Guild Wars 2

I was reading the forums and someone brought up a point about the Chronomancer’s new shatter. The Chronomancer adds the continuum split shatter to the Mesmer when you take the trait line. Other elite specs have either have their core mechanic changed or limited when choosing an elite spec:

Guardian: Virtues Change
Necromancer: “Loses” death shroud
Elementalist: Gains longer cooldowns on attunement swap.
Revenant: Gains Boon duration/“burst” boons (this one is the exception because it is not as game-changing in my opinion."
Warrior: “Loses” Regular burst skills for 15 seconds.

My point is the Chronomancer’s shatter seems to move in the direction of vertical progressing rather than horizontal. Would a Mesmer without the expansion be at a disadvantage to a Chronomancer?

My solution to this would be to replace one of the Mesmer’s F-skills with continuum split. The most logical shatter to be replaced would be Distortion as it fits into the whole space/time theme of Chronomancer. Continuum Split would be the Chronomancer’s version of distortion.

What does everyone think about everything I’ve dicussed? (I’m not singling out Mesmers, if the futher elite specs have something similar it should be changed or toned down in some way).

sigh

I need to just make a copy/paste for this absurdity cause it keeps coming up.

Mesmer gets an additional thing because we only get an offhand weapon. Warrior doesn’t “lose” regular burst skills any more than we “lose” access to our other shatters because shattering F5 kills all our illusions too.

probably because you actually have to trait the extra shatter skill. It’s not auto selected once you pick chronomancer tree (I’m not 100% on this but you can just google the tree)

EDIT: I’m wrong on this, looks like I might of had in a mind an earlier iteration of the traits, it’s now the first minor trait of the tree

If continuum shift has the same CD as distortion, then sure

Fay.2357:

sigh

I need to just make a copy/paste for this absurdity cause it keeps coming up.

Mesmer gets an additional thing because we only get an offhand weapon. Warrior doesn’t “lose” regular burst skills any more than we “lose” access to our other shatters because shattering F5 kills all our illusions too.

Ok forget the part about lose or gain a mechanic. What about horizontal and vertical progression. As I stated above a Mesmer with the expansion versus one without are they at an advantage when looking at continuum split?

Eremoo.2785:

probably because you actually have to trait the extra shatter skill. It’s not auto selected once you pick chronomancer tree (I’m not 100% on this but you can just google the tree)

I’m pretty sure you automatically gain continuum split when you take the chronomancer traitline.

To take chrono, you’re losing out on another trait line. That’s the sacrifice compared to normal Mesmer. You could probably dig up some ancient threads that discussed this half to death. Losing a trait line from a normal build is a difficult sacrifice. Just take any standard build and try and pick which one to drop.

Besides, how is that second argument not applicable to warrior/ele too? They don’t ‘lose’ anything other than a traitline either, so go cry nerf somewhere else.

Fay.2357:

To take chrono, you’re losing out on another trait line. That’s the sacrifice compared to normal Mesmer. You could probably dig up some ancient threads that discussed this half to death. Losing a trait line from a normal build is a difficult sacrifice. Just take any standard build and try and pick which one to drop.

Besides, how is that second argument not applicable to warrior/ele too? They don’t ‘lose’ anything other than a traitline either, so go cry nerf somewhere else.

I’m not asking for a nerf just trying to understand the expansion from a point that doesn’t seem pay-to-win because if expacs owners have an advantage over non-expac owners, no matter how smaller, is bad news for any game. But only time will tell I guess. But I trust Anet to deal with these issues…

Unfortunately all elite specs must have something better to offer, same goes for other professions if you look at each skill individually. It is the only way for ANet to attract PvP/WvW players to buy expansion and make money for their development. So your assumption on making horizontal changes to elite spec isn’t exactly realistic to what a game developer will have in mind.

Pretty much every elite spec is in some way “better” than the main class. The only ones I can think of where that isn’t the case now is Tempest and maybe Dragonhunter. Whether that’s good for the game or not, I really can’t comment, but Chronomancer definitely isn’t alone in feeling like an upgrade.

My guess is that elite specs in general will make more sense when there’s more than one per class. When you have more than one elite spec, it makes sense for them to be “better” than the base class, because you still have a choice to make. I have a feeling most people will be running an elite spec in Heart of Thorns most of the time.

Lyger.5429:

Eremoo.2785:

probably because you actually have to trait the extra shatter skill. It’s not auto selected once you pick chronomancer tree (I’m not 100% on this but you can just google the tree)

I’m pretty sure you automatically gain continuum split when you take the chronomancer traitline.

You are right. But I believe in some early preview it was a major trait that you had to choose. Still, an expansion is suppose to be vertical progression. Game has been out for 3 years, need something new, I’m tired of horizontal let me go up on my mesmer please

What Eremoo said, honestly.
All kinds of people are whining about “pay to win”, but…what MMO have any of you EVER played where an expansion didn’t necessitate a purchase to continue?
WoW expansions make all your previous gear obsolete, for pete’s sake!

