Guild Wars 2

Actually I prefer the 2 Illusion requirement over a 5 sec CD.

To be honest most people who take IR are going to take Chronophantasma as well. So the Phantasm will be around for 2 Shatters. If you start with 1 clone and stagger your Phantasms summons you can get off 4 × 3 man Shatters in quick succession.

Yes its more of a PvE thing but do Mesmers really need anymore help in PvP?

All in All good stuff, some buffs and some tweaks and I’m glad the change to IR wasn’t an internal cooldown because that would of destroyed the trait since its all about momentum when using it. and those complaining that shatter now has to take DE again Good because people will only run some cheesy PU build over it instead for shatter… so stop moaning and play like we played before the PU Buff.

Robert Gee.9246:

…

Thanks for keeping us updated!

Well of Gravity

It’s a pitty that the float is gone but those Pulls will hopefull make it desirable again – and actually useful for lockdown and interrupt builds. I can understand the concerns regarding breaking Stuns but there are plenty of stunbreaks which include a portion of mobility which gets you out of the radius or apply Stability. There should be enough countermeasures.

Chronophantasm

Understandble. I’m just slightly concerned that the longer the Daze gets the more likely the newly summoned Phantasm will just die to cleave or area effects. I guess we will have to see how this plays out. But people should be aware of this issue since it could make the trait useless in many situations.

Illusionary Reversion

I’d prefer making it require 1 Illusion plus an added ICD. Considering how easily Illusions can be disposed of rotations could be interrupted without too much effort.

All’s Well when it ends Well

Nice change which adds something to Wells that doesn’t hurt Glamours too much. I know I’m a pain in the kitten when it comes to this topic but Glamours in general and Nullfield especially have been hurting quite a bit since Wells were introduced.

Well of Precognition

So what about this one and the issue of the Blurr basically being impossible to be used when you actually need it? Wouldn’t a reversed effect make more sense (e.g. pulsing Blurr + Unblockable at the end)?

The “float” was the selling point for me. Although the new function is a lot more useful the animation in floating made playing the Chronomancer so much more unique in function. I’m sure the feedback came from the skill being harder to land but when landed in sPvP I definitely understood why i’d want to take that over the other elites.

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.

I actually did, though Iduelist is arguably more fun to use (tested a full rampager build for instant 24 bleedstacks ^evil laugh^). However that was in an agreed test environment. In pvp I never managed to get 3 out at the same time, people know those phantasms hurt a lot if left alone, so tend to take them out/cleave them. I understand your worry about overdoing it, however if people are ignorant enough to leave them alone, they pretty much deserve the punishment. It’s not like other classes don’t have similar dps bursts (seen enough warriors bragging about 11k crits in pvp/wvw, that’ll take 3 izerkers critting to manage the same!).

If you really want to buy opponents more time to get rid of them, keep the 1 sec daze and make them all respawn at max range after shattering. That would serve 2 purposes:
-They’ll need to get into position to hit again, taking more then just the 1.5 sec daze
-However they won’t be random victims of cleaving attacks/aoe’s, making them likely to at least have a chance of hitting again.

In the way mentioned above (if technically possible ofc) you’d take away the damage spike issue, while keeping the trait itself worth it for the mesmer by still punishing people being ignorant.

Echo of Memory

Great fix, both the bugs filtered out and the slow was to much for sure.

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.

Doesn’t the same then apply for all other wells? The idea has always been to wait for the big end after 3 seconds, so why do they need a big casttime? Big compared to necro wells especially, who deal more damage/give more effects the instant they are put down. Please consider reducing casttime on all wells (minus gravity probably) to make them more viable and less “telegraphed”.

:Alacrity

As it is now increased alacrity will have a reduced self effect even when traited, while you are also making it a lot harder to access it. I really feel this is a bit over the top.

-IR change means less clones>>>less full shatters>>>>>less alacrity gain from shattering.
-Alacrity itself is less effective (.75 vs 1 sec). So it’s pretty much a double nerf.

Since I played rampager I also tested the impact of alacrity (traited) on a non shatter spamming condi build (yes I know, unusual) and outside the shatters I never got the feeling alacrity made me change the gameplay compared to a normal mesmer playing the same way. The effect on a big hitting skill like chaos storm ain’t big enough to really alter your output in a fight since most fights simply don’t last long enough (pvp/roaming). Sure it has a lot of potency, but you need opponents to make mistakes to get enough of it. Again: that’s their fault for not understanding the mechanic, not a class related balance issue.

Slow Stacking

That’s a big surprise, since meta seems to be GS and spatial surge with a full crit build (assasins) will cause it to perma stack. Yes it’s fine as it is for other weapon sets, but this….ouch. An idea to fix the spatial issue: Give it an icd of 2.5 or even 3 seconds per target. It’s technically possible since it’s the same you’ve done with Ineptitude which is in a perfect place.

