Guild Wars 2

On necro they really seem rather one-sided, a little like guardian’s consecrations but even more so (guard has WoR, bubble, Condi removal field and Stability field).

I can’t really see myself using wells because they don’t seem to stimulate active combat but rather are all around placing an area and sitting back, till your foes fall dead or you do.

This mainly from a PvP perspective. What about you guys?

Excessive ground targeting is not my cup of tea so no, I don’t think I will be using them regularly.

If I spec chrono for whatever reason – the main reason will be to gain access to gravity well because it’s cool. :p

Open PvE, I will, the damage ones.

PvP, maybe Gravity Well. In PvP, you’ll need to have blink + condi remover + stun break, which none of Wells have. Maybe if I trait in Inspiration for Mender’s Purity, I won’t have many choices in my utilities.

Really depends on the unrevealed traits. Maybe they’ll address that necessity of blink+usually decoy and buff other utilities or add strong trait support to wells. Just an example, but if wells get a trait to remove conditions on ticks, I can totally see myself using wells. Although it probably wouldn’t be something as straightforward as removing them. Maybe while standing in wells, condition duration is reduced?

That said, wells will help a lot vs thieves in my opinion as now more than ever, a chronomancer can and will recharge their skills if a thief tries to play it slow. But it is really early to make speculation since we don’t even know the details of all our new traits and only one other specialization has been revealed.

The thing about wells is that some of them have both an ally effect and an enemy effect. So, similar to Chaos Storm, there are a lot of ways to use them that don’t necessarily require your enemies to cooperate with you.

That said, I’ll give some thoughts on them one-by-one:

• Well of Eternity – The heal seems a little finicky, I don’t see myself ever using this. The Vigor could be useful for Shatter builds, I guess? It’s also a Light field that your iZerker/iWarden can Whirl for condi clear, though why wouldn’t you just bring Null Field if you know you need more condi clear than Focus can give you?
• Well of Action – Slow does have a use in helping land interrupts. This is probably more useful as a source of AoE damage and Quickness in PvE, but it might have a place in PvP on a Bunker-esque Lockdown build, I guess. I still don’t see myself taking this too much, though.
• Well of Calamity – Weakness and Crippled are pretty good conditions, especially in combination. This has little use in PvE, but you could really annoy a Thief in PvP by dropping this on top of them. Even one pulse could be enough to ruin their getaway plan by slowing them down and sapping their endurance regen. It’s our “damage” well, supposedly, but I think the conditions are more important. If you ignore the damage burst and just look at the condition pulses, this is probably our best PvP well.
• Well of Precognition – The Blur effect will be hard to time, but 3 seconds of Stability and Unblockable sounds pretty nice. And it’s a stun break (just for the Mesmer or for all affected allies?). This could be a solid well for WvW. Drop it right when your lines collide, laugh at the enemy Guardians whose Aegis is now useless. Probably not a lot of use in PvP or PvE, though, outside of boss fights where having tons and tons of group Stability is important. But those fights do exist, so it’s not nothing.
• Well of Recall – Being a reliable source of group Alacrity means this will probably be essential for dungeon and fractal runs. There’s admittedly no use for this in sPvP, though. (You’ll rarely be able to stand in the Well long enough to get the full effect, and enemies won’t stand around for the final pop unless they’re idiots or ran out of stun breaks.)
• Gravity Well – Three pulses of Stability + Pull is pretty sweet. Lockdown builds will probably still consider taking this, though obviously you need to force your opponent to pop their blinks first. Also should be pretty strong at defending in Stronghold, and it could have a use in open world PvE as well. Imagine dropping this on a cluster of Modrem attacking the gates during Silverwastes events, right?

So, they’re not all universally great, but most of them seem to at least have clear niches where they shine, and some of those niches are ones that have been poorly covered by Mesmers in the past. Again, Well of Recall is going to be a must-have for instanced PvE, Well of Precognition sounds like a great skill for WvW clashes, and Well of Calamity is one of the few utility skills we have that can actually annoy Thieves.

They seem kind of meh to be honest.

