Guild Wars 2

No, it won’t. There just wouldn’t be an invuln shatter anymore. It would however, give Stability/Regen with BD and Reflect with MoF.

Losing distortion would mean that no pvp Mesmer that was halfway intelligent would ever take chrono.

Losing continuum split would completely gut the unique feel and cool abilities of the Chronomancer.

Luckily, the devs have already obviously rejected foolish ideas like this one. Many people complain that the balance devs don’t pay enough attention to the forums. I, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy if the balance devs never read a single forum post that wasn’t a bug report. While I more or less continuously malign the competence of the balance devs, the general intelligence of “suggestions” posted on these forums make the devs look like a Mensa focus group by comparison.

Quadox.7834:

It would be ok if they replaced distortion, but made CS 60 sec base cooldown, and removed the crystal from it- making it more reliable. Then i would be fine with this. Otherwise HELL NO.

This would be a sucky trade for Mesmers while also doubling down on the things the haters hate about Chronomancer. So, it’s probably what ANet will end up doing.

Iavra.8510:

No, it won’t. There just wouldn’t be an invuln shatter anymore. It would however, give Stability/Regen with BD and Reflect with MoF.

So because Elementalist, Necromancer, and Guardian all retain all retain their skills flavors (that is to say, Elements are still elements and can now be overloaded in addition to their normal thing; virtues are still virtues, but their actives are now AoE oriented by default; and Reaper’s Shroud becomes a more melee power oriented version of Death Shroud), F4 will switch from being a defensive trait to an offensive trait.

Seems legit.

Well I think I know why Pyroathiest is no more lol.

Also agreed.

Well, there are already some problems with how specializations are handled currently. For example, guardian’s F3 can be traited to break stun, but as a Dragonhunter your F3 isn’t instant anymore so it will break stun, but start its cast right afterwards an can be canceled for an effective 5s cd stunbreak.

Agent Noun.7350:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Mesmers are also in a different place than other classes traitwise, in that it’s actually pretty tough to limit yourself trait-wise for any given build. When I put my condi engi together, all my condition traits were in one line. Traits are pretty well segregated by type in most classes I’ve played, in fact.

On this topic, I actually think ArenaNet should work towards this kind of trait balance with the other professions. It’s really cool that Mesmers have enough good traits that it’s a legitimately difficult choice which ones to take. That should be true of every profession.

That’s exactly what I think. I’m pleased to have to make choices. At least, I think this is how balance should be achieved: Not by nerfing numbers or adding cooldowns, but by forcing people to chose between good traits without letting them to be able to have everything. That’s how you can promote build diversity. Of course, it’s not always possible.

No, they just want a flat nerf.

I just want to say that I’m not saying Chronomancer is perfect as is. Some things definitely need to be tweaked. There are a few things that could be toned down (you could increase the phantasm daze on Chronophantasma to prevent phantasm spiking from getting too out-of-hand while keeping it a trait that’s worth taking in both PvP and PvE) and a few things that could be buffed (all of the wells except Calamity, probably).

It’s just that Continuum Split is not nearly the godmode that some people seem to think. It has a clear, obvious, and decisive counter—you can end it just by whacking the rift a couple of times—and has a pretty tight duration that prevents you from doing things that are too wacky when it comes to positioning.

Fay.2357:

Luckily, the devs have already obviously rejected foolish ideas like this one. Many people complain that the balance devs don’t pay enough attention to the forums. I, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy if the balance devs never read a single forum post that wasn’t a bug report. While I more or less continuously malign the competence of the balance devs, the general intelligence of “suggestions” posted on these forums make the devs look like a Mensa focus group by comparison.

I can tell you for a fact that none of the balance testers look at the profession forums while they are in the process of making changes. They look to actual tournaments and occasionally Reddit.

The devs have stated at least 3 times that all Elite Specializations will never take away mechanics of a profession, only add to or modify existing ones. They said this in the original Elite Specializations blog post—where they said that stronger mechanics will be given to E.Specs with only off-hands, again in the Chronomancer blog post, and a third time in the Dragonhunter livestream (although I think they were specifically referring to the Druid iirc).

