Guild Wars 2

Ok Miku, you’ve inspired me to take a closer look:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g0abBAxTfVHFzbPemZDXInIbezsgma2FXk1Fz94snSs/edit?usp=sharing

Google doc of a staff ele that just spams 2/5/F1 on CD. It’s not perfect still but much closer than anything that has been shown in this topic so far.

In order to look at number of casts in a certain time, we need to add the CD as well as the cast time of the skill since the skill doesn’t go on CD until it’s done casting. This is F3-K6. L-Q looks at total number of casts of skills with CDs and fireball filler.

If you think you have better cast times that what I have entered, feel free to make a copy and change anything in orange. Also change I9 for number of meteors that hit (0-24). I picked 12.

(M16-Q16) Overall, quickness alone: 17% more for staff ele. Quickness and -40% alacrity = 59%. Huh… that looks pretty close to Karl’s number. Quickness and -25% alacrity = 39%. Alacrity is still going to be strong.

I also added in D15-D18 for a bit of perspective. Might adds 27% increase to the parties damage. Something like EA and banners? only an extra ~9%. 39% with the nerfed alacrity is still in a good spot. Yes, the base mesmer needs a damage buff, but alacrity is fine.

Edit2: Lowered some cast times which benefits alacrity slightly.

About that staff ele rotation. Some approx values:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.4 cast, 4 cooldown, total recharge 4.4.
• Meteor Shower: 3.8 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 23.8.
• Overload: 4.2 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 24.2.

Font + 3x Fire takes 4.6 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Total time: 10 Fire = 14, 5 Font = 2, Shower 3.8, Overload 4.2 -> 24 seconds.

Alacrity (-40% cooldown) changes values to:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.4 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.8.
• Meteor Shower: 3.8 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 15.8.
• Overload: 4.2 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 16.2.

Font + 2x Fire takes 3.2 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 2x Fireball, Font, 2x Fireball, repeat.

Total time: 5 Fire = 7, 4 Font = 1.6, Shower 3.8, Overload 4.2 -> 16.6 seconds.

All in all, rotation becomes 31% faster so you can do it 45% more often. But the rotation actually has 5 less Fireballs and 1 less Lava Font. I would estimate that to be 10% weaker so that 145% rotation becomes 128% rotation. So a 30% damage boost from alacrity.

Edit: With quickness and alacrity.

• Fireball: 0.93 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.27 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.67.
• Meteor Shower: 2.53 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 14.53.
• Overload: 2.8 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 14.8.

Font + 3x Fire: takes 3.07 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire , Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Total time: 9x Fire = 8.4, 5x Font = 1.35, Shower 2.53, Overload 2.8 -> 15.08 seconds.

Rotation is 37% faster so it can be done 59% more often. It only lacks one Fireball so with both quickness and alacrity it’s ~58% more damage.

Thanks for the input. Those numbers don’t include quickness though?
So 1.4*3*66% is 2.8 seconds. That’s still enough for 3 fireballs between lava fonts if it’s perma quickness/alacrity?

Ye, I didn’t include quickness and I don’t play ele so rotation can be nonsense.

This:

The problem with this is, it’s ANet basically saying “Mesmer needs a nerf to their DPS support, because other classes have too much DPS and benefit too much from the support.”

I’m not even saying they’re wrong; I think they’re right, there are some classes with wildly unbalanced DPS, and their DPS becomes even more wildly unbalanced with Alacrity/Quickness. Trouble is, Mesmer DPS is not wildly unbalanced. It is, in fact, in the tank. So when they nerf our DPS support, and don’t actually do anything to fix our dismal DPS itself, it’s a one-two punch to Mesmer viability.

That’s what we need to be talking about here, math arguments aside.

EDIT: Just to add, 4 months ago, during the last beta weekend, Alpha made a comment about how, if alacrity made icebow too strong, that probably says more about icebow than it does about chrono or alacrity. I made a joke about how icebow was OP, so Mesmer needs a nerf. That joke is bittersweet as hell, now.

And this:

Zoser.7245:

That’s what really kittenes me off. This affect the core of the chrono. His value, without rebalance the CDs of the skills, the trait line… even the damage if necesary. Making all the content in the game harder for the chrono. And some imposible because it was in the limit to accomplish it. (Precognition included)

And all due to a external reason. It doesn’t matter if a raid want to “carry” or not the incoming version of the chronomancer. We lose in all areas of the game with the incoming changes. I’ll wait until the patch, but do not expect any good news seeing how they trivialize a fundamental change for us.

That is the sad side of be a tool (utility class). Even more when they balance around it above your own success or viavility. In any case we’ll see what they release at the end and before leave, give a try to other alternatives out there. After HoT, we have some interesting specializations that you can try. At the end, if only four cats use the Chrono, probably they’ll do something to revive him and sure that you’ll dust off yours ; )

What is clear after the maths is that they should consider the way they balance. They can not pass along such important details and look away. If you change something that affect a whole specialization, you need, at least, tweak the necessary to avoid it.
Doing things the way they do them is like overkill.

Why are mesmer cooldowns balanced with the assumption that they will always have alacrity, and no one else’s cooldowns are balanced that way? So mesmer has to maintain 100% alacrity uptime just to break even, while everyone else gets nothing but positive benefits.

To me this sounds like alacrity might as well be a passive because the mesmer always needs it to break even. Why pretend it’s a boon when it is treated as a baseline?

It kind of reminds me of this video…

Mesmer’s 100% alacrity uptime is basically the same as Ele’s 7000 APM while every other class gets to spam 111111111

@Xenon

I’ve seen that video before. It still makes me laugh.

Wethospu.6437:

About that staff ele rotation. Some approx values:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.45 cast, 4 cooldown, total recharge 4.45.
• Meteor Shower: 3.85 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 23.85.
• Overload: 5 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 25.

3x Fire + Font takes 4.65 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Total time: 10 Fire = 14, 5 Font = 2.25, Shower 3.85, Overload 5 -> 25.1 seconds.

Alacrity (-40% cooldown) changes values to:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.45 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.85.
• Meteor Shower: 3.85 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 15.85.
• Overload: 5 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 17.

2x Fire + Font takes 3.25 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 2x Fireball, Font, 2x Fireball, repeat.

Total time: 5 Fire = 7, 4 Font = 1.8, Shower 3.85, Overload 5 -> 17.65 seconds.

All in all, rotation becomes 30% faster so you can do it 42% more often. But the rotation actually has 5 less Fireballs and 1 less Lava Font. I would estimate that to be 10% weaker so that 142% rotation becomes 128% rotation. So a 28% damage boost from alacrity.

---

Edit: With quickness and alacrity.

• Fireball: 0.93 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.3 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.7.
• Meteor Shower: 2.57 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 14.57.
• Overload: 3.33 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 15.33.

Font + 3x Fire: 3.1 cast.

Rotation: Font, Shower, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, , Font, 3x Fire , Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Skills: 9x Fire = 8.4, 5x Font = 1.5, Shower 2.57, Overload 3.33. Total: 15.73 seconds.

Rotation is 37% faster so it can be done 60% more often. It only lacks one Fireball so with both quickness and alacrity it’s ~60% more damage.

