Guild Wars 2

I’m doing a full review of each class’s Elite Specializations here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/All-Elite-Specializations-Analysis/first#post5574892

The following is my analysis of the Chronomancer.

I’ll be covering the following things in this review…
01) General Descriptions
02) New Traits Analysis
03) New Weapon Analysis
04) New Skills Analysis
05) Gearing Options
06) Rune/Sigil Synergies
07) PvE Usefulness
08) PvP Usefulness
09) WvW Usefulness
10) Overall Opinion

Mesmer – Chronomancer

General Description
Mesmers, the masters of Illusions and irritation. Writing this post brings me great Joy…or is it fear, terror, and dismay? That depends on which side of the fence you’re on. With the Chronomancer you’ll bring your Troll flag to new heights that you never thought possible. Want to use Elite skills twice? No problem. Want to defy death? We got you covered. Want to spam numerous levels of stupid all over the place while sitting back and drinking your tea? Statefarm is there. This class really amplifies the already frustrating qualities of the Mesmer and just makes them even worse. If you’re not comfortable playing a Mesmer the Chronomancer may be a bit difficult to grasp at the start, but once you figure it out you’ll be putting on your very own custom Troll Face for everyone to enjoy.

New Traits Analysis

Minor Traits
Time Splitter
Grants access to Shields, Wells, and Continuum Split/Shift.
Any traits that would alter the effects of all your shatter skills will now have an effect for Continuum Split as well.
Flow of Time
Gain Alacrity for each Illusion you Shatter.
3/4s per Illusion.
Time Marches On
You move 25% faster. Cripple, Chill, and Immob have -25% durations.
Decent way to get around.

Adept Traits
Delayed Reactions
Interrupting a foe slows them for 3s.
This has no ICD.
Time Catches Up
Activating a Shatter gives your Illusions 5s Superspeed.
Great way to do bursts. No ICD.
All’s Well That Ends Well
Wells grant Alacrity to allies when they end.
+2s per Well. No ICD.

Master Traits
Danger Time
Gain +30% Crit Chance against Slowed Enemies.
Combos well with Fury and other traits.
Illusionary Reversion
Shattering at least two Illusions generates a clone.
No ICD.
Improved Alacrity
Alacrity applied to you lasts 50% longer.
No ICD.

Grandmaster Traits
Lost Time
Gain a charge each time you score a Crit. After 5 charges your next hit will Slow for 2s.
1/4s ICD.
*Seize The Moment_*
Gain Quickness for each Illusion you Shatter.
No ICD.
Chronophantasma
Your Phantasms are Resummoned after the first time they are shattered.
Resummoned phantasms have a 1.5s Daze. No ICD.

New Weapon Analysis
The Chronomancer gains access to the Shield.

Echo of Memory — 24s ICD
Block incoming attacks for a short duration. If this skill fully channels, summon a Phantasm that slows enemies and grants Alacrity to allies. If an attack is blocked, Deja Vu is available for 10s.
Great support/sustain skill.
||
Deja Vu
Block incoming attacks for a short duration. If this skill fully channels, summon a Phantasm that slows enemies and grants Alacrity to allies.
Just gets better.

Tides of Time — 40s ICD
Launch a wave that damages and Stuns enemies it passes through and grants Quickness to allies it passes through. The wave then returns to you. Touching the returning wave reduces the recharge of this skill by 10s.
Counts as an Ethereal field and blocks projectiles. Great Support skill.

New Skills Analysis
The Chronomancer gains access to Wells and Continuum Split/Shift.

Continuum Split [F5] — 90s ICD
Destroy all your Illusions and create a rift in time. When it expires you revert back to the point in time when you first activated the skill. All previous Health, Endurance, and Skill Recharges are reset to that point at which you activated the skill. Duration increases per Illusion Shattered.
You can defy death with this too. If the Rift is destroyed you will revert back earlier.
||
Continuum Shift
Revert back to the previous timeline.
You can choose to revert back sooner if you wish.

Well of Eternity — 30s ICD
Create a well that rewinds time, removing conditions from allies. When it expires the well heals allies in the area.
Very low healing, but okay support. Light Field.
Well of Precognition — 45sec ICD
Creates a well that gives allies 1s Blur (Evade all attacks). When this well ends allies within it gain +30 Endurance.
Counts as a Stun Break. Ethereal Field.
Well of Calamity — 20s ICD
Create a well that damages, Weakens, and Cripples foes. The final pulse does massive damage.
Great damage. Ethereal Field.
Well of Recall — 40s ICD
Creates a well that damages and Chills. When it expires it grants 5s of Alacrity.
Good support. Ethereal Field.
Well of Action — 30s ICD
Create a well that damages and Slows enemies. When it expires grant 3s Quickness to allies.
Good support. Ethereal Field.
Gravity Well — 90s ICD
Create a well that KD’s/Pulls/Floats foes caught in it. When it expires foes take heavy damage.
Great control skill. Dark Field.

Gearing Options
The following are acceptable gearing types to consider for a Chronomancer.