Well of Calamity and Gravity Well will help in PvE tagging and Zerg vs Zerg (Gravity Well looks particularly fun there) and G Well looks pretty useful in PvP.

If Mesmer can pull there wait in terms of DPS, which it is looking like they won’t, people will want Well of recall and Well of Action in Dungeons but you will have to slot it around might blasting on fire fields.

Well of Eternity just seems bad. Maybe if it was a Water field and we had some friends around to blast it for us.

Well of Precognition is incredably meh. You generally need Evasion there and then not in 3 seconds time.

Unfortuantly all of them (except the elite) are Ethereal fields which are very bad unless you are a Mesmer taking the Staff trait, presumeing all sources of Chaos armour give protect.

Combine that with them competing against utilities like Blink, Decoy, Condi cleanses they will need some very good buffs throught traits to compete.

TLDR they all look kinda meh outside of Gravity Well which they are already considering nerfing.

I mostly play WvW and I’ll definitely be trying Wells out. I’ve been dying for GTAoE skills on the mesmer for a while and these seem great. Some better than others.

Well of Eternity (healing) – Potentially awesome for regroups. Pulsing aoe heal seems like a strong support option. I’ll have to compare this with Mirror and our traited mantras, which may bring more to the table. Again- the traits for wells may have a big impact.

Well of Recall – I’m actually not super excited for this one. Long cooldown and Alacrity is easy to ‘waste’ on someone who’s not actively casting at that moment. Probably not going to be my first pick in wvw.

Well of Action – 30s cooldown and 3s x 3 of quickness is a bit more reasonable. Reads to me like a mini Time Warp. Probably more helpful in PvE, but I’m interested in trying this out on a boon duration oriented build.

Well of Precognition – Will have to be tested. Getting a source of AoE stability is a godsend, however it’s never really been our job in WvW. If the DragonHunter is any indication, this one won’t be too popular as other professions will have much easier access to stability. Plus, I really don’t like the “you have stability but only when standing in this circle” mechanic.

Well of Calamity- Love. It. Nice damage, super quick recharge. Finally a good way to tag for bags! Plus some handy conditions? Yup.

Gravity Well – Just screams for an interrupt build. Can’t wait to try this with Mistrust! 3 pulses of pulls, 5 enemies each… Potential for some sick, sick damage and control.

Overall, I’m psyched to see what the traits are. I’m thinking Blink, a well, Veil, and Gravity well will be my new utility roll-out. We’ll see whether I take the healing well or not based on traits and performance.

Other than the elite well…. no. All of the wells’ effects are back-loaded which means either the enemy needs to stand in it for the full duration (unlikely) or you need to stand in your well till the end and face-tank things (not smart). Mesmer relies on its mobility to survive… which means both you and your opponents will be moving.

There is a reason Robert (our presenter) took either feast as his heal when he was fighting things that could actually hit back. Then to show off well damage/effects he chose a mob that stood still! you know, like most mobs/players do! (sarcasm)

Until the traits are out (or, better, until the meta settles) it’s hard to tell.

I definitely see good uses for Calamity, Gravity and Precog in WvW, but the “requirements” for Blink and Veil/Portal will leave only 1 utility slot open, and Mantra of Restoration+Mantra of Pain with Mender’s Purity will be even stronger than it is now.

Mikkel.8427:

There is a reason Robert (our presenter) took either feast as his heal when he was fighting things that could actually hit back. Then to show off well damage/effects he chose a mob that stood still! you know, like most mobs/players do! (sarcasm)

I’m really glad someone else noticed this.

Definitely a place for Gravity Well in pvp. It would help immensely with team fights and stomps. Well of Action could prove to be somewhat useful as well if you’re using an interrupt build. Also helps to take out bunkers with a bit more ease.

The others I don’t see myself using except when I play the Living World or do some random open world content.

Lebeau.5421:

Mikkel.8427:

There is a reason Robert (our presenter) took either feast as his heal when he was fighting things that could actually hit back. Then to show off well damage/effects he chose a mob that stood still! you know, like most mobs/players do! (sarcasm)

I’m really glad someone else noticed this.

