Mesmers need its own F5 skill or Chronomancer’s F5 replaces the F4 skill(Distortion) instead.
I don’t care what ANet does either way, I want to make a choice of being a mesmer or being a Chronomancer. I do not want to be a Chronomancer because it is way stronger than mesmer.
It’s good to know that after hours of extensive playtesting chronomnancer you’ve come to this conclusion and shared it with us.
Thankyou for your insight.
Man, i was hoping this was going to be a suggestion about what key to rebind the F5 to. that thang is way too far away to reach for mortals with hands.
Man, i was hoping this was going to be a suggestion about what key to rebind the F5 to. that thang is way too far away to reach for mortals with hands.
Ctrl+5.
I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.
The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.
A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.
I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.
The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.
It still depends on the trait line. I foresee the trait line has a lot to do with the well skills . If you opt for a traditional shatter build, I feel you are probably still better off with Domination, Dueling and Illusions.
Domination offer strong dps, boon strip and interruption
Dueling offers Deceptive evasion and some more neat tricks.
Illusions reduce your shatter recharge and improve your shatter.
None of these three can be easily given up. If we go for the chronomancer route, I think we will build our mesmer completely differently compared to its current high burst damage role.
I’m guessing the reason they called it F5 is because it has its own slot, otherwise they would have called it an F4 replacement.
Can people please stop trying to break something they know nothing about? By going into Chronomancy over normal shatter build, you lose out on either DE, 50% mind wrack damage or the illusions line which gives both buffs to your shatters as well as 20% clone skill cd reduction- all amazing things for shatter builds. Who knows what the chronomancy line will give us instead, for all we know it might not fit at all.
Same goes for builds other than shatter of course.
I wouldn’t put too much thought or even care to what the OP says or any person crying about the first specialization reveal.
Every specialization that gets released will have people calling for nerfs or changes to a class they know little about.
At this point, we can safely assume that how the new F5 skill works and is designed is not going to change (e.g., being moved to F4 or whatever crazy idea the OP wants).
Yeah, don’t get the early calls either. They might be right, or might wrong (I cannot tell you… well I could, but I’m not going to xD).
We will see what will happen. My impression is that ANet is just getting all the concepts in place atm and nearly everything will be subject to change. Remember how they teased Shadow Refuge as a mesmer skills and it got turned into a thief skill (can be seen under the professions tab on the website for the skill Veil)?
On the other hand, the OP might have a point, if in general an elite specialization – such as chronomancer – only adds features instead of exchanging them (in a broader concept and not in a button exchange meaning).
I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.
The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.
I agree with this.
If they do this, Chronomancer will suck
Replacing F4 shatter would be a very very strong limitation for mesmers. I think it would be too limiting… however, what if the Chronomancer would have a natural increased recharge for all shatter skills?
Man, i was hoping this was going to be a suggestion about what key to rebind the F5 to. that thang is way too far away to reach for mortals with hands.
1-0 is bound to the buttons on my mouse. Profession skills are bound to zxcv.
I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.
The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.
If you actually think about it, there are obvious tradeoffs. You don’t just get to take chrono for free, you have to give up one of the other traitlines. Say you’re doing power shatter with dom, duel, illu. Which do you give up? Either way, you’re giving up something significant.
It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.
It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.
We don’t, that would be stupid.
The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.
It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.
We don’t, that would be stupid.
The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.
With the exception of a few builds, you just get so much more out of Chronomancer. There needs to be something you give up other than a traitline. Giving up one traitline for another traitline (that can at least partially substitute what you gave up) plus new skills, a new weapon, and a new shatter is a no-brainer. It’ll be fine if the wells replace other skills.
I found this a little odd as well. Personally, I think it’s a better idea to just replace a shatter rather than add an additional one. For instance, replace distortion with chrono split (or whatever it’s called). That way, you get to use the new fancy thing, but you give up something else valuable for it.
I think it’s ok not to lose weapons and existing utility skills because taking those things mean you can’t take something else instead (i.e. take a well, but can’t take veil, take the shield, can’t take torch).
But for the shatters, there is no choice. You just get an extra thing on top of what the mesmer already has, thus somewhat losing the sense of trade-off when speccing into chronomancer.
The opposite concern is that the things chronomancer brings will be lackluster to compensate for the fact that you get an additional free shatter, which would a much worse scenario IMO.
This is the story of how Mesmers willingly chose to keep themselves out of the PvP meta…
Mesmers: “Let’s all agree to nerf ourselves before we even know how effective we are in the scope of elite specializations of all classes!”
ArenaNet: “Okay… Cool. We like handing out nerfs anyway.”
Other Classes: “I can’t believe those kittens chose to nerf themselves while the rest of us are sitting here enjoying our massive power creeps.”
(edited by Velimere.7685)
This is the story of how Mesmers willingly chose to keep themselves out of the PvP meta…
Mesmers: “Let’s all agree to nerf ourselves before we even know how effective we are in the scope of elite specializations of all classes!”
ArenaNet: “Okay… Cool. We like handing out nerfs anyway.”
Other Classes: “I can’t believe those kittens chose to nerf themselves while the rest of us are sitting here enjoying our massive power creeps.”
What we’re saying applies to all other classes too. There needs to be an opportunity cost for all specializations. Every class should have to give up some utilities.
It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.
We don’t, that would be stupid.
The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.
With the exception of a few builds, you just get so much more out of Chronomancer.
Well, this would be true, except that you’re just flat out wrong.
Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.
Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.
Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.
I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.
Conclusion
You’re wrong. You’re completely and totally wrong. Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.
What we’re saying applies to all other classes too. There needs to be an opportunity cost for all specializations. Every class should have to give up some utilities.
Poster: “Dear ArenaNet, what is the difference between a Specialization and an Elite Specialization?”
ArenaNet: “An Elite Specialization is… welll… elite.”
It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.
We don’t, that would be stupid.
The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.
With the exception of a few builds, you just get so much more out of Chronomancer. There needs to be something you give up other than a traitline. Giving up one traitline for another traitline (that can at least partially substitute what you gave up) plus new skills, a new weapon, and a new shatter is a no-brainer. It’ll be fine if the wells replace other skills.
Everything else aside, you risk sacrificing build synergy when choosing one trait line over another. Which will significantly effect the maximum potential of any particular build when going X trait line vs Chrono.
Current Dom/Duel/Ill is an obvious example in the current system. But you could make many more examples within the framework of current builds (going 4 vs 6 deep in various lines for various builds creating various ends).
Sure, keep riding this horse if you want, but it’s a lame horse if you take an honest look. I wouldn’t buy it.
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