chrono in open world pve?

chrono in open world pve?

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Posted by: Sasuke.2573

Sasuke.2573

what is better for open world pve (especially the new zones): normal mesmer or chrono?

I unlocked my elite-spec about 2 todays ago, ran around with it and it somehow felt underwhelming. That said, I didnt participate in the Beta Weekends where you could try it out, so I didnt know what I would get.

I used to play a phantasm-build. The shield provides you with a block (is kinda ok) and a wall that gives you quickness for a short duration, but has really high cooldown. The focus I used before just feels much more useful with its damaging phantasm and additional reflects.

Wells are mostly just for providing boons. But I dont feel like they are more important than things like feedback or blink. The elite-well is ok, but timewarp is more useful I guess?

The F5-Skill is nice for things like double-tw, and the 25% speedboost ist really convinient. But still, talking about open world pve the normal mesmer seems more efficient.

Am I missing something? Or am I just playing chrono in the wrong way?

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Posted by: AlphatheWhite.9351

AlphatheWhite.9351

what is better for open world pve (especially the new zones): normal mesmer or chrono?

Chrono. 25% movespeed > all. Once you don’t need the swiftness from TC, you’ll be surprised how much less appealing focus is.

I used to play a phantasm-build. The shield provides you with a block (is kinda ok) and a wall that gives you quickness for a short duration, but has really high cooldown. The focus I used before just feels much more useful with its damaging phantasm and additional reflects.

Shield is a utility/defense weapon. To compensate in open-world, your other weaponset needs to be a damaging weaponset. So you’ll stay in your damaging weaponset until you need the shield’s defense/cc, then swap over.
Additionally, you don’t need to use the shield for Chrono to pay off. Alacrity, movespeed and illusion uptime are the primary gains from Chrono, and you don’t need the shield for any of them. It has its benefits, and it’s really cool, but using something else doesn’t ruin the chrono.

Wells are mostly just for providing boons.

This is incorrect. Wells can be mostly just for providing boons. But Calamity does strong damage, Precog is a stunbreak and 3s free-flow invulnerability (ie, you can have it while still using skills), Action add slow on top of the quickness, and Recall adds one of the strongest debuffs in the game (chill). If you’re not keeping those capabilities in mind as you use your wells in open-world, you’re missing a large portion of their power.

But I dont feel like they are more important than things like feedback or blink. The elite-well is ok, but timewarp is more useful I guess?

Yes, TW is more useful in more situations. On the other hand, GW is massive breakbar-killing, which can be more useful with the right timing.
But what we’re hearing from people having success is that they take a mix. Some do still use Blink alongside one well, or two wells. Or one well, feedback and mimic. Or whatever. Taking all wells seems mostly to be an organized-group thing, maximizing team alacrity. But in open-world, where coordination is low, and you’ll find yourself alone as often as not? Go ahead and pick whatever you feel like. Wells are just another tool in the toolkit.

The F5-Skill is nice for things like double-tw, and the 25% speedboost ist really convinient. But still, talking about open world pve the normal mesmer seems more efficient.

Don’t use f5 for double-TW. Use it for 48-70s Time Warp. If you double TW, you’re just getting twice the TW duration on the same unbelievably long cooldown, and TW remains just a once-in-a-while burst.
But if you use it whenever you use f5, suddenly TW becomes as frequently useful as Mass Invis, or Gravity Well itself. In open-world, that’s a Big Deal.

Am I missing something? Or am I just playing chrono in the wrong way?

Yes, you are, but it’s understandable. Chrono’s skill cap is higher. Balancing alacrity is essential to getting the most out of it. Understanding exactly what you are doing to make use of crazy traits like Chronophantasma, Illusionary Reversion, All’s Well that Ends Well, Lost Time or even Danger Time is essential.

By comparison to other trait lines, most of the Chrono traits and benefits are active, that is, you need to shape your behavior around them in order to make full use of them.
To make use of Alacrity, you need to balance its uptime and know when you’ll have it and when you won’t. Popping alacrity with nothing on cooldown does nothing for you, popping alacrity with everything on cooldown has enormous benefits.
To make use of Chronophantasma, you need to be balancing your phantasms’ attack cycles with your shatter cycles, so that the shatter will make them attack sooner than normal. If you want to use Chronophantasma for more than just another shatter-fodder trait, you’ll also want to take Persistence of Memory and start keeping track of your phantasm summon cooldowns.
To make use of Illusionary Reversion’s incredible shatter-fodder capabilities, you need to be balancing all your other illusion-generating skills on the edge of a knife, so you don’t pop any shatters without having at least 2 illusions up already.
To make use of All’s Well that Ends Well, you need to be cycling through your wells intelligently, using F5 to its fullest potential, and coordinating positioning with your allies perfectly.

Frankly, the movespeed is one of the few parts of chronomancer that is passive at all.

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Posted by: savacli.8172

savacli.8172

I would also say that you’re missing out on the potential of the Chronomancer.

On paper Chrono gives new weapon, new traits, 6 new skills, and a new Mechanic skill. Though if you focus on that alone Chrono seems rather bland and straight forward.

