Guild Wars 2

Yeah, still crashing like crazy… :/

Thank you, that’s good to know.

Yeah I’m going to sit out till it’s fixed.

Would love personal ICDs of traits, runes and sigils.

Don’t care about enemies’ ICDs – I think it’s better to keep those hidden just like their skill cooldowns which encourages thoughtful play (ie being hit by nightmare rune fear, knowing 1 minute till the next time).

Serious crash problem at the moment.

Just happened twice in succession.

Yeah I’ve just had two crashes in pvp since today’s patch.

No idea why, was working fine before today’s patch.

Happened in the middle of two good fights as well… :/

Dahkeus.8243:

Hmm…I’d be skeptical of seeing any AoE spells on phantasms, even though melee cleave on phantasm works. I think that if you ever had any phantasm that dropped a red circle on the ground, it would start to get really crowded/messy once you have a mesmer that can have 3 of these up at once dropping AoEs in addition to any red circles they drop themselves. It’d just get really messy for people playing against a mesmer like this.

However, if they gave phantasms a burst AoE similar to Mind Spike, which doesn’t cast a red circle, it may still work for ranged AoE without crowding the ground in red circles.

It doesn’t have to be a persistent AoE – could simply be a one time AoE attack, or perhaps persist for a very short duration (couple of seconds).

Of course the radius should be suitably small and perhaps the attack could be fired off as a ground targeted projectile.

The shield block change is the single best thing I’ve read regarding Chrono over all the beta weekends.

Very excited for shield now.

What if the Shield/Torch phantasms and Disenchanter spawned at range, but executed a ground targeted AoE attack at the target enemy’s location?

Thinking like Thief shortbow #4 and so on.

So they could spawn next to you and then cast the ranged ground targeted AoE ability.

This would solve the being in melee problem, while maintaining the benefits of the AoE over bounce solution.

As if most builds including direct damage are hard to play in the first place…

Regarding condition mesmers, the only skills to keep an eye out for and avoid (block, evade, whatever…) are Shatters, iCounter, Confusing Images and possibly the pDuelist burst (include magic bullet with that as well).

Given you can cleave illusions with no care in the world now, and Shatters are not difficult to avoid with a tiny bit of thought, it’s not difficult to avoid their damage the same as power or hybrid builds. Ok if you get hit by a few stacks of torment/confusion it’s easy to shrug off (I personally tend to ignore less than 3 stacks of torment and confusion). And even with confusion’s pitiful DoT it can be countered by kiting and taking care with skill use.

If I’m able to hold my own and succeed as a power build using only mantra of resolve to cleanse vs a condi mesmer, and only consider myself to be an average player, then anyone should be able to do it providing they take time to learn key mesmer condition application skills and gameplay habits (many follow predictable skill usage).

The only thing that makes condition mesmers “(too) powerful” is if they take PU, for obvious reasons. Without PU, mesmer condition builds are average and can be easily neutered. I believe if PU (the TRAIT) either nerfed or condition builds have to make a sacrifice to use it, then there is no problem at all.

Oh hell yes, channelled block on shield is amazing!

And looking forward to tides of time wall fix.

Amazing changes overall, very excited to play next BWE (assuming first weekend of October?)

Illusions (clones/phantasms) are your resource – up to 3 out at any time, max.

Shatters are what you use to blow your resources for damage/cc/support/defence.

Illusions can also do damage by themselves:
- clones only condi damage
- phantasms condi or direct (power) damage (see individual phantasm)

Use Illusions personal damage and shattering to supplement your weapon and utility skills.

Thinking along those lines, I would have loved elite skills similar to Harmony and Mayhem from Skyrim.

So a ground target AoE that either:
- causes all enemies to see their allies as enemies (all bars turn red and can be damaged)
- causes all enemies to see everyone as allies (all bars turn green and can’t be damaged)

That’s an awesome trick, thanks for sharing.

