Guild Wars 2

The condi on scepter are good even in zerker (you probably missed my post up there)

Silverkey.2078:

The condi on scepter are good even in zerker (you probably missed my post up there)

No, I just did the math.
No might, and they’re adding a sad 78 and 89 dps at best.
25 stacks of might and you’re getting 130-260 dps out of torment, 269-360 dps out of confusion.

Also should take into account the illusionary counter block, which I presume you’d want to do vs a dodge if it’s a single hit attack. So you have the block damage + torment. Sure torment with 25 might stacks on a boss standing still isn’t much in full zerker/assassins, but should be accounted for.

EDIT – The clone it generates may bring diminished returns, so there is that; I just don’t know the numbers.

Fay.2357:

summons frifox for a dps test in BWE3

no hot = no bwe or chrono goodies for me

though, if its just measuring dps then I’m all ears

frifox.5283:

Fay.2357:

summons frifox for a dps test in BWE3

no hot = no bwe or chrono goodies for me

though, if its just measuring dps then I’m all ears

Yeah, you shouldn’t need HoT, I can feed you all the buffs you need.

cool, just add me in game then to we can coordinate. since my main accnt is busted you’ll have to add frifoxi.1428 or frifoxy.6014 for NA/EU accnts respectively, frifox.5283 has only access to the forums…

Interesting. So, presuming the fight lasts 30 seconds, what would the optimal rotation be for double sword and what would the optimal rotation look like for scepter? When beta weekend 3 comes we could just test the optimal rotations for both builds vs golems in hotM and compare the coefficients. Another question is would you run scepter/s s/f or s/s scepter/f to try it out with? I’d volunteer to test it out but I don’t have access nor am I good at math ( at all ).

EDIT: and how does dueling compare to domination?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Interesting. So, presuming the fight lasts 30 seconds, what would the optimal rotation be for double sword and what would the optimal rotation look like for scepter? When beta weekend 3 comes we could just test the optimal rotations for both builds vs golems in hotM and compare the coefficients. Another question is would you run scepter/s s/f or s/s scepter/f to try it out with? I’d volunteer to test it out but I don’t have access nor am I good at math ( at all ).

EDIT: and how does dueling compare to domination?

Honestly, it all comes back to this central issue:

Your autoattacks do absolutely awful damage compared to every other class in the game. Your phantasms do damage, but get smushed by every boss in the game. All this time and effort you’re putting into dealing more damage culminates in a grand total of not very much.

That’s why this build was created in the first place. Alpha ran the numbers, and it turns out that keeping permanent alacrity and quickness up on the remaining 4 members of your group, assuming that you do zero damage and provide zero boons other than quickness/alacrity, contributes more damage than adding an additional elementalist.

So then I went and ran the build. It turns out that it does okish damage for a mesmer, while also sharing a solid amount of might as a by-product. Then I played herald and realized that it’s just a walking boon stick with zero effort, and that culminates in the conclusion that with herald and this chrono build, eles don’t need to stack fury and warriors don’t need to take PS and gs for might.

So that’s all just additional icing on the cake. The build by itself, doing absolutely nothing but quickness and alacrity is worth more damage than another ele. On top of that, it (along with herald) lets warriors spec for full damage rotations away from PS. On top of that, it does ok personal damage for a mesmer.

All of this sounds quite powerful. I have a concern or two, though. Firstly, who is handling reflects in an ele/ele/war/rev/mes group? Does the build swap out calamity for feedback as needed?

Second, is that this build is what will be expected of me when I run the mesmer. That isn’t too big of an issue by itself, since given an optimal or at least competent group and a rev, this build looks like it will melt face in a highly offensive-support based way. It should be quite fun in this regard.

However, my antisocial behaviors, strange schedules, and anything-goes attitude leaves me frequently running groups that aren’t wholly competent. At least, not fully in the know with how dungeons are run and not specced out in full DPS gear, and not having the sense to run up and melee bosses while standing in wells + time warp. One of the reasons why I like the current Inspirations/Dueling/Domination setup is the high amount of defense and control it gives, which lets me carry pugs while also soloing effectively.

The way this build works is highly dependent on competent allies. If I were to assume that I am basically running solo but 5 people decided to tag along, I’m not sure the whole super-offensive support wells is going to be as effective as a more solo-focused phantasm build. So questions:

#1: How does the personal damage of this build compare to the practical damage of a phantasm focused build? I’m thinking of something like Dom/Duel/Chrono, running Alls well that ends Well, Improved Alacrity, and Chronophantasma.

#2: The full specs of this build aren’t listed. I’m assuming Chaos is for BD and Chaotic Persistence, and Illusions is for Celerity and… shattered strength? I’m noticing that in the attempt to build a fully support focused set, that there are a lot of dead traits with minimal impact. I’m think that there might a solo-friendlier version that swaps out Illusions for Dueling (Deceptive Evasion, Fencer’s Finesse, Master Fencer, Critical Infusion. Not sure how useful Phantasmal Fury + Sharper images is here). I’m also considering domination for its shatter traits, but am hesitant since illusion summoning is important here, which means that deceptive evasion and celerity are much needed traits.

After all this, I think I’m going to spend some quality time with my mantra build, since once HoT launches Mantras will just be weaker and more cumbersome versions of wells.

IMO if you want a mix of personal DPS and support, go with Dom/Illu/Chrono. You won’t be running Mantras so there’s no Dueling GM you’d be using, Empowered Illusions > Phantasmal Fury (I think) and the Ferocity bonus from Fencer’s Finesse is really quite small. With Domination you also get Mental Anguish to buff up your Mind Wracks and CoFs (which remember in a Chronomancy build will be spammed on CD), extra damage from Vulnerability plus the ability to help stack Vuln if that’s an issue.

You want Illu because it gives you much lower CDs on almost everything (Celerity, Misdirection, Persistence of Memory) and the GMs are at least slightly useful compared to Dueling GMs.

This is how I’d build a PvE Mesmer that doesn’t want to go full Alacrity/Quickness support, i.e. a puggy build. If your group can share enough Might then take MtD instead of Shattered Strength. Furious Interruption instead of Shattered Concentration if no boons are involved, but it really makes almost no difference. Runes and Sigils TBD as we don’t know what content will be like in HoT.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

All of this sounds quite powerful. I have a concern or two, though. Firstly, who is handling reflects in an ele/ele/war/rev/mes group? Does the build swap out calamity for feedback as needed?

Yes indeed, that’s what I was doing.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

-snips valid worries about sub-par groups-

So here’s what I’ve found. As long as your group has at least their heads screwed on the right way, this build will take a bunch of so-so players and make them top notch. From what I’ve been able to experience, it excels at carrying people because dealing damage is easy, while staying alive to deal that damage isn’t always. This build pumps out a massive quantity of aoe healing from the heal well (though somewhat less now that the cd got increased on it), and that keeps people alive. Additionally, even a somewhat clueless ele or warrior is going to dps that leaves you, a mesmer, in the dust. As long as your group has at least some clue, your boosting them will be more efficient at finishing a dungeon than trying to do it yourself.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#1: How does the personal damage of this build compare to the practical damage of a phantasm focused build? I’m thinking of something like Dom/Duel/Chrono, running Alls well that ends Well, Improved Alacrity, and Chronophantasma.

Personal damage is ok, but not as much as a phantasm focused build. That being said, phantasm focused builds are obviously rather variable, depending on how fast they get squished.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

#2: The full specs of this build aren’t listed. I’m assuming Chaos is for BD and Chaotic Persistence, and Illusions is for Celerity and… shattered strength? I’m noticing that in the attempt to build a fully support focused set, that there are a lot of dead traits with minimal impact. I’m think that there might a solo-friendlier version that swaps out Illusions for Dueling (Deceptive Evasion, Fencer’s Finesse, Master Fencer, Critical Infusion. Not sure how useful Phantasmal Fury + Sharper images is here). I’m also considering domination for its shatter traits, but am hesitant since illusion summoning is important here, which means that deceptive evasion and celerity are much needed traits.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWncfCtfilfC+fCUrhlejyMAugMqeUb1XF9GitZD-TRBXgAAK/U3fIUfQv6PPKBJFQEDjA-e

That’s what I used. If wanted to update the OP with that link, it might be helpful.

There definitely are some dead traits. Master of fragmentation and illusionary defense are the two largest offenders in that regard. You could definitely swap out illusions for dueling, that would certainly get you a bit more damage. The reason I’m taking illusions is for the cooldown on shatters, specifically the cooldown on F5. With illusions and permanent alacrity, F5 drops to 45 seconds, which means that’s the cooldown of my full combo.

