Thanks for all the feedback that was posted over the beta weekend. I spent a lot of time reading over all the posts I could on chronomancer and making notes to figure out what to change in preparation for the next BWE and I wanted to post here to let you know where things are headed.
The good news is that Chronomancer seems like it’s in a pretty solid place. The number of bugs was low and general sentiment seemed positive for how things are working so far. As a result I’m only looking to make a few adjustments between this BWE and the next one. Let’s go over the changes and the thoughts behind them:
Gravity well: Changed functionality. This well now pulls every pulse for a total of 3 pulls. The final pulse grants 5 stacks of stability to allies in the area.
- General sentiment from feedback was that the PULL was what was important to selling Gravity Well rather than the float. We’ve gone back to the earlier version where it does the standard 3 pulls but pulled out the ending stun to prevent kitten long AoE CC. I’m still a little concerned about how hard it is to stun break this thing but since it’s got a relatively long cast time and moderate area of effect I think it’s safe to try.
Echo of Memory: Fixed a bug which prevented this skill from working with the traits Illusionist’s Celerity and Persistence of Memory. Lowered slow applied by phantasm from 3s to 2s.
- The slow from these phantasms seemed a little too good considering they could hit multiple targets (especially if you got 2 of them out). With the fixes to traits that lower the recharge of this skill it seemed appropriate to reduce it a bit.
Well of Eternity: Lowered cast time from 0.75s to 0.25s
- The idea behind this skill has always been to wait for the big heal at the end, so it didn’t make sense for the cast time to be as long as it was. Healing numbers still might be adjusted in a future BWE.
Chronophantasma: Increased Daze duration from 1s to 1.5s
- Did anyone try spamming Illusionary Berserkers with Continuum Shift and Chronophantasma? This specific combo isn’t the only reason we are adjusting this trait, but we are watching the types of spikes that are coming from Chronomancer in general.
Illusionary Reversion: Updated functionality. You must shatter at least 2 illusions in order to generate a clone from this trait. (You do not count as an illusion towards this total.)
- Yeah I know this one probably stings but when we started looking at it it was pretty silly that this trait could let you get so much power out of just using all shatter skills back to back.
Alacrity
The last few changes are related to alacrity. We felt that as it was currently, alacrity wasn’t hitting the right level of impact due to how easy it was to get from the minor trait and how little you could share it with allies. These changes are intended to try and improve how alacrity feels to interact with though traits and skills.
- Flow of Time: Reduced alacrity per shattered illusion from 1s to 0.75s
- Improved Alacrity: Increased alacrity duration bonus from 33% to 50%.
- All’s Well that Ends Well: Changed functionality. This trait now grants 2s of alacrity to allies standing within the well when the well ends.
Slow Stacking
Finally let’s talk about Lost Time. Currently we don’t have plans to change this trait for the next BWE but it’s on our watchlist. This is trait is pretty fun and synergizes well with the other traits while working into the theme of chronomancer. However it can get a little blown out when used with certain skills (looking at you Spatial Surge). We’ll be keeping an eye on this one during the next beta event.
I hope this post has helped to explain our thoughts on the current state of Chronomancer and as a reminder these changes reflect our current thoughts and plans for the next BWE. We may add, subtract or change notes between now and then.