Guild Wars 2

Do you?

Do you really feel like you are manipulating time as a Chronomancer? I jus feel its a bit lack luster.

Short of CS and possibly alacrity (though not really for me), no I don’t feel like I am manipulating time as a chronomancer.

I don’t know why I should care.

Aesthetics? They’re just that.

No. In fact, I feel more like an RPG character more than ever since the F5 is basically a save button.

That and somehow I’m giving people invisible pink fog makers that have nothing to do with timey wimey shenanigans. Maybe I own a street taco cart and giving people purple gas. Wasn’t the original way that Anet was going to represent Alacrity would be spinning clock hands on the left arm?

Maybe if Slow had some runes and sigils to amplify it a bit further.

Maybe if we can give more quickness and slow with longer duration combine with 66% alacrity to group rmthan we can talk about controlling time
Also more skill disable abilities to enemies could be nice

About as much as is actually possible in an MMO where you can’t actually, literally change time?

CS, alacrity, quickness and slow make you feel like a chronomancer but in my opinion they should have been the entire theme of the class.

No resummon clones and phantasms just self alacrity, quickness generation and slow application. I’d imagine chronomancer would not be an almost mandatory pick for everything at that point as all the current builds us it for is to shore up mesmers glaring weaknesses.

For me I don’t think alacrity will actually feel like manipulating time unless it is un-nerfed in PvE (at least back up to 50%). Slow isn’t unique to chronomancers, and we don’t even have all that much access to it outside of a few traits that no one uses because its just not powerful enough (if slow had been given the chill treatment for reapers where a chronomancer could trait it to apply a secondary effect to people we slow that would have been much better).

I love the class but I don’t get much of a sense of actually manipulating time from it

I agree with all of you on your comments. I feel like our wells are lacking a time manipulation feeling aside from their descriptions. Like well of calamity. I dont really see how im rending and bending time. If anything id jus call it the well if damage and cripple with a dash of weakness lol

Ananeos.4587:

No. In fact, I feel more like an RPG character more than ever since the F5 is basically a save button.

That and somehow I’m giving people invisible pink fog makers that have nothing to do with timey wimey shenanigans. Maybe I own a street taco cart and giving people purple gas. Wasn’t the original way that Anet was going to represent Alacrity would be spinning clock hands on the left arm?

LOLOL yes this

OriOri.8724:

For me I don’t think alacrity will actually feel like manipulating time unless it is un-nerfed in PvE (at least back up to 50%). Slow isn’t unique to chronomancers, and we don’t even have all that much access to it outside of a few traits that no one uses because its just not powerful enough (if slow had been given the chill treatment for reapers where a chronomancer could trait it to apply a secondary effect to people we slow that would have been much better).

I love the class but I don’t get much of a sense of actually manipulating time from it

A return to the old one would be nice but would it really change flavor? No. I think the issue is actually that quickness and chill have existed long before chrono did. Slow and alacrity are basically anti-quickness and anti-chill. Sure, we’re changing the rate at which people move through time but classes before chrono were already doing that.

tobascodagama.2961:

About as much as is actually possible in an MMO where you can’t actually, literally change time?

Mimic, Chrono F5 and actually quickdraw trait from ranger have that feel of immediate time travel. Not changing the rate but actually teleporting through time in a sense.

Well of Recall: (Mimic/Quickdraw ish) If your allies cast a utility when standing in the well, when the well ends it recharges one utility (can be somewhere between a 50-100% recharge).

Well of stasis (instead of gravity): Lock enemies in time (create a continuum rift for each enemy hit) when well of stasis expires, send them back to their initial location and daze them on return. Doesn’t have to reset health and CDs, just location.

Old well of precog which made your allies attacks unblockable: “predict your enemies defense moves!”

Other video game mechanics that could work in an MMO:

Well of Deja Vu: The ability to have someone be hit again with the same attack or feel the pain of prior attacks again. Any damage you take while in a well is tallied up. When the well ends, a fraction of that damage is done to the target. This for example would especially be nice for Mesmer DPS in PvE. It turns your allies bursts in a burn phase into extra damage without buffing the Chronos personal dps much. The % of bonus damage could be different for PvE and PvP to keep it balanced or there could be an cap on how much it could do.

