Guild Wars 2

Well, Pyro hated the first version of this build, so let’s see how v2 goes

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAre7cnsIClphNqBGqBEgilnj6sACgDreQT0FFdxasDA-TFyCABA8AAsU9HX2f4hjAQe6Hm4kAkoSwsU+FAAB4mtZb2mBDdoDdoDdoNzZe0Ze0ZWKgFFWB-w

What I’m trying to do here is come up with a concept that does both power and condi damage (not worried about exactly 50-50 split) such that there is a strong and sustained level of damage (doesn’t need to really burst) while still giving very solid defense.

I’d love feedbadk – thx!

Edited to update gear – meant to switch to all carrion and strength runes

seems like you went more defensive than hybrid.. i play hybrid and it works well in spvp. but i play rampagers. the build you linked seems like you are very concerned with dieing more than you are with killing something.

also im not sure how this is hybrid other than you using rabid/dire gear in a build that mostly benefits from power.

Thx for the feedback. Most of the gear is carrion, but I have the dire plus rabid trinkets already so I’m just planning on using them.

The hybrid idea in this build comes from the might generation along with decent condition and power base numbers. It’s possible to get 12+ might stacks from just shattering based on some early tests and some on-paper analysis.

Since the scepter attacks scale nicely with power as well as providing conditions, the idea is to take advantage of the might stacks in both respects. The blocks will probably frustrate attackers, but they also serve the purpose of keeping a steady supply of illusions. With steady illusion supply, you can shatter very frequently. With frequent shatters, you get direct and condi damage, healing, condi clears, alacrity, and might stacks.

this is a super quick hybrid build as i would play it.. im sure there lots of people who would qq about this also..

http://de.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAre7cnsIClphNqBGqBEgilnj6sACgDreQT0FFdxasDA-TFyCABA8AAsU9HX2f4hjAQe6Hm4kAkoSwsU+FAAB4mtZb2mBDdoDdoDdoNzZe0Ze0ZWKgFFWB-w

ya. but might alone dosent apply condi to your opponent.. you need some way to take advantage of the hybrid aspect of the build other than scepters normal attack/block/beam.

The conditions in this build do come primarily from the scepter. The other sources are confusion on shatter and bleeds on weapon swap (plus you get pretty steady vulnerability to enhance damage and slow as an occasional cover condition).

When I look at the condi damage for a build like this, I think about applying versus cleansing. If 100% alacrity can be maintained, you get things like this:
- scepter block available every 2 seconds
- confusing images available every 4 seconds
- mindwrack (up to 4 confusion stacks) every 4 seconds
- cry of frustration (up to 8 confusion stacks) every 8 seconds
- diversion (up to 4 confusion) every 11 seconds

So it feels like you can keep at least some confusion on as a steady basis, and eventually be able to land a scepter block that can’t be dodged or quickly purged. And occasionally, you can spike confusion up to 10-12 stacks that will be hard to purge just based on how frequently it can be re-applied.

You can argue that 100% alacrity may not be realistic. With no alacrity speeding up the cooldowns and not using ether signet, the build gives about kittenterable-illusions per minute. With the 50% alacrity trait, that’s over 50 seconds of alacrity per minute without counting any effect from the iAvengers. Just a little bit of alacrity takes the cooldowns low enough that it should be possible to keep 100% alacrity. Lots can and will go wrong here, but the basic point is that it should be possible to shatter extremely frequently and use the scepter skills frequently to keep the condi pressure on.

At least that’s what I think, but I missed last beta weekend and didn’t get to test.

Edit: Not sure what triggered the forum profanity blocker, but the base number is forty-five illusions that can be used for shatters per minute (that’s counting phantasms twice because of chronophantasma)

eldenbri.1059:

When I look at the condi damage for a build like this, I think about applying versus cleansing. If 100% alacrity can be maintained, you get things like this:
- scepter block available every 2 seconds
- confusing images available every 4 seconds
- mindwrack (up to 4 confusion stacks) every 4 seconds
- cry of frustration (up to 8 confusion stacks) every 8 seconds
- diversion (up to 4 confusion) every 11 seconds

Your numbers are way off… 100% alacrity uptime is about a 40% CD reduction last i checked.

