Guild Wars 2

I suggest checking out Sanderinoa’s guide on Dulfy’s site:

http://dulfy.net/2014/07/21/gw2-mesmer-pve-class-guide-by-sanderinoa/#Chronomancy_Section

The link should take you down to the Chronomancer part. It has good details and several builds with variants.

@Zumi

Yeah, it’s tough to try to fight a condi removal and a stunbreaker while having well of Recall and Action. I’d say it depends on the encounter and switch between Mantra of Resolve and Blink.

I think you’re okay with having full Vipers for weapons and armor, since you don’t really need ferocity that much if going mix/hybrid dps (unless you want to, which is fine; can’t go wrong with berserker).

Alpha’s and Zumi’s builds made me adjust my build a bit and came up with this newer version:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAra8encfCtfi9fC2fCUrhFcjqMAWtXruVv1cFN3OpeD-TxRBQBNU9nJpEkaK/a2JBwf7P0P9DA4JAEA4AY9qX9qHs+6rv+6r36rv+6rvepA0TXF-e

I’ll have to test this out and see how it fares. Thank you both!

Thanks Alpha for sharing.

I may have to look more into getting some Sinister trinkets as well as trying Dueling.

Out of the current phantasms, for Hybrid, iAvenger, iDuelist, and iWarden are good choices. I wonder how iSwordsman, iWarlock, or iBerserker fare?

I heard that there are a lot of fixes coming this Tuesday, so here’s hoping Berserker runes, expertise, and concentration gets fix.

@ Alpha
I am also curious if you have a hybrid build and would like to see please.

Found it! Here’s BRA’s “Sinister VS Viper” thread:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Sinister-vs-Viper/first#post5715531

@AlphatheWhite

While it is true that shatter dps is not good, the shatter trait procs can still help. From what I’ve gathered on the forums, it seems chronomancer’s main role is to bring as much alacrity/quickness to the group. The dps and conditions we apply are bonuses.

@Zumi

Nice build, but one thing I’m curiously concern – how would you handle conditions on you? Since it doesn’t show sigils, I assume you’ll have Sigil of Purity/Cleansing/Generosity to help remove them?

How about going ‘hybrid’? There’s Rampager’s and Viper’s that gives power and condition damage equally. Just a thought.

I’m in progress of making ascended Viper weapons and armor. It seems your build has more condition damage than mine. I use Rampager/Captain trinkets to help get me at least 50% crit chance. I’m actually one of those mesmers that use the scepter, but here’s the build I’m working on:

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAre8cnsICtfi9fCWoBUrhFVjiMAGhirOZn2qFt6SjsD-TBSBQBNU9nJpEsZnEA/t/gWUi1P9DbR5BAeCAkCQPpWA-e

And like you, I also wanted to have a Hybrid DPS build setup. Now, I’m still deciding if I want to have both Captain accessories (as shown in the link above) or have Captain amulet/back piece instead; either one still provides the same amount of stats. The toughness is to help with some survivability. If I really don’t need it, then I’ll go all Rampager trinkets. I also have Berserker’s to switch to, if needed.

I recall Blood Red Arachnid did the math of Viper’s versus Sinisters.

Edit: Since toughness increases aggro, it’d be best to give to the more tankier builds/professions/roles.

Yes, I enjoy using Signet of Midnight as well. Saved me many times, plus a quick condition removal when traited (besides the distortion/MoF)

I played around with each trait with Chrono, even unorthodox setups for some time. I do feel that Illusion synergies well with the elite spec, especially reducing the shatter skills cds and summoning skills in general. Domination gives me more offense. Inspiration gives me more party support. Dueling gives damage mitigation. Chaos gives more defense and boons.

Out of all the various builds I’ve been playing with, I like Chrono, Illu, Dom or Insp the most. It depends on the situation whether I chose Domination or Inspiration, IMO.

I posted a bug report about that, both ingame and forum. It looks extremely big on an Asura. I feel like they’re gonna poke my eyes out!

