Guild Wars 2

Hi guys, just came up with this build for PvP! Tell me how it is. Tested it a little bit in Ranked, duels, hotjoins and I think it has great potential. It can also do some damage!

Version 1:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8encfC1qhFoBmoBEgilej6cEKhWreUb1Z1MAugMC-TJhXABAs/QoXEgZLDY3TAAA

Version 2:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAW8encfC1qhdoBmoBUrhlej6cEKhVr+UX1X1MAugMC-TJxGABCt/g9lBy9iAAwTAAA

I took the Mantra of Pain idea from this article from Metabattle:

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Mantra_Healer

Playstyle:

- Basically you just spam the MoP while casting other spells during fights, because it provides areal healing. I haven’t tested this well against condition builds but I think it will still work. Against power builds you’ll essentially be invincible (YOU MUST KITE). AFAIK the biggest counters to this build are Necros but you have blocks and distortions which help mitigate damage from them. I haven’t died with this in a 1v1 (I’ve gone up against all kinds of thieves) yet but then again I only picked it up recently. I don’t think I’ve encountered good Mesmers though.

- Use shatters very often even when you don’t have illusions. I mean you can wait for illusions for the small heal benefits BUT having lots of boons applied quickly and spreading them out to your team is the best idea.

- If there are two Necros on the opposite team do not use this build! You’ll kitten your teammates. If there’s only one it’s absolutely fine.

- Spam all of your shatters during CS, maybe sneak in a well or two.

- The Phantasm on staff also spreads your boons to allies so make sure you’re near them while casting Phantasmal Warlock.

- Use Phase Retreat in Chaos Storm

- SPAM MoP!! =)

Credits:
- Arete for the Metabattle article

Interesting. I would swap WoE for MoR. You’re traiting mantras for condi cleanse and healing, so might as well take the healing mantra as well, loads more condi clear than WoE this way, as well as more ready access to AoE healing. Plus, with stab on shatters, you have a decent shot at channeling the entire thing. The total healing is about the same as well, slightly favoring MoR in fact, but its CD is only 10 seconds.

MoR is definitely a good option. I chose the well to fit for a more casual approach to the build, but the mantra is definitely a solid option. 4 condi cleanses instead of 2.

I also chose the well due to the fact that it heals an extra 5k hp to allies (5.5k with outgoing heals or so), but the mantra is good for group condi cleanse. I feel like the mantra works a lot better with condi builds.

Oh and it also has a 10 second CD. I can see it having more potential than the well.

Just by looking at your build, I would be very worried about your self survivability with it.
A bit of focus fire will make it very difficult for you to survive and support.

You will probably need to switch to mental defense and signet of illusion for better sustain.

Not too keen on the signet but the iDefender is definitely a great choice especially for survivability.

Yeah I would agree on the self sustain issue, especially since you’re calling this a Bunker build. I would go with Paladin amulet over Menders for a Bunker build, because we just don’t get a lot out of Healing Power aside from personal healing from RI and of course the WoR is not too bad but it’s 30s CD just makes it kinda poor IMO. (With Paladin WoR heals allies for ~3900, and with Menders it’s under 5200. Difference of about 1400 over 30 seconds is not exactly highly impactful. ;-) )

MoR for more cleansing is definitely not a terrible choice, but then you lack a burst heal. Since you have MoM though, you should not discount Mirror as a heal. A 12 sec CD on a decent burst heal with 4s of Reflection tied into it is not a terrible choice either. (When traited Mirror actually beats Ether Feast in HP healed per second up to a 2 illusion heal, and only barely loses to an EF with 3 illusions. That plus 4s of Reflect makes it a seriously nice heal on a short CD…when traited!)

Similarly I don’t feel that Runes of Leadership are really worth it as compared to something like Scrappers or Pack.

This would leave you with significantly more offense on top of more defense, with the only downside being slightly shorter boons and slightly smaller heals.

I wouldn’t go with MD for a build looking to share out boons. In that case I would much rather drop SoI and pick up the iDefender utility instead, it’s on a shorter CD and gives 4s of AoE Protection. (And the AoE Protection is given before the Phantasm is summoned, so your Illusionary Inspiration can fire and spread ~8s Protection!)

GL with your build!

@Windwalker – Do you have confirmation that the reflect does stack when mirror is traited? I’ve never tested it myself, but I always assumed it didn’t, which led me away from using mirror even when traited.

Also I agree that MoR will reduce your ability for a burst heal, but its a decent sized heal just for channeling it, and then each individual heal is about the same as the first tick on WoE (if not slightly more), but they are instance cast. If you can kite successfully, its better healing than WoE for sure. But the lack of a “burst” could be a considerable downside

Posted a second version! =)

Ok so the second version doesn’t have any benefit to teamfights as much as the first. It feels amazing to share a ridiculous amount of boons in less than a second to your allies. Signet of Inspiration is a keep for me. I’ve had loads of fun with V.1 but V.2 needs some work. I’ll consider iDefender

Oh just came out of a game with 788k healing ( no pic ), Mantra of Pain’s healing is AMAZING! Heals about 4.3k to allies with 20% outgoing heals and best of all can be spammed like crazy. It also provides cool long distance damage

Yes the Reflect on Mirror is doubled when traited. Untraited you don’t get the Reflect effect until after the heal goes off, but traited it will instantly apply Reflect first so you have it up the entire time you’re casting, and then you refresh the Reflect when you actually cast the heal. (So it’s at least 3.25 seconds long, I can’t say for sure if it’s 4 seconds or if that .75 seconds is wasted due to overlap.)

I don’t quite understand where you get that 4.3k heals from? It’s generally more on the order of 2600 without any HP and the scaling of HP was always very poor. So with Menders and adding 20% to that I don’t see how you’re getting more than about 3.3k healed.

