Guild Wars 2

I love the idea of Chronomancer and what ANet has shown so far excites me. It could go horribly wrong, but it could also be awesome. And I seem to be an eternal optimist (and I know I am not alone /wink/ Chaos /wink/) :P

Now, I also know it is too early to know anything for certain and maybe it would be best to wait for the PoI to see more of the Chronomancer stuff, but hell, I can’t wait. So I wanted to ask you guys, from what you understand about the new specialization, what other core specialization would be good combinations with Chronomancer.

I personally like the idea of Chaos (no, now I don’t mean the guy, but the trait line^^). First for the theme itself, and then a combination with staff recharge traits sounds amazing. Chaos Armor non stop (I hope the chrono wells will be etheral fields) and an insane in combat mobility. Also chaining Reflection through the Manipulation trait sounds interesting.

Secondly the obvious choice might be Dueling. DE alone is a strong motivation to go there. But I can also see Inspiration to be good candidate, for Chronomancer seems possibly a strong supporter and Inspiration would just complement that role.

Domi/Chaos/Chrono for power/interrupt
Duel/Chaos/Chrono for condi/interrupt
Duel/Inspi/Chrono or even Chaos/Inspi/Chrono for support/shatter
Duel/Illus/Chrono for… chronoshatter?

Hard to tell without seeing the traits

Domi duelling chronomancy for the best build

I think it depends heavily on your goals.

Personally I think the safest bet would be either (Dom/Duel/Chrono) or (Duel/Chaos/Chrono) for PvP/WvW

For “pure” lockdown I’d bet: (Dom/Chaos/Chrono) but it remains to be seen if we can make it without the clone production of DE.

For support: (Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono), again depends on how well we can manage without DE.

At this point, I see little reason not to be excited. Sure there will be bugs, but if what’s been advertised is delivered then we’ve got a lot more than most of us expected coming our way. I still needa make that “I told you so” thread on Pyro

Dom/Dueling/Chrono – Mantra

@Chaos: I’m pretty sure if you look at some of his “ANet will never” posts … you already could make several such threads … or one big one :-p

“Always” and “never” are two of the quickest ways to be wrong ;-)

But would you need HM for a mantra build if you chose Chrono & Shield??

Alacrity will reduce the cooldowns on MoD, while Tides of Time gives you quickness for recharges. You would just miss out on the extra damage potential that HM and Dueling would bring.

So Dom/Chaos/Chrono for lockdown could work. I think it would be a matter of playstyle and what are all the different traits in the Chrono line will bring? It will be interesting to say the least. I have no idea what my EchoRupt build will “evolve” into at the moment. But the “echo” part would still apply to Continuim Shift/Chrono talents.

Dom/Duel/Chrono for me…

I don’t see a point to go illusions since fragmentation seems lame, and alacrity should make up for celerity and shattered strength.

I may go Duel/Illusion/Chrono just to try optimal c/d reduction. But Duel/Chrono/Chaos-Dom-Insp. seem a lot more appealing options to me.

After the stream it’s official. My three builds will be:

Dom/Duel/Chaos – Interrupt (Sword+Focus / Staff )

Dom/Chaos/Chrono – Lockdown (Sword+Shield / Staff )

Chaos/Inspir/Chrono – Support (Sword+Shield / Staff)

… Jeez, I’d love to go Sword+Sword / Pistol+Shield.

And at some point I’ll try out that awesome new pistol trait

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For “pure” lockdown I’d bet: (Dom/Chaos/Chrono) but it remains to be seen if we can make it without the clone production of DE.

“We”. I haven’t used DE for 6 months. The chains that bind D:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For “pure” lockdown I’d bet: (Dom/Chaos/Chrono) but it remains to be seen if we can make it without the clone production of DE.

“We”. I haven’t used DE for 6 months. The chains that bind

But your build is crazy squishy and so single-target focused. O.o and you still haven’t taken my advice to shatter more! Would make a big difference.

And potentially chronomancy can help you not only in clone, but also phantasm “production”.

Builds that I’m looking at will probably be:

For full dps shatter -Dom/Chrono/Illusions …Dueling instead of Illusions if Chrono traits can’t replace the generation of DE.

Lockdown will probably be Dom/Chaos/Chrono.

Condi Shatter ..Duel/Illusions/Chrono (Illusions feels like pretty much the condi shatter line now)

Bunker Support – Chaos/Inspiration/Chrono (With wells/boon spreading)

The utility of F5 as well as potential reset on phantasms/clone generation in Chrono just gives more utility than the Illusions line and benefits every single possible build too much that there doesn’t seem to be a reason atm to not pick it as a trait line. :/

Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block

Chaos: Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish, Chaotic Interruption

Chrono with illusion traits

Ether feast, blink, arcane thievery, Well of Action

Sword/Shield + GS. 15 sec cooldowns, damage, stuns, and immobilization on interrupts.
Cripple and Slow from phantasms, almost constant alacrity on me. Attempting to use CC on me will also cause interrupts. You can’t play against this.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

For “pure” lockdown I’d bet: (Dom/Chaos/Chrono) but it remains to be seen if we can make it without the clone production of DE.

