Guild Wars 2

I’m sorry.. But I don’t think I could ever recommend this build for anyone.

Wow I wrote that and it looks complicated even to me.. Good thing Alissah added a video.

If there is no icd then it will be rather strong. On a normal rotation I share 6x might/8s Vigor/7sFury/10s Swiftness/6s Regeneration just by using traits/sword+focus/pack runes and that’s wihout using Chaos Storm, Bountiful Interruption, or Chaos Armor.

Now granted, boonsharing will be rather different now that you have to choose between Vigorous Revelation and “RestorativeMantraMendersPurity” (traits merged) in adept tier and Bountiful Disillusionment vs Chaotic Interruption. Along with our newfound ability to stack obscene amounts of protection.

But considering Signet of the Ether and Continuum Shift… Yeah. Without an ICD were looking at Signet of Inspiration popping at least 8 times in barely 12 seconds

I run sw+sw whenever I run shatter or cs lockdown. Usually sw+sw/staff, but occasionally GS (when I’m not busy hating on it). Mostly because it allows me to double-trait the weapon.

Unfortunately I’m on my phone, and can’t give many tips, but it does work. The sword phantasm actually doesn’t run into melee range and has a slight invuln on its leap attack. Riposte is strong, but leaves you so open that its best used against a single target. Its good to have some defense to match the offensive style of sw/sw which is why I tend to run staff with it.

I prefer it over pistol and focus in shatter, but while I’m not a fan of the torch, it is a very strong option for shatter

How many gems does it cost for a server transfer? I’m ready to make the jump!

We need a way to get dev attention about this. Robert Gee has been nailing it lately so I’m surprised a sword trait (or the weapon itself) rework got over looked.

And I reeaallyy don’t wanna cry in the pvp forums.

As it is currently, you have to expect it rather than react to it.

Furious Interruption has a 15s internal cooldown at the moment, so the best way to know when to plan for the proc is after each weaponswap. If greatsword is your goal, try to land your first interrupt with the GS (and watch for the distortion-like effect of quickness) and know what you want to do when you have it:

• autoattacks to proc air/fire sigils
• GS4+GS2 + GS 3 + Shatter
• Heal
• Mantra Charge
• Phantasm Summon

Also keep in mind interrupting while performing a stomp/rezz (usually with the mantra) will speed up the channel of the kill/save. It definitely takes some getting used to. I usually throw sigil of rage on sword or scepter for the autoattacks (or confuse ray in scepters case)

Will do man, tonight most likely.

And my quick texting-from-the-bathroom-tmi-lol response is that great sword works with sigil of rage, but the sigil alone has too big of an ICD (30s) to be reliable since it can proc on any random hit.

Sigil of rage is more of a.. Convenient add-on only when you have already a reliable source of quickness, such as Furious Interruption (6/6/x/x/x is the setup that I’ve tried. I always run Shattered Concentration so it kind of forces my hand).

It’ll be more valuable when we can pair it with chronomancers quickness-shatters and wells. But right now it only tends to be worthwhile when paired with Furious, otherwise you’d just be better off netting more damage from sigil of fire/air.

PvP or WvW?

On Greatsword, with Furious Interruption, yes… Depending on context.

Because Mesmer meta has been the same since launch…

No, seriously. It has.

But also to me the meta is a guide, not the law. I’ll play meta builds to learn a class and better understand its mechanics, to know what I’ll be fighting against, and to use as a reference for creating my own builds. The whole reason lockdown Mesmer became any sort of thing is because of those of us who didn’t listen to “just play shatter” or “hambow can do it better.”

Too many people parrot what they hear from others, not enough people explore. We have all these interesting traits and utilities and you think I shouldn’t even try to make them work because supcutie or helseth says so? No. I disagree. Countless used clone-death builds and has even explored signets. Why does it work for him? Because player skill is still a large factor in how successful a build can be.

Build diversity only really starts to narrow at the higher tiers of play, and many meta builds are geared towards competitive team play. If I’m not training with a specific team to win a specific tourney, then I will be happy with my successes on my favorite builds.

Frenk.5917:

Simple question. Why do YOU not run meta, if you do? Are you aware you are crippling your team? Do you think that you are NOT actually crippling your team?

