Guild Wars 2

I’ve noticed (and I’m sure others have too) the huge amount of synergy between mantras and Chronomancer.

You have quickness for when you need to charge them. And you have alacrity to shorten both the icd between activations and the cd of the skill itself.

I am trying to figure out some way to spam mantra of pain, but I don’t know if it’s worth it.

Has anyone else experimented with mantras and alacrity/quickness?

While quickness is obviously helpful for charging mantras, alacrity is actually much less impactful, particularly for mantra of pain. While technically alacrity affects all skills nearly in the same way by reducing cooldowns, the way that skill is used affects how alacrity actually influences it.

In order to get full benefit out of alacrity with mantra of pain, you’ll be spending the vast majority of your time charging it, followed by immediate discharges and then charging again. This leaves rather little time to do anything but charge this mantra, and that’s simply not a viable way to play. On the other hand, if you let it sit off of cooldown while doing other things, alacrity does not benefit it at all.

Compare that to another skill such as chaos storm or tides of time. These skills have long cooldowns, so alacrity will continuously affect them for 20ish seconds after use. Then, these skills are often used shortly after becoming available, meaning that they have a very high amount of time spent recharging, getting maximum benefit from alacrity.

Anyway, I’m getting a little sidetracked. Point is that alacrity and quickness don’t really benefit mantras any more than the rest of our toolkit. Even with quickness, you end up very vulnerable when channeling mantras, and their effects are still generally underwhelming for the sacrifice necessary to use them. Mantras need actual buffs to be viable, not just indirect applications of mechanics.

Fay.2357:

While quickness is obviously helpful for charging mantras, alacrity is actually much less impactful, particularly for mantra of pain. While technically alacrity affects all skills nearly in the same way by reducing cooldowns, the way that skill is used affects how alacrity actually influences it.

In order to get full benefit out of alacrity with mantra of pain, you’ll be spending the vast majority of your time charging it, followed by immediate discharges and then charging again. This leaves rather little time to do anything but charge this mantra, and that’s simply not a viable way to play. On the other hand, if you let it sit off of cooldown while doing other things, alacrity does not benefit it at all.

Compare that to another skill such as chaos storm or tides of time. These skills have long cooldowns, so alacrity will continuously affect them for 20ish seconds after use. Then, these skills are often used shortly after becoming available, meaning that they have a very high amount of time spent recharging, getting maximum benefit from alacrity.

Anyway, I’m getting a little sidetracked. Point is that alacrity and quickness don’t really benefit mantras any more than the rest of our toolkit. Even with quickness, you end up very vulnerable when channeling mantras, and their effects are still generally underwhelming for the sacrifice necessary to use them. Mantras need actual buffs to be viable, not just indirect applications of mechanics.

If you use then charge mantra of pain after a shatter burst then you are speeding up the dps of the skill at least by very little. Just do some theories Pyro.

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

In addition to what Pyro mentioned….

Let’s take a look at how Alacrity and Quickness would improve Mantra of Pain…

MoP being a mantra has a 2 3/4 sec charge time… quickness would change that to ~1.5 seconds..

MoP has a 1 sec cooldown… alacrity will reduce that cooldown to around ~.5 second…

With a standard MoP. you could cast power spike twice every: 2 3/4 + 1 + 1 ~4 3/4 seconds…

With quickness and alacrity: 1 1/2 + .5 + .5 ~ 2 1/2 seconds

So you would gain a whole ~2 seconds.. Keep in mind that 2 second gain won’t be every 2 1/2 seconds.. because your wasting your shatter cooldowns to gain that quickness and alacrity. So at some point, you’ll end back to the 4 3/4seconds rotation when you run out of shatters.

AND not to mention that you’d be giving up ChronoPhantasma in the process.

So you think the increase of DPS from 2 whole seconds from MoP would be worth it?

Fay.2357:

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

I find this reasoning pretty persuasive. To make Mantras worth using, you’d need a build that uses shatters for something other than killing enemies. I don’t think we have a good example of one of those right now, though it’s at least theoretically possible. I know I played a successful Chronobunker for a little while based on Restorative Illusions + Bountiful Disillusionment, but that was several nerfs ago, and it also didn’t have any real space for Mantras.