“We”. I haven’t used DE for 6 months. The chains that bind D:

But your build is crazy squishy and so single-target focused. O.o and you still haven’t taken my advice to shatter more! Would make a big difference.

Squishy is only a shackle of the mind. I am a rock. I am water. I am air.

I’m totally talking rubbish right now :D

Stormbolt.7293:

Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block

Chaos: Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish, Chaotic Interruption

Chrono with illusion traits

Ether feast, blink, arcane thievery, Well of Action

Sword/Shield + GS. 15 sec cooldowns, damage, stuns, and immobilization on interrupts.
Cripple and Slow from phantasms, almost constant alacrity on me. Attempting to use CC on me will also cause interrupts. You can’t play against this.

Was thinking the same build but with staff instead. AoE focused mesmer.

Domination : Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block
Chaos : Master of Manipulation, Chaotic Dampening, Chaotic Interruption
Chrono : With wells/lockdown oriented traits.

Since Wells skills are ethereal, it means more Chaos Armor and faster staff cooldown reduction = more Chaos Storm.

Utilities : Well of Eternity (Maybe not), Blink, Well of Calamity, Mantra of Resolve.

Well of Recall is interesting for a Phantasm build. I also wonder if Chronophantasm will only work on Shatter or they will pop back if they get killed. Could be a game changer here for phantasm build. If not, I don’t know if many phantasm mesmer will go Chrono.

Shatters build looks good in Chronomancer (Illusionary Reversion + DE, gonna be crazy. Duel/Illusion/Chrono). Condition Mesmer, maybe not.

Oh well we don’t know all the traits yet, but just theorycrafting.

Krispera.5087:

Stormbolt.7293:

Domination: Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block

Chaos: Master of Manipulation, Mirror of Anguish, Chaotic Interruption

Chrono with illusion traits

Ether feast, blink, arcane thievery, Well of Action

Sword/Shield + GS. 15 sec cooldowns, damage, stuns, and immobilization on interrupts.
Cripple and Slow from phantasms, almost constant alacrity on me. Attempting to use CC on me will also cause interrupts. You can’t play against this.

Was thinking the same build but with staff instead. AoE focused mesmer.

Domination : Confounding Suggestions, Furious Interruption, Power Block
Chaos : Master of Manipulation, Chaotic Dampening, Chaotic Interruption
Chrono : With wells/lockdown oriented traits.

Since Wells skills are ethereal, it means more Chaos Armor and faster staff cooldown reduction = more Chaos Storm.

Utilities : Well of Eternity (Maybe not), Blink, Well of Calamity, Mantra of Resolve.

Should’ve mentioned that I’m using this for WvW roaming. GS auto and cripple are amazing there.

I understand, why so many wanna go chrono for interupt/lockdown, but I think there is a difference in effect.
Lockdown/Interrupt with Chrono: Easier to handle but also easier to avoid/counter-play, I would think, more AoE CCs (soft and hard).
Lockdown/Interrupt without Chrono: (for example Dom/Duel/Chaos) Effects will be more punishing but it will be harder to handle.

A chrono build must sacrafice:

• either (no dom) straight dmg (maybe compensated with speeding up, but I don’t see that yet) and godly boon ripping,
• or (no duel) super awesome CD decrease of pistol #5 + blind on shatter + mantra trait/DE + vigor trait
• or (no chaos) CI (which seems “just” like one trait, but one trait that is amazingly powerful)

I do not think that Chrono will be the go to specialization for mesmer. And I think that the more effective small scale CC build will work without Chrono. Although after HoT hits every Mesmer and their illusion’s mothers will run Chrono at first^^

I’m getting the feeling that for a build that’s heavily shatter-based, so power shatter and condie shatter…chrono will not provide enough illusion output to replace DE. Power shatter and condie shatter will likely not take chrono.

For builds that don’t revolve completely around shattering, chrono should be definitely a viable option. Lockdown builds, supporty builds, phantasm builds, and probably some others that I haven’t thought of will have a viable option in the chrono line.

Max clone generation with duelling, chrono and illusions will be fun to try.

However, i think i might be trying Chaotic dampening and staff/sword build for fun, since the wells are all ethereal fields and therefore help chaotic dampening. Old school staff/sword ftw!

I’ll go for:

My current build with Dom/Duel/Chaos (Sw+Sw/Staff)
A variation of it with Dom or Duel/Chaos/Chrono (Sw+Sh/Staff)

And for PvE I’ll go Dom/Duel or Insp./Chrono with whatever weapon fits the situation.

I’m also curious about the new condition options in general. Not sure if I try it, though.

Going to experiment with more blind spiced builds as I have for some time. One thing I’ll look to exploit is the new shiny elite we’ll get, which is a dark field, our first. Too bad we don’t have more blasts, but I can see some nice team plays, opportunities with torch and our plentiful access to leaps.

skcamow.3527:

Going to experiment with more blind spiced builds as I have for some time. One thing I’ll look to exploit is the new shiny elite we’ll get, which is a dark field, our first. Too bad we don’t have more blasts, but I can see some nice team plays, opportunities with torch and our plentiful access to leaps.