I completely forgot about the shatter CD. That changes a whole lot.

Depending on how valuable Cripple and Slow will be on Defiant bars, I think Master of Fragmentation is potentially decent.

@Pyro:

If you can stack 25 Might easy between BD and Herald (or whatever your preferred Might stacker is), would it be a better to go MtD instead of Shattered Strength? It’s not much damage but it’s still something.

Do you think you’d get more Alacrity/damage from using Illusionary Reversion/PoM for more Illusions? From what I can tell from the video a lot of Shatters weren’t full Shatters, but perhaps taking one or two of those traits would beef them up.

My obsession with dueling doesn’t just come from the grandmasters. It comes from, well, basically every trait at every point.

Critical Infusion: Love me that 50% uptime on vigor
Phantasmal Fury: Self Explanatory
Sharper Images: Fallen from grace but still a minor buff
Fencer’s Finesse: It only adds about 4.6% DPS on my current build, but since I run Sword/Sword often (and I might run Sword/sword + shield, I"ll have to see how it plays out) the trait improves… basically everything’s cooldown, both offensively and defensively.
Master Fencer: Self 75% fury uptime is good.
Deceptive Evasion: Better than it sounds. In my experience, clones overwrite other clones, and the phantasm death rate means I rarely have all 3 up at any one time. Except in rare circumstances, I have a free spot to dodge, ileeap, and Iriposte to my hearts content.

In my forever puglife, I use every single one of these traits, and the sum of these traits means big things regarding my damage and survivability. Domination has a few good traits which contribute more overall to offense, but the line lacks personal defense, which is important when dealing with the pug’s strange capability to be less durable than full GC gear.

The more optimal a group gets, the more valuable domination becomes, but in contrast the more valuable the pure support spec becomes, too. In a half-decently put together group with GC gear, it’ll be better to just run Chaos/Illu/Chrono.

For dungeons and not fractals or raids, I second the Dueling over Chaos because the later feels overthetop.
Chaos traitline only has one real benefit if you remove the staff – the boon duration as stated to get extra quickness. I feel however that Herald will be more than enough with his +50%. Dueling on the other hand… reffer to the post above.

I feel like the EA tradeoff on the warrior, the extra utility and slight damage increase on Dueling over Chaos (CD reduction, DE for faster Shatters) and the existence of fury prestacking for dungeons does not justify the warrior going solo and mesmer stacking boons with his herald buddy. Most dungeon encounters encourage pre-might (pre-fury).

Miku Lawrence.6329:

For dungeons and not fractals or raids, I second the Dueling over Chaos because the later feels overthetop.
Chaos traitline only has one real benefit if you remove the staff – the boon duration as stated to get extra quickness. I feel however that Herald will be more than enough with his +50%. Dueling on the other hand… reffer to the post above.

• Do you feel that Herald will be worth bringing if you’re using a warrior to stack Might instead of the chrono+rev? If not, the boon duration from chaos gains value.
• It’s a bit silly to say “one real benefit” (boon dur) here, and then in your next paragraph talk about the other “real benefit” (boon stacking). Just as a note.
• The paragraph above talks about dueling in a vacuum, but we’ve already noted that permanent Fury is available to the party without dueling, which is one of the primary benefits of Dueling.
  Harmonious Mantras is wasted without mantras, Deceptive Evasion is unnecessary in a Chrono build, Sharper Images damage would be negligible even if your illusions were attacking much, 7.5s vigor on crit with a 10s icd is just another defensive trait to give a boon we can probably get elsewhere anyway, and is probably less defense than you get from chaos anyway (regen, protection, protection on chaos armor).
  Which leaves Phantasmal Fury and Fencer’s Finesse.
  PF requires phantasms to be attacking a fair bit, which is certainly no guarantee at all, given the problems we have in pve. The initial rotation, in fact, shatters your initial illusions before they get a second attack via Chronophantasma. I’ll be doing some math on that front, though, to double-check the damage potential of resummoning phantasms versus letting them attack.
  Fencer’s Finesse provides a bare 10% Crit damage at max stacks, which gets cut down through crit chance to around 7% total damage increase. You get 12.5% damage increase immediately from Domination via vulnerability, so I’m not sure why Dueling would be at all preferred over Dom anyway.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I feel like the EA tradeoff on the warrior, the extra utility and slight damage increase on Dueling over Chaos (CD reduction, DE for faster Shatters) and the existence of fury prestacking for dungeons does not justify the warrior going solo and mesmer stacking boons with his herald buddy. Most dungeon encounters encourage pre-might (pre-fury).

Do you know what the dps increase on the warrior would be by swapping to a dps build over PS would be? I feel like we should know that before we can draw a firm conclusion on that one.

I don’t know what you mean by pre-might, the Herald+Mesmer combo is able to maintain a constant 23 stacks of might out of combat, which the Mesmer immediately bumps to max with their initial rotation. That sounds like pre-might stacking to me.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Do you know what the dps increase on the warrior would be by swapping to a dps build over PS would be? I think we should know that before we can draw a firm conclusion on that one.

I don’t know what you mean by pre-might, the Herald+Mesmer combo is able to maintain a constant 23 stacks of might out of combat, which the Mesmer immediately bumps to max with their initial rotation. That sounds like pre-might stacking to me.

Notes taken for Domination, was more focusing on the majors than minors, my bad.

Thus my “I feel”, i’ll come back here when I get some info on that because I don’t remember correclty what the spreadsheets of Nike were saying. Pre-might is when you blast firefields because the boss is friendly, which happens in many dungeons.

Alright, a few notes for thoughts :

Zui.9245:

EA is about a 4% party boost to each party member. Assume the direct DPS of every party member is equal. How much would the Warrior’s personal DPS need to increase to make up for the 16% loss? 16%.

But the Warrior doesn’t have equal personal DPS to other party members, do they? So it’s more than 16% they need to make up personally. It’s more like 20%.

tl;dr – EA all the way.

Moreso relevant if mesmer brings up his personal DPS with something else than Chaos. We’ll see when the world records will start to flow I guess, maybe we’ll be having a double mesmer meta, chrono and portalbot?

Fay.2357:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Interesting. So, presuming the fight lasts 30 seconds, what would the optimal rotation be for double sword and what would the optimal rotation look like for scepter? When beta weekend 3 comes we could just test the optimal rotations for both builds vs golems in hotM and compare the coefficients. Another question is would you run scepter/s s/f or s/s scepter/f to try it out with? I’d volunteer to test it out but I don’t have access nor am I good at math ( at all ).

EDIT: and how does dueling compare to domination?

Honestly, it all comes back to this central issue:

Your autoattacks do absolutely awful damage compared to every other class in the game. Your phantasms do damage, but get smushed by every boss in the game. All this time and effort you’re putting into dealing more damage culminates in a grand total of not very much.

That’s why this build was created in the first place. Alpha ran the numbers, and it turns out that keeping permanent alacrity and quickness up on the remaining 4 members of your group, assuming that you do zero damage and provide zero boons other than quickness/alacrity, contributes more damage than adding an additional elementalist.

So then I went and ran the build. It turns out that it does okish damage for a mesmer, while also sharing a solid amount of might as a by-product. Then I played herald and realized that it’s just a walking boon stick with zero effort, and that culminates in the conclusion that with herald and this chrono build, eles don’t need to stack fury and warriors don’t need to take PS and gs for might.

So that’s all just additional icing on the cake. The build by itself, doing absolutely nothing but quickness and alacrity is worth more damage than another ele. On top of that, it (along with herald) lets warriors spec for full damage rotations away from PS. On top of that, it does ok personal damage for a mesmer.

You make it seam like your build somehow has significantly more alacrity or quickness. If you really need more quickness you can just swap in the shield, but chrono already has a lot of quickness without shield. And I take a feedback for extra reflects rather than TWO seconds of extra alacrity. That’s the thing. You make it seam like your build does tons of extra support, and yet it’s the other way around. My build can do just as much support as yours, except for the might which other people will be providing and same goes for the fury. But my build provides reflects, which yours doesn’t at all. So its not your build provides greater support with less DPS, its your build does less DPS AND less support.

@Blood

“All of this sounds quite powerful. I have a concern or two, though. Firstly, who is handling reflects in an ele/ele/war/rev/mes group? Does the build swap out calamity for feedback as needed?”

