Guild Wars 2

“From a math side it means that with the exception of channeled skill with a cooldown you are goin to take the 50% more dmg OR the 40% more dmg from alacrity based upon which skill are you using.”

I did read. I am straight up disagreeing with your initial premise. There is no “exception of channeled skills” being affected by both alacrity and quickness. There is no 50% or 40%. It’s either the 50% on auto or both of them on everything else that isn’t instant cast.

I then posted 3 different ways to look at the fact that quickness affects basically every skill out there besides insta cast skills. That isn’t raging. That is disagreeing and providing 3 ways to test it.

Unless you and I have different definitions for what channeling means… I assume when people say channel they mean skills like 100b.

aelfwe.4239:

Put down some maths:
0.8x(50)= 40%
0.7x(40)= 28%
so the average dmg addition in raid due to quickness + alacrity is around 34%

Let’s do some slightly more REAL math and averaging:
All skills are affected by quickness (except insta cast ones but how many of those are in dps rotations for raids builds?)

This means that just 80% quickness uptime is a 40% buff to everything in the raid per your math of ONE mesmer because quickness affects it all.

Now let’s talk about how much damage is affected by alacrity. Some classes have 90% of their damage from auto attacks. Some like engi have 90% from skills with CDs that are still affected by quickness. Let’s also pick a few extra s in the middle. We can keep that 28 from the 70% uptime you have.

Theoretical 100% auto attack face roll:
1*1.4 (100% from auto attack and quickness) + 0×1.4*1.28 = 40% more damage

0.9 × 1.4 (90% of DPs from auto attacks) + 0.1×1.4×1.28 = 44%
0.5 × 1.4 + 0.5×1.4×1.28 = 60%
0.4 × 1.4 + 0.6×1.4×1.28 = 63%
0.1 × 1.4 + 0.9×1.4×1.28 = 75%
0 × 1.4 + 1×1.4×1.28 = 79%

aelfwe.4239:

let’s ask ourself how much dmg loss a chrono do compared to zerk war or ele: 50%???
Since there are 10 men in raid you can take an average of base dmg for each one of 10%.
This means chrono makes raid to lose a 5% compared to taking a war

Ok, let’s go with a mesmer does half the damage of the average other person in the party. If everyone does nothing but auto attack, that’s 9*1.4+.5 or the group doing 31% more than a group of 10 people doing “1” dps each. Now let’s try that with a 50-50 split on whether or not alacrity is affecting some skills while quickness affects it all. 9*1.60+0.5 = 49% more.

Anyhow, I didn’t say 50+40 = 90%. I know they aren’t strictly additive. Alacrity obvious doesn’t affect auto attacks but quickness does affect everything that isn’t insta cast. Like I said, Karl is a very bad public speaker. He mentioned that if alacrity duration were nerfed, then people would just bring more mesmers. This is why I think he meant that quickness/alacrity combo (when at 100% uptime) could easily be a 66% boost to a whole party. This is why they wanted to nerf the strength of the effect instead of duration.

I don’t want mesmer to suck but alacrity was OP to the point that mesmer damage had to be inherently crap. I just really hope base mesmer damage goes up a lot. Hence me writing this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Suggestion-Phantasms-now-have-all-dmg-mods/first#post5925606

aelfwe.4239:

A) Quickness affect just skill without cooldown (basically AA chains or thieves) and channeled skill.

Why do you think quickness and leap skills used to get wonky and would decrease leap distance? Ranger sword auto is the only auto with a leap so…. yeah quickness affects all leaps even though only one of them doesn’t have a CD.

Let’s do a simple test. Put Signet of Ether, Illusion of Life, WoR and Signet of Illusions on your bar. Get 3 illusions up. Press F5 and then try to cast all your utilities within the 6 second you get. Don’t use quickness before hand. Now try again with Seize the moment. You’ll have time to spare the second time with quickness but you won’t without it. None of these are “channeled” skills. All of them just have ~1 second cast time yet quickness affects them all.

Gravedigger has a CD but then it doesn’t have a CD… suddenly all the rules of quickness change below 50% health and now quickness affects gravedigger when it didn’t before…. right /s. Seriously though, just try rune of chrono on necro with a golem above 50% health. You can easily see the difference in attack speed with a slow but non-channeled skill like gravedigger.

Or let’s talk about another necro combo that I realized was affecting my rotation in raids: CpC, BiP, Dagger#4: Importantly, the self-cripple from CpC wears off before D#4 is cast and allows for transfer of the 3 longer lasting conditions. However, with quickness, I actually kept getting stuck with the long lasting bleed because I was transferring the cripple because those skills were activating faster. Realizing this, I had to change my rotation to CpC, 1 auto, BiP, D#4 because quickness affected all 3 of those skills that all had CDs.

So that’s a generic skill type (leap) and self test on a mesmer’s skills that aren’t channels and a necro rotation that does see the active effects of quickness on skills that are also affected by alacrity.

Quickness affects skill that are affected by alacrity

Side note:
I think alacrity nerf is fine as it’s still good at 25% CDR, but base mesmer just needs damage to go up to compensate. Furthermore, being an alacrity bot means we have NO room for any other utility on our bar. Currently we are not worth just being a quickness bot but a damage boost would fix that. This would allow us to bring whatever utilities needed in a midway build that doesn’t provide much to any alacrity while still providing quickness with only one utility slot taken (SoI). Especially for fotm or dungeons (RIP) we could easily fit feedback etc on our bar without tanking the damage of the team because alacrity disappears the second we have feedback and SoI on our bar.