NOTE: These are types that can work depending on the overall goal of your build. They are not all equal as some are much better than others.

Power: Berserker’s, Soldier’s
Precision: Rampager’s
Toughness: Knight’s, Settler’s
Vitality: Sentinel’s
Condition: Sinister, Carrion, Rabid, Dire
Healing: Cleric’s, Apothecary’s

Rune/Sigil Synergies

NOTE: These are types that can work depending on the overall goal of your build. They are not all equal as some are much better than others.

Superior Rune of (the)…
Power: Brawler, Hoelbrak, Mad King, Mesmer, Ogre, Pack, Scholar, Strength
Precision: Eagle, Lyssa, Ranger, Thief
Toughness: Dolyak, Earth, Forgeman, Guardian, Melandru, Resistance
Vitality: Exuberance, Wurm
Condition: Adventurer, Aristocracy, Krait, Nightmare, Perplexity, Scavenging, Tormenting, Undead
Healing: Altruism, Defender, Grove, Water

Superior Sigil of…
Attribute Bonus: Force, Malice
Duration Bonus: Agony, Paralyzation, Smoldering
Chance on Hit: Water, Purity
Chance on Crit: Air, Blood, Earth, Fire, Generosity, Nullification, Strength, Torment
On Kill: Luck, Restoration, Stamina, Bloodlust, Corruption, Cruelty, Momentum
On Swap: Battle, Cleansing, Doom, Geomancy, Leeching, Renewal

PvE Usefulness
This class maintains its typical Mesmer utility usefulness, but other than that didn’t gain too many game altering changes other than being able to defy death, move around a bit faster, and the ever so famous Gravity Well + Well of Calamity combo for the critters.

PvP Usefulness
This class is super deadly in PvP already. The Chronomancer just makes things worse. So that’s both good and bad.

WvW Usefulness
This class may have some interesting uses in WvW depending on how it’s played. Zerg fights can benefit from all the Wells popping up here and there, but you’ll likely feel more at home Roaming or Defending Objectives.

Overall Opinion
The Chronomancer is a strange creature. You’ll either love it or hate it or both. Things will make sense yet you’ll be confused. Confusion will seem to make sense. Yet the making of sense will always yield Pi. (Wait wut? – Exactly…). It provides new AoE, Control, and Support to the Mesmer without taking away too much of their core functionality. It’ll take a lot of practice and getting used to – especially if you’re new to Mesmer.

Very nice overview of the elite spec with a little touch of (twisted?) humor. One thing that caught my attention is Assassin’s gear not listed in Precision. I personally feel this overview is newbie-friendly to the Chronomancer as well as touching each area nicely.

Phloww.1048:

Very nice overview of the elite spec with a little touch of (twisted?) humor. One thing that caught my attention is Assassin’s gear not listed in Precision. I personally feel this overview is newbie-friendly to the Chronomancer as well as touching each area nicely.

I omitted Assassin’s gear simply because it is the exact same stat spread as Berserker’s gear, but has Precision as the primary stat instead of Power. Though you can achieve much higher Critical Hit chance with Assassin’s gear naturally you can still cap out at 100% Critical Hit chance by traiting correctly and using Berserker stats (Hint: Slow condition). Since you’d have higher overall DPS with Berserker gear due to the higher Power with a perfect Crit Chance – I chose to opt out of placing Assassin’s gear on the list.

In its current iteration, Chronomancer is extremely valueable in PvE for its ability to provide party wide Alacrity. With the right initial skill rotation you can give your party around 25 secs of Alacrity and give yourself around 35 secs, which is totally game changing. With all that alacrity you can keep up that rotation too, not to mention the ridiculous evade and block uptime that comes with reduced cooldowns.

entropythreee.8152:

In its current iteration, Chronomancer is extremely valueable in PvE for its ability to provide party wide Alacrity. With the right initial skill rotation you can give your party around 25 secs of Alacrity and give yourself around 35 secs, which is totally game changing. With all that alacrity you can keep up that rotation too, not to mention the ridiculous evade and block uptime that comes with reduced cooldowns.

I was on the fence about mentioning that and here’s why.

Yes, you can provide a lot of Alacrity, but you must specifically build for that purpose and select specific skills to accomplish that. This means you’re isolating yourself to a specific job and (from my experience) sacrificing a rather large amount of damage on your end to accomplish that. I also didn’t find a way to make the rotation 100% continuous making it hard to chain it back-to-back. I was typically waiting for 1-2 long recharge skills to recharge before I did the rotation again.

Being as it wasn’t 100% maintainable the overall DoT increase was hard to measure when factoring in the DPS loss you incurred by using a build specifically geared to that one purpose (Keep in mind i’m not looking at short-term DoT, but long-term DoT). It appeared to me when analyzing long-term DoT that there was little change in overall team performances, but in short-term DoT measurements you would certainly see a somewhat noticeable increase in performance. This is a pseudo increase in performance because when you extend it out long-term accounting for the reset of your skill combos and your overall DPS hit that you have within that DoT you actually level out to being about the same (from my experience).