Guild Wars 2

I’d like to preface this by saying that in my opinion, all the wells are great (Kudos to Rob Gee and Team). Each well has an interesting role and is competitive with its counterparts. Each well offers a strong, unique effect and many of them work very well when combined. As a result, it’s really hard for me to list my favorite wells but from least to favorite it goes…

• Well of Eternity - (30s CD) Creates a well that rewinds time, removing conditions from allies. When it expires, the well heals all allies in the area.

I mostly take this out of obligation. It’s a good heal, not much better than Mirror or Ether Feast except that it grants alacrity, removes 3 conditions, AND heals allies for a decent burst. It’s a powerful ability, especially when double-cast with f5, but if I’m not going supportive (or don’t need the condi removal) I wouldn’t choose it.

• Well of Precognition - (45s CD) Creates a well that gives allies the ability to see the future and allows them to evade(Blur) all incoming attacks. When the well ends, allies within the well regain 35% endurance.

It’s not that I don’t like this well, it’s just that I like it less than all the others. I actually love this well, and its extremely useful in all gametypes, though a bit tricky to learn to use properly at first.

• Well of Action - (30s CD) Create a well of delayed time, damaging and slowing(1s) foes. When the well expires, time snaps back, granting quickness(3s) to allies.

As a mini Timewarp, this skill rocks. It’s better dropped defensively on yourself or a downed ally/enemy, though the damage it does isn’t bad. Maybe it’s my love for slow, or how easy this skill makes it to stomp/rezz/prevent stomps, or maybe it’s the nerdy D20 Dungeons & Dragons (Or Pathfinder, if you will) dice for it’s icon but this skill won a special place in my heart.

• Well of Recall - (40s CD) Creates a well that steals memories from foes, damaging and chilling them. When it expires it restores memories to allies, granting 5s Alacrity.

From my least favorite to one of my most, well of Recall’s very slight adjustment has made it a competitor with Well of Action. Recall now does the same amount of damage as Action per pulse, while striking foes with Chill rather than Slow. The big difference here is the final pulse: 5-7 seconds of Alacrity makes a bigger difference than 3s Quickness.

• Gravity Well - (90s CD) Create a powerful well that warps space in an area, knocking down, floating, and pulling foes caught in its event horizon. When it expires, foes still inside the well take heavy damage.

I’m sorry, but this well is HIL-AROUS to watch. People get lifted dropped, and dragged all while taking heavy damage. It’s very powerful against anyone not smart enough to bring a stunbreak or not able to capitalize on the (very narrow) window of escape. When traited with Power Block this skill is glorious.

• Well of Calamity - (20s CD) Creates a well that rends time, damaging, weakening(2s) and crippling(2s) foes in the area. When the final pulse of Well of Calamity triggers, it deals massive damage to foes in the area.

My favorite well, though not by a longshot. This happens to be the well that is constantly on my skillbar, it offers defense in the form of Weakness along with massive damage, heavily dissuading melee-oriented classes from stepping into your little circle of misery. The cripple helps keep foes trapped to combo other wells. For me, it’s the combination of a low cooldown, high damage, and plenty of utility (plus dat alacrity) that makes this my top

Calamity → Recall → Action → Gravity → Eternity → Precognition

Almost the opposite of yours, heh.

Precognition is my favourite for obvious reasons. Eternity because we finally have a good condi cleansing option that doesn’t require us to go into Inspiration or use a utility slot (plus it’s great group support and works with Continuum Shift). Gravity for obvious reasons. I like Action but for the purposes of stomping/ressing I tend to go with Tides of Time.

Precognition is best

1.Calamity —> For same reasons as you! And all the chaos armor it helps me getting!
2.Action --> Because it’s truely a utility skill that both help me stomp, ress, burst and defend!
3.Precognition —> Because who dosn’t like safe stomps and resses? But only uses in sPvP with a team
4.Gravity --> It’s massive damage and CC is awesome, but it’s up against TW, and that’s a kittene!
5.Eternity —> Only use it with a Team in sPvP, it’s super awesome, but for oslo play Mirror wins hands down!
6.Recall --> Just can’t find room for this one, unless doing PvE for the Alacrity, but find it kinda boring

Precog > Eternity > Action > Gravity > Calamity > Recall
Recall is clearly outclassed by the AWtEW trait. Precog is probably too good right now. Calamity and gravity are not bad, but do not have a very unique role (though gravity does it with a unique style )

But then again, I prefer support to offense, so I guess my well choices reflect that.

1. Gravity — Cooldowns almost don’t matter anymore with Alacrity and F5. This well is CC and damage on a massive scale and it’s amazing.

2. Calamity — Nice burst, great conditions, pairs well with Chaos Storm.

3. Eternity — I like the condition removal and it’s not difficult to blur or block in the field to ensure the full heal hits you.

4. Action/Precognition — I can’t choose. I love slowing people down. Quickness isn’t paramount to me, depending on the weapons equipped. Precognition is a great defensive well and a mini energy sigil.