I don’t want to speak for anyone, but I would imagine he may likely play again once HoT launches, but in any case if he isn’t likely to want to theorycraft anymore then this information is all completely out of date and should be unstickied – in case any new players come to the forums and try to find answers in this thread…

Yes, I also chose blacklight and am very happy with it.

Is that it, seriously? :o

Disappointing…

Build templates for sure.

Everything back on sale from the last few weeks.

Seeing as you (all) have already covered all the points regarding IR and Cp, I’ll just say one thing:

I ran a condi shatter build all weekend of BWE2 and switched from IR to Improved Alacrity which is by far the better choice while IR is in its current state. Without Improved Alacrity now, there is a noticeable difference in alacrity uptime.

Between Cp, DE and alacrity, it was easy to max shatters. So I don’t particularly care about this proposal because I plan to use Improved Alacrity + Cp anyway.

I will admit, if wanting to run something like Chaos/Illusions/Chrono or Domination/Illusions/Chrono then IR+Cp would be a useful choice for illusion generation. With Inspiration/Illusion/Chrono, IR is unnecessary thanks to the all trait synergy on phantasms.

i would just like the warden to appear directly in front of the target it is cast on, rather than sometimes to the side – so it is a guaranteed projectile block on cast unless the opponent moves.

Is it my imagination or can you no longer dodge roll onto these and keep forward momentum?

It seems now if you run towards and dodge onto them you simply jump up vertically and unable to drift in any direction, instead of continuing to travel forwards as it used to be.

It’s a little annoying if it is intended.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Illusionary Reversion – No longer has an illusion requirement, but is swapped with Seize the Moment.

I’d pay the £35 just to have access to Chrono, even if I got nothing else.

I almost can’t enjoy playing without it after having tasted it the last BWE.

Well, squishier in that there are no damage mitigation traits – for example like the protection and regen you get in Chaos.

Every chrono trait is geared offensively (edit: apart from the 25% reduction on cripple/chill/immobilise from the movement speed minor), generally frequent shattering is encouraged (for alacrity), although you can pair it with lines like Inspiration and Chaos if you want to go for something tanky.

But if you learn to use CSplit effectively, you can get a lot out of it.

denis.9487:

Curunen.8729:

I stand by my opinion that the tradeoff to take Chaos is minor now. With the overall damage boosts from gear/stats/amulets, those traits are no longer as mandatory as previously. MoF is bleh because you’ve got enough precision anyway, compounding power is nice but non essential, iCelerity isn’t essential when you can just wait a tiny bit longer for some skills (and having all the defensive bonuses in Chaos helps). To me they are very minor.

8s with those boons is fine for me – but then it is the boons more than the duration that I believe should be the emphasis of PU.

I don’t care about thief at all and honestly am not comparing – I’m looking at this from the point of view as a mesmer only that PU has been repeatedly buffed (with the only “nerf” being the inclusion of might and swiftness) over the years with no concrete reason or that it was even necessary.

I think you forget pre patch. Just maybe the buff to pu lets us fill the Plus 1 role. We can compete with a thief in pvp. Pre patch we could not so this idea that pu was buffed for no reason is false.

Well we’ve also got blinds on shatter, free instant F3 and F4, Ineptitude, Power Block (weakness) among other things.

I don’t believe PU is necessary to compete with thieves currently, or even if it was in its previous state it would still be just fine.

I stand by my opinion that the tradeoff to take Chaos is minor now. With the overall damage boosts from gear/stats/amulets, those traits are no longer as mandatory as previously. MoF is bleh because you’ve got enough precision anyway, compounding power is nice but non essential, iCelerity isn’t essential when you can just wait a tiny bit longer for some skills (and having all the defensive bonuses in Chaos helps). To me they are very minor.

8s with those boons is fine for me – but then it is the boons more than the duration that I believe should be the emphasis of PU.

I don’t care about thief at all and honestly am not comparing – I’m looking at this from the point of view as a mesmer only that PU has been repeatedly buffed (with the only “nerf” being the inclusion of might and swiftness) over the years with no concrete reason or that it was even necessary.

Both.

