Guild Wars 2

Generally I really like the animations, for example the dodge blur or the Illusionary Ambush or axe3 jump/teleport. Some of them could be smoother though, like ambushs (sword, scepter) and axe2.

Other than that I could definitely go without the voice lines like “I’m neither here nor there”, but that is personal taste.

All in all, style-wise, really well made

Cloack
What’s there to say, the new dodge felt a bit weird at the start, but after a while it’s amazing and the possibilities of dodging whilst casting/stomping is just great. The superspeed on the grandmaster minor should be a little longer to be able to cover a longer distance forwards, since backwards superspeed won’t do a thing. Either way one of the most fun mechanics in a long time

Mirrors
I think I’m one of the few people who actually like them, because they give you something to do and to watch out for. For the Mirror utilities see below and regarding Shards of Glass, I think it should have a much lower internal cooldown, because in the heat of the battle you’ll easily miss a mirror or will be too far away even with the Blink/Jaunt option. So the lower internal cooldown on Shards of Glass should make up for you missing them or the mirrors being too far away. Also, should Infinite Horizon become baseline and the Ambush skills get buffed then the Mirrors would gain value automatically due to that.

Utilities
Generally, deception, yes, I’m all for it, I feel there’s some work to be done still though. Unfortunately all of them are selfish utilities, I would have hoped for at least one that has some group benefit

False Oasis
I think it’s an okay-ish heal, I tried it a long time, but it wasn’t quite on par with Ether Feast healing wise. Granted it gives vigor and the Mirror, but I still feel it needs an upgrade, either shorter cooldown and less pulses to get the full healing (maybe 3) or make it bigger and a water field plus let the mirror spawn a lot earlier, not quite sure, but it needs a buff

• Could use a buff, see above

Crystal Sands
Well, this skill is horrible, the shards won’t spawn as soon as there’s a bit of terrain in the way, the damage is none existent, so I didn’t see any reason to use it

• Could use a decent rework

Illusionary Ambush
Technically one of my favourite skills (basically like axe 3) but suffers from worse teleportation issues, because as soon as the enemy is moving it puts you where he was and a lot of the time it faced me away form the enemy so that I couldn’t even attack. Could use a much lower cooldown, so that there would be the option to retarget your illusions more often whilst not having to rely on axe. Also there’s the issue of ambush skills being so weak at the moment that the damaging component isn’t very dangerous, but the evade due to mirage cloak is nice

• Could use a much lower cooldown, reliability tweaking

Mirage Advance
Another really bad skill, can’t be used when out of range, why is there a cast time on it, it’s a shadowstep/blink, the cast time definitely has to go and when trying to port back, even the smallest obstruction will make an invalid pathing message pop up and you just won’t teleport back, not even towards the rough direction of where you’ve been. Also, range is too short should be 1200

• Could use pathing changes, range buff, no castime

Sand through Glass
This one surprised me a bit, it seemed rather bad at first, but after using it in duels and roaming I really grew to like it. That said though I think it could use a buff still, maybe by giving it ammunition or just lowering the cooldown or putting a condition cleanse on it or something, since mirage is lacking in that area quite heavily

• Could use buff either via cooldown, potential condition cleanse, giving it ammunition

Jaunt
I like the idea a lot for an elite, but the range is too short for sure, I think it should be 600, I mean come on, vault has 600 and is more spam-able than this and does ridiculous damage, speaking of which, maybe a little bit more damage?

• Could use range buff to 600, damage buff (not more condition application I’m talking power damage)

Minor

Mirage Cloak
What’s there to say, the new dodge felt a bit weird at the start, but after a while it’s amazing and the possibilities of dodging whilst casting/stomping is just neat
(I wish there was something in the description of this trait that said something about a new or changed shatter mechanic though or something that would help with clone deaths)

Nomad’s Endurance
Should also give power damage or if not that then precision, why limit a traitline to conditions so much, make it hybrid or give it a better option of going power as well. Also I think this need to give a higher endurance regeneration (50%) like Endless Stamina from Thief or Adrenal Implant from Engineer. The on shatter part is fine tough, so that there’s at least some incentive to use the shatters and produce more clones afterwards

• Could use power/precision buff, higher endurance regeneration (50%)

Speed of Sand
Maybe make it a second of superspeed, considering it won’t benefit us backwards, at least have the option to run out of AoE forwards, especially crictical in wvw. Also as a minor grandmaster I would have expected a bit more than just this to be honest, but it’s alright

• Could use a duration buff to 1 sec and maybe a little extra something on top

Adept

Self deception
I’m all for clone production especially considering that they usually just die in one hit as soon as you fight something with the tiniest aoe damage, which is almost everything nowadays. Making use of this mechanic on purpose is rather difficult or would just be a waste of a valuable cooldowns, so maybe it would be good to add a deception skill cooldown reduction (hey I’d even take one condition cleanse per deception skill used, worth a try right?)