Not all non-meta builds are bad builds, and not all builds fit every player. I’m great with lockdown, so much so that I’ve become bad with shatter, but I’m still a better player and more useful to my team than 80% of people using shatter builds. Again, skill and wisdom determine whether or not you’re crippling your team.
(Jeez, that sounded far more conceited than I intended.)

Rym.1469:

Atherakhia.4086:

The class sounds fun, but I’m really worried it won’t be competetive. Certainly not in a WvW setting.

Deep in my heart, I hunger for vision of 30 reapers walking into zergs, spamming Rise! with Death Nova, freezing servers and internet connections, covering whole garrisons with pulsing poison fields, over and over and over, as long as there’s 5 enemy players.

150 jagged horrors every 20 seconds sounds laggy and intimidating.

Literally walking. Putting the keybind for it in Settings and all.

This must happen.

Seems it will be Holl and I in combat a week after HoT hits. That’s perfect, we’re nearly identical in skill.

Get ready to go back to your grave Hol!

I wouldn’t mind a warhorn for for a future Mesmer spec.

… But that spec better be a Bard! Would be interesting to have the in-game instruments be useful in combat in some form… Dat mainhand flute.

Curunen.8729:

Got a question – if planning to run this trait setup with Sword/Torch + Staff, would I benefit much from quickness on shatter? http://dulfy.net/gw2traits#build=AgMCbAXcBlw~

The only thing in my mind that it truly makes a difference to is sword AA with that weapon set – so would either of the other two (Chronophantasm or Lost Time) GM traits potentially work better? Thinking about things like keeping iMage out for more condi cleanse or slow on crit helping for some light cc.

What is the build meant for? And what kind of gear did you plan on running? I’d really really recommend against Sum of All Fears vs Malicious Sorcery if you’re running Maimed. Malicious Sorcery, even without scepter, makes Torment much more damaging.

If you’re going for condition damage, you’ll get a slight boost from quickness via Staff auto. If power, then iWarlock and sword auto. I’d actually recommend going with Scepter, even in a power build, if you’re going for quickness. I know the sword immob is strong for landing shatters, but Scepter will output much more damage with a boost from quickness.

EremiteAngel.9765:

I have issued an ultimatum to interrupt mesmers in their mesmer thread

they still think interuppt mesmers > Reapers!

looloolllollol

…..

lets see them try to interrupt or kite us!!!!!!

Shots were fired. War will rage, the peace can come after we introduce some Reapers to the graves they’re so fond of.

Interesting differences of opinion here. Do you feel Reaper will be better suited to WvW or PvP? It seems unanimously agreed that it will be great in PvE

Angel to angel, Chronomancer to Reaper, when the time is upon us I am coming for you Eremite.

Eremite.

You and I will settle this. Reaper to Chronomancer.

Prepare yourself, challenge accepted.

Hey guys, just wondering your opinions on the Reaper vs core Necromancer.

Do you feel that Necros will underperform if not specialized? Right now Chronomancer offers a lot of strong additions but each Mesmer trait line is good enough that there are still plenty of incentives to use regular Mesmer.

In your opinion, is it the same for Necro?

I totally agree. Looking at the changes for Mesmer (not just the elite but the trait rework that’s coming before HoT) shows that he’s been listening and paying attention to the ideas suggested on the forums.
Some of the reworks are very similar to generally agreed upon suggestions and even builds that don’t get much attention (boonshare) are getting very interesting forms of play. There are too many often-requested there to simply be coincidental balancing, so I respect the time spent looking through threads or just generally paying attention to our conversations.

You managed to remove traits and still increase build diversity. Much props!

Manimarco Devil.1790:

Ok instead of spouting random nonsense please explain how what necro’s got is so much better than what we got?

Guardians asked for long range weapons we got them
Necros asked for blast finishers and support skills. They got whirl finishers and a slow hard hitting spec.

For pve
Guardians are already top tier and have a variety of useful skills from reflects to shouts.
Necros are near/are trash tier and their best skills are probably just wells.

The guardian spec provides even more traits that can be used to get large amounts of vunerability/burn to proc with our traits. We got atleast one decent trap that can apply a full 25 stacks instantly.

The necro spec just attempts to give him more damage and is slow as hell. The shouts might be useful for them but most seem to be bad and the entire spec relies on chill which is terrible unless they take the chill does damage trait (which may just pigeonhole them)

For wvw
Guardians and necros are both viable and useful in different ways. Nonetheless guardians got a useful weapon to augment ranged playstyles while necro got a slow gs which cannot be used in zergs and is questionable atm for roaming.