Going to try and be constructive about what mesmer’s need to be balanced for PvE without breaking PvP. I and others have mentioned (both recently and over the course of several years) that phantasms just need to be affected by all damage modifiers that the base mesmer has. This of course has the potential to throw chrono balance way of out line while still providing alacrity/quickness. So I want to talk about builds and numbers and why I don’t think this would break mesmer balance in both PvP and Raids.

So assumption: Phantasms now inherit all damage modifiers of the mesmer.

In PvP, the main power shatter build is Dom/Duel/X. The main change would be 0.5% more damage per stack of vulnerability. Since vulnerability is often spiked with a combo of GS#2/F3 before being quickly followed up with an F1, this won’t really phantasm damage at all in PvP as they will be shattered with F3. Rune of scholar is a risk reward that isn’t worth it in PvP. Something like Rune of Strength/Sigil of force could have an effect but 5% won’t break PvP and they aren’t always used. Since mesmer is thought to be weak with the upcoming changes, this would be a small but welcome buff.

In PvE: “Max DPS”
Domination: 15% more with EI and 12.5% with Fragility
Dueling: Phantasmal fury, FF (150 ferocity), HM: 15%
Illusions: 9%, Phantasmal Haste, Malicious Sorcery
Gear: Rune of Scholar, Sigil of Force, Seaweed Salad

I’m listing these all out because this is what I would call a max phantasm DPS setup. As you can see, chrono doesn’t fit in there. It also requires spamming MoP for HM. It means we can’t bring rune of chrono or 20% boon duration food. Some of these bonuses already affect phantasms but when it comes to damage modifiers that currently don’t, this would be ~79% buff in phantasm damage. That seems like a lot, so let’s look at some numbers. A swordsman with all those buffs would do about 14-15k to something with 2600 armor instead of ~8k. With PH and 3 swordsman, that’s ~ 12k phantasm DPS on a boss like gorsaval. MoP/auto attack spam can be added in there as well but we’re actually approaching “viable” not OP damage. It might not be meta/max but I wouldn’t kick a base mesmer anymore. Furthermore, with a condi necro/engineer in the mix which would add ~10 conditions, that would also bring Staff phantasms into play. MoP spam would cover up on the auto attacks of staff. This build provides minimal support in the form of one timewarp every 180 seconds with Signet of inspiration on the bar to share a bit extra.

Does this become OP with chrono? We can look at a few variations:

Dueling, Illusions, Chrono: Quickness but no alacrity:
Shield 5 is added into the mix and TW now has a 76 second CD. Rune of scholar still in play but sigil of concentration replaces sigil of air. Bountiful sharpening stone and maybe one or two pieces of commander gear are brought into play to reach 100% boon duration. TW is ~30% quickness uptime on 5 allies while ToT~20% uptime on 10 people. Signet of inspiration can add a bit. Mesmer is still spamming MoP.

Mesmer loses 12.5% and sigil of air while illusions lose ~30%. Gains the equivalent of ~20-40% boost in DPS for 5 people depending on the class. Given how little damage some classes like Herald or DPS druids lose for providing support, this is a fair tradeoff.

X, Illusions, Chrono: Quickness and alacrity:
I’m talking about the new 25% CDR alacrity here. Overall the math becomes pretty hazy here because it really depends on group comp and build. With it comes the ability to maintain quickness ~100% of the time on 5 targets. I won’t go too in depth with math on quickness since it also depends on if the group brings 1 or 2 chronos and both have signet of inspiration/ inspiration trait line instead of a DPS trait line. Rune of chrono is only needed if it’s one mesmer trying to keep quickness on 10 people. But if base mesmer damage goes up, the idea of having 2 chronos isn’t the worst. Also depends on if the bug with PH and the shield phantasm is fixed.

Basically (assuming PH is fixed) each Shield phantasm is a significant loss of DPS but will be able to maintain 33% alacrity on 5 people. So 3 shield phantasms and no wells, while you spam MoP and HM buffs to the shield phantasms would result in 100% alacrity. Or some mix of shield/sword phantasms + wells means no more HM. Either way the trade off for bringing alacrity on top of quickness is heavy but you now bring 100% quickness uptime and 100% alacrity uptime one way or another.

TLDR:
Make phantasms affected by all mesmer % modifers
Fix PH on shield phantasms
Won’t break PvP balance
Will make PvE base mesmer viable damage dealer and not a “kick on sight”. Bringing quickness and/or alacrity will lower the damage but be a fair trade off.

Karl is not the best with words. That’s why they have sometimes done pre-recordings of these patch notes rather than live Karl and those went much better.

Didn’t rewatch it but there is a difference between “one mesmer makes the raid to 66% more damage” and “alacrity makes the raid do 66% more damage.”
Quickness is still a thing and it doesn’t look to be getting nerfed (res/stomp aside). So yeah, 100% uptime on 50% attack speed increase and 40% CDR… I could easily call that a 66% damage increase for the raid in an offhand remark and not think he was too far off.

Sharkey.9805:

Im not sure why so many people think continue to focus on how big of an impact alacrity is going to have. It’s really not what the problem is here, and for most folks upset with the nerfs are probably just fine with alacrity’s effectiveness going down.