The main problem that has always existed with this kind of build is the 2.75 seconds channeling time for Mantras, in which you can do nothing useful and which is of course very easy to interrupt. It’s just an eternity in PvP to channel that long and do essentially nothing useful, and then at the end apply a mediocre AE heal in a 360 radius. Other classes can do much better team healing, while doing other useful things aside from hoping and praying that you’re not interrupted during a ridiculously long channeling time.

I always worry I’ll get interrupted while channeling the Mantra. It’s why I dropped Mantra of Recovery. However I noticed that you’ll constantly be getting stability if timed well. If you kite your stability will be fine too.

Also about the 4.3k heals, I used the combat log and tested its effects on players. It clearly stated 4.3k heals. I came with the conclusion that the tooltip is bugged. It also doesn’t heal 2.8k to me, but about 3.6k. With constant quickness spam from shatters the mantra channeling will speed up leaving you with even more damage + healing.

The healing power coefficient for Restorative Mantras is bugged and experimentally determined to be 0.8, not 0.2. I would highly recommend running Illusionary Inspiration even if you don’t proc the signet perfectly as the passive benefit is essentially perma-regen from your phantasms.

Abelisk.4527:

I always worry I’ll get interrupted while channeling the Mantra. It’s why I dropped Mantra of Recovery. However I noticed that you’ll constantly be getting stability if timed well. If you kite your stability will be fine too.

Also about the 4.3k heals, I used the combat log and tested its effects on players. It clearly stated 4.3k heals. I came with the conclusion that the tooltip is bugged. It also doesn’t heal 2.8k to me, but about 3.6k. With constant quickness spam from shatters the mantra channeling will speed up leaving you with even more damage + healing.

I used to dish mantras because of the same reasons, but had no problems charging mantra of distraction if I keep to the sides or kite. I really get the feeling people stopped caring about kiting with all this boon-fest spam-stability thing going on.

I’ve put Null Field back on the line, even foregoing decoy for it, and played a few matches (both ranked and unranked) with an interrupt build. The success I’ve had is kind of sad considering it should not be successful at all. A boon strip + interrupt build can be pretty nasty even solo.

Interesting, I did not know that. And yes I agree that the channel times on mantras are excessively long in the current game. I would like to see the channel time of most of them decreased by .5 seconds, as well as each mantra have an effect that activates as soon as you start channeling the mantra, but with suitably long ICD (ie at least as long as the recharge of the mantra + 2 seconds for the 2 base charges to keep you from spamming the effect from starting the channel)

Windwalker.7421:

Yes the Reflect on Mirror is doubled when traited. Untraited you don’t get the Reflect effect until after the heal goes off, but traited it will instantly apply Reflect first so you have it up the entire time you’re casting, and then you refresh the Reflect when you actually cast the heal. (So it’s at least 3.25 seconds long, I can’t say for sure if it’s 4 seconds or if that .75 seconds is wasted due to overlap.)

You’re wrong here actually. Untraited Mirror applies a reflect effect that lasts 2 seconds immediately upon beginning the channel. You can actually cancel the cast (aborting the heal and putting it on kitten interrupt cooldown) to get a higher uptime on the reflect due to this. Traited Mirror will apply the normal instant 2 second reflect followed by an additional 2 second reflect upon finishing the channel.

Hmm OK I guess I got it mixed up, I thought the old Mirror before the trait didn’t apply Reflect until after casting the heal.

None the less it means you get the full 4 seconds of Reflect when traited.

OriOri, technically you already get an effect when channeling Mantras; +600 Toughness…not all that bad actually.

I meant an effect specific to each mantra. Something like:

MoC gives 1 stack of stab for 2 seconds when you begin the channel

MoD could break stun when you start the channel

MoP could be a small AoE boon strip when you begin the channel

Small stuff unique to each mantra that add more flavor and also make it so that even if the ridiculous channel time is interrupted, you aren’t left with nothing for your wasted time. While the toughness is nice, it does neither of those things. And more offensive effects also rewards you for not preparing the mantra ahead of time and trying to get it off midfight, if you felt the need to do that for some reason.

This build now has a Metabattle article!

https://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Chronomancer_-_Boonshare_Mantra_Spam

Also for some clarification: this is not a bunker build. My mistake on the title! It can hold in almost all 1v1s (with the exception of highly skilled Mesmers and Thieves) and in some 1v2s, but rarely 1v3s.

Why consider taking this over ele/druid?

- BOONS!
- Healing
- Alacrity
- Mobility
- Has about the same DPS as ele, maybe a little more.
- Has great CCs

This isn’t a burst healer like ele or druid. It’s a supplementary healer granting heals over time. If you were to spam Mantra of Pain in a teamfight with quickness without using other skills you’d heal about every 4-5 seconds minimum (~4.3k outgoing heals each time).

Though realistically the heal is more like every 6-8 seconds, more if using skills.

Though, you also have Well of Eternity and Healing Prism for more heals.

Even if it might have less healing potential than Ele or Druid (it could have the same healing potential), it still has tremendous boonshare. Stability is huge in boonsharing, and let’s not forget about quickness!

Necros and Thieves will be the biggest threats against this build, but it isn’t too bad.

I actually kinda like it…if nothing else then just the fact that it’s not meta and plays very differently.

I changed it a bit towards my play style, but kept the basic premise with Menders…at times it’s almost kinda tanky, definitely against the non OPd classes that just can’t dish out huge spikes over and over again. Guessing it’s pretty frustrating for them to face.

The damage is of course pretty bad, but that’s not the point of the build. It’s pretty effective in team fights for sure, and good at holding points 1v1 and 2v1 if not facing two high-burst classes.