For pvp
Medi guard builds that use bow will undoubtedly pop up and having a better ranged option than scepter is only a plus. Furthermore, guardians got slightly reduced virtue group support but can do more interesting things individually with the immob on resolve and knockback when near X units traits. Traps may or may not prove viable but thats ok because guardians are already an extremely balanced class and its not like you have to run a full trap build to make use of some of the effects.

Necros are also very good in pvp atm. They have very strong ranged damage and are decently durable. They lack mobility which they still didn’t really get from their spec and their spec makes them have to be melee range. Furthermore non supportive shouts sound terrible in pvp since they scale based on the number of people you are fighting and small fights/1v1s is what Spvp is all about. Even if their new spec does a lot of damage, it still needs to make up for the fact it will be melee with low mobility.

Everyone in this forum needs to just stop being shocked and awed by fancy effects and actually look at what the skills do. If you are impressed by just looking like a knock off dervish then by all means go play necro but so far what guardians got is what we needed and that is all that should matter. This is not a ****-measuring contest.

+1. This is the most glorious post I’ve read all day. (Albeit woefully incorrect on the pvp aspect of necro)

Mass Invisibility – Deception
Moa Morph – Transformation
Time Warp – Arcane

/thread

Hehe nah, I’m thinking two manipulations and a glamour here.

That was hilarious.

On the bright side.. Reaper made me take a second swing at rolling a Necro.

A scarey effin norn necro.

Elorna.5329:

They said multiple times during the stream when a certain trait emulates a skill, that it will be the same as using the skill in question, so that other traits can also affect it. It’s the same as using sig of insp, with the recharge, effect and cooldown reduction from signet mastery.

And besides, that’s also how skill-emulating traits work currently in the game as well.

With the marvelous exception of Medics Feedback

Mesmer wins just from the Dr. Wells reference!

Haha but nice video man, I can’t say I entirely agree with everything (such as your opinion on Continuum Shift, I believe its the best thing we received because of how versatile it is in all game modes.) but I do respect your opinion.

I’d say in the end Mesmer got more substantial changes, not just with the specialization but with our complete reworks to all traitlines allowing for all sorts of build diversity.

@Duck I’ll definitely be doing some tests with it. I’m focused on making the best Mesmer support build possible when the patch drops, so I’ll have to gauge the value of Alacrity, Quickness, AoE heals and boonsharing and see which is most useful and easily provided. But I get the feeling tobasco is right atm.

@Mail Ty! And idk, I kinda assumed they nixed the idea of a class forum specialist. Either that or my overwhelming 3 infractions make me ineligible. =P

Are you on US or EU?

The best thing to do is to practice dueling against a Mesmer who can tell you what you’re doing wrong. There are plenty of Mesmer in [OMFG] that wouldn’t mind taking the time to help ya out.

In fact, I’ll be on tonight if you’d like to add me and we’ll step yer Mesmer-smacking game up.

(… Does that make me a traitor? o_O )

Reaper had a cooler presentation for sure. Chronomancer has cooler mechanics.

As far as lockdown goes, I’m betting reaper will be one of the harder classes to lockdown 1v1. They’re based off survival horror monsters like Pyramidhead and Jason which are unstoppable monsters, so I’m betting some sort of Defiance or lots of Stability.

Honestly, I’m a bit surprised that people are overlooking the core inspiration of the Reaper: “Slow survival-horror killers like Pyramid-head or Jason”

This right here, IMO, is the biggest indicator that the reaper will have some sort of stability or CC prevention in spades. What makes survival monsters so scary isn’t how strong they are, it’s that they are relentless and unstoppable.

So yeah, as a team the Chronoreaper combo will be deadly. Reaper’s AoEs combined with Chrono’s Quickness, Alacrity, and ability to stun enemies in place will make for hell of a team.

But versus? Sorry Reapers, we’re dancing on you through time and space simply because of all our evades. I’m betting locking a good reaper down will likely be difficult, but we’ll find out tomorrow.

Thanks a lot for working on this. May I add it to the guide when the expansion hits?

Much appreciated y’all!

So much for my Chronomancer quickness-on-wells-shenanigans idea.

Like the title says, if a Necro drops a well under the effect of quickness will the well pulse its effects quicker?