The problem is that our sustained damage is already horrible. It’s one of, if not THE worst of any class right now. This change will make that worse.They did not announce anything to mitigate that.

Absolutely!

That’s why some of us have been calling for all modifiers to affect phantasms. For PvP mesmers it would only be fragility that would really affect mesmer builds and that won’t break PvP since vuln is very rarely capped at 25. However, for PvE, HM would come into play as far as traits are concerned. Rune of scholar, seaweed salad, sigil of force (not going to count dungeon stuff) would also affect them as well. Importantly, most of that is mutually exclusive with the chronomancer alacrity buffs which means we would have to pick strong buffs to our team and reduced damage (rune of chrono, boon duration food, not spamming MoP).

In fact, this would also make scepter VIABLE!

Dom, Dueling, Illusions with above buffs I mentioned would have phantasms do 64% more damage in raids while only doing 12% more damage in PvP IFF the target hat 25 vuln. Spamming mantra of pain to keep up HM 20% faster with the scepter trait and only using Sc#3 between MoP spam.

Oh and I forgot the 3% per illusion up. So 79% more damage from phantasms. And again, this is a dom, duel, illusion build that would be mutually exclusive with the chrono alacrity/quickness spam. That would let us have TWO viable raid builds/roles. And it won’t affect PvP balance. In fact, this would also make staff viable. Use #3/5 and then spam MoP and we would actually be the highest DPS build in the game vs raid bosses if we had a condi engi/necro in the party.

I don’t think so. Chrono and alacrity should be fairly balanced between our base specs. It’s more important to buff base mesmer damage at this point. All damage modifiers just need to affect our illusions as well.

“Coalescence of Ruin – It had too low cooldown. Cooldown increased from 2s to 4s. It will no longer double hit.”

This to me seems to hint at Longbow burst getting nerfed. King of fire seems like a new way compensate for that nerf.

I am looking at thief buffs….
I think people forget that thieves used to eat mesmers alive before we got blind on shatter. They still were a problem but much more manageable.

Levetty.1279:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

How about changing it to back in the beta where it made allies attacks unblockable?

Because that was even more useless.

Because people are whining about venom share basy venom and how it’s unblockable now. Would it really be that useless in team fights? For Pve, there are a few niche situations it would be great in.

Arcaedus.7290:

The logical solution (that should also satiate pvpers) would be to keep well of precog applying blur, AND also make blur prevent capture point contribution. !

Sword 2 is also blurr and that would really mess with bunker mesmer even more.

Ok from a PvP side of things, I get you but I still think the change is for the better.

AWTEW is what I would consider a PvE trait at this point. Bunkers holding points could use it in PvP but if Bunker mesmer is truly gutted then a power or condi shatter mesmer is extremely unlikely to use most wells to benefit from AWTEW. WoE and Gravity are the two I would consider using. Otherwise, the standard blink, portal, X is coming back.

So power shatter:
Dom/Duel/X. First two are pretty set in stone with DE and boon removal. Illusions and Chronomancer are probably the easiest trait lines to compare as if both were “elite specs.”

So when it comes to CDs. Illusions is 20% on illusions and 15% on shatters. Chrono is 0-25% on ALL skills and F5 to reset a few. This seems like a decent trade off as long as the chrono can keep decent uptime on SELFISH alacrity. There are of course other traits but they are relatively comparable trait lines post changes. Shield 4 isn’t going to survive for long in a PvP environment. Glassy mesmers aren’t going to be surviving long while standing in the wells. So PvP chrono alacrity really needs to come from Flow of Time. Now that it’s 25% reduction instead of 40%, it’s actually much easier to balance/buff Flow of time to a good spot for PvP mesmers. If they make it 1 to 1.5 second per illusion, and give chronos easy ~80-100% uptime it’s no longer OP. It also won’t break balance because it doesn’t affect allies and it will be comparable to CD reduction in illusions.

Are there other problems with core mesmer? Yes. But for alacrity changes, we need to eat our medicine and deal with it.

Fay.2357:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

3 shield phantasms is 9 seconds of alacrity for the mesmer and 6 seconds of alacrity for allies every 7.5 seconds. If PH wasn’t bugged, that alone would be perma alacrity on 5 allies. Add chronophantasma for a bit more. Alls well that ends well is still going to be a thing and will synergize with rune of the chronomancer for more quickness. So yeah, the 25% can be hit. Will I want to though? Need to see the rest of the “buffs” that are supposedly coming.

Exciton.8942:

2. alacrity only works on skills that are on cooldown. If you don’t use skills when you have alacrity, it is essentially wasted.

No. It dynamically changes the CD as it’s applied.

Edit: Actually I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say? Either this is a problem for alacrity regardless of if it’s 66% or 33%. Or see my first response.

Fay.2357:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

You won’t hit 25%. With the lower effectiveness of it, you’re not going to be able to put anywhere close to 100% uptime on your allies, so it’s going to probably end up sub-20% when all is said and done.

3 shield phantasms is 9 seconds of alacrity for the mesmer and 6 seconds of alacrity for allies every 7.5 seconds. If PH wasn’t bugged, that alone would be perma alacrity on 5 allies. Add chronophantasma for a bit more. Alls well that ends well is still going to be a thing and will synergize with rune of the chronomancer for more quickness. So yeah, the 25% can be hit. Will I want to though? Need to see the rest of the “buffs” that are supposedly coming.

