Guild Wars 2

Hello! I love to theory craft and after looking at this specialization I wanted to share some “food for thought” on Chronomancer shatter elite and Signet of Illusion resets.

Continuum Shift: resets everything when ends (from my understanding so far)

Signet of Illustions: Active: Recharge your shatter skills.

I posted this becuase I read people talking about the shatter long cooldown and I wanted to post this before the Mesmer Stream. From what I am seeing here you can.

Activate Continuum Shift
Activate Signet of Illusions
Then do whatever??

and potentially keep resetting itself while keeping it active, or being able to reset the shatter skill once.

If you can reset it once u can (3 Time warps)
Activate Continuum Shift
Time Warp
Continuum Shift Ends
Activate Signet of Illusions
Activate Continuum Shift (when clones are out)
Time Warp
Continuum Shift ends
Time Warp again……..lol

What do you guys think!!

Personally, I already hated the concept of shields. The time well sound support orientated, which isn’t my personal play style. If the traits in the new line out weigh the illusions trait line, in shatter skills, i may consider it. Other than that in my eyes its just another casual addition to mesmers for them to mess around with, but nothing to phenomenal.

I’ll probably be the only one who thinks this way. lmfao

That reminds me.. Signet of Illusions will likely be hella valuable when chronomancer drops.

But continuum shift is a two-part skill, so it won’t go on cooldown until after you activate signet of illusions. Unfortunately this means you can’t eternally reset F5.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

That reminds me.. Signet of Illusions will likely be hella valuable when chronomancer drops.

But continuum shift is a two-part skill, so it won’t go on cooldown until after you activate signet of illusions. Unfortunately this means you can’t eternally reset F5.

You mean won’t go on cooldown until Continuum shift is activated a second time (either by time expiring or by choice). Effect is as you describe though, can’t eternally reset F5.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

That reminds me.. Signet of Illusions will likely be hella valuable when chronomancer drops.

But continuum shift is a two-part skill, so it won’t go on cooldown until after you activate signet of illusions. Unfortunately this means you can’t eternally reset F5.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but resets occur after you use the second part of F5. So:

Step 1: You activate F5
Step 2: You spend your cooldowns
Step 3: F5 again, everything is reset
Step 4: Signet of Illusions, F5 is reset
Go back to Step 1

Signet will be reset by the time you use both parts of your F5 again, so it loops. I don’t think they said only cooldowns used between the 2 casts of F5 are reset.

Edit: Nvm, I read it again. Continuum Shift reverts the cooldowns to what they were when the first part of F5, Continuum Split, was activated.

So in this case, at the second cast of F5, Sigil will be on cooldown and that cooldown will actually be elongated. Still, you can get 3 casts of all your skills. That’s ridiculous.

Or you can activate them “only” 2 times and avoid putting them on their regular cooldown. I’m sure Pvp will enjoy 20 seconds of Moa every 90 seconds.

It’s not that broken, will only recharge skills you use during the duration of the f5

It would only reset the signet if you used it while the shatter’s duration is going, and in that case it wouldn’t reset the shatter since it still has it’s 2nd part

Assassins Caddy.1539:

It would only reset the signet if you used it while the shatter’s duration is going, and in that case it wouldn’t reset the shatter since it still has it’s 2nd part

It still means that if you opt to include Signet of Illusions on your bar, Continuum Split/Shift’s cooldown will be a very manageable 90 second one.

RabbitUp.8294:

Or you can activate them “only” 2 times and avoid putting them on their regular cooldown at all. I’m sure Pvp will enjoy 20 seconds of Moa every 90 seconds.

LOL casting Moa 3 times. This can give birth to Moamancer builds : P

F5 will probably only last maybe 8 or 12 seconds. For each illusion you shatter, assuming IP works with it, you’d get 2 or 3 seconds each time you’d use it. If it lasts longer, i’d be extremely surprised. Possibly 20secs? But anything over that it’d be extremely overpowered. You only recharge the skills you use during the duration of F5. It’d be an interesting skill for duels depending on how many illusions you shatter. I also think the counterplay to this ability will be bursting down the mesmer before he/she can react. Ideally you’d want to pop this skill at a higher hp with minimal cooldowns used. I think its an amazing addition to mesmer and we’ll have to see how it plays out.

I think its 1s per illusion for a total of 4 seconds. 4 secs is plenty of time to cast quite a few skills, and makes you decide whether to use long-cast time skills like illusion of life or instants like blink and mantra charges.

Remember its not just cooldowns reverted, its damage as well. 20s would be obscene.

It’s not only with Signet that infinity loop F5 happens, it’s with Illusionary Invigoration. Walk through the steps and you’ll see why.