I’d thought the reason was that he was solo and the Well is a bit more of a group-oriented heal. High mobility fights or solo fights don’t scream “wells” to me, but large group fight centered around a limited area do. I’d think the Well would be awesome in a team against a stationary boss.

More and more, the answer is looking like a resounding no! There are just too many things wrong with the mesmer version of wells.

1. Ground targeting
2. Long cool downs
3. Back loaded effects
4. Being expected to stand in it to get the benefits
5. Superior competition for those utility slots
6. Light combo field on the healing well + being expected to stand in it!
7. Cast times

I really want to give the new stuff a try, but they are really making it hard to do so. Even in the demo videos they have released…all of the chronomancer fights have been ranged…even when wielding a sword+shield. That is a clear indication they are lacking in knowledge/perspective on what it means to actually use the 1h sword…as it is a melee combat weapon. Melee combat is fast paced, meaning cast times and delayed effects are bad. Ground targeting is bad in melee combat as well as it takes your focus off of things happening around you, to focus on placing that ground targeted effect in the right place…for those few seconds. Not paying attention to things happening around you, or being delayed in dodging/activating an ability…can mean being downed in melee. They pretty much need to rethink every one of these limiters they are putting on mesmer wells. Make the ground targeting a toggle-able option…pbaoe should be the default. Get rid of the back loading of damage/effects…if we are clicking it…we need it now not 3 seconds from now. 45 seconds is way too long for well of recall and well of precognition…at this rate…we would need every one of our new traits to compensate for design issues for the chronomancer to even be playable. They already have two of the traits just to allow shatters to work in a reasonable manner with phantasms/illusion builds..we don’t have much room left for traits we actually want to take.

I spend so much time talking about melee because that is how the Chronomancer was introduced to us…sword and shield. The new weapon we received with the Chronomancer was the shield…and as we already know we only have two main hand weapon choices. Melee also just happens to be the optimal play style in the content I enjoy in this game…and in general. Wells are the new utility they introduced for this new specialization, so you would assume they would make them seamlessly functional with it…but I guess we all know what happens when you assume.

I had envisioned playing Chronomancer to do some respectable melee damage while providing the groups support that we currently lack. I was thinking that alacrity and quickness would be the keys to doing that, but between the cool down on well of recall, the mechanics on the ichronomancer (both the summoning and its attack), and what appears to be extremely limited durations of alacrity/quickness we can generate…especially the amount we can share…that’s looking like a slim chance too.

Honestly, if you are really expecting us to stand still for 3+ seconds every time we use a well, then all wells need distortion upon cast…not 3 seconds later. All wells should have alacrity and possibly quickness.

I’m still planning on forcing myself to take well of recall due to the group alacrity. I would like to use well of action for group quickness, but I’m not sure I can be that selfless since neither of these two group support wells offers a stun break and both have all the negative drawbacks I’ve mentioned above. I’m definitely not taking well of calamity since all it offers are some condis I can do without and some damage (no alacrity, no quickness, no boons, no stun break)…plus there are much better utility choices. There’s no possibility of me even trying well of eternity. I find signet of ether and ether feast to both be superior heals in PvE compared to this. I need spike damage healing. Well of eternity being light field does not help much either. Gravity well seems decent, but I’m not sure it beats time warp in effectiveness….unless there is a boss that requires stability.

If well of precognition is to be consistent with the necro’s well of power https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Well_of_Power, it will not a source of group stability as many posters here are hoping for (and it does not pulse on the caster either). Another similar skill is the warrior’s stomp.

Well of Eternity: When you are more than one mesmer this will be a super awesome heal skill since the ending heal will prog for all of you.
2.6k + x*4k heal is not that bad (on a 20s cooldown it’s more than ether feast as long as you have 2 mesmers. ~10.5k)

Well of Precognition: This one could be useful in some places in PvE. (like aetherblades fractal) But in PvP I only see use against a few matchups. A guard heal can now be interrupted → cool thing! Blocks of engis/warriors can be rupted too. Quite cool but not as powerful as i’d like it to be. The last effect is also quite cool but you cannot say which attack your enemy will cast in 3 seconds…

Well of Recall: Let’s see how cool alacrity is. 3s on kitten cooldown? Chill is a cool effect but we’ll need the enemy to stay inside and do not doge the last tick. I am not hyped for this one.