25% is still good. I actually expected it to be 20% so it was “more in line” with all of the weapon CD reduction traits. Chrono will still provide all the quickness in raids.

How about changing it to back in the beta where it made allies attacks unblockable?

@Zenith
You really want to talk about glass ele not being viable because thief and warrior? Or a glass mesmer when everyone is playing bunker and none of those classes/builds are considered viable right now?

I’ve been running a Berserker staff Fire/Air/Tempest in PvP for ranked and I’ve been doing fine with it. Chaining 4 reflects means DHs kill themselves. Air 5+ overload wrecks the few thieves I run into. Given the bunker meta, it works pretty well as a bunker buster and actually finishing team fights. It can’t counter everything (nor should any build) but the only real “problem” build I have are a few revenants or an occasional necro in 1v1 situations when this build isn’t really meant to 1v1 anyway but +1 and end team fights. Importantly lightning rod + Air3/4 and Earth 4 and shocking aura help alot with the offensive capabilities in other attunements (those are mostly unblockable too so it helps destroy bunker mesmers). No it’s not meta but because of that, there is of course the surprise wtf moment when an enemy team wipes at the start of a game because they don’t think to focus a tempest and that actually wins me a lot of games when solo queueing in ranked. I’m looking forward to the buffs to lightning rod but that trait is non-existent in PvE builds.

Basically, they don’t need to split everything, nor will changes to GM traits necessarily buff ele like crazy in PvE because lightning rod buffs won’t. I doubt BttH will change as it’ll be kept a “PvE staff” trait and it’s too similar to other 20% more damage below 50%. I’m curious as to how they will buff Fresh Air and that will help D/X eles in PvE but when you think about it, the DPS eles that run D/X zerker in PvE are almost like thieves. Just mobile melee cleave damage with no utility. And if thieves are getting a buff to auto attack damage, I just see this as an increase in build diversity without breaking both game modes. And they could even do something screwy with Fresh Air like adding a 10% bonus damage with scepter clause. Just wait a few more hours to see what the preview says.

FJSAMA.2867:

Josh Davis.6015:

FJSAMA.2867:

Snip

Worry not, friend – the changes were actually announced in a neutral location (our blog). I spun up the thread in the PvP forums afterwards to start working on getting some more directed feedback on runes/amulets/sigils in PvP.

My advice about sigils:
Interrupt always was a subpar version of blind in pve. Now with breakbars is even worse.
In pvp is where they shine, yet this sigils are not available in pvp and most are meaningless (3s might for example) except (and maybe since we cant test them) the draining one and the boon steal.
This sigils could give a push to interrupt mesmer. Yet all the good traits about interrupt are so spread and chrono being mandatory to fade mesmer shatter/phantasm lacks apart from it utility (not forgetting shield#5 best rupt skill). Nonetheless i would like to give them a try at pvp.

While I do want interrupt sigils in PvP, be careful for what you wish for. Shocking aura for example, or even better auto attack+ headshot+PI on thief will make some classes besides mesmer very strong at interrupting and sustaining. The lifesteal sigil is ~1.1k health with no ICD. You can use them in WvW or test on mobs without breakbars.

Edit: shocking aura vs clones specifically would give ele so much sustain with sigil of draining.

Any nerf to alacrity won’t make mesmer less fun to play if done right.

There are 5 ways they can nerf/change alacrity just off the top of my head:
1) Change Shield uptime
2) Change well uptime
3) Change personal uptime on +50% trait or shatters
4) Actually change the rate of CD reduction
5) Wild card change like shifting the minor trait to major or something along those lines.

“Alacrity has improved the mesmer’s party support game-wide, but we’ll be bringing alacrity a bit more in line and making it easier to balance while keeping it a staple of the chronomancer elite specialization. "

I think they will reduce the effect to 40-50% instead of 66% but that won’t make it not viable or worth it. (“More in line” with other CD traits) The “game-wide” comment sounds like they are actually keeping in mind both PvP and Raid balance. How do you make something EASIER to balance in two different game modes (without splitting since Anet hates splitting)? Reduce total amount of skills that apply alacrity BUT make the application of it consistent (or just consistent for the game mode you are balancing for.) All’s well that ends well is a terrible trait that promotes spamming wells for the traits rather than the wells effects and I hope it goes away. If they make the shield phantasm the main source of group alacrity, then this will mean mesmers can bring utilities besides wells while still supporting their group just fine in raids. It’s a nerf to PvP in the sense that phantasms don’t survive nearly as long without that 95% dmg reduction or focus fire. If they remove ALL alacrity besides the shatter trait but make the shatter trait AOE alacrity (or make this a GM trait), I would also be happy with this. In fact, I would say this would be more fun to play than spamming wells since shatters are the “class mechanic.” It would also be easier to balance kittenters are worst sustain DPS but better team buffing while phantasms would be the focus on personal DPS. Or you could even go condi shatter and still provide alacrity. There are ways to make chrono more fun to play while balancing for both game modes.

I mentioned multiple sigils and foods in my inventory because I am conscious of over buffing. I’ll try keep my argument simple: Which situation is better to fill two party slots?

1) Rev+Sigil of Strength with a bunrzerker?
2) Rev +Sigil of Air with a PSEA warrior?