Not sure why you’re so attached to shattered strength, it’s really not that good. If you want to do hybrid damage, you need actual condition pressure, and random stuff from scepter skills + an on swap isn’t going to cut it. MtD would.

here is my version for pvp hybrid build

i took inspiration for condi cleanse mainly but if you can handle with out them take duelist for more clones and bleeding or chaos for more chaos armor time protection and conditions attached to it (blind confusion)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWncfClphlfCmqBEgiFlj6MAWgIrORj0KFtyGoIA-TZRHwAm3fIwpAAZZABHBAAPAAA

didnt test how slow effect the confusion dmg over time

Thx for all the feedback.

I’m not trying to be hardheaded here. I’ll go through the thinking that went into this and then get to the math of each point.

First, I want to play chronomancer for wvw roaming based primarily on the movement speed trait. I also like Stronghold, so it’s nice if the same build works in both places.

To me, the most interesting characteristics of Chronomancer are alacrity and making shatters more interesting for really active game play. So let’s take alacrity first.

The definition of alacrity is 66% recharge reduction. I did some timing tests on the first videos Robert Gee showed, and it looks like it does exactly that. For every 3 seconds of recharge time, you get an extra two seconds of recharge progress. And it counters chill which is 66% recharge increase, so that also seems logical. For any of the skills where you see “reduces recharge by 20%”, you can simply take the prior recharge time and multiply it by 0.8 to find the new time (e.g. Phantasmal Swordsman is a base 20 second recharge. If you have the 20% recharge trait from Illusions, it now has a 16 second recharge.) There were a few threads early on where this got debated, but I hadn’t seen any recent thread where this seemed like a debate.

Is anyone actually saying that alacrity itself produces less than 66% recharge reduction or that it somehow means something different than
new recharge time = old recharge time * 0.34

So then when you look at this specific build, the base recharge (before alacrity) for Illusionary Counter is 6 seconds and Confusing Images is 9.5 seconds (because of traits in the Illusions line). And if you have alacrity 100% of the time, then the 66% should apply to these values I think. But if I’m doing the math wrong or there’s some real-world evidence that it somehow works differently, I’d love to know!

You’re doing the math wrong and real world evidence says otherwise :p.

The devs did the math wrong too though, so you’re not alone in that. Permanent alacrity produces an experimentally tested reduction to 66% of the original recharge.

OK. So will it actually counter chill?

Has anyone recorded video of this with some time stamps? It’s a huge difference between reduces recharge by 66% versus it reduces recharge to 66% (which is only a 34% reduction).

I don’t think I’m actually doing the math wrong for my understanding of this effect, but it’s definitely key to understand if the description is wrong.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alacrity

eldenbri.1059:

OK. So will it actually counter chill?

Has anyone recorded video of this with some time stamps? It’s a huge difference between reduces recharge by 66% versus it reduces recharge to 66% (which is only a 34% reduction).

I don’t think I’m actually doing the math wrong for my understanding of this effect, but it’s definitely key to understand if the description is wrong.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Alacrity

1. You are doing your math wrong. Alacrity does not act on cooldowns directly like traits do, but rather it provides a specific amount of extra recharge per second. Think of it like augmenting the passage of time. For every second that passes, you should get 1.66 seconds off your cooldowns. The math is just algebra after that: Cooldown – (1s * time) – (.66s * time) = 0. Or, Cooldown = 1.66s*time, or time = cooldown/1.66.
1/1.66 = .6, so time = .6*cooldown. So time passed = .6 times the base cooldown.

2. Yes, the description is wrong if Pyro’s testing is accurate. The math says the coefficient should be .6, but he says it’s .66. What that means is that for every second that passes, alacrity is only adding .5 seconds of extra recharge. That means alacrity is either bugged, or it was implemented incorrectly. Since .66 aligns with the numbers that they presented, if not the math, Pyro is assuming that the programmers who implemented alacrity didn’t understand the math.