No other current E.Spec has had a mechanic taken away (Distortion in Larv’s case). Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different. The Tempest didn’t lose anything, but instead gained the ability to overload their attunments with no downside to them other than having a longer CD if they choose to leave the attunement (which can me heavily mitigated in their traits).

Warriors won’t lose their ability to burst, Engineers won’t lose their tool kits, Thieves won’t lose initiative, Rangers won’t lose their pets, and Chronomancers aren’t going to lose one of their shatters.

As I see it, there is just very little reason for a player not to take Chronomancer. It essentially takes Mesmer and adds a very very useful extra mechanic. I thought this change would not just add to what Mesmers already have but change how they feel and how they play like the other elite specializations. Mesmer and Chronomancer could play like two separate classes rather than Chronomancer simply feeling like an upgraded Mesmer. As I’ve said earlier, this change could even warrant buffs to CS making it more reliable and useful for defensive play.

Hammerguard.9834:

As I see it, there is just very little reason for a player not to take Chronomancer.

Except that, you know, you’re not taking a different traitline and we’re already hardpressed with our trait choices.

Hammerguard.9834:

As I see it, there is just very little reason for a player not to take Chronomancer. It essentially takes Mesmer and adds a very very useful extra mechanic. I thought this change would not just add to what Mesmers already have but change how they feel and how they play like the other elite specializations. Mesmer and Chronomancer could play like two separate classes rather than Chronomancer simply feeling like an upgraded Mesmer. As I’ve said earlier, this change could even warrant buffs to CS making it more reliable and useful for defensive play.

With the way they design CS, it is not gonna happen. It is fundamentally too different from distortion.

Also, to make things consistent as you suggest, there should be evolution of all F1-4, not just F4.

And the current F5 CS still makes sense. Eles got 4 new, completely optional extra skills on F1-4. It’s an absolute upgrade w/o sacrificing anything. But if you use them, it has a shared cooldown with the attunement. F5 for mesmer is the same, it’s one extra skill. But if you use it, you use all your clones that can be potentially used for other shatter skills.

Esplen.3940:

Hammerguard.9834:

As I see it, there is just very little reason for a player not to take Chronomancer.

Except that, you know, you’re not taking a different traitline and we’re already hardpressed with our trait choices.

Actually, we are not, people just like to believe that. As condi, you only need Illusions and Power very much only wants Domination and maybe Dueling (although Chrono Illusionspam and baseline IP make DE far less mandatory).

And the current F5 CS still makes sense. Eles got 4 new, completely optional extra skills on F1-4. It’s an absolute upgrade w/o sacrificing anything. But if you use them, it has a shared cooldown with the attunement. F5 for mesmer is the same, it’s one extra skill. But if you use it, you use all your clones that can be potentially used for other shatter skills.

Except the Chrono traitline throws to many illusions at you, that you don’t know what to do with them, anyway. There is no real illusion “management” even if people like to believe that.

Iavra.8510:

Except the Chrono traitline throws to many illusions at you, that you don’t know what to do with them, anyway. There is no real illusion “management” even if people like to believe that.

You are already militating to put both iReversion and chronophantasma on GM trait, and that would end the capacity to create so many illusions. Asking for both is a bit much.

Spleen.7836:

Iavra.8510:

Except the Chrono traitline throws to many illusions at you, that you don’t know what to do with them, anyway. There is no real illusion “management” even if people like to believe that.

You are already militating to put both iReversion and chronophantasma on GM trait, and that would end the capacity to create so many illusions. Asking for both is a bit much.

It’s just another case of the overly zealous mesmer self-nerf syndrome. They’re so caught up in mesmer being some exclusive and brutally painful class that nobody plays that they want nerfs until it becomes awful again.

Pyro, i usually tend to respect you and your opinion but if you would have actually tested Chrono condi spam during this weekend you would know how absurdly op it is in its current state.

Also, this topic and iReversion/Chronophantasma are independent from each other and even then, most of my roaming builds play without DE, anway, and i have no problems bursting people down.

Iavra.8510:

Pyro, i usually tend to respect you and your opinion but if you would have actually tested Chrono condi spam during this weekend you would know how absurdly op it is in its current state.

Also, this topic and iReversion/Chronophantasma are independent from each other and even then, most of my roaming builds play without DE, anway, and i have no problems bursting people down.