• Could use a buff, see above

Renewing Oasis
Well, yea, I mean, that doesn’t change anything about the way I play, so a bit bland, but definitely not a bad trait

• Could use more flavour if anything

Riddle of Sand
Could be somewhat decent if ambush skills would work properly, so a bit difficult to say

• Could use ambush skills to better and then it might be fine

Master

Shards of Glass
This and mirage mirrors in general got a lot of hate it seems, I do actually like this a lot at least in duels, having to look out for the mirrors and blinking in. Granted it should have a little more use though, the internal cooldown should be lower. The randomness is nice and part of the fun and paying attention to your surroundings, but in heat of the battle missing one can happen easily, at least 50% of the time, so a lower cooldown should make up for that. It is very satisfying to Jaunt/Blink/Axe2 into them when you do notice them in time though

• Could use a much lower internal cooldown

Mirage Mantle
See Renewing Oasis … bit bland, although If you’d want a boon build combined with chaos traitline it might be alright, I find it not worthy of a master trait though

• Could use some love

Mirrored Axes
Adding a bit more torment and lowering already really low cooldowns, hm… I’d like to see as an improvement a little more utility being added to axe by giving this trait a little bit of boon strip or soft cc in some way

• Could use a more utility based mechanic

Grandmaster

Infinite Horizon
Should be baseline and be replaced with something else as long as the ambush skills won’t get overtuned, which from the current point of view they aren’t in the slightest. I didn’t see any reason to use it in pvp/wvw

• Could use a an overhaul

Elusive Mind
Worthy of a grandmaster trait I’d say definitely makes up for the lack of stability on mirage

• Could use not to be changed

Dune Cloak
Didn’t really test it, maybe a tad too weak

• Could use whatever Fay proposed

Axe
I like the rather short cooldowns, which gives the weapon generally a good flow, the power damage (and I mean the power scaling coefficient specifically, not necessarily the base damage) should be higher though, so that it has more use at least in pvp/wvw with power builds

• Could use better scaling with power

Axe #2
Ammunition is really nice on this skill, unfortunately using it in melee is sometimes more dangerous than beneficial, a short evade frame should be a nice addition and considering there’s no defence on this weapon and you can’t use shield in the offhand either. The animation unfortunately feels clunky with the delays at the start and end.

• Could use an evade frame, some animation tweaking

Axe 3
This skills mechanic itself is awesome and I wouldn’t want to play Mirage without it, but the teleports are somewhat too unreliable which needs some fixing other than that it’s fine

• Could use some reliability tweaking

Ambush skills
Generally I don’t understand why there is such a relatively long cast-time on all of the ambush skills, just makes the ambush feel really awkward and just for comparison almost all thief ambush skills have a casttime of a quarter of a second (with the exception of staff 1 sec and sword 0 sec), whereas mirage has half a second. Also the time you get to activate the ambush skills seems to short, because a lot of the time you need to reposition yourself before using it because there’s a lot of movement in fights in general and even more so with mirage due to teleporting. Lastly in the current state the ambush skills seem hardly worth using, that is with or without Infinite Horizon, because they’re either awkward to use, won’t hit properly or just won’t do any decent damage so it would be better to just keep auto-attacking.

• Could use damage buff, less awkward animations, lower castime(down to a quarter of a second), a longer ambush skill activation window

Axe Ambush
Mechanically it seems alright, might be a little slow animation wise, damage needs some adjustment I think

• Could use faster animation, damage buff

Sword Ambush
The leap and the daze are great, but it feels too rough still, should be a little smoother animation-wise, right now it feels like I’m standing on one of those platforms of the aether blade JP in Gendarran Fields. Also it needs a damage buff for sure and illusions not triggering “on interrupt” traits is a bit sad

• Could use smoother animation, shorter casttime, damage buff, on interrupt traits should work with this

Greatsword Ambush
I was looking forward to that one, unfortunately it turned out to be more or less useless

• Could use shorter castime, damage buff

Scepter Ambush
The condition application seems okay, but being locked in place feels really bad, you should be able to move and the cast-time is too long. Also I noticed if you keep using it on a stationary target, your illusions end up teleporting themselves backwards out of range of that target

• Could use shorter casttime, the possibility of moving around whilst using it

Staff Ambush
I think it’s okay, maybe? I can’t really tell because it just rarely hits, if it did, the damage might be okay, also cast-time again

• Could use better aiming, shorter casttime, damage buff?

Underwater
It’s funny, the general area no one cares about (besides me and Aquaman I guess) is the one that has some of the more interesting mechanics on the ambush skills, but the cast time is too long (on spear that is, judging from the tooltip) and I can’t say anything about the damage because I couldn’t get anyone to fight me underwater in WvW

• Could use, well, some testing I guess

I’m honestly just happy with more targeted blinks/shadow steps in general, Jaunt is right up that alley. Haven’t seen all the utilities so holding hope we get more de-targeting. But an interesting way they could have implemented target drops is by touching mirage mirrors.