Well of Action: 3s slow and 3s quickness on a 30s cooldown could be cool. helps interrupt builds and gives a cool damagebuff for later. i can see it being cool with chaotic interruption and bursting as soon as we get the quickness.

Well of Calamity: DAMAAAAGE as a wvw play i love it. i really do. finally a way to get your baggies.

Gravity Well: This is awesome. I’ve wanted something like this for a really really long time. I can see some really cool stuff with this one!

Me Games Ma.8426:

snip

Pretty much how I feel as well.

It bums me out to see so many folks dismissing wells entirely without considering (1) the different game types and (2) that they are an easily swappable part of our utility set and not the entirety of our utility set.

Take a look at Feedback. AMAZING skill in big blobs that can singlehandedly neutralize a surprising number of ranged enemies. Would you bring it with you when fighting a warrior in pvp? Probably not. Not because it isn’t a great skill, but because swapping load-outs is part of the game when you change game types. Don’t expect Temporal Curtain to help you when you’re DPSing Tequatl and don’t expect the healing Well to be your go-to in highly mobile 1v1 encounters.

A bunch of us, particularly the WvW folk, have been clamoring for some AoE group-friendly damage and support. Wells are exactly that, and it’s great.

That said, a few could probably use some tweaking. I’m not 100% sure about the stability one or the Alacrity one and if they’re worth a spot on the bar… but the healing well, Gravity well, damage, and quickness all seem fantastic.

As somebody who will be playing a Domination/Dueling/Chronomancer lockdown build, Well of Action and Well of Gravity both interest me.

Don’t count them out too quick. If I’m not mistaken, we still haven’t seen any traits related to wells. I personally would love something like “While standing in wells, condition duration on allies is reduced by X%, and condition duration on enemies is increased Y%”. Would fit well(heh) with the duality of chronomancer while also providing a useful effect useful across several game modes.

Sure wells have the inherent issue of being stationary and usually highly telegraphed, but MH sword mesmers have immobilize, and lockdown mesmers who take CI shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping someone in a well for most of the duration, or at the very least pulling someone in for the final tick. And with Continuum Shift allowing for double casting of wells, if my enemy really wants to stand off point for 6-7 seconds while my wells are ticking, that’s fine by me.

Necrotize.2974:

Don’t count them out too quick. If I’m not mistaken, we still haven’t seen any traits related to wells. I personally would love something like “While standing in wells, condition duration on allies is reduced by X%, and condition duration on enemies is increased Y%”. Would fit well(heh) with the duality of chronomancer while also providing a useful effect useful across several game modes.

Sure wells have the inherent issue of being stationary and usually highly telegraphed, but MH sword mesmers have immobilize, and lockdown mesmers who take CI shouldn’t have too much trouble keeping someone in a well for most of the duration, or at the very least pulling someone in for the final tick. And with Continuum Shift allowing for double casting of wells, if my enemy really wants to stand off point for 6-7 seconds while my wells are ticking, that’s fine by me.

I’m still trying to envision taking at least recall and possibly action because I do see the synergy with mh sword (leap finisher, immob). I don’t even have a huge issue with the stationary nature of wells…its just the need to continue standing in it for 3 seconds to get the benefits. I’d be more on board if they were front loaded instead of back loaded in regards to things like alacrity, quickness, distortion. I don’t mind the damage being spaced out, but it should be evenly spaced over the three pulses…not primarily on the last pulse. The issue I have with waiting for supporting traits is the idea that we need to use all our trait choices in chronomancy just to fix chronomancy. We already know about the traits to fix shatter…one for illusions and one specifically for phantasms. That leaves us a total of 4 more traits in this new specialization. I’d really appreciate some exciting and effective traits…ones that change your game play…more so than ones to fix otherwise weak utilities or conflicting design (shatters/phantasms).

i’ll be using the wells for sure

Pve yes, Pvp hell no!

unless there is some really great trait for them, no way in Spvp, but certainly in WvW and PvE

Vizardlorde.8243:

Pve yes, Pvp hell no!