IDK if your talking about my build or the OPs, but in my build the chrono does the reflects/projectile destruction.

@Embolism

“You won’t be running Mantras so there’s no Dueling GM you’d be using”

If you need condition removal, you WILL be taking mantras. If you do not need condition removal, you will be either taking the healing signet or if the fight is pretty short you will be taking the mantra heal. In addition, if you need stability, you WILL be taking a mantra.

" Empowered Illusions > Phantasmal Fury (I think) and the Ferocity bonus from Fencer’s Finesse is really quite small. With Domination you also get Mental Anguish to buff up your Mind Wracks and CoFs (which remember in a Chronomancy build will be spammed on CD), extra damage from Vulnerability plus the ability to help stack Vuln if that’s an issue."

I would still like to see a DPS comparison between domination and dueling. Both are good trait lines. I could see either of them being the meta. Can’t really tell until some math is done.

@Fay

“his build pumps out a massive quantity of aoe healing from the heal well”

I wouldn’t call it massive. At all.

“Additionally, even a somewhat clueless ele or warrior is going to dps that leaves you, a mesmer, in the dust.”

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that people who don’t know what there doing can totally do close to 0 DPS.

And I still don’t get where all this herald might stuff is coming from that people will think will replace PS warrior. The best I could come up with is the build I’ll link at the bottom of the description. But it hardly looks even close PS. The rampup time takes way to long not to mention idk how it would get 25 might. I really don’t see rev being meta at all. I really think the meta is going to be ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief. What would you even get rid of here for revenants mediocre ability to stack some might and 150 ferocity? The eles and thus lose a IB and vuln and a FGS for mobility? Chrono, losing all that quickness and alacrity and reflects/projectile destruction and condition removal? Or the PS warrior that applys might better than revenant and has 150 power and both banners? Or the thief with his stealth and blinds? There just isn’t a place for revenant in a meta comp.

Also, another reason I don’t think scepter will be good for a chrono is because it still does give off clones. Even so your going to be shattering with chrono you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones.

EDIT: I ALWAYS forgot to link the link dangit. Here it is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnrBl4CFZDl5DFaEF4ElFNFiNMnpNtBYBNwegJshA-TxRBABXp8jm9HwTfQenCAAeCAUq+jZKBFDQeA-e

I think the scepter case was closed on page 1.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Notes taken for Domination, was more focusing on the majors than minors, my bad.

Yeah, I’m surprised nobody mentioned that. Being able to help stack vuln is good, but the real power of dom is in that boost off all vuln generally.
Mental Anguish is strong for amplifying shatters, but sustained shatter dps is so terrible in general that it’s not really accomplishing a lot.
Stacking vuln is great, but meta groups already have ways to get that done.
Phantasm dps is useful, but subject to all the same issues as phantasms generally, and Phantasmal Haste is competitive with it anyway.
That leaves removing boons on shatters (so you’d be swapping to dom for any boss that has boons anyway, and just swapping back otherwise), and the vuln damage increase, versus the ferocity increase from dueling and the extra fury/vigor. Traditional builds have actually used mantras, so Dueling usually gets a strong mark in its favor right there. Though, traditional builds just pick both because they don’t need Chrono. (they can take Insp instead of Illusions too, because they don’t need the shatter cdr for f5 or alacrity on shatter).

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Thus my “I feel”, i’ll come back here when I get some info on that because I don’t remember correclty what the spreadsheets of Nike were saying.

I really think this is where Herald’s participation hinges. If it’s worth it to free the warrior to not go PS, then it’s worth it to bring in a Herald. Otherwise, the 50% boon duration can be replaced by other means at a cost to the chrono’s personal dps, but the gain of bringing another icebowele along (because we don’t technically need thief anymore).
I think Berserker is probably going to play into this as well, as it seems to me to be designed for this kind of role. I do wonder how Berserker dps will compare to the previous warrior records.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Pre-might is when you blast firefields because the boss is friendly, which happens in many dungeons.

Well, that could relieve a little of the pressure on the Herald (getting 16 might ooc is harder than 11). It’s largely unnecessary though as I mentioned, since you can start at 23 might on the group, and getting past that is rather trivial.

In my experience elementalists cap might and give 1 min 40 of fury.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

In my experience elementalists cap might and give 1 min 40 of fury.

Which makes the fury from Dueling quite irrelevant, yeah.
It also frees up the Herald to not worry about fury, which will increase their other utility and personal damage.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Well, that could relieve a little of the pressure on the Herald (getting 16 might ooc is harder than 11). It’s largely unnecessary though as I mentioned, since you can start at 23 might on the group, and getting past that is rather trivial.

I don’t understand that comment then, where’s the use for Herald if elementalists do the boon job already? Except carrying a poor chaos mesmer’s boonshare. Not saying Herald is irrelevant for dungeons, the ferocity buff is solid.

True for fury on Dueling, I was too focussed on FF and Sword CD reduction.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Notes taken for Domination, was more focusing on the majors than minors, my bad.

Yeah, I’m surprised nobody mentioned that. Being able to help stack vuln is good, but the real power of dom is in that boost off all vuln generally.
Mental Anguish is strong for amplifying shatters, but sustained shatter dps is so terrible in general that it’s not really accomplishing a lot.
Stacking vuln is great, but meta groups already have ways to get that done.
Phantasm dps is useful, but subject to all the same issues as phantasms generally, and Phantasmal Haste is competitive with it anyway.
That leaves removing boons on shatters (so you’d be swapping to dom for any boss that has boons anyway, and just swapping back otherwise), and the vuln damage increase, versus the ferocity increase from dueling and the extra fury/vigor. Traditional builds have actually used mantras, so Dueling usually gets a strong mark in its favor right there. Though, traditional builds just pick both because they don’t need Chrono. (they can take Insp instead of Illusions too, because they don’t need the shatter cdr for f5 or alacrity on shatter).

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Thus my “I feel”, i’ll come back here when I get some info on that because I don’t remember correclty what the spreadsheets of Nike were saying.

I really think this is where Herald’s participation hinges. If it’s worth it to free the warrior to not go PS, then it’s worth it to bring in a Herald. Otherwise, the 50% boon duration can be replaced by other means at a cost to the chrono’s personal dps, but the gain of bringing another icebowele along (because we don’t technically need thief anymore).
I think Berserker is probably going to play into this as well, as it seems to me to be designed for this kind of role. I do wonder how Berserker dps will compare to the previous warrior records.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Pre-might is when you blast firefields because the boss is friendly, which happens in many dungeons.

Well, that could relieve a little of the pressure on the Herald (getting 16 might ooc is harder than 11). It’s largely unnecessary though as I mentioned, since you can start at 23 might on the group, and getting past that is rather trivial.

I wouldn’t so easily say thief isn’t needed. If your chrono can swap trait lines fast and is OK with that, then he can either use his elite ( and thus lose a lot of quickness ) or use a utility which has a decent CD and only provides 4 seconds of stealth. So it really all depends on the dungeon. I could see no thief for say SE p3, but not so much for say CM p1. And even if you don’t take a thief, why take revenant over say another ele? With taking revenant AND mesmer going chaos ( and thus losing DPS ), you can allow the warrior to gain some DPS. If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken.

Chrono/3 Eles/Banner bich new meta confirmed, spamming them lavafonts like there’s no tomorow, a full clear of CM will be faster than skipping with shadowrefuge and blasts xD.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Chrono/3 Eles/Banner bich new meta confirmed, spamming them lavafonts like there’s no tomorow, a full clear of CM will be faster than skipping with shadowrefuge and blasts xD.

Yeah, if you thought dungeons were fast now………. That’s why I hope raids are good.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I don’t understand that comment then, where’s the use for Herald if elementalists do the boon job already? Except carrying a poor chaos mesmer’s boonshare. Not saying Herald is irrelevant for dungeons, the ferocity buff is solid.

I’m assuming the same place as PS warriors have. Why is PS warrior meta for 25 might stacks if eles can just provide it for you? If there’s an answer for that, then there’s the reason for the herald’s might.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t so easily say thief isn’t needed. If your chrono can swap trait lines fast and is OK with that, then he can either use his elite ( and thus lose a lot of quickness ) or use a utility which has a decent CD and only provides 4 seconds of stealth.
So it really all depends on the dungeon. I could see no thief for say SE p3, but not so much for say CM p1.