Yay some real math people did it all good, kewl !

Miku Lawrence.6329:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

I did say “slightly more real math.” ;D I realize this is much more complicated but then I would have to just start recording all the rotations with and without a chrono and calculate coeffs per sec… and I’m not going to do that. That’s also why I tried picking a few ratios of auto attacks to CD skills to get a general gist of how much both can do. Which of those ratios will depend on which class: engi being more towards CD skills while thief is almost exclusively “auto attack skills” unaffected by alacrity.

Pretty much, can’t be bothered myself. But is it possible to get an estimate by adding [Cooldown+Casttime] for common skills in a rotation til we reach about 180 seconds of skill queue, then just redo it with a 40%/25% CDR on each skill?

For Elementalit that would be (I rounded skill numbers down).

• 1s Fireball
• 4s Lavafont
• 24s Overload
• 24s Meteor Shower

That would translate in :

• 45 Lavafonts
• 7 Overloads
• 7 Meteor Showers
• Overload and Meteor Shower have ~8 sec Casttime combined, so about 60 seconds wasted casting them over 180 seconds. So We’d be able to cast about 60 Fireballs.

And with Alacrity (40% CDR)

• 1s Fireball
• 2.4s Lavafont
• 16s Overload
• 16s Meteor Shower

Which is :

• 75 Lavafonts
• 11 Overloads
• 11 Meteor Showers
• Overload and Meteor Shower have ~8 sec Casttime combined, so about 90 seconds wasted casting them over 180 seconds. So We’d be able to cast about 90 Fireballs.

I totally missed every possible Aftercast but this is kittenty math anyways.
You now just need to know damage dealt by each of the 4 skills with 25 might/25 vuln/banners/stuff/food and compare the numbers you get by adding everything up (which will be expressed as Total Damage over 180 seconds).
———————————————————————————-
And with Alacrity (25% CDR)

• 1s Fireball
• 3s Lavafont
• 19s Overload
• 19s Meteor Shower

Which is :

• 60 Lavafonts
• 9 Overloads
• 9 Meteor Showers
• Overload and Meteor Shower have ~8 sec Casttime combined, so about 72 seconds wasted casting them over 180 seconds. So We’d be able to cast about 72 Fireballs.

Edit: Actually just add up coefficients, checked it myself…

Current Alacrity boosts Ele’s damage by aprox 77% in a 180 second rotation.

Wethospu.6437:

About that staff ele rotation. Some approx values:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.45 cast, 4 cooldown, total recharge 4.45.
• Meteor Shower: 3.85 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 23.85.
• Overload: 5 cast, 20 cooldown, total recharge 25.

3x Fire + Font takes 4.65 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Total time: 10 Fire = 14, 5 Font = 2.25, Shower 3.85, Overload 5 -> 25.1 seconds.

Alacrity (-40% cooldown) changes values to:

• Fireball: 1.4 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.45 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.85.
• Meteor Shower: 3.85 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 15.85.
• Overload: 5 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 17.

2x Fire + Font takes 3.25 seconds.

Rotation is like: Font, Shower, Fireball, Font, Overload, Font, 2x Fireball, Font, 2x Fireball, repeat.

Total time: 5 Fire = 7, 4 Font = 1.8, Shower 3.85, Overload 5 -> 17.65 seconds.

All in all, rotation becomes 30% faster so you can do it 42% more often. But the rotation actually has 5 less Fireballs and 1 less Lava Font. I would estimate that to be 10% weaker so that 142% rotation becomes 128% rotation. So a 28% damage boost from alacrity.

---

Edit: With quickness and alacrity.

• Fireball: 0.93 cast, 0 cooldown.
• Lava Font: 0.3 cast, 2.4 cooldown, total recharge 2.7.
• Meteor Shower: 2.57 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 14.57.
• Overload: 3.33 cast, 12 cooldown, total recharge 15.33.

Font + 3x Fire: 3.1 cast.

Rotation: Font, Shower, Font, Overload, Font, 3x Fire, , Font, 3x Fire , Font, 3x Fire, repeat.

Skills: 9x Fire = 8.4, 5x Font = 1.5, Shower 2.57, Overload 3.33. Total: 15.73 seconds.

Rotation is 37% faster so it can be done 60% more often. It only lacks one Fireball so with both quickness and alacrity it’s ~60% more damage.

These result are good but they are from a party perspective

Since for a single chrono it’s easy to get 100% alacrity uptime on a 5 men both you are assuming an alacrity uptime of 100% so then you get that result on the ele.

This is right for a 5men party.

Sadly we (and karl) were speaking of a 10 men raid enviroment where you can’t reach the same quickness\alacrity uptime on every single member of the raid as you are assuming here for a 5 men enviroment.

This is because in a raid enviroment chrono is forced to chose between granting a smaller amount of quick\alacrity to everyone (with chrono standing in it’s own party) or just to focus on a party hitting with quick\alacrity moistly the same 5 guys over 10.

Since in this thread there are people who are going to use your 100% alacrity\quickness uptime on a party result translating them on a raid enviroment to say karl was right and since i’m not goin to repeat the same thing anymore, i would really appreciate if a third person like you guys would mind to give an extimation of the dmg gain on a raid enviroment xD

It would be really nice and appreciated your final dmg gain result with the average alacrity and quickness uptime of a raid and NOT of a party like you stated here

So essentially, you can make assumptions and get some basic analysis out of it. Assume 100% uptime on both quickness and alacrity, assume that the dps people are doing perfect rotations. Now you get a simple 60% boost to damage (not 66% Karl).

However, that’s a 5-man team, 1 person of which is a mesmer doing garbage dps. You can’t keep permanent quickness on all 10 people, though you can do like 70% or so if you really build for it. You also can’t even come close to doing permanent alacrity for all 10 people. In fact, most of the time you’ll be pushing around 90% just for the 4 in your squad.

Lets assume that all the dps is concentrated into the 4 people on your squad + 4 others in the next squad (we’ll count out the druid for this). This means that in a best case scenario, the chrono will be causing half of the raid to do 60% more damage, and the other half maybe 20% more (from occasional quickness). This comes out to ~40% damage boost to the raid as a whole, and this is going to be an extremely optimistic estimate.

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

Fay.2357:

So essentially, you can make assumptions and get some basic analysis out of it. Assume 100% uptime on both quickness and alacrity, assume that the dps people are doing perfect rotations. Now you get a simple 60% boost to damage (not 66% Karl).

However, that’s a 5-man team, 1 person of which is a mesmer doing garbage dps. You can’t keep permanent quickness on all 10 people, though you can do like 70% or so if you really build for it. You also can’t even come close to doing permanent alacrity for all 10 people. In fact, most of the time you’ll be pushing around 90% just for the 4 in your squad.

Lets assume that all the dps is concentrated into the 4 people on your squad + 4 others in the next squad (we’ll count out the druid for this). This means that in a best case scenario, the chrono will be causing half of the raid to do 60% more damage, and the other half maybe 20% more (from occasional quickness). This comes out to ~40% damage boost to the raid as a whole, and this is going to be an extremely optimistic estimate.