Leaves me with 3 questions:

-any chance you can fix/put a date on when the fix comes for Duelist Discipline trait to properly increase the bleed chance of iduelist aswell? For a condi build that one is really important (8 bleeds vs 11 bleeds per unload is a decent dps increase)
-same question for sw4 block not spawning a clone while wielding a scepter as main hand? It’s making a double block build non viable now.
-A more general question: We know skills reset with Continuum shift to allow for double use. What never was made clear is how it effects skills that are trait related (idefender (mental defense)/signet of inspiration on phantasm cast come to mind). if those trigger while under continuum shift, will they come out of cd instantly after continuum shift ends like normal skills?

I do fear that if you nerf lost time to strongly, players won’t touch it & will feel forced into playing other builds

Great Job on the beta weekend and Chronomancer in general – Had a blast!

Robert Gee.9246:

Mallekay.8967:

Robert Gee.9246:

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.

Wouldn’t it be more plausible to set an ICD of lets say 5 secs to prevent chain shattering? I also thought, this trait was intended to eliminate the need for DE.

ICD is another option I think. If it proves too weak in the next BWE we can look at trying this or some other solution.

It was OP in the last beta test. But ONLY If you used it in conjunction with deceptive evasion. This nerf will once again force mesmer even more to use DE. In my opinion the only way to ever possibly fix the problem of DE reliance is to make a baseline choice for mesmers where they could choose between clone on Dodge and clone on shatter- or alternatively- no clone generation at all for phantasm builds. As it is, noone will use traits that compete with Deceptive evasion seriously.

I didn’t get too much time testing lost time, but i heard many complaints and it was very powerful combines with spatial surge. I think the funcionality will have to be Alfred somewhat or it will be op on greatsword and useless on every other mesmer weapon.

Awww man, the float was so neat
It should really be kept on the 3rd pulse…

Re: Gravity Well’s Float: I’d rather have a functional skill rather than one that looked cool but is functionally useless.

Embolism.8106:

Re: Gravity Well’s Float: I’d rather have a functional skill rather than one that looked cool but is functionally useless.

My thought exactly. The amount of times people walk out of my Elite (despite attempts to lock via CI) makes me cringe. But when people do get caught simply because they want to contest the point, I wondered whether I should laugh or cry.

I must admit though, having careless people sucked into a blackhole is also a good sight.

EDIT: maybe we could slap 3 condi removals onto precognition or recall? Those 2 skills have really high CD for such little use.

Mesmer needs a nerf to stealth in WvW since the June 23th update. Chronomancer is going to make it a whole lot worse with its new F5 skill.

The main problem with it is that Mesmer has Portal, which is not a skill that should be attached to a class with easy permanent stealth.

Chronomancer will surely ruin WvW as-is.

These changes look like a step in the right direction, but I still see a fundamental flaw (imo) with the Chronomancer specialization – it will, most likely, still feel like you are playing a Mesmer.

I think a single change would fix that and make us feel like we were masters of time (chronomancer), rather than masters of illusion (mesmer) -

Continuum shift should not require 3 illusions to maximize effectiveness. Either give it a straight six second duration or compromise and give it a 4.5 second duration, with each illusion shattered adding 0.5 seconds.

In addition to changing the theme of the profession, the reason this needs to happen is the fragile nature of illusions when AOEs are present (clones die too fast) or when fighting large groups of low health mobs (clones despawn too fast).

The Chronomancer should be about mastering time – not juggling illusions (which is what the mesmer should be about). As it stands, in actual fights, our new profession ability (f5) will be way to unreliable and ineffective.

And, for purely selfish reasons, I would like to see the float back in the gravity well in some form – it’s just too much fun.

Nerfs, nerfs and more mesmers nerfs.

And at the same time, you boost almost everything on the revenant and the reaper.

Good job.

You’ve been using that nerf bat on the mesmers for 3 years now, making us an almost useless class. How about leaving the mesmer alone and use that nerf bat on some other class for a few years?

Ilusionary Reversion would be better off with an 3-5s icd then the 2 clone requirement.
I do know chrono condi was absurd but this change basically cripples it.

Happy with rest of the changes.

Luthic.7290:

Ilusionary Reversion would be better off with an 3-5s icd then the 2 clone requirement.
I do know chrono condi was absurd but this change basically cripples it.

Happy with rest of the changes.

it’s the other way around, 3-5 sec icd cripples it.. compared to 2 illusion requirement.

Thank you for the update, Robert!

All of these changes seem completely reasonable. It’s a shame about the float on Gravity Well, but if it’s a choice between “cool effect that’s almost impossible to land” and “really useful effect,” I’ll take the second.