I don’t know if this could work in gw2. A stun break that sends you back in time to 3 seconds ago. Basically tracer recall from overwatch.

I think that the idea of cs should be embedded with all or some of the traits and utilities skills
Like all wells have 2 effects
When you activate it you create a rift at your location and when you press it second time you come back in time to your location and skills recharge while the Wells do their job it design to do
Regarding hp when you break a rift of time you consume 25% from your hp which was before

Could be interesting

Slow – for mesmer we need more skills that proc it
Also give 20% bonus dmg to foe you manage to slow
Also any skill used by foe while being slow increase it recharge by 50%
Quickness -more abilities to share it with group with low cd of skills like shatters . When shatter you give quickness around you for 3 sec
Alacrity – should be 50% and not spammable on allies. It should be use on allies at key moments. So good communication will be needed or good awareness.
The functionality should be that every skill being used while alacrity is on you get 50% recharge

This is how you control time

I kinda felt like a chronomancer when HoTfirst came out. The real problem for me is that I just get too involved in completing the same rotations over and over again or just defeating the boss that I don’t really take the time to think how the class (or any class) feels at all. If I was role playing, I . . . . think I might feel like a chronomancer. Part of the problem for me as well is there is not enough content where you can really “see” the effects of quickness/alacrity and slow/chill. When quickness and slow worked on stomping, it was so cool watching people go in slow motion and you definitely felt like a chronomancer. I want slow and quick stomps back If there was more content in the game with long drawn out animations that were affected by slow and quickness than I think you would notice it more. However, everything in the game is actually relatively quick to begin with to really notice that much.

Nicely said Xstein, +1 to that.

Also though, we have to caution with “be careful what you ask for…” on this, because one of the key reasons why for example CS/F5 is lackluster in making you feel like a Chronomancer, is simply due to the fact that it works on Elites. This turns CS into little more than an Elite Doubler, and that of course has to be balanced out elsewhere as much as possible.

So CSs duration was drastically cut to compensate for it’s power to double Elites, but we all know that this only leads to Elites being nerfed (Moa), or things simply remaining out of balance and keeping us from getting much needed improvements elsewhere.

I for one have said from day 1 of reading about Chrono, that Elites should not be affected by CS, and I stand to that until this day. In return of course, we would need to un-nerf CSs duration, so that you can actually use it to do neat tricks, confuse/juke etc. (And of course more improvements to sustain, and DPS, and of course to power shatter in general.)

I also agree that Anet took kind of the cheap way out for “fixing” Mesmers with HoT, through the Chrono line, putting things in there that simply do not belong there. (It’s just really hard to enjoy the profession without Chronophantasms and the passive 25% speed, not to mention the super-speed shattered illusions.)

These were all things that needed to happen to Mesmers for sure, but not in the Chrono line! The passive speed should be on a Signet, all illusion generation needs to be a normalized baseline ability of the class (DUH!), and shattering should always make illusions run at speed5 and be invulnerable (at least for a second or two.) There are simply too many other counters available to shatters, to include illusion death (especially now that on-death traits are gone!), and slow-moving shattered illusions that have no prayer of reaching a moving target in today’s game. (Not to even mention pathing issues that enemies frequently abuse to counter illusions.)

In short, no I don’t feel like a Chrono and I feel Anet has managed to rip away almost everything that was cool about the original idea, and replaced it with generic stuff that makes it feel like little more than just a new name for the “same old same old.”

Also hugely agree that Slow on Stomps was perhaps the single biggest ability to make you feel like a Chronomancer. It’s sad that everything that makes us unique ends up being watered down, and usually with no (or lacking) compensation elsewhere.