The fact that there will even be viable builds that don’t use new content is a bit remarkable, is it not?

^ Exactly. I think Rift is the only mmo with a similar system, where you can buy souls (basically talent trees) and you can mix and match the new ones with what you already had. But there’s plenty of builds there that work without the new “souls” and like you said there will be builds here that work without the new specializations.

Still, I don’t see why people don’t expect an expansion to be kind of mandatory really. Keeps the game fresh and keeps the developer funded. Everybody wins

The thing to understand about Mesmer is that it’s a little backwards in terms of skills vs traits. With most other classes, traits are bonuses that augment the skill and weapon choices. When making a Mesmer build on the other hand, traits are the defining point of your build. If you don’t take recommended traits as something like a condition necro or burst thief, the build will perform worse. If you don’t take Power Block as a lockdown Mesmer or DE as a shatter Mesmer, your build will not function. Because we are so dependent upon traits, the Chronomancer comes with a massive opportunity cost. I can already see PU condition builds rejecting it outright, and shatter Mesmers being skeptical (particularly with the Illusionary Reversion nerf). Chronomancer was made with support and lockdown in mind.

No. F5 is conceptually too different from distortion to be a replacement. All elite mechanics are evolution to the originals. Some are additions to the originals(mesmer, ele, warrior). Some are replacement of the originals(guard, necro). Wether it is former or latter depends on how the new mechanics function.

The way F5 is designed, simply has to be an addition. F4 is a pure defensive mechanics while F5 is about trading clones and short cooldowns for long cooldowns, also at the expense of possibly being wrecked by having your rift destroyed. It by no means replace F4 in any sense.

Stop saying you “get this” because you only got an offhand. You realize weapons don’t add amount of abilities you get, only diversity, where a gained ability is simply a step up, right? No part of getting fewer new skills makes any elite specialization deserving of free extras. And as such, there is a point to be made that even people who directly gain with Berserker and Elementalist, there is a consideration to it.

Now, Chronomancer WOULD have this if not for alacrity. Gaining cooldown durations back when shifting back sort of gas a drawback to it, but it’s easily offset by alacrity and frankly, being able to double up on elites with no loss (triple or quadruple if you take mimic too) is just too good.

Mimic doesn’t work on elites, though.

I still feel bad about the whole “offhand specializations get something for free while 2h specializations have to give up something”. It just feels wrong to me.

Also, seeing specializations as vertical progression is just wrong, as it makes HoT mandatory to stay competitive and could be considered Pay2Win.

Iavra.8510:

Mimic doesn’t work on elites, though.

I still feel bad about the whole “offhand specializations get something for free while 2h specializations have to give up something”. It just feels wrong to me.

Also, seeing specializations as vertical progression is just wrong, as it makes HoT mandatory to stay competitive and could be considered Pay2Win.

What I don’t like is how poorly people think of the trait lines. They just don’t understand the classes in question. Losing access to an entire trait line is the payment for the added skills. As well as the fact that 2h weapons in general are stronger than 1h.

You can’t argument that way, since every class has to give up a traitline in order to spec into their specialization.

Also that last statement is pretty BS. 2H weapons have higher weapons strength, but does that make ele staff superior to their daggers? Also both Reaper GS and Dragonhunter LB are pretty much useless in their current form compared to Chronomancer shield.

And even then it’s not like you suddenly lose access to all your old weapons and are forced to use that new, “weak” offhand weapon instead of the crazy strong 2h weapon all the cool kids get.

Iavra.8510:

I still feel bad about the whole “offhand specializations get something for free while 2h specializations have to give up something”. It just feels wrong to me.

That’s because you’re thinking about it wrong.
There are TWO issues involved in the design of the elite specializations:
1. Variety. The new specs are new content, and each class is meant to receive equal amounts of “new content”. For simplicity sake, Anet says things like “Tempest receives 10 new skills with the warhorn”, etc., and declares that specs receiving an offhand instead of a 2-handed weapon will receive something extra so they don’t have less “new content” than other classes.
2. Power. Specs that add abilities rather than replacing, like the Tempest and Chronomancer, are easy to see as direct power increases. That’s only an issue if the total power gain for such classes is indeed higher than the gain for 2-handed spec classes. Making the Reaper’s gs abilities, traits or utilities stronger than the Chronomancer’s overall can balance the difference. The fact that this is not currently the case is a matter of balance, not structural design.
A great example of this is Gravity Well vs dragonhunter’s new elite trap. A complaint was made that the devs are too concerned with the power of Gravity Well, while allowing the trap to be just as effective as the unnerfed well, and on a lower cooldown. What this ignores is that as a 2h-weapon elite spec, the Dragonhunter has some ground to make up power-wise, since they aren’t gaining power directly as the Chronomancer is via CS.

In short, your concern is only valid if they fail to make up the power gap between 2h and offhand specs. Meanwhile, they are working to give each spec equivalent diversity and equivalent power, which requires some asymmetrical design.