Another possible solution might be to have different effects on each pulse. A pull on the first pulse, then cripples on the second and third ones, followed by the float when the well ends, but that might just be confusing.

Embolism.8106:

Re: Gravity Well’s Float: I’d rather have a functional skill rather than one that looked cool but is functionally useless.

Ditto.

Walrusaur.5840:

I think rather than nerfing illusionary reversion, it should be mutually exclusive with chronophantasma. They both serve essentially the same purpose, but lead you down two separate paths (phantasm dps, versus alacrity/shatter), and are probably too powerful in combination.

Kaiyanwan.8521:

Well, at least for open world, the change of Illusionary Reversion will cause two things:

1. Everyone will still have to pick Dueling for Deceptive Evasion
2. People will pick Improved Alacrity or Danger Time over Illusionary Reversion, as it is usless if you have Deceptive Evasion anyways…

Goodbye build variety, welcome back Deceptive Evasion.

These are my concerns as well. I played Condi Shatter a couple of times during the BWE, so I get why that build maybe needs a little toning down, but I’m disappointed that the new version of Illusionary Reversion is basically worthless unless you’ve already invested into clone generation elsewhere.

This nerf doesn’t actually hurt the power of the Condi Shatter build at all, since it was probably already taking Chronophantasma and Deceptive Evasion anyway. What it does do is double the weight of Deceptive Evasion around our necks instead of providing the viable DE alternative most of us were hoping for.

PvE specific only -

i prefer mistrust over deceptive evasion anyday.. as long as your good on interrupts, you shall see wonders :-)
imo, deceptive evasion isn’t needed for a pve condi shatter.
Also, your wrong, the new illusionary reversion isn’t worthless.. infact far from worthless.. basically works the same way it does previously.. you just need to have a phantasm up every 2 shatters.

Hey robert, overall I think that those are good changes.

• Alls Well That Ends Well: Yes! One of the biggest problems with Chronomancer IMO was that we really couldn’t share alacrity in any meaningful way, this change is a nice step towards fixing that and opens up the possibility of well builds.

• Speaking of well builds, Well of Eternity would probably be better if it removed conditions per pulse rather than granting Vigor. Vigor is great, but getting a boon that promotes dodging for standing within a well seems a bit.. not right.

• Both Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion seem fair, but kind of hurts the idea of “you don’t need Deceptive Evasion to spawn clones.” If I don’t trait DE, Illusionary Reversion is likely going to be very hard to proc, could we try a one-clone requirement first and see how it works before pushing it up to 2?

• WHAT THE HELL IS GOOD WITH CHAOTIC DAMPENING BRO!? WUTS GUD BRO!? No seriously, can we get that 3% please?

• Can Tides of Time not fail miserably when it hits a wall?

• Well of Alacrity (forgot the actual name) isn’t very strong, even with the well trait. Could you consider changing the end pulse to something more impactful than 5s chill? perhaps adding some damage or another condition.

• Gravity Well is interesting specifically because of the float, it’s what makes it more unique than any other CC and the only time you’d ever see such a cool effect is from the Chronomancer. Please don’t remove this, it’s really what makes the well cool. Could you instead consider adding 1 pull on cast, and increasing the float time to 3s on the final pop? A damage boost would really help too.

Thanks for the feedback, and lookin forward to trying Chronomancer again!

A cool effect that we’ll never actually see is way less useful than a slightly less cool effect that we’ll see all the time.

While I prefer moving (unnerfed) IR to the GM tier as a solution, if it ever gets to the icd point, what about inverting the trait timing?

Illusionary Reversion: When you shatter, if you have less than 3 active illusions, create a new clone that is part of the shatter. 2s icd.

Putting an icd on IR as it functions now leaves you sitting on a clone, waiting til you can shatter it to generate another clone. That clone will get cleaved in pvp before you ever get to use it.

It’s not my favorite solution, as I actually like using clones for their auto-attacks and I like shatter-chains as a method of making mesmers meta-competitive, but it’s functional, and it allows IR to be a DE replacement, which so many people really crave.

Did not see any change on perma-stealth.
The stealth duration gain on Continuum Shift should be revert.

kankanKk.2748:

Did not see any change on perma-stealth.
The stealth duration gain on Continuum Shift should be revert.

If they fix The Pledge, you won’t be able to get permastealth even with Continuum Shift.

So…one thing at a time, bro? :P

Gravity Well
I’d really like to have the float effect back- Maybe if the skill applied slow and chilled on each tick and pulled only on the first tick. At the end of the well the enemies still inside would be floated. It would create a situation where the players would be pulled first in and then have to invest into escaping from the well much like if you want to escape from a black hole. Keeping all the flavour but hopefully making it fair for everyone.

