Guild Wars 2

I don’t think Chronophantasma should have an internal cooldown (it would murder the trait in PvE), but it might be a good idea to increase the daze on the phantasms when they respawn to prevent a phantasm spike immediately following a shatter.

So far, I didn’t see anything that would convince me to give up another traitline for Chrono in WvW organized group fights.

Wells are generally bad for WvW where movement is king and you don’t have a point to defend. Long cast time, delayed damage, long cooldowns and short range: a lot of problems for the entire set of them. The elite well has also been nerfed to the point where it’s completely useless. All in all, the worst aspect of the spec.

Shield is generally quite bad, the wall is too slow to catch fleeing enemies and the double block is pityfull, especially considering the phantasm will either not spawn at all (since the enemy that dropped the damage is out of range) or be obliterated by the general AoE.

Continuum Split suffers – like all other shatters – in large scale PvP because it’s pratically impossible to have illusions up due to AoE. This renders the skill basically a cooldown reset for a single skill, generally Timewarp or Veil.

Alacrity is a very cool mechanic, but we don’t have many ways to gain the buff, since depending on shatters for large scale PvP is a big problem, because the “illusion shattering” mechanic is broken in this scenario. On top of it, we can’t share much of the alacrity we gain with our group, making it quite a selfish thing.

All in all I’d say this Elite Spec is the prime example of how this game is designed and balanced only with structured PvP (conquest) in mind.

Slow is a very strong condition as it doubles all activation times. Nerfing this instead of Lost Time is probably for the better.

arkealia.2713:

Slow is a very strong condition as it doubles all activation times. Nerfing this instead of Lost Time is probably for the better.

Slow might be worth splitting between PvE and PvP versions. The current slow is good, but not super good, in PvE; nerfing it would make it useless in PvE. But lowering its effect in PvP is probably a decent move.

Let it keep its current effect in PvE but have a lesser effect in PvP.

Agent Noun.7350:

arkealia.2713:

Slow is a very strong condition as it doubles all activation times. Nerfing this instead of Lost Time is probably for the better.

Slow might be worth splitting between PvE and PvP versions. The current slow is good, but not super good, in PvE; nerfing it would make it useless in PvE. But lowering its effect in PvP is probably a decent move.

Let it keep its current effect in PvE but have a lesser effect in PvP.

Seems reasonable, I guess.

If I’m mathing right, infinite Slow would turn a 1s channel into a 2s channel? Seems like a 33% reduction in activation rate would be more appropriate for PvP, turning a 1s channel into ~1.5s channel. 50% is fine for PvE since enemies use skills less often there in the first place.

I do indeed think that could make more sense as it would allow longer slow uptime to keep the increased crit chance while not being too OP.

Since mesmer/chrono is the only class which can slow currently, I guess this condition should be balanced together with chronomancer.

If they don’t want to change the effects of slow in PvP compared to PvE, they could instead change the duration. Lost Time, for example, inflicts 2 seconds of Slow when it triggers. If it stays that way in PvE but only inflicts 1 second in PvP, it could prevent it from snowballing the way that it can right now.

Personally i feel that the Chronomancer is in good place and no major changes should be made until HOTs release date, since the other specs really need the work and that most the complaining came from people that don’t understand how mesmer works and most probably hate the class anyway. slow might be very powerful in pvp but lets just hold on the nerfs until HOT arrivals and get all the classes starting strong.

In comparison to the Reaper, the Chronomancer felt much more complete and was really fun to play in PvE.
As far as (large scale) WvW is concerned, however, I do not really see myself using wells or the shield, unless the new maps bring changes that drastically change the current way of playing WvW.

Doesn’t Chronophantasm work for any death of the phantasms? Not just shatter-based?

No, it’s just for shatters.

Nope, shatters only.

Oh, well that’s… unfortunate. I’d maybe restrict it in way X (say, 1 phantasm every 2 seconds or so), but in return make it work for any Phantasm-death (ofc, still only once).

Or, hear me out here, leave it alone because it’s fine.