In wvw as a power build you can take Chrono, Melandru runes and poultry soup for pretty kitten good passive resistance to cc conditions, as well as all other conditions while maintaining 25% runspeed and high damage through gear.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Curunen.8729:

Now it [PU] is pretty much a free choice, no sacrifice needed.

You mean, besides the loss of the damage from Domination, Dueling or Illusions?

No power build really takes Illusions anymore, no condition build takes Domination. Only Duelling is kind of essential. There’s barely any sacrifice to take Chaos (15% shatter cooldowns, iCelerity and a few other minor things aside).

Ross Biddle.2367:

Shatter without IP or DE was completely unviable and not even worth taking Chaos pre patch simply for PU. An investment into Chaos was ONLY verging on worth while when taking the ENTIRE package into account. You got manipulation range or cd, can’t remember which, chaotic dampening, regen at 75% health, protection on regen proc, a bucketload of toughness, AND then PU on top of that (which was only +1 second… come on).

Others were more interested in getting at Chaotic Interruption.

Exactly, it wasn’t worth it because of the trait point limitations. Now those limitations are gone.

CI is a kitten strong trait now with the merge with BI, but still I’d say more people are taking PU over both it and BD because PU offers much more reward with less effort.

apharma.3741:

Curunen.8729:

apharma.3741:

As for PU, it’s fine as is. It’s a GM, build defining trait which is exactly what ANet wanted. It wasn’t fine at +1 second as only 1 build in 1 game mode ever took it. Before the boon nerf power builds could take it for the guarantee of something defensive when they stealth, afterwards it was not worth it at all which is why they went for IP as being able to use distortion whenever was more viable.

It wasn’t commonly taken because we didn’t have access to 3 full traitlines simultaneously, and IP required using 6 or 30 points in Illusions.

People even tried before to run shatter builds without DE in order to go 6 points in Chaos and 6 points in Illusions, because even at +1second with the boons it was very strong and almost worth the sacrifice of DE.

Now it [PU] is pretty much a free choice, no sacrifice needed.

It didn’t need buffing at all.

You could run a power shatter build in WvW with DE and the MW modifier as both only required 20 points in duelling and domination. Your other 60 points could pick up PU with the rest of the Domination line as Ross Biddle said for more survivability. This was when you were almost guaranteed to get either protection or aegis, usually both and provided you with enough survivability to comfortably run power shatter as a roamer.

When PU had the extra boons it became completely unviable and no-one would ever make that trade off that wasn’t already going into chaos already.

I would agree to make the boons purely defensive – the addition might and swiftness I believe should be reverted, so overall:

1. PU adds +33% to duration of mesmer only stealth skills

2. Change boon pool (not sure about this, just tossing an idea out) to,
- protection, 3s – 20% chance
- regen, 3s – 20% chance
- resistance, 2s – 10% chance
- vigour, 3s – 20% chance
- aegis, 3s – 15% chance
- stability, 3s – 15% chance
(boons proc one per second)

3. Change The Pledge to flat -20% cooldown of torch skills.

4. Change base veil stealth duration to 3 seconds.

5. Change base Mass Invis duration to 6 seconds

With PU,
- prestige becomes 4 seconds
- decoy becomes 4 seconds
- MI becomes 8 seconds
- veil gives 4 seconds running once through. Untraited the field persists for 6 seconds so there’s enough time to run twice through before it ends.

Conclusion #1:

The next BWE can’t come soon enough!

apharma.3741:

As for PU, it’s fine as is. It’s a GM, build defining trait which is exactly what ANet wanted. It wasn’t fine at +1 second as only 1 build in 1 game mode ever took it. Before the boon nerf power builds could take it for the guarantee of something defensive when they stealth, afterwards it was not worth it at all which is why they went for IP as being able to use distortion whenever was more viable.

It wasn’t commonly taken because we didn’t have access to 3 full traitlines simultaneously, and IP required using 6 or 30 points in Illusions.

People even tried before to run shatter builds without DE in order to go 6 points in Chaos and 6 points in Illusions, because even at +1second with the boons it was very strong and almost worth the sacrifice of DE.