Chronophantasma

The change seems fair but i’d like to suggest a buff to the Protected Phantasms trait so that the distortion effect is 1.5s, since the change to Chronophantasma was to control spikes, leaving an option for players to have full distortion when the phantasms are dazed would be nice.

All’s Well that Ends Well
I like that we’ll get more Alacrity applications since it’s one of the main points of this elite, but the condi removal will be missed. I really like the suggestion that the Well of Eternity should have condi removal instead of vigor since wells promote being static instead of moving around.

I don’t understand the preference of float on gravity well from some players. I think pull fits the theme much better and pull is a very useful effect in PvE.

Signz… Seeing all these “recommendations” to add ICD to Illusionary Reversion by players make me wonder if they ever play shatter mesmer before or not. Not to be rude but adding ICD will kill off the shatter build instantly. That 3 secs or 5 secs recommendation is a very long duration in pvp.

Robert’s implementation of 2 clones seems like a better choice. If you say it’s hard to produce 2 clones, then you aren’t playing a mesmer right. Mesmers can create 2 clones easily anytime. All you need to do is just to add another clone after each shatter prior to the 1st one to continue the clone generation.

Mesmer is a class where it requires a lot of skills thinking/rotation. not just stand there to attack and hoping for a second clone to appear.

Embolism.8106:

Do people really Shatter with 1 illusion or less that often? I get doing it for utility like Diversion, Distrortion, Boon Stripping or a panic blind/heal/cleanse but generally I don’t Shatter unless I have 2, if not 3 Illusions anyway.

Continuum Shift changes the field a bit. Illusionary Reversion under a shift meant that shatter spam was twice as effective. 2 diversions + 2 wracks + 2 frustrations in that order is quite strong, especially if you get them all back a second later.

Justin Theng.6540:

Signz… Seeing all these “recommendations” to add ICD to Illusionary Reversion by players make me wonder if they ever play shatter mesmer before or not. Not to be rude but adding ICD will kill off the shatter build instantly. That 3 secs or 5 secs recommendation is a very long duration in pvp.

There is no skill involved in successively smashing all F skills and having your Illusions resummoned through traits. This might only be a minor issue for power shatter builds but it’s pretty silly when stacking Quickness and Alacrity (even though the recent changes will partly adress this) or for condi shatter builds which can get damage out of every shatter. It gets even worse if you include Continuum Shift.

Adding a short cooldown doesn’t kill shatter builds. It just prevents spamming.

Justin Theng.6540:

Robert’s implementation of 2 clones seems like a better choice. If you say it’s hard to produce 2 clones, then you aren’t playing a mesmer right. Mesmers can create 2 clones easily anytime. All you need to do is just to add another clone after each shatter prior to the 1st one to continue the clone generation.

Mesmer is a class where it requires a lot of skills thinking/rotation. not just stand there to attack and hoping for a second clone to appear.

What now? Is it hard to get 2 Illusions up or not?

To add to this argument: Creating 2 Illusions takes at least some time unless you are running Mirror Images or got DE anyway. Meaning, a short cooldown on IR won’t hurt. It just prevents abuse.

I’m considering situations such as – Blink, dodge (in combat), F3.

That’s a 1 illusion plus yourself shatter which won’t produce a clone to follow up with – dodge, F1 (or F2 if condition). It will again only be a one illusion plus yourself shatter rather that a two illusion plus yourself shatter (which incidentally would proc IR).

It seems this change to two separate illusions would mean prioritising the initial setup, after which you can still chain shatter everything else with a single dodge (because you’d already have one clone out) or other single illusion generation skill.

The only thing that limits is twitch plays, like the above F3 example. Or for example in condition to do say a one illusion (plus yourself) F1 followed by a 2 illusion (plus yourself) F2 because the followup shatter would only have a single dodge clone.

I don’t mind having to methodically setup all the time (with Chronophantasma it should solve that issue but then it has become a mandatory trait to use in conjunction with IR), but it would be a shame to limit interesting plays.

Hence my idea of a stacking effect (see post on first page) that puts a limitation on the chain but allows two consecutive shatters proccing IR back to back – and this effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindlessly spamming all shatters in a row with a free clone.

Edit: I changed a few things for clarity:

“I have an idea for IR – how about applying some kind of stacking effect like Fencer’s Finesse does.

So for example, you shatter with no illusions -> a clone is returned and you receive an effect, call it “Time Lag” (I can’t think up a more catchy word).

This effect lasts for 5 seconds (can be adjusted upwards to balance – maybe 7 seconds would work best) and can only be at a maximum of 2 stacks. Therefore say you hit F1 (no illusions, self shatter) – one clone is spawned and you get 5 seconds of time lag. You then follow up with F2 – both you and the clone shatter and then you end up with 2 stacks of Time Lag with a few seconds remaining on the first.

