I’ve heard horrible things had happened to the mesmer class since the last time I played. I left way back when we still ran the five trait lines and spent points to upgrade them. Pretty different to the new system of picking only three trait lines.
1. What’s the non-chronomancer meta build for mesmer, nowadays? I will get the expac, but not yet. So I need non-shield builds until then.
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You should collect all your Tomes of Knowledge and there is Proof of Heroics in WvW which you can turn into Notarized Scroll of Maguuma Heroics so that you don’t need to do all Heroic Challengers in the new HoT maps. These HP (and Challengers) will make it faster to get access to Chronomancer Elite. Check how many HP you already own in your Hero panel.
With Expansion you will also have access to new, stats (with four; for boon duration or for condition duration; the new viper statshave been compared here on this site to sinister for Chrono builds) runes and sigils, so you might want to wait until you change your build.
My build is a hybrid/bunker build which work well enough in the new maps. For traits I use inspiration, chaos and chronomancer with the new Runes of Defender I can both heal from blocks (shield blocks and Well of Precognition) [and get regeneration from hits and aegis with heal skill] which help me to stay alive both in Maguuma and in WvW. Chaos will give you protection from regeneration (and from combo fields of Wells you get chaos armor effect).
With inspiration you will have more healing from shatter (if you can keep up enough of illusions; which isn’t always easy in the new maps where some creatures can be very fast in their attacks). Everytime you use your heal skill you will also remove condition both on yourself and nearby party. Illusionary Inspiration will provide you with more regeneration when you cast a phantasm (from staff or shield) for both your self and party.
With Chaos you have also Chaotic Interruption which trigger rather often when you use staff both Chaos Storm [stun; but even after you will trigger interrupt] and AA). Shields stun from ToT will also be important for interrupt, but in general interrupt will trigger more often then only from stun or daze which make it in some situation a better option then Bountiful Disillusion. In WvW you might want to change to BD as Well of Precoginition might not be enough to handle stability and be hard to get where you want at the same time as you try to dodge/run out of danger from enemies (when there is more then one as you can be dazed and hit with multiple condition). [Tip: you can make a key bind to toggle camera mode between action camera with cross hair and the old way to control where to place Wells].
My main weapons are staff (which have a good synergy from Wells ethereal fields with its leap finisher to create chaos armor and swords leap finisher) out of danger and to keep trigger interrupts. It is a slow weapon compared to GS, but it seem to work better in situation like when you have those darn pocket raptors making you their breakfast. With Chronomancer you have access to quickness, so it can be useful to switch between Chronophantasma and Size the Moment (but you will need to keep up with enough with Illusions to get any time to use your Quickness). Quickness (both from trait and shield) will compensate a bit how fast your Staff feels, so you can get a very intense rotation with Superspeed on Illusions and either of GM traits, even slow (from Lost Time) can be useful especially if you change staff to GS.
The most important skills here is Mirror for healing as it seem to not be that easy to interrupt as Mantras and with Chaos trait Master of Manipulation you will get a very short recharge time (with alacrity down to around 10 sec from 15 sec) and it will also make “Blink”: go down to 24 sec in recharge rate which give you some mobility. Each heal will be around 4000 (3915+ [0.6*175]) and with blocks healing each 30s+ regeneration from different sources you will have pretty good healing which isn’t depending on how many illusions you can keep up. Signet of Inspiration will both block and regenerate health, so this is a very major part of this build. It is possible to replace with another Well or skill, but you will notice that swiftness (33% movement) compared to what Chronomancer 25% offer, make this worth keep up with a party or squad in WvW.
Runes of Defenders isn’t possible to use in PvP ATM AFAIK, so you have to replace it with something else which migth work in the same way. I tried to use Runes of Batharzar in PvP which have the same condi and make heal to burn instead of blocking with the same traits as above. I am not sure if you already (when you don’t have HoT expansion) can buy Runes of Defender on BL TP as I can not see anything in wiki about that, but they are rather cheap (~2 silver) and you might be able to replace OH shield with OH swords for blocks.
My armour have Rabid stats and Berserker for trinkets, so in general it is a powerbased hybrid with some condition damage (you will need it to get those new break bars down; with Guild upgrades [banners] even some player have access to break bars nowadays in WvW). For sigils on weapon I use Sigil of Battle and Strenght on staff to get most out of Might (which also give more damage (in duration) the more boons SoI provide and from increasing Might:Chaotic_Persistence ). For Sword I use Sigil of Fire which seem to actually trigger burn from Gravity Wells when you have that weapon active on your skills and for Shield I use Sigil of Doom for poison which help to keep enemies HP down.
This isn’t a fail safe build and I die a couple of times in Aura Basin, but I have managed to solo some challengers like this video in link show with a Champion
Recording is not from me doing this challenge and I hope YT poster doesn’t mind to make a reference to his or hers video as it is the only I could find showing what it is like to fight some Champs in the new maps. For me on my Chronobunker build it took a very long time to kill this Champion compared to how much time this player with Reaper on this video show, so it is not a fast killer and you have to stay focused to really get down break bar and later HP.
In group a setting this build should also actually work better to this kind of Challengers as you can help out with some mitigation (blocks/stability) and even rez downed player with placing a Well of Precognition on top of that player before you start rez (will keep blocking [and SoI help with this too on yourself,so will not get downed that fast] for both you and those in Wells) or use GW. Your heal skill provide condition removal when you heal yourself (with aegis activating) to nearby player and heal them by a small amount (from inspiration trait), Phantasm will give both you and ppl around you some regeneration. In short this build do have some capabilities to give support even when you don’t go for All’s Well That Ends Well and use Superspeed on your illusions to hit your targets in time as HoT maps are plenty of fast moving targets.
For sPvP you might want to look into how those different rewards tracks work to get both what you need for you Hero Points and how you want to play GW2/HoT.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Reward_Track
For Mastery Points you (like Gliding), you will probably need to be on HoT maps to earn XP (after you have passed level 80). There is two zones: one for the old Tyria and one for Maguuma which you need to put into activate phase from you Hero Panel to gain XP. When you have collected enough MP (more or less the same as “commune with this…” for HP in Maguuma), then then you can unlock those MP abilities.
