Guild Wars 2

I’ve seen most guides and in-game chronotanks praise Gravity Well over Time Warp, regardless of Minstrel/ZerkMander setup. When I’ve inquired as to why, they usually shrug and refer to QT guides.

What am I missing here? Is perm-quickness just easy to maintain without Time Warp? Do different bosses require one or the other?

Assuming 100% boon duration, fractals, raids, and tank or non-toughness chrono, by the way.

Quickness, and boons in general, stack to a max of 5. Double soi, woa and tot are those 5 stacks. Since tw duration is shorter than the rest, it’s useless in ideal situations. Gravity well is decent cc and damage. That said, there are plenty of situations that aren’t ideal. 1 or both mesmers can be less than prefect. Tw hitting 10 ppl is great to cover the whole team. If ppl move around too much, boons are getting corrupted, alacrity can’t be at 100% do to said movement etc… Tw is worth it.

Really just breakbar CC while still doing some quickness and alacrity, Chronos make too much of it so they can afford to swap an elite.

“What am I missing here? Is perm-quickness just easy to maintain without Time Warp? Do different bosses require one or the other?” That’s it right there. Time warp is usually a waste considering how strong moa and gravity well are. The only time i take TW is if a group doesnt have a 2nd chrono.

Ananeos.4587:

Really just breakbar CC while still doing some quickness and alacrity, Chronos make too much of it so they can afford to swap an elite.

Nada, The group (party or squad) ussually has enough cc already. Rather you take Gravity well/Moa Signet or not. It’s true that chrono can keep up quickness without Time Warp. But the reason is duo to slight personal dps increase.

However as @DuckDuckBOOM said. That is in an ideal situations. Which doesn’t always happens. So in that sense i personally like to take timewarp in case i cant manage to upkeep quickness duo to w/e the reason.

Thanks for all your replies.

My take-away from this is to use Time Warp when pugging fractals, Gravity Well for co-ordinated fractals and raids, and Moa signet when I’m tanking raids.

Malice.8439:

Thanks for all your replies.

My take-away from this is to use Time Warp when pugging fractals, Gravity Well for co-ordinated fractals and raids, and Moa signet when I’m tanking raids.

Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life. It doesn’t provide anything other than massive breaking capability.

Wing 1 –
VG – Moa or TW, usually Moa especially when I’m tanking
Gorse – Moa, keeping up perfect rotation is quite easy so TW is not needed
Sabatha – TW

Wing 2 –
Sloth – Moa
Trio – TW
Matthias – Moa

Wing 3
Escort – TW
KC – Moa
Xera – Moa

Wing 4
Cairn – TW
Mursaat – TW
Samarog – Moa or TW, usually Moa
Deimos – TW

This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc, the breakbar is big and/or important like on Matthias or when basic rotation is very easy.

TW helps keeping quickness up for fights were perfect stacking is not that easy, getting perfect rotation is difficult. Yes it is useless IF you have pefect rotation and play, in all other scenarios it’s up to 40s of quickness (with 100% boon duration) to bridge those gaps which happen.

GW is a small dps increase and theoretically useful if you are nearing perfect rotations and perfect team play. I wouldn’t recommend it in pugs and even with fixed raid teams I’d not recommend it until you are reaching those permanent 90%+ quickness uptimes on all fights.

Persoanlly I’m at 85-90% quickness+alacrity uptime on most fights without TW (with a low 70-75% on Sloth) and 90%+ on fights were I bring TW. There is room for improvement but it’s good enough for my group.

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

“Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life.”
“This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc,[…]”

On almost all bosses with bigger breakbars it is your duty to break bars efficently. Moa is an almost instant 1000 breakbar dmg skill that does NOT require you to interrupt your rotation or swap weapons (I can’t stress this aspect enough, also it’s ranged and does not need to be aimed). Basically any other valuable cc does require people to interrupt whatever they are doing or even delay their rotations. Even if they do that, not even a ranger/druid can do that much cc in such a short period of time. Breaking bars fast is a heavy relief for the whole group and if youplay with tempests also a significant dps boost.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

“Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life.”
“This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc,[…]”

You did notice that my sentences went on right? Conveniently placing a … and leaving out the exact quote in my sentence which you are complaining about is, well petty. Here let me requote my full sentence:

Cyninja.2954:

Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc, the breakbar is big and/or important like on Matthias or when basic rotation is very easy.