Now it [PU] is pretty much a free choice, no sacrifice needed.

It didn’t need buffing at all.

The thing is, all the Chaos grandmasters are now thematically boon generators – boons on interrupt, boons on shatter, boons on stealth.

I believe the boon aspect should stay, but the pledge must be changed to a flat 20% cooldown to prevent crazy synergy and the stealth duration of PU reduced back to +1 second again (as well as buffing base veil stealth and MI stealth by 1 second).

They could change and play around with the boon generation frequency and type until finding a happy medium.

I wish staff 4 chaos armour was replaced with the old mimic bubble shield. Would have been so much fun.

And I’d like to see staff 3 get an aoe attack – for example the projectile it fires instead is a ground targeted aoe that impacts the ground at the target enemy’s position at the moment of casting and does an aoe explosion on impact which affects up to 3 enemies in the radius – could do the usual scaling with power and number of conditions, but also could apply conditions in the aoe, say a couple of torment stacks or something.

At the moment in a condition build the iwarlock is just shatter fodder like the image in a power build, which is a shame.

Yeah I’d like it back too, even if only in unranked and hotjoin.

PU is (over) powerful, sure – but it’s not “the only way to go”.

Especially with chrono around the corner, as well as inspiration, dom and duelling being solid. There’s a lot of variety – maybe more than we’ve ever had in the past.

Dom/duel/chrono or inspiration power is pretty kitten good.

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

How about a totally different trait?

Arcane Generosity – Trigger Arcane Thievery while having at least 3 different conditions and taking damage under 50% health or receiving up to at least 3 conditions when under 50% health.

This doesn’t work because arcane thievery needs a target. If it triggers while you have no target, it would just fizzle.

Yeah good point, oh well… :/

Perhaps if they changed arcane thievery to remove conditions with or without a target (but obviously not getting the offensive benefit and boonstrip if not having a target) so it was a reliable cleanse at the very least would help?

Haha, so glad I took Blacklight dye instead of the electro dyes for the birthday present now. xD

Interesting idea – reminds me of mass effect.

Not too sure if cluttering the game with yet another boon is worth it, but I like that it is well thought out and presented.

Heh, nice to see both teams taking it in good humour.

How about a totally different trait?

Arcane Generosity – Trigger Arcane Thievery while having at least 3 different conditions and taking damage under 50% health or receiving up to at least 3 conditions when under 50% health.

I would be ecstatic if they changed spatial surge to single hit and then reintroduced confusing combatants as they planned to do as well as leaving lost time alone.

Fay.2357:

Curunen.8729:

Oh, now the beta’s finished.

Sad not to be able to play chrono for another month.

D: back to PoE I guess.

God I tried just now to play some pvp without chrono as a condition shatter and… it’s no fun and so much less effective.

kitten, just going to log on for dailies until the next BWE at this rate.

Oh, now the beta’s finished.

Sad not to be able to play chrono for another month.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Based on the feedback given so far, I’d like to make a couple notes about IR’s current state:

1. With DE and/or Chronophantasma, IR is still pretty strong. Maybe just as strong as it was before.
2. Without DE or Chronophantasma, IR is remarkably unreliable/weak.
3. The 2-illusion req actually makes it really hard to use in any situation where illusions die fast. Like the WvW zerg, or fighting on point in sPvP, or any PvE boss with regular aoe.
4. Consequentially, I’d say that IR as it is makes Chronophantasma is almost a required pick if you want IR to be worthwhile. This is, I think, both unintended and undesired. It is also, imo, undesirable, though clearly some of the posters here disagree.

• Frankly, it makes sense that this would be the case. By nature, CP guarantees you’ll have an illusion up right after the shatter, which is exactly what you want with IR. Using DE rather than CP would require taking time to dodge (.75s) to get back up to 2 illusions after a shatter, which is in essence creating an ICD or resource cost (mirror images/decoy/phase retreat, perhaps) on the next shatter. Without that, though, IR’s 2-illusion requirement would be wayy too burdensome to be worthwhile. Improved Alacrity will outperform 90% of the time if we didn’t have DE or CP available.

