Guild Wars 2

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

The issue right now is Alacrity is basically one of two things:

1) Total crap on most skills because the durations suck.
2) Insanely OP on builds that get 100%.

So I need to revise my statement on shatterway builds being okay, they’re a bit more than that lol. https://youtu.be/V_PSqt6DtSM Case in point.

Increasing durations and reducing the per-second intensity of the boon makes it more of a legit boon that is easier to balance. Right now it’s either going to suck balls (because you only give/get a tiny amount of it) or it’s gonna be massively OP (because you’re giving too much of it). Increasing duration and reducing intensity makes it 1) less kittenty in most cases and 2) less OP in specific cases. I think this is pretty reasonable.

Honestly I don’t have any problem with how Alacity works! in a real combat sitaution you won’t be able to keep a 100% rotation up, even in PvE that will be quite the pain!
In general that video ain’t really showing anything of intest! I mean, it would be the same as a guardian or elementalist showing just how much burning they could stack in a perfect situation (Hint: it’s a lot)
Any AoE attacks would mess up the entire rotation in that video! Also Also it seems like he uses Dueling/Chronomancer/Illusions= No real condtion removal either, so it would be near useless in PvP!

Telekinesis.8312:

fair enough

I dont think that’s op at all.. the video link i mean. yeah your getting a 100% alacrity uptime.. but the damage potential that i see is not like it’s over the top.

but lets say.. alacrity gets to 33% and the duration is doubled.. what you see in the video cant be done which means.. you’re sacrificing a dps trait tree to get chronomancer which gives you 33% faster recharge on probably 100% uptime.. i dont see the point of chronomancer just for 33% recharged skill rate over a dps trait line.

It’s 66%, and that’s unbuffed damage in the PvP lobby with subpar gear. That’s also sustained DPS but most likely with all the quickness and wells you won’t be seeing much past the initial massive burst.

Most likely Chronomancer will end up in a similar niche as PS Warrior, where you give insanely powerful support buffs with mostly average DPS. Which is fine, except Alacrity is still a dumb mechanic.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Embolism.8106:

I’d be hesitant to give Mesmers more Alacrity as ATM Alacrity is really strong for a constant Shattering build, and IMO it should NOT cater to non-Shattering builds: builds that don’t use our profession mechanic shouldn’t exist.

I’m getting tired of making this point to you people, but here goes:

SHATTER IS NOT OUR PROFESSION MECHANIC

It is ONE OF our profession mechanic S. PLURAL.

Phantasms are also a profession mechanic. Enabling phant builds to shatter more is great, but tbh, straight phantasm builds SHOULD be allowed to exist.
In short, you are wrong in your pro-shatter bigotry.

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class. These mechanics are usually more heavily represented in a class’ trait line to emphasize this. Additionally, Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

It’s a long, long way from saying “that’s how it is” to “that’s how it should be”.
The latter is what I’m criticizing so harshly, but many people can’t seem to see the logical flaw in conflating the two.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

It’s a long, long way from saying “that’s how it is” to “that’s how it should be”.
The latter is what I’m criticizing so harshly, but many people can’t seem to see the logical flaw in conflating the two.

I suppose, but to give all mechanics present a class equal representation, it would either remove a ton of traits for the current main mechanics or add so many for the under-represented ones that we’d need years to test and see them all balanced. I’m all for new traits, but trying to put smaller mechanics like utility types or weapon skill types on par with the trait support for F1-F5 skills seems really unlikely on Anet’s part.

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

It’s a long, long way from saying “that’s how it is” to “that’s how it should be”.
The latter is what I’m criticizing so harshly, but many people can’t seem to see the logical flaw in conflating the two.

I suppose, but to give all mechanics present a class equal representation, it would either remove a ton of traits for the current main mechanics or add so many for the under-represented ones that we’d need years to test and see them all balanced. I’m all for new traits, but trying to put smaller mechanics like utility types or weapon skill types on par with the trait support for F1-F5 skills seems really unlikely on Anet’s part.

I’d settle for letting phantasm builds actually function, since that’s a build that actually existed in the past, and many people (myself included) are fond of.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

It’s a long, long way from saying “that’s how it is” to “that’s how it should be”.
The latter is what I’m criticizing so harshly, but many people can’t seem to see the logical flaw in conflating the two.

I suppose, but to give all mechanics present a class equal representation, it would either remove a ton of traits for the current main mechanics or add so many for the under-represented ones that we’d need years to test and see them all balanced. I’m all for new traits, but trying to put smaller mechanics like utility types or weapon skill types on par with the trait support for F1-F5 skills seems really unlikely on Anet’s part.