There is a post in pvp that the new amulets, including Viper’s, that has concentration or expertise do not have the boons/conditions increase actually applied, respectfully. The tooltips and stats show the increase, but the actual result doesn’t. I heard a fix in on the way, but no ETA of it. Hopefully very soon.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/pvp/New-stats-on-new-amulets-do-not-work/first#post5647319

Edit: Just tested with Confusing Images on a random mob in Dragon’s Stand. With 59 expertise + Signet of Midnight, I have 23.93% condition duration and it suppose to give the skill 11 seconds of confusion, but it still shows 10 secs on the target.

Indeed. II would like to see its cooldown go down to 20 secs by default and the bounce is foe-ally-foe. But if the alacrity will make it too powerful for it to have a lower cooldown, then at least change the bounce.

Stephane Lo Presti.7258:

Hi everyone,

We just pushed an update to fix the bug that affected map completion and are working on a fix for the players that have been affected. We don’t have an ETA for this fix. Thanks for your patience!

Thank you for the bug fix! Hopefully those of us affected, including myself, will get the map completion rewards sent to us. I assume by mail?

Ghotistyx.6942:

Pvp amulets have the minor bonus as the same amount as celestial amulets. In pve/wvw that should be 639 Precision, or 30.428% (ascended, exotic is 608-28.95%).

Thanks for the response. It’s not as low as I thought. I assume that’s with complete Viper’s estimate? Perhaps I’ll boost it to roughly 50-55% with some Assassin/Captain/Rampager in the mix. Or I probably will go full Viper’s since precision’s mainly good for reflects, ferocity, and crit chance sigil procs (unless there’s something else that precision also benefits with?).

I can see bunker mesmers using Vigilant, Wanderer’s, or Commander’s for the +boon duration.

I am hesitant on adding too much toughness since it seems mobs tend to aggro to those with higher toughness. But perhaps a little won’t be too bad.

After a long day at work, I came home to find this. I am very happy overall! Now I gotta see which grandmaster trait I like better – Seize the Moment or Chronophantasma. /ponder

I just made a Warrior. Looks like I’m gonna have fun playing as Berserker. I may try Reaper out too!

Thank you A-net and Robert Gee!

I have both Assassin’s and Marauder’s gear (armor+weapon), the latter gives me more power and I already have over 60% crit (trinkets are a mix with Marauder/zerk/assassin).

I’m actually thinking of trying to make a hybrid dps build with Viper’s since it has both power and condition damage equally. The expertise is nice for all conditions. I’m just a bit concern of precision and how much a full Viper’s set gives (has anyone did the total precision/crit chance with that yet?).

All the posts about condi Mesmer and lately hybrid power-condi mesmer is making me consider going Viper’s + Assassin’s setup up so that I can have dps for both situations. IIRC in raid, there were mobs/bosses that were immune to power damage and vulnerable to condition damage and vice versa?

I really like the design of Chronomancer’s shoulders, but it seems that it wasn’t scaled correctly for Asuras; other races look fine on them. It clips really bad to the point that the top tip ends are sinking deeply into my head and it is quite big compare to many other shoulders on an Asura, especially when my toon is idly standing or using various skills.

http://i.imgur.com/NjIJEF2.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/KqLR6bR.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/xCSj1aG.jpg

Edit: Added a quick visual image for the first one, and fixing links.

Besides what was mentioned, you can also look into Marauder’s, Wanderer’s, or Commander’s; the first one can be obtain easily by learning the recipes from craft npcs in LA.

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

I’ve run a bunch of numbers on Vipers, and it is definitely the go-to condi set for any class not named Revenant.

The real question is, it is worth it to run a condi set on Mesmers right now.

I checked out your other thread. Thank you for doing the calculations and comparisons of Viper’s and Sinisters. Mesmers do have more of a “burst” condition damage compare to other professions. I actually realized that confusion actually does DoT, like torment, besides skill activation damage (it must have change during my hiatus of the game).

Wanting to mention that my mesmer has 100% map completion, including Dry Top and Silverwastes. He finished Verdant Brink a few days ago and did not get the map reward. I’m gonna wait on map completion in other zones until the fix is made.

At least Anet’s aware of the issue, although I am surprised that they post on Reddit and not here (unless there was a previous related thread that has a dev post that I didn’t look hard enough for).