The group loses ~1.5k sigil of air dps and empower allies in 1) but the warrior has much better personal DPS. Given the initial point of this thread is that “burnzerker does 40% more deeps,” I don’t play warrior enough to know where exactly the numbers are, but I’m leaning towards PSEA warriors shouldn’t be brought to raids.

And if there are 3 burnzerkers+herald+chrono, is it worth it to bring FGJ and Deep Strike (150 condi dmg) and have the herald use FoS instead of FoD?

Basically, why are people talking about PSEA at all in raids?

On the topic of Herald replacing PS, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone mention Shared Empowerment for might stacking. Although sigil of air is meta, I’ve never been that impressed with it, so I keep two axes for the rev. One with air and one with strength. Food is also easy to swap to bountiful sharpening stones and golden dumplings instead steaks. Food/sigil let you proc SE every~ second instead of every 3 which gets about ~14 might without FoS. With that combo and either signet of inspiration from the mesmer or just an ele fire overload, that’s decent might for the group without a warrior needing to go tactics. Keeping FoS maintained gets you to basically to 25.

While you lose the >50% swap damage, does it seem that far fetched to for this combo to be worth it? Lose sigil of air, revenant food, and empower allies BUT your warrior doesn’t need to take the huge DPS loss of tactics, or maybe just not bring a warrior in that subgroup.

Or even, if a subgroup looks like Chrono, Herald and 3 burnzerkers (hey, I’m on topic), 3 FGJ (with 100 condi dmg bonus) means that fury and ~12 might are covered. Why not maintain FoS instead?

Xyonon, that’s pretty similar to what I recommended except minstrel instead of zealots for tanking. He doesn’t want to chrono >_> cause he wants to “stick it to the meta.”

skcamow.3527:

I like most of the suggestions but in and of themselves they would never bring core mesmer up to the elite spec level. I really think the key to making core specs overall more in line with elites is to unfortunately nerf the elites, but I highly doubt that will happen to any great degree.

I have to agree with this. While elite specs were supposed to be sidegrades, most of them are upgrades. The added versitility is supposed to come with the cost of picking that elite spec but most of them are easily worth the cost from the trait line + ADDITION of class mechanics.

This is why I think DH and reaper are two of the “better” designed elite specs. Both of them CHANGE the class mechanic and actually replace it with something new.

F5 for chrono should never have existed. It should have replaced F4. F3-F1 could have even seen a bit of a rework themselves. Aoe alacrity on F1 and less alacrity spam on wells or such. Too late for it now and we mostly got what we probably will with chrono but going forward, I think this is the only way to make them actually side grades.

Basically, no amount of change to base class will make chrono not worth bringing right now. It has to be changes to chrono. That’s not to say that the base class doesn’t need a buff. It does.

I don’t think your build in it’s current form is worth it anywhere. However, if you INSIST, please run something more along the lines of this build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse8dncfClohlfC+fCUrhlljq+Qj0J98ACgIDdyOhLD-ThhXABheSA9CNoEMYlBAs/Qsq/IlSPSB43UL-e

Having those 3 10% outgoing healing buffs helps a lot if you really want to heal. Minstrel and monk gives you boon duration and healing power. This build can push out quickness and alacrity which are the main buffs that a mesmer should shoot for. Staff is really not the way to go for pve boons. Shield quickness and focus reflects are better choices.

As far as general healing, this gives you MoP which is much better to spam for healing and the well is a better aoe heal for allies. The quickness spam also lets you spam MoP better so it’s not nearly as painful to channel. Restorative illusions only heals yourself. Regen will also be worth something with the 30% outgoing healing (~380 health per second).

Again, not a good build. This is the build I wanted to run in raids for a while (tank, healer & buffer) but other classes just heal so much better/this won’t keep a raid group up. BUT at least it does the main thing of providing quickness and alacrity (+reflects and pulls in dungeons) with some bonus healing on the side.

A bit late but feel the need to add more:
Rice balls = 10% more healing
Seaweed salad = 10% more damage
Veggie Pizza (180→200% condi duration) = 11% more damage.

Also runes are generally 175 primary stat, 100 secondary stat and a bonus. Why isn’t the OP complaining about boon duration or condi duration runes such as rune of nightmare that gives 225 expertise instead of 100. Sounds like all those condi/boon duration runes are “exploits” or maybe… that’s how things are balanced and Anet wants it that way since you can’t always compare these things at a 1 to 1.

Guardian heals are kind of like herald or tempest healers: Better off in melee and therefore most people haven’t used them since VG is the first boss and needs that healer on the green circle/ranged group. I think this has given them a bad name. DnT did use one as a tank for VG though. They may not be the best healer but I think they could actually work in other fights.

Symbol heals, aoe F2 passive, mace auto, regen, protection and elite signet for sustain vs the ~1k passive dmg every 3 seconds.

Then all the block combo traits for more healing: Invigorating bulwark, Communal defense, pure of heart, retributive armor and mace/shield in general.

Dodge heal, receive the light, shield 5.2 and merciful intervention for more burst healing.

Untested but I think they could keep a group up. Not optimal as they don’t have the best team buffs or personal damage though. Now I’m kind of tempted to try this…

Ok a bit of an info dump on the 3 classes I’ve tried/successfully healed on:

First off, sigil of transference, rice balls and rune of the monk = 275 healing power, 30% outgoing healing and 15% boon duration. The bountiful utilities potions are another 10% boon duration if you don’t mind dropping the gold. This is more important than what healing power you would get from gear.

