Guild Wars 2

Seize the momment should be a master trait, and Improved alacrity a grandmaster one. Illusionary Reversion could have an AMAZING synergy with Improved Alacrity due to Flow of Time minor + shatterspam build.

juniterio.1245:

Seize the momment should be a master trait, and Improved alacrity a grandmaster one. Illusionary Reversion could have an AMAZING synergy with Improved Alacrity due to Flow of Time minor + shatterspam build.

It’s true that I don’t take Improved Alacrity over Illusionary Reversion.
I probably wouldn’t take it over Chronophantasma or Lost Time either, though.
It should probably be an Adept trait.

iReversion should be GM, then, to force a choice between it and Chronophantasma.

Iavra.8510:

iReversion should be GM, then, to force a choice between it and Chronophantasma.

I somewhat agree with that. Together they are too strong, they should define 2 different playstyles (pure shatter vs phantasm/shatter). But I really don’t want iReversion competing with Seize the moment. My build really needs both.

Iavra.8510:

iReversion should be GM, then, to force a choice between it and Chronophantasma.

Yeah, I could totally see that. Half the builds I put together don’t want to have both Chronophantasma and IR, but the rest of them I throw them both in just for the extra shatter fuel.

It would be a power cut for some builds, but I’m not sure it would be an uncalled-for one.

Silverkey.2078:

Iavra.8510:

iReversion should be GM, then, to force a choice between it and Chronophantasma.

I somewhat agree with that. Together they are too strong, they should define 2 different playstyles (pure shatter vs phantasm/shatter). But I really don’t want iReversion competing with Seize the moment. My build really needs both.

Well, the original proposal is to swap with Seize the Moment, I assume that applies to this swap too. So StM would go to Master, and IR would go to GM.

I like it, and I think it would very nicely resolve some of the craziness people are seeing.

My build focuses mostly on shattering to upkeep alacrity to upkeep shatters. And upkeeping those makes me able to upkeep quickness and constantly reduce CD on quickness sharing abilities (quickness well, TW and F5 shatter for even more quickness sharing).

juniterio.1245:

My build focuses mostly on shattering to upkeep alacrity to upkeep shatters. And upkeeping those makes me able to upkeep quickness and constantly reduce CD on quickness sharing abilities (quickness well, TW and F5 shatter for even more quickness sharing).

What if they moved Improved Alacrity down to Adept, then moved All’s Well That Ends Well up to Master and gave it some nice extra effect like 20% Well cooldowns, or something like that?
Then you swap Seize the Moment for Illusionary Reversion.

• Improved Alacrity is then competing with Slow on Interrupt and Superspeed Shatters, which feels about right.
• The Well trait actually feels worthwhile, and provides a needed boost to Wells (not that they don’t still need some work individually), and they don’t have to feel like they gave it too much power for its tier. It needs a power bump anyway.
• Illusionary Reversion and Chronophantasma compete for the same slot, but each provides a different focus, and you don’t get the craziness you get from having both.
• Illusionary Reversion, as a top-tier clone generator, is more on-par with Deceptive Evasion than anything else, which is itself a GM trait. It belongs at the top.
• Seize the Moment can still synergize with IR, but it can also now be matched to Chronophantasma builds, which is as it should be.
• Seize the Moment is now competing with an improved Well trait and Danger Time, which are both from separate specialization directions. Seize the Moment for shatter builds, Improved Wells for well/support builds, Danger Time for slow builds.
• Improved Alacrity no longer has to compete with the traits that it synergizes with the most, which is good for the trait, but with the other changes it doesn’t add so much synergy as to be overpowering. Since IA is still personal alacrity only, its potential is still extremely limited.

The biggest losses to the reoriented traits are:
1. No more doubling up on Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion. I don’t think this is a bad thing at all.
2. Lost Time slow builds can’t get the extra shatter clones. Since Lost Time is crit-based though, how many of those builds weren’t taking dueling anyway? Having Deceptive Evasion is still plenty of clone generation.
3. Non-interrupt builds might want to take something other than Time Catches Up. That’s more build diversity, I don’t think it’s a problem at all.

These trait shifts depend on most of the traits staying roughly the same, though.
It’s been suggested that some of the power of alacrity be shifted from the shatter trait to Improved Alacrity, which would obviously change what you can do with IA.