I tested it thoroughly. It’s certainly too strong currently, but the ridiculous drastic changes being floated around in this thread are simply absurd. I’ve given my suggestions and thoughts on this elsewhere.

Edit: To elaborate a bit more…

The chrono condie shatter is very strong because you can leverage all the shatters for good pressure, and are able to aggressively shatter to maintain nearly permanent alacrity uptime. On top of that, you can pump out a high rate of interrupts thanks to the effortless slow up time from the shield phantasms. The solution to this is 2-fold.

First, shield phantasms need to provide 2s of slow instead of 3. Might still be too much, but it’s a good start. Additionally, they should provide 2s of alacrity instead of one. More on this later.

Alacrity on shatter needs to be dropped to either .75s per clone or .5s per clone instead of 1s per clone. As it is, any chrono shatter build effortlessly maintains nearly permanent uptime on alacrity, which is (I believe) the largest contributing factor to the build being too strong. Additionally, non-shattering builds have close to zero access to alacrity, which also sucks for the opposite reason. Buffing alacrity on the phantasms encourages use of them in a supportive role instead of just for slow spam. Additionally, alacrity should be made readily available from wells by traiting, preferably in a way that conflicts with the standard shatter trait choices. This would mean that a build could spec for 100% alacrity uptime, but would have to sacrifice other things to do so. Otherwise, both shatter builds and well/support builds would have good alacrity access without it being overpowering.

Thanks for the elaboration Pyro, it’s something most people don’t explain properly.

My other worry about chronomancy is we have a slow on interrupt trait but as you say, outside of shatters you get almost no alacrity elsewhere so an interrupt build makes very little use out of it other than the slow and ability to gain phantasms back from a shatter.

Another thing I keep seeing is people saying about clone spam. Is it really allowing so much clone production that it nullifies how AoE heavy the game PvP wise is?

apharma.3741:

Another thing I keep seeing is people saying about clone spam. Is it really allowing so much clone production that it nullifies how AoE heavy the game PvP wise is?

No, it’s not. What it allows you to do is pick a moment when aoe is at its weakest and rapidly chain several shatters together for maximum effect. This is a good thing, in my opinion.

Thanks Pyro, sounds like a good thing to me. We may have a viable option outside of dueling for shatter builds…I think I need to lay down from this shocking revelation.

Noah.9654:

Fay.2357:

Luckily, the devs have already obviously rejected foolish ideas like this one. Many people complain that the balance devs don’t pay enough attention to the forums. I, on the other hand, would be perfectly happy if the balance devs never read a single forum post that wasn’t a bug report. While I more or less continuously malign the competence of the balance devs, the general intelligence of “suggestions” posted on these forums make the devs look like a Mensa focus group by comparison.

I can tell you for a fact that none of the balance testers look at the profession forums while they are in the process of making changes. They look to actual tournaments and occasionally Reddit.

The devs have stated at least 3 times that all Elite Specializations will never take away mechanics of a profession, only add to or modify existing ones. They said this in the original Elite Specializations blog post—where they said that stronger mechanics will be given to E.Specs with only off-hands, again in the Chronomancer blog post, and a third time in the Dragonhunter livestream (although I think they were specifically referring to the Druid iirc).

No other current E.Spec has had a mechanic taken away (Distortion in Larv’s case). Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different. The Tempest didn’t lose anything, but instead gained the ability to overload their attunments with no downside to them other than having a longer CD if they choose to leave the attunement (which can me heavily mitigated in their traits).

Warriors won’t lose their ability to burst, Engineers won’t lose their tool kits, Thieves won’t lose initiative, Rangers won’t lose their pets, and Chronomancers aren’t going to lose one of their shatters.

Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different.

Exactly, so why can’t distortion be modified into a time reversal spell? You are contradicting yourself since dragonhunter didnt gain a fourth virtue and reaper didnt gain any additional skill, their profession mechanic was instead modified into something more thematically fitting. I would say a continuum shift is more thematically fitting than a straight up invuln for chronomancer.

Quadox.7834:

Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different.

Exactly, so why can’t distortion be modified into a time reversal spell? You are contradicting yourself since dragonhunter didnt gain a fourth virtue and reaper didnt gain any additional skill, their profession mechanic was instead modified into something more thematically fitting. I would say a continuum shift is more thematically fitting than a straight up invuln for chronomancer.