Easily put you Moa when 1 or more of the following conditions is met:

A. your team sucks
B. the breakbar is big
C. the breakbar is important

Asgard Ragna.8165:

On almost all bosses with bigger breakbars it is your duty to break bars efficently. Moa is an almost instant 1000 breakbar dmg skill that does NOT require you to interrupt your rotation or swap weapons (I can’t stress this aspect enough, also it’s ranged and does not need to be aimed).

In which case the effort they have to bring is in direct contest with the amount of damage TW adds to the group if no perfect rotation is possible. If the breakbar is small and not important, TW can easily come out on top.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

Basically any other valuable cc does require people to interrupt whatever they are doing or even delay their rotations.

Again, the delay and loss in dps others take is competing with the loss your group has without TW (which I already mentioned is small the closer you get to a perfect rotation).

Now let’s look at what I had posted about bosses:

Wing 1 –
VG – Moa or TW, usually Moa especially when I’m tanking
Gorse – Moa, keeping up perfect rotation is quite easy so TW is not needed
Sabatha – TW – TW far ourscales Moa as far as Knuckles breakbar versus damage loss goes, no Moa

Wing 2 –
Sloth – Moa
Trio – TW – both work but the breakbars on Trio are not important and not big, TW again wins easy due to the nature of not stacking in this fight
Matthias – Moa

Wing 3
Escort – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
KC – Moa
Xera – Moa

Wing 4
Cairn – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Mursaat – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Samarog – Moa or TW, usually Moa
Deimos – TW - should have added I usually tank Deimos, but when every team I’ve been here with manages to break Sauls breakbar in the time it takes me to activate Moa, TW is a viable replacement even as utility mesmer

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

Yes be shocked as much as you like, but you are putting words in peoples mouths which were not said that way.

I don’t entirely agree Cyninja, you should always take moa on escort for the wargs….

Joking aside I usually take GW for sloth as we don’t lack the CC mostly and it’s useful to throw on slublings near the end to give you some respite when people don’t rotate as quick as they should and some go down.

I also sometimes use it on gorseval for the adds so they get constantly CC’d when pulled in. Your reasons are not wrong just saying I sometimes take GW for add control as we have a few people in my group who seem to always be in the wrong place getting hit by a lot of that stuff.

apharma.3741:

I don’t entirely agree Cyninja, you should always take moa on escort for the wargs….

Joking aside I usually take GW for sloth as we don’t lack the CC mostly and it’s useful to throw on slublings near the end to give you some respite when people don’t rotate as quick as they should and some go down.

I also sometimes use it on gorseval for the adds so they get constantly CC’d when pulled in. Your reasons are not wrong just saying I sometimes take GW for add control as we have a few people in my group who seem to always be in the wrong place getting hit by a lot of that stuff.

Oh absolutely, if that works for you go fot it. That’s the reason I tried to give a brief overview what the 3 elites are good for and which criteria are important when you decide to pick one.

The reason I was slightly ticked at Asgard Ragna.8165 was he picked 1 quote from person A and half a quote from me and decided to go with explaining why Moa is a must pick for mesmer. It’s not, it’s a high value pick on many fights (very very high value on some making it “must use”) but you always have opportunity costs with mesmer elites which gets dictated by the boss and group composition and ability of your raid.

Cyninja.2954:

apharma.3741:

I don’t entirely agree Cyninja, you should always take moa on escort for the wargs….

Joking aside I usually take GW for sloth as we don’t lack the CC mostly and it’s useful to throw on slublings near the end to give you some respite when people don’t rotate as quick as they should and some go down.

I also sometimes use it on gorseval for the adds so they get constantly CC’d when pulled in. Your reasons are not wrong just saying I sometimes take GW for add control as we have a few people in my group who seem to always be in the wrong place getting hit by a lot of that stuff.

Oh absolutely, if that works for you go fot it. That’s the reason I tried to give a brief overview what the 3 elites are good for and which criteria are important when you decide to pick one.