Using IlInv in example, replace with Signet.
You must be in a place just above 50% health but take damage every second or so (ie. a lava lake to just drop you below 50%. Other examples exist but this makes it predictable.)
Step 1: You activate F5
Step 2: You take damage and F5 reactivates via Illusionary Invigoration
Step 3: Create 3 clones
Step 4: F5 again
Step 4.5: All cooldowns are reset so Illusionary Invigoration cooldown is reset (1)
Step 4.5: Your health reverts back to above 50%
Step 5: Your last F5 ends.
Go to Step 2.

(1) Don’t think this will work this way, probably be no activation of F5 while the effect is happening.

Artaz.3819:

It’s not only with Signet that infinity loop F5 happens, it’s with Illusionary Invigoration. Walk through the steps and you’ll see why.

Using IlInv in example, replace with Signet.
You must be in a place just above 50% health but take damage every second or so (ie. a lava lake to just drop you below 50%. Other examples exist but this makes it predictable.)
Step 1: You activate F5
Step 2: You take damage and F5 reactivates via Illusionary Invigoration
Step 3: Create 3 clones
Step 4: F5 again
Step 4.5: All cooldowns are reset so Illusionary Invigoration cooldown is reset (1)
Step 4.5: Your health reverts back to above 50%
Step 5: Your last F5 ends.
Go to Step 2.

(1) Don’t think this will work this way, probably be no activation of F5 while the effect is happening.

It won’t, not only does Illusionary Invigoration have a 60sec cooldown, but I can’t find it or any equivalent in any of the new mesmer traits shown during the Specialization AMA, which will go live before HoT is even released.

Likely, the best you’ll be able to do is Shift ->pop skills -> shift end -> Signet of Illusion (which might be changed to just effect the base F1-4 shatter skills) -> Shift again -> pop skills -> shift ends -> pop skills a third time.

Also, I suspect that the amount of time you get with a Continuum Split/Shift well be something like 1sec/2sec/3sec depending on number of clones, so you’re not going to double on all of your skills, but just two or three depending on the # of clone and casting time.

Could it be that the shift is instant-cast as all shatter skills and we will be able to even use long cast time spells like confusing images with just one second of continuum if we just activate F5 before our scepter channel is finished?
That would make it “safer” to play with long casts you want to reset

Edit: What if you’d do it like this? Start Continuum → Signet of Illusions → End Continuum → Finish Signet of Illusions

Me Games Ma.8426:

Edit: What if you’d do it like this? Start Continuum -> Signet of Illusions -> End Continuum -> Finish Signet of Illusions

When CS ends, SoI isn’t on cooldown and so wouldn’t be affected (i.e. full cooldown). But CS would be recharged when SoI finishes activating.

So the outcome would be the same as speculated above.

Or “Shatter skills” will be redefined as F1→F4. If that’s not the case on launch, first week QQ should make it a certainty.

Maybe I’m wrong but I think I remember the devs saying or writing that picking an elite specialization would or at least could also mean being locked out of certain skills etc.

I believe that Signet of Illusions might be such a skill which won’t be accessible. It is pretty obvious that it would cause many balancing issues, otherwise. In this context it might also make sense that we no longer have Illusionary Invigoration.

Not trying to stop your theorycrafting. But you probably shouldn’t get too excited.

Xaylin.1860:

Maybe I’m wrong but I think I remember the devs saying or writing that picking an elite specialization would or at least could also mean being locked out of certain skills etc.

They didn’t. I don’t know why this keeps popping up from time to time. It’s absolutely factually wrong.

I’m pretty sure that if you popped signet during split, then when you reset with shift you’ll also reset signet’s reset, so your shatters will return to their previous cooldown and split will go on full cooldown.

Fay.2357:

Xaylin.1860:

Maybe I’m wrong but I think I remember the devs saying or writing that picking an elite specialization would or at least could also mean being locked out of certain skills etc.

They didn’t. I don’t know why this keeps popping up from time to time. It’s absolutely factually wrong.

I hate being the target of your snarkiness.

They probably worded it differently but they mentioned forgoing other skills when picking a – back then – specialization. Considering the most recent posts this might indeed just have meant being able to pick one less of the existing traitlines etc.

Nevertheless, I just can’t imagine them leaving the possible synergy between SoI and our new F5 alone. There got to be some sort of restriction. It would be too powerful otherwise and cause too many balancing issues. I personally don’t want it to end with the Chronomancer being a pile of pink clock poop when not picking SoI because everything is balanced around that one utility.

“I swung a sword, I swung a sword again Hey! I swung it again, that’s great”
“I dropped a time warp, I dropped a time warp again Hey! I dropped a time warp again, that’s great

Sooo we can cast 3 elite spells… how about 3 times the hounds of balthazar?