I agree, blinks are always welcome, but I doubt there are anymore re-/de-targeting skills as utilities in the expansion as of yet. Which is why I thought it would be a good idea to start the discussion early enough so there’s at least a slight chance of getting more implemented.
Also, target drops by touching mirage mirrors sounds like a fun mechanic to have, maybe as an option via a trait.

I’m more excited for this as a set up for a shatter skill. Our burst prior was always such a pain, and super easy to play around compared to a thief who would be like " ‘Oh Hai!’ BURST with little tell" Now we can do it too! other than keeping the whole spawning illusions part. Plus we have a follow up safe attack for extra dmg.

We really don’t need another shatter.

Again, it’s not about adding a shatter per se, it’s about making the Axe#3 skill accessible , so that one can use a skill like that on every weapon set. Transforming it into a shatter skill is just a convenient and elegant solution for that (in my opinion anyway), but it would also be fine as a utility skill.

I just really like the idea of being able to retarget your illusions instead of losing them and also adding that extra layer of deception with the teleport and enemies being forced to detarget you. I don’t like the fact that a flavourful skill like axe#3 is bound to only one weapon though, hence this thread.

So i’m wondering :
Is anybody else want the Mirage to get F5 skill in line with the thematic of this specialization ?
And if so what would you suggest as F5 skill ?

May I redirect you to this thread :)
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mirage-Axe-3-as-a-shatter-skill/

Plus the other one already adds a new shatter. More differentiation, less sameyness!

Granted, that was my mistake by how I named and started the thread, but just because it would be a shatter skill it doesn’t mean it’s the same, because its mechanic is totally different, the shatter is merely a way of making it accessible to every potential weapon set plus giving axe the option of a little bit more defense or utility or another damage skill, for all I care it would also be fine as a utility skill for the 6,7,8 slots.

Why add a new complexity on top, especially because the underlying premise is a bit flawed

Why not add more complexity, it adds to the fun and mirage is most certainly not too complex as of right now that this addition would turn it into a weaver like spec.

Well, buff it then. Increase damage stats, extend condition duration (if the axe is weak, not the spec), and so on.

Going for some flat out number tweaks like damage buffs is probably the most boring way to enhance any class, I’d say it would even be better to have lower cooldowns and less damage on the individual skills since at least then you’d have to press the buttons more often.
That’s besides the point I’m trying to make anyway since the proposed change isn’t about increasing the damage (that would be just a small bonus of slightly increased dps uptime due to less illusion deaths) or the fact that mirage could be too weak, I think we’re not quite on the same page here unfortunately. What I’m trying to say is: being able to retarget your illusions with every weapon set is meant to be about build diversity whilst adding more depth and therefore fun to the process of gaming.
In my opinion the approach of dodge, 1, dodge, 1, plus the “mini game” of running into mirage mirrors could end up being a bit too dull in the long run in terms of gameplay (I do however love the concept of potentially sacrificing defense for offense), so this thread is just meant as an idea to make things a little more interesting without being game-breaking.

You and all your axe clones shadowstep to a random location around your target
and apply confusion. This attack breaks enemy targeting and your illusions change
focus to the targeted foe.
This means axe 3 also changes focus on ALL your illusions. Lord Helseth already covered this in yesterday’s stream.

Well the tooltip is a little unclear and I’ve only seen it work with clones on WoodenPotatoes stream, but it could of course work with phantasms too. Thematically Mirage seems to be more about clones than phantasms though, but whether the skill works with both is something we shall see.

Im honestly fine theres no need for every elite soec to add a new shatter. I feel like the class is diff enough with ambush skills blur and the mirror mechanic.

So basically you’re saying you’re fine with having less, well that’s fair enough, although I guess you might also just be more realistic than I am in thinking this change won’t make the cut anyway, which is probably true. I just think it doesn’t hurt to pitch the idea and having this mechanic as a shatter could make for some really interesting plays in pretty much every gamemode and shouldn’t be exclusive to just one weapon.

I am actually hyped to this new elite, since it sounds better then chrono for solo players…..why? Oh that i already had posted in another thread…and got enough answers to say that chrono feels useless for me as an solo player…. also it looks like we get finally more aoe skills…

Okay, uhm, I’ve not quite sure waht you’re trying to say, sorry. Please don’t get me wrong I’m not saying Mirage is bad, just that it could be a tad better with this change (even if it’s unlikely that it’ll get implemented, there’s no downside in discussing it, since our feedback was heard to an extent before HoT too)

Both of these features should have been CORE to the mesmer…

That is a good point yeah, although that would probably cause balance to be all over the place, still, I guess every mesmer would love the idea of not losing out on dps due to losing illusions that easily. The axe #3 skill is a step into the right direction, but not quite far enough for my taste, because just having it on one weapon when the code for it already exists is just kind of a shame or seems like a bit of a waste actually.

