant Alacrity to nearby allies, while throwing the shield.

Azathoth.2098:

:Complains about the one drawback to the change, then suggests that instead they buff the iAvenger to god-pet status.:

Seriously? You suggest that they replace a drawback that is clearly meant to balance out the buffs with another set of enormous buffs?

As I said, what you people are complaining about IS A CLASS MECHANICAL ISSUE WITH MESMERS/RANGERS/NECROMANCERS/ GUARDIAN SPIRIT WEAPONS THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED INSTEAD OF SWEPT UNDER THE RUG.

I’d rather they don’t replace it with a ranged phantasm because if it becomes a melee phantasm and people realize what is happening with pet/illusion classes in PvE and largescale WvW, then developers have a bigger reason to finally implement a long needed fix that every other MMO out there has.

Every MMO but this one has pets that are off/low in the aggro table and have AoE immunity/avoidance since these classes rely on the high/full reliable uptime of these minions to perform fully.

So instead of insisting on a band aid of making a phantasm ranged, ask them to fix the issue with illusions/pets/minions/ranger spirits/ guardian spirit weapons in PvE and WvW zergs.

I about cried to, sooo happy. Overall, I like the chronomancer more and more after each beta. I’m so glad we have an opportunity to express our opinions about the class and that the devs take those opinions into consideration. Obviously, the best case situation may be for iavenger to maintain a range attack. However, we don’t even know what its new melee attack will look like. If it jumps in and out real quick like iswordsman than I think it should be fine. The radius isn’t that large on it. Therefore, I would think a melee attack would help it dish out more alacrity to allies, as allies would have a better chance of being around the avenger. In addition, I think they felt like they had to make this change to make up for the 20% increased damage. I also can’t wait to test out the new gravity well next beta. Sounds like it will look really cool.

Zenith.7301:

As I said, what you people are complaining about IS A CLASS MECHANICAL ISSUE WITH MESMERS/RANGERS/NECROMANCERS/ GUARDIAN SPIRIT WEAPONS THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED INSTEAD OF SWEPT UNDER THE RUG.

My big hope for Engineer’s Elite spec is that their Drones will operate like other pets and then finally this stupid kittening problem will be too widespread to keep ignoring.

tobascodagama.2961:

Zenith.7301:

As I said, what you people are complaining about IS A CLASS MECHANICAL ISSUE WITH MESMERS/RANGERS/NECROMANCERS/ GUARDIAN SPIRIT WEAPONS THAT NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED INSTEAD OF SWEPT UNDER THE RUG.

My big hope for Engineer’s Elite spec is that their Drones will operate like other pets and then finally this stupid kittening problem will be too widespread to keep ignoring.

You mean turrets?

Nice and thoughtful changes! :b:

wow….great changes/refinements to one of my favorite elites. can’t wait to use the shield now in pve…..and wells look pretty great, too. BWE3 can’t come soon enough.

great job!

The 30s cd is ok. It’s getting a heal boost AND 3 conditions being removed. Take into account alacrity, and you still have a competitive heal from my perspective.

MailMail.6534:

The 30s cd is ok. It’s getting a heal boost AND 3 conditions being removed. Take into account alacrity, and you still have a competitive heal from my perspective.

It’s in line with any condi clearing heal that’s also AoE. Healing Spring is 30 sec cd and Well of Blood is 40 sec cd although admittedly Well of Blood is a weak heal.

Yeah, 30s definitely makes it a meaningful decision between it and ether feast or mirror. With the low cast time and the similar cooldown, it was going to be tough picking anything other than the well heal. 30s puts it on more even footing.

Loved the changes. Chronomancer being solid and interesting since the beginning. The shield’s phantasm ranged attacked will be missed, but let’s see how melee and AoE slow/alacrity will work. Very excited for those changes. And the stability will be missed, but float is back!

The thing I was thinking is how Chrono’s shield is one of the few weapons without any related/improvement trait. Cooldown reduction wouldn’t work, since alacrity is great and affect every skill.

What I thought was simple: give the Improved Alacrity a shield related effect, like a boon related improvement or even a flat 180 toughness, since staff’s trait was changed. Maybe even name the trait “Armored Alacrity”? The trait itself has strong competition in the master slot, against iReversion and the Danger Time.

P.S.: Thinking about it, maybe the stability from the Gravity Well could be an end effect to the Well of Precognition, in less proportions (3 stacks for 7 secs, for exemple). Since the old condition removal from the well trait replaced the vigor from heal well, and the vigor got changed into a flat 35 endurance in the Precognition well.