The reason I was slightly ticked at Asgard Ragna.8165 was he picked 1 quote from person A and half a quote from me and decided to go with explaining why Moa is a must pick for mesmer. It’s not, it’s a high value pick on many fights (very very high value on some making it “must use”) but you always have opportunity costs with mesmer elites which gets dictated by the boss and group composition and ability of your raid.

Yeah, I think people rely on Moa too much as well. What happens if mesmer is in a different role of say DPS or doesn’t use chrono and blurred inscriptions? Suddenly you might have 1 moa every 3 minutes, that’s twice in a fight, maybe 3 times, same would be true of time warp and no gravity well.

I guess right now we can only hope new specialisations make a power DPS role needed so blurred inscriptions is taken and Moa is somewhat useful on a 144s CD. That or we get an elite that’s more useful than Moa and quickness is covered by another class/classes.

I see what you mean about Asgard’s post.

The main reason I rarely take Moa is that it’s only going to save you from a breakbar once every 70ish seconds at best. How about samarog where the breakbar is every 10%? How about Matthias with a significant breakbar every 45 (seconds)? Even sloth will put up a bar more frequently than you can moa if your team is burning him hard.

If your team is usually solid with breaks and sometimes falters if say one particular person gets sacrificed, moa is a good choice. However, moa can’t pick up the slack of an entire team habitually failing to break.

Cyninja.2954:

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

“Moa signet is really only for when your team can’t break a bar to save their life.”
“This is the setup I run when raiding. Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc,[…]”

You did notice that my sentences went on right? Conveniently placing a … and leaving out the exact quote in my sentence which you are complaining about is, well petty. Here let me requote my full sentence:

Cyninja.2954:

Moa helps if your team members are sleeping on cc, the breakbar is big and/or important like on Matthias or when basic rotation is very easy.

Easily put you Moa when 1 or more of the following conditions is met:

A. your team sucks
B. the breakbar is big
C. the breakbar is important

Asgard Ragna.8165:

On almost all bosses with bigger breakbars it is your duty to break bars efficently. Moa is an almost instant 1000 breakbar dmg skill that does NOT require you to interrupt your rotation or swap weapons (I can’t stress this aspect enough, also it’s ranged and does not need to be aimed).

In which case the effort they have to bring is in direct contest with the amount of damage TW adds to the group if no perfect rotation is possible. If the breakbar is small and not important, TW can easily come out on top.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

Basically any other valuable cc does require people to interrupt whatever they are doing or even delay their rotations.

Again, the delay and loss in dps others take is competing with the loss your group has without TW (which I already mentioned is small the closer you get to a perfect rotation).

Now let’s look at what I had posted about bosses:

Wing 1 –
VG – Moa or TW, usually Moa especially when I’m tanking
Gorse – Moa, keeping up perfect rotation is quite easy so TW is not needed
Sabatha – TW – TW far ourscales Moa as far as Knuckles breakbar versus damage loss goes, no Moa

Wing 2 –
Sloth – Moa
Trio – TW – both work but the breakbars on Trio are not important and not big, TW again wins easy due to the nature of not stacking in this fight
Matthias – Moa

Wing 3
Escort – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
KC – Moa
Xera – Moa

Wing 4
Cairn – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Mursaat – TW – no breakbar, no Moa
Samarog – Moa or TW, usually Moa
Deimos – TW - should have added I usually tank Deimos, but when every team I’ve been here with manages to break Sauls breakbar in the time it takes me to activate Moa, TW is a viable replacement even as utility mesmer

Asgard Ragna.8165:

I’m kinda shocked how many people here don’t understand the value of the moa signet.

Yes be shocked as much as you like, but you are putting words in peoples mouths which were not said that way.

No, all your points are only true if you think that 2-3 seconds out of quickness is worse than horrible cc, which is not the case. If your rotation leaves you out of quickness for longer than that every full circle, timewarp won’t save you anyway. The problem here is that people make it sound like moa/gw is used in rare cases and TW is meta, but it’s actually the other way around. There are very (VERY) few situations were TW is the better choice even if your rotation is suboptimal. [Unless we are talking about open world, but peopleplay what ever they want here anyway.)

