Guild Wars 2

Anyone still remember Pyro’s Immortal mesmer build? Basically it utilizes retaliation from both mesmer and phantasm to kill opponents, while protecting you with high protection and regeneration uptime from traitlines and chaos armor.

I was thinking if we can recreate this bunker build using chronomancer.
Quick build link before we start.
Several other variants mentioned in this thread depend on your taste: 1 and 2
Melandru for bunking in PvP, and radiance in WvW. I surprised myself for suggesting radiance as well but it is actually quite decent with this build due to very high light aura and chaos armor uptime. Also radiance grant light aura with well of eternity so extra retaliation!

A mesmer burning in purple flame (alacrity), emitting white light but at the same time envelope himself in dark purple shield, what a wonderful sight isn’kitten I claim this build as Light and Darkness! Just joking lol.

Funny this build doesn’t have Chaos line, which you would expect as a must have in the past. But chronomancer line actually offer quite a lot of stuff and synergize well with Illusion and Inspiration. Together they deliver surprisingly similar outcome with very different playstyle, but there is one key uncertain factor I’ve yet to test out.

Offense

• As I mentioned before, there is one key factor that I’m banking on but not certain about. If persisting image works with chronophantasma’s respawned phantasms, then we’re looking at almost close to pre-vengeful images nerf ones if you shatter and cast phantasms constantly. Don’t ask me why I didn’t think about testing that when running insp/illu/chrono in the last BWE, must have slipped my mind. This require high coordination from mesmer though so developers please please don’t overreact to it! Plus this is the only way to make persisting images viable.
• Chronophantasma actually synergize well with persistence of memory, giving you roughly 4 seconds of all phantasm recharge per phantasm shattered. And its not hard to create and shatter 2 phantasms with this build.
• Well of eternity provides another light field on 20s CD. Which can be super helpful if you find leaping into temporal curtain is tricky after iLeap change. Funny thing with light aura is you also apply 8s of vulnerability to enemy when they hit you, not a big boost but just a nice little extra compare to old combo haha.
• With introduction of light aura, each light field leap will give you 5s of aura. This aura will grant 2s retaliation on 1s ICD. Thus giving you high retaliation uptime (theoretically 10s but normally 4-8s) even without cry of frustration. This won’t be 100% uptime, but hopefully you’ll be able to keep up the leapings with the light fields you have and alacrity!

Defense

• Unfortunately without Chaos traitline you have no protection on chaos armor cast, but hopefully those wells will provide enough chaos armor for you to stack protections.
• Its a shame about the removal of condi cleanse with wells. But with persistence of memory and chronophantasma, I find myself unlikely to have iDisenchanter on CD when bursted with condi during PvP. I know iDisenchanter isn’t so good sometimes though but with inspiration you shouldn’t be kill by conditions that easily. Your well of eternity will also provide 2 condi removal on cast due to mender’s purity, potentially helping you remove poison before the big, end healing pulse hits.
• You won’t have much regeneration uptime as in the past, but with the changes to restorative illusions, we are looking at much better burst heals than regeneration.
• With the wells this bunker build can keep very high alacrity uptime. Which provide good defense and offense abilities across the board.

Weakness

• Stuns, that’s the main thing I can’t emphasize enough. Hopefully phase retreat and chaos armor blinds will keep you alive from melee chains but I can’t guarantee this.
• You can swap iDisenchanter with iDefender if you find the traited iDefender die too frequently. Your condi cleanse will be slightly weaker but it shouldn’t left you too vulnerable. Alternatively you can swap with well of calamity but you’ll have less chaos armor uptime.
• Sorry about the mobility.
• You are relying on others to kill themselves, but we know that since Pyro’s build isn’kitten

Overall this build seems to work on paper but I need to test it out. A very different approach compare to the past Immortal build but it can achieve the same outcome. Maybe it no longer work on current meta? Maybe we can slap celestial on it? Maybe someone already tested and know persisting images work on chronophantasma? Maybe Pyro won’t be as pessimistic if this build is viable? Who knows. Discuss!