Take the new improvements for iDefender and iDisenchanter? How on earth did Anet manage to miss the fact that the single biggest issue these two have always had, simply was the ludicrous 1.5s cast time!? It’s just plain too long in today’s game, no matter how you dress it up!

Not to even mention that we literally have to room on the bar for especially iDefender. It would need to be a LOT better then it is, to make it worthwhile. (caugh BulkwardGyro caugh)

With the nerf’s to alacrity, quickness and slow, Chronomancer doesn’t feel much like a “time mage” at all.

Chronomancer is: “superspeed illusions”, “auto clone generation”, “auto phantasm generation” and instance shatter/skill reset.

Basically, Chronomancer has given Mesmer’s a superior replacement to Deceptive Invasion. We can shatter BIGGER and more OFTEN. Time manipulation really has nothing to do with Chronomancer.

If I was Robert Gee (or whomever is in charge of Mesmer design), here’s what I’d do.

Domination: Swap “Illusionary Reversion” with “Furious Interuptions”
Dueling: DE already there..
Chaos: Move Chronophantasma to Chaos, maybe take Mirror of Anguish to Chorno..but change it that it has some kind of time component.. Like if your CC’d, you gain quickness or alacrity instead.
Inspiration: No changes here.. Inspiration already has traits to make your illusions stronger and generate on blocks..
Illusions: Again no changes here.. Illusion has “Illusionists’ Celerity” to reduce all illusion summoning skills.
Chronomancer: “Time Catches Up” and CS both stay. Combined with 2 other trait lines it still makes shatters better. But now the traitline is more focused on quickness, slow and alacrity applications.

Keep in mind, that every build has 3 traitlines… So this really isn’t a “nerf” to chrono, but more about spreading what its current strengths are to the “core Mesmer” and making Chronomancer more about “time manipulation” and not illusion generation.

Moving Furious Interrupts and Mirror of Anguish to Chrono is not necessary. My idea is more about spreading Chrono’s “illusion generating” traits into the core Mesmer. So if anyone has some better ideas for Chrono traits that are more about “time”, please feel free to add your ideas.

Windwalker.7421:

Nicely said Xstein, +1 to that.

Also though, we have to caution with “be careful what you ask for…” on this, because one of the key reasons why for example CS/F5 is lackluster in making you feel like a Chronomancer, is simply due to the fact that it works on Elites. This turns CS into little more than an Elite Doubler, and that of course has to be balanced out elsewhere as much as possible.

So CSs duration was drastically cut to compensate for it’s power to double Elites, but we all know that this only leads to Elites being nerfed (Moa), or things simply remaining out of balance and keeping us from getting much needed improvements elsewhere.

I for one have said from day 1 of reading about Chrono, that Elites should not be affected by CS, and I stand to that until this day. In return of course, we would need to un-nerf CSs duration, so that you can actually use it to do neat tricks, confuse/juke etc. (And of course more improvements to sustain, and DPS, and of course to power shatter in general.)

I also agree that Anet took kind of the cheap way out for “fixing” Mesmers with HoT, through the Chrono line, putting things in there that simply do not belong there. (It’s just really hard to enjoy the profession without Chronophantasms and the passive 25% speed, not to mention the super-speed shattered illusions.)

These were all things that needed to happen to Mesmers for sure, but not in the Chrono line! The passive speed should be on a Signet, all illusion generation needs to be a normalized baseline ability of the class (DUH!), and shattering should always make illusions run at speed5 and be invulnerable (at least for a second or two.) There are simply too many other counters available to shatters, to include illusion death (especially now that on-death traits are gone!), and slow-moving shattered illusions that have no prayer of reaching a moving target in today’s game. (Not to even mention pathing issues that enemies frequently abuse to counter illusions.)

In short, no I don’t feel like a Chrono and I feel Anet has managed to rip away almost everything that was cool about the original idea, and replaced it with generic stuff that makes it feel like little more than just a new name for the “same old same old.”

Also hugely agree that Slow on Stomps was perhaps the single biggest ability to make you feel like a Chronomancer. It’s sad that everything that makes us unique ends up being watered down, and usually with no (or lacking) compensation elsewhere.