F5 alone could probably take up an entire thread on its uses. For me, I see the Rift as a sort of Save State (since I used to play a lot of games on emulators). The big difference though? Anything I do still carries over when I “load my save state”. So I can do things such as:

-Reset cooldowns
-Snap back to my starting point
-Refill my endurance
-Go Leroy Jenkins and pretend it didn’t happen

Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion blur the lines between Shatter and Clone/Phantasm builds since you can use shatter skills while maintaining up-time on your illusions

Wells have very differing effects but can be traited to provided our signature Alacrity as well as Quickness (from runes). They also pack quite a punch for offering as much utility as they do.

Anyways, does that make Chronomancer better than Core memser for open world? That’s really up to you to decide. Personally, the Time Marches on was enough for me to take the Spec. That, and I also enjoy the playstyle of manipulating time and positioning to buff my allies while destroying my foes. However, the biggest issue I run into is the the question: What am I willing to give up? You can only take 3 traits so it’s a matter of what can a player make the most out of the situation that he’s in.

My opinion is that Chronomancer is better in open world for those players who can think out of the box.

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Posted by: Sasuke.2573

Sasuke.2573

Thanks for your explanations, I respecced my mesmer to chrono again and am enjoying it much more now. I guess I was so used to my old mesmer that the kinda different playstyle seemed rather odd to me in the beginning. Now that I understand the mechanics, its much more fun to play it

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Chrono. 25% movespeed > all. Once you don’t need the swiftness from TC, you’ll be surprised how much less appealing focus is.

So sad but true :p

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Posted by: Esplen.3940

Esplen.3940

@Alpha, I run 4 wells and TW in PvE. It works out well because if I ever need that extra oomph on mobs (past Phant Phant Clone Shatter Clone Shatter), I can do Phant Phant Clone Shift TW Well Well Well Well – Well Well Well Well. This helps tremendously against groups of mobs, mobs that move around slightly, mobs that are difficult (slow, chill, and large damage) and also provides you with 32s of Alacrity giving you faster bursts and allowing you to move from target to target.

And yes, by just spamming the Wells, you can have infinite Alacrity. If you wanted to optimize your damage output, I would suggest starting a Blurred Frenzy and then Shift → TW Shatter → Well Shatter → Well Shatter → Well Shatter → Well – Blurred Frenzy Well Well Well Well.

I almost always end on Heal Well although you can mix it into the middle somewhere (don’t cast it first because it won’t go off post-Shift).

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Posted by: AlphatheWhite.9351

AlphatheWhite.9351

@Alpha, I run 4 wells and TW in PvE. It works out well because if I ever need that extra oomph on mobs (past Phant Phant Clone Shatter Clone Shatter), I can do Phant Phant Clone Shift TW Well Well Well Well – Well Well Well Well. This helps tremendously against groups of mobs, mobs that move around slightly, mobs that are difficult (slow, chill, and large damage) and also provides you with 32s of Alacrity giving you faster bursts and allowing you to move from target to target.

And yes, by just spamming the Wells, you can have infinite Alacrity. If you wanted to optimize your damage output, I would suggest starting a Blurred Frenzy and then Shift -> TW Shatter -> Well Shatter -> Well Shatter -> Well Shatter -> Well – Blurred Frenzy Well Well Well Well.

I almost always end on Heal Well although you can mix it into the middle somewhere (don’t cast it first because it won’t go off post-Shift).

I feel like you thought I was saying all wells can’t be good, but I can’t find anything like that in my post…

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Posted by: Hooglese.4860

Hooglese.4860

Chrono all the way. You got that sweet move speed for one. For two continuum rift is just so much fun. And finally, wells are some of the best things to bring since you can provide team support in so many ways, namely Alacrity.

PvP
revenant – Hoogles Von Boogles
Mesmer – hoogelz

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Posted by: Incognito.3529

Incognito.3529

I dont even know where you DONT have to use chrono (In PvE ofc).

Everything works perfect.

Oh and Tides of Time, especialy with interrupt traits/sigils very strong skill. Shield master here we go!

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Posted by: Labjax.2465

Labjax.2465

You don’t need to use Shield to get benefits from Chrono traits and utilities. In fact, unless you are going full melee (sword in both swaps), a shield is inferior to the alternatives. OH sword is best damage still, as far as I can tell. Focus is best utility.

What I’m running atm, which I slapped together through a combination of old guides, personal preference, and theory, is Dueling (up, down, down), Illusions (mid, mid, mid), and Chronomancer (down, down, down).

I’m using GS and Sword/Sword. I’m gonna try switching from Illusions to Domination next time I’m out, for Imagined Burden, and do up, mid, up, in Domination (that reduced recharge and might gain seems too good to pass up since I’m using half-ranged, compared to a few shatter bonuses).

For utility, I’m doing Signet of Ether, Well of Recall (which I usually pop in melee as I’m about to swap to Sword and run in — that way I get Alacrity when it triggers and any mobs in melee get hit with a chill), Mantra of Distraction for breaking bars, Feedback for nasty ranged mobs, and Time Warp for its obvious boost to group and personal damage in long fights.

Or words to that effect.

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Posted by: SrebX.6498

SrebX.6498

So much useful information here why the hell is no one making a video about it? Been looking for this info for so long

Thank you guys for the info

[EG] Ethereal Guardians, Fort Aspenwood
Violette Glory [Warrior]
Bala Rama [Herald]

(edited by SrebX.6498)