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

I’ve been less optimistic than you and get to those result:

aelfwe.4239:

REALITY = 29.4%

KARL = 66% (the double)

In both case really far from the 66% karl and someone else was suggesting here, and way less than the 77% calculated for a party enviroment.

Thx pyro, sometimes i didnt had good words for you (my nerdrage i suppose xD), but when it comes time to traslate words and number in build or real enviroment you are the best mesmer out there

Fay.2357:

So essentially, you can make assumptions and get some basic analysis out of it. Assume 100% uptime on both quickness and alacrity, assume that the dps people are doing perfect rotations. Now you get a simple 60% boost to damage (not 66% Karl).

However, that’s a 5-man team, 1 person of which is a mesmer doing garbage dps. You can’t keep permanent quickness on all 10 people, though you can do like 70% or so if you really build for it. You also can’t even come close to doing permanent alacrity for all 10 people. In fact, most of the time you’ll be pushing around 90% just for the 4 in your squad.

Lets assume that all the dps is concentrated into the 4 people on your squad + 4 others in the next squad (we’ll count out the druid for this). This means that in a best case scenario, the chrono will be causing half of the raid to do 60% more damage, and the other half maybe 20% more (from occasional quickness). This comes out to ~40% damage boost to the raid as a whole, and this is going to be an extremely optimistic estimate.

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

These numbers are only ever relevant to Elementalists camping staff so the “66%” is even further from reality.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Fay.2357:

So essentially, you can make assumptions and get some basic analysis out of it. Assume 100% uptime on both quickness and alacrity, assume that the dps people are doing perfect rotations. Now you get a simple 60% boost to damage (not 66% Karl).

However, that’s a 5-man team, 1 person of which is a mesmer doing garbage dps. You can’t keep permanent quickness on all 10 people, though you can do like 70% or so if you really build for it. You also can’t even come close to doing permanent alacrity for all 10 people. In fact, most of the time you’ll be pushing around 90% just for the 4 in your squad.

Lets assume that all the dps is concentrated into the 4 people on your squad + 4 others in the next squad (we’ll count out the druid for this). This means that in a best case scenario, the chrono will be causing half of the raid to do 60% more damage, and the other half maybe 20% more (from occasional quickness). This comes out to ~40% damage boost to the raid as a whole, and this is going to be an extremely optimistic estimate.

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

These numbers are only ever relevant to Elementalists camping staff so the “66%” is even further from reality.

No, they’re pretty consistent assuming perfect rotations. Pure quickness adds 60% to raw autoattacks, and combined quickness and alacrity adds 60% to any rotation as long as it’s performed flawlessly.

Where the assumptions start to fall apart are when rotations aren’t performed flawlessly, which makes the gains go down. This is particularly noticeable with engies, because it’s rather difficult to maintain a perfect rotation for them with alacrity and quickness. Burnzerker, ele (power/condie), and rev all have much more simple rotations.

Fay.2357:

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

But Fay! Burnzerker is a warrior spec! Surely you aren’t suggesting we nerf that?!?

why do ppl keep on saying 50%, isnt it 33%?

Ok so I say 59%, Weth says 60%, and Miku says 70%. People are agreeing with numbers! Progress! Burnzerker is pretty easy to keep their rotation going perfectly. Engi is a definitely hard mode. Necro rotation is really easy. Same with herald. These were made with the assumption of 100% alacrity and quickness uptime! So now that we are on the same page, we can start talking about expectations and if 60% a good number give those assumptions or does it need to be tweaked

Fay.2357:

Now here’s the fun part. Chrono adds 40% dps to a raid group and apparently it’s unbalanced enough to gut. You know what else adds 40% dps to a raid group? Replacing all your dps with burnzerkers.

You’re better than this. If you are refering to:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raids-Burnzerkers-Meta-40-higher-damage/first
It states that burnzerkers do 40% more damage than other condi builds, not 40% team damage increase. You also just admitted that the 60% would affect burnzerkers as well AND that their rotations are pretty easy. So why have 5 burnzerkers with 40% more condi damage than other condi builds when you can have 4 burnzerkers and 1 chrono buffing them 60%? Like:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xubpi/vc_vale_guardian_312_and_gorseval_322_speedkills/
So if most condi builds do 1 damage and burnzerkers do 1.4 then
A subsquad of 5 burnz would be doing 1.4*5 = 7
A subsquad of 4 +chrono = 1.4*1.6*4 = 8.96 + whatever you consider the chrono (we’ve been using 0.5 so 9.46. This is inherently a problem, because whatever is flavor of the month, chrono will make it just that much more OP (I’m not multiplying that 0.5 by 1.6 because I consider that 0.5 with those buffs.)

When all other team buffs only affect 5 people at a time (banner, spotter, EA, AP, Frost spirit, glyph of empowerment etc etc) why should chrono get to give 10 people 80% uptime on quickness? Does that on some level not seem absurd to you? It might not because mesmer damage is so low. And I do want that base damage to go up but the quickness alone is still kind of crazy when you think JUST ONE chrono hits TEN people when all of those other buffs we talk about hit 5.

So what we really need to look at is how much those other classes buff their team and if they are comparable:
So assuming a Berserker gear and 25 might/fury (these boons are so common and mesmer can even amplify it with SoI) that I’m assuming this as “baseline.”
Double banner +EA is a ~19% increase over that baseline.
Spotter, Glyph of empowerment, Frost spirit and GotL adds ~27% assuming an average of 10% increase from GotL. This of course is on a healer druid so it’s not like the druid itself is doing that much damage. GotL is weird in the sense that heals aren’t based on subgroup and it can affect everyone but it also means that it’s less stacks on 10 people.

So a relatively low DPS warrior buffing their 5 people by 19% or a healer buffing their 5 people’s damage by 27% OR a chrono that buffs 5 people by 60% or 10 people ~30% or so. You realize that’s freaking OP. It’s not “that OP” since mesmer damage is kitten poor but it’s too strong. The only way that mesmers get a buff to damage is if they buff their team less because there is no way we can keep that 60% team buffing while asking for a damage buff to be equal to everyone else. And with the nerf to alacrity, I’m still estimating it to be a ~40% buff to the ele.

Stop whining about the nerf, start asking for buffs to base mesmer!
#Phantasms are now affected by all damage mods of the mesmer!

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Stop whining about the nerf, start asking for buffs to base mesmer!
#Phantasms are now affected by all damage mods of the mesmer!

Frankly, I think both are called for. (And I suspect neither will receive any real response from ANet in the next 6 months, earliest.)

It’s not whining to question the alacrity changes as an overnerf, and to question the reasoning behind them. It’s also worth pointing out, as people have, that they told us to expect iterative changes with their balance; whatever the math is, 66% to 33% is not an iterative change where Mesmers are concerned.

(It’s also worth asking why Mesmers need a nerf because other professions have too high DPS. And I don’t accept that that’s just the wages of being a support-oriented class.)

That being said, you (and I, and a lot of other people) have a valid point, that the problem here isn’t alacrity, it’s that alacrity was a bandaid for the Mesmer’s deeper failings, in regards to DPS particularly. And it’s worth asking them to try to actually treat the wound, particularly if they insist on removing the band-aid.