I’d settle for letting phantasm builds actually function, since that’s a build that actually existed in the past, and many people (myself included) are fond of.

I liked it for a while too, but if Anet really is trying to incorporate shatters into baseline mesmer playstyles and discourage summoning illusions/overwriting them, I don’t think it’s likely a pure phantasm build will come back. Although Chronophantasma does make it a fairly strong option on it’s own. I think a good step up would be improving phantasms individually, namely the utility slot ones. Make iDefender taunt upon creation or make iDisenchanter more reliable to hit/increase its range or something.

So, having had the chance to play Chrono a little more, my feedback:

Note
#I’m not a pro Mesmer, so I’m likely missing some possibilities.
#I’m running PU.
#This is a WvW perspective as I don’ sPvP and am trying to save PvE for release
#I’ve not played as much thus far as I’d have liked

Feedback:
I dropped Duelist for Chrono from my build, since the primary point of Duelist is cover conditions, extra Confusion, and more clones. Chrono provides much of those same abilities by boosting my number of shatters and providing more clones, with a LOT more utility. As a result I was able to drop Precision for Vitality (Dire instead of Rabid) and my Conditions per tick were actually higher as a result (Krait utility) and I was able to apply FAR more AoE pressure thanks to the single well I tossed on Utility #3 (Calamity), the increased number of Shatters, and the Alacrity reducing Staff #5 so much. I was even able to keep Chaos Armor up far far easier than I had been previously!

Was it OP? Yes, and No.

‘Over’ and ‘Under’ imply a middle somewhere. If we’re using the pre-HoT PU build as a nice middle-of-the-pack guide, then Chrono is certainly OP. I was able to do the same damage in the same style, with more utility AND survival, all without switching to a skill just for running. That said, if I were to compare this to my ‘Trapper’ ranger as the middle-bar, I suddenly feel as if the Chronomancer is perfectly balanced. It really feels the way the class SHOULD be by default. I was able to use PU to reset a few fights, flip some camps, and contribute to battle effectively. The biggest difference between today and Thursday being that when I reset a fight, it was a genuine reset, not fleeing in terror because I had no options at my disposal.

All in all, while I know some features will likely be changed, this was an awesome experience for me. To the extent I don’t know how I’m going to play Mes w/o those features now!

ayup

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujuG3Nm0as

ayup

If you’re trying to get at what I think you’re getting at, here we go:

Hmm…a mesmer supplied with 25 stacks of might, running 2 wells and a full dps build managed to kill a stationary target very quickly. If you think is applicable to anything but PvE then I question the types of players you’re used to fighting. Plus the warrior is attacking through the whole thing in order to maintain those might stacks.

It’s stuff like this that makes it very hard to take anything you say seriously.

I have been running chrono since the beta began and these are my thoughts so far.

1. Also love that effects have been added to master of fragmentation and bountiful disillusionment. I think they are justified, especially with the long cool down of f5/continuum split. There is one thing I’m wandering and haven’t tested yet. Bountiful disillusionment says it works with continuum shift. Does this mean you actually have to click f5 again for the effects? If time runs out in continuum shift do you still get the effects? If the rift in continuum shift is destroyed before you revert back do you still get the effect?

2. It would be nice if All’s Well ends well either
A. added the condition removal when the well is first set
B. A 10% reduce recharge was added or
C. A 20% increased radius was added to wells.

Personally, if alacrity remains the same, I don’t think it needs option B. However, I think option C would be nice.

edit:
3. Seize the Moment: Still seems a little lack luster compared to the other two traits it competes with. It would be nice if it was reduced to 1 second of quickness per shatter (not illusions shattered) and they made it so the quickness would be applied to 5 allies.

4. Continuum shift with 4 illusions (counting yourself) gives 6 seconds. This seems like an excellent number. Any more and it would probably be op. However, shattering for 1 and a half seconds is completely useless. Change it so it give you 2 seconds plus 1 second per illusion shattered

No additional illusions = 3 sec
1 ill = 4 sec
2 ill = 5 sec
3 ill = 6 sec

5. Lumping tides of time hitting terrain and well of gravity into one. Both were mentioned before, both should be changed, and there is a separate thread for well of gravity.

6. Alacrity seems good. You can try builds that apply the most alacrity and cool down possible in pvp. However, in the end they don’t work like you think they do (I’ve tried). The defense is just not there to get the most out of it and it seems like alacrity works better with sustained damage. The videos on dummies are nice, but they are dummies. I would like to see actual pvp videos with this alacrity uptime and see how they do.