Hey there,

I have seen some fellow mesmers talking about something similar in other threads, but I feel like this topic deserves its own.
The fact that mesmer does not seem to get any change concerning the shatter skills with Mirage is a little disappointing I’d say, just makes some potential flavour go away if the only mechanic is basically a changed dodge plus the ambush attack that follows. One could even argue that for gaining that dodge change we give up on some of it’s original utility, the moving out of the way part. Anyway, about the shatter, I get that mirage is not really meant to be shatter based, not as much as Chronomancer at least, but I would have loved to see at least some change in the mechanic of prexisting shatters or another even better another F5.

After having a look at the new skills and given the fact that the technology is already in the game I thought that getting something similar to the axe #3 skill as an F5 shatter would be really helpful and also increase the complexity of the playstyle a bit. Admittedly I have my doubts that this will be heard by the devs (here’s to hoping), but one can dream and at least have a discussion about it.

Here’s axe #3 as a reference (thanks to Aluren for the Mirage skill overview):

Axe 3: Axes of Symmetry (.75s cast, 10s cd)
You and all your axe clones shadowstep to a random location around your target
and apply confusion. This attack breaks enemy targeting and your illusions change
focus to the targeted foe.
• Dmg: 533
• Player confusion (5 stacks, 7.5s): 631 Dmg on Skill Use, 1960 Dmg
• Clone confusion (1 stack, 7.5s): 127 Dmg on Skill Use, 392 Dmg
• Evade: .75s
• Combo Finisher: Leap
• Range: 600

So my idea is:

Add an F5 skill, let’s just call it

F5: Illusive Symmetry (10s cd)
Shatter. Destroy all your phantasms. You and all your clones shadowstep to a random location around your target. This attack breaks enemy targeting and your illusions change focus to the targeted foe.

It seems as if the axe skill only retargets clones, not phatasms, which is fine, because that would probably be too strong.
This shatter could be implemented with or without a damaging attack part, I guess that’s a matter of balancing. However, considering that you’d lose your phantasms there should probably be some kind of attack damage to this shatter, just like the axe #3 has one as well.

In exchange the axe skill could be replaced by something else, maybe but not necessarily by something slightly more defensive, like a short evade frame or a single block or an axe throw that teleports just the mesmer to the target. From what it looks like there won’t be any defensive skill on axe (axe 2 doesn’t really count) and additionally not having access to shield could pose as a problem in pvp/wvw situations.

Now here’s the important part:
Retargeting your clones and being detargeted yourself seems like one of the core things to do as a Mirage, since it’s all about deception, so why only put it on axe and instead make it available for every wielded weapon by making it a shatter?

With that new shatter we could make use of the retargeting and the detargeting (breaking the enemies targeting) mechanic with all weapon combinations therefore adding versatility to the builds since you wouldn’t be forced to use axe all the time.

It would also help in pve scenarios with dps uptime, since you could just let your clones jump to next target, again, without being forced to use axe at that very moment. What this change would undoubtedly achieve is adding some more flavour to mirage as a specialisation, besides being a useful addition to every gamemode.

Obviously we couldn’t test any of the new stuff yet, but I feel like this would be a neat little extra to have, especially to make playing mirage more fun, whilst making it somewhat more versatile, plus adding another new skill of which the mesmer “only” gets 16 in total, 4 for axe (one ambush), 5 ambush skills on the other weapons, 6 utilities (healing skill and elite included), which is more than on chronomancer, but again less than some other classes (not that it would really be about that, but usually additional skills mean additional versatility and complexity).

So yeah, discuss! and in case you like the it, please make sure that we get enough attention, so that maybe a dev will stumble upon this.

Jana.6831:

Well, they decided to make links out of Tier 6 – I guess their size would be rather good to be linked with Tier 5, but instead they were linked with T3 and T4 (former).
But some guy from anet said they wanted to lock tiers and to make it so that only certain servers can fight each other – so working as intended, I guess.

Fair enough, but that’s not really what we’re talking about, it’s not just about losing all the time (which sucks enough as it is) due to tiers or the aforementioned reasons, it’s also about having at least some diversity (meaning different home border) even whilst losing constantly