Fay.2357:

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

What if one were to use MoP as their auto? Perhaps in a healing build of sorts such as Fay’s Panacea build.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

What if one were to use MoP as their auto? Perhaps in a healing build of sorts such as Fay’s Panacea build.

Then your friendly neighborhood thief would go to town headshotting you all game, getting free pulmonary impact procs from the interrupts, and generally making you get very acquainted with the respawn timer.

Edit: Or your friendly neighborhood interrupt mesmer would eat you, or your friendly neighborhood condie warrior would demonstrate just how many condies they can stack.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

What if one were to use MoP as their auto? Perhaps in a healing build of sorts such as Fay’s Panacea build.

Then your friendly neighborhood thief would go to town headshotting you all game, getting free pulmonary impact procs from the interrupts, and generally making you get very acquainted with the respawn timer.

Edit: Or your friendly neighborhood interrupt mesmer would eat you, or your friendly neighborhood condie warrior would demonstrate just how many condies they can stack.

What if we have stability. I need a second opinion. Ask her yourself if she uses MoP nowadays.

You’d either have to fit Bountiful Disillusionment into the build or take the Stability mantra. Charging the Stab mantra cuts into your MoP spam. BD might be a reasonable source of Stability, since you’re shattering for Quickness anyway, but is a Duel/Cha/Chr Duel/Ill/Chr Mantra build really giving you enough sustained damage to overpower the massive sustain we’re seeing in the current meta? Is the sustained damage from said build even remotely comparable to the now-standard Ins/Ill/Chr condi shatter?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

What if one were to use MoP as their auto? Perhaps in a healing build of sorts such as Fay’s Panacea build.

Then your friendly neighborhood thief would go to town headshotting you all game, getting free pulmonary impact procs from the interrupts, and generally making you get very acquainted with the respawn timer.

Edit: Or your friendly neighborhood interrupt mesmer would eat you, or your friendly neighborhood condie warrior would demonstrate just how many condies they can stack.

What if we have stability. I need a second opinion. Ask her yourself if she uses MoP nowadays.

Stability = stab mantra or BD.

Stab mantra means you have no stab when channeling that mantra, but it would give you a couple free channels at least. That could work to an extent, but eventually you’d run into trouble.

BD provides 1 stack of stability. That is not enough for this. 1 stack can be stripped by a single cc, followed by another cc for interrupt. 2 stacks of stab is the minimum to make this work, so you’d have to burn 2 shatters to charge every mantra; totally unsustainable.

Keep in mind that this is all to get a decidedly underwhelming effect. Mantra of pain damage when spam casted is…not good. The maximum healing output from it is negligible compared to the pressure that you see in fights these days, so that’s not really a big deal either. Yeah, you could probably make a build that could semi-reliably charge mantras for a while…but why? To what end would you do this?

Fay hasn’t played GW2 PvP in years btw. She abandoned mantras as a viable build-centric mechanic before that.

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

Sure, but there are so many use scenarios that mantras just don’t end up working well in. Your example here is actually fantastic to illustrate that.

After a shatter burst is when you’ll have quickness and alacrity to help charge your mantra. However, after a shatter burst is also the exact time when the last thing you want is to sit there doing nothing for a few seconds, letting your opponent recover.

The clunkiness inherent to mantras is what makes them awful so much of the time, not necessarily the ability to charge them quickly. They’re a mechanic designed for quick fights that are resolved by the time the charges are expended…in a game where sustain and survival are the top priorities for PvP builds. The pacing enforced by mantras is simply at odds with the pacing that you actually encounter in PvP.

Usually you can make 1 mantra work well if it fits a specific role in your build. Mantra of resolve in an otherwise offensive build lacking cleanse options works because it’s something used as a supplemental utility, and you can recharge it after the fight has concluded. Mantra of distraction works in a highly offensive build or an interrupt build because then it’s either facilitating the rapid conclusion of a fight (through huge burst) or is simply one of multiple options for interrupts, making it non-essential to recharge mid-fight.