Okay. Tell me how to make Distortion into Continuum Split without fundamentally changing the core of the Distortion skill or making the Mesmer ultimately weaker for the trade-off. That’s been the rule so far, so I’d like to see how it works out. As it stands, if you just removed Distortion and put Continuum Split in its place, no Mesmer in their right mind would make that trade. It’s a bad trade.

(Also, tell me what Elementalists give up when they take Tempest and gain four new F1-4 skills. A trait line doesn’t count, because obviously that doesn’t count for Chronomancer. And don’t say “it’s different because overloads suck,” because they’re obviously not supposed to be bad and will likely be buffed/tweaked before launch.)

Change CS to be 1s per illusion/self and make the mesmer invulnerable for the whole duration. Since CS has a longer cd than Distortion, it would probably be balanced (might need to exclude elite skills from the reset to prevent double Moa etc).

Maybe change the skill to only revert on 2nd activation and remove the forced revert after the rift is destroyed or the buff runs out to make it usable for jukes.

Iavra.8510:

Change CS to be 1s per illusion/self and make the mesmer invulnerable for the whole duration. Since CS has a longer cd than Distortion, it would probably be balanced (might need to exclude elite skills from the reset to prevent double Moa etc).

Maybe change the skill to only revert on 2nd activation and remove the forced revert after the rift is destroyed or the buff runs out to make it usable for jukes.

So… A flat nerf to Mesmer defense. Yeah, great idea, 10/10.

Bleh, no way.

Distortion is too kitten useful to lose for what I’ve read about Csplit.

Fay.2357:

Iavra.8510:

Change CS to be 1s per illusion/self and make the mesmer invulnerable for the whole duration. Since CS has a longer cd than Distortion, it would probably be balanced (might need to exclude elite skills from the reset to prevent double Moa etc).

Maybe change the skill to only revert on 2nd activation and remove the forced revert after the rift is destroyed or the buff runs out to make it usable for jukes.

So… A flat nerf to Mesmer defense. Yeah, great idea, 10/10.

Yes it is, in exchange for the ability to reset skill cds. This is how other specializations work, you know. Giving something up for new stuff.

Iavra.8510:

Yes it is, in exchange for the ability to reset skill cds. This is how other specializations work, you know. Giving something up for new stuff.

NO IT ISN’T!

Elementalist:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Mesmer:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Dragonhunter:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

Reaper:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

What you keep proposing is:

Mesmer:
Gets off hand weapon and pays for extra class mechanic by losing defensive option.

Iavra.8510:

Fay.2357:

Iavra.8510:

Change CS to be 1s per illusion/self and make the mesmer invulnerable for the whole duration. Since CS has a longer cd than Distortion, it would probably be balanced (might need to exclude elite skills from the reset to prevent double Moa etc).

Maybe change the skill to only revert on 2nd activation and remove the forced revert after the rift is destroyed or the buff runs out to make it usable for jukes.

So… A flat nerf to Mesmer defense. Yeah, great idea, 10/10.

Yes it is, in exchange for the ability to reset skill cds. This is how other specializations work, you know. Giving something up for new stuff.

Except you’re wrong. What does an ele give up to overcharge an attunement? Nothing! Does a dragonhunter give up aegis for the new shield thingy? Nope. The only one you have a half case for is reaper, but even then it’s a case of modified but not worse. They get a powerful melee set instead of a ranged set, but accomplish the same things with it.

Your genius idea is simply taking distortion, nerfing it, taking CS, nerfing it, mashing them together and saying ‘hey guys, look at this new great skill that’s actually not good and worse than you had before!’

Yeah, I’ll pass. As was said before, thankfully the devs don’t pay too much attention to all the crud that floats through these forums.

What does an ele give up to overcharge an attunement?

The attunement itself as it gets a cd for 20/16s. And if you want to argue with Fresh Air, you should have better test it beforehand. I have tanked the overload on zerker reaper against a zerker tempest and the damage it does is laughable.

Does a dragonhunter give up aegis for the new shield thingy?