Mesmer in HOT will still be a lackluster PvE class, and in PvP there are better stuff to slot than wells. So “no way in hell” for me to use them in any aspects of the game.

Ill use the Elite skill and the F5 skill for sure, but thats all, the utility wells look useless to my game play style

I don’t have any interest in wells. I find them lackluster and unappealing.

In PvP I don’t need AoEs. Maybe a well on a downed player, stab/quickness can be of use. However, in general, utilities that keep me alive are king. As I’m the squishiest one on the field.

In PvE I need fast recharging, damage focused AoE. Something only a Main Hand or Two Handed weapon can fill. Either for tagging mobs in a group, or cleave when I’m on my own.

Above all, I don’t find wells to be appealing. They pale in comparison to the Dragonhunter’s traps. Each trap has a unique role, unlike our wells. Reveal stealthed enemies, explode and spread shards that heal, etc. Slapping on some conditions/boons is boring to me, even if they were strong.

rchu.8945:

Vizardlorde.8243:

Pve yes, Pvp hell no!

Mesmer in HOT will still be a lackluster PvE class, and in PvP there are better stuff to slot than wells. So “no way in hell” for me to use them in any aspects of the game.

When i play my mesmer in dungeons its more about the utility than personal dps.

The wells look pretty, and will have some use in PvE and WvW, but for PvP this sort of static play won’t work well. PvP is too fast moving and dynamic to get the full use out of them. The main problems with wells is the radius of the AoE is too small, also the main effect is at the end of the well and not the beginning, and the cds look too long for the amount of counter play to avoid them. Also I don’t understand why there has to be a clock hand ticking with the pulses when there are enough visual cues to warn opposing players, if anything this should only be visible to people on the same team as you.

Kelthien.8593:

It bums me out to see so many folks dismissing wells entirely without considering (1) the different game types and (2) that they are an easily swappable part of our utility set and not the entirety of our utility set.

(1) I only play PvP unfortunately> blink & decoy are superior
(2) That is completely true. Maybe I’ll take them for the elite, but can’t see myself taking heal or utilities.

The other parts of chronomancer I really look forward to using though: shield and the new shatter are pretty amazing. :P

Sirendor.1394:

Kelthien.8593:

It bums me out to see so many folks dismissing wells entirely without considering (1) the different game types and (2) that they are an easily swappable part of our utility set and not the entirety of our utility set.

(1) I only play PvP unfortunately> blink & decoy are superior
(2) That is completely true. Maybe I’ll take them for the elite, but can’t see myself taking heal or utilities.

The other parts of chronomancer I really look forward to using though: shield and the new shatter are pretty amazing. :P

Let me see if I got that right. We’re stuck with the same utilities for almost 3 years now. We hope to play with only half the toys from the new spec, at best. And that makes us excited? Other professions would’ve raised hell. We’re pathetic.

People are also not realizing that we might get a well trait that would reduce the CDs and give an additional buff.

Usually, AOEs like this help to deter enemies from sitting on a point. It’s one reason why Nullfield/Feedback are strong Mesmer utilities when facing particular enemy compositions. Very underrated for pvp use imo. Wells will be the same.

While we have competitive slots for pvp, that doesn’t make non Blink/Decoy utilities horrible in and of themselves.

MailMail.6534:

People are also not realizing that we might get a well trait that would reduce the CDs and give an additional buff.

The Well CDs are explicitly designed around the presence of Alacrity, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the tooltip values necessarily. The actual gameplay values will be lower depending on what our access to personal Alacrity looks like.

Even still, the CDs aren’t actually that long. 20s on Well of Eternity is the same as Ether Feast, for instance. The other Wells have CDs on the same order of magnitude as Feedback/Null Field, apart from Well of Calamity, which has a CD half as long as those.