As a fellow GH player I absolutely second this opinion, I think this should be the 4th week that we have DBL as our home border and from my experience and from what the first vote about DBL showed as well, most players don’t care a lot about the DBL (even after the changes were made). Btw, this should not turn into yet another DBL yes/no/maybe thread, I’m just stating what pretty much every GH player knows, that when we have Alpine Borderlands, we have more people to defend than we have when DBL is our home border. Either way, I don’t really mind the DBL/Alpine “rotation”, if it was actually a rotation, but from my understanding it’s usually the losing server who gets assigned to red and therefore DBL, so in our current state with two rather low populated servers being paired, we’ll always end up being red, because we just can’t get second place. And now some might say “well then why don’t you just transfer?”, my answer is, because I want to be able to play with the same people I’m used to, the same guilds, the same roamers and friends from my guild or server, because it’s more enjoyable that way, but at the same time I also don’t want to have DBL as my home borderland for as long as we get a new server pairing and then hope to not end up with an unlucky pairing that puts both server into this DBL cycle again. As of right now, with the match ups we had recently, I think we wouldn’t have made second place regardless of having DBL or Alpine as home borderland, but with DBL the matchup is even more unfavourable for us. So besides there being bad server pairings and also bad matchups against much stronger/more poplulated servers, you also have the factor of constantly having the disliked home borderland, so therefore even less players and due to the architecture of the map, an even harder map to defend. I understand that you can’t assign the DBL to a different colour so easily, but making it random who becomes red/green/blue, that should be doable and by doing that you’d also create some change for the servers which are usually winning so that they’d be able to get DBL too.

What I love about changes like these is the fact that they want to nerf a certain type of mesmer build, but they straight out nerf several if not almost all current viable builds (core mesmer included). Everything that was nerfed today was pretty useful on a power mesmer or support oriented mesmer too, but just because it’s used on condition mesmer in “eSports” it gets nerfed, same as they did with alacrity during the bunker mesmer times. I wish the changes introduced to classes would be more specific and thought through (build diversity hint hint). To be fair it’s not that this patch will change my playstyle by a lot if at all, but it’s yet again the lazy way out and power mesmer becomes even worse, again. So here’s an idea for something useful for the next patch (because you seem to have a hard time coming up with something) that won’t even break the non-existent balance, how about you finally remove the aftercast from gs auto attack so it won’t be such a hassle to get a slight damage increase by stowing the weapon constantly, thanks ….

1. Bring Alpine Borderlands back and get rid of the Desert Borderlands. I know you guys put a lot of work into the new borderlands and granted they are really appealing to the eye, but that’s pretty much it, the layout, the mechanics, boss fights introduced alongside with the Desert Borderlands are just horrible and have nothing to do with the original WvW experience anymore. I don’t see any point in putting the maps into some kind of rotation, because it’s clear that most players don’t want to play on the new borderlands. You’ll just end up with people playing when it’s Alpine Borderlands week and no one playing or hopping to EB when Desert Borderlands are up. Currently there’s always a queue on EB on prime time, whilst there’s nothing going on the Borderlands and to be honest new borderlands are so unfun that I sometimes go to EotM to wait for the EB queue (funnily enough back in the day when EotM was introduced I thought it couldn’t get any worse ..)

2. Get rid off Chilling Fog, Airship Bombardement, Cloaking Waters, Dragon Banner, Watchtowers and so and so forth. I know you wanted to incorporate guild upgrades into wvw, but putting these ridiculous upgrades into the game completely destroys actual skilled play, scouting, roaming and makes defense way too easy. There’s no actual need to make defending that much easier, it’s actually much better that Keeps/SM/Tower flip more frequently, more running aorund on the map, more things to do for everyone instead of just trebbing stuff from afar because getting close is too dangerous or merely impossible. So actually, whilst your on it, rethink the whole guild wvw scribing, it seems completely out of place.

3. Understand that WvW is not just about huge blob/zerg fests, the most dedicated WvW players are roamers and small groups, that run around the map to scout, take unguarded objectives etc.. Yes, fights between big groups are also part of WvW, but so far all you’ve done is making blobbing more attractive whilst doing the opposite for roaming.

4. Improve the WvW rewards, easier accessible ascended gear for example. Gaining more gold would also be good, because the relation between time put in and money that you get out of is probably the worst in all game modes. Also bring back a way to unlock more of the Mistforged/Hero wvw weapon skins and maybe some new skins also only accessible via WvW

5. Learn from your mistakes (EotM, DBL just to name a few) and keep up the communication with the community, not just in terms of WvW, but in every aspect of the game, you want players to care about your game, show them you care about them and their issues.

Whenever Tides of Time hits a target that is invulnerable, doesn’t matter if it’s an enemy NPC in PvE or a Guardian for example in PvP, the skill or the wave that gets launched disappears completely, instead of traveling the full distance and coming back.
Thanks for looking into it (oh and when you’re already on that, maybe you could improve the reliability of the wave even further when it comes to terrain and walls in terms of the wave coming back, thanks ;D)

I think enough things have been said about the upcoming changes that we know about, I still hope there will be some form of compensation, well actually, I want to mention some that I would like to see:

Aftercast on GS Auto-Attack can it please go, finally, it won’t be a huge DPS increase but definitely a QoL change in terms of not having to stow the weapon in between casts (actually most of the time I can’t really be kitten d with doing that anymore)

How about to make up for the Alacrity nerf we get the extra feature, just on Mesmer of course, that Alacrity affects weapon swap as well. From my perspective the benefit won’t be amazing, or let’s say, it won’t be a game changer in terms of pvp, but gives us a little more options and an ever so slightly more fast paced gameplay

I’ve played a fair share of Chronomancer during the last BWE, mainly PVE (including Dungeons, Fractals and the new map of course) and a whole night of PVP duels against my guildmates.

