Guild Wars 2

I bought HoT this last week, and have been trying to adjust to the new Chronomancer specialization on my mesmer, which is also my main.

On paper, I basically understand that the idea is to spam a great number of shatters, wells (doubled up with continuum split), and such shenanigans to trigger quickness and alacrity on yourself and your team. Traits encourage getting free illusions, buffing your shatters, etc.

Honestly though, I’m having difficulty managing to be effective in practice. The new areas seem to emphasize larger quantities of weaker enemies, and my illusions tend to die before I have time to reach for the F1 or F5 key. Similarly, I can’t seem to maintain quickness or alacrity more than 1/3 of the time, and that amount dwindles while I try to find my next target to attack. I’m loving the shield skills, the passive speed boost, and the eventual prospect of Gravity Well (never liked Time Warp), but actually playing the class without a solid, stationary target to work off of is making me feel like I’m always running at a fraction of the class’ actual capabilities.

For reference, until now I’ve been playing a berserker mantra build, and tended to just spam greatsword/sword attacks without paying any attention to shatters. With Chronomancer though, it’s just too clear that I’m supposed to be doing a bit more. I’m actually starting to consider changing to another class, but I’ve got full ascended gear and am a bit overly invested, so it’s a tough choice. On the other hand, if I list off the things I like about mesmer now (passive speed boost, survivable with damage mitigation and ranged weapon, pretty aesthetically), then it seems like there might be others that do the same stuff a little easier.

Sorry for the rambling, TLDR: Thoughts on getting used to Chronomancer? Anyone else had trouble? Think I should stick it out?

Your shield 4 skill grants a phantams that gives you alacrity when it attacks. Keep as many of those up as much as possible for more alacrity uptime. If you want to cast your wells in CS then you need to be using timewarp (or have another source for quickness on demand) so that the cast times are reduced so you can get them off before CS ends. Also wait until you get more traits unlocked. The very last trait, chronophantasma, respawns your phantasms once when you shatter them (not clones though) and it helps a lot.

That said, this alacrity/quickness rotation that you see people talk about is mainly for raids. It really doesn’t do much for you in open world setting, so focus on direct damage here. Play with CS and get used to it. Learn how you can use it with mimic to get off 4 reflects, or 3 blinks, or 4 wells of calamity for a big, if somewhat slow, burst.

Chronomancer can be a very difficult class to learn to play well. And somewhat unfortunately its sustain is just enough so that the class doesn’t force you to learn how to play it well, so you see a lot of people running around who are bad at the class and complain about it. But when you do learn to play it well its easily one of the most fun classes in the game. And even though this isn’t a playstyle that everyone likes, I find it so much fun to trait inspiration in PvE and run around world boss events rezzing everyone else because there isn’t really anything that can get you in PvE if you are paying attention

Hm, yeah, that’s probably the source of a lot of my confusion – that the expectations are so different between open PvE and organized instanced stuff (you say raids, but I’m guessing it also applies a bit to fractals or dungeon bosses). Honestly I’ve always despised having to change up my build between modes though, since I always have to re-read my traits and reconstruct it from scratch each time. _

I guess I could probably get it to a point where I can understand it better if quickness/alacrity aren’t as important out of instanced content, though then I’m wondering whether it’s worth even being a Chronomancer at all, if all I’m using it for is running around in open world. It does have the speed bonus and some AoE damage though, so it isn’t a total loss. XD

Yesterday i just become lvl 71 with my mesmer
Yea, i will probably try to stick to 1 build with mesmer if possible. I really like finding 1 ok build and sticking to it if possible. I can switch few skills for the party but i really dont want to redesign my traits each time i switch game mode, unles i have to swith just few skills in trait tree.
Thats probably selfish of me

I’m not quite sure what you are asking. Are you unsure how to play Chrono in open world? Or in general? Dungeons, Fractals, Raids?

Some vids soloing hero points with Chrono:

Auric Basin – Shroom:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1SFR-OUNss&index=2&list=PL4QnNhTXYiNLYgqzovNOkXjAfGlOlTUoK

Auric Basin – Golem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWCb0at6bLY&list=PL4QnNhTXYiNLYgqzovNOkXjAfGlOlTUoK&index=3

Auric Basin – Chak:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6oc_LRPiHA&index=4&list=PL4QnNhTXYiNLYgqzovNOkXjAfGlOlTUoK

Not quite sure how to help you or what your problem is ^^ So – just ask questions and I’ll help answering them

Sorry for being a bit vague, I guess I wasn’t really sure what I was asking, either. Basically I unlocked Chronomancer, played with it, found it super difficult to use effectively, and became discouraged to the point of wanting to scrap my main and switch to a somewhat less convoluted class. So, I was looking for any input people had, really – about how to handle the complexity of it, or if it’s even worth doing. The first response’s pointing out that maintaining alacrity/quickness uptime isn’t so vitally important in solo PvE is a good example of such input – it helps me simplify my approach and maybe get to a point where the class makes sense to me again.

I didn’t specify a certain game mode because I’m the sort to play all modes on one character exclusively, rather than maintaining alts. I do exclude PvP, though, as that’s not my interest.

To put things another way, I’m asking “Chronomancer seems absurdly difficult to reach base competency with – should I stick with it or do something else; any tips for learning it?” Or something like that. I’ve gotten the impression from general internet chatter that many think Mesmer in general is just a weaker alternative to other classes, unless you really nail all the fancy new mechanics.