I do it all the time, when I swap to stealth for the Labyrinth in Silverwastes. It just takes 3 or 4 seconds, and that’s more involved that I would need for most skips (since I swap to torch/decoy/the prestige for labyrinth, which I wouldn’t need for a normal dungeon skip).
The keys though, are:
1. F5 allows double-proc on Veil and MI, or at least a much lower cooldown on both.
2. Alacrity lowers the cooldown on both Veil and MI.
3. 100% personal stealth means a chronomancer can execute longer/trickier skips with Portal than they otherwise used to (or for triggering waypoints, like in Arah P3).

That said, you are correct that it’s possible there will be some paths that still want a thief for the skip. That’s how it is with mesmers now though, isn’kitten Mesmers are taken for portal from time to time, but that doesn’t make us “meta”, it makes us “situationally useful”.
Heck, the way Anet talks, that’ll be the norm for raids too: “oh, this raid really needs fear and chill, I guess we gotta grab a necro!”

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And even if you don’t take a thief, why take revenant over say another ele? With taking revenant AND mesmer going chaos ( and thus losing DPS ), you can allow the warrior to gain some DPS. If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken.

This really hinges on the relative dps gains and losses.
How much dps does the mesmer lose by taking Chaos?
How much dps does the warrior gain by going axes instead of PS/Greatsword?
How much dps does the Herald lose vs another Ele?
How much dps does the party gain from the Herald’s ferocity and the boon duration on chrono’s quickness?
How much dps do the eles lose when they have to provide the might/fury?

Pyro says the mesmer’s dps is so low already that swapping Chaos for Dom doesn’t really accomplish much.
Zenith and Pyro say the Revenant’s dps is probably at least 3rd place in the dps potential rankings, behind Ele and Warrior. Is that more or less dps than PS warr?

But really, the only way to have a good sense for it is to actually figure out the dps of each build, and what they lose or gain. That’s when there’ll be enough meat to convince speedrunners to put it to the test, and then we’ll get the real numbers a couple weeks or so after HoT drops.

This is slightly off topic. But it seems that mesmer skills, more than any other profession, tend to make sound and light.

That skill rotation was one of the most aesthetically pleasing/sounding things I have seen/heard in this game. Pardon the pun, but it was truly mesmerizing.

Egad man, you’re really mucking up the logic here:

You make it seam like your build somehow has significantly more alacrity or quickness. If you really need more quickness you can just swap in the shield, but chrono already has a lot of quickness without shield. And I take a feedback for extra reflects rather than TWO seconds of extra alacrity.

1. It is clear from this statement that you either didn’t read the rotation, or if you did, you didn’t understand it.
Well of Calamity = 2s per cast.
WoC during CS = 2s. WoC after CS = 2s. WoC 13s after CS = 2s. WoC 26s after CS = 2s
That’s 8s of alacrity coming from Well of Calamity, not 2. For the record, that’s 44% more alacrity than your build had.

2. Every compromise you make (well of eternity, swap in shield, etc.) makes your build less like your build and more like his. Eventually “your build” will be essentially the same as his, and then what will you be arguing about?

3. Yes, the build already has quickness. No, that quickness does not keep up with the alacrity, unless you build for it specifically. But you need it to, for the full dps gain, because you need cast time reduction and cooldown reduction to walk hand-in-hand both for the synergetic effect, and for your team’s pacing (so they have consistent results, not sometimes quickness+alacrity, sometimes alacrity alone).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

That’s the thing. You make it seam like your build does tons of extra support, and yet it’s the other way around. My build can do just as much support as yours, except for the might which other people will be providing and same goes for the fury. But my build provides reflects, which yours doesn’t at all. So its not your build provides greater support with less DPS, its your build does less DPS AND less support.

1. You are contradicting yourself. If your build does the same support and more dps, that’s not the same as his build doing less dps and less support, it’s his build doing less dps and the same support. The raw abuse of logic that this paragraph contains is driving me crazy. I mean, seriously? Even if your build provided close to the full amount of alacrity, that doesn’t in any way mean it’s “the other way around,” because even 2s of alacrity is still more support than not!

2. No, your build does not do the same support. By the time your build provided the same support, it wouldn’t be your build anymore, it would be his. See above.

3. See below regarding reflects.

4. See below, and other posts, regarding the discussion on PS warrior.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that people who don’t know what there doing can totally do close to 0 DPS.

Fortunately when we’re talking about the meta, we don’t have to worry about this possibility. If we aren’t talking meta, a dps chrono isn’t likely to top keeping people alive via Inspiration anyway, is it?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And I still don’t get where all this herald might stuff is coming from that people will think will replace PS warrior. The best I could come up with is the build I’ll link at the bottom of the description. But it hardly looks even close PS. The rampup time takes way to long not to mention idk how it would get 25 might.

I was working on that myself, and Pyro pointed me in the right direction:
1. Facet of Nature + Chaotic Persistence = +65% boon duration for Mes (more with more boons). Rev has their own +15%, so both are at 65% without food/gear.
2. That puts the might durations at: 24.75s from BD (mes), 20s from Facet of Strength (rev), 13.25s from Shared Empowerment (rev).
3. The mes can hit MW every 10s out of combat, proccing 3 stacks from BD. At 24.75s each, that’s 74.25 stack-seconds, or 7.4 stacks persistently.
4. The rev tics Facet of Strength every 3 seconds, granting 1 stack of might at 20s, or 6.67 stacks persistently.
5. Every time the rev tics Facet of Strength, he grants another stack at 13.25s via Shared Empowerment, which means 4.4 stacks persistently. That gets us up to 18 and a half stacks persistently right there.
6. Shared Empowerment has a 1s icd versus the 3s interval on Facet of Strength, so with the right timing you should be able to get more stacks out of it by using other facets. All three other facets grant a boon on a 3s interval, so that’s another 4.4 stacks there. that takes us up to 22.9 stacks persistently out of combat. (2 pips from Facet of Nature, 2 from Facet of Strength, 1 from Facet of Light or Facet of the Elements).
Once you’ve swapped to Facet of Darkness for combat (which puts your pips in the negative zone) to get permanent fury, FoD will be picking up the Shared Empowerment tab.
7. Now that we’re starting combat with about 23 stacks of might, we only need to burst an extra 2 stacks on average to get to max. Given that the chrono opening rotation procs Mind Wrack (BD) twice, we’re done. This could also be filled by just a little bit of pre-blasting, or even opening blasting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I really don’t see rev being meta at all. I really think the meta is going to be ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief. What would you even get rid of here for revenants mediocre ability to stack some might and 150 ferocity? The eles and thus lose a IB and vuln and a FGS for mobility? Chrono, losing all that quickness and alacrity and reflects/projectile destruction and condition removal? Or the PS warrior that applys might better than revenant and has 150 power and both banners? Or the thief with his stealth and blinds? There just isn’t a place for revenant in a meta comp.

Do note that currently, we aren’t proposing getting rid of the warrior entirely, just turn him into a dps warr instead of a might-bot. So we still keep the banners.
The weakest link really is the thief, as the chronomancer is better able to fill the stealth role than mes was before, the thief’s dps is (reportedly) below that of the revenant right now, and the blinds aren’t as critical (and yes, the mes can fill in those too, by shifting closer to your build and picking up Blinding Dissipation instead of Fencer’s Finesse).
The real question, as you and Miku both noted in subsequent posts, is whether we might not be better off skipping the Herald entirely, keeping the warrior as PS, and putting in a 3rd ele. I noted more detail in my response there about what needs to be calculated to know that.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Also, another reason I don’t think scepter will be good for a chrono is because it still does give off clones. Even so your going to be shattering with chrono you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones.

You’re never going to end up with 3 phantasms on this build, so this is a moot point.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I don’t understand that comment then, where’s the use for Herald if elementalists do the boon job already? Except carrying a poor chaos mesmer’s boonshare. Not saying Herald is irrelevant for dungeons, the ferocity buff is solid.

I’m assuming the same place as PS warriors have. Why is PS warrior meta for 25 might stacks if eles can just provide it for you? If there’s an answer for that, then there’s the reason for the herald’s might.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t so easily say thief isn’t needed. If your chrono can swap trait lines fast and is OK with that, then he can either use his elite ( and thus lose a lot of quickness ) or use a utility which has a decent CD and only provides 4 seconds of stealth.
So it really all depends on the dungeon. I could see no thief for say SE p3, but not so much for say CM p1.

