Guild Wars 2

What’s the trade off between a full Core specialized mesmer from a Chronomancer, as one elite specialization.

Whats the point of playing 3 core specializations if the elite specialization is better with an addition of a new f5 mechanic.

If there is no trade-off, then what’s the point?

Allow me to quote myself.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

Everything that Fay said.

Nothing about chrono seems even remotely OP to me, its just an alternative/interesting play style. The only place i see chrono really shining is in coordinated group play with wells and AoE quickness/ alacrity being a substantial boost to the ‘stack and spank’ meta.

Fay.2357:

Allow me to quote myself.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

Is it weird that I would rather go inspiration over chaos in condie shatter?

Levetty.1279:

Fay.2357:

Allow me to quote myself.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

Is it weird that I would rather go inspiration over chaos in condie shatter?

Not weird at all – I’m actually more excited about the core buffs to mesmer, like default iElasticity and improved confusing combatants, as well as the mirror traits than the elite spec.

There’s also speculation that Chrono won’t have IP baseline, but that’s up in the air right now as to whether it was just part of the presentation in pre-change mode during the PoI. If so, however, it’d be a significant trade off for Chronomancer skills and traits and Continuum.

For what I play, the Chronomancer trait line will most likely go completely ignored and unused. And I seriously doubt it’s going to be better than core mesmer.

People can use their shields and wells but I most likely won’t touch them. Won’t sacrifice what I already have for a crappy rewind mechanic that a warrior can just cleave his way through.

There is no tradeoff, there are only personal preferences.

Like others said, it comes down to just giving alternate ways to play. I’m definitely going to experiment with it though. Wanna try doing a dueling, inspiration, chronomancy shatter Mesmer that literally just pumps out shatters 1 after the other and uses healing on shatter to provide some sustain along with the new f5 skill. Could be fun

I think a condirupt group support chronomancer could be fun and perhaps solo phantasm builds might favour the chronomancer but until they release the chronomancer trait line we wont know.

And others are right when they say that specializing into chronomancy means you will have to sacrifice some pretty important and useful mesmer abilities. I guess it depends on how useful you believe the f5 skill will be and wells.

Speaking of which, im a little disappointed that they decided to balance the f5 skill with a destructable node. They need to give this sucker a decent amount of health. If they dont, like all mesmer constructs, it will be destroyed by a single cleave wasting our cooldowns because theres an ele pressing air12345, fire12345, earth12345…etc.

fluxit.8247:

Speaking of which, im a little disappointed that they decided to balance the f5 skill with a destructable node. They need to give this sucker a decent amount of health. If they dont, like all mesmer constructs, it will be destroyed by a single cleave wasting our cooldowns because theres an ele pressing air12345, fire12345, earth12345…etc.

It needs to have an obvious weakness that you must protect, considering how strong the F5 will potentially be.

You can chain 10 seconds of stuns with F5 → Pistol #5 → Signet of Domination → F5 → Pistol #5 → Signet of Domination for example. Or you can double Moa.

The trade off is as Fay said so I won’t repeat her words.

However if you’re looking for a more obvious one, you just used continuum rift in the middle of a fight, mortar engy, ele, guardian and warrior just accidentally cleaved out your sprite and rendered your specialisation mechanic worthless. This is without mentioning the revenant who will most likely get a trait for killing anything that isn’t a revenant in 1500 range, instantly.

There’s just too much AoE and cleave in this game for squishy things like sprites and illusions. I remember doing some dealing against a zerk GS warrior and he just massacred all my clones in one hit. An entire class mechanic rendered useless by an auto attack, just glad he didn’t use axe!

Oh and by the way, did you miss the part where a SA thief gets a minor trait for 50% damage reduction in stealth? I’m far more concerned about that than anything shown about the chronomancer. SA thieves are a plague atm and it’s just getting worse.

Curunen.8729:

Levetty.1279:

Fay.2357:

Allow me to quote myself.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

Is it weird that I would rather go inspiration over chaos in condie shatter?

Not weird at all – I’m actually more excited about the core buffs to mesmer, like default iElasticity and improved confusing combatants, as well as the mirror traits than the elite spec.

If only we had every line with some form of condition removal….than just having it in inspiration and illusion.

apharma.3741:

The trade off is as Fay said so I won’t repeat her words.

However if you’re looking for a more obvious one, you just used continuum rift in the middle of a fight, mortar engy, ele, guardian and warrior just accidentally cleaved out your sprite and rendered your specialisation mechanic worthless. This is without mentioning the revenant who will most likely get a trait for killing anything that isn’t a revenant in 1500 range, instantly.

There’s just too much AoE and cleave in this game for squishy things like sprites and illusions. I remember doing some dealing against a zerk GS warrior and he just massacred all my clones in one hit. An entire class mechanic rendered useless by an auto attack, just glad he didn’t use axe!

Oh and by the way, did you miss the part where a SA thief gets a minor trait for 50% damage reduction in stealth? I’m far more concerned about that than anything shown about the chronomancer. SA thieves are a plague atm and it’s just getting worse.

SA thieves get a 50% damage in reduction in stealth? Wow.

With Thieves and revenants have no weapon cooldowns and with our new traits that could affect cooldown, Anet already added another class that could be Mesmer’s hard counter. With other classes getting good improvements as well, I dont see Mesmer moving back into the meta…