Well, a couple things:

Firstly, you’d take the moa signet as the elite. With that, melandru, chrono line, and lemongrass-poultry, you’re totaling -90% duration to control conditions and -45% duration to cc itself.

Well of precognition is worthless. You’d put either blink or decoy there instead.

Condition removal in the build as-posted is pretty off the charts. You’ve got disenchanter, mender’s purity, shattered conditions, and melandru runes. I’d probably take well of action instead of pDisenchanter.

Overall, the biggest issue with this build is access to retaliation. Persisting images works for your phantasms if you’re maintaining a good shatter rate (pretty sure it works with chronophantasma), but you’re going to have a hard time keeping good uptime on yourself. Even getting a single combo finisher out of iLeap + curtain is rather difficult (it’s very oddly buggy), and even then it’s just 5s of the aura. Other than that potential single aura application, the focus actually isn’t doing very much for you, since it’s not traited in inspiration. I’d recommend taking shield instead. This gives you a significantly higher rate of phantasm production, along with access to slow and more access to alacrity.

Ultimately…it might work. Here’s the problem. The nerf to vengeful images was only the last nail in the coffin of my immortal build. Its effectiveness had been drastically cut down due to the nerf to confusion damage and the nerf to retaliation damage (cut by 50% and 33% respectively). How the build used to play was that it provided strong sustained damage against an attacker, but the burst to kill was from rapid confusion bursting (with a couple notable exceptions such as whirling wrath or grenade barrage). You’ll still have those problems here. Burst from this build is close to nonexistent as confusion hits like a wet noodle if you’re not heavily invested into condition damage. Retaliation will not only be harder to apply to yourself and harder to keep up on phantasms, but also hits significantly weaker than it did before. Lastly, the roaming meta has evolved heavily in favor of builds with drastically strong sustain (celery elery) or extreme capabilities to disengage (PU mesmer, thief, nike warrior). The number of people that would actually stick around and engage long enough to die here would be unfortunately quite tiny.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Anyone still remember Pyro’s Immortal mesmer build? Basically it utilizes retaliation from both mesmer and phantasm to kill opponents, while protecting you with high protection and regeneration uptime from traitlines and chaos armor.

I was thinking if we can recreate this bunker build using chronomancer.
Quick build link before we start.
Several other variants mentioned in this thread depend on your taste: 1 and 2
Melandru for bunking in PvP, and radiance in WvW. I surprised myself for suggesting radiance as well but it is actually quite decent with this build due to very high light aura and chaos armor uptime. Also radiance grant light aura with well of eternity so extra retaliation!

A mesmer burning in purple flame (alacrity), emitting white light but at the same time envelope himself in dark purple shield, what a wonderful sight isn’kitten I claim this build as Light and Darkness! Just joking lol.

Funny this build doesn’t have Chaos line, which you would expect as a must have in the past. But chronomancer line actually offer quite a lot of stuff and synergize well with Illusion and Inspiration. Together they deliver surprisingly similar outcome with very different playstyle, but there is one key uncertain factor I’ve yet to test out.

Offense

• As I mentioned before, there is one key factor that I’m banking on but not certain about. If persisting image works with chronophantasma’s respawned phantasms, then we’re looking at almost close to pre-vengeful images nerf ones if you shatter and cast phantasms constantly. Don’t ask me why I didn’t think about testing that when running insp/illu/chrono in the last BWE, must have slipped my mind. This require high coordination from mesmer though so developers please please don’t overreact to it! Plus this is the only way to make persisting images viable.
• Chronophantasma actually synergize well with persistence of memory, giving you roughly 4 seconds of all phantasm recharge per phantasm shattered. And its not hard to create and shatter 2 phantasms with this build.
• Well of eternity provides another light field on 20s CD. Which can be super helpful if you find leaping into temporal curtain is tricky after iLeap change. Funny thing with light aura is you also apply 8s of vulnerability to enemy when they hit you, not a big boost but just a nice little extra compare to old combo haha.
• With introduction of light aura, each light field leap will give you 5s of aura. This aura will grant 2s retaliation on 1s ICD. Thus giving you high retaliation uptime (theoretically 10s but normally 4-8s) even without cry of frustration. This won’t be 100% uptime, but hopefully you’ll be able to keep up the leapings with the light fields you have and alacrity!