5. Recall — Just because it’s last doesn’t mean I hate it! I just don’t find chill all too usefull when we have access to slow and Power Block. The 5-7 seconds of Alacrity are great, but not a real reason I would take it.

Gravity → Calamity → Precog → Action → Eternity → Recall

Recall would be way higher if AWTEW had more competition in its trait tier. But, as it is, I’m always gonna have AWTEW and at least three Wells on my bar whenever I have Chrono traited. (Calamity, Precog, Eternity) Recall is just Alacrity overkill at that point.

The Wells are actually all pretty useful, though. There isn’t a single one I can’t come up with a plausible justification for taking.

Whaaat? I don’t know how you guys can make this type of decision between the wells. In the early betas I could. However, right now all of them appear to be useful, depending on what game mode you are using them in.

Some of my favorites are action and gravity
As others have mentioned, action is like a little time warp. With the extra traited alacrity, this well kind of becomes the bread and butter of a pve chronomancer. It has a little bit of everything that screams “chronomancer”. Slow, alacrity, quickness, ethereal field. What can be more “chronomancerish” than that?

Gravity well is also very cool just because of the strong cc and cool float effect. It can be very strong and useful. This well also helps demonstrate the chronomancers strong abilities to not only control time, but space as well.

Least favorite
Before the AWTEW trait change and the added condition removal, well of eternity would have been near dead to me. However, now that these changes did occur, I really can’t say I have a least favorite well.

p.s. and I don’t necessarily think well of recall is alacrity overkill, especially in longer fights. However, that just my opinion. The high alacrity output from this well also allows you to spread your wells out to provide enough alacrity for your team through interspersed fights. Also, just look at raids where you may need to move around a lot. You just need to catch the end of the well to get 7 seconds of alacrity.

Tek.4083:

Precognition is best

Truth. I adore this well.

Gravity Well < Calamity < Eternity < Precognition < Action < Recall

Recall is top because there’s no such thing as “overkill” when it comes to alacrity-sharing.

I totally did this in the wrong order.

Ohhhh I’m so on it!

1.

• Well of Calamity - (20s CD) Creates a well that rends time, damaging, weakening(2s) and crippling(2s) foes in the area. When the final pulse of Well of Calamity triggers, it deals massive damage to foes in the area.

Best – well – ever! Finally we got some serious damage skill. The weakness it applies is a nice addon, same goes for the cripple. But what I really like is the alacrity uptime. Every 20 sec you get 2 sec alacrity for the whole group. Compare it to Well of Recall, wich has 7 sec alacrity but with the double CD, wich actually only gives it 3.5 sec alacrity in 20 sec. I really love Calamity and it will almost always stay on my bar for sure.

2.

• Well of Action - (30s CD) Create a well of delayed time, damaging and slowing(1s) foes. When the well expires, time snaps back, granting quickness(3s) to allies.

Miniature Timewarp – that’s all there is to say. 30 sec CD is also fairly low, but would it be more, it wouldn’t make it on my bar tbh. The slow is nice but since it won’t affect the breakbar-targets it’s just an “ok” addon.

3.

• Well of Eternity - (30s CD) Creates a well that rewinds time, removing conditions from allies. When it expires, the well heals all allies in the area.

Sneaky they raised the CD by 5 sec from 20 to 30 … yea that’s no typo on my side :P however I think it’s fair like it is right now. Ok selfheal, but GREAT ally heal! And now even condi cleanse? Well good bye poison, hello heal! Awesome skill, I really like it.

4.

• Well of Precognition - (45s CD) Creates a well that gives allies the ability to see the future and allows them to evade(Blur) all incoming attacks. When the well ends, allies within the well regain 35% endurance.

This one is barely ok. It’s pretty situational to use, when you really need to evade an attack that could hurt you. It didn’t work against the special aoe of the raid boss wich made it drop in viability in my opinion. Distortion > Blur that is to say. But what I really miss is the unblockable mode. The CD of 45 is simply too long for only blur and a bit endurance. Either lower the CD to 30 or give it back the unblockable mode. Right now this skill is underwhelming.

5.

• Well of Recall - (40s CD) Creates a well that steals memories from foes, damaging and chilling them. When it expires it restores memories to allies, granting 5s Alacrity.

_Chill is ok, the damage is low but WOW 7 sec alacrity! You only take this well for alacrity. But a 40 sec CD? For real? Calamity has 20 sec and grants 2 sec, this one has 40 sec and grants 7 sec. So if I’d take Calamity instead I’d miss 3 sec alacrity over 40 sec, but deal insane damage + weakness + cripple. Recall just lacks of something, either buff the numbers, damage or alacrity, or reduce the CD. Right now I’d never take this well. Never.

6.

• Gravity Well - (90s CD) Create a powerful well that warps space in an area, knocking down, floating, and pulling foes caught in its event horizon. When it expires, foes still inside the well take heavy damage.