Sombrero.9204:

Don’t you dare the mesmer can’t strongly heal and share boons.
Signet of inspiration on its own is the most op boon sharing thing ever. The whole staff is filled with boons. Phantasms can proc infinite regeneration on the whole team while Phantasmagorical defender shield the team.

Minstrel stats are super duber op on a healing mesmer (and yes a healing mesmer is more than viable I’ve been playing it for over a week and I’m having a blast in decently high level fractals).

Whoa, easy there! I didn’t mean to push a button. I know we got some good supportive skills/traits, but all I kept hearing about are just dps mesmers and alacrity/quickness chronomancers a lot (which others say just bring a Herald with you for boon sharing). Glad to hear that a healing mesmer is viable.

So HoT expansion brought several various new prefixes that give 4 attributes instead of the usual 3 that we’ve known. Of the new quad attributes, here’s what seems to be categorized for mesmers:

Power-oriented:
- Commander’s
- Marauder’s
- Vigilant
- Crusader’s
- Wanderer’s

Condition damage-oriented:
- Viper’s (although it also includes power)
- Trailblazer’s

I am not sure about Minstrel’s as we don’t have strong group healing capabilities and other professions can perform boon sharing better than we can.

Comparing to triple attributes, the quad stats tend to give more overall points while triple seems to bring a bit extra more for the primary attribute.

One-handed, Triple attribute, ascended:
90+125+90 = 305

One-handed, Quad attribute, ascended:
108+108+59+59 = 334

Two-handed, Triple attribute, ascended:
179+251+179 = 609

Two-handed, Quad attribute, ascended:
215+215+118+118 = 666

Are the quad attributes worth having or are the triple attributes still consider better choice when it comes to PvE/raid/fractal? Or is it still too early to decide? Also, has anyone try having a mixture of quad and triple attributes setup?

tobascodagama.2961:

Still, if the next Elite doesn’t have MH Pistol, folks are gonna riot.

I’ve had my Gift of Quip sitting in my bank, waiting until that happens.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Yes.

That’s not to say it’s not effective, but it’s a very different playstyle from most condi, and yet also different from power. It really is more the “true” hybrid style, funny enough.

Ah, I’ve been wanting to try an actual hybrid DPS build and thought of Rampager before Viper came in. Guess I gotta play around with these stats to find a middle ground. Is there a minimum amount of condition damage to be consider decent?

I can see Viper’s being useful for keeping confusion and possibly torment up longer while providing a power/condi hybrid playstyle. Since I enjoy using scepter/shield often, I’m thinking Viper might be something that I need to look into more than Marauder’s (which I was going for in a power build). However, the low precision does make me consider me getting some Assassin or Rampager in the mix.

Out of curiosity, why is Rampager’s not as popular? Is it due to not having enough condition damage compare to Sinister?

Eponet.4829:

I’m actually curious on how some pieces of marauder’s gear holds up.

It’s slightly less overall offensive stats, but power/precision together are very close to berserker/assassin levels, while the stat being reduced (Ferocity) is the least valuable of the three when taking fencer’s finesse into consideration.

I got intrigued by Marauder’s stats. Sure, it’s a bit lower on power/precision/ferocity compare to berserker/assassin stats, but that vitality can help us not be full glass cannon at least.

Sanderinoa.8065:

@phloww
I’ve followed the chaosline conversations and mimic being reduced is definitely great. the increased boon duration is of course also beneficial. Sadly though, alacrity isn’t affected by boon duration, and the decrease of mimic is an 18 seconds difference which quite simply doesn’t quite compete against all of the bonusses added by the other traitlines.

However the main reason I disagree with using chaos is the addition of the revenant. The kitten class supports with 16 might just by standing still, and already boosts our boon duration by 50%. That all should allow for perma might and ~permaquickness already.

Chaos may find its way in less organized groups and in other game modes it definitely will(where staff is more relevant), but in PvE it hasn’t got enough benefits to compete.

Ah, good points. Thank you!

Edit: Also, I think there’s a typo within Echo of Memory section. I think it’s suppose to be Signet of the Ether and not Signet of Illusions that can recharge the phantasm skill. XD Also, I wonder if Signet of Illusions may have some usage since it recharges your shatter skills?