You make good points. And your reasoning about ANet needing to fix base Mes is sound. But I know it’s also something people have been trying to get done for, well, the entire life of this game, so I think a lot of people aren’t all that optimistic.

EDIT: deleted, nvm, it’s a loss of time

No, what’s wrong with you? Can you not stay civil?

You yourself have been saying ~80% uptime of quickness on 10 people compared to 100% uptime on 5. Did you suddenly forget saying that? Or have you not played mesmer and don’t know how it works? Because ToT is only ~30% uptime on 10 if you hit them all. Some have a separate subgroup and have it randomly share. (or with a herald and less boon duration). Others are constantly swapping subgroups to SoI in different ones.

Do you see any warriors or rangers swapping subgroups or in their own subgroup to get more buffs out? Keep in mind this actually would work. Spotter/EA have a 9 second duration and pulse every 3 seconds. People just deemed it not worth their time. Yet it is for a chrono.

So again, 60% buff to 4 other people or 30% (your number) to 9 other people. Compared to the 19-27% a PSEA or druid provide to 5 people.

And with this nerf to alacrity, the uptime might not even go down that much still. Deciding to have 1 mesmer after the nerf means a mesmer keeps 3 shield phantasms up (assuming PH is fixed) and that’s already 100% uptime to 5 people. Mesmer keeps swapping back and forth for quickness uptime and that won’t change. Ask a fresh air (getting buffed anyway) to use warhorn earth 4 every once in a while to give a +2 duration to quickness and it’ll reach 100% quickness uptime while maintaining high alacrity (still using wells) uptime for 10 people. It won’t matter if the mesmer does no damage.

aelfwe.4239:

snip

Take your own advice. Read before posting.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

No, what’s wrong with you? Can you not stay civil?

To stay civil i deleted my post 1 hour before your reply so you can’t really blame me, it would be nice if you’d do the same

Anyway sice you insist:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

You yourself have been saying ~80% uptime of quickness on 10 people compared to 100% uptime on 5. Did you suddenly forget saying that? Or have you not played mesmer and don’t know how it works? Because ToT is only ~30% uptime on 10 if you hit them all. Some have a separate subgroup and have it randomly share. (or with a herald and less boon duration). Others are constantly swapping subgroups to SoI in different ones.

You mess up so many things mate…

Yeah we have 80% uptime of quickness on 10 people and 100% quickness uptime on 5 men party.

And yeah we have 70% of alacrity uptime on 10 men party and 100% quickness uptime on 5

But not because:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

When all other team buffs only affect 5 people at a time (banner, spotter, EA, AP, Frost spirit, glyph of empowerment etc etc) why should chrono get to give 10 people 80% uptime on quickness? Does that on some level not seem absurd to you? It might not because mesmer damage is so low. And I do want that base damage to go up but the quickness alone is still kind of crazy when you think JUST ONE chrono hits TEN people when all of those other buffs we talk about hit 5.

This is the wrongest thing i’ve ever read about quickness and alacrity.

The 80% of quickness uptime in a raid setup doesnt come out because quickness (and alacrity) skills affect more players while other buffs affect just 5 as you are claming here

Skill\trait who bring alacrity:
1)well of recall affect max 5 target
2)all the well that end well affect max 5 target
3)iavenger affect max 5 target

Skill\trait who bring quickness:
1)time warp affect max 5 target
2)well of action affect max 5 target
3)signet of illusion affect max 5 target
4)ToT affect have no target cap

You have only tot who affect more than 5 target and it’s the lower source of quickness with well of action. If they’d cap it tomorrow to 5 target i wouldnt say anything because difference on quickness uptime would be really minimal.

Anyway the reason of the 70%/80% raid alacrity/quickness uptime it’s because you can share it to different people standing in your own party (and you can do the same with all other boon or buff of this game) or you can take it as the average raid quickness uptime you bring to raid standing in party (so granting 100% to 5 guys) while other 5 ones take just piece of them when your party mate are out of range or moving (it’s a raid).

And you can do exactly the same obtaining the same result with spotter, empowered allies or any other buff of the game you have mentioned above.

There are math fom it, and not only made from me before you can get mad, so if you’re interested just google them.

Anyway it’s hard to stay civil when after 2 days you are arguing with someone about the alacrity and quickness effect in a raid enviroment and then suddently you realize that the guy who is arguing with you has totally no clue about the basic difference between a raid enviroment and a party enviroment.

It’s hard to stay civil when you realize that the guy you are arguin for alacrity\quick think that alacrity and quick are so OP because they hit more target compared to other boons as spotter that hit just 5 target.

It’s hard to stay civil when you realize that the guy you are arguin is making you lost time because has no idea of what you are speaking off.

It’s even hard to stay civil knowing you’re gonna reply me with something like that “butbutbut ToT” pretestual stuff to try to cover your lack of knowloedge of what you are speaking off.

But that’s my bad too.

2 years ago a wise told “when a men point a the moon fool look at finger”

I’ve should remember of this.

Anyway have fun, patch will hit on 26th, it would when people (and not chrono) will realize the consequences of what anet is doing xD

DanielHarvey.7320:

aelfwe.4239:

snip

Take your own advice. Read before posting.

It’s not a “read” issue, it was for saving time.

But have been worthless so i’ve replyed now

Obtena.7952:

Anet should really rethink Alacrity because percent based effects are notoriously hard to balance.

Hmm maybe, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that nerfing something by 50% is generally not the way you achieve balance. It basically says that either original designers of the skill were incompetent, or those people rebalancing it now are. In the rarest of instances will that ever yield balance.

In fact, this is the epitome of how not to balance a game. In fact I could swear Anet has often claimed to be in favor of smaller incremental adjustments, rather than using the nuclear option? lol

I don’t think you’d see any outcry over a ~25% adjustment to Alacrity at all. Most reasonable Mesmers were expecting something like that, because that would be a legitimate attempt to balance rather than destroy an ability. By the looks of it, they’re not interested in carefully adjusting here, but are out only to nerf something new and profession-defining into the ground.

As others have said, I would actually be in support of this monumental nerf to Alacrity, if it means they’re willing to bring Mesmers up to a competitive level in other areas. (And no, 5% on Scepter attack rate isn’t what I’m talking about! lol!)

I mean how can you be so ignorant to your customers feelings, as to announce a 50% nerf of a very popular class-defining ability, and then in the same statement talk about a 5% boost to a nearly unused trait on a nearly unused weapon??? That’s downright insulting! If you’re going to nerf that big, then you should always try to temper such a nerf by making significant improvements to something weak elsewhere! Lord knows, every single profession, no matter how OPd, has completely worthless weapons and traits that you can boost in a meaningful way without causing imbalances.

5%!!! lol!

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

You’re better than this. If you are refering to:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/dungeons/Raids-Burnzerkers-Meta-40-higher-damage/first
It states that burnzerkers do 40% more damage than other condi builds, not 40% team damage increase. You also just admitted that the 60% would affect burnzerkers as well AND that their rotations are pretty easy. So why have 5 burnzerkers with 40% more condi damage than other condi builds when you can have 4 burnzerkers and 1 chrono buffing them 60%?