Any necros have a Time Warping Mesmer buddy to try this with?

I’ve never actually considered the effect quickness has on pulsing effects like Chaos Storm and Null Field, but with Chronomancer having access to wells -some of which have a better final effect than pulse- and a pretty hefty amount of Quickness now I must wonder..

Does quickness increase the rate of pulse-based abilities like our upcoming wells?

Yeah, sharing quickness is going to be largely dependent on comboing Tides of Time, Continuum Shift, Well of Action and Signet of Inspiration. Might even need a lucky Furious Interrupt ontop of that (which would make the entire thing less than worth it)

I don’t think we really need Duelists Discipline. What I’m curious about is the new minor in Chaos that increases our outgoing boon duration by how many boons we have on us. If each boon is around 5% (any less would be pitiful) then there is a chance we can proc 4s or more of Quickness for every 3s application. With 65% boon duration we get that number jumped to about 5s, which would be much easier to share.

Still, at the moment it’s looking like it would take two Mesmer to reliably and constantly pump out Quickness.

OK, SO QUICKNESS IS COOL AND ALL BUT.. HOW IS IT VALUABLE TO A MESMER?

Good question! Glad I asked!

• Phantasm Summons
• Mantra Charges
• Healing Skills
• Stomps/Rezzing
• Channeling

(Weapon skills are listed in order of most benefitting to least benefitting from Quickness)

• SCEPTER Every single scepter skill gains a considerable boost from Quickness. The autoattack will net more damage and produce clones quicker, the counter attack will proc faster, leaving less room for the opponent to react in the time between the block and torment, and most importatly Confusing Images will channel far quicker netting more power damage than even Blurred Frenzy! It’s advised to stick a Pistol along with the scepter when working with quickness for a strong mid-range game and access to a reliable interrupt.

• GREATSWORD I’ll just.. I’ll just throw this out there: Quickness Mirrorblade(2) -> Mindspike (3) -> Shatter. Owch! Quickness on greatsword is already a dangerous thing, since every skill has a bit of a cast time that can be enhanced, but when the patch drops the Greatsword trait will be changed to reduce GS cooldowns with every 3rd hit from the autoattack… Feel free to start rubbing your hands together sinisterly(which, amazingly, is an actual word) any time now.

• SWORD The sword benefits from quickness mostly through its autoattack (1). While both iSwordsman(5) and Illusionary Counter(4) on the offhand also benefit, the autoattack will both do more damage and strip boons at a much faster rate. Considering that it also cleaves (hits multiple targets), it is worth considering a Sigil of Rage.

• STAFF Like sword, the autoattack on the Staff along with the iWarlock summon benefit the most from Quickness. With the staff auto gaining an additional bounce in the upcoming patch, Quickness could help make the staff a decent power damage weapon while improving its already good condition application. Chaos Storm, Phase Retreat, and Chaos Armor are all either instant or near-instant and thus wouldn’t gain much if any benefit.

• PISTOL Pretty self explainatory, but its worth noting that the Pistol is the ideal offhand in a build that focuses on Quickness due to the cast time on both skills. I’d recommend combining it with Scepter, but Sword works just as well.

• Focus and Torch don’t gain as much benefit from Quickness as the other weapons, and thus there isn’t much to say on them.

BUILDS
(Coming soon)

VIDS
(Coming when the builds come.. Ideally.)

… Theres a whole -…. Shatterload. (-__- damb you profanity filter!) of changes coming to the Mesmer with the upcoming HoT expansion. The Chronomancer, master manipulator of the time/space continuum, has a access to unique speed-altering abilities like Slow, Quickness, and Alacrity which may be a bit daunting to players who have never had to utilize these boons/buffs.

OK, lets be honest, none of us have gotten to try Slow & Alacrity (except TyPin who is apparently such a pro Chronomancer that he fell out of his timeline and into our present – his past.. Hmm not so pro then, I guess? ) but Quickness is a boon that has been in the game for a while, though mostly utilized by other classes such as Ranger and Thief.

Well now it’s the Mesmer’s turn.

QUICKNESS

Quickness is currently a buff (but it is soon to be a duration-stacking boon) that increases all actions by 50%. This can be beneficial for things like rezzing/stomping and any sort of channel such as Scepter’s confuse ray or Greatsword’s autoattack. Most applications of quickness are short duration, and for good reason: quickness is a pretty hefty damage boost. Sometimes, though, it can be a detriment such as when using a defensive ability like Mirror to defend against an attack. Using a quickness-boosted Blurred Frenzy against a fricking Rangers 1500r Rapid Fire? Lol sorry, says the smug little boon.