4. Because of the above, I’d agree with the icd pushers, BUT: it really needs to start at a 1s icd, and get reevaluated after that. Clone generation from IR is already rate-limited by shatter cooldowns, we don’t need the icd to control how many clones you get. The icd is specifically to prevent too-rapid chain shattering, and 1s should do that. So start at 1s, reevaluate, and only raise it if absolutely necessary.

Yeah I completely agree with this.

Beautiful stuff. xD

Windwalker.7421:

Elfiest.4031:

I don’t think the changes in Illusionary reversion were really effective since you can always combine it with DE to generate clones fast. In pvp chronomancers still have insane burst at the moment.

I don’t see the point here. If you’re taking both DE and Chrono, then you should have very strong Clone generation. Anything less would mean DE remains a must have. In the scenario you give, DE+IR+CP is totally overkill. The “insane” burst you allege, is solely due to Mind Wrack for Power Shatter Mesmers, which will be on a 15s timer in the build you describe. (minus Alacrity) Only through F5 will you ever need 3 more Illusions for a near instant follow-up MW, which of course is the whole design of Chronomancy. (And has plenty of counter-play, as this combo is among the most Telegraphed combos in the game! See a Rift appear? React! Dodge/block/invuln/evade)

Besides, the second 3-Illusion MW is easily achievable in other ways, and doesn’t have anything to do with IR. (No matter how you nerf it, it’s easy to get 2x 3-Clone MW off in short order using the F5 Shatter. You can use MI to make it trivial even, but CP+DE alone are also enough even without IR.)

Elfiest.4031:

I agree with what some people said above, giving this trait an internal cooldown or making it compete with chronophantasm in the grandmaster tier would be better options.

You can’t nerf IR enough to avoid this “insane” burst aspect of the F5 shatter and the Chronomancy line as a whole, so why completely nerf IR into uselessness? Sorry, moving it to GM would be a terrible idea! It can’t hope to compete with Chronophantasm and would clearly be redundant!

A CD is also a bad idea in general, unless you make it 3s or less, and even then it’s clunky and less reliable than the current IR. Most of all, such a nerf would be targeted at nothing! It would amount to a random nerf to a decent & competitive trait, possibly leaving it un(der) used. It wouldn’t change a thing as far as Power bursting goes, and Condie bursting is an absolute non-issue anyway.

I played a Condie Shatter all BWE and we’re still significantly weaker at Condition damage output then Burn-based Eles, Guardians, and Engineers. It’s still viable and fun, but I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve seen a Confusion or Torment tick of over 2k on a player all BWE. Now compare that to any of the above professions, who constantly apply 2500+ Burn ticks on you! Even one tick hurts a lot and outside of a Cleanse/Resistance there is NO counter play option! Totally unlike Confusion and Torment, both of which have a very simple counter play option that halves their DPS! (It’s ludicrous to imagine why we keep seeing Condie Mesmer getting nerfed over and over again, while all these Burning lunatics are left untouched!)

Please, leave IR alone! The requirement of 2 Illusions is fine and together with Chronophantasms allows for a realistic alternative to DE. The fact that you can still choose to take both DE and IR+CP is no different for any other resource-based class with multiple traits to boost that resource. There are significant trade-offs in doing that!

I hear you.

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

Yep, people’s ideas about condi mesmer damage is often grossly exaggerated.

The only thing condi mesmer’s have over other classes’ condi builds is the ability to engage/disengage and in combat mobility. Damage wise, other classes such as revenant, ele, guard, and so on do much more than mesmer when it comes to conditions.

Condi rev is particularly disgusting – I hate fighting them as a condi mesmer. It’s almost a hardcounter.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

messiah.1908:

have you tried the condi rev?
8 stacks of burning and 12 stacks of torment and 4-6 confusion every 8-10 sec
the best conditions dmg in the game all in one class

now compare it to condi mesmer. 10 confusion and 8 torment and 0 burning every 20 sec

But 2 torment on shatter is wayyy op.