You’re completely missing the point.

A raid comp with a chrono will do ~40% more damage (best case scenario) than a raidcomp without a chrono.

A raid comp with burnzerker dps will do ~40% more damage than a raid comp with non-burnzerker dps.

Yes, obviously chrono will amp the one 40% by the other 40%, but that’s completely irrelevant. The important point here is that both of these situations result in a 40% change in dps as a consequence of bringing a particular class or classes. However, Anet has decided that one of those situations is not ok, and the other is just fine and dandy.

Give it about a month after the patch comes out and nobody will care about the nerf anymore. And seriously, 33% faster cooldowns times is still pretty good yall are just mad because you won’t have extra short cooldowns while the rest of us had to deal with normal cooldown times

spartan.9421:

Give it about a month after the patch comes out and nobody will care about the nerf anymore. And seriously, 33% faster cooldowns times is still pretty good yall are just mad because you won’t have extra short cooldowns while the rest of us had to deal with normal cooldown times

Despite the fact that this post is sorta hateful and filled with joy that we got slapped into the face – yea he’s right. 33% is fine and everyone who thinks 66% was “barely ok and 33% makes mes useless” is really out of his mind…

“we’re all unhappy at the changes to Alacrity” – Actually I am happy about the changes to Alacrity. Not everyone sees things the same way as you.

aelfwe.4239:

Yeah we have 80% uptime of quickness on 10 people and 100% quickness uptime on 5 men party.
And yeah we have 70% of alacrity uptime on 10 men party and 100% quickness uptime on 5
But not because:

When all other team buffs only affect 5 people at a time (banner, spotter, EA, AP, Frost spirit, glyph of empowerment etc etc) why should chrono get to give 10 people 80% uptime on quickness? Does that on some level not seem absurd to you? It might not because mesmer damage is so low. And I do want that base damage to go up but the quickness alone is still kind of crazy when you think JUST ONE chrono hits TEN people when all of those other buffs we talk about hit 5.

The 80% of quickness uptime in a raid setup doesnt come out because quickness (and alacrity) skills affect more players while other buffs affect just 5 as you are claming here

What I am claiming is that ONE chrono hits TEN people! Not that one skill (besides ToT) hit’s 10 people.

Anyway the reason of the 70%/80% raid alacrity/quickness uptime it’s because you can share it to different people standing in your own party (and you can do the same with all other boon or buff of this game) or you can take it as the average raid quickness uptime you bring to raid standing in party (so granting 100% to 5 guys) while other 5 ones take just piece of them when your party mate are out of range or moving (it’s a raid).

There are actually several ways to set up the groups:

1) 2 subgroups of 5 each. Chrono in one. Basically like a 5 man content with 100% on one group and then a bonus ~30% from ToT on the other. Average uptime is (100% x 5 + 30% x 5) / 10 = 65%. Not the 80% you are using.

2) 2 subgroups of 5 with a chrono in each one: Basically 100% overkill on quickness for both. Also not the situation you are talking about. Still important to think that each chrono per subgroup is buffing their team by ~60% and that’s still really strong.

3) 2 subgroups of 5/4. Chrono swaps between subgroups and uses SoI on the second group while the main TW combo is used on the first subgroup. Since the duration of quickness that is being shared with SoI is a decent length, the chrono doesn’t have to shift around like crazy every 6 seconds like a warrior or druid would have to for PSEA / frost-spotter buffs. You don’t ever see a PSEA or druid doing this because their buffs aren’t worth the hassle. It IS for chronos though.

4) 2 subgroups of 4/5 (or 4/4) and a chrono alone (or with a herald for +50%). All the wells, TW, SoI are randomly given to 4 others (or always to herald + 3 random everyone else).

It is situations 3 and 4 were the 80% quickness comes from. It requires SoI from inspiration and rune of chrono. The quickness could use some help. That’s why I mentioned
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Sand_Squall
It increases all boons on 5 allies by +2 seconds. This ups the quickness in general but also increases the SoI share from the mesmer. Since fresh air is getting a nice buff and D/WH is already somewhat meta for ele, this will be easy to use and shore up the extra 20% of quickness. So in theory, with a bit of help from a “new/old” ele build that will be in the meta, one Chrono can provide 100% quickness to 9 other people.

If we are going with situation where a chrono decides to be the tank and wear commander gear to get 100% boon duration without a herald, then a chrono with 3 shield phantasms up (IF PH is fixed) means 6 seconds of alacrity every 6 seconds to 4 of 9 targets (mesmer always gets it). This means 44% uptime on alacrity from one mesmer on 9 other people with just shield phantasms. With well of recall giving 7 seconds of alacrity, on a 40 sec base CD and CS having a 76 sec CD, we can consider this 21 second of alacrity every 82 seconds. With the new 25% CDR, that’s 21 every 61.2 seconds = 34% on 4 other people. WoC is 5 casts every 82 seconds. With alacrity, it’s 5 casts (10 seconds) every 61.2 seconds for another 16% uptime on 4 people. Well of eternity is another 6 every 61.2 seconds = 10%. So 44% uptime on 9 other people and 60% on 4 others. Averages out to ~ 27% more+44% for a total of 71% uptime on alacrity for 9 other people and overkill 100% on the chrono.

It’s hard to stay civil when you realize that the guy you are arguin for alacrity\quick think that alacrity and quick are so OP because they hit more target compared to other boons as spotter that hit just 5 target.

It’s hard to stay civil when you realize that the guy you are arguin is making you lost time because has no idea of what you are speaking off.

I don’t think they hit more targets. I know how the different subgrouping works though in a raid environment. It is equally frustrating for me to discuss things with you. I have been saying I think you are wrong. You have been personally jabbing at me. There is a difference.

Stand The Wall.6987:

why do ppl keep on saying 50%, isnt it 33%?

33 = 50% of 66

Xenon.4537:

Stand The Wall.6987:

why do ppl keep on saying 50%, isnt it 33%?

33 = 50% of 66

Yes which results in 40%CDR to 25% which is 37.5% reduction.
That’s only alacrity though and mesmers still have quickness. So it’s less than 37.5% nerf to a chrono’s ability to buff their allies.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Xenon.4537:

Stand The Wall.6987:

why do ppl keep on saying 50%, isnt it 33%?

33 = 50% of 66

Yes which results in 40%CDR to 25% which is 37.5% reduction.
That’s only alacrity though and mesmers still have quickness. So it’s less than 37.5% nerf to a chrono’s ability to buff their allies.

You need to take a step back and realize that not every post on the internet is for you to myopically argue about. What you just quoted was someone explaining why everyone is talking about a 50% nerf; namely the fact that going to 33 from 66 is cutting the number by 50%. If you want to argue about the fact that 66/2 = 33, feel free.

LOL thank you fay

If you really want to talk about being short sighted, ok.

This isn’t Xenon specifically, but a lot of people are calling it a 50% nerf like it’s such a huge deal and chopping a number in half. The end result is less than 50% nerf. Focusing on the initial number change rather than the end result is short sighted.