It looks great, it sounds great, but it’s just garbage. The field is way too small to be an actual zoning skill and only newbs will not be able to dodge it with that obvious casting animation each race has. Also one stunbreak completly neglates this skill. And for PvE? Please … Time Warp has the “same” CD as a chrono. So no chance for this skill in PvE either. Especially the break bar kills it completly…

Well of Eternity: You have far better options at your disposal. Leave AoE healing to the Elementalists, Heralds, and Druids.

Well of Precognition: I’m not really sure where the devs were going with this one. It just doesn’t give us anything new. We already get stability from Mantra of Concentration, and brief AoE blur just isn’t worth the utility slot on most builds, even on support builds

Well of Action: Now we’re getting a little more viable. Pulsing slow is nice for CC, although I feel like pulsing chill or cripple are superior, plus we have other sources of slow.

Well of Calamity: This and Well of Recall are what I see people actually using. It does a truckload of damage and the cripple makes it combo into other wells very nicely. The only reason I plan on taking Recall over this is because I can get almost constant alacrity uptime and a double Well of Gravity continuum split combo is sufficient to down people.

Well of Recall: This has everything a lockdown Mesmer could want. Pulsing AoE, CD-increasing chill that can be augmented with runes and sigils, and even more alacrity on finish. I see this as a more cc-oriented alternative to Well of Calamity, since both combo very well into other skills.

Well of Gravity: 3 seconds of stuns, interrupts, damage, and absolute hell on a 90 second cooldown. It is objectively the best Mesmer elite for PvP and WvW and you’re a fool if you can’t see how insane it is.

My burst combo goes something like this:
Start with GS. Illusionary Berserker, GS 2/3, switch to sword/shield, Echo of Memory and Deja Vu, Illusionary Leap, Continuum Split, Well of Recall and Well of Gravity during split, Mind Wrack, switch to GS, Well of Recall and Well of Gravity again, standard GS burst during wells, switch to sword/shield, Illusionary Leap + shatter, blurred frenzy.

Use Arcane Thievery if they try to give themselves stability, use Power Lock if they try to heal.

Might be a good idea to specify what game mode we’re coming from, as different modes can yield very different rankings.

From fav to least:
1. Gravity
Good in both PvP and WvW. Strong CC and good damage. Still balanced for being small and requires 1s cast time.

2. Precognition
Very strong team support and also breaks stun for your self. It is a life savior at crucial moment in PvP.

3. Calamity
Good damage, low cd and useful condition. What more can I ask for.

4. Eternity
A decent heal with some party support. Most useful feature is condie cleanse, which we mesmers severely lack. Overall well-balanced compared to our other heals.

5. Recall
Long cd and a bit hard to use. Could be useful in PvE for ultimate alacrity uptime. Not great but definitely has its niche.

6. Action
Quite surprised to see it’s actually my least favorite well now. On paper, both slow and quickness are strong. But with wells being small, it is easy for enemies to walk out and catching its end after 3 seconds for the quickness is also very risky. Not the easiest well to use. Could see more use in PvE though.

Well of action: my least favourite as it doesn’t feel so creative. Slow is a great tool and all, but it doesn’t have the same epic feel as the other wells and will most likely be my least used well.

Well of precognition: this took a hit in favouritism because of the removal of unblockable. that simply made this skill so much more interesting and now it’s lost a lot of that flair. Still LOVE the aoe blur on this one.

Well of recall: The aoe chill is great, the alacrity at the end of this is even better. the damage is a wonderful bonus.

Well of calamity: DAMAGE DAMAGE DAMAGE

Well of eternity: As a person who loves building support, this is wonderful. While the delayed heal might cause problems, the condition cleansing is definitely welcome and just the whole skill is great. I can finally retire my mantra support build for something else if i ever feel the mood to change.

Well of gravity: This skill was similar to a black hole in the previous beta, however the reveal version was MUCH more my flavour, having the float at the end of the triple pull. This skill however gained more creativity in this version of the skill while retaining some element of gravity manipulation. Everything about this skill is a wonderful and welcome sight even in its current rendition. Also the mesmer finally got a form of damage elite.

Well of Eternity – New favorite heal for every build I like to run
Well of Recall – The “More Wells” Well. Also support Mes <3
Well of Precognition – The well that let’s you stand in your other wells with impunity.
Well of Gravity – Very creative and satisfying to land successfully on multiple foes.
Well of Calamity – Try breaking this bunker when you’re bogged down with weakness.
Well of Action – Maybe in a dedicated Slow build? Quickness is pretty meh.

This is coming from someone who enjoys playing CC & support in all 3 game modes.

Back in BWE2
Gravity > Calamity >> Eternity > Action > Recall > Precognition

From the recent BWE3
Precognition > Gravity > Calamity > Eternity > Recall > Action

Gravity and Calamity easily secure their places at the top end due to their dmg and CC nature. However, Precog went from being the worst (very clunky to use to its max potential) to the best (build-defining) with the blur on pulse change.

Changes to other wells have also improved them and brought them in close order of competition. Compared to BWE2 versions, Eternity, Recall and Action are much better now and each is worth a utility slot in certain builds.

Disliked >Action, Precognition, Calamity, Eternity, Gravity, Recall< Loved

I like them all pretty well.

;)