Guild Wars 2

Ello Mesmer Forum!
So here goes my feedback on the Chronomancer for second Beta weekend, the WvW roaming build I ran (and plan to play) and a montage from the time I had to roam around in WvW with doing the weekend!

First off, some disclaimers:
I’m still new to mesmer, and I literally just made the build and went into WvW with it the very same day! So don’t expect any twitch play, but a lot of stupid mistakes! Like, never using the Signet of Illusions, even when I really could use the shatter!
The gear and rune choice were lackluster, you only had Exotic gear and your jewels came with celestial stats in the “socket” spot. I used rune of the Ogre, but that were purely because I lacked anything better.
All of the fights are against the standardish skill level of most WvW players, I know they ain’t amazing kitten roamers, but that’s really not the point of my feedback anyway!

So, the build is gonna look like this when I get the game:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8ensnBlphtfCeoBUrhFij6cDugOzMASgFqOT70QF-TVCEABRcFASU9gtUCykyPy3fQRVcaT3DAPAgHOIABAQAu5NzmtZwQH6QH6QHa38m38m38mlCgulRA-w

And here is the video of me in WvW:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_4cKSaTdPI&feature=youtu.be

So the build idea is based around a lot of active defence and sustain to fight in outnumbered situations, which it succeeded in doing most of the time. There is a good “snowball” effect to it, so when you get rolling, you really get rolling, pumping out a very fast gameplay, where you allways have something to press (As a spoiled Engineer player I like that). When you juggle it right, you have a good 65-75% protection uptime, and Chaos armor is up for like 50% of the time if you do it right! (I failed a lot at it, none the less).
With Chaotic Dampening and Alarcity you have a great clone uptime from the staff, which I think the video demonstrate quite well! The constant many clones shatter, makes Restorative Illusions and Bountiful Disillusionment lifesavers! (Serious, the trait names of are horrible to spell for a non native English speaker!!)
While the burst damage ain’t even close to that of the normal spike build, I still felt I had a solid and constant barrage of damage going, which seemed at a fine scale to bring close to anything down!
There is no stealth in the build, but that’s just me not being a fan of that sort of gameplay! and I’m really enjoying all the condi clear and reflecting it brings!
The only thing I lost to were good PU mesmer and Thief, where the problem were two fold:
First off does the build shine when it can pump out constant shatter and pressure, both for my sustain and damage, but also so I keep the CD’s reduction going! This ain’t gonna happen when they stealth!
Second, you use active defence to handle burst, which is quite hard when you can’t see it!
In special did I have some trouble with one of the [BNF] mesmers, might have been Nûbu, which ran a really glassy GS stealth build.
The rune of the defender will hopefully help on that, since it will give me more sustain to recover from the attacks. It heals for about 4k.

So that were the build for you!

Some feedback on the Chronomancer:
The wells:
Well of Eternity: ½ sec cast timemade it a lot more smooth to play with! I still won’t use it for solo play, but Im running it in my sPvP support/boon share build and my team loves it! I do think 1/4 sec cast time, as promised would make it spot on tho!
But would trade the Vigor pulsing for, like 2 boons removed on final heal any day!

Well of Action: Still enjoying this well in team situations a lot! Used it a bit for solo play, where it also shine as the mini time warp it is! Great for stomps/rezzes

Well of Calamity: Ended up as my main well for solo roaming, the 20 sec CD is perfect for spawning more Chaos armor all the time, and the dmg. can be really beasty! 4-5k crits in AoE is not for fun! Nothing to complain about here either.
Well of Precognition: I just don’t like the design of this well! Both the pulse effect and explosive effect is something you want on demand, when the guardian is healing ect. But it’s also a stunbreak and it just feels odd whenever I try use it. Maybe if the stunbreak were AoE, instead of only a selfish one?

Well of Recall: Don’t think I will be using this ever in PvP, but it seems great in PvE from the stuff I have seen posted, so nothing much to add here.
Gravity Well: This one still needs to have the CD reduced to about 70ish seconds before I would run it over other elite’s! Might be fun in a interrupt build, but didn’t have time to play around with that sort of build. I do prefer the pulsing interrupt over the final float burst tho!

Traits:
All’s well, That ends well: I am now using this in my sPvP support build, and it felt very rewarding to play with wells with this trait! Great change!

Illusionary Reversion: I honestly felt the change were just fine, my build had no trouble getting 2 clones up before every shatter, and it still supported my snowball play style very well! I think the trait is fine now, and would personally prefer it like this, over the 2 sec ICD.

Chronophantsma: As I mostly use my phantasms kittenter fodder, I didn’t feel much difference from 1 sec daze going to 1½ sec daze! Still an amazing trait and really loving it. It feels really strong and grandmaster worthy, but not sure if it’s to strong!

Time Catches up: Just wanna add I ****ing love the **** out of this trait! it’s visuel sooo pleasing to see the super speed illusions, but it also makes my shatters hit far more often! It’s amazing!
Time Marces on: I love it! <3 All I wanted to say

Shield: I don’t have any complains about the shield, I’m really loving it! It feels very smooth to use the block (please make Sword and Scepter block’s block effect instant like shield) and the wall is just amazing to play with! I think everything is in a nice spot with the shield and I personal like the IAvengers bouncing attacks! The 2 second slow were justified, and the IAvenger still feel very useful.

Continuum Split: It’s sooo hard to use this shatter well! The potential is amazing and it’s super fun to use! I’m just really bad at it! Time Travel stomps are fun to use it with, but a bit of waste! What I have found is tho, often when the little token is killed, it will just bug out and never return you to the spot. One time it even bugged out so bad, that the token just kept being there after killed, and a few minutes later it expired and I were returned from Borderland Mid camp to the Redlake bridge. It still feel super powerfull when you double Time warp the Stronghold boss… or whenever you Double Time Warp really! When I’m trying to say it’s a very very powerfull “extra” benefit from picking the Elite, even while I’m super bad at using it! It’s also mostly when I have used this, in pretty much anyway, I afterwards have gotten whisper about “wtf” just happend!

In general, the Chronomancer is just a ton of fun to play with! Everything from the overall theme, well designs and new traits working into the older ones, it just feels great! But while it’s a lot of fun for me to play, a lot of the people that afterwards have whispered me had quite a difference experience! Which I’m annoyed about, cause I truly wanted to make a no stealth build that wouldn’t feel as frustrating to fight against. But most of them, simply felt the dmg output were way to high, compared to the builds sustain, active defense and clone generating. Now, the game ain’t designed around 1vs1, but the only two profession I really felt a threat from, were Mesmer and Thief, both of the stealth burst professions. The rest… Not so much. Also I would prefer the game to always feel “fun” for people, not frustrating.
I can obvious not tell if it’s too strong, mostly because people still need to get used to the new stuff it brings. But I do honestly feel it’s in the gray area of "this might be a bit overtuned in PvP situations.

I didn’t do any dungeons and stuff, so no Idea how good it is there! But the wells where a nice AOE addition doing some of the open world events!

-Amadeus