Iavra.8510:

Also, seeing specializations as vertical progression is just wrong, as it makes HoT mandatory to stay competitive and could be considered Pay2Win.

See above, where I ask if you’ve ever played an MMO where an expansion wasn’t considered a necessary purchase.

You throw that “Pay2Win” phrase out there as though it means something. As though not buying Brood War wasn’t essential to be competitive in Starcraft, or World of Warcraft expansions don’t immediately make your current gear obsolete.

Again, the fact that any non-elite builds will even be viable at all in the new system is rather remarkable, and certainly rare in MMORPGs.

None of the professions who only received an off-hand weapon “lost” anything. They instead gained new options.

Only those who gained 2h weapons “lost” something. They gained rethemed mechanics in exchange for gaining a full weapon set.

Personally I think Warrior got the best end of the deal so far. Their mechanic changes synergize very well with their new utilities.

ronpierce.2760:

Stop saying you “get this” because you only got an offhand. You realize weapons don’t add amount of abilities you get, only diversity, where a gained ability is simply a step up, right? No part of getting fewer new skills makes any elite specialization deserving of free extras. And as such, there is a point to be made that even people who directly gain with Berserker and Elementalist, there is a consideration to it.

Now, Chronomancer WOULD have this if not for alacrity. Gaining cooldown durations back when shifting back sort of gas a drawback to it, but it’s easily offset by alacrity and frankly, being able to double up on elites with no loss (triple or quadruple if you take mimic too) is just too good.

Aside from the issue that half of your post is factually incorrect, you’re ignoring statements that Anet themselves have made. We didn’t come up with the ‘we get something more because we only get an offhand’ argument. ANET came up with that argument. Go look it up if you want…

Lyger.5429:

Fay.2357:

To take chrono, you’re losing out on another trait line. That’s the sacrifice compared to normal Mesmer. You could probably dig up some ancient threads that discussed this half to death. Losing a trait line from a normal build is a difficult sacrifice. Just take any standard build and try and pick which one to drop.

Besides, how is that second argument not applicable to warrior/ele too? They don’t ‘lose’ anything other than a traitline either, so go cry nerf somewhere else.

I’m not asking for a nerf just trying to understand the expansion from a point that doesn’t seem pay-to-win because if expacs owners have an advantage over non-expac owners, no matter how smaller, is bad news for any game. But only time will tell I guess. But I trust Anet to deal with these issues…

I disagree with this, P2W would be I dunno, a Ingame item or Subscription benefits being overtuned, a Expansion is NOT p2w, MMORPGs are DESIGNED for players to buy into further benefits.

if a WoW player opts to not Pay into the expansion and He cannot progress those further 5-10 levels in PvP woW does bands of 5 so u’d be 90 v 95, with no normalisation, Does this make the game P2W just because he has DISABLED himself of the content in the Next expansion.

No, MMos are designed on the bases of those bursts of income from the expansion and are Designed to Barrier off Non-Paying Customers, Such as WoW increasing its levels by 10, the fact is this Expansion offers NOTHING but those Elite specs and New Proffession to PvPers, to lower this makes the expansion worthless for a Solid PvPer in GW2 this is Stupid, the game was Created on the bases of PvP.

Would a paying player feel their monies Wasted on paying into something that benefited them 0? yes they would, would it discourage the Sales of Expansion in the pvp community? Yes, there has to be something there saying BUY ME and the elites becoming Firmly Placed in the Meta is the Way to do this.

Its a Expansion its Ment to be a Extention of ur Class… Age ur Proffession to become better and that is Exactly what it is bringing, u cant suddenly take the The genre out of what it is because some players don’t want to give Anet a Dime for their game… the games built on making Profit, they give F2Pers ENOUGH in this game theres a Line where it Starts to become Self-Entitlement.

Iavra.8510:

You can’t argument that way, since every class has to give up a traitline in order to spec into their specialization.

Also that last statement is pretty BS. 2H weapons have higher weapons strength, but does that make ele staff superior to their daggers? Also both Reaper GS and Dragonhunter LB are pretty much useless in their current form compared to Chronomancer shield.

And even then it’s not like you suddenly lose access to all your old weapons and are forced to use that new, “weak” offhand weapon instead of the crazy strong 2h weapon all the cool kids get.

You just proved my point. People don’t understand the classes in question. Some classes are more bound to traits than others. If you fined everyone in the world 3000 dollars it would not be fair just because it is applicable to everyone. There is rich versus poor just as there are classes where the traits are more important.

Your other statement is a false comparison. It is just unquestionable that ele staff is superior to offhand dagger. More important is the lack of a new autoattack for the offhand specs.

But most important is that quantity does not equal quality. By your logic the engineer will always be better than the mesmer because it gets more skills.

Oh not this blooming rubbish again. I’m gonna hunt down the other thread and just point you at that in the morning if someone else hasn’t already.

TL:DR No.

Edit: Here we go.