Edit2: Nevermind, Signet of Illusions only recharges the 4 shatters and not Continuum Split. Darn.

I already sent a bug report – just finished 100% map completion for Verdant Brink and no chest reward. Hope a fix is on the way soon.

Sanderinoa.8065:

I’ve updated my dulfy guide on my own thoughts on the chrono in pve.
What it basically comes down to is that for long fights you’ve made a great choice. Because of the difficulty in traitchoice with dueling(plus melee dependency of fencers finesse), domination comes out slightly better than dueling, but if you like your vigor, you should stay with dueling.

Illusions is great for the shatter reduction and phantasmal haste/compounding power both got buffed with the reduced damage change and chronophantasma.
Especially short fights can use dueling+domination as you can spam alacrity ooc through shatters to decrease CS cooldown, and phantasmal haste loses functionality in fights without a decent duration.

Inspiration can be slotted later on if you really need a lot of reflection, but I’d suggest attempting to master a quadrouple feedback first with mimic&CS. Inspiration can replace domination/dueling if you want enormous reflect uptime with phantasmal haste, but you can replace illusions instead if you want to exchange some for damage.

Mesmers have switched traits frequently since forever, the static chrono line simply makes things a bit easier.

EDIT: for clarification if you’re not aware, I’m referring to the class guide on dulfy which presumes a dungeon/fractal/(raid) scenario, implying a standard level of support coming from partymemembers.

Great guide as usual! I do have a couple, curious questions. What are your thoughts of Chaos traitline? When taking Mimic, wouldn’t Master of Manipulation trait be useful to reduce it down to 72 secs? Plus, there is Bountiful Disillusionment trait for a stability and boons. I expect the trait to be more defensive/support oriented and perhaps it’s seen more in Pvp/Wvw, right?

Edit: Some typo. >.<

tobascodagama.2961:

Both main hands synergise pretty well with Shield, TBH. Power builds obviously favour Sword, while Condi Shatter builds like Scepter.

Honestly, I find both main hands to be quite viable in both power and condi builds. I tend to use scepter in a power build and it works fine (especially in areas where I can’t/don’t want to melee).

Recently, I use Chr/Cha/Ins setup and sometimes swap Chaos for Domination or Illusion if I want more damage or more shatters or underwater combat (until wells are usable in the water). When facing new enemies and while still not knowing much of their techniques, I tend to play more defensive before going more offensive, in addition to what Tobascodagama has mentioned. I like having a stunbreaker or stability and condition cleanser (directly or indirectly via traits like Mender’s Purity) in my bar. Out of all the wells, I find Well of Eternity to be least useful for me due to it forcing me to stay in it to get heal/condition removal compare to other heals that I can use while moving around; I feel I gain more if I take other heals, including Ether Feast depending on which traits I take.

I want to mention that Blink helps alot in the new zones and Mimic allows one extra well usage so I tend to take Master of Manipulation instead of Illusionary Defense (Mirror is a nice quick heal and reflect if not taking Feedback). With mobs having lots of CCs, Mirror of Anguish tends to help out (if I’m not using staff). In Domination, you can bring signets to provide condition removal and distortion (which the latter synergizes with Inspiring Distortion and Illusionary Inspiration traits).

The nice thing about Chronomancer is that every spec has a usage to it, making lots of variety of builds….and indecisiveness for us. XD

Edit: What do you enjoy doing more? Shatter? Being more supportive or having utilities? Interrupting?

Edit2: Sorry, I’ll explain a bit more of Chaos vs Dom vs Illu when it comes to utilities and if I keep Inspiration and Chronomancer traits. I usually keep 2 utility wells and the heal and 3rd utility is:

- Chaos: Mirror and Blink or Mimic
- Dom: Signet of the Ether and Midnight Signet or Signet of Inspiration
- Illu: Ether Feast and Decoy or Mirror Images

I also want to add to Tobascodagama’s post that Commander’s stat prefix with Chaos trait works very well. I heard Viper’s an alternative to Sinister/Rampager.

