Guild Wars 2

Most of us already speculated a lot of cool ways of playing the chronomancer in the future. However, I have seen few that paid too much attention to the new set of well skills. So how do you guys like it? Do they look good or underwhelming?

Let me just throw out some personal thoughts on the well skills
Well of Eternity:
Group healing skill. Also applies vigor which is pretty nice. There aren’t too many skills in the game that gives group-wide vigors. Unfortunately, the light field is definitely not one of the best ones out there.

Well of Action:
This is like a mini-version of timewarp. Damage and slows enemy. Give allies quickness at the end. This seems to be an awesome well at 30 sec cooldown.

Well of Calamity:
Our main damage well. Also weakens and cripples enemies. This also looks great at 20sec coolddown. Can be used in both large-scale and small scale fights. Should be very useful to peel off the nasty thieves.

Well of Precognition:
This looks really unique! It makes allies skills unblockable. This can be our main support skill in both PvP and WvW. The 2s blurr at the end is also pretty decent. More importantly, it is also a stunbreaker which means you can potentially give up decoy for it.

Well of Recall:
Looks like the most underwhelming well skill to me. It gives 3 sec of alacrity which is essentially 2 sec of cdr off all skills. You also have to stay in that small circle for all 3 seconds to benefit from it. The final chill is decent but there are plenty other skills applying chill that overshadows this. Damage is not very high either.

I think the alacrity and chill application order needs to be reversed for this well. So it pulses damage and chill on enemies while applying a long duration of alacrity(maybe 6 seconds). This way it can be used more offensively and if you can catch it by its end, yo u get a huge benefit.

Gravity Well:
Strong CC skill. Nothing too much to say. Looks pretty solid.

Trait?
All’s well that ends well: remove 1 condition for allies at its end.

A little bit lackluster. But it is the only condie removal from the whole trait line so I can see its use. However, since there is no cdr for the trait. Can we maybe add some alacrity to the trait as well? It can even swap place with improved alacrity trait.

Don’t really need them will probably use for fun.

Their cooldowns are a bit too long to see good use over other utilities for the most part.

For PvE at least you’ll still have one slot reserved for feedback, one slot reserved for portal, and one slot for either mimic or a well.

Also well of precognition is pretty bad. The effect should be backwards, distortion on activation and unblockable at detonation. Pre-empting any attack by 3 seconds in PvE is pretty much impossible, as most attacks happen way faster than that.

I think the main purpose of Well of Precognition is the unblockable attacks. If it were the other way around observant enemies would just dodge after the well ends. It’s an offensive (and PvP-focused) well, not a defensive one.

All’s Well Ends Well needs more. Given it pops 3 seconds after casting it should cleanse at least 2 conditions. A CD reduction for Wells might be nice too, maybe in the form of “Alacrity is ?x more effective on your Well skills”.

I’m still amazed that devs are more afraid of alacrity than quickness. Well of Recall 50% higher CD than Well of Action??? Since when 3s of chill and 3s of alacrity is better than 3s of slow and 3s of quickness? Or do you think it is?

Embolism.8106:

All’s Well Ends Well needs more. Given it pops 3 seconds after casting it should cleanse at least 2 conditions. A CD reduction for Wells might be nice too, maybe in the form of “Alacrity is ?x more effective on your Well skills”.

I was thinking of something of this line, although it may be a bit niche since chronomancer may just not use alacrity… CD reduction would be very nice, though anything will be better than 1 condition removed!

Embolism.8106:

I think the main purpose of Well of Precognition is the unblockable attacks. If it were the other way around observant enemies would just dodge after the well ends. It’s an offensive (and PvP-focused) well, not a defensive one.

^^^

Well of Precognition is a really strong skill, it just happens to be situational. The Evade at the end is hard to use, but making all ally skills unblockable for 3s is crazy good for the situations where you need it.

Yeah, and also useless in PvE. Switching the effects would be far more useful. You’d still get the unblockable within 3 seconds, as most blocks outside Guardian’s Shelter have longer durations than 3 seconds.

The problem with Chronomancer as well is that it has no PvE traits.

In the first tier the only viable PvE trait is All’s Well that Ends Well, and that’s a bad trait because condition removal is amply available by other means in PvE, including our heals.

Slow on interrupt is worthless in PvE, where mobs with defiance don’t count an interrupt so the effect doesn’t trigger.

Superspeed on illusions when shattered is beyind worthless in PvE.

Then on the master tier you only have danger time. You don’t need to generate a clone when you shatter because that would destroy your phantasms.

33% extra duration on alacrity when most alacrit doesn’t last beyond 3 seconds is pretty much worthless as a trait.

And the minors for chronomancer are pvp centric as well, since you want to shatter as little as possible in pve.

Time Marches On’s value on dungeons is greatly diminished, because you’ll always have swiftness from either guardians or warriors or eles which is greater than 25% movement speed, and 25% decreased duration on movement impairing conditions is inconsequential in PvE.

I plan on trying a Wells build for GvG. Only time will tell.

Lol there are so many things op with mesmer after patch… I have to correct myself. Yes I will use allot of the new stuff. (Especially alacrity)

Sounds like reversing the order effect on both well of recall and well of precognition would be a good change.

So staying in well of precognition gives you blurr and after it ends you get some time for unblockable attacks. This well make it much more obvious how to use the well. Place it uppon allies that need help. After it ends, you get a good time window to strike back.

As for well of recall, it can be placed uppon enemies for the chilling and damaging. Before it ends, you can go in there for some nice alacrity buff.

Hope such changes are justified enough for devs to implement them.