But let’s take even one more step back.

Chrono wasn’t designed as a sidegrade like Reaper or DH. It was an upgrade with an addition of F5. If reaper shroud 1 is too OP, they can nerf it while keeping Death shroud #1 as is or even buffing it. CS-F5 should have been the new F4, not another button to press. They can’t nerf chrono F1 without nerfing mesmer F1. It’s too late for a full redesign that chrono really needs. Even I’m reality checked enough to realize this. However, this means balance wise, anything a base mesmer can do, chrono can do better because alacrity/F5 is such a huge crutch. You have admitted this yourself: “Kick all base mesmers on sight.” If there is any hope for base mesmer and also any future elite specs for mesmer that won’t screw with balance all over, base mesmer needs major buffs. This means alacrity/chrono has to get nerfed.

In otherwise, everyone whining about a 50% nerf rather than being constructive and pushing for base mesmer buffs that won’t impact chrono too much is being short sighted. The reason I am pushing really hard for the % damage modifiers to affect phantasms is because chronos have nobuffs or modifiers (PF/PH) to phantasms (Chronophantasma is meh compared to the other lines.) This is the only way I can think of that would give base mesmer a DPS phantasm role while being mutually exclusive with a well spamming chrono for team buffs.

its a big thing with the alacrity.

As a Mesmer you finally got something which actually gives you everything. a good skill rotation, dps….
basically you are constantly dangerous for everyone and everything. + The ability to support your team. I finally got rid of being just the burster
i took skills in which i didnt thought about before because of its long cool-down.

in my opinion you can do

• reduce cds
• add more dmg into the skills or into the traits (eg. Sword)
• add something unique which Mesmers can give to support the group (passive?)

spartan.9421:

Give it about a month after the patch comes out and nobody will care about the nerf anymore. And seriously, 33% faster cooldowns times is still pretty good yall are just mad because you won’t have extra short cooldowns while the rest of us had to deal with normal cooldown times

One problem with that statement is that mesmer does not have extra short cooldowns without Ala. Originally the Chrono cooldowns were designed to work with Ala, but now they are changing Ala but they are not changing the underlying cooldowns.

But the core problem really is that we don’t really have viable role beside being Ala/utility bot.

Xenon.4537:

Stand The Wall.6987:

why do ppl keep on saying 50%, isnt it 33%?

33 = 50% of 66

oh duh lol

aelfwe.4239:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Karl is not the best with words. That’s why they have sometimes done pre-recordings of these patch notes rather than live Karl and those went much better.

Didn’t rewatch it but there is a difference between “one mesmer makes the raid to 66% more damage” and “alacrity makes the raid do 66% more damage.”
Quickness is still a thing and it doesn’t look to be getting nerfed (res/stomp aside). So yeah, 100% uptime on 50% attack speed increase and 40% CDR… I could easily call that a 66% damage increase for the raid in an offhand remark and not think he was too far off.

Lul?

Let me wonder: you aren’t a math lover like karl right? xD

A) Quickness affect just skill without cooldown (basically AA chains or thieves) and channeled skill.

So to get the best result from quickness (that +50% raid dmg you are speaking off) you require an IDEAL raid with people casting just skill WITHOUT cooldown (AA chains\thieves) or channeled skills.

Every single skill casted from a raid member that ISNT a skill without cooldown or a channeled skill doesn’t benefit from quickness, and makes the raid dmg addition from quickness to drop from that 50%.

B) Alacrity affect just skill with cooldown (so basically it doesnt affect the 80% of skill affected from quickness).

So to get the best result from alacrity (that +40% raid dmg you are speaking off) you require an IDEAL raid with people casting just skill WITH cooldown.

Every single skill casted from a raid member that IS a skill without cooldown doesn’t benefit from ALACRITY, and makes the raid dmg addition from quickness to drop from that 40%.

RESULT:

Quickness and Alacrity aren’t ADDITIVE.

Quickness and alacrity are ALTERNATIVE.

From a math side it means that with the exception of channeled skill with a cooldown you are goin to take the 50% more dmg OR the 40% more dmg from alacrity based upon which skill are you using.

This means that on an IDEAL situation with a single chrono bringing 100% quickness and alacrity uptime on a 10 men raid the total raid dmg addiction would be between 40% and 50% -average 45%- and not 66% like you (and karl) stated.

But as i highlighted till now this is an IDEAL situation where a single mesmer would bring by hisself 100% alacrity and quickness on 10 men raid.

This isn’t possible, and it has already demostraded with maths and tons of video in past 3 months.

You can have 100% quick and alacrity uptime with a single mesmer on 5 men party enviroment but you CAN’T have 100% quick and alacrity uptime with a single mesmer on a 10 men raid.

Let’s analize raid enviroment:

Max quickness uptime from a single mesmer with 100 boon duration 2 soi + 3 weels and chrono rune on 10 men raid: around 80%.

Max alacrity uptime from a single mesmer with 100 boon duration mimic + 3 weels and chrono rune on 10 men raid: around 70%.

Put down some maths:
0.8x(50)= 40%
0.7x(40)= 28%
so the average dmg addition in raid due to quickness + alacrity is around 34%

REALITY = 34%

KARL = 66% (the double)

And you defend him?

Keep on:

Let’s add in math the skill with both cd and channeling and let’s suppose that they are the 20% of the total skill casted (they are way less than i’m 30% but i’m trying to put on your side), we will have to add to 34%:
0.2×50×40=0.41%

REALITY = 34,4%

KARL = 66% (the double)

Now let’s take into consideration that a chrono to have 100% quickness and alacrity uptime need 3 iavenger (that do 0 dmg) and need to cast wells+tw+soi+mimic etc for like 20sec every 50 sec…

let’s ask ourself how much dmg loss a chrono do compared to zerk war or ele: 50%???

Since there are 10 men in raid you can take an average of base dmg for each one of 10%.

This means chrono makes raid to lose a 5% compared to taking a war

REALITY = 29.4%

KARL = 66% (the double)

Anyway for reference:

http://www.twitch.tv/guildwars2/v/35627270

27:25 sec

“basically or you have a mesmer or you have 66% dmg loss”

Your math is wrong because quickness does affect skills with cooldowns, it lowers their cast time. It also is wrong because apparently you can’t remember to multiply by 4 whatever the mesmer gain is, and then part of it for 5 more members of the raid.

Quickness of revenant, one guaranteed member of a mesmers group, is already 1.5x because eod the member’s quickness and gains a little from alacrity if rotating mallyx. Other examples can be made for engi, ele, druid, etc…

But this is all irrelevant and comp dependent. What matters is that a single mesmer can maintain alacrity and quickness for a 5 man party. Quickness is a 25-50% damage mod depending on build. Alacrity is a 0-20% damage modifier for most builds after the changes. Let’s assume the average build would get 35% from quickness and 10% from alacrity. .45 * 4 = 1.8 so even if a mesmer is counted only in terms of their party support for 5 people average benefit the mesmer has to do literally nothing in terms of damage to only net 2 average damage builds. Mesmer brings a small, but existent amount of damage itself too, therefore it is stronger than any other class for composition reasons. This math is basic and high level, so please do not get it confused with specific comp theory crafting. It is also very accurate within its statements that a mesmer is basically at least 2 average dps builds.