Now if you followed up immediately with F3, Illusionary Reversion would not proc because you are at max stacks of Time Lag, one of which must expire before shattering will return a clone again.

The overall idea here is to still give the possibility of chain/sequential shatters up to 2 times and then have a sort of “ICD” which limits the chain unless you manually spawn additional illusions.

The visual icon on the bar will provide a cue for yourself and enemies to know when IR will proc so you can easily keep track of it.

This effect should persist through Continuum Shift preventing mindless shatter spam.

Is this too messy/complicated?"

I think the traits don’t need changing, they need moving

The problem is that Alacrity is basically a freebie, making your shatter skills cooldown superfast and making superfast clone generation more desirable.
Alacrity should be a spec choice, competing with Chronomancer clone generation traits, allowing you to keep the individual traits stronger.

Move Flow of time to Master major trait- keep it 1sec
Move Sieze the moment to master minor
Move Improved alacrity to GM major – keep it 33%
Keep Illusionary Reversion at 1 clone = more intuitive.

The problem isn’t that you can make too many clones with DE + Illusionary reversion, it’s that you can shatter too fast with those traits + free Alacrity.

Swapping the traits around so the summon traits and alacrity traits compete makes the problem of generating too many clones too fast and shatter skills cooling down too fast null and void.

Clone generation is normally gated behind shatter recharge, so all the clone generation traits combined wont do any good if you’re just overwriting clones, unable to shatter them fast enough and shatter skills recharging faster wont make a difference if you cant generate enough clones to keep up with shatter cooldown.

This way it keeps traits tidy and meaningful without making them OP because they can’t be combined.

Choosing traits is so much better when its a tough choice.

Justin Theng.6540:

Signz… Seeing all these “recommendations” to add ICD to Illusionary Reversion by players make me wonder if they ever play shatter mesmer before or not. Not to be rude but adding ICD will kill off the shatter build instantly. That 3 secs or 5 secs recommendation is a very long duration in pvp.

Robert’s implementation of 2 clones seems like a better choice. If you say it’s hard to produce 2 clones, then you aren’t playing a mesmer right. Mesmers can create 2 clones easily anytime. All you need to do is just to add another clone after each shatter prior to the 1st one to continue the clone generation.

Mesmer is a class where it requires a lot of skills thinking/rotation. not just stand there to attack and hoping for a second clone to appear.

Your argument makes me wonder if you ever tried a PvP build without DE before. Or you just don’t get the point of our argument yet, this is for you and also for dev to see…

We wish to have something that can help us move out of DE. Simple as that.

With the 2 illusions requirement, even chronophantasma + IR will be hard to replace DE. Perhaps make a 1 illusion requirement to start with in BWE, suddenly jump from 0 to 2 seems a bit heavy handed.

Ofc 3s ICD or stack time lag charges could be alternative solutions.

EDIT to change clones to illusions blah blah blah.

Didn’t the float actually make the opponent airborne, so you could actually immobilize them and they could effectively not do ANYTHING? Or did the float not count as “in the air”. (BTW anet pls fix immob air bug)

1-clone requirement does next to nothing to address the issue Anet is reacting to.
Since the trait produces one clone on shatter, the next shatter has one clone up by default.
The only change would be needing the first shatter to have at least one illusion up, which is inevitably true anyway.

So unfortunately, gating IR’s clone generation on existing illusions means going up to 2 illusions immediately to actually be a meaningful requirement.

Exciton.8942:

I don’t understand the preference of float on gravity well from some players. I think pull fits the theme much better and pull is a very useful effect in PvE.

Seriously.

I can’t emphasise this enough: NOBODY is going to willingly stand in your Gravity Well as it expires anyway. You were never going to actually see the Float effect proc. Ever.

Exciton.8942:

I don’t understand the preference of float on gravity well from some players. I think pull fits the theme much better and pull is a very useful effect in PvE.

A single pull suffices in PvE, the rest are redundant, especially when the float achieves the same effect of keeping a target on lockdown, but better since ranged attackers are stopped from attacking with a stun but not a pull.

It’s an academic discussion though. Even in its unnerfed form Well of Gravity would NEVER be used over Time Warp in PvE.

Now it’s just way easier to swallow that pill since the skill is now garbage in PvE.

Exciton.8942:

I don’t understand the preference of float on gravity well from some players. I think pull fits the theme much better and pull is a very useful effect in PvE.

I like the pull idea a lot better, myself. It’ll add to some great teamplay imo. Can’t wait to test it out! ^.^

Zenith.7301:

It’s an academic discussion though. Even in its unnerfed form Well of Gravity would NEVER be used over Time Warp in PvE.

Right. Given that WoG cannot possibly be better for PvE than Time Warp, then it should be balanced to provide something useful for PvP. Three Pulls are tremendously useful for PvP, where a 2s Float that enemies can walk out of by accident is not.