3. No, it will not completely counter chill. Afaik, Chill is accurately increasing cooldowns the way it was planned to, at -.66 rate, which can only be countered by a +.66 rate, so the current +.5 rate is not going to do the job.

OK. Part 2 of my mini-novel How does shattered strength compare to MtD?

NOTE: I started writing this before the response on Alacrity, so the calculations below may be off (the 66% versus 34% reduction difference is big). It takes a while to write something this long…

As Pyro points out, the competing trait in this build would be Maim the Disillusioned.

Here’s how I think the two of these actually play out (and again, I’m looking for input on why my on-paper analysis may be off target).

With MtD, you get a stack of torment for each shatter that hits. The build editor shows that as 739 damage for non-moving and 1478 damage moving over a 9-second span if not cleansed.

With shattered strength, you get 14.5 seconds of might for each shatter (doesn’t matter if it hits or not).

OK, so now we need to try to imagine what’s actually happening in a fight to see which is actually better. For me as a player, I tend to use Confusing Images whenever it comes up. I like the skill (especially with Malicious Sorcery). I also use the blocks basically whenever they come up (I like the defense, and it seems like people are not used to fighting against lots of blocks). And of course, the goal here is to shatter basically as often as possible. So what will that look like in a real fight?

To make things a little more simple, let’s say I’m just sitting in scepter/sword (which is my preference). In a really good 60 second window, I would ideally have something like this going on:
- Confusing images (6 times)
- Illusionary riposte (8 times)
- Illusionary counter (10 times)
- Cast phantasmal swordsman (4 times)
- Cast phantasmal disenchanter (4 times)
- Mindwrack (8 times)
- Cry of frust (5 times)
- Diversion (3 times)

This is a model and real world fights have lots of variation. If opponents never hit the blocks, you don’t have as many clones (and iDefenders) to shatter. The ether signet can get you some extra phantasms to replace some of this. But you have to pick some model to analyze.

So the difference between Shattered Strength and MtD looks something like this:

MtD: 64 max possible torment stacks. Shattering is pretty hectic at this pace, so let’s assume I get 40 actual hits. These come basically every 3.75 seconds. Let’s say someone can remove all the conditions I apply once every 10 seconds. That gives 6.25 seconds of torment from each hit. If we say that someone is moving 75% of the time, then MtD in this model should contribute something like. 40 * 898 = 35,920 damage (basically in the 60 seconds – clearly it takes time to land the first shatters and some of this is condi damage ticking after the 60-second window, but the goal here is a fairly simple model).

So now, we need to look at what shattered strength would deliver. With 16 shatters in 60 seconds, it means 4 might stacks every 3.75 seconds. With a 14.5 second duration, this comes out to about 15 stacks of might on a steady basis. You can surge at the start of the fight with the F5 skill, and the runes add some stacks. But let’s call it 13 stacks to be conservative. So that’s 390 more power and condi damage.

Using the model of attacks, this results in a direct damage increase of:
- Confusing images (6 times) = 2628
- Illusionary riposte (8 times) = 2344 (assuming you actually do block each time)
- Illusionary counter (10 times) = 1460
- Cast phantasmal swordsman (4 times) = 2216 (assuming you get 8 attacks by pausing after each shatter)
- Mindwrack (8 times) = 2376

We’ll ignore any other increases from the other shatters, auto-attacks, retaliation on the phantasms, etc. So that’s about 11,024 more direct damage.

Then here’s the condition damage side of things. There are three damaging conditions (confusion, torment, and bleed). For confusion, it averages out to about 2 stacks being applied every second with assumptions above. Half of these have 12-second durations and the other half are 5 seconds. We’re assuming the opponent cleanses all conditions every 10 seconds. To keep things simple, lets just say there are 4 stacks on every second (clearly there will be bursts that are much higher).