I do it all the time, when I swap to stealth for the Labyrinth in Silverwastes. It just takes 3 or 4 seconds, and that’s more involved that I would need for most skips (since I swap to torch/decoy/the prestige for labyrinth, which I wouldn’t need for a normal dungeon skip).
The keys though, are:
1. F5 allows double-proc on Veil and MI, or at least a much lower cooldown on both.
2. Alacrity lowers the cooldown on both Veil and MI.
3. 100% personal stealth means a chronomancer can execute longer/trickier skips with Portal than they otherwise used to (or for triggering waypoints, like in Arah P3).

That said, you are correct that it’s possible there will be some paths that still want a thief for the skip. That’s how it is with mesmers now though, isn’kitten Mesmers are taken for portal from time to time, but that doesn’t make us “meta”, it makes us “situationally useful”.
Heck, the way Anet talks, that’ll be the norm for raids too: “oh, this raid really needs fear and chill, I guess we gotta grab a necro!”

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And even if you don’t take a thief, why take revenant over say another ele? With taking revenant AND mesmer going chaos ( and thus losing DPS ), you can allow the warrior to gain some DPS. If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken.

This really hinges on the relative dps gains and losses.
How much dps does the mesmer lose by taking Chaos?
How much dps does the warrior gain by going axes instead of PS/Greatsword?
How much dps does the Herald lose vs another Ele?
How much dps does the party gain from the Herald’s ferocity and the boon duration on chrono’s quickness?
How much dps do the eles lose when they have to provide the might/fury?

Pyro says the mesmer’s dps is so low already that swapping Chaos for Dom doesn’t really accomplish much.
Zenith and Pyro say the Revenant’s dps is probably at least 3rd place in the dps potential rankings, behind Ele and Warrior. Is that more or less dps than PS warr?

But really, the only way to have a good sense for it is to actually figure out the dps of each build, and what they lose or gain. That’s when there’ll be enough meat to convince speedrunners to put it to the test, and then we’ll get the real numbers a couple weeks or so after HoT drops.

“1. F5 allows double-proc on Veil and MI, or at least a much lower cooldown on both.
2. Alacrity lowers the cooldown on both Veil and MI.”

I’m talking party wide stealth not personal stealth lol. So that’s either 10 seconds of stealth using your elite so that either your next TW will have double the cd or you don’t get to use TW next fight. Or 4 seconds of stealth or 8 if you use your f5 for stealth. The point is, while mesmer stealth is good, it comes at a heavy price. Thus thief will definitely still be taken for some dungeons.

“This really hinges on the relative dps gains and losses.
How much dps does the mesmer lose by taking Chaos?
How much dps does the warrior gain by going axes instead of PS/Greatsword?
How much dps does the Herald lose vs another Ele?
How much dps does the party gain from the Herald’s ferocity and the boon duration on chrono’s quickness?
How much dps do the eles lose when they have to provide the might/fury?”

Yeah, the DPS should be tested. But I would like to point out the extra boon duration for quickness isn’t necessarily that good. It depends, you might have perma quickness without it. Or the extra boon duration might not do anything. Think about it, with TW and the one well, you have 17 seconds of quickness. This is more than enough for a lot of bosses in dungeons.

“Pyro says the mesmer’s dps is so low already that swapping Chaos for Dom doesn’t really accomplish much.
Zenith and Pyro say the Revenant’s dps is probably at least 3rd place in the dps potential rankings, behind Ele and Warrior. Is that more or less dps than PS warr?”

Has Pyro actually done some math on chaos not being much of a DPS difference or is he just guessing? And how much is not much lower? You could say the DPS difference between PS and full DPS warrior is low. And you also have to take into account FGS which is great for mobility. But I’m learning strongly on the ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief/ele comp being better than ele, ele, chrono w/ chaos, full DPS warrior, revenant. We will see.

Frenchfry, I mean no offense whatsoever honestly it seems like you like to argue for the sake of arguing. And you throw hyperbole around like a major league pitcher.

You keep challenging people and telling them they’re wrong based off your… opinion? You’re arguing against proven facts and numbers with situational scenarios and your own ideals, but you’re not providing anything (no math, no videos, no references) to back your claims up.

Your own personal experiences are not the be-all-end-all, and you’re making it very difficult to separate fact from opinion. You can’t keep saying things like “tons of places you can do that.” or “plenty of quickness without shield” with no background to your claims. For one, the only other time Chronomancer has Quickness is with Seize the Moment, but that’s a pretty drastic change to the build.

So please, just a bit less confrontation would be appreciated unless you know your facts are solid.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m talking party wide stealth not personal stealth lol.

What are you talking about? Veil and MI are party stealth, and they’re the skills I am talking about.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

So that’s either 10 seconds of stealth using your elite so that either your next TW will have double the cd or you don’t get to use TW next fight. Or 4 seconds of stealth or 8 if you use your f5 for stealth.

I swear you’ve given me reason to believe you actually play mesmer before, but statements like this make me wonder.
MI’s base cooldown is 90s, fully half of Time Warp. Furthermore, Master of Manipulation is in the chaos tree, so it’s an easy pick to reduce MI to 72s. With alacrity, that comes down to 48s or less, which is less than Shadow Refuge (pretty close if SR is traited)
With f5 running about the same, you get both of them as often as the thief gets Shadow Refuge, which is the lynchpin of their stealth skipping anyway.
So f5 → veil → MI → f5 → MI = 24s of party stealth, which around what you’re getting from Wall → SB3 → Shadow Refuge. Thief can increase that with Blinding Powder, Mesmer can increase that by casting veil after f5, or even more with mimic→ veil.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The point is, while mesmer stealth is good, it comes at a heavy price. Thus thief will definitely still be taken for some dungeons.

I did note that this is possible, see my previous post. Another good example is Arah p3, where a thief can do the glowing ball toss solo.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, the DPS should be tested. But I would like to point out the extra boon duration for quickness isn’t necessarily that good. It depends, you might have perma quickness without it. Or the extra boon duration might not do anything. Think about it, with TW and the one well, you have 17 seconds of quickness. This is more than enough for a lot of bosses in dungeons.

Certainly possible. See my earlier note about some bosses calling for the chrono to shift closer to dps as the situation calls for it (good speedrunners will get good at it).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Has Pyro actually done some math on chaos not being much of a DPS difference or is he just guessing?

In PvE, I’d guess that the math that’s been done has largely been the efforts to make a mesmer that can compete for dps. Sadly, it’s always so kitten low that taking less efficient abilities just doesn’t make much difference.
For an example of just how big a difference it is, you can see the exercise in the WvW zerg thread, where Pyro demonstrated that a mesmer burst was doing less damage than a single meteor from meteor shower.
We’re talking 6000-7000 dps for an entire build, versus the 19k that buffed eles are supposedly getting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And how much is not much lower? You could say the DPS difference between PS and full DPS warrior is low. And you also have to take into account FGS which is great for mobility. But I’m learning strongly on the ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief/ele comp being better than ele, ele, chrono w/ chaos, full DPS warrior, revenant. We will see.

Yes, this is my point.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Egad man, you’re really mucking up the logic here:

You make it seam like your build somehow has significantly more alacrity or quickness. If you really need more quickness you can just swap in the shield, but chrono already has a lot of quickness without shield. And I take a feedback for extra reflects rather than TWO seconds of extra alacrity.

1. It is clear from this statement that you either didn’t read the rotation, or if you did, you didn’t understand it.
Well of Calamity = 2s per cast.
WoC during CS = 2s. WoC after CS = 2s. WoC 13s after CS = 2s. WoC 26s after CS = 2s
That’s 8s of alacrity coming from Well of Calamity, not 2. For the record, that’s 44% more alacrity than your build had.

2. Every compromise you make (well of eternity, swap in shield, etc.) makes your build less like your build and more like his. Eventually “your build” will be essentially the same as his, and then what will you be arguing about?

3. Yes, the build already has quickness. No, that quickness does not keep up with the alacrity, unless you build for it specifically. But you need it to, for the full dps gain, because you need cast time reduction and cooldown reduction to walk hand-in-hand both for the synergetic effect, and for your team’s pacing (so they have consistent results, not sometimes quickness+alacrity, sometimes alacrity alone).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

That’s the thing. You make it seam like your build does tons of extra support, and yet it’s the other way around. My build can do just as much support as yours, except for the might which other people will be providing and same goes for the fury. But my build provides reflects, which yours doesn’t at all. So its not your build provides greater support with less DPS, its your build does less DPS AND less support.