Quite a pickle here in two cases!

Great points are being made on both sides surrounding WoG!

My opinion would be to:
1) Keep the float ONLY if we can also get some other CC on one or more of the ticks before the final one. I personally don’t buy “no one will EVER see the float!” arguments, but the way it is it really is underwhelming for an elite. It’s too easy to avoid. I think the 2nd tick should pull, and the 3rd float.
2) Failing that, I’d rather have what Robert proposes. It sounds like a lot of fun for interrupt builds if nothing else!

Great points are being made on both sides for IR.

My opinion on this tends to side with the people who are worried that nerf to IR could potentially kill off build diversity by making DE once again a must have trait. With a much greater emphasis on shattering that Anet has forced on us recently, I am worried that making DE a must-have trait again, will once again mean only one truly competitive build for Mesmers.

Maybe I’m paranoid, but that’s how it’s been for a long time, why wouldn’t I be worried about it? We’ve hardly even had a chance to experience life without DE, before having the rug pulled out from under our feet again and potentially returning to this blatantly bad design we’ve suffered under for the better part of a couple of years now!

I can live with a very short CD on IR, I’m talking 2s max, but I also see some good points made in favor of the 2-illusion rule. Still, I have to say I believe the 2-illusion rule is unintuitive, unreliable, and basically strongly favors DE builds whom can more easily get those 2 illusions in order to reliably proc IR.

The “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle has got me thinking that a 2s ICD is the better route. It fixes the problem we’re trying to address in a simple and intuitive way. It prevents shatter spamming while providing reliable & intuitive clone production.

With what Robert proposes we’re never going to know if this trait is working for us or not, especially in group fights it’ll be so hard to gauge the benefit of IR! You will get frustrated not being able to rely on IR to provide added shatter fodder, and IMO chances are really high that you’ll opt into one of the other 2 excellent choices that IR competes with.

With either Improved Alacrity or Danger Time I know exactly what I’m getting, and both are very powerful abilities. If you change IR as proposed it’ll mostly serve as an augmentation to DE, potentially killing build diversity, or doomed to be an unreliable trait that few people will take over the other two options.

you know, I’m wondering why we’re jumping right to 2s or 3s icd?
Pre-nerf, IR is essentially a .25s icd (the icd on shattering). 1s is a 300% increase.

At 1s, a single 4-shatter chain is a 4 second execution time, which is pretty dang long in a pvp fight.

tobascodagama.2961:

Zenith.7301:

It’s an academic discussion though. Even in its unnerfed form Well of Gravity would NEVER be used over Time Warp in PvE.

Right. Given that WoG cannot possibly be better for PvE than Time Warp, then it should be balanced to provide something useful for PvP. Three Pulls are tremendously useful for PvP, where a 2s Float that enemies can walk out of by accident is not.

In which case if we are to follow down your logic hole, I propose Time Warp be made a PvE exclusive elite by changing it so it has a 500 second cooldown in pvp and half the duration.

I mean, we already have Moa as yet another exclusively PvP elite, it’s only fair that if you get 2 elites solely balanced for your format, we get our very own PvE one that is so horrendously bad for PvP and that no efforts be made to improve it for PvP.

Oh, and since you got 2 already reserved for you PvP folk, we’re taking Mass Invisibility too by switching it to a 5 second cast and half the duration with 6 seconds of reveal while in PvP to remove your OP stealth and keep it balanced for PvE.

It’s about time the mesmer gets some balancing for the PvE side instead of being constantly nerfed due to pvp.

Zenith.7301:

It’s about time the mesmer gets some balancing for the PvE side instead of being constantly nerfed due to pvp.

This isn’t about PvE balance vs. PvP balance. This is about the fact that a 2s Float is kittening useless in PvE, while 10s of group Quickness is extremely powerful. There is no iteration of Gravity Well that Pulls and Floats stuff and is also useful in PvE, because all PvE encounters to date explicitly invalidate CC application as a useful thing to do. Even if Breakbars change that, applying one big CC on a 3s delay and a 90s cooldown is still completely kittening worthless.

Windwalker.7421:

I can live with a very short CD on IR, I’m talking 2s max, but I also see some good points made in favor of the 2-illusion rule. Still, I have to say I believe the 2-illusion rule is unintuitive, unreliable, and basically strongly favors DE builds whom can more easily get those 2 illusions in order to reliably proc IR.

The “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle has got me thinking that a 2s ICD is the better route. It fixes the problem we’re trying to address in a simple and intuitive way. It prevents shatter spamming while providing reliable & intuitive clone production.

This is my feeling as well. A clone-generation trait that only generates clones if you already have clones just doesn’t make sense.