Actually, yes. According to http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shield_of_Courage there is no active Aegis anymore and the Virtue isn’t instant on top of it.

Elementalist:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Mesmer:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Dragonhunter:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

Reaper:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

Except that this line of thought makes no kittening sense at all. Even if the mesmer shield would be absolute trash, there is nobody forcing you to take it and you still have every other mesmer weapon available to you.
Did you even take a look at Reaper GS or Dragonhunter LB, though? Both are worthless and i can guarantee you that every necro would gladly give his or her GS to you to be able to take both DS and RS. But that won’t happen, because the way it currently is offers you a choice and not just a flat improvement over the base class.

I agree with this thread.

apharma.3741:

Iavra.8510:

Yes it is, in exchange for the ability to reset skill cds. This is how other specializations work, you know. Giving something up for new stuff.

NO IT ISN’T!

Elementalist:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Mesmer:
Gets off hand weapon so gets extra class mechanic ability.

Dragonhunter:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

Reaper:
Gets full 2 hander weapon, 5 skills and altered class mechanic.

What you keep proposing is:

Mesmer:
Gets off hand weapon and pays for extra class mechanic by losing defensive option.

it’s not like all your other weapons suddently become less good.

mesmer without chronomancer feels already weaker, and that’s not good. As elite spec is supposed to be an additional option, not an upgrade.

Kidel.2057:

mesmer without chronomancer feels already weaker, and that’s not good. As elite spec is supposed to be an additional option, not an upgrade.

Honestly I’m not sure it shouldn’t, conceptually speaking.
That is to say, there’s a valid case for making “specs including the elite spec” the default approach to situations. There’s going to be specialized situations where specs without the elite spec will be superior anyhow, so there might be a point to making an elite spec superior in the “average case”.

This thread needs to die, immediately. We haven’t had even remotely close to one second of live play with chrono yet and this is one of the last things the devs should be looking at adjusting in favor of alacrity, slow and maybe a slight CD increase on F5.

Agent Noun.7350:

Quadox.7834:

Dragonhunters didn’t lose their virtues and Reaper didn’t lose their DS. They were both modified into something different.

Exactly, so why can’t distortion be modified into a time reversal spell? You are contradicting yourself since dragonhunter didnt gain a fourth virtue and reaper didnt gain any additional skill, their profession mechanic was instead modified into something more thematically fitting. I would say a continuum shift is more thematically fitting than a straight up invuln for chronomancer.

Okay. Tell me how to make Distortion into Continuum Split without fundamentally changing the core of the Distortion skill or making the Mesmer ultimately weaker for the trade-off. That’s been the rule so far, so I’d like to see how it works out. As it stands, if you just removed Distortion and put Continuum Split in its place, no Mesmer in their right mind would make that trade. It’s a bad trade.

(Also, tell me what Elementalists give up when they take Tempest and gain four new F1-4 skills. A trait line doesn’t count, because obviously that doesn’t count for Chronomancer. And don’t say “it’s different because overloads suck,” because they’re obviously not supposed to be bad and will likely be buffed/tweaked before launch.)

Tell me about how dragonhunter f1 is now a projectile. Or how F2 is now a leap. Or how reaper shroud now has completely different skills. Distortion is a defensive skill, CS is a dfensive (and additionally- offensive skill).

Kidel.2057:

it’s not like all your other weapons suddently become less good.

mesmer without chronomancer feels already weaker, and that’s not good. As elite spec is supposed to be an additional option, not an upgrade.

At the same time, there’s a reason why (in the future) we’ll only be allowed to have one elite spec. An elite spec is probably supposed to be bigger and more special than a normal specialization line. Obviously each profession only gets one in Heart of Thorns, but in the future we’re supposed to have more, and at that point, we can only have one at a time. If elite specs weren’t supposed to be “better” than normal specialization lines in some way, we wouldn’t be limited to just one at a time.

I actually don’t feel weaker without Chronomancer, but I do feel less flexible—but also, I’m not sure how much of that is down to my generally really liking playing Chronomancer and wanting those options back and how much of it is down to a lack of options in general. That’s similar to how my Necromancer feels without Reaper, but then again, I adored Reaper Shroud.