- It’s worth noting that Quickness from most sources is usually granted for 3 seconds.

Ways to Apply Quickness

• Furious Interruption (Dueling XII ; 3s Quickness on interrupt; 15s ICD) A good trait if you can grab it, but odds are.. you won’t be able to grab it! There are so many traits in Dueling that overshadow this ability, but the 15s ICD is being reduced to 5s when the expansion hits. After the patch, this will be an excellent way to gain quickness, especially with about 30% boon duration boosting this to 4s

• Seize The Moment(Chrono) (Chrono XIII ; 1s Quickness Per Illusion Shattered) 3 Clone shatters grant 4s of quickness?! Check the Greatsword section below.

• Sigil of Rage (50% Chance on Crit – 3s Quickness; 30s ICD) Sigils of Rage aren’t the best when used alone, but when combined with FI they start to show promise. When the expansion hits, these will be much more valuable as an extra source of quickness.

• Tides of Time(Chrono) (Shield 5 ; Grant 1.5s of Quickness when struck by Projectile.) While this seems minimal, remember that the skill shoots out and returns, granting 1.5s of quickness both times. Not sure how useful this will be for the Mesmer personally, but will be nice for allies.

• Time Warp ( 11 pulses of 1s Quickness in a large AoE Ethereal field ; 180s CD) Time Warp is an excellent team ability that is held back by an agonizing 3 minute cooldown. When the patch drops it’ll become a Glamour and have its cooldown reduced to something more manageable. Still, this is a valuable elite when used properly.

• Well of Action(Chrono) (3s Quickness on final pulse ; 30s CD) More ways to grant Quickness to yourself, your illusions ,and your allies. What makes Well of Action interesting is the potential to synergize with other quickness sources like Furious Interruption, Continuum Shift(F5) and Seize the Moment. Imagine sharing all that with Signet of Inspiration!

I didn’t mean building around interrupts in PvE, but Guang specifically mentioned the pistol interrupt trait, which is making me wonder where /when interrupts are preferred in PvE.

That’s really good to hear guang, but I’ve a question..

How often/likely is it for Mesmers to land interrupts on bosses on dungeons? In PvP an interrupt build is only good if you can manage to land an interrupt about every 8-10 seconds. What should a Mesmer speccing interrupt traits be on the lookout for?

That trailer was so dope

Juba.8406:

JonPeters.5630:

Was hoping saying it once was enough but I’ll say it again. This is a work in progress. Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. Slow every 3rd critical hit could also be every 10th critical hit. It could be 8s of slow instead of two. Obviously these numbers are an attempt to be accurate otherwise we wouldn’t even give them but a lot of this stuff will go up and/or down before HoT is released.

Jon

This trait “Time Marches On” is Too OP.

Compared to Warrior he have to spec into 2 trait lines (Defense+Discipline) and pick 2 Major traits to get a similar effect, but Chronomancer spec in 1 line and get it as a Minor trait.

Give us some of that great sword/sword mobility and then we’ll talk about fairness.

JonPeters.5630:

Was hoping saying it once was enough but I’ll say it again. This is a work in progress. Try to give feedback based on the utility and synergy of the trait instead of the numbers. Slow every 3rd critical hit could also be every 10th critical hit. It could be 8s of slow instead of two. Obviously these numbers are an attempt to be accurate otherwise we wouldn’t even give them but a lot of this stuff will go up and/or down before HoT is released.

Jon

Hey Jon, with respect I think us giving feedback on the proposed numbers should also be valid. Most of us Mesmers are judging the value of the numbers (such as 1 boon removed per well) based on comparative traits/utilities such as Menders Purity or the reworked signet trait.

As far as the wells go, I think the trait should either reward being able to stay within the well (since combat is very active/mobile. And just about every class, including rival chrono can drop an AoE on it) or give a greater reward for the final pulse. Perhaps resistance.

Siva Mira.3546:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Keep in mind slow has no effect on movement speed.

…and if the Mesmer is sitting there auto attacking one target for longer than 2 … Maybe 3 seconds then something is wrong.

