Guild Wars 2

Hi all

After watching the few (only 2, the others switched to revenant) chronomancers getting smashed in Go4, and mostly after getting smashed extensively myself, I have the feeling that a big problem of chronomancers currently is the lack of stability to sustain vs the CC creep.
This is particularly important since it would seem chrono was built to shine in team fights (by opposition to the mostly roamer mesmer).

Currently, our only stability is a worthless mantra and 1 stack on shatter with Bountiful disillusionment. I really feel this is not enough and also reduced build diversity.

Do you think it would be a good idea to have one trait giving stability in the chrono line? For example: “Gain stability when you block or evade an attack” (similar but not exactly like the revenant trait stability on dodge since it relies on actually evading and also syncs very well with the mesmer and its many evade/blocks). Or maybe “gain stability when hit by a slowed enemy”? I particularly like the last suggestion since it makes a “slow bruiser” spec, defending itself by slowing enemies.

Or do you think I’m wrong in my assessment of the current problem with chrono?

So far, i personally believe its more that you basically can’t stay outside the point and help nearly as well when there are dragonhunters with range pressure, daredevils, revenant with shiro. You get chased down or just die from pressure. This is the reason i believe mesmers will switch back to stealth fairly soon- you need it to get away, since most classes are faster than you. (Reaper is one exception).

Quadox.7834:

So far, i personally believe its more that you basically can’t stay outside the point and help nearly as well when there are dragonhunters with range pressure, daredevils, revenant with shiro. You get chased down or just die from pressure. This is the reason i believe mesmers will switch back to stealth fairly soon- you need it to get away, since most classes are faster than you. (Reaper is one exception).

I would not be surprised if mesmers just go back to the old (non-chrono) PU. But I would like team-fighting chrono builds (type bunker or soldier) to be a thing, since it feels to me like the niche chrono should have. And in this case “fleeing in stealth” is not really an option.

Both revenant and guardian have really good passive anti-cc traits now.

I feel I shouldn’t even F3 any of them cuz the result is that I will actually hurt more by cc’ing them.

Well I find that even though it’s “wow alacrity, spam all the things”, “wow quality of life benefits”, the traitline is geared highly offensively and results in you being glassier than usual – unless you pair it with Chaos or Inspiration (or both if full bunker but I’ve never tried that so don’t know how effective it is).

I find it has more in common with Duelling – but without the priceless benefit of DE.

Tbh I’m mainly using Chrono to offset the MtD nerf, as well as allowing free rune choice with the built in 25% movement speed. Otherwise I think I’d rather take Chaos.

Don’t discredit BD. For it’s effect, used appropriately for Mesmer, it’s a really strong trait.

The problem only comes if you can’t fit the Chaos line into your Chrono build.

Does that mean Chrono should get some stabos? I don’t know. Ask Pyro, he’s the pro Chrono Bunker around here.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Don’t discredit BD. For it’s effect, used appropriately for Mesmer, it’s a really strong trait.

The “worthless” only applied to the mantra. I love BD and I use it very often. I just wish we had more choices.

Agreed, Traited Mirror/Blink and Bountiful Disillusionment are the two primary reasons I take Chaos.

But as Ross said, it’s fitting Chaos in your build, because it’s still hard to give up DE in any build.

Quadox.7834:

So far, i personally believe its more that you basically can’t stay outside the point and help nearly as well when there are dragonhunters with range pressure, daredevils, revenant with shiro. You get chased down or just die from pressure. This is the reason i believe mesmers will switch back to stealth fairly soon- you need it to get away, since most classes are faster than you. (Reaper is one exception).

Agreed, although I also feel this serves as the balancing point of Chronomancers. With that being said, nothing stops us from essentially using only the traitline and the F5 as a “superior” condi shatter setup or something similar.

Stability on shatter trait from other trees? Not like you get traits and alacrity to spam shatters even more…. oh wait.

Carighan.6758:

Quadox.7834:

So far, i personally believe its more that you basically can’t stay outside the point and help nearly as well when there are dragonhunters with range pressure, daredevils, revenant with shiro. You get chased down or just die from pressure. This is the reason i believe mesmers will switch back to stealth fairly soon- you need it to get away, since most classes are faster than you. (Reaper is one exception).

Agreed, although I also feel this serves as the balancing point of Chronomancers. With that being said, nothing stops us from essentially using only the traitline and the F5 as a “superior” condi shatter setup or something similar.

Yeah i’m definitely not saying it is weak, i actually think it’s too strong. But so are the other elite specializations.

I think I’m ok with being a little bit weak in the Stability department, given that we have good access to active defences to avoid getting hit with CC in the first place. Chrono in particular has really good uptime on evade/block.

I don’t think chrono lacking stability is an issue. Stealth is not a substitute for stability. Stealth is a way to drop pressure. The big thing about the current pvp environment is that there’s a lot of classes that are impossible to normally run from. Thief can chase you easily, DH can hit you painfully from range, revenant has roughly infinite chasing power with shiro, and scrapper moves way faster than us.

If you’re running a squishy build, you have to be able to disengage. Helseth in his infinite wisdom was wrong, as per usual, that the enhanced defenses of chrono (precog, shield block, cc) would allow you to survive even when running squishy. What it actually does is let you survive until the defenses run out…and then you die. Stealth allows you to completely drop target and reposition. If that revenant still really wants you, you’ll have to deal with him, but it allows you to at least drop whatever pressure you had on you before.

The issue isn’t cc, the issue is running a build that dies easily without any solid plan on how to survive with it.

But how viable is stealth with scrappers around?

And as I said, I do not aim at running berserker, because I don’t see chronomancer as the ultimate roamer, I see it as a team fighter. I am currently running duel/chaos/chrono for this role. But I would have loved to be able not to be forced in those 2 lines. It is very hard to go away from dueling for mesmer, even as a team fighter, because (among others) of the vigor uptime. And I have not managed to go anywhere without BD (which gives in principle near-perma stability, even if it is only 1 stack, and more realistically on-demand stability when needed).

There are many builds I tried:

• offensive team fighter with domination: didn’t go well
• bunker with inspiration: wasn’t satisfied at all
• might stacking with illusions: nope

I just never managed to achieve anything without dueling and chaos. Maybe one of you managed, and I would love to see your build and explanation for it. But I really didn’t. At the end, it’s not that bad since I end up being quite happy with my duel/chaos/chrono.

My bunker build works very well. It’s chaos/insp/chrono. You can do a nasty condie shatter that is very effective with duel/ill/chrono. I haven’t personally tested it, but my gut tells me that Dom/chaos/chrono lockdown with a tanky amulet could work very well too.

I don’t think Chrono needs Stability. We have some on BD in Chaos line, so that’s that.