Dueled Chaos on Kshot was vs his Chronomancer. Also have vids of Tealot on condi mes vs Chaos Chrono that I’ll get to.

https://youtu.be/lnIRxClxbnI

• dmg well too strong
• alac and grav well too weak
• well cast time too long

• wells are great, but i think now mantras and nullfield need some love

Necrotize.2974:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujuG3Nm0as

ayup

If you’re trying to get at what I think you’re getting at, here we go:

Hmm…a mesmer supplied with 25 stacks of might, running 2 wells and a full dps build managed to kill a stationary target very quickly. If you think is applicable to anything but PvE then I question the types of players you’re used to fighting. Plus the warrior is attacking through the whole thing in order to maintain those might stacks.

It’s stuff like this that makes it very hard to take anything you say seriously.

That is exactly what I am getting at. I don’t play PvP except to farm out quick dailies.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

Necrotize.2974:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujuG3Nm0as

ayup

If you’re trying to get at what I think you’re getting at, here we go:

Hmm…a mesmer supplied with 25 stacks of might, running 2 wells and a full dps build managed to kill a stationary target very quickly. If you think is applicable to anything but PvE then I question the types of players you’re used to fighting. Plus the warrior is attacking through the whole thing in order to maintain those might stacks.

It’s stuff like this that makes it very hard to take anything you say seriously.

That is exactly what I am getting at. I don’t play PvP except to farm out quick dailies.

Yeah, so in an actual match vs people trying to kill you, things don’t go like that.

They don’t go like that at all.

I do not main a Mesmer, but so far, of the elite specs, I’m enjoying Chronomancer the most for how dynamic it feels. It certainly feels very strong, but in what I have experienced of Verdant Brink, it’s the only elite spec that feels like it has an appropriate level of strength for the content. I’m feeling as if I can focus on playing to the mechanics of some of the mobs.
So far I have a more favorable opinion of alacrity than I initially did and haven’t really found it useless, despite not really focusing on it.
I was very iffy on shield when it was announced, but have actually really fallen in love with it, especially with Phantasmal Defender.
I don’t feel like I’ve played with it enough yet to go into specifics about it, but I’m enjoying the experience and the possibilities it provides.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dueled Chaos on Kshot was vs his Chronomancer. Also have vids of Tealot on condi mes vs Chaos Chrono that I’ll get to.

https://youtu.be/lnIRxClxbnI

Why they no dodge KS!?

phokus.8934:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Dueled Chaos on Kshot was vs his Chronomancer. Also have vids of Tealot on condi mes vs Chaos Chrono that I’ll get to.

https://youtu.be/lnIRxClxbnI

Why they no dodge KS!?

Lol, he was having a senior moment.

Chaos is a good player, and a great mes, which can be seen on countless vids. Never the less, getting hit by a kshot is easier than you think.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

from the video, 1/4rth of the time the mesmer’s casting phantasms, wells etc.. damage per second is alright.. not over the top even on a stationary target, mesmer’s stationary as well.. even with the pve gear, it’s not gonna be over the top. it’s the ideal scenario – stand in a place and damage something that stands in a place, i know it’s only a test, but even if the dps is really high, it’s too good of a scenario to think of, try it in verdant brink or silverwastes, the new maps are going to be how those 2 maps are.

It seems to me like alacrity itself is at a good place (66%) but the uptime from different sources is a bit odd due to self application vs group application balance:
Shatter, 100% on self without much trouble
Phantasms, 75% on up to 3 with quite a lot of effort
Well, at best ~10-15% uptime on a group of 5 (if using continuum shift)

I’d suggest… slightly lowering the shatter alacrity (no lower than .75s per illusion), but significantly boosting improved alacrity (I’d go for 66-100% and if possible improve alacrity applied to your illusions). That means wells and phantasms which are balanced around group application can be used reasonably effectively solo for builds that don’t shatter quite as much.

I’ve been playing a build essentially using near 100% alacrity from constant shatters and it’s very effective. But if you run out of shatters in the middle of a fight the build immediately drops in effectiveness because it relies on sustained casts of pretty much everything (damage, utility, healing) to work. .75s per illusion would make it significantly harder to keep that up.

+1 Agree 100% with this. Less alacrity on yourself, more on allies is what mesmers want. They are not going to be in pve because of their damage. They are going to be there based on what buffs they can supply allies. Therefore, I think mesmers/chronomancers are willing to sacrifice for this.