I personally dislike improved alacrity in its current form. I feel like personal alacrity is currently rather strong, but not over the top. But improved alacrity is a very boring trait, increasing our already high alacrity uptime by at most a second on a full shatter. I would love to see improved alacrity change to something like “each time you shatter, nearby allies gain alacrity”. It should not be the full 1s per shattered illusion, maybe only 1 or 2s per shatter (regardless of number of illusions). Because currently, the alacrity as a group support is very very limited (just 1 well for 3 or 4s alacrity on a high CD).

Else for the trait order, I think it should be

• master: Danger Time, Seize The Moment, Improved Alacrity
• GM: Chronophantasma, Lost Time, Illusionary Reversion
  to keep the slow synergy but putting chronophantasm and iReversion in competition.

This would allow 1 trait in each tier for the 3 possible orientations:

• shatter: Time Catches Up, Seize The Moment, Illusionary Reversion
• support: All’s Well that Ends Well, Improved Alacrity and Chronophantasma (I think phantasm are a big part in a support idea since in solo you can support them + there are many support phantasm and inspiration traits)
• slow: Delayed Reactions, Danger Time, Lost Time

If they change Improved Alacrity as you suggest, I’d agree with your ordering.

Illusionary Reversion is no way as good as deceptive evasion.

It takes only 5 seconds to fill 50% of the dodge bar w/o any vigor. With vigor and energy sigil, it gets even better.

Illusionary Reversion does not have that power. Moving it to GM tier will kill this trait ultimately.

Seize the moment is definitely worth its GM tier slot.

Exciton.8942:

Illusionary Reversion is no way as good as deceptive evasion.

It takes only 5 seconds to fill 50% of the dodge bar w/o any vigor. With vigor and energy sigil, it gets even better.

Illusionary Reversion does not have that power. Moving it to GM tier will kill this trait ultimately.

Seize the moment is definitely worth its GM tier slot.

Since the position as master or GM only really influences which trait it is competing with, I think having chronophantasm and iReversion competing is necessary. iReversion may not be as good as DE, but it allows builds which cannot afford dueling to still proc a lot of clones and provides insane clone generation for those who use both.

There are no Adept/Master/GM “worthy” traits anymore. Since the trait revamp you always get full traitlines, so the only thing that matters is what traits are sharing the same tier.

If you would switch all Adept traits with all GM traits of one line, nothing would change.

Exciton.8942:

Illusionary Reversion is no way as good as deceptive evasion.

It takes only 5 seconds to fill 50% of the dodge bar w/o any vigor. With vigor and energy sigil, it gets even better.

Illusionary Reversion does not have that power. Moving it to GM tier will kill this trait ultimately.

Seize the moment is definitely worth its GM tier slot.

Except you still don’t have to choose between Seize the Moment and IR.
The choice is between Chronophantasma, IR and Lost Time, which isn’t a bad choice.

Additionally, the primary advantage of IR is not raw clone-over-time rate, it’s that it breaks timing expectations. I can shatter Cry of Frustration, and immediately have a clone to fuel Mind Wrack. If I used my Deceptive Evasion to fuel CoF in the first place, I don’t have any endurance left to fuel Mind Wrack.

Compared to DE, IR trades some long-term generation potential for short-term potential via multi-shatter chains. In the end, they end up with similar shatter-enabling capabilities, but for different situations.
One-shot shatter builds are better served with DE because you can build up faster. Multi-shatter builds are better served with IR because they get more total clones during their shatter chains.

Additionally, DE has to sacrifice dodge utility to get those clones up. IR makes no sacrifice whatsoever: you shatter, you get to keep a clone for your next shatter.

If IR were the same as DE, why would we care about IR?

The truth, though, is that IR has, in practice, been enabling some powerful shatter chains, and people are picking up on that.
The biggest issue in that regard is that combining Chronophantasma with IR grants you essentially continuous 3-illusion shatters, because you can get the phantasms up fast enough via Persistence of Memory and Alacrity that all you need is one more clone…which IR gives freely.

Swapping IR and Seize the Moment, in practice, removes the excessive interaction between Chronophantasma and IR, still allows you to take Seize the Moment and IR together, and even enables Chronophantasma builds to finally take advantage of IR (which isn’t so dangerous now that you can’t get the IR clones at the same time).