Overall, very very excited to play Chrono again. And also make people floooooat.

Overall its what we asked for.. Just lets see how the phantasm performs.
Also, still hoping for Danger Time to give dmg mod or increased ferocity versus slowed targets.

Robert Gee.9246:

Fay.2357:

Just to reiterate, could you clarify the cooldown of well of eternity? In BWE2, it was 20 seconds. Is it being moved to 25 or to 30?

Sorry that was a bit of confusion on my part. The correct recharge is 30 seconds. I’ve edited the original post to reflect this.

SaintSnow.6593:

One thing though, any clarification on the wells finally being distinguished as ally or enemy? For the last two weekends they have had ally rings on them regardless is if it is an enemy’s. Needs the red line for distinguishing.

Thanks for mentioning this, I hadn’t seen any reports on this yet so I’ll look into it.

Fnix.5608:

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.

Slow is also applied AoE.

One off topic question for you.

Please consider working on thief class too. We need a better dev like you

Shogun.7401:

Robert Gee.9246:

Fay.2357:

Just to reiterate, could you clarify the cooldown of well of eternity? In BWE2, it was 20 seconds. Is it being moved to 25 or to 30?

Sorry that was a bit of confusion on my part. The correct recharge is 30 seconds. I’ve edited the original post to reflect this.

SaintSnow.6593:

One thing though, any clarification on the wells finally being distinguished as ally or enemy? For the last two weekends they have had ally rings on them regardless is if it is an enemy’s. Needs the red line for distinguishing.

Thanks for mentioning this, I hadn’t seen any reports on this yet so I’ll look into it.

Fnix.5608:

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.

Slow is also applied AoE.

One off topic question for you.

Please consider working on thief class too. We need a better dev like you

This is a useless post.

You are openly dissing his colleague, you realize that?

Shogun.7401:

Robert Gee.9246:

Fay.2357:

Just to reiterate, could you clarify the cooldown of well of eternity? In BWE2, it was 20 seconds. Is it being moved to 25 or to 30?

Sorry that was a bit of confusion on my part. The correct recharge is 30 seconds. I’ve edited the original post to reflect this.

SaintSnow.6593:

One thing though, any clarification on the wells finally being distinguished as ally or enemy? For the last two weekends they have had ally rings on them regardless is if it is an enemy’s. Needs the red line for distinguishing.

Thanks for mentioning this, I hadn’t seen any reports on this yet so I’ll look into it.

Fnix.5608:

Not sure if I like this change at all, very sceptical about this one. Sure, I want to test it first – but placing phantasms in melee range, and only hitting one target with slow at the time is a big nerf overall to this one.

Slow is also applied AoE.

One off topic question for you.

Please consider working on thief class too. We need a better dev like you

Careful, this is how you get infractions.

I hope for Shogo’s case that he edits his post. The audacity of some people…

Back on topic, even with the 30s CD, I think Eternity is competitive with all the other heals. The fact that it gives condition clearing helps a lot. I just love that there’s obviously counter play to Wells, but if they are used effectively, they can be monstrous.

More importantly, they are purple and fabulous, and whoever made the sound effects for them and pretty much all of the chronomancer’s audio thematics needs a raise.

Zenith.7301:

More importantly, they are purple and fabulous, and whoever made the sound effects for them and pretty much all of the chronomancer’s audio thematics needs a raise.

This is an often underestimated fact in a meta, but definitely enough of a reason for me (isn’t purple-ness the reason we continued playing mesmers when it was weak before the specialization patch?)

I think part of the issue described above is that Karl doesn’t communicate with his class’s communities as much or as openly as Robert does with his class’s community.

Its clear that Robert Gee reads many of the threads and tells us reasons for why things are being changed and for why concerns are not being changed. Robert’s balancing of the elite specs has shown that he’s not afraid to give each spec the buffs and fixes it needs to be competitive with base class options, and he only nerfs things after they’ve proven to be too strong.