Also.. All those grandmasters are tempting, so you shouldn’t expect all Mesmer to be trying to slow you. (Just us dastardly lockdown Mesmer)

You should also keep in mind that a Mesmer doesn’t need Cripple or Chill to kill a target. On the other hand this Slow is way more dangerous than those 2 on Mesmer. It makes Mesmer’s enemy has a hard time to use their skill to counter him.

On the matter of AA, if you have mastered your GS or at least seen great players using it then there is no doubt that GS can pull out a lot of hits in just a matter of seconds with the combination of Spatial Surge, Mirror Blade and Mind Stab. The Slow here isn’t just there for itself but it also boost your Critical Chance by 30% and getting critical hit by a Mesmer GS for every hit isn’t funny.

But I am not saying “It is OP, NERF IT!” without actually seeing it in the final form in action but I am saying it has the potential to be OP.

Very good points, and I don’t dispute that.

I’m saying the threat of “permanent-slow” isn’t as profound as some may think.

Sidenote: Also, so many Mesmers all over Tyria are messing themselves over this bouncing/piecing, perma-crippling clone-obliterating bows y’all have.

L M A O

So THATS why Rylock plays shatter more often now! It all makes sense.

That clip was glorious btw. Commentary and all haha

Oh my god he still hasn’t been beaten yet. -_-

Someone take this guy down before he claims himself best Mesmer China.

Edit: Oh man everyone that has every had to deal with the arrogance of one particular char Mesmer, please check the comments below!

apharma.3741:

All nice ideas but what I’d rather see is the precision aspect removed and sword skills deal bonus damage to targets with no boons.

-20% CD, Sword skills do 50% more damage to boonless targets.

And yes, it is painfully obvious I’m thinking of PvE but hey, it’ll take a lot of skill getting that damage buff going in PvP.

Actually, I think this is really good for all game modes. I’d really like this.

Siva Mira.3546:

phys.7689:

Ragnarox.9601:

just look at this:

• Time Marches On – You move 25% faster. The duration of incoming movement-impairing conditions is reduced by 25%. (Cripple. Chilled, Immobilize)

Adept

• Delayed Reactions – Interrupting a foe slows them. (3s of Slow)

Master

• Danger Time – Gain additional critical hit chance against slowed enemies. (30%)

Grandmaster

• Lost Time – Every 3rd critical hit will slow your target. (2s of Slow)

God kitten thats almost perma slow…how to fight that….I was hyped for dragonhunter but all other classes get serious buffs….I am hoping they will buff our medi or shouts to give us resistance or else we will be like necro in pve – almost non existant.

not permaslow at all.
mesmer hits and illusion hits are counted separately in trait descriptions.

so they have to hit you 3 times, which usually takes more than 2 seconds, and they have to be crits. so if they have 50% crit rate, they have to hit you 6 times on average.

scepter is slow, staff is slow, it basically comes down to GS and sword for decent application uptime, really aint that crazy.

From the look if you might actually able to get a 100% critical chance on a Slow target. Once you got a Slow on your target you literally Slow your target back to back in an infinite loop with just your GS AA alone.

Keep in mind slow has no effect on movement speed.

…and if the Mesmer is sitting there auto attacking one target for longer than 2 … Maybe 3 seconds then something is wrong.

Also.. All those grandmasters are tempting, so you shouldn’t expect all Mesmer to be trying to slow you. (Just us dastardly lockdown Mesmer)

Stormbolt.7293:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

The slow trait is an awesome alternative, and I’m fairly certain a chronomancer lockdown build can net more damage, but the tradeoff is steep. You lose either Dom, dueling, or chaos. You can go Dom, Chaos, Chrono for pure lockdown but..

I still think vanilla mesmer will have it on the lockdown front. You won’t even need to buy the expansion to have a monstrous lockdown build. I really like the chrono traits but I’m glad they made the other traits competitive enough that its an actual choice and not a requirement. Odd as it sounds, I’m glad Chronomancer doesn’t entirely outshine Mesmer in either shatter or lockdown.

Though… Dat gravity well..

I think you’re severely underestimating just how powerful slow will be on lockdown builds. Constant slows, 15 sec cooldowns on interrupt, and immobilization? Hell yes. Slow makes things more difficult for your opponent, and makes interrupts easier. Dueling is mostly a damage-oriented tree. It’s nice, but by no means mandatory for a post-HoT lockdown build.