1. You are contradicting yourself. If your build does the same support and more dps, that’s not the same as his build doing less dps and less support, it’s his build doing less dps and the same support. The raw abuse of logic that this paragraph contains is driving me crazy. I mean, seriously? Even if your build provided close to the full amount of alacrity, that doesn’t in any way mean it’s “the other way around,” because even 2s of alacrity is still more support than not!

2. No, your build does not do the same support. By the time your build provided the same support, it wouldn’t be your build anymore, it would be his. See above.

3. See below regarding reflects.

4. See below, and other posts, regarding the discussion on PS warrior.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that people who don’t know what there doing can totally do close to 0 DPS.

Fortunately when we’re talking about the meta, we don’t have to worry about this possibility. If we aren’t talking meta, a dps chrono isn’t likely to top keeping people alive via Inspiration anyway, is it?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And I still don’t get where all this herald might stuff is coming from that people will think will replace PS warrior. The best I could come up with is the build I’ll link at the bottom of the description. But it hardly looks even close PS. The rampup time takes way to long not to mention idk how it would get 25 might.

I was working on that myself, and Pyro pointed me in the right direction:
1. Facet of Nature + Chaotic Persistence = +65% boon duration for Mes (more with more boons). Rev has their own +15%, so both are at 65% without food/gear.
2. That puts the might durations at: 24.75s from BD (mes), 20s from Facet of Strength (rev), 13.25s from Shared Empowerment (rev).
3. The mes can hit MW every 10s out of combat, proccing 3 stacks from BD. At 24.75s each, that’s 74.25 stack-seconds, or 7.4 stacks persistently.
4. The rev tics Facet of Strength every 3 seconds, granting 1 stack of might at 20s, or 6.67 stacks persistently.
5. Every time the rev tics Facet of Strength, he grants another stack at 13.25s via Shared Empowerment, which means 4.4 stacks persistently. That gets us up to 18 and a half stacks persistently right there.
6. Shared Empowerment has a 1s icd versus the 3s interval on Facet of Strength, so with the right timing you should be able to get more stacks out of it by using other facets. All three other facets grant a boon on a 3s interval, so that’s another 4.4 stacks there. that takes us up to 22.9 stacks persistently out of combat. (2 pips from Facet of Nature, 2 from Facet of Strength, 1 from Facet of Light or Facet of the Elements).
Once you’ve swapped to Facet of Darkness for combat (which puts your pips in the negative zone) to get permanent fury, FoD will be picking up the Shared Empowerment tab.
7. Now that we’re starting combat with about 23 stacks of might, we only need to burst an extra 2 stacks on average to get to max. Given that the chrono opening rotation procs Mind Wrack (BD) twice, we’re done. This could also be filled by just a little bit of pre-blasting, or even opening blasting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I really don’t see rev being meta at all. I really think the meta is going to be ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief. What would you even get rid of here for revenants mediocre ability to stack some might and 150 ferocity? The eles and thus lose a IB and vuln and a FGS for mobility? Chrono, losing all that quickness and alacrity and reflects/projectile destruction and condition removal? Or the PS warrior that applys might better than revenant and has 150 power and both banners? Or the thief with his stealth and blinds? There just isn’t a place for revenant in a meta comp.

Do note that currently, we aren’t proposing getting rid of the warrior entirely, just turn him into a dps warr instead of a might-bot. So we still keep the banners.
The weakest link really is the thief, as the chronomancer is better able to fill the stealth role than mes was before, the thief’s dps is (reportedly) below that of the revenant right now, and the blinds aren’t as critical (and yes, the mes can fill in those too, by shifting closer to your build and picking up Blinding Dissipation instead of Fencer’s Finesse).
The real question, as you and Miku both noted in subsequent posts, is whether we might not be better off skipping the Herald entirely, keeping the warrior as PS, and putting in a 3rd ele. I noted more detail in my response there about what needs to be calculated to know that.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Also, another reason I don’t think scepter will be good for a chrono is because it still does give off clones. Even so your going to be shattering with chrono you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones.

You’re never going to end up with 3 phantasms on this build, so this is a moot point.

Yeah, I did forgot about CS and I didn’t relise the well was on such a low cd. But remember your giving up 12 seconds of relfects for 8 seconds of alacrity. With my build you already have 18 seconds of alacrity which should be plenty. If there isn’t a need for reflects against a certain boss then you can go for the well.

’ Every compromise you make (well of eternity, swap in shield, etc.) makes your build less like your build and more like his."

I’m saying you can take well eternity sometimes, but you will also use well of eternity. And you can swap in shield if for some reason you already don’t. But the significant changes between our builds are STAFF and the trait line CHAOS. And the fact that my build has reflects while his has 0. I’m simply discussing changes to his build.

“Eventually “your build” will be essentially the same as his, and then what will you be arguing about?”"

???? Glad you can see into the future about what my build will be like.

“3. Yes, the build already has quickness. No, that quickness does not keep up with the alacrity, unless you build for it specifically. But you need it to, for the full dps gain, because you need cast time reduction and cooldown reduction to walk hand-in-hand both for the synergetic effect, and for your team’s pacing (so they have consistent results, not sometimes quickness+alacrity, sometimes alacrity alone).”

I’m saying my build should already have enough quickness and if not you can just swap shield in. It really depends on the dungeon and the group you have. I have yet to play chrono so idk how often shield will be used or not.

“1. You are contradicting yourself. If your build does the same support and more dps, that’s not the same as his build doing less dps and less support, it’s his build doing less dps and the same support. The raw abuse of logic that this paragraph contains is driving me crazy. I mean, seriously? Even if your build provided close to the full amount of alacrity, that doesn’t in any way mean it’s “the other way around,” because even 2s of alacrity is still more support than not!”

My build has reflects and projectile destruction. his doesn’t. See what I’m getting at? if your wanting to do a ele, ele, chrono, warrior, revenant comp, your atleast going to need reflects. Thus my build has significantly more support.

“2. No, your build does not do the same support. By the time your build provided the same support, it wouldn’t be your build anymore, it would be his. See above.”

No, my build doesn’t do the SAME support. But it does more important support like reflects rather than provide some might that warrior will be providing.

“4. You’re ignoring the discussion on the total group gains from not requiring the warrior to go PS. Is this intentional? Because it completely undercuts your point, if you don’t deal with it.”

What? You saying all the stuff below that ( quotes from me ) is somehow ignoring it? Are you * with me? Like?!??!?!?!?!?!? Are you for real? You gotta start making some sence or I am gonna just strait up start ignoring you. I’m like 99.999% sure your just a troll at this point.

" If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken."

“Fortunately when we’re talking about the meta, we don’t have to worry about this possibility. If we aren’t talking meta, a dps chrono isn’t likely to top keeping people alive via Inspiration anyway, is it?”

I was replying to to this: “Additionally, even a somewhat clueless ele or warrior is going to dps that leaves you, a mesmer, in the dust.”

I was just saying a clueless warrior will probaly be doing less DPS than a mesmer.

“I was working on that myself, and Pyro pointed me in the right direction:
1. Facet of Nature + Chaotic Persistence = +65% boon duration for Mes (more with more boons). Rev has their own +15%, so both are at 65% without food/gear.
2. That puts the might durations at: 24.75s from BD (mes), 20s from Facet of Strength (rev), 13.25s from Shared Empowerment (rev).
3. The mes can hit MW every 10s out of combat, proccing 3 stacks from BD. At 24.75s each, that’s 74.25 stack-seconds, or 7.4 stacks persistently.
4. The rev tics Facet of Strength every 3 seconds, granting 1 stack of might at 20s, or 6.67 stacks persistently.
5. Every time the rev tics Facet of Strength, he grants another stack at 13.25s via Shared Empowerment, which means 4.4 stacks persistently. That gets us up to 18 and a half stacks persistently right there.
6. Shared Empowerment has a 1s icd versus the 3s interval on Facet of Strength, so with the right timing you should be able to get more stacks out of it by using other facets. All three other facets grant a boon on a 3s interval, so that’s another 4.4 stacks there. that takes us up to 22.9 stacks persistently out of combat. (2 pips from Facet of Nature, 2 from Facet of Strength, 1 from Facet of Light or Facet of the Elements).
Once you’ve swapped to Facet of Darkness for combat (which puts your pips in the negative zone) to get permanent fury, FoD will be picking up the Shared Empowerment tab.
7. Now that we’re starting combat with about 23 stacks of might, we only need to burst an extra 2 stacks on average to get to max. Given that the chrono opening rotation procs Mind Wrack (BD) twice, we’re done. This could also be filled by just a little bit of pre-blasting, or even opening blasting.”