For gear stats specifically, I would go against clerics as there is a lot of toughness and it could conflict with the tank’s aggro. Some groups like the healer to tank, some like chrono tanks etc so this really depends on the group. The buffs to healing in the first section is why you can go zerker or viper’s for healing if your group is decent enough. I’m rich enough to afford an ascended light/heavy zealots set so I can use those on my herald/tempest but my druid gets by fine with zerker+monk. Since trinkets are easier to swap out for raw stats, depending on my group, I’ll swap trinkets between zerker, celestial and magi for a bit more healing/tankiness if needed.

A bit more specific on bosses:
VG: I don’t like herald or tempest on VG because they do the best healing/damage in melee/can’t heal the front and backline well at the same time. In theory staff tempest can water auto attack the front line and aura heal the backline but meh. Depending on the group comp though, these classes can work but I’ve defaulted to druid after multiple weeks at it. Spirits can be traited for 1500 radius aoe on their effects, staff/long bow+ quickdraw means easy mobility and sustain heal on the frontline while celestial can be used to burst heal every 15 seconds for the green circle (F5, 3, 4, F5 to also cc the red circles before they reach you while getting max stacks on gotl,)

What I like about druid in general is how versatile the builds can be. While there is an obvious optimal healer build (sword/axe or axe/torch) for max power or condi dps, a lot of their builds work. I’ve tried longbow/longbow quick draw for a ranged group with shout healing to charge up astral. Almost full glyphs in max dps melee builds. Full spirit builds for dps buffs and protection and clutch resses. They adapt well for all situations while always being able to buff their group. They can also be the tank with the right trinkets. They’re great overall and I’ve also used one at Sab and Gorsy.

My group is currently struggling with throwing bombs fast enough at Sabetha so we haven’t had a successful kill yet (getting there) and gorsy has been killed a few times now. I’ve tried tempest and druid for both of these and they both work because these are bosses that your group stays collectively stacked in melee. Haven’t tried herald yet but I think it would do much better on these two for similar reasons that tempest is working better for me here. It’s still a clunky healer but has the most outgoing healing modifiers and can reach +106-110 % outgoing healing. Regen alone with that will become 500-700 healing per second with those modifiers + healing power. I’ll try it after reset this week but I wouldn’t go for it.

Ty for testing it. I had a feeling it was like condi duration rounding but using regen.. that’s elegant

Based off of this:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Mistrust-Suggestion-Confusion-on-Crit/first#post5870239
I got thinking about how to make a team comp work around this and had an idea. Wanted to keep it a secret since I had a good feeling about the comp and let my guild try it first but seems like no one cares about WvW anymore in my guild. So anyhow, the base of the team is this:

Aurashare tempest, Venom share thief, 3 mistrust mesmers. The main thing is to have small group that runs around and gets hit a lot which retaliates with a lot of damage for hitting them. This allows the team to bypass the 5 target limit of most aoes. Could scale up to 10 or 15 with the right ratio of classes.

Aurashare is for general heals and all auras just working really well with this build. Fire aura for straight burning and might. Shocking aura will proc mistrust. Frost aura for chill cover condition & 10% dmg reduction. Light aura for another cover condition plus minor retal damage. Shocking aura requires close proximity to proc so this team needs defense against range so magnetic aura as well as mesmer traits will help with defense against ranged.

Mistrust mesmer is Duel, Chaos, Chrono with 2 interrupt sigils for life steal, slow, boon steal, aoe confusion, and CI on interrupt. Gravity well and ToT for aoe interrupts. Dodging attacks causes more reflect etc. WoC…

Wells and venom share are a known thing in WvW for necro/thief but why not mesmer/thief instead? Basi venom turns WoC into another aoe interrupt for more mistrust and those venoms will also just pulse more conditions.

I’ve put the same sigils on everyone because shocking aura will be life/boon steal for everyone which is a scaling defense/heal vs larger squads. Chaos armor could be blasted from the wells and ToT.

Actual builds:
Ele I have two ideas on: Fresh air for more shocking aura or earth for protection. Rune of radiance or trooper for light aura or condi cleanse on shout.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFUQJAodn0XC9XiFOAWYCcYiFRAzttGXzrEdgEwBYIAMASgA-TxRWAB2+AAu9EAEhyPa0DAw+D5oE8J1fAA-e

Mesmers: The runes could be rune of the guardian for burning on Shield #4 or some condi dmg rune, I’m not sure.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQNAr+dn0nBlphtfCWpBEgiFcjyMDitKoMAatXr+Vv1eF-TByXABw+AAi9kAq/Aw+D5q0LYlBJa6JU9CPoEkUAwssC-e

Thief: I’m least set on this. What matters is the venom share. SR can be used to get up into range for shocking aura to start proccing.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vZUQNAoYVl8MhimYTTw7Jw/EHtEl/Ni05g3CHRRoDALAA-TxxXABxq+DA7PkrSvQ1HkopngVG8gSQSBAzyK-e

Thoughts?
Edit: stability is an obvious counter to this although the venomed wells+burning will still happen. I’m trying to think about adding null field for stripping boons. Boon steal sigils will also help with having less boons to remove. This also might have enough interrupts to power through the stacks of stability.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Dondagora.9645:

Windwalker.7421:

…

Worst case scenario of 25 stacks for a long duration means you literally interrupted 5 people with a single CC. That, I say, deserves such high reward rather than compromise.