Taking more than one mantra starts to seriously disrupt your pacing. When you have that much of your build loaded into mantras, recharging them becomes important to keep your build functioning. This means that if you haven’t completely finished the fight by the time you’ve expended the charges, you need to either disengage or risk being punished for channeling them. As long as this pacing disruption remains inherent to mantras, they will remain unusable together outside of very niche builds and scenarios.

What if one were to use MoP as their auto? Perhaps in a healing build of sorts such as Fay’s Panacea build.

Then your friendly neighborhood thief would go to town headshotting you all game, getting free pulmonary impact procs from the interrupts, and generally making you get very acquainted with the respawn timer.

Edit: Or your friendly neighborhood interrupt mesmer would eat you, or your friendly neighborhood condie warrior would demonstrate just how many condies they can stack.

What if we have stability. I need a second opinion. Ask her yourself if she uses MoP nowadays.

Stability = stab mantra or BD.

Stab mantra means you have no stab when channeling that mantra, but it would give you a couple free channels at least. That could work to an extent, but eventually you’d run into trouble.

BD provides 1 stack of stability. That is not enough for this. 1 stack can be stripped by a single cc, followed by another cc for interrupt. 2 stacks of stab is the minimum to make this work, so you’d have to burn 2 shatters to charge every mantra; totally unsustainable.

Keep in mind that this is all to get a decidedly underwhelming effect. Mantra of pain damage when spam casted is…not good. The maximum healing output from it is negligible compared to the pressure that you see in fights these days, so that’s not really a big deal either. Yeah, you could probably make a build that could semi-reliably charge mantras for a while…but why? To what end would you do this?

Fay hasn’t played GW2 PvP in years btw. She abandoned mantras as a viable build-centric mechanic before that.

Because I’m crazy Pyro and I want to spam mantras until I have 2,000 hps and I can pretend to be a useless Ventari build.

Fact is, we don’t have the weapons/traits/amulets to make a mantra setup function well. They lend themselves to a certain type of playstyle mesmer can’t sustain in it’s current setup.

But here, play with this.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWl0nha0YVawUNQtGLzG15NkD1Qdu+rHbZAUb5GA-TZxCQBS4QAEw9HmwTAIelBAwJAAA

Ok, I have actually given this a go and it is pretty good. The sustain, utility, and team support are its highlights. It’s possibly better swapping sword for scepter though for some more targeted pressure, but sword has its defensive benefit.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseWncfC1ohVpBmqBUrhlZjqOX/1jtMAqtc78GyhaA-TZxCQBBc/BAcCAkwhAYCPBg4VGAA

@pyro can you confirm that with alacrity and quickiness spamming mop is 2.375s?

2.75s charge time, 1s cd between uses.

With quickness, 2.75s charge time is lowered to 1.83s charge time.

With alacrity, 1s cd between uses is lowered to .75s.

A full cycle is 1.83s charge followed by 2 .75s cooldowns for a total cycle time of 3.33 seconds.

Fay.2357:

2.75s charge time, 1s cd between uses.

With quickness, MATHS charge time is lowered to MATHS charge time.

With alacrity, MATHS cd between uses is lowered to .MATHS.

A full cycle is MATHS charge followed by MATHS cooldowns for a total cycle time of 3.33 seconds.

Ok, got it.

Fay.2357:

2.75s charge time, 1s cd between uses.

With quickness, 2.75s charge time is lowered to 1.83s charge time.

With alacrity, 1s cd between uses is lowered to .75s.

A full cycle is 1.83s charge followed by 2 .75s cooldowns for a total cycle time of 3.33 seconds.

What? (2.75/2)+(.75*2)=2.875 or 3.26 (with three charges) What am I missing?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Fay.2357:

2.75s charge time, 1s cd between uses.

With quickness, 2.75s charge time is lowered to 1.83s charge time.

With alacrity, 1s cd between uses is lowered to .75s.

A full cycle is 1.83s charge followed by 2 .75s cooldowns for a total cycle time of 3.33 seconds.

What? (2.75/2)+(.75*2)=2.875 or 3.26 (with three charges) What am I missing?

Quickness doesn’t halve channel time. That would be 100% faster. It is 50% faster.