I’ll just comment on things that I think might need some changes or that got some adjustment since the previous BWE:

Shield

—Echo of Memory —
The double channeled block is definitely more useful, but so much slower in terms of Phantasm production. I still think that an option to activate the skill whilst blocking to create a phantasm instantly and stop the channel would be a nice thing to have and it would be slightly more skillful and less boring to use (we will be Chronomancers after all, so anything time-related will be our thing right? ;D) and considering that the Phantasm changed to melee AoE it might not even be too strong, usually it will get cleaved down before it even goes for one attack (slight exaggeration, sorry, but that actually happened quite often). The channeled block duration on the other hand is something that should be on the watch list, the possibility to block for so long twice, could end up being too much. So maybe a 0.25 sec shorter block channel but therefor the option to actively use it to create the Phantasm or at least get the phantasms AoE effect casted on your position, but no phantasm in that case then or something like that.

—Tides of Time—
I really like this skill, the only thing that bugs me is it being bugged still (pun intended). It was mentioned before, but again, the return doesn’t work properly in a lot of situations, the return from a wall only works sometimes and don’t let me get started what happens when you fight on those tree houses …

Continuum Split

I don’t really like the way it feels and overall I think used with 3 illusions up it’s slightly too long. When playing I was always hesitant to use it, because I wanted a high enough duration with it, so I’d try to use it with as many illusions up as I could in that situation, but using it with just one or none felt like a complete waste. What I suggest is to increase the “base” duration with no illusion up to 2 or 2.5 seconds and then let any illusion that is active and shattered increase it by another 1 or 0.75 seconds, so that you end up with 5 or 4.75 seconds max. You’ll have more usage with little to no illusions and less potential ultra spam combos because of the lower max duration. Overall this would put it in the right place I think.

Just an overview to be clear what I mean

2 sec base version with added 1 sec

• 0 Illusions 2 sec
• 1 Illusions 3 sec
• 2 Illusions 4 sec
• 3 Illusions 5 sec

2.5 sec base version with added 0.75 sec (which i prefer btw)

• 0 Illusions 2.5 sec
• 1 Illusions 3.25 sec
• 2 Illusions 4 sec
• 3 Illusions 4.75 sec

In comparison, this is the current version

• 0 Illusions 1.5 sec
• 1 Illusions 3 sec
• 2 Illusions 4.5 sec
• 3 Illusions 6 sec

Other than that, yes it’s still somewhat bugged, but I’m sure the devs are looking into it already.

Wells

I mainly used Gravity Well and Well of Precognition, so I’ll just say something about those, since I didn’t really test the rest that much other than with the alacrity spam build, but I’ll come to that later.

—Gravity Well— (it should definitely be Well of Gravity though ;) )
With the current setup and just one pull at the end enemies have a better chance of getting away, but in PvE you still get the nice stack due to the pull being the last CC (and the float does look great to be fair). The stability was not really that useful or needed in my opinion, I prefer the higher damage, so thumbs up for this one

—Well of Precognition—
This is what I said the last time "Well of Precognition – Probably the worst Well, I can only think of a few scenarios to use it "
That has definitely changed, I really love it now, incredibly useful in all game modes, please do not even think about changing it again, I don’t even miss the “unblockable” part although that could definitely be handy. Not 100% sure about the cast time, but I can see why it’s on there, so it should probably stay that way, even if it feels a little weird on a stunbreaker.

Traits

—All’s Well that Ends Well—
Dunno how to feel about that one, because I don’t like the idea that in upcoming and old content Mesmer will only(mainly) be used for cooldown reduction on the group, I mean yes, a Mesmer has a lot to offer in terms of utility, but usually other classes can do pretty much the same (besides Portal) and let’s rather not talk about the difference in damage. I mean alacrity on ourselves is fine, since Chronomancer should be about time related things in general and alacrity is the only way to counter Chill (besides getting rid of it of course). So it’s not that I don’t like having the trait in that way, but I wouldn’t want to be pushed into that alacrity spam machine corner all the time when it comes to PvE content and I hope it won’t happen for a simple reason, spamming alacrity is the most boring way to play a Mesmer, for me at least. I’m not really sure how to work around that problem, I don’t even know if it’s going to be that much of a problem anyway, but I guess we’ll see.