This.

Especially because 5 people who get interrupted so close together are almost certainly going to have some shared cleanse, which is exactly why condi mesmers are weak in larger fights.

So the potential for great power is only there in scenarios where the mesmer is already weak. That doesn’t seem so dangerous, to me.

Agreed, NEVER ICD on this trait’s current iteration. If you can interrupt 5 people stacked within 240 radius, the mesmer SHOULD reck those people. The likeliness of aoe cleanse is definitely an issue that would also ever prevent this from really becoming OP because the only place this could happen is PvE (who cares about weak mobs with no breakbar) or more seriously WvW, where zergs are stacked tightly, have stability and have aoe cleanse. In settings like this, our illusions are also crap so it’s not like this trait could even stack with conditions from shatters (that also need to be traited).

Furthermore, there is still the issue of which aoe interrupts to use. IF you really want to cram in as many aoe interrupts as possible, Chrono, illusions and dueling is the build. Illusions would probably be dropped so that chaos+CI cover conditions could happen but no aoe F3. Otherwise there is no point of mass aoe confusions if a single cleanse can take care of it. So realistically, Shield 5, gravity well. So a 90 CD elite does at most 30 aoe confusion if your enemies are stupid enough to spam skills in it, don’t use condi cleanses or stablility? A 40/30 second CD weapon skill on chrono…. and that’s it really. MoD (which also sucks that I can’t bring 3 stacks without HM) and… GS#5, focus 4.2, sword 4.2? These are all power weapons/skills… The base mesmer really can’t utilize this trait well. Now that I’ve given this more thought, I really think the issue is that we do need another way to make any weapon the mesmer has into a condi weapon. SI and Illusion traits can help but I think Mistrust needs something else tacked on.

Mistrust:
300 radius (instead of 240) 2 confusion on interrupt. No ICD.
(Like IP on engi) Your next crit causes 5 aoe confusions. 10 sec ICD. OR Critical hits from the mesmer cause confusion (2-3 seconds base; shatters, wells, auto attacks but NOT illusions.)

This would only really stack confusion so it could be easily cleansed but at least it would normalize the damage from this trait. I don’t think the interrupt portion would ever be OP in practice.

Rune of leadership x6 = 12g and 600 crystalline ore
Inscription/Insignia for Commander: 0.6g and 100 ore

Actually crafting 6 insignias is another ~18 gold.

If you decided to transmute an extra set of ascended gear, 30 ectos is still another 10g.
Crafting exotics takes 5 linseed oil (ignoring gossamer and leather) which is another 23g.

So…. total cost comes to about 40.6g+prior ascended armor or 53.6g + gossamer & leather AND 700 crystalline ore which is a lot of time. Being able to have better rune#6 bonus, better food, better raw stats can end up being ~33% more damage that what other builds with commander/leadership can do. The sigil price did spike recently but it was at 100g a little while ago. (If you trust me, I’m a high lvl scribe and I if you whisper me in game/mail me raw mats, I could craft it for you; I don’t know if it’s cheaper to craft or buy though). I think the best part though, is that if you are unsure about buying the sigil, slot it in an exotic and try the build. Salvage the exotic and sell it if you decide it’s not for you. The commander build on the other hand… no returns on potentially useless armor.

So 1 weapon/sigil that lets you use one set of armor for ~all of PvE? or lugging around another set of armor that’s half the gold price of the sigil AND 700 crystalline ore and isn’t even needed at sabetha and potential future raid bosses? (Most of my characters do have 160 bag slots and about 100 of them are taken up by gear/stuff; others prefer just 1 set of armor. So space is a concern here.) Your setup doesn’t seem “cheap” to me, especially since I value my time too. If you already invested in the armor, that’s a tough choice to continue using it but the meta and others should have to suffer for your investment.
Bonus: Mesmer using the sigil and chrono runes =)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3xhs8k/king_5_man_vale_guardian_kill/cy4rnpj

Confusion on crit was a minor during the major trait/spec overhaul but was dropped before live happened. I was probably one of several people that contributed to that change since while some ppl were saying it was crap, others like myself were calling it OP. It would basically double all illusion condi dmg.

I also don’t think the trait is inherently bad, but incomplete/doesn’t work in most game modes. AoE snowball interrupts don’t work in PvP when people are spread out too much. PvE doesn’t work with interrupts anymore. I could see it maybe working in some niche situation in PvE in the future. Only place I could see it working right now is WvW.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQJArensnB1ohlpBGpBEgiFcjycBitKoMAatXr+Vv1cF-ThBZABreCAY9BAUk6PwoEEAlfeqHgUAwssC-e

Is a build I’ve been messing with in my head but haven’t had time/money to actually try in WvW. 1.1k lifesteal, boon steal, slow, CI and 2 aoe confusion on interrupt. The sigils don’t seem to have an ICD. I think the addition of the elite chrono spec helps a lot with gravity well and ToT. I do eventually want to try this in a zerg setting.

Part of the reason I really do want this build to work (although I don’t wvw that much) is because illusions are crap in WvW zerg fights and a build like this utilizing traits like Mistrust could bring back the “glamour bomb style” of fighting although not actually glamours.