Feedback thus far:

I’m impressed with the “Core Chronomancer” kit. Continuum Split and the minor traits do a good job of setting up the base Elite Spec.

Wells
These are probably the least impressive aspect of the Chronomancer. Their areas are relatively small and they are there and gone in the blink of an eye. As I’ve suggested in other posts – I’d like to see these given longer durations (6-8s) and be reactivatable within 1s or so after casting the initial effect to immediately end them.

This allows things like WoPrecog’s Blur and Gravity Well’s Float to be easier to time with the draw back that you’re losing up to several seconds of the ‘tick’ effect. I’d also suggest some sort of bonus build-up effect for letting them tick longer. Something like the potency of the end-effect building up over the course of the ability and maxing out at about kitten or reducing the cool down of Wells by how long they were allowed to tick.

Gravity Well: This one is a bit lackluster. Some sort of displacement effect into the center or yanking enemies who avoid the float towards it might be useful.

Well of Action: This is basically a mini Time Warp. The above mentioned changes of build-up effects and ending early could really help it.

Well of Calamity: This one is pretty solid. I’d like to see some displacement effect added to the end for some true “Calamity”. That allows Mesmers to use it as a psuedo protection to protect allies from being stomped. Overall I’m very happy with this one. Mesmers needed a Utility that dealt some real damage.

Well of Precognition: This one is rather solid except for the fact that Blur is something you really need to time in PvE. Being able to activate it early would help. Perhaps reduce the Unblockable stacks to 1 per tick instead of 3 to make up for giving it a longer duration.

Well of Recall: 3s of Alacrity is pretty mediocre. Barely even worth gathering hte allies up. This one could definitely benefit from the aforementioned longer duration.

Well of Eternity: Not really a fan. I think it’s the prime candidate for the earlier mentioned “Lowered CD for letting it tick” option. There should be a real pay-off for delaying your personal heal AND having to stay in a specific location for it. The allied heal is nice, but it needs to suffice as a decent personal heal too.

Shield
This is pretty enjoyable. The only complaints being that #4 can’t be reactivated early to immediately summon the Phantasm.

I would love to see other Phantasm skills changed in a similar way. It would be a good opportunity to add some more variety to Mesmer’s options by making some of the under-used weapons have a bit more options. Imagine if the OH Sword #4 summoned its Phantasm in the same way Shield did (based off of the Block skill), that would open up a whole unused skill option like a dash or evade.

Traits
The trait line does a good job of offering options that mesh well with most of the defined play styles. At the same time I could see where someone might opt out of Chronomancer for more pure damage or survival. Specific options I’d give feedback on:

Delayed Reactions: Not very PvE friendly here since Interrupts are so much harder to come by. But this applies to many of our traits so nothing really new here. This whole top-trait section is obviously intended to work together to provide slow via interrupts, crit from slows, and slows from crits – which the slows themselves make interrupting easier. It’s a good option for Mesmers who don’t want to deal with the Shatter aspects as much.

All’s Well that Ends Well: Great pun, but lackluster trait. The delayed nature of wells (see that section above) makes end effects such as this rather hit or miss. This trait is also a bit too similar to the Glamour one that grants resistance. I’d rather see some guaranteed Alacrity (perhaps with an increasing potency based on how long the well ticked.)

Illusionary Reversion: Great trait, but maybe give it a 1-2s ICD to discourage Continuum Split + F1-F4 spam.

Chronophantasm: Love this skill. Anything that makes people want to Shatter Phantasms is good. It’s also good to see that this skill takes precidence over Illusionary reversion if both are triggered and you have 3 Phantasms.

Alacrity

This one is a bit difficult to ascertain. So far the durations are all very short, though you can get some decent up time via shatters from Flow of Time. It seems like it might be easier to just make it a flat 100% CD reduction and adjust the times provided accordingly. When I tell people “66% CD reduction” it’s not as easy to see the results as when I say “For each second of Alacrity I take 1 second off of your cool downs”.

Gravity well should at least reduce movement speed or reduce movement speed depending on your distance from the epicenter (like LA’s mystic forge) since they removed the pulling effect (if was effectively a bit too strong). Other ideas includes a wall on the borders that pushes you back (like Lupi), reduced CD and/or larger area.
Right now it’s easy to walk out of it and doesn’t feel worth an elite slot even for stability.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Necrotize.2974:

It is the main class mechanic associated with the F1 through F5 skills on each class.