—Delayed Reactions, Danger Time, Lost Time—
Okay admittedly this part about the slow and related traits is going to be a little chaotic, but I hope it’s still understandable what I mean and why I think there’s no harm in making Lost Time a little bit better. There is a TL;DR version though, just in case :D

The slow traits …I really really want to like them and planned on using them when HoT comes out actually, but it seems to me, after hours of testing in PvE and PvP, that they not really worth it that much anymore as soon as there’s no fellow Mesmer around to help you with putting slow on the enemy. I know it has been considered a very strong condition, but is it really in the current state?

Apart from Danger Time, there are no synergies with other traits for slow and most of the time the extra 30% crit chance is probably not really worth having since you are up to a ~75% crit chance anyway with gear/food/fury (on a damage built of course, could definitely be useful using more tanky gear). The potential in terms of synergy that a Necro, probably the best example, can have with Chill (Chill has a more meaningful impact as well due to it’s movement speed reduction and cooldown increase, might just be me though) is so much better, Bitter Chill, Chill of Death, Chilling Darkness and these are just the traits that aren’t Reaper exclusive. I know Chill was there before and Slow wasn’t, but the list goes on in the Reaper trait line. Please don’t get me wrong, this is certainly not me saying “nerf Reaper please” I enjoyed playing it, it’s rather me saying, please make those Mesmer traits more viable, specifically Lost Time, because right now it’s slightly underperforming.

On paper being able to slow the enemy’s attacks by 50% looks huge, but there are a few things to consider as well:

• Slow does not deal damage and there’s no way to make it deal damage either (unlike Chill on Reaper)
• Instant casts/attacks are still instant and fast (auto)attacks don’t really suffer from it either
• Any channel that is defensive (Blocks, Renewed Focus etc.) even some offensive ones benefit from slow by getting their duration increased by 50%
• It can always be cleansed
• Slow messes with your timing on dodges

Additionally your opponents certainly won’t let you hit them all the time so that your Lost Time stacks build up that easily, they’ll block, dodge or use line of sight (even the NPCs do stuff like that quite regularly in HoT it seems). When I used slow during the duels (in form of Shield Phantasm, Delayed Reactions and Lost Time) and asked my guildmate how effective it was he said “Well, I was surprised that my leap went further” and the other one didn’t even realise that I was using it (they are both experienced players btw). I just couldn’t land enough hits and with the cooldown on the trait (Lost Time) for it to actually go off regularly. It was the same setup that I used in BWE1 and admittedly back then slow was way too strong, but right now, it feels a wee bit too weak, I think we need some sort of middle ground, since you have to give up on so many other good traits and skills for it to actually do something.
In PvE I don’t think it’ll see that much use other than for specific encounters in Raids or you’ll need enough Mesmers around to keep it on the enemy NPCs for longer. I guess it doesn’t seem to be so useful in PvE anymore since the enemies in the Expansion act differently. When Time Warp got it’s slow, using that on a Boss or enemies in the base game the slow seemed to be so strong, too strong at times, but not so much anymore in the expansion (which is actually a good thing), TL;DR: but for a GM trait Lost Time doesn’t actually do enough in comparison to the other GM Traits. The BWE2 version might have been the sweet spot and I can’t remember hearing many/any complaints about it. Oh yea, Delayed Reactions and Danger Time seem fine though just not really worth using if Lost Time won’t perform well and the other Adept and Master trait options are as good as they are.

—All the other traits—..
..the ones that I didn’t mention are just fine in my opinion.

Just one more thing, since I read that so often lately, Chronomancer is not OP, it makes the Mesmer stronger than the base Mesmer, but not OP. Elites are supposed to be stronger than your regular class, what’s the point in calling it Elite anyway then? Of all the classes that I’ve tested, the Mesmer is the one that needs the smallest amount of adjustments. And regardless of current balancing, this was the Beta, not HoT yet and even when that is out, the classes will be balanced again and again, as usual, so there’s no need for all that fuss now, in the end it’s just a game and everyone is free to play whatever, some people seem to forget that every now and then

Thanks for reading :)

My impressions so far:

Continuum Split
Certainly difficult to balance, allows for some nifty play, seems to be neither too powerful nor too weak at the moment, only one thing, it’s still buggy sometimes, but I think that was mentioned already.

Shield 4
Having two blocks potentially available is nice, but the fact that there’s no damage on it, or no effect whatsoever other than the phantasm summoning, and no option to use it actively whilst already channelling like on sword 4, makes this skill a bit meh in my opinion. Don’t get me wrong, the block can be really useful for avoiding big hits or hits that might stun you or so, the problem is that you only get the phantasm out of it. I guess there’s no need to say anything else about the phantasm, since it was mentioned enough previously. One more thing, the animation looks fancy, but it’s way too obvious against other players.