Defense

• Unfortunately without Chaos traitline you have no protection on chaos armor cast, but hopefully those wells will provide enough chaos armor for you to stack protections.
• Its a shame about the removal of condi cleanse with wells. But with persistence of memory and chronophantasma, I find myself unlikely to have iDisenchanter on CD when bursted with condi during PvP. I know iDisenchanter isn’t so good sometimes though but with inspiration you shouldn’t be kill by conditions that easily. Your well of eternity will also provide 2 condi removal on cast due to mender’s purity, potentially helping you remove poison before the big, end healing pulse hits.
• You won’t have much regeneration uptime as in the past, but with the changes to restorative illusions, we are looking at much better burst heals than regeneration.
• With the wells this bunker build can keep very high alacrity uptime. Which provide good defense and offense abilities across the board.

Weakness

• Stuns, that’s the main thing I can’t emphasize enough. Hopefully phase retreat and chaos armor blinds will keep you alive from melee chains but I can’t guarantee this.
• You can swap iDisenchanter with iDefender if you find the traited iDefender die too frequently. Your condi cleanse will be slightly weaker but it shouldn’t left you too vulnerable. Alternatively you can swap with well of calamity but you’ll have less chaos armor uptime.
• Sorry about the mobility.
• You are relying on others to kill themselves, but we know that since Pyro’s build isn’kitten

Overall this build seems to work on paper but I need to test it out. A very different approach compare to the past Immortal build but it can achieve the same outcome. Maybe it no longer work on current meta? Maybe we can slap celestial on it? Maybe someone already tested and know persisting images work on chronophantasma? Maybe Pyro won’t be as pessimistic if this build is viable? Who knows. Discuss!

I used to run a variation of a power/bunker build back in the day, mainly for WvW because I liked hanging out with the frontline.

Was all in PVT except rings and something else, i dont remember, but I upped my healing power by around 120 points or so, just so my regen was ticking higher.

Anyways, it was all gear PvT except the clerics rings and knights weapons, Runes of Melandru. Trait wise it was Inspiration, Chaos, Illusions. Add to that lemongrass poultry of course and power crystal.

Also ran sword + focus and staff. I would pop the staff phantasm on any target possible as we were beginnign to move in for the regen, stealth for aegis / prot, and pop chaos armor every where every chance I got.

the clones and phantasms outside the regen had no function whatsoever, shatters were completely irrelevant since everything died in under 1 second anyways, so retal on them, or any trait to boost their health, damage etc. was a complete and total waste.

But I also roamed on it a bit and it was fairly good, I’d just slot decoy, blink and stability mantra . Indeed it was very bunker. the staff 3 warlock did hit for some really big numbers though from time to time. Definitely attrition fights.

I do not know how a build like this would function with chronomancer, but if you’re into power / bunker builds I would try it out then refine it once you get some playtime on it.

P.S: Needless to say with runes of melandru + traits + lemongrass poultry i was basically LOLing at condi builds, though they’re much more powerful now, wonder how it would do against them.

i tried at the beta several bunker builds . none could kill anything unless it stays long enough 1v1.

here is the build i liked the most but got nerfed after the beta. IR and AWTEW which dont remove condi anymore

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWncfClqhFoBmfCUrhlej6cDKhQwMAugMqeUX1XF-TJRHwAKLDoa/BAHCABHBAA

with so many condi cleanse even when you stand in trap ranger traps he cant get you.
boon share and so many ethereal combo your chaos armor and protection up time wow
with 3 illusions up constantly you will have another 9% dmg reduction (total of 42%)
you heal skill every 16 sec (alacrity) heals for 7k and shattering when needed also 1.5k
slow ability also negate burst dmg

but again but nerfed

I run an immortal mesmer build that i tested in several games and it works. It involves a torch, a decoy and a double stealth duration trait. And, of course, running away and hiding.