Currently, however, mesmer alacrity would be a 1-32.5% buff to damage and mesmers will have an easier time retaining permanent alacrity. It’s completely overpowered right now, especially with builds like d/wh tempest which is getting a buff with the patch ( officially highest dps build in the game, excluding broken not publicly available one) and is a little less dependent upon alacrity for damage than its competitor the burnZerker.

Amineo.8951:

It’s still better than Guardian.

I don’t know what guardians you are fighting but the ones i face
Melts the whole enemy team in seconds while we cant have this small buff

1. Balance
   Also the real issue to me is whats next?
   Are they going to stop when the best mesmer in the game can kill an average theif?
   Mesmer is underpowered

Sadrien.3470:

Your math is wrong because quickness does affect skills with cooldowns, it lowers their cast time. It also is wrong because apparently you can’t remember to multiply by 4 whatever the mesmer gain is, and then part of it for 5 more members of the raid.

I’ve already counted it…

aelfwe.4239:

<cut>

Let’s add in math the skill with both cd and channeling
<cut>

Sadrien.3470:

Quickness of revenant, one guaranteed member of a mesmers group, is already 1.5x because eod the member’s quickness and gains a little from alacrity if rotating mallyx. Other examples can be made for engi, ele, druid, etc…

Whole math was obviusely made under the assumption of 100% boon duration (that obviusely include the 50% from facet of natures)

Sadrien.3470:

But this is all irrelevant and comp dependent. What matters is that a single mesmer can maintain alacrity and quickness for a 5 man party.

As it was stated something likes 20 times i was writing on a 10men raid enviroment.

But, since i don’t want another duck, you’re right!!!

Btw i’m starting to understand where anet takes some ideas

I support *aelfwe*’s statement since ANet told us in their own words: “Alacrity is too strong and we don’t want more Mesmers to join the party to fix it”. At the moment 1 Mes can sustain 100% quickness and 70% alacrity for both subgroups all by himself or something like one sub 100% alacrity, the other almost 0%. The nerf seems like they think we have perma alacrity on everyone, wich annoys me. They could at least lower the CD of Recall to support this idea of more but weaker Alacrity.

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

3) 2 subgroups of 5/4. Chrono swaps between subgroups and uses SoI on the second group while the main TW combo is used on the first subgroup. Since the duration of quickness that is being shared with SoI is a decent length, the chrono doesn’t have to shift around like crazy every 6 seconds like a warrior or druid would have to for PSEA / frost-spotter buffs. You don’t ever see a PSEA or druid doing this because their buffs aren’t worth the hassle. It IS for chronos though.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/41l4a6/vc_sabetha_459_401_left_on_timer/
A chrono swapping back between two groups since some people still don’t get that there can be multiple ways for a chrono to share boons between 10 people.

Xyonon.3987:

At the moment 1 Mes can sustain 100% quickness and 70% alacrity for both subgroups all by himself or something like one sub 100% alacrity, the other almost 0%.

I think some of us were a bit too rushed to create a meta build and stop thinking about it. I myself was too abrupt at saying commander’s wasn’t worth it and Rune of chrono+Sigil concentration+herald was the way to go. Both of them can be used at the same time though which removes the need for a herald in the same subgroup as the mesmer which means the herald isn’t being overbuffed. Furthermore, shield phantasms were considered a DPS loss and written off rather quickly. However, 3 shield phantasms is still 6/7.2 seconds of alacrity on 5 people for 83% uptime. If PH was working with them, it would be 100% uptime from just phantasms on 5 people or 44% uptime on 9 other people if subgroups are set up properly. Since that’s before wells & chronophantasma come into play more can be achieved. Earlier in this discussion I also mentioned that a chrono would always be taking 1 hit on the wells. However, if shield phantasms are enough for 150% alacrity uptime on the chrono, then the chrono doesn’t need to stand in it’s own wells. With the current 40%CDR, that’s 75.5% uptime on 5 other people or 42% uptime on 9 other people from wells. So theoretically, if PH wasn’t bugged for Deja Vu, could keep 86% uptime on 9 people at 100% on itself. That is with a build that uses SoI instead of another well. Dropping SoI for another well would put it at ~100%. So all it would have taken was a bug fix. I’m not saying Karl’s statement was perfect but it was a lot closer to reality than people are realizing.

Xyonon.3987:

They could at least lower the CD of Recall to support this idea of more but weaker Alacrity.

In truth, they need to lower all chronomancer (not core mesmer) cds to accommodate this change. Chronomancer cds are unusually high for their effects, because they were crafted taking full alacrity into account.
With the alacrity nerf, the loss in cds is more than the 15% in max potential cd, as the balance was built around alacrity also reducing the cooldowns on alacrity-generating skills.
In order to compensate for this raw personal loss, they need to reduce chrono skill cooldowns by at least 10% across the board, probably closer to 15%.

It should be obvious that such a change won’t threaten to revive the chronobunker, as the loss of bunker amulets, energy sigil, Well of Precognition, and cooldown on core mesmer skills, combined with an increase in unblockable abilities and power in our primary predators (thief+necro) makes chronobunker essentially irretrievable.

I don’t think the alacrity nerf should have been so severe. Now you can’t even remotely counter chill with alacrity ; the duration of the alacrity from illusion shatters besides Mind Wrack should be have been increased by 50% if they toned it down to 33% I think.

Echo of Memory is 30 recharge —- 2 blocks plus alacrity phantasm
Tides of Time is 40 recharge — stun

Well of Calamity is 20 recharge —- weakness , cripple , ~ 3K damage total but it depends on the last hit for about 2K of the 3K
Well of Action is 30 recharge — quickness on allies & slow on enemies , ~ 1.5K damage total
Well of Recall is 40 recharge --- applies Chill on enemies and alacrity on allies , ~ 1.5K damage total
Well of Precognition is 45 recharge
Gravity well is 90 recharge —-- multiple CC / stability killer, ~2.8K damage total

In comparison, Necromancer wells have 35-50 second base recharge, reduced by 20% with the trait. Reaper shouts on the other hand are on 20-25 cooldown. So it’s in decent shape when compared against Necromancer wells.

Also I feel as though the core mesmer recharges that aren’t phantasms/illusions (affected by the 20% recharge reduction from Illusionist’s Celerity) should be lowered slightly : Chaos Storm, Chaos Armor in particular.

Right now base mesmer’s phantasms are a unreliable way to do damage
Warlock —- since this is dependent on power , it is hard to use if you are trying to maximize condition damage (~1.8K damage , +10% per condition) , even with Illusionist’s Celerity + Chaotic Dampening you’re looking at 14 recharge , situational on chaos armor
Swordsman —- leap , mediocre damage (~2K) for the 20 second base recharge
Duelist —- pistol is rarely used , this doesn’t have any special effects besides projectile finisher , 20s recharge & mediocre damage but ranged (~2.3K) —- Duelist’s Discipline is situational & random (33% chance for bleeding)
Berserker —- cripple isn’t a very strong condition to warrant 20 base recharge ; whirl finisher / okay damage but melee range phantasm (~ 2.6K) —- it’s basically balanced for 12 recharge from Illusionist’s Celerity + Imagined Burden (which gives you might)
Warden —- whirl finisher, decent damage (~3.5k) if it hits since it’s melee range phantasm , and Warden’s Feedback is very useful in extending Focus’ utility & has synergy with Temporal Curtain for condition removal however it is 25 base recharge

ANet needs to hire someone who can actually do math.

tobascodagama.2961:

ANet needs to hire someone who can actually do math.