Karl is a very talented developer, but I fear that he has trouble communicating his ideas. He almost never posts on the forums, except in the past beta to designate a mega feedback thread on the forums. He also seems really afraid to make things too powerful (ie. one step forward, two steps back mentality with tempest notes), and he doesn’t really justify it well enough. He’s nerfing the fire overload since he says its overperforming, which most of the feedback disagreed with, simply because overloads are supposed to be very powerful for the huge cost you pay to use them. He also didn’t really justify removing boon manipulation on heat sync or wildfire. For heat sync, he just said it was overperforming, when most other people have said that its one of the few skills that made tempest worth running. Yes rebound is better, and yes the traits are less awful, but based on the changes, things aren’t being tuned to the level of viability that they need to be competitive. Dragonhunter is very similar to this. Daredevil I don’t delve too much into, but it seems to be his best work, even if all of the concepts are taken from pre-nerfed acro and the staff animations are copied from revenant.

Anyway, while I don’t condone harassing the developers, I feel that there is tension due to a lack of developer interaction with 3 of the elite specs.

I actually agree with you here. I think the global feeling of the community is almost more affected by the communication than by the changes themselves. For example, Robert started interacting only more recently (Roy was the first one to jump on the heavy communication train). Up to then, the necromancer forum was one of the gloomiest spot in the forum. But the little added communication (and the success of the Reaper) changed that a lot and people now have more faith in the future. Now the gloomiest place is probably the ranger forum, I hope the druid will be good…

Will the new iAvenger have a different look or attack animation than iDefender?

I have a different idea for iAvenger that would be more fitting for its name and make it more useful in WvW. How about, when it is summoned, it runs into melee range of its target and blocks for 5 seconds. While it is blocking, it is completely invulnerable and whomever hits it gets 1 second of slow for every hit while the mesmer that summoned it pulses 1 seconds of alacrity to 4 people around them for every hit. In this way, it steals time from its enemies. After the block ends, the iAvenger’s “attack” goes on cooldown and it is completely vulnerable.

The pros to this is it causes anyone fighting a chronomancer to stop and consider which phantasm they are attacking as swinging blindly will put them at a great disadvantage. This goes well with the theme of mesmers playing mindgames with their opponents as they can’t just fire and forget like normal. Another plus is that any trait or rune that causes an effect on block would be triggered by the phantasm, giving it an offensive potential as well.

The counterplay is that the iAvenger actually doesn’t attack at all. Any opponent smart enough to recognize what it is can simply wait until it stops blocking to take it down. Better yet, they could use single target skills on the mesmer and ignore them completely. The only thing they would have to worry about is shatters and that wouldn’t be any different than how things are now.

What do you guys think?

Crossplay.2067:

I have a different idea for iAvenger that would be more fitting for its name and make it more useful in WvW. How about, when it is summoned, it runs into melee range of its target and blocks for 5 seconds. While it is blocking, it is completely invulnerable and whomever hits it gets 1 second of slow for every hit while the mesmer that summoned it pulses 1 seconds of alacrity to 4 people around them for every hit. In this way, it steals time from its enemies. After the block ends, the iAvenger’s “attack” goes on cooldown and it is completely vulnerable.

The pros to this is it causes anyone fighting a chronomancer to stop and consider which phantasm they are attacking as swinging blindly will put them at a great disadvantage. This goes well with the theme of mesmers playing mindgames with their opponents as they can’t just fire and forget like normal. Another plus is that any trait or rune that causes an effect on block would be triggered by the phantasm, giving it an offensive potential as well.

The counterplay is that the iAvenger actually doesn’t attack at all. Any opponent smart enough to recognize what it is can simply wait until it stops blocking to take it down. Better yet, they could use single target skills on the mesmer and ignore them completely. The only thing they would have to worry about is shatters and that wouldn’t be any different than how things are now.

What do you guys think?

Becomes trash in an instant in PvE for the same reason confusion is trash tier in PvE as well, mob attack intervals are not that great.

Really amazing changes from what i see so far (of course i need to test first!)
The heal is going to be VERY interesting, condition removal without inspiration.

Zenith.7301:

Becomes trash in an instant in PvE for the same reason confusion is trash tier in PvE as well, mob attack intervals are not that great.

While that is true, I see that more as a problem with pve mobs than my idea.

Coulter.2315:

Wow you’re giving us a continuous Block :o Exciting! Shield could actually threaten Torch for PvP offhand with that change – though I’ll expect some push back from people with “Blurred Frenzy, Distortion, Block! Mesmers spend 50% of the time immune to attacks”

Also a Heal with Condi removal! weeeeeee

And AoE Blurr Well which is controlable to answer attacks ^^

Exciting stuff – gj.

Aren’t blocks, as channeled skills, interruptible? There’s counter play to them, and it’s not like the skill is particularly spammable.