What is really lost?
1. You can’t have Chronophantasma and IR together. That’s a good thing.
2. You can’t have IR and Lost Time together. I already pointed out, and you supported, that Lost Time builds having DE already gives them plenty of clone generation.
3. You can’t have Seize the Moment at the same time as Danger Time. Big whoop, if you have Danger Time you would have had Lost Time instead of Seize the Moment anyway.
4. You can’t have Seize the Moment at the same time as Improved Alacrity. Ah, now this could be an issue. Frankly though, I get plenty of alacrity through constant shatters as it is, especially if I’m shattering enough for Seize the Moment to make a big difference. But then, that’s why I suggested moving Improved Alacrity down to Adept anyway, so shatter-timing builds can have both Seize the Moment and Improved Alacrity. Other posters have already noted that Improved Alacrity isn’t all that strong, so it’s not like it would be out of place in adept, as it is.

Seize the Moment being worthy of a GM or not is quite irrelevant, given the context.

The truth is that Chronophantasma is GM-worthy, IR is or is close to being so, Lost time has to be GM to cap the Slow trait series, which leaves IR competing with Seize the Moment for that GM slot. The interaction between Chronophantasma and IR leaves us either requiring a nerf for IR, or a change in placement of the traits to make Chronophantasma and IR compete.
Turns out that’s not a problem, since moving Seize the Moment to master makes everything work out just fine.

Silverkey.2078:

Exciton.8942:

Illusionary Reversion is no way as good as deceptive evasion.

It takes only 5 seconds to fill 50% of the dodge bar w/o any vigor. With vigor and energy sigil, it gets even better.

Illusionary Reversion does not have that power. Moving it to GM tier will kill this trait ultimately.

Seize the moment is definitely worth its GM tier slot.

Since the position as master or GM only really influences which trait it is competing with, I think having chronophantasm and iReversion competing is necessary. iReversion may not be as good as DE, but it allows builds which cannot afford dueling to still proc a lot of clones and provides insane clone generation for those who use both.

Then isn’kitten good thing that you can have build taking both reversion and chronophantasm w/o the need of dueling line? Build variety.

I myself have never been able to play a build w/o deceptive evasion. For DE, you use your dodge a lot of times just for the clones, instead of actually evading something. This indeed defines your playstyle as a GM trait. In reversion’s case, I would never press shatter skills just for a clone. I still play just like how I normally do. It adds something nice but hardly a GM worth.

*It seems I was ninjaed.
I’d just add to lavra and Silverkeys’ explanations by saying that while being GM is not meaningless power-wise, that’s only because Anet is using it as a design guideline.

They want each traitline to have a set of 3 competing traits that are “build-defining,” so they chose to make that the “Grandmaster” slot, and design the lines in such a way that the “build-defining” traits are in that spot.
But raw power is not the discriminator, the builds you can make are.

In this case, as I pointed out above (perhaps too exhaustively), Seize the Moment works just as well in Master as in Grandmaster, and IR/Chronophantasma belong on the same tier to prevent unintended interaction.
The experience of the testers this weekend has so far been that IR itself is easily build-defining enough to belong in competition with Chronophantasma and Lost Time.

Exciton.8942:

In reversion’s case, I would never press shatter skills just for a clone. I still play just like how I normally do. It adds something nice but hardly a GM worth.

Well then that’s your failing, not the trait’s.
In practice, builds that use IR can shatter a LOT more than their counterparts, because of the alacrity on shatters.
My pve condi dps increased dramatically with chrono, even giving up the condi damage from Chaos (next BWE I plan to try it out in a dungeon and see if I can keep up with the meta!).
I’ve seen many similar reports from power shatter mesmers: IR lets you shatter more to shatter more because of alacrity.

I don’t see how iReversion is play-style defining. Come up with an example that you would not normally do but can do now with iReversion.

This weekend, I have been playing mostly a normal shatter build Dom/Duel/Chrono taking Time Catches Up, iReversion and Seize the Moment. If you swap iReversion and Seize the moment. I will simply take chronophantasm instead of iReversion in my build. The iReversion trait will be dead.

I would even be fine if iReversion is nerf’ed with an iCD or something. But putting it in GM would simply kill it by having it compete with chronophantasm.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Exciton.8942:

In reversion’s case, I would never press shatter skills just for a clone. I still play just like how I normally do. It adds something nice but hardly a GM worth.