Take the new improvements for iDefender and iDisenchanter? How on earth did Anet manage to miss the fact that the single biggest issue these two have always had, simply was the ludicrous 1.5s cast time!? It’s just plain too long in today’s game, no matter how you dress it up!

Not to even mention that we literally have to room on the bar for especially iDefender. It would need to be a LOT better then it is, to make it worthwhile. (caugh BulkwardGyro caugh)

Well said. I agree. I feel like ANET should make slow, quickness and confusion conditions/boons, specific to Mesmer/ Chronomancer.

Knowing other classes can do that, they might as well give alacrity production to every other class to and ooo a portal skill.

Illusionary Reversion is very much a time mage trait. You’re turning back time to bring back one if the illusions you just shattered.

The most impactful time manipulation on Chronomancer is that they spend 25% less time running from place to place.

^ lol Cecilia, too true! :-)

I dream about a mesmer elite skill that creates a time bubble in which everything and everyone with the mesmer being slowed a little less than everyone else, allowing you to do some projectile dodging ala Matrix style.

No, really not. But a problem I have with a lot of skills is that the game is too spammy and too “lightweight” as a result.

I wish my skills had more individual impact, Time Warp making people slow to a crawl animations and movement wise while they try to walk through it, visibly slowing down projectiles passing through, while my people moving through would be blurred from their raw speed.
Continuum split causing a giant clockface, from which cracks start spreading through the game’s graphics (painted onto the game world, not as an overlay) as the timer ticks down, culminating in “reality shattering”.

And so on.

I mean lets face it though if we actually felt like a chronomancer we would be pretty OP xD

Time manipulation is by nature overpowered.

I actually feel that the Chronomancer is a great move for a specialization! The power and balance of the class is fine, however I don’t entirely disagree with the post as I feel that there should more aesthetic changes from the mesmer to the Chrono; specifically in regards to the shattering of illusions. The mesmer is a different path. While the Chronomancer studied the path of illusions, he moved on to master time and space. His shatters should reflect the change. Instead of butterflies and misdirection, it should be shattered glass and rips in reality. A few animation changes would make ALL the difference in the class. Also where is the world lore for Chronomancers? Where is the head school of study? Build into the world more role playing and social exploration.
Cheers, V.

I feel that the chronomancer is a great specialization and does fill its role except for:

• Time Catches Up
• Illusionary Reversion
• Chronophantasma
• Time Marches On

which just feel like mesmer fixes and not chronomancer traits. Sadly they are the PvP meta traits… precisely because they fix significant design flaws that cripple the class since launch.

Essentially, I felt like a chronomancer when I was playing the bunker in the very beginning or when I play PvE. I PvP, now, I just feel like an enhanced mesmer.

Yeah Chrono was just watered down at every turn. Look at Slow, which was almost unique to us at first and really had a huge impact. Now? I don’t think anyone seriously cares much at the moment if they’re Slowed or not.

Now considering that Slow was going to be one of the major synergies in the Chrono line. You can choose an Adept, a Master, and a GM trait surrounding Slow and building synergy with it. It was nerfed into oblivion. Literally no build I’ve seen in months uses any of these, much less a combination.

No wonder! The GM is plain terrible! Why this needed nerfing no one will ever understand, and once Slow was toned down multiple times it just became a pathetic choice of a GM trait.

Seize the Moment on the other hand is pretty cool and feels pretty powerful, but sadly lacks synergy for the Mesmer him/herself as we just don’t benefit that much from Quickness IMO. For team play it has some synergy for sure when it’s shared.

Then there is Alacrity! Another sad tale of over-nerfing that has left it basically useless in PvP, and probably still OPd in PvE. A bit ironic, but at least for the Chrono himself there should be a LOT more Alacrity after that ridiculous 50% nerf to it without any compensation whatsoever.

Even with Improved Alacrity you really hardly notice it’s effect in general PvP unless you also spec Wells with AWTEW, which of course brings you to another major major nerf target; Wells. Who uses them now? Seriously!?