So by that logic, steal would be the main thief mechanic, right? Not initiative?
Or toolbelt skills are the main engi mechanic, and kit is just subsidiary?
The mistake of everyone who insists that shatter is “the” class mechanic of mesmers is believing that there is only one main mechanic, or that only one mechanic is worthy of being the focus of a build.
The problem with shatters versus phantasms is that phantasms and shatters are in conflict by their nature. Chronophantasma brings those two closer together, but it doesn’t fix the problem completely.
I took exception to the claim that builds that don’t shatter much “shouldn’t” exist, when builds based largely on phantasms have in the past been pretty fun and useful. It’s only post-patch that it has become too hard to make such a build effective, and that’s a bad thing.

Necrotize.2974:

Anet has stated that many of the changes came about because they didn’t like that certain mesmer builds weren’t shattering clones/phantasms and just overwriting them haphazardly. I believe they even stated that all mesmer build should use shatters to some extent, which was part of their reasoning for Chronomancer’s phantasms and clone production traits( as well as the traits not being in conflicting tiers).

Anet is mostly wrong. Yes everyone should be willing to shatter when relevant, but it is wrong to eliminate a fun build type just because they made the same mistake you are making.

Steal is the mechanic, initiative could be considered it as well since it is in the same place. Steal has more traits applicable to it than the other mechanics for thief and initiative regen is also found quite frequently, sometimes even in conjunction with several stealth traits.

Toolbelt skills are the main mechanic in that every engineer has them, every engineer should use them, and more traits affect toolbelt skills than anything else. Kits just happen to be way better than most other utility options for engineer in most builds. Static discharge build run 1 kit usually and rely heavily on toolbelt skills. But even builds with 3 kits rely on their toolbelt skills.

I’m not saying mesmers have only one class mechanic, I’m simply saying shatter is the main one in that all builds can utilize it to at least some extent, and Anet wants it to be usable for all mesmers. You can say Anet is wrong, but if that’s how they see it, that’s how they’re gonna balance things. It isn’t even a close competition between how prevalent shatter traits are compared to illusions or manipulations or anything else really. Combining minor and major traits across all the lines, there are 18 shatter-centric traits, with most of them being major traits and 5 of them being Grandmaster traits.

It’s a long, long way from saying “that’s how it is” to “that’s how it should be”.
The latter is what I’m criticizing so harshly, but many people can’t seem to see the logical flaw in conflating the two.

I suppose, but to give all mechanics present a class equal representation, it would either remove a ton of traits for the current main mechanics or add so many for the under-represented ones that we’d need years to test and see them all balanced. I’m all for new traits, but trying to put smaller mechanics like utility types or weapon skill types on par with the trait support for F1-F5 skills seems really unlikely on Anet’s part.

I’d settle for letting phantasm builds actually function, since that’s a build that actually existed in the past, and many people (myself included) are fond of.

Personally I don’t believe such distinction exists anymore.

Illusions (both clones and phantasms), shatters, weapons and utility skills are all used in conjunction with one another for the purpose of dealing damage, supporting allies and controlling enemies. I believe every build should make use of all of these features in order to be most efficient – with each build emphasising different features, but not at the expense of ignoring the primary Mesmer class skill of shatters.

I believe Anet has done the right thing in encouraging everyone to use Shatter skills – with varying frequency and purpose, rather than being able to ignore them with past builds.

If shatters were not meant to be the primary class skills of mesmers, then all illusion generating skills (phantasms especially) should have been put on the F1 to F4 buttons, with shatters being tied to weapon sets or utilities. But they’re not.

It’s a shame it conflicts with PvE bullet sponge design at the moment, but I hope that’s something they can work out in the future, starting with HoT.

Anyone else finds the shield 4 an awesome weapon skill for the hard maguma champs, yet skill 5 becomes pretty useless thx to the breakbar? Same goes for gravity well – the breakbar does “something” after broken, so it basicly takes away the countless diversity of cc we had. Imo the breakbar itself is a nice design, but what happens when it’s broken is just stupid and bad designed.

skill 5 is really good if u have friends along, mass quickness :-)

The design of the chronomancer is what I was expecting, and the game mechanics the class brings fit it really well. I’m happy to see that phantasms builds could be a bit more popular because of chronophantasma and alacrity; it’s really how I wanted to play my mesmer in pve.

I sincerely hope we will not see too much nerf, or at least not nerfs that would ruin alacrity altogether (By making it just like what other class could reach without it).

In general I’m very pleased with the chronomancer

Necrotize.2974:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BujuG3Nm0as

ayup

If you’re trying to get at what I think you’re getting at, here we go:

Hmm…a mesmer supplied with 25 stacks of might, running 2 wells and a full dps build managed to kill a stationary target very quickly. If you think is applicable to anything but PvE then I question the types of players you’re used to fighting. Plus the warrior is attacking through the whole thing in order to maintain those might stacks.