Sounds like unfair discriminatory hiring practices to me.

Windwalker.7421:

Hmm maybe, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that nerfing something by 50% is generally not the way you achieve balance. It basically says that either original designers of the skill were incompetent, or those people rebalancing it now are. In the rarest of instances will that ever yield balance.

In fact, this is the epitome of how not to balance a game. In fact I could swear Anet has often claimed to be in favor of smaller incremental adjustments, rather than using the nuclear option? lol

I don’t think you’d see any outcry over a ~25% adjustment to Alacrity at all. Most reasonable Mesmers were expecting something like that, because that would be a legitimate attempt to balance rather than destroy an ability. By the looks of it, they’re not interested in carefully adjusting here, but are out only to nerf something new and profession-defining into the ground.

…

I mean how can you be so ignorant to your customers feelings, as to announce a 50% nerf of a very popular class-defining ability…

I think this is a really good point. This kind of erratic behavior screams incompetence, either of the original designers who implemented these things that are apparently so OP one of them is getting (essentially) removed and the other having its effectiveness cut in half, or on the part of the management (I don’t know if there is a dedicated team for balancing issues) for overreacting to something they signed off on with HoT. Has anyone heard of beta testing? If it was done properly, we wouldn’t be here.

For those of us who actually have jobs and are held accountable, and depend on others to hold themselves accountable, it’s hard to imagine pulling this kind of stuff and not getting my kitten chewed off about it and/or feeling like a complete kittening idiot.

On a personal experience note, since HoT I’ve actually been able to pve on my mesmer and not find it one of the worst experiences in gaming ever. In fact, I actually like it a lot. I get to, you know, use my skills with reasonable regularity, instead of standing there struggling to produce my “resource” which disappears when my target dies and use skills dependent on that resource. I mean seriously, alacrity and the cd reduction it allows make mesmer tolerable in open world, as having your clones/phants die when one out of the 5-8 mobs you are fighting dies is just a horrible experience. Alacrity and HoT fixed that.

It’s about quality of experience, and there are a ton of other ways to nerf mesmer if, for some reason, it is needed. I mean you want to remove precog, fine, whatever, and removing the tank amulets pretty much takes care of bunker mes I think. Nerfing alacrity though is a straight nerf to mesmer enjoyment in all game modes, it’s just ridiculous to introduce something so great for the class, and then gut it like this.

Raids: Okay I mean unless Anet is hiring people in their first year of undergrad, I really don’t think it’s that hard to code a reduction in the effectiveness of alacrity on your party without kitten it’s effectiveness on the mesmer.

It’s just so crazy incompetent, yet again, just mind boggling. What a disorganized “team” they have there at Anet, where one group develops content for HoT and then, at best, someone else comes in an removes it; at worst it was the same people who implemented it in the first place, meaning they were so ignorant of their own product that they released something without enough testing to understand it, and later removed it themselves.

Is it super hard to get hired at Anet, or is like really some network thing? Did these guys like meet on WoW or something or at college? How can this actually be how a company functions?

MSFone.3026:

Is it super hard to get hired at Anet, or is like really some network thing? Did these guys like meet on WoW or something or at college? How can this actually be how a company functions?

It’s sorta the opposite actually. It’s difficult to find someone willing to work for Anet. I’d elaborate, but you can probably find all the info yourself with a bit of google.

MSFone.3026:

On a personal experience note, since HoT I’ve actually been able to pve on my mesmer and not find it one of the worst experiences in gaming ever. In fact, I actually like it a lot. I get to, you know, use my skills with reasonable regularity, instead of standing there struggling to produce my “resource” which disappears when my target dies and use skills dependent on that resource. I mean seriously, alacrity and the cd reduction it allows make mesmer tolerable in open world, as having your clones/phants die when one out of the 5-8 mobs you are fighting dies is just a horrible experience. Alacrity and HoT fixed that.

A really nice way they could compensate for this would be to make Persistence of Memory (or some version of it) baseline addition to the shatter mechanic.

Something like-

Mind Wrack: Destroy all your clones and phantasms, damaging nearby foes and lower the cooldowns on your phantasm skills. The shatter effect also occurs at your location.

-1 sec/illusion (-4 for full shatter)

We’ll see how bad things actually are on Tuesday, though. It really is pointless to argue over balance until we have all the information.

Fay.2357:

It’s sorta the opposite actually. It’s difficult to find someone willing to work for Anet. I’d elaborate, but you can probably find all the info yourself with a bit of google.

And that’s not a rare thing either. Game-makers as a whole aren’t first-grade employers due to their comparatively ephemeral nature.
Even among those, MMO devs are even less liked, with the possible exception of Blizzard.

Glacial.9516:

The problem with averaging the two is that not everyone who has useful cd skills has a useless autoattack and vice versa. Both ‘sides’ are benefiting from both Quickness and Alacrity, though perhaps not equally from each.

That’s pretty much my issue. You’d need to analyse the effect on each build individually.

On builds that rely entirely on non-cooldown skills for DPS (thief, guardian sword/focus or sword/shield) alacrity doesn’t have a direct benefit. By reducing the cooldowns of buff skills, in a best case scenario it might increase the uptime of buffs from 60 to 100%. Quickness increases their DPS by quickness uptime times 50%.

On builds that rely entirely on cooldown-limited skills for DPS, then alacrity would increase their DPS by 66%. Such builds, however, don’t exist in GW2 (some elementalist rotation-oriented builds might be closest?). Quickness wouldn’t help these builds at all, unless it means they add additional skills into their rotation (and presumably if those skills were as damaging as those already in the rotation they’d already be in the rotation, so the damage boost from quickness even in that scenario is not going to be the full 50%).

To get a feel for how much the chrono is adding, you’d need to come up with some typical raid team structures, look at the builds involved, and see how much the chrono is adding to each build.

That’s more than I’m inclined to attempt here, but one would hope that ArenaNet’s balance team would make such an analysis in judging the impact that chronomancers have. The problem is that saying 66% comes across as Karl assuming that 66% cooldown reduction means 66% more damage: an assumption that only follows if the entire team’s DPS is cooldown-limited, and as noted above, such builds simply don’t exist in GW2.

Now, it’s possible that they’ve done the numbers and the effect of chronomancer buffs (including alacrity, timewarp with F5, and so on) do in fact add up to an average of 66% by coincidence. If that’s the case, though, then surely they’d recognise how unbelievable that sounds and have Karl hang a lampshade on it?

As it is, it comes across as the decision having been made on the basis of an extremely flawed assumption, which makes it hard to have faith that it’s a good one.