How can you not be disappointed in your own work when all your “balancing” only leads to literally no one using many many of the abilities you’ve nerfed? How can you leave it like that for months or years on end? What a waste of effort! It took hard work to create them, and only the stroke of a knee-jerk nerf to demote them into being completely unused.

I for one would be furious if I was a project lead on GW2 and had spent so much time and effort designing and implementing all these cool abilities, only to have them go unused because someone got overzealous with the nerf bat down the road. That it happens is fine, but that it happens so much in GW2 and then stays that way for months on end is not fine. It’s a sure sign of someone at the helm either not caring, or not caring enough!

So in the end, I would feel much more like a manipulator of time if Alacrity had a greater impact at least on myself, if Slow had a significant enough impact in PvP that made our opponents want to blow a cleanse just to remove it.

only because I trait for Glamour and still use Time Warp

Make Slow Great Again.

I mean if anything we just don’t have enough specialization, which is funny if you consider just how many knobs to turn exist. Gear with stats, sigils, runes, traitlines, traits, skills, weapons. And yet everything feels bland.

Which, to be fair, isn’t entirely unexpected: The amount of combinations of character setup GW2 allows is flat out unmanageable for any realistic dev team. So the only way to provide “balance” is to wash out any identifying feature of the character so that ultimately, it all becomes a slurry of similar effects.

Because frankly, what Chronomancer should be is this:

• Speeding up allies’ animations/movement.
• Speeding up recharge speed. Note that this works for yourself, the above doesn’t, it’d be our main group support.
• Slowing down enemy animations/movement.
• In very focused situations, undoing or freezing elements of the combat.

These four elements should be all of it. That is to say, no 30k DPS via spamming phantasms or an autoattack. No condition spam. No slurry of boons. No hard CC and constant interrupts.

But in return, these four points should be very very strong. They define the Chronomancer, after all. Having one appear in an enemy team means the enemy team is supercharged and yours is slow, only there’s this rather defenseless person in their team whose death ends all the magic.

Sadly, setups like these (“actual” class identity) are currently impossible in GW2.

(edit)
At the very least, please do this devs:

• Quickness not a boon.
• Quickness back to 100%.
• Slow not a debuff.
• Slow to 100% (half speed).
• Alacrity now gives 200% regen bonus (Skills recharge in 1/3rd their normal time!).
• Time Warp applies Quickness, Alacrity and Super Speed to allies, Slow to enemies. Alacrity is added via a Grandmaster-level trait for Chronomancers.
• Access to Alacrity severly restricted. No more AWTEW, no Alacrity-on-shatter, the +50% self-duration stays. Main sources are 5s from the Well and 10s from a talented Time Warp.

^ I like the basic premise and fully agree that this is what Chronomancy should be, and IMO was the original intent. There is not much related to damage in Chrono, but mainly buffs & debuffs related to time/speed. Sadly these were watered down for all the wrong reasons, rather than fixing the actual problems. (CS should never have been allowed to affect Elites for example. Huge balance issue that basically forces nerfs on Elites & CDs, among other nerfs, just to keep something that is obviously going to be OPd.)

If HoT had stayed true to the ideal of not replacing Core but augmenting it with another choice, then Chrono would have been focused in exactly the way you describe. A really annoying, highly impactful buffer/debuffer, but with only mediocre damage & sustain. (And certainly you’d only want to have 1 on your team, but you really really would want that one…especially if the other team has one, to counteract the slowing effects.)

Oh well…water under the bridge…

Windwalker.7421:

If HoT had stayed true to the ideal of not replacing Core but augmenting it with another choice, then Chrono would have been focused in exactly the way you describe.

Oh well…water under the bridge…

This is so important. You both are so right. Unfortunately, the reality is that despite what was promoted, that was never their true intentions… because they’re a business. That being said, I’m hoping they won’t have to subject themselves to continued power creep in the next expansion and that they have some stronger selling points outside of elite specs.