It’s stuff like this that makes it very hard to take anything you say seriously.

Golem balance strikes again! XD

Xstein.2187:

3. Seize the Moment: Still seems a little lack luster compared to the other two traits it competes with. It would be nice if it was reduced to 1 second of quickness per shatter (not illusions shattered) and they made it so the quickness would be applied to 5 allies.

Good suggestion, actually (I misread it at first). Keeping it down to 1s/shatter would still allow Distortion stomps, but the extra group Quickness would make it more competitive with Chronophantasma.

Elite specialization PvP balance is going to be a pain, and a minefield that I don’t want to touch upon right now. Instead, I would like to note just how much Chronomancer would improve Mesmers in PvE, especially dungeons.

Right now, one of the main weaknesses of Mesmers is their lack of burst damage in dungeons, making them poor choices for clearing trash mobs. It is a problem compounded by the fact that PvE mesmers are reluctant to use mind wrack, as it kills phantasms. With Chronomancer, alacrity on shatter and Chronophantasma however, there is now a highly powerful burst rotation available to the mesmer that I have been tweaking with:

1) Summon Phantasmal Swordsman, then summon a clone with Ileap
2) Summon Phantasmal Warden, teleport to clone if needed
3) Use power lock (for 30% increased damage from Mental torment) + blade flurry + 4 clone mind wrack. This gives you 4s of alacrity. Also your phantasms will still live to do more damage!
4) Use well of calamity. Then use cry of frustration or diversion or distortion for 1s more of alacrity. (edit: Use cry of frustration assuming your first target is already dead or your first two phantasms are already destroyed, otherwise, don’t. The 1 additional second of alacrity allows the mesmer to almost instantly do step 5; without it, she would have to wait for another 2-3 seconds. )
5) Use Ileap to summon a clone (assuming phantasms on first target are already dead). Cast phantasmal swordsman.
6) Blade flurry + MoD + 3 clone mind wrack.
7)Improvise

Basically, with alacrity, a mesmer can almost chain 2 blade flurries and 2 mind wracks. Together with well of calamity and the extra phantasm dps allowed by chronophantasma, this gives mesmers great burst for DPS. It’s still not ice bow, but it’s something huge for a class that has always been held back by its low damage potential.

Also, Continuum shift + time warp = 20s of quickness, which is another great present for the mesmer and her team!

On the downside, wells in general seem rather lacklustre. Even our “damage well”, well of calamity, doesn’t really do THAT much damage. Moreover, the shield seems lackluster compared to our other offhands; it’s phantasm wind-up time is too long, and the shield 5 is meh. I can’t think of why I would ever use the shield over other offhands.

P.S: I didn’t actually read the previous posts in this thread, so apologies if I’m just repeating stuff that has already been said.

1s of group quickness from a single shatter is pretty terrible quickness uptime.
Furthermore, Signet of Inspiration already lets us pass out the quickness we get from Seize the Moment, and in general outperforms the proposal. Xstein’s suggestion would actually be WORSE for support mesmers than what we have now.

I’d also like to say that the many proposals to add ICDs to Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma would positively gut the traits. It’s a terrible suggestion, and listening to it would be just about the worst thing Anet could do to try to balance chronomancer.
The same applies to Lost Time.

Selya.5039:

It’s still not ice bow

I just want to emphasize this. A lot of hey has been made about the crazy dps-boosting tricks chronomancer can pull, but we’re so far behind already that all this nutty stuff is still not getting us to where other pve mechanics are already at.

i just tried Chronomancer and I love it. It feels new and powerful. It’s what elite specialization should all be.

In comparison Tempest is what elite professions shouldn’t be. It’s terrible at everything and just makes me want to change my class to mesmer. Anyway you guys are lucky because for us elementalists we got a crappy elite profession that doesn’t justify the expansion price at all unless they redo like 75% of it.

Xillllix.3485:

i just tried Chronomancer and I love it. It feels new and powerful. It’s what elite specialization should all be.

In comparison Tempest is what elite professions shouldn’t be. It’s terrible at everything and just makes me want to change my class to mesmer. Anyway you guys are lucky because for us elementalists we got a crappy elite profession that doesn’t justify the expansion price at all unless they redo like 75% of it.

While I agree about Tempest, I have a hard time feeling bad for the most powerful class in the game.