Yeah, Chronophantasma is probably good how it is. If you add an ICD or limit the amount of phantasms it respawns, you’ll kill it in PvE, which is where it probably adds the most value (dungeon/fractal Mesmers can shatter now without killing their DPS!), and having phantasms respawn when killed would eliminate the counterplay inherent in phantasms. It’s better off left just to shatters.

tobascodagama.2961:

Or, hear me out here, leave it alone because it’s fine.

Meh, not IMO. It only working on shatter is pretty bleh.

They have said for some time they don’t want “on-death” traits anymore. They want us to “actively manage” our illusions. If they died before being shattered, it’s our fault.

It would obviously be stronger if it worked on any death. It wouldn’t be better.

The trait is strong enough as it is and any buffs to it would be entirely inappropriate.

Carighan.6758:

Meh, not IMO. It only working on shatter is pretty bleh.

It’s actually extremely strong as it is. You’d have to nerf its overall effects to make it work on phantasm death, and I’m not willing to make that trade.

Chronophantasma should be a bonus, not a way to counteract the way that people can counter phantasms.

Silverkey.2078:

They have said for some time they don’t want “on-death” traits anymore. They want us to “actively manage” our illusions. If they died before being shattered, it’s our fault.

Since “on death” traits are gone it would be nice if Illusions no longer overwrit the 3rd Phantasm.

Makes sense since there is no reason the for overwrite now.

Wow, a lot of silly unnecessary self-nerfs being proposed here. Putting a limit or ICD on Chronophantasm would kill this GM. Finally we have a very non-DPS oriented line that can compete with Dueling/DE for adequate illusion generation, and people want to get it nerfed so that we all go back to the comforting warmth of the Dueling line being a requirement in all builds?

The Daze on the Phants is enough, it at most could use a 1/2s duration increase, but even that is IMHO not really necessary. There is plenty of counter play with the 1s delay.

It is way way too early to be talking balance anyway. We saw all of a couple of days, mostly the blind leading the blind, no one had time to adjust to all the changes that fast. Half the elites weren’t even in yet, so how can you judge anything to be balanced or OPd?

I was positively surprised by the Shield and the #4. I expected the same clunky block mechanics that cripple OH Sword #4 and Scepter #2, but these blocks actually work a lot better and do provide noticeable defense in small-scale fights at least. The blocks were fast and reliable, so was the Phantasm generation…very smooth, well done!

Yeah the #5 has issues, but is also very powerful. Alacrity seemed nice, at least for myself. I didn’t test in in teams, but I can imagine it’s nearly unnoticeable aside from the green telling you that supposedly something cool is happening for a second or two. ;-)

I also can’t fathom why anyone would want to nerf slow!? Really!? It’s not a damaging condition. It can be cleansed! Plenty of counter play between the usual hard defenses, the new Resistance, and cleanses. Again, no need to touch this until we have the chance to evaluate it in a finished HoT and not a short beta weekend.

The F5 mechanic was a bit strange I have to admit. Without illusions it’s very very short duration, and very hard to get much of anything in there aside from of course an Elite, usually the most impactful thing you want to blow of course. With just 1 illusion you have plenty of time to get a “face-roll over F-keys” combo off pretty easily, including blowing Time Warp.

So I see the issue that either our Elites will be nerfed, cast time increased, or F5 is going to have to be changed to exclude elite’s all together. I am surprised it made it this far like this. I don’t even want to say it’s OPd, it’s just counter-intuitive to the design of Elites, and sadly it also shackled the coolness of Continuum Split and with the the whole appeal of the Chronomancer. I would prefer to have Elite’s excluded and the base duration w/o illusions to be made at least 2s, then ~1s per illusion after. I just think that would make this ability more usable again, and it is kinda the defining ability of the Chronomancer.

This would also then open up the possibility to improve the unfortunate circumstance of Gravity Well, which is definitely underwhelming at the moment, but also obviously was balanced with F5 in mind. I don’t see how anyone thought it was a great idea to change 2 pulls and a float to NO pulls and a float, but obviously there needs to be a pull on the first or second tick, or at least the Cripple that the Calamity Well has. I also agree that for an Elite Well, it’s radius should be a bit larger than the others.

The CD could certainly be increased more as well at that point.

Overall, I liked what I saw and I hope they don’t waste time & energy on balancing until they get all of the classes Elite’s in. Totally futile to balance like that, with so many unknowns, and so little exposure to the masses.