120s cooldown makes it only ever a somewhat niche use. Handy when you use it certainly, but not something that could be relied on for much.

Oh I know that. Still it’s not a bad recharge and alacrity of course will help.

Fay.2357:

120s cooldown makes it only ever a somewhat niche use. Handy when you use it certainly, but not something that could be relied on for much.

Considering that MI will be screwed when picking Master of Manipulation – and even then it’s rather situational in PvP – and Time Warp being meh unless they reworked it, I’m very very interested in having the Well of Gravity in my interrupt build. The posibilities are nasty.

Does anybody know how exactly ‘Unblockable’ works? Interrupting through blocks etc. could also be pretty nice. Can’t wait to theorycraft a point defender…

Xaylin.1860:

Does anybody know how exactly ‘Unblockable’ works? Interrupting through blocks etc. could also be pretty nice. Can’t wait to theorycraft a point defender…

Just what it says on the tin. Blocks have no effect on unblockable skills.

skcamow.3527:

Oh I know that. Still it’s not a bad recharge and alacrity of course will help.

And continuum shift.

Aw, well skills don’t have any condition removal baseline?
I really want to spec Dueling/Chaos/Chrono as a Condi spec.
Hopefully Chrono trait provide some options to cleanse conditions (that as good as Inspiration line).

keenlam.4753:

Aw, well skills don’t have any condition removal baseline?
I really want to spec Dueling/Chaos/Chrono as a Condi spec.
Hopefully Chrono trait provide some options to cleanse conditions (that as good as Inspiration line).

Yeah thats my worry as well. Between condi clear, stun breaker and signit of inspiration for open world/WvW we are going to have trouble fitting these wells on our bar.

Maybe it’s only just me, but I’m already drooling over the idea of being an ultra veil bot in WvW.

Chronomancery:
Required for f5 shatter apparently; and there’s supposed to be a trait that grants alacrity on shatters.

Inspiration:
Mender’s Purity, Focus trait, Superspeed Glamours.

Chaos:
Manipulation and Dampening. All 3 GM traits seem very viable for this build.
PU: 4 seconds veils + self boons
CI: goes well with focus pull, staff 5, Elite Well.
BD: this build shatters a lot

Utilities:
-Mantra heal: (goes very well with buffed Mender’s Purity, always has been great in Zerg vs Zerg)
-Blink: not taking this off my bar for fancy new wells. Sorry.
-Veil: the whole point of this build.
-Signet of Illusions: for more shatters.
-Elite well if CI, maybe Mass Invis if PU, otherwise Time Warp.

For the following, I’m going to assume Signet of Illusions does not refresh the new f5 shatter, but the f5 shatter will properly reset it.

You get lots of veils by using:
-f5 shatter
-veil
-pop your shatters for alacrity (keep in mind your can use shatters while casting veil/signet)
-use signet
-pop your shatters for alacrity (again)
-rewind

-you now have a lot of alacrity recharging the f5 shatter and the rest of your skills, and veil/signet are off cd.

Yeah I’m going to try the chrono/inspiration/chaos ideas, and also chrono/inspiration/duelling.

Can’t let go of that traited focus. xD

DO you think the F5 thing will also work with rune and sigils bonuses, like rune of the grove or Rune of Perplexity(for 10 confusion combo) ?

LughLongArm.5460:

DO you think the F5 thing will also work with rune and sigils bonuses, like rune of the grove or Rune of Perplexity(for 10 confusion combo) ?

That’s an interesting question.

LughLongArm.5460:

DO you think the F5 thing will also work with rune and sigils bonuses, like rune of the grove or Rune of Perplexity(for 10 confusion combo) ?

I think it really depends on how those are implemented in game… if they are hidden “skill cooldowns”, they might work (and be affected by alacrity maybe?), but I doubt that.

Fay.2357:

skcamow.3527:

Going to experiment with more blind spiced builds as I have for some time. One thing I’ll look to exploit is the new shiny elite we’ll get, which is a dark field, our first. Too bad we don’t have more blasts, but I can see some nice team plays, opportunities with torch and our plentiful access to leaps.

120s cooldown makes it only ever a somewhat niche use. Handy when you use it certainly, but not something that could be relied on for much.

Think of the f5 though. If the f5 would have 60 sec cooldown (it won’t), the elite also has 60sec cooldown. Or use it 2 times in a row.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

After the stream it’s official. My three builds will be:

Dom/Duel/Chaos – Interrupt (Sword+Focus / Staff )

Dom/Chaos/Chrono – Lockdown (Sword+Shield / Staff )

Chaos/Inspir/Chrono – Support (Sword+Shield / Staff)

… Jeez, I’d love to go Sword+Sword / Pistol+Shield.

And at some point I’ll try out that awesome new pistol trait

:( but I really really want to go Sword+Shield / Scepter/Torch :|