If you generally work in pairs of shatters with chronophantasma, then it probably works out a little like this:

• 2s ICD: every shatter gets a clone because you wait for phantasms to attack.
• 3s ICD : the second shatter in a pair rarely gets a clone. The next pair always will.
• 4s+ ICD : shatters further on in the sequence will sometimes fail to spawn clones because of how fast your shatters cools down.

Note I am assuming alacrity does NOT affect the cool down and only looking at one style of build.

tobascodagama.2961:

Zenith.7301:

It’s about time the mesmer gets some balancing for the PvE side instead of being constantly nerfed due to pvp.

This isn’t about PvE balance vs. PvP balance. This is about the fact that a 2s Float is kittening useless in PvE, while 10s of group Quickness is extremely powerful. There is no iteration of Gravity Well that Pulls and Floats stuff and is also useful in PvE, because all PvE encounters to date explicitly invalidate CC application as a useful thing to do. Even if Breakbars change that, applying one big CC on a 3s delay and a 90s cooldown is still completely kittening worthless.

Windwalker.7421:

I can live with a very short CD on IR, I’m talking 2s max, but I also see some good points made in favor of the 2-illusion rule. Still, I have to say I believe the 2-illusion rule is unintuitive, unreliable, and basically strongly favors DE builds whom can more easily get those 2 illusions in order to reliably proc IR.

The “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle has got me thinking that a 2s ICD is the better route. It fixes the problem we’re trying to address in a simple and intuitive way. It prevents shatter spamming while providing reliable & intuitive clone production.

This is my feeling as well. A clone-generation trait that only generates clones if you already have clones just doesn’t make sense.

Which is why maybe Well of Gravity needed a PvE/PvP split. Make it a 30 sec cd, with nice exploding damage, and good CC break count for the break bar so basically it’s a guaranteed break.

Keep the well un-nerfed in PvP but at 90 sec cd. Voila, useful in both formats.

Balancing this burst class to satisfy both pvp and pve just won’t work. It will be a rain of nerfs on a class that isn’t even at the elementalist/PSEA warrior status.

Man, I just wish they’d resolve mesmer burst so their sustained damage could actually afford to go up and illusions could have uptime in pve without being casually murdered by cleave/aoe without a sea of pvp tears.

I dislike just being a reflects/utility bot with negligible dps in PvE.

Zenith.7301:

tobascodagama.2961:

Zenith.7301:

It’s about time the mesmer gets some balancing for the PvE side instead of being constantly nerfed due to pvp.

This isn’t about PvE balance vs. PvP balance. This is about the fact that a 2s Float is kittening useless in PvE, while 10s of group Quickness is extremely powerful. There is no iteration of Gravity Well that Pulls and Floats stuff and is also useful in PvE, because all PvE encounters to date explicitly invalidate CC application as a useful thing to do. Even if Breakbars change that, applying one big CC on a 3s delay and a 90s cooldown is still completely kittening worthless.

Windwalker.7421:

I can live with a very short CD on IR, I’m talking 2s max, but I also see some good points made in favor of the 2-illusion rule. Still, I have to say I believe the 2-illusion rule is unintuitive, unreliable, and basically strongly favors DE builds whom can more easily get those 2 illusions in order to reliably proc IR.

The “Keep It Simple Stupid” principle has got me thinking that a 2s ICD is the better route. It fixes the problem we’re trying to address in a simple and intuitive way. It prevents shatter spamming while providing reliable & intuitive clone production.

This is my feeling as well. A clone-generation trait that only generates clones if you already have clones just doesn’t make sense.

Which is why maybe Well of Gravity needed a PvE/PvP split. Make it a 30 sec cd, with nice exploding damage, and good CC break count for the break bar so basically it’s a guaranteed break.
.

It would still be useless… you have a trait that give you a stun on daze and then you have a weapon that stuns twice. So i think we have the breakbar utility covered lol.

TW is still going to be the better choice.
Slow on enemy encounters with allied quickness is still a much better choice.

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.

I am not a fan of this change seeing as how the iAvenger is slow.
But what can we do.
Though if you plan on limiting self alacrity to mesmer’s so much why even have it?

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.

All this does is force people to want to stay with DE.
What’s the point of this change.
You generate clones now at about the same speed with Deceptive Evasion.
All this does is guarantee that people that want to play chronomancer with shatters are going to be shoehorned into dueling.
Also.
To generate a clone you need two clones?!
I could understand if this was given a small ICD of like 3 seconds to prevent shatter spam.
But really all you have done is make this trait look less desirable to the other choices.

So Congrat’s.
You will still have the problem of people shattering back to back.

Getting tired of seeing every other class get small changes here and there and mesmer gets every nerf all at once.

Solori.6025:

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.