Asgard Ragna.8165:

No, all your points are only true if you think that 2-3 seconds out of quickness is worse than horrible cc, which is not the case. If your rotation leaves you out of quickness for longer than that every full circle, timewarp won’t save you anyway. The problem here is that people make it sound like moa/gw is used in rare cases and TW is meta, but it’s actually the other way around. There are very (VERY) few situations were TW is the better choice even if your rotation is suboptimal. [Unless we are talking about open world, but peopleplay what ever they want here anyway.)

13 raid bosses,
4 of which have 0 break bars,
3-4 of which have very unimportant break bars ,
essentially leaving 5-6 raid bosses for which Moa is a guaranteed use.

6 bosses out of 13 is hardly a majority worth saying that Moa is the go to elite. Also until you show me a screenshot for some of those fights where you and your entire party are at 90%+ quickness I’m not even going to bother to argue with you.

TW is always a better choise in 4 fights where there is no breakbars and a solid option on 3-4 other fights. That alone makes your entire argument unvalid.

Cyninja.2954:

Asgard Ragna.8165:

No, all your points are only true if you think that 2-3 seconds out of quickness is worse than horrible cc, which is not the case. If your rotation leaves you out of quickness for longer than that every full circle, timewarp won’t save you anyway. The problem here is that people make it sound like moa/gw is used in rare cases and TW is meta, but it’s actually the other way around. There are very (VERY) few situations were TW is the better choice even if your rotation is suboptimal. [Unless we are talking about open world, but peopleplay what ever they want here anyway.)

13 raid bosses,
4 of which have 0 break bars,
3-4 of which have very unimportant break bars ,
essentially leaving 5-6 raid bosses for which Moa is a guaranteed use.

6 bosses out of 13 is hardly a majority worth saying that Moa is the go to elite. Also until you show me a screenshot for some of those fights where you and your entire party are at 90%+ quickness I’m not even going to bother to argue with you.

TW is always a better choise in 4 fights where there is no breakbars and a solid option on 3-4 other fights. That alone makes your entire argument unvalid.

The OP also included fractals, which makes time warp almost irrelevant. And with 100% I mean 100% in neccessary situations. No one cares if a magi druid that goes green has 100% quickness uptime or not.

Asgard Ragna.8165:

Cyninja.2954:

Asgard Ragna.8165:

No, all your points are only true if you think that 2-3 seconds out of quickness is worse than horrible cc, which is not the case. If your rotation leaves you out of quickness for longer than that every full circle, timewarp won’t save you anyway. The problem here is that people make it sound like moa/gw is used in rare cases and TW is meta, but it’s actually the other way around. There are very (VERY) few situations were TW is the better choice even if your rotation is suboptimal. [Unless we are talking about open world, but peopleplay what ever they want here anyway.)

13 raid bosses,
4 of which have 0 break bars,
3-4 of which have very unimportant break bars ,
essentially leaving 5-6 raid bosses for which Moa is a guaranteed use.

6 bosses out of 13 is hardly a majority worth saying that Moa is the go to elite. Also until you show me a screenshot for some of those fights where you and your entire party are at 90%+ quickness I’m not even going to bother to argue with you.

TW is always a better choise in 4 fights where there is no breakbars and a solid option on 3-4 other fights. That alone makes your entire argument unvalid.

The OP also included fractals, which makes time warp almost irrelevant. And with 100% I mean 100% in neccessary situations. No one cares if a magi druid that goes green has 100% quickness uptime or not.

Then why are you quoting me when my entire very detailed respons dealt with actually important fights? Fractals are irrelevant since the breakbars there seldomly require more than a shield 5 combined with an F3 if even that.

You’ve also only now swung over to conveniently include fractals (and to be honest, no one cared in this thread because they are such hilariously easy content) when your earlier responses were aimed at raids.

Even in fractals though my recommendation of:

Moa is needed if:
A. Your team sucks (in which case I’d take GW in fractals over Moa)
B. the breakbar is big (which it’s not in fractals)
C. the breakbar is important (which again it’s not in fractals)

holds true.