If you are all walking together yeah. Unfortunately, in a dungeon, not everyone has the same speed…… but yes if you are in the range I now relise you can get up some nice might.

“Do note that currently, we aren’t proposing getting rid of the warrior entirely, just turn him into a dps warr instead of a might-bot. So we still keep the banners.
The weakest link really is the thief, as the chronomancer is better able to fill the stealth role than mes was before, the thief’s dps is (reportedly) below that of the revenant right now, and the blinds aren’t as critical (and yes, the mes can fill in those too, by shifting closer to your build and picking up Blinding Dissipation instead of Fencer’s Finesse).
The real question, as you and Miku both noted in subsequent posts, is whether we might not be better off skipping the Herald entirely, keeping the warrior as PS, and putting in a 3rd ele. I noted more detail in my response there about what needs to be calculated to know that.”

I agree, some more math has to be done. But mesmer hardly fills the role of blinds. Fortunately, ele got us covered, tho at the cost of losing vuln.

“You’re never going to end up with 3 phantasms on this build, so this is a moot point.”

Never going to end up with 3 phantasms? Wah?!?!? May I ask why you think we will only ever be getting up to two phantasms out? not to mention, the auto attack can give more than 1 close if you repeat the cycle twice……..

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Frenchfry, I mean no offense whatsoever honestly it seems like you like to argue for the sake of arguing. And you throw hyperbole around like a major league pitcher.

You keep challenging people and telling them they’re wrong based off your… opinion? You’re arguing against proven facts and numbers with situational scenarios and your own ideals, but you’re not providing anything (no math, no videos, no references) to back your claims up.

Your own personal experiences are not the be-all-end-all, and you’re making it very difficult to separate fact from opinion. You can’t keep saying things like “tons of places you can do that.” or “plenty of quickness without shield” with no background to your claims. For one, the only other time Chronomancer has Quickness is with Seize the Moment, but that’s a pretty drastic change to the build.

So please, just a bit less confrontation would be appreciated unless you know your facts are solid.

No, I am discussing why I don’t think staff or scepter or chaos will be in the meta build. Against proven facts? What am i still arguing about that has been proven? And about this whole rev vs another ele thing, I have said this already, I could see it both ways. But without math being down it would seam like its in favor of another ele to me. And I’m just trying to get across why i think that is. i’v also already said the only way for us to now for sure is for matht o be done. I’v also already said I am terrible at math and don’t enjoy it at all, so I’ll leave it for the people who do like it.

“plenty of quickness without shield”

Yeah, I got 17 seconds of quickness without shield. Is that enough background for my claim? Or are you saying you want me to say in my post how I get that other quickness? if so, well, i figured you could just see how I got that other quickness my looking at the build i posted.

I think people think I’m saying 100% on say ele is better than revenant when I am simply saying without doing math that to me it looks like another ele would be better. And that I even said the only way to really know is to do math. I aint saying 100% 3rd ele>a revenant. I’m simply trying to show you why without math it would seam like that to me. I will wait to say I 100% believe a 3rd ele is better than a revenant or vice versa when math has been done.

Oh man…

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m talking party wide stealth not personal stealth lol.

What are you talking about? Veil and MI are party stealth, and they’re the skills I am talking about.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

So that’s either 10 seconds of stealth using your elite so that either your next TW will have double the cd or you don’t get to use TW next fight. Or 4 seconds of stealth or 8 if you use your f5 for stealth.

I swear you’ve given me reason to believe you actually play mesmer before, but statements like this make me wonder.
MI’s base cooldown is 90s, fully half of Time Warp. Furthermore, Master of Manipulation is in the chaos tree, so it’s an easy pick to reduce MI to 72s. With alacrity, that comes down to 48s or less, which is less than Shadow Refuge (pretty close if SR is traited)
With f5 running about the same, you get both of them as often as the thief gets Shadow Refuge, which is the lynchpin of their stealth skipping anyway.
So f5 -> veil -> MI -> f5 -> MI = 24s of party stealth, which around what you’re getting from Wall -> SB3 -> Shadow Refuge. Thief can increase that with Blinding Powder, Mesmer can increase that by casting veil after f5, or even more with mimic-> veil.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The point is, while mesmer stealth is good, it comes at a heavy price. Thus thief will definitely still be taken for some dungeons.

I did note that this is possible, see my previous post. Another good example is Arah p3, where a thief can do the glowing ball toss solo.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, the DPS should be tested. But I would like to point out the extra boon duration for quickness isn’t necessarily that good. It depends, you might have perma quickness without it. Or the extra boon duration might not do anything. Think about it, with TW and the one well, you have 17 seconds of quickness. This is more than enough for a lot of bosses in dungeons.

Certainly possible. See my earlier note about some bosses calling for the chrono to shift closer to dps as the situation calls for it (good speedrunners will get good at it).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Has Pyro actually done some math on chaos not being much of a DPS difference or is he just guessing?

In PvE, I’d guess that the math that’s been done has largely been the efforts to make a mesmer that can compete for dps. Sadly, it’s always so kitten low that taking less efficient abilities just doesn’t make much difference.
For an example of just how big a difference it is, you can see the exercise in the WvW zerg thread, where Pyro demonstrated that a mesmer burst was doing less damage than a single meteor from meteor shower.
We’re talking 6000-7000 dps for an entire build, versus the 19k that buffed eles are supposedly getting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And how much is not much lower? You could say the DPS difference between PS and full DPS warrior is low. And you also have to take into account FGS which is great for mobility. But I’m learning strongly on the ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief/ele comp being better than ele, ele, chrono w/ chaos, full DPS warrior, revenant. We will see.

Yes, this is my point.

You mentioned torch 4….

“MI’s base cooldown is 90s, fully half of Time Warp.”

And I said where that it wasn’t?? I said you can use your elite pop CS at the end of teh cast so it goes off cd then swap back to TW. If you use TW then it would have double the cd than normal because CS has a 90 seconds cd while TW has 180 second cd.

“Furthermore, Master of Manipulation is in the chaos tree, so it’s an easy pick to reduce MI to 72s.”

This is a good idea that I didn’t think of.

“With f5 running about the same, you get both of them as often as the thief gets Shadow Refuge, which is the lynchpin of their stealth skipping anyway.”

Except for the fact you don’t get TW then? Presuming your oping your alacrity during the skip?

“Certainly possible. See my earlier note about some bosses calling for the chrono to shift closer to dps as the situation calls for it (good speedrunners will get good at it).”

Exactly, this is my point. Chaos isn’t needed.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, I did forgot about CS and I didn’t relise the well was on such a low cd. But remember your giving up 12 seconds of relfects for 8 seconds of alacrity.

Do note that Pyro has already said he’d swap out Calamity for Feedback in fights where that matters more.
Also, as I noted earlier in the thread, shield is providing additional alacrity via the revamped shield phantasms. We haven’t calculated what kind of potential you get out of those, though, because it’s complicated and messy (Persistence of Memory + Chronophantasma + Quickness + Shield 4×2 = ????)

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

With my build you already have 18 seconds of alacrity which should be plenty. If there isn’t a need for reflects against a certain boss then you can go for the well.

What percentage of boss fights are only 18s long? Is there a source to find that kind of information?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m saying you can take well eternity sometimes, but you will also use well of eternity. And you can swap in shield if for some reason you already don’t. But the significant changes between our builds are STAFF and the trait line CHAOS.

I do agree with you on the staff, actually. If this were a boonshare build as well as an alacrity build, I’d probably stick with staff for the protection sharing, both otherwise I think you’ll get more mileage out of a second offhand.
The main key to the chaos is the might stacking, which is definitely more support than your build…given the right party. A PS warrior would make BD (mostly) moot, which would give a good reason to go Dom instead.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And the fact that my build has reflects while his has 0. I’m simply discussing changes to his build.

Already mentioned the feedback swap. Your build has 1 reflect, which his build has with a simple swap, the same swap you just suggested you’d be willing to make on any boss where reflects aren’t critical (most bosses).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

???? Glad you can see into the future about what my build will be like.

Just responding specifically to your trend of taking stuff from his build and incorporating it. You keep going that way, and that’s where you’ll end up. Taking my phrase out of context doesn’t help you.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m saying my build should already have enough quickness and if not you can just swap shield in. It really depends on the dungeon and the group you have. I have yet to play chrono so idk how often shield will be used or not.