Shield 5
I really like that skill and it’s a lot of fun lining up the stuns forth and back. The only problem I have with it, is how unreliable it is on the new maps. As soon as it hits a wall it doesn’t come back, unfortunately you find yourself fighting in narrow spaces quite often, additionally the skill even gets caught on barriers/objects that you can jump over and disappears or bounces in the completely wrong direction, which happens with steep or bumpy terrain too. On the tree platforms it’s absolutely not working at all, because as soon as it hits the end of a platform it plunges off the edge, never to be seen again, so fighting up on those tree houses, you only get half the skill pretty much 90% of the time, since you’re either facing the tree, the end of a platform or a stairway up or down and in all of those scenarios the skill doesn’t return to you. That definitely needs some fixing.

Wells
As someone who likes underwater fights I’m sad not having them available underwater (correct me if I’m wrong, because I haven’t tested it :D). Generally I agree with what has been said, so I’ll keep it short.

Well of Calamity – seems useful and in a good spot

Well of Recall – was surprisingly good for alacrity uptime in PVE

Well of Eternity – Works in PVE stack situations, but other than that not amazing

Well of Precognition – Probably the worst well, I can only think of a few scenarios to use it

Well of Action – Good, situationally, for PVP/WVW

Gravity Well (why not Well of Gravity by the way xD) – I really like it, I mean, the float was cool, but it’s so much better as it is now, in all game modes

Traits
I’ll only comment on traits that I think aren’t quite right yet or could use another look.

Flow of Time
I liked it better in BWE1, but understandable why it was changed, without the traited alacrity duration it seems a little underwhelming though.

All’s Well that Ends Well
I can’t really make up my mind, which version I liked better BWE1 or 2, but the extra group alacrity is nice, although in my opinion the alacrity spam build was kind of boring to play.

Illusionary Reversion
So good in BWE1, too good I guess, but now I feel Improved alacrity is almost always the better pick. We had some good suggestions for IR already, so I won’t go into it any further. (just this, please don’t even think about nerfing Improved Alacrity to make IR more viable again .. although on second thought, yes go ahead, as long as you put the alacrity duration into Flow of Time ;D).

All the slow related traits,
something I was really excited about to play in PVE, a slow interrupt build, because I loved the potential of taking damage off the group, even though it means losing a decent amount of damage myself as a trade off. Then I realised as soon as there’s a breakbar on the enemy, all chronomancer traits I picked for that build are useless and the same goes for some other traits that work on interrupt in other trait lines. There are several reasons for that:

• The events scale up easily and probably will even more since once the expansion is released it will be crowded, so you’re fighting a lot of champions, who have breakbars of course.

• The way the breakbars work is not really functional at the moment, since once it’s broken the enemies stay invincible to any kind of CC for really long after it was broken. And even if you wanted to land an interrupt as soon as the bar is nearly broken, there are myriads of incoming CC’s , from other players, that are just being spammed (I’m talking about uncoordinated events) so you probably won’t hit your “on interrupt effect” anyway.

• Even if you’re on your own and you face one of the small wyverns (those that are not even veterans) it takes a lot of effort or in other words all your CC skills to break the bar just once to get an interrupt. I tested it and I needed 3 dazes (Mantra of Distraction and one from Diversion), 1 knockback (GS 5) and two stuns (Shield 5). Which seems a little ridiculous to me, considering it’s a “regular” bloke I’m fighting.

• Slow does not apply to enemies with breakbars, champions or not, as soon as there’s a breakbar slow is useless. I know, instead of applying the slow it’s supposed to take a bit of the breakbar off, but at the moment, that is such a minimal amount that this mechanic might as well not exist. Yes, slow can be strong on an enemy, but there are also downsides of having slow on enemies, since everything that is channelled by the enemy lasts longer (which can be good or bad for the group of course, depending on what type of skill is being channelled) and it can ruin the timing when it comes to dodges. Besides all that, as I already mentioned, the mesmer loses a decent amount of damage not taking other traits. I’m aware that it’s certainly not easy to balance such a powerful tool, but the way it works now, I don’t really see that much use for it, other than in PVP/WVW situations. In PVE you either don’t need it to fight off normal enemies, because pure damage (or the other Chronomancer traits) is still the better choice or it’s completely useless since you’re facing a champion/enemy with a breakbar. So please have another look at this whole issue, it would suck to see such a fun mechanic going to waste like that, or only being useful for very rare encounters, especially considering the amount of slow and interrupt traits we have (build diversity and such ^^).

Edit
Maybe you could make the slow on bosses/champions/enemies with breakbars work by letting us apply it, but reducing it’s effectiveness to 33% or something, but not letting us apply it at all is almost as if you make a third of the Chronomancers pickable traits useless, in PVE at least.
/Edit

Just one more thing in general, I really like what has been introduced to the game with the Chronomancer, seems so much more skillful than the Reaper (no offence) for example (although playing Reaper was really fun too, but I could just easily face-tank and kill almost everything in the beta map and I don’t even know how to play a Necro properly), anyway, what I was trying to say is, very good job so far Mr. Gee and Team and thank you.