Usually, AOEs like this help to deter enemies from sitting on a point. It’s one reason why Nullfield/Feedback are strong Mesmer utilities when facing particular enemy compositions. Very underrated for pvp use imo. Wells will be the same.

Yes, exactly. We have basically zero point control through anything except burst damage right now. Wells give us a ton of point pressure that we just didn’t have before.

tobascodagama.2961:

The Well CDs are explicitly designed around the presence of Alacrity, so I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the tooltip values necessarily. The actual gameplay values will be lower depending on what our access to personal Alacrity looks like.

If Alacrity speeds up the wells, thus making them more appealing. So it would do to all other skills.

Even still, the CDs aren’t actually that long. 20s on Well of Eternity is the same as Ether Feast, for instance. The other Wells have CDs on the same order of magnitude as Feedback/Null Field, apart from Well of Calamity, which has a CD half as long as those.

A light class. With a healing skill with a delay. That makes you stand in a spot. Making you predictable. No way I’m taking that.

Yes, exactly. We have basically zero point control through anything except burst damage right now. Wells give us a ton of point pressure that we just didn’t have before.

How would you sustain yourself? What would you replace?
-Portal? With little party communication, this is our best utility. Hands down. Maybe even without.
-Blink? Offers both defensive and offensive capabilities. Stun Break.
-Decoy? Same as Blink.

Stacking wells and chaos storms on points will be fun I think. Then you rewind and do it again!

Just the ability to have utility skills that actually do damage will be nice.

From what I have seen of the descriptions, having at least 2 well Mesmers will be new meta in WvW raiding, little doubt about it. I suspect commanders will demand them to have 2 wells and veil as skills (similar to a Necro). If they have the same range as Necros, they will be far weaker to counterbombing (no personal skills, no DS) compared to current Mesmers which is veil and whatever skills.

I would personally use it just for the sake of having AoE’s and having fun. xD

But it’s only for PvE. As for WvW and PvP, I have yet to see how anyone would make them good yet with the current status of the All’s Well that Ends Well trait.

so far the wells dont seem strong yet but i do see options and use for them in wvw i could see them helpful for groupplay. i think we have to see the whole thing and more well traits in order to really see their potential. so far i could see well mes as a part of a zerg busting group

Well of Precognition and gravity well should be quite good in WvW raids
Well of calamity is pretty decent as well.
Well of action, well of eternity and well of recall are not so clear to me how useful they gonna be.

Titus.2085:

I would personally use it just for the sake of having AoE’s and having fun. xD

But it’s only for PvE. As for WvW and PvP, I have yet to see how anyone would make them good yet with the current status of the All’s Well that Ends Well trait.

That trait definitely doesn’t help, hopefully it’s in ANet’s queue for tweaks.

As far as WvW goes, I’m super interested in seeing how Wells function. I love the utility my necromancer’s wells/marks bring and I’m hoping ours capture a portion of that.

The cooldown on our damaging well is wonderfully short and, paired with some decent Alacrity up-time, might be a nice source of constant AoE damage. The healing well seems strong for regroups and supporting the back-line. Gravity well, as mentioned elsewhere, is definitely looking like a potent contender.

Anyways, whether they’ll permanently stay on my bar or not remains to be seen, but I’m definitely hoping to try them out and see if I can make a build that incorporates a few of them.

Kelthien.8593:

It bums me out to see so many folks dismissing wells entirely without considering (1) the different game types and (2) that they are an easily swappable part of our utility set and not the entirety of our utility set.

Do keep in mind though that the PvP minority is also the most vocal part of the game, for a variety of reasons.

Meaning that looking at forums and such, you’d think “everyone” hates wells. When in fact, only a tiny minority of the playerbase is playing in a format where static AE skills are not a beneficial element.

I mostly do PvE, with occasional WvW excursions. I for one am pretty excited for wells. Generally speaking, the people I talk to in game have been as well. I am sure their delayed stationary nature may make them less useful in PvP, but I see plenty of opportunities to use them in the modes I play, and I am excited to get a bit more support.

Right now I am thinking of running Action and Recall, while Precognition may be the kind of thing to swap in for certain fights.