Yes, I agree. However, there is still something that feels unsettling to me about feeling obligated to take signet of inspiration for the trait to be that useful. Certainly this isn’t the case with chronophantasma and lost time. It would be nice to use this trait with time warp, well of action, well of recall, and mimic as well (or other traits if you need to). What about if it was still per illusion shattered but 1 second instead of 1 and a fourth seconds and applied to allies. Then would you want this trait over the current trait? Just curious, once again its more so this trait works with a larger variety of situations.

Curunen.8729:

Personally I don’t believe such distinction exists anymore.

Illusions (both clones and phantasms), shatters, weapons and utility skills are all used in conjunction with one another for the purpose of dealing damage, supporting allies and controlling enemies. I believe every build should make use of all of these features in order to be most efficient – with each build emphasising different features, but not at the expense of ignoring the primary Mesmer class skill of shatters.

I believe Anet has done the right thing in encouraging everyone to use Shatter skills – with varying frequency and purpose, rather than being able to ignore them with past builds.

If shatters were not meant to be the primary class skills of mesmers, then all illusion generating skills (phantasms especially) should have been put on the F1 to F4 buttons, with shatters being tied to weapon sets or utilities. But they’re not.

It’s a shame it conflicts with PvE bullet sponge design at the moment, but I hope that’s something they can work out in the future, starting with HoT.

There is NO problem with shatters in PvE intrinsically, it’s that their output in PvE needs to be high to the point it would break for PvP.

Until they don’t split skill balancing between pvp/pve or make phantasms count for but not be consumed by shatters, shatters will remain underused in PvE.

If Mind Wrack’s damage with 3 illusions did more damage than 3-4 attacks from 3 phantasms in PvE, people wouldn’t mind Mindwrack.

That doesn’t fix diversion or cry of frustration or distortion, however. The DPS cost of using utility shatters is too high for pve relative to the rate you can summon phantasms prior to the chronophantasm+persistence of memory combo.

They just really messed up with making phantasms damage sources instead of utility sources. they need to grab the damage from phantasms and transfer it to mesmer autoattack and blurred frenzy/scepter3 and staff auto/staff 5 and greatsword 1-3 to fix the issue.

Make all phantasms all about utility, like iduelist could be up and counter the next 3-4 attacks made against the group/etc.

Then mesmers could have their buffed autoattack damage/blurred frenzy and shatters for damage and not be so crushed whenever a phantasm dies immediately to PVE AOE because you have both phantasms and clones as sources for shatter and shattering them doesn’t cost you DPS.

Illusions should be about utility, shattering them and using our other weaponskills for damage.

It would also solve pvp issues by toning the burst of 2 phantasm spikes+mindwrack while raising the mediocre sustained damage of a mesmer.

Xstein.2187:

Yes, I agree. However, there is still something that feels unsettling to me about feeling obligated to take signet of inspiration for the trait to be that useful. Certainly this isn’t the case with chronophantasma and lost time. It would be nice to use this trait with time warp, well of action, well of recall, and mimic as well (or other traits if you need to). What about if it was still per illusion shattered but 1 second instead of 1 and a fourth seconds and applied to allies. Then would you want this trait over the current trait? Just curious, once again its more so this trait works with a larger variety of situations.

I’m very happy with Seize the Moment as it is. Any of the many builds that shatters a lot (chrono condi shatter, for example) gets a decent amount of quickness out of it.
I like it, and I’ve found it useful enough to be worth taking over Chronophantasma on occasion.

edit:
Sounds good to me. I suppose it could be useful if you don’t take signet of inspiration with enough shatter uptime. I haven’t tried it yet with a dps style build over chronophantasma. I’ll agree to leave the trait as it is. Added edit above.

p.s. wow I actually never even thought about using it with illusionary inspiration. This is cool. Your definitely right. Please leave the trait the same lol, my bad. Trait synergy for the win. Dueling/Inspiration/Chron oooo so excited, why didn’t I think of this.

edit: actually after testing I only came up with about 2 sec of quickness to allies with signet on inspiration. Kinda disappointed and still think the trait needs tweaked.

Hello girls and boys!

I spend this entire weekend to test the Dragonhunter Guardian… I tried everything… shout-bunker-meditation-condi-hybrid… It did not work… And…

(oh, crap, wrong forum…)

So I started a chronomesmer and give it a go for the last two hours of my weekend… (my highest level mesmer is 18 and she was struggling to take down a veteran oakhearth…so I’m such a bad player that if you google “noob mesmer” it will show my character…)

And all the sudden everything felt so smooth… I could get down 2 vet smokescales alone whereas my DH was having a bad time against even one… I felt I’m an unstoppable killing machine, like a veteran mystic who always has a trick up into his sleeve. I had more fun during this 2 hours than in the entire beta weekend…

I’m a bit jealous because I love the Guardian but if this chrono gameplay stays and the DH stays as it is now the OMFG will have an another member for sure!