All this does is force people to want to stay with DE.
What’s the point of this change.
You generate clones now at about the same speed with Deceptive Evasion.
All this does is guarantee that people that want to play chronomancer with shatters are going to be shoehorned into dueling.
Also.
To generate a clone you need two clones?!
I could understand if this was given a small ICD of like 3 seconds to prevent shatter spam.
But really all you have done is make this trait look less desirable to the other choices.

I think the logic is something like this: Every possible Mesmer weaponset has both a clone generating skill and a Phantasm summon, so we can get two illusions out without having to dodge or swap weapons. So we can still open with a chain-shatter if we take Chronophantasma and do something like: Phant (weapon) → Clone (weapon) → Shatter → 1.5s wait → Shatter → Shatter. Other variations are possible if we swap weapons for a second clone or Phantasm before the third shatter or if we use F5 for the first shatter and then swap weapons for the Phantasm from our second set.

Because of the Daze on Chronophantasma, this scenario was never really problematic, so it’s ok to support it.

The problematic case was literally rolling across the F-keys and getting a dozen stacks of Confusion or whatever, which I can definitely see being something to avoid. And the change to IR definitely nips it in the bud. However, a ~2s ICD on IR would solve the problematic case just as well without sacrificing as much flexibility in how we build our Chronomancers.

I think most agree that all the proposed changes are at least reasonable to test out for next BWE.

However, I really hope Robert and the design team can pay more attention to Well of Recall and Well of Precognition.

At their current forms, well of recall will never see any use especially with the new well trait update. With the new well trait, it really has nothing unique any more. It needs both functionality and QoL updates. Well of precognition has its niche but is still incredibly hard to utilize. Some improvement is better to be made there as well.

tobascodagama.2961:

The problematic case was literally rolling across the F-keys and getting a dozen stacks of Confusion or whatever, which I can definitely see being something to avoid. And the change to IR definitely nips it in the bud. However, a ~2s ICD on IR would solve the problematic case just as well without sacrificing as much flexibility in how we build our Chronomancers.

But it really doesnt nip anything in the bud.
You can still shatter back to back.
And get the increased alacrity trait wth it. since they are gutting self alacrity without it.

So instead of using IR, you can summon a or clon, dodge. shatter, dodge, summon a phantasm, shatter, then shatter the phantasm after switching weapons and start the chain all over again.

The change to IR literally did nothing to address the issue of shattering back to back ( since we can basically do that now) but instead, they nerfed something just to say they nerfed it.

Solori.6025:

So instead of using IR, you can summon a or clon, dodge. shatter, dodge, summon a phantasm, shatter, then shatter the phantasm after switching weapons and start the chain all over again.

That’s exactly the point, the shatters are broken up by having to summon phantasms or clones, where before you could literally just press all your shatters at once and stack up a ton of Confusion and Torment.

It was possible for a Chronomancer Condi Shatter with the old IR to do F5 → F1-4 → F5 → F1-4 and get 16+ stacks of Torment and Confusion with no setup required. The new IR requires setup at the beginning of the shatter chain and some work to sustain it, which means enemies have the opportunity to actually play around it instead of just eating all those Condi stacks within a second or two (most likely while stunned by CS).

The new IR definitely works to solve the worst case scenario Condi Shatter that we saw during the last BWE. That’s not the problem. The problem is that it fails to provide the viable alternative to DE that we all desperately want and need.

Rising Dusk.2408:

I really think Alacrity is still a bit undertuned in general, but I can understand the worry about how powerful it could be. Also, I think I see this side of Chronophantasma now, although it really does suck that they get dazed in melee range of the enemy you attack (makes them prime for a quick cleave).

I’m strongly opposed to the Illusionary Reversion nerf. I think just a short ICD to prevent rolling the F-keys is far better than this nerf. I would recommend a 3 second ICD; that’d be sufficient here. I also still think the cast times for the utility wells are too long and should be shorter and that some traits need a little bit of work, but otherwise Chronomancer is in a great place.

Also, I personally like the listed change to Gravity Well, but if it’s too weak or something we can always provide that feedback in the next BWE.

Thanks for the hard work, Robert!

You know, I’m wondering, if the illusions are resummoned, do they benefit from the trait Protected Phantasms? If so that may be enough to give them a chance to make their attack. Particularly if you add on Persisting Images and Signet of Illusions.

Robert Gee.9246:

Nilgoow.1037:

Any comment on Slow and the interplay of Lost Time+Danger Time in PvE on bosses? Will enemies currently immune to CC get the debuff with a reduced/no effect to allow for the bonus crit, or are those traits irrelevant for PvE?

We have a tech solution in the works CC effects like slow, chill, cripple, etc on defiant creatures. I don’t want to say too much about it since I’m not sure when it will ship or how much it will change before then but we do want your traits to work on bosses.

while we are at it, any plans on fixing Duelist’s Discipline? =-]