So at 4 stacks every second, the extra condi damage from might is equal to 18,000 – 14,640 = 3360.

If we assume a skill use every 1.5 seconds, we have 40 skill uses during this time by the opponent. So the difference from might there is 26,528 – 22,624 = 3904.

For torment (excluding MtD), there’s a scepter block every 6 seconds. Good opponents dodge this, but there’s also some torment from auto-attack. The block torment lasts 12 seconds, but we’re assuming it gets purged every 10 seconds. What really happens is that you get peaks and valleys sometimes with 10 stacks of torment on. But again, to keep things simple, let’s just call this 4 stacks of torment for the whole fight (and again use the moving 75% of the time fraction). That gives a difference of 41,850 – 34,480 = 7370 for the extra might.

Lastly, bleed comes from the sigils. It’s 3 stacks applied on swap. For this model, we’re not really imagining swapping weapons and it’s only 70 damage per second more with three bleed stacks when you add 390 condition damage. So we’ll just skip it.

So with all these assumptions, MtD adds 35,920 and Shattered Strength adds a total of 21,754. So based on this model, Pyro’s right – MtD is better. But they are close enough that it’s not a huge difference. In a scenario with a lot of condi clearing, might closes the gap more. And in terms of getting big chunks of damage when someone uses a skill with 12 confusion stacks or moves with 10 torment, the might helps make this build a little more bursty.

But since the alacrity effect make work differently than the wiki says, all of this may be out the window.

At least it probably counts as my longest forum post ever Congrats to anyone who had the patience to read this…

And I finally went back to the fine print in the wiki which solves all of this. Thanks for your patience with me

So using this:
For every second under effect of Alacrity, skills recharge 1.66 seconds

It should take about 3.6 seconds to recharge Illusionary Counter (scepter 2).

And about 6.3 seconds to recharge MindWrack (assuming alacrity is up for the whole time).

You could still get close to the number of shatters described in the model above, but it’s definitely a big difference.

Thx again for the help clarifying

Your analysis is waaaaaay faulty. You’re making some stupendous assumptions that are absolutely unrealistic.

First: you’re neglecting the effect of bursts. You’re just saying ‘well, let’s assume we can smooth this out to an average and analyze it at that’. This isn’t ok, you can’t do that. Burst is what kills people 90% of the time, not sustained pressure. Sustained pressure has other effects, but if you actually want a kill, you need burst damage, otherwise they’ll just sustain against it or disengage temporarily.

Next: you’re assuming a scepter block very 6 seconds. This is really wrong. At best, you’ll get one every 10 seconds, but this is going to be against someone not good at dodging. The majority of time against a good player, you’ll be getting a block every 15-20 seconds instead.

So to add it all up. You’re drastically overestimating how much condition pressure you’ll be able to apply. Additionally, you’re neglecting the effect of bursting damage, which MtD supples but shattered strength does very poorly. When you consider both of those, MtD is a far stronger choice.

It seems like this build is stuck on the fact that you want it to be as easy to play as possible. Only pushing your scepter buttons and shatter. Instead of maxing your potential as a mesmer. Dont look for the easiest to play, look for the best in a fight.

Thx much! This has been really helpful.

I’m not per se looking for something simple. I’ve played lots of different mesmer builds over the years. I was playing a hybrid (but mostly power) phantasm build with a focus on interrupting for quite a while.

What I’m looking for are elegant synergies that make the build powerful and interesting to play. I’m also looking for something a little different. I’ve never played a meta build because I like experimenting and learning. And playing builds that are different has the advantage of throwing other people off.

When I look at the changes coming in HoT, it feels to me like things are likely to get more deadly. So I’m trying to find something that can fight well, but also stay alive. I do a lot of solo roaming in WvW, and many times, I end up outnumbered. For a while I switched from mesmer to ranger because a trapper ranger was just amazing in outnumbered fights.

So now I’m looking for something a little different. But my on-paper analysis so far has been off the mark, and the feedback here is helping me to refine my ideas. Thx!