I love the animations I love the concept. It’s a well thought specialisation and absolutely satisfying to play…

(P.S.: ANET if you read this… Give some love to the other specs aswell! You did such an amazing job with the Chrono that choosing anything else feels bad….)

My 2 cents

Happy Guardin’! (oh, well…)

Xstein.2187:

Sounds good to me. I suppose it could be useful if you don’t take signet of inspiration with enough shatter uptime. I haven’t tried it yet with a dps style build over chronophantasma. I’ll agree to leave the trait as it is. Added edit above.

p.s. wow I actually never even thought about using it with illusionary inspiration. This is cool. Your definitely right. Please leave the trait the same lol, my bad. Trait synergy for the win. Dueling/Inspiration/Chron oooo so excited, why didn’t I think of this.

For pvp yeah.

For pve, it’s sort of a waste to go into dueling with the worthless grandmaster traits. Mantras are out thanks to the horrendous pvp centric change and the bad Harmonious mantras.

I’d stick to domination for the 12.5% damage modifier to vulnerable targets+ 15% increased illusion damage.

Yeah, the domination minors still suck in pve thanks to interrupts having longish cooldowns relative to trait effect durations and most champion/boss mobs having definace/break bar making the traits useless as interrupts don’t drigger the traits if they are consumed by break bar/defiance stacks.

But 15% increased illusion damage+12.5% extra damage against vuln stacked targets beats fury on phantasms, fencer finesse.
.
Dueling seems overrated unless you really want vigor on crits.

@Zenith
And if you’re using chronphantasma, you finally have a good reason to take Mental Anguish.

Selya.5039:

It’s still not ice bow, but it’s something huge for a class that has always been held back by its low damage potential.

Yeah, it’s kind of ironic that one of the best PvE usages of Chronoshift I’ve heard suggested is to pick up an Ice Bow and cast 4 twice.

tobascodagama.2961:

Selya.5039:

It’s still not ice bow, but it’s something huge for a class that has always been held back by its low damage potential.

Yeah, it’s kind of ironic that one of the best PvE usages of Chronoshift I’ve heard suggested is to pick up an Ice Bow and cast 4 twice.

The damage on Icebow is pretty average even if cast on a wall, especially now that condition damage is a thing and when quickness gimps the damage. Unfortunately the two are going to be mutually exclusive since casting Time Warp + Wells is generally going to be a better use of Blazblue time than casting with Icebow for low overall damage. Although I guess if no one else is going to be using the Icebow anyway the Chronomancer might as well pick it up and icebow twice for reduced damage after casting Time Warp.

Kudos to the folks responsible for the Chronomancer. Having played as much as I could this past beta weekend with it along with Dragonhunter, Tempest, etc., I can easily say the Chronomancer was my favorite part of the beta weekend reveals. I can’t add much in terms of specific feedback that hasn’t already been said multiple times above, so I’ll just summarize and say “well done” – Chronomancer is a ton of fun to play.

just playing it straight condi PU (staff scepter torch, dire)

Chaos 368
Illusions 367
Chrono 259

I get all my illusions back to condi bomb twice, reduced skill recharges x2, 45 seconds of stealth by continuum splitting mas invis without veil. The runspeed trait means I can drop travelers and take perplexity

I lose inspiration but gain way more.

the nerf calls are going to be deafening

quercus.9261:

just playing it straight condi PU (staff scepter torch, dire)

Chaos 368
Illusions 367
Chrono 259

I get all my illusions back to condi bomb twice, reduced skill recharges x2, 45 seconds of stealth by continuum splitting mas invis without veil. The runspeed trait means I can drop travelers and take perplexity

I lose inspiration but gain way more.

the nerf calls are going to be deafening

How many interrupts do you usually get?
Anywhere you can take Rune of Perplexity, you can easily hit duration cap on Confusion with Runes of Nightmare, which boosts your bleeds and torment as well.
So if you don’t interrupt enough to get those extra confusion stacks often, you’d be better served with Nightmare.

Does alacrity affect Rune/Sigil ICDs?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Does alacrity affect Rune/Sigil ICDs?

No. All testing I’ve done and seen from the forums is that it only affects the CDs of the skills on your bar and shatters. Trait/Rune/Sigil/Signet ICDs remain unaffected.