If the fight only lasts 17s, yes. If it does not, no. See above, do you know how many fights that will be? And what are your sources on that?
As far as shield itself, it’s pretty boss, you should try it, I think you’ll like it.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

My build has reflects and projectile destruction. his doesn’t. See what I’m getting at? if your wanting to do a ele, ele, chrono, warrior, revenant comp, your atleast going to need reflects. Thus my build has significantly more support.

1. Shield5 destroys projectiles (though there’s been some bug reports around that). You’d know that if you’d read the ability.
2. He can easily swap to Feedback for the important fights, which means your build only has “more support” in places where reflects are less important than alacrity, in which case it is by definition not “more support”. Only on fights where Feedback and Shield 5 aren’t enough projectile destruction will your build have “more support”. Which fights are those, do you know?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

What? You saying all the stuff below that ( quotes from me ) is somehow ignoring it? Are you * with me? Like?!??!?!?!?!?!? Are you for real? You gotta start making some sence or I am gonna just strait up start ignoring you. I’m like 99.999% sure your just a troll at this point.

I edited this out 24 minutes before you posted.
I’ve found it’s useful to check the thread again before I post, to make sure everything I’ve said is still accurate.
(I also double-check my posts after I post them just so I can catch little mistakes like this one and edit them out).
I highly recommend both habits, especially in a conversation that’s going as fast as this one.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Never going to end up with 3 phantasms? Wah?!?!? May I ask why you think we will only ever be getting up to two phantasms out?

We’re shattering Mind Wrack on cooldown, at 100% alacrity, which means a shatter at least once every 7s. But we’re also shattering CoF on cooldown (13s), and the other two shatters on cooldown as well (20s and 26s). Between all of them, even Chronophantasma can’t keep your phantasms alive long enough to get three out except right at the start (remember we’re using Well of Eternity over Signet of Ether).
This isn’t just because of BD in Pyro’s build, but also because you need the 100% alacrity to keep your CS cooldown low for more frequent fights. Even if 18s is enough for your team, it’s unfortunately not enough for you, the chronomancer. So you’ve gotta be shattering.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

not to mention, the auto attack can give more than 1 close if you repeat the cycle twice……..

Clones always overwrite clones first, so you never need to worry about overwriting a phantasm unless you have three phantasms.
This is another mesmer thing I’m surprised you don’t know, given how hard you’re arguing today.

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

You mentioned torch 4….

Specifically to say I didn’t need it. All you had to do was read what I said, but it sounds like you skimmed it instead?? Do you really think I’m so unimportant as to not actually read what I say? That makes me sad.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And I said where that it wasn’t?? I said you can use your elite pop CS at the end of teh cast so it goes off cd then swap back to TW. If you use TW then it would have double the cd than normal because CS has a 90 seconds cd while TW has 180 second cd.

You get MI back as soon as you get CS back since they have roughly the same cooldown, so you can swap to TW by the time you’re able to do another initiation.
I like the idea on using MI just once (for a shorter skip, say) inside CS, but then you’ll be waiting on CS anyway, since you probably don’t want to do a fight without CS (I guess that would be okay for some trash).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact you don’t get TW then? Presuming your oping your alacrity during the skip?

Yes, that’s the idea. But since CS and MI have a similar cd after alacrity, even if you aren’t opping your alacrity during the skip, you’ll be able to swap to TW before you need to use CS again. So TW is only ever down if CS is down.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Exactly, this is my point. Chaos isn’t needed.

Except as Chaos noted, you haven’t provided any grounding at all that 18s is enough most of the time. You’d need a solid survey of bosses, and their average speed kill times, to be able to say something like that.

Embolism.8106:

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

Yeah, probably better to go to the guardian forum and start trying to get people to use staff for meta builds. : P

As for the other two new posts, Ill get to them at some point, but I’v spent way to much time replying already right now with huge posts.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

Yeah, probably better to go to the guardian forum and start trying to get people to use staff for meta builds. : P

As for the other two new posts, Ill get to them at some point, but I’v spent way to much time replying already right now with huge posts.

People have already shown you the numbers (for Sceptre, amongst other things). At this point all you’re doing is floundering, you know you’re wrong but your ego prevents you from admitting it.

For your own sake, just stop. Walk away. No need to make things more tiresome than they have to be, for all involved.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

Yeah, probably better to go to the guardian forum and start trying to get people to use staff for meta builds. : P

As for the other two new posts, Ill get to them at some point, but I’v spent way to much time replying already right now with huge posts.

People have already shown you the numbers (for Sceptre, amongst other things). At this point all you’re doing is floundering, you know you’re wrong but your ego prevents you from admitting it.

For your own sake, just stop. Walk away. No need to make things more tiresome than they have to be, for all involved.

Yeah, people have shown the numbers. That is true indeed. It showed that sword auto was significantly better while scepter 3 did good DPS. More dps test would have to be done to tell whether scepter is better or not. Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces. I think Miku summed it up quit well: I think the scepter case was closed on page 1.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

Mmhm. And how does Ether Clone work against this?

For those questioning my assessment of Mesmer damage as worthless…have you seen recent speedruns with a Mesmer? The Mesmer literally drops portal, time warp, picks up an fgs and runs to the next boss. Obviously Mesmer dps output is not the crux of what makes a dungeon group clear faster.

Specifically though, let’s look at domination vs chaos. What does domination give?

Well, it gives a boost to damage from vuln, this ends up as a 12.5% boost at 25 vuln…but it’s personal only, and we know how awful our personal damage is.

Domination also gives a 15% boost to phantasms…but this build has a high rate of shattering, the shield phantasms don’t do strong damage, and phantasms tend to squish quickly anyway, so this boost will be very minor as well.

Lastly, domination will boost our mind wrack damage by 15% (doubt you’ll get the inactive bonus much vs bosses). This makes a bit of a difference, but ultimately it’s still not that impactful. MW will at best be about 12k damage every 6 seconds or so, which is 2k dps, so a 15% boost gets us another 300 dps. Hardly worth mentioning.

Ultimately, swapping to domination gets you extremely little. Staying in chaos means you can make sure the real dps classes keep turbo mode on as long as possible.

@Chaos: I put a build link earlier in a post, you may want to update the op with it.

In an effort to remain on-topic…

Embolism.8106:

@Pyro:

If you can stack 25 Might easy between BD and Herald (or whatever your preferred Might stacker is), would it be a better to go MtD instead of Shattered Strength? It’s not much damage but it’s still something.

Do you think you’d get more Alacrity/damage from using Illusionary Reversion/PoM for more Illusions? From what I can tell from the video a lot of Shatters weren’t full Shatters, but perhaps taking one or two of those traits would beef them up.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

Mmhm. And how does Ether Clone work against this?

Because it summons a clone.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

Mmhm. And how does Ether Clone work against this?

Because it summons a clone.

Go on. What bad things happen when you Shatter a Clone instead of a Phantasm? A Clone which, by the way, can be conjured every 1 ~ 2 seconds?

Fay.2357:

For those questioning my assessment of Mesmer damage as worthless…have you seen recent speedruns with a Mesmer? The Mesmer literally drops portal, time warp, picks up an fgs and runs to the next boss. Obviously Mesmer dps output is not the crux of what makes a dungeon group clear faster.

Specifically though, let’s look at domination vs chaos. What does domination give?

Well, it gives a boost to damage from vuln, this ends up as a 12.5% boost at 25 vuln…but it’s personal only, and we know how awful our personal damage is.

Domination also gives a 15% boost to phantasms…but this build has a high rate of shattering, the shield phantasms don’t do strong damage, and phantasms tend to squish quickly anyway, so this boost will be very minor as well.

Lastly, domination will boost our mind wrack damage by 15% (doubt you’ll get the inactive bonus much vs bosses). This makes a bit of a difference, but ultimately it’s still not that impactful. MW will at best be about 12k damage every 6 seconds or so, which is 2k dps, so a 15% boost gets us another 300 dps. Hardly worth mentioning.

Ultimately, swapping to domination gets you extremely little. Staying in chaos means you can make sure the real dps classes keep turbo mode on as long as possible.

@Chaos: I put a build link earlier in a post, you may want to update the op with it.

By the 15% boon duration?

@Embolism

It’s better for you to shatter phantasms than to shatter clones because the phantasms do damage and then you shatter them and they do damage again.