Yeah, Dueling would be the line I drop if I were to pick up Chrono, but If we can’t grab those illusion producing traits, I’m still thinking DE (and clone production in general) will be rather important to remain viable. Less so in WvW, but I’m just not quite sold yet.

Also, dat pistol trait. But more also, AoE blind on shatter is going to be fantastic for lockdown builds. Blind is a strong control condition when it can be rapidly applied.

Not saying I’m not hyped for the Chrono stuff, but Dom/Dueling/Chaos – and more importantly DE- is hell of a contender.

Ithamir.5928:

How about:
All’s Well that Ends Well - Wells also activate end effect at creation. Wells remove conditions from allies when they end. (1 condition)

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Ithamir.5928:

tobascodagama.2961:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Quickness doesn’t affect movement speed (that’s what the super speed trait is for) and all our shatters are instant anyway. The trait will have no effect on shatter rate

I think the idea is that Quickness speeds up your skill activations, meaning you can use more skills before F5 expires.

Exactly. Since you need to reproduce some illusions. However, F5 isn’t required. You produce illusions, F3 to daze, gain quickness, reproduce illusion faster, F1. Alacrity may speed the process even further!

Quickness for skill activations I get, especially for skills with cast times.

But using quickness for clone production outside of GS2 and scepter auto.. Eh, Not seeing it. I highly doubt this trait will increase our shatter rate, because it’ll barely increase our clone production.

The trait is good for sure, and definitely grandmaster worthy, but I can’t see a shatter build going for this over Master of Frag, Deceptive Evasion and Mental Torment.

So you’re saying that shatter mesmers (all pvp mesmers) will stay just that, mesmers. And not take Chrono at all? That possibility depresses me, as it’s the only playstyle I enjoy (crruently). Maybe an interrupt chrono will be a thing…

Nah, you can’t get Continuum Shift(F5) without training into chrono. I can almost guarantee there will be both Mesmers and Chronomancer out on the battlefield. I’m saying that there’s still a good reason to stick with vanilla Mesmer, which is good. I wouldn’t want being chronomancer an absolute requirement to be viable.

The slow trait is an awesome alternative, and I’m fairly certain a chronomancer lockdown build can net more damage, but the tradeoff is steep. You lose either Dom, dueling, or chaos. You can go Dom, Chaos, Chrono for pure lockdown but..

I still think vanilla mesmer will have it on the lockdown front. You won’t even need to buy the expansion to have a monstrous lockdown build. I really like the chrono traits but I’m glad they made the other traits competitive enough that its an actual choice and not a requirement. Odd as it sounds, I’m glad Chronomancer doesn’t entirely outshine Mesmer in either shatter or lockdown.

Though… Dat gravity well..

Ithamir.5928:

tobascodagama.2961:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Quickness doesn’t affect movement speed (that’s what the super speed trait is for) and all our shatters are instant anyway. The trait will have no effect on shatter rate

I think the idea is that Quickness speeds up your skill activations, meaning you can use more skills before F5 expires.

Exactly. Since you need to reproduce some illusions. However, F5 isn’t required. You produce illusions, F3 to daze, gain quickness, reproduce illusion faster, F1. Alacrity may speed the process even further!

Quickness for skill activations I get, especially for skills with cast times.

But using quickness for clone production outside of GS2 and scepter auto.. Eh, Not seeing it. I highly doubt this trait will increase our shatter rate, because it’ll barely increase our clone production.

The trait is good for sure, and definitely grandmaster worthy, but I can’t see a shatter build going for this over Master of Frag, Deceptive Evasion and Mental Torment.

Ithamir.5928:

ASP.8093:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

• Lost Time and Chronophantasma are very strong, Quickness on Shatter doesn’t seem able to compete unless traited with Furious Interruption

It’s not much, but it helps you throw weapon attacks into the burst, which is exactly when you want them most. Consider the potential synergy with F5 “POP ALL YOUR COOLDOWNS ASAP!” Shatter as well.

Time will tell whether or not it’s better than Chronophant for shatter burst builds. (My first impulse is Chronophant, but I can see this going either way.)

What are you guys talking about? Seize The Moment is my first choice! Diversion, gain quickness and then Mind Wrack them!

Quickness doesn’t affect movement speed (that’s what the super speed trait is for) and all our shatters are instant anyway. The trait will have no effect on shatter rate