Well then that’s your failing, not the trait’s.
In practice, builds that use IR can shatter a LOT more than their counterparts, because of the alacrity on shatters.
My pve condi dps increased dramatically with chrono, even giving up the condi damage from Chaos (next BWE I plan to try it out in a dungeon and see if I can keep up with the meta!).
I’ve seen many similar reports from power shatter mesmers: IR lets you shatter more to shatter more because of alacrity.

Then it is mainly alacrity that lets you shatter more, not iReversion. iReversion makes it easier to generate clones so your shatter can potentially do more damage. A good shatter requires setup, not just press F skills when you have enough clones.

And you use PvE as an example which is not indicative enough. Mobs do not know how to evade shatters!

Exciton.8942:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Exciton.8942:

In reversion’s case, I would never press shatter skills just for a clone. I still play just like how I normally do. It adds something nice but hardly a GM worth.

Well then that’s your failing, not the trait’s.
In practice, builds that use IR can shatter a LOT more than their counterparts, because of the alacrity on shatters.
My pve condi dps increased dramatically with chrono, even giving up the condi damage from Chaos (next BWE I plan to try it out in a dungeon and see if I can keep up with the meta!).
I’ve seen many similar reports from power shatter mesmers: IR lets you shatter more to shatter more because of alacrity.

Then it is mainly alacrity that lets you shatter more, not iReversion. iReversion makes it easier to generate clones so your shatter can potentially do more damage. A good shatter requires setup, not just press F skills when you have enough clones.

And you use PvE as an example which is not indicative enough. Mobs do not know how to evade shatters!

Shattering as a chronomancer is about maximizing three factors:
1. More illusions = more damage
2. More illusions = more alacrity = more shatters
3. Do the above as quickly/efficiently as possible (quickly for burst, efficiently for sustain).
Setup lets me do 1 full 3-clone shatter without IR.
IR gets me one clone closer to a full second shatter than without it, but chronophantasma could do the same (depends on the setup, but it could. I’ll talk about the difference more when I address your pvp concern).
By the 3rd and 4th shatter, Chronophantasma has run out of steam, while IR is still adding that extra illusion to both. For my condi build, that ends up being a net gain in confusion and torment stacks. So much so, in fact, that my burst dps immediately caught up with my burn guardian and condi engi builds, and my sustained dps positively soared past them.
Those aren’t theoretical results, I tried a chronophant build and then I tried an IR build, and the IR build beat out the phant build. If they ever fix Duelist’s Discipline, or buff the iMage, I expect it will actually become a difficult choice.

Regarding pvp performance:
Advantages I found from the IR build vs the Chronophant build:
1. Easier to land the shatter bursts. Phantasms are more vulnerable to counterplay, as we have more clone sources in general, and killing a phant makes it ineligible for chronophantasma (while IR will spawn that extra clone regardless).
2. Shorter and more consistent setup time. Casting phantasms is obvious, interruptable, takes time, and takes time to reset if your cycle is interrupted. Pyro brought this point up in one of my condi dps threads, and in practice I’ve found it to be true: it’s hard to keep phantasms up when I want them to stay up.
3. Easier cleanse baiting. The phantasm approach relied on the burst sticking, which means I have to bait the cleanse. With IR I was able to use a quick mind wrack to bait the cleanse, then drop a full Cry of Frustration afterward. My condition uptime against players who can’t cleanse went up for the same reasons I noted in the pve section, but not nearly as much as they went up against players who know how to cleanse. There were still players who could paste me though, and condi necros still countered me. Shocker. Chrono was squishier too, so I found myself having a harder time against thieves than usual.

In general, my pvp experience was like my pve experience: IR gained me better results in general, and was much more flexible.