Yeah, it’s silly. :/

I find it silly that we have to chain shatter spam just to get a decent amount of confusion/torment stacks on anything – I’d rather have more thoughtful/slower/timed burst but with increased condi application.

Embolism.8106:

The reason why I don’t go Doom/Energy is because the idea of the build is to not swap out of Sceptre-Shield unless necessary. Earth and Fragility aren’t so much for damage as they are for two more confounding conditions to hinder cleansing.

And yeah, I didn’t go Settler because of the loss of condition damage. Precision does provide a bit of extra direct damage, so it’s not completely useless; but Settler would indeed be a better choice for a much more tankier variant.

Overall I think amulet choice is not too big a deal with Chrono Condi, it’s mostly down to what balance of tankiness and offensive pressure you prefer. Settler for tankiness, Carrion for max deeps, and Rabid for something in the middle.

Yeah totally understandable – the choice is very flexible which is a nice thing.

True it’s a bit of a loss unfortunately – if going for Mental Defence instead of Temporal Enchanter you could take Signet of Domination to buff the condi damage back up.

I’m hovering back and forth between traited glamours or personal tankiness through the iDefender.

Embolism.8106:

Chrono Condi Shatter

The idea is to stay in Sceptre-Shield and block for illusions and Torment, and use all three offensive Shatters to inflict conditions and gain Alacrity.

Illusionary Counter is up a lot with 6s CD + Alacrity, and Echo of Memory/Deja Vu likewise with Persistence of Memory + Chronophantasma + Alacrity. Seriously, iAvenger is the ultimate Shatter fodder, highly spammable with this build.

With all the Alacrity you’ll be Shattering constantly, which means constant AoE conditions and also constant healing and condition cleansing from Restorative Illusions. The result is a build that’s both durable and dishes out heavy pressure.

The primary weakness of this build is its offensive pressure is diminished if you aren’t being attacked, which can be a problem in team fights. Most team fights will have AoEs lying about however, in which case you can simply run in while blocking for easy punishment.

The reason I use Rabid instead of Carrion is because Toughness is much more valuable than Vitality in healing-heavy builds, which this one is with Restorative Illusions. Going Carrion will increase your offensive pressure but you won’t be able to hold off multiple enemies as effectively (which the Rabid variant is quite capable of).

I use Mantra of Recovery + Restorative Mantras because I’m paranoid about conditions, but Alacritised Restorative Illusions coupled with iDisenchanter + Chronophantasma should be enough. Ether Feast and Persisting Images is possibly a better alternative.

If you feel you need more Illusions you can go Illusionary Reversion instead of Improved Alacrity, but I find it excessive: you’ll generate more Illusions than you can Shatter.

Signet of Midnight can be substituted for Blink or whatever stunbreaker you prefer. I personally like the extra condition duration. If you don’t want to bring Portal I’d replace it with iDefender or a second stunbreaker.

Just something that might be of interest – I switched to Settler’s amulet plus Undead runes (for the toughness to condi damage conversion) in the Inspiration/Illusions/Chrono build and find it much better than Rabid because the precision is useless.

Although I see you’re using an Earth sigil – I use double Energy/Doom.

Here’s my build, but there’s so many options whether to play glamours/support, tank with the iDefender and so on…
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAreWl0nhy0YpawRNQtGLKH1ZAsAHQ9iGpVKalNQRAA-TJRHwAQLDAb/BAnCABPBAA

phokus.8934:

Traits
Illusionary Reversion:
This needs to be changed back to one clone and have a 2-3 second ICD on it. As of now, Improved Alacrity is proving to be much better.

Having now switched and played quite a bit with Improved Alacrity instead of IR in a Duelling/Illusions/Chrono condi shatter build, I can also say IA is MUCH better.

I find Chronophantasma and DE are enough to ensure full or almost full shatters and the increased alacrity uptime from IA is very noticeable.

IR plus Cp is ok if not taking the Duelling line, but you kind of have to take both together then for it to be worthwile.