Quadox.7834:

Tell me about how dragonhunter f1 is now a projectile. Or how F2 is now a leap. Or how reaper shroud now has completely different skills. Distortion is a defensive skill, CS is a dfensive (and additionally- offensive skill).

Dragonhunter F1 is ultimately still a burn skill, and has the same passive effect. Dragonhunter F2 is ultimately still a heal skill, and has the same passive effect. The core of the abilities have not changed. You also still haven’t told me what Elementalists have to give up (other than a trait line) to get access to overloads. (Sure, they’re weak right now, but we shouldn’t assume they’ll be weak at launch—they count as new F skills.)

Continuum Split is not a strong defensive skill. It does not offer any defensive capabilities beyond a hypothetical scenario in which the Chronomancer uses it at max health and takes some damage while it’s active, and so can go back to max health when it ends. Chronomancer goes down while it’s active? Tough, it won’t help. Chronomancer dies while it’s active? Tough, it won’t help. Break the rift? Oh boy, I sure hope the Chronomancer wasn’t hoping to accomplish anything with Continuum Split, because now it’s gone.

Everyone talks about it like 6 seconds is an eternity, Continuum Split has no cooldown, and like the Chronomancer is somehow already invincible and impossible to CC during the duration of Continuum Split.

1. In a team fight, your rift will get broken by AoE/cleave before the full duration is up, unless you place it significantly out of the way and waste some of your precious Continuum Split seconds moving back into the team fight. Either you waste a significant portion of your Continuum Split duration or you take the very real risk that you’ll waste the whole thing because the rift gets blown up by people who aren’t even targeting it.

2. In a duel, Continuum Split is very strong, but ArenaNet should absolutely not balance this game around duels in sPvP. In addition, you still have the option of breaking the rift, which is fragile and murderable like a phantasm.

3. If you CC the Chronomancer as soon as you see a rift form, you make them waste their Continuum Split as well.

4. If the Chronomancer has lower health before using Continuum Split, they will still go back down to that lower health when they go back. If the Chronomancer’s healing skill is on cooldown before they use Continuum Split, it will still be on cooldown when they go back.

It is very possible to counter Continuum Split in multiple ways. It is almost entirely offensive and support-focused in its use (depending on whether you’re using it to double up on utilities to support your team or whether you’re using it in a duel to get more use out of your weapon skills). If you’re in a situation where Continuum Split would be somehow useful defensively, you’re in a situation where, if your opponent actually tries to counter it, you’d be completely hosed.

Iavra.8510:

Except that this line of thought makes no kittening sense at all. Even if the mesmer shield would be absolute trash, there is nobody forcing you to take it and you still have every other mesmer weapon available to you.
Did you even take a look at Reaper GS or Dragonhunter LB, though? Both are worthless and i can guarantee you that every necro would gladly give his or her GS to you to be able to take both DS and RS. But that won’t happen, because the way it currently is offers you a choice and not just a flat improvement over the base class.

It’s how Anet chose to do it. At least it makes sense as opposed to most of what you have said in this thread which follows no pattern (in relation to elite spec consistency) or logical sense at all.

“Even if the mesmer shield would be absolute trash, there is nobody forcing you to take it and you still have every other mesmer weapon available to you.” Same for DH bow and reaper GS.

As for the bow and GS being poor weapons. That is what the beta is for. To find out how well they perform and adjust it accordingly. Changes to cool downs, condition durations, cast times and damage can all improve the weapons and that is what they’re looking at.

What I did see was the reaper shroud looking good, what I did see is it’s potential. They have the potential to be very good specs with alterations as defined above.

Iavra.8510:

Either that or just remove the F5 (i actually prefer this). It’s very hard to balance and very much op in its current form. Move speed and clone/phantasm respawn is (for me) already a very good reason to go Chrono. The added F5 makes it strictly better than base Mesmer.

It would be criminal of them to remove CSplit. This skill is the single biggest game-changer they have ever added to the game. It created a whole combo system that never existed and makes the class 9001% more fun to play. Anet wanted elite specs to change the way you play the class. Well, this skill does exactly that in a huge fundamental way. It even harkens back to the GW1 mesmer.

I’m more in favor of CSplit replacing distortion if necessary for balance. A smart mesmer using CSplit could double up on other defensive skills. Distortion is hardly necessary.