I’m thinking of going for a mix of Marauder/Commander/X setup, with X being Berserker, Assassin, Wanderer’s, or Vigilant (depending on how much crit I’ve already obtain).

I LOVE Chronomancer in PvE. Time Warp and Gravity Well are both really good elites. I personally enjoy all the wells except for the Well of Eternity (mainly due to having to stand in it and wait for the heals/condition removals can work against you and I much prefer a more mobile heal/condition removal). Chronomancer traits are for the most part, really good. I switch from having more alacrity to more shatter-spamming at times. And they have lots of tricks to break the breakbar quite easily.

I went on my necromancer and he can use his wells underwater (it’ll just be point-blank AoE instead of ground-target). It would be great if chronomancer’s wells can also be used underwater.

This rune does make me consider using Gravity Well.

Doing AC dungeon path 3 and discover that I can stun the graveling burrow objects with my Tides of Time. I don’t know if that’s consider “cool”, but it was not what I expected.

Welp, I’m liking the rune!

My dream of iWarlock being powerful got shattered!!! A chaos beam or a homing projectile, like you said, Xyonon, would be nice. Based from the wiki, with various levels of terrain and environment and target movement, it seems iSwordsman has to highest chance to land a hit on a target (wiki hasn’t mention about iAvenger’s chance of hitting the target, but we assume it’s about 100% of the time).

Anyways, back on topic, I did not get to experience the raid during BWE3, but the wells only target 5 allies/mobs, which makes me feel that 2 chronomancers (one in each group) each carrying variations would be beneficial. For example, one could have TW and the other have Gravity Well (at least from a video I saw with 2 chronos in the group). But that MAY NOT mean it’s most optimal. I think many of us are just waiting to see as well as needing more testings to determine what is most optimal for the raid group as a whole.

Out of curiosity, what would be the minimum personal crit chance? At least over 50%? I feel like I want some toughness and vitality for the raid and HoT maps so some Valkyrie and Captain would be in the mix of my Berserker/Assassin setup.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

When they hit :P

Hey! Hey! I don’t want any of the phantasms missing now! They have no excuse now that they take a lot less damage from those AoEs. :P

Edit: (Uh, can they actually miss? I haven’t seen one miss unless they die shortly after summoned)

Xyonon.3987:

Without diing illusions – 3 warlocks in a full dps build and we’re top tier … :P

Good thing I’m enjoying the staff for the past few weeks. I was surprised how much damage they do (as long as many conditions are on the target).

While it is a nice suggestion, I am also hesitant and concerned. I like Chronophantasma and Illusionary Reversion; it has a nice 2-phantasm-1-clone combo that allows me to shatter twice within 2 seconds. Also, I feel that Illusionary Reversion tends to fit Chronomancer more in that you’re saving time to generate a clone (as in, reversing time to make an illusion). I always consider the Illusion trait to be more focus on reducing cooldowns of illusion/shatter-related skills.

Thank you, Roy, for this change!

squealing like a little girl Hooray!!! Now I have to choose which phantasm to bring. Love this!

I think it’s much better than before. I don’t mind the “space” between F4 and F5. Now if only the illusion dots can differ in color from clone and phantasm and phantasms with chronophantasma buff.

I am gonna call it! Vitality on armor only will now scale by a certain % over to minions/pets/illusions health. Frifox discovered the vitality on armor was giving phantasms more health. It was not confirmed if this is intentional or not (we assumed it’s a bug that’ll get a hotfix).

Source: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Vitality-from-armor-scales-up-Illusions-HP/first#post5552618

Right now in PvE, it’s kinda unclear as Hiemdal said until we got more info of raids and HoT mechanics. Besides Knight’s, there is Captain’s that has the same prefix (Power, precision, toughness) but focuses more on precision.

I definitely agree that Mimic needs to have a lower cooldown.

Are we talking about for PvP, WvW, or PvE? Some of these traits are more/less useful depending on the playstyle.

With Chronomancer, I’m in favor for BD when taking Chaos trait in PvE, especially since we don’t have a lot of skills that can grant us lots of stability stacks (coughDolyakSignet/ArmorofEarthcough) and the boons are always nice to have.