So I want to keep the essence of this trait (aoe something on interrupt with no ICD that allows for chain interrupts to snowball) but I can see it’s uselessness in 2 major formats of the game. Maybe if the aoe was much bigger for PvP. I don’t think all illusions causing confusion on crit would work either. If it was just the mesmer on crit, which would turn wells and sword/GS in condi weapons too, I could agree to something like this and I could see it being balanced easier. Or… wait for that next elite spec that somehow combos with it even better than chrono.

One more thought to add though, is that I’ve been seeing people say that ~94% boon duration is the “soft cap.” IF 94% boon duration is all that’s needed then why are people using boon duration food at all? BOUNTIFUL sharpening stone/oil+seaweed salad+sigil+ ONE piece of commander gear and herald would be sufficient boon duration while allowing you to bring 2 modifiers for 21% more damage buff.

For price, 600 dragonite ore and getting a brand new set of armor that won’t be used in fotm, dungeons or sabetha isn’t worth it to me. I would much rather have zerk or sin + scholar or chrono that I could use everywhere. There is also the “price” of having 1 sword in my inventory with 1 sigil on it vs a bunch of armor. Final thing on price (of both sigils and raids), these are raids, I expect my teammates to try and do their best. Part of that means bringing the best gear possible (is that not the essence of this topic?)

Why is everyone still stuck on Rune of Leadership (and also commander’s gear) for boon duration?
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Concentration
It’s 33% boon duration, when with herald and boon duration food, is 100% (103% capped) boon duration. It can be timed well. Most importantly, it only takes a sigil slot.

Force & concentration lets you bring rune of scholar, chronomancer, ogre, (scrapper if you want to tank) or even ranger. Regardless of if you think accuracy or air is the better 2nd sigil to force, concentration + one of those runes will have better base stats from the rune/armor combo and % modifiers from the rune (or quickness on well)

Examples:
Xys’s Assassin + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxBBABAcSAyTvQXK/GV9n+3fIgHAwZKBJFAgDjA-e
Vs changes I would make:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBSBQBaRpBXUGYw9HEl6PmRJIe0LQGlYA4BAQKAAHGB-e
Both cap out on boon duration for quickness BUT my build does ~9% more damage while only taking ~2% more damage. Change trinkets a bit more if that 2% makes a difference.

Even if I wanted to go commanders, which I still think is a waste:
Commander + Leadership + Tankstuff:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TBCBQBdR5BCV/5MKBxiSMAcSAyjeh+t/QAeAAkCYghRA-e
Ogre+Concentration
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAs+dncfC9fitfCmfCUrhFVjiMAKgirOZn2qFtLSjsD-TxRBQBXRJ2Q2fAP6F4iyjDq+DAeAAmRJIpAGYYE-e

Equal boon duration ~6% more damage.
If you are going a full DPS gear route since your group has someone that tanks (I’m in a more casual guild with varied amounts of skill level and optimization so I can’t even consistently hold aggro at gorsy with 1400 toughness (rabid trinkets)). rune of scholar+concentration is going to be better than leadership+accuracy. I can do the math in a bit.

Lumpy.8760:

Mak.2657:

Lumpy.8760:

stop using runes of force/accuracy they don’t affect illusions

Any suggestions to replace force for raid environment.

fire and air

Wut? It’s not like fire/air affect illusions either >_>

Force/air is the general accepted DPS set unless you really need more crit chance. Raid settings with banner of D/Spotter and maybe food means accuracy is usually a waste. Depends on your group comp though. That is DPS though, not necessarily a team buffer or healer (shouldn’t be as a mesmer though).

For the runes/sigils people are recommending, keep in mind that the perma raid quickness builds get EXPENSIVE. Whether it’s 600 crystalline ore or 6 rune of chronomancer + https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Sigil_of_Concentration or boon duration armor/tank, everyone has their own recommendations so check all the guides as see what works best for you and your group.

Also need a herald and nothing but a herald in your subgroup at all times for that +50% boon duration and the RNG quickness to allies.

rchu.8945:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Thieves don’t need to be the apex glass cannon class and shouldn’t for the sake of class diversity but I think making them a bigger threat to certain kinds of bunkers while making teammates also hit those bunkers harder would not mess with PvE balance while giving them a much stronger role in PvP.

So your suggesting to have thieves be the main counter to Chronobunker, doesnt this sound familiar with when thieves with stealth mechanics owning Mesmers before the trait revamp done by Robert Gee? Sorry, no. As a Mesmer main, I dont want to. Having thieves be a hard counter to Chrono essentially eliminates Chrono Mesmers from being viable in competitive play.

A trait that counters the shield doesn’t counter a S/T+GS shatter mesmer whether it’s chrono or base mesmer. The traits I recommend would still also be competing with whatever else the thief would bring otherwise. Taking the 2 traits I recommend means not being able to daze with a shorter CD on F1. It also would mean not being able to boon steal with steal. So this thief would actually be weaker vs a glass mesmer compared to the old thief meta build. The glass mesmer still also has blind on shatter which the bunker chrono doesn’t have.

Fortus.6175:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

. every time someone blocks your attack, X damage happens. Cannot crit/Ignores armor. Long channeled blocks vs quick auto attacks will be able to wear down bunkers without buffing thieves too much vs glass classes

utility that makes the enemy unable to block all incoming attacks for a few seconds[/b] making the