I understand the problem, but just listen to me a little bit.
I personally don’t think illusionary reversion will ever be better than chronophantasma in pvp. Making builds that max how many times you shatter didn’t work for me as much as maxing your first shatter. I think it will become a lost trait if moved up. However, it is still a problem. I would keep it where it is and change it so it is more like chronophantasma. Clones reappear the first time they are shattered. I also agree that switching improved alacrity and alls well that ends well may be a good move, specially if you make changes to the well trait. For seize the moment, I know I talked to you before about the trait. However, after actually testing it, it didn’t work as well as I thought. This trait was dropped down from 1 and a fourth seconds of quickness to 1 second of quickness in the beta (I don’t know why this was the case). When I used it with signet of inspiration or illusionary inspiration in the inspiration line, I only gave allies about 2 seconds of quickness for a full shatter (or thats what they told me, takes a sec or so to cast a phantasm or signet of inspiration. Signet of inspiration and the trait also both have a 30 second cool down. If it is changed to per shatter instead of per illusion shattered and the quickness was given to 5 allies then just with mind wrack and cry of frustration you would be able to give allies the same amount of quickness on a shorter cool down. You would also not have to worry about casting a phantasm right after a shatter or pressing signet of inspiration right after a shatter. This will give the trait a wider range of use in more builds. You won’t be forced to take a certain trait line or skill. I now its too late to test this now. However, if there is another beta I would recommend testing seize the moment with signet of inspiration and saying weather it should be changed. I still think these changes will make it compete better with chronophantasma and lost time.

Xstein.2187:

I understand the problem, but just listen to me a little bit.
I personally don’t think illusionary reversion will ever be better than chronophantasma in pvp. Making builds that max how many times you shatter didn’t work for me as much as maxing your first shatter. I think it will become a lost trait if moved up. However, it is still a problem. I would keep it where it is and change it so it is more like chronophantasma. Clones reappear the first time they are shattered. I also agree that switching improved alacrity and alls well that ends well may be a good move, specially if you make changes to the well trait. For seize the moment, I know I talked to you before about the trait. However, after actually testing it, it didn’t work as well as I thought. This trait was dropped down from 1 and a fourth seconds of quickness to 1 second of quickness in the beta (I don’t know why this was the case). When I used it with signet of inspiration or illusionary inspiration in the inspiration line, I only gave allies about 2 seconds of quickness for a full shatter (or thats what they told me, takes a sec or so to cast a phantasm or signet of inspiration. Signet of inspiration and the trait also both have a 30 second cool down. If it is changed to per shatter instead of per illusion shattered and the quickness was given to 5 allies then just with mind wrack and cry of frustration you would be able to give allies the same amount of quickness on a shorter cool down. You would also not have to worry about casting a phantasm right after a shatter or pressing signet of inspiration right after a shatter. This will give the trait a wider range of use in more builds. You won’t be forced to take a certain trait line or skill. I now its too late to test this now. However, if there is another beta I would recommend testing seize the moment with signet of inspiration and saying weather it should be changed. I still think these changes will make it compete better with chronophantasma and lost time.

It is because you still think in terms of “burst mesmer”. I can tell you that in my bunker build iReversion is a must-have because it is about sustaining shatter cadence. Phantasms have high CD, can be killed and only sustain 1 shatter with chronophantasma. Both have their niche. But together, they are over the top!

Silverkey.2078:

It is because you still think in terms of “burst mesmer”. I can tell you that in my bunker build iReversion is a must-have because it is about sustaining shatter cadence. Phantasms have high CD, can be killed and only sustain 1 shatter with chronophantasma. Both have their niche. But together, they are over the top!

Yeah, that’s the thing. If you’re playing Power Shatter and just fishing for that one big Mind Wrack, it’s not obvious what iReversion does for you. Chronophantasma has a more noticeable effect on your burst because of the follow up attacks that happen 1s after Mind Wracking.

However, builds that use the other shatters more frequently will see huge benefits from iReversion. Using Chronophantasma and IR together is pretty huge. Picture this in a condi build: iDuelist -> iLeap -> Decoy -> Swap -> Mind Wrack -> Dodge -> Wait 1 -> Cry of Frustration. Bam, you just did two three-clone shatters with two iDuelist attack cycles mixed in. That’s a lot of Bleeding and Confusion, so they’re probably dead in a second. Now Dodge again and then hit your two-clone F4 to stomp.

Even in Power Shatter, you can open by Blinking into a cloneless Diversion for a 1s stun via Confounding Suggestions, then Dodge/Decoy+Mirror Blade into a three clone Mind Wrack that didn’t need Power Lock.

iReversion is a very, very strong trait if you want to hit a lot of shatters in a short period of time. Power Shatter is so one-dimensional that being able to cast cloned-up shatters other than Mind Wrack doesn’t seem like a big deal, but iReversion is actually huge for what it does to non-Power Shatter builds.

Yes, I understand. I don’t think seize the moment needs to be changed if it gets moved down to compete with the other master traits mentioned and illusionary reversion moves up. However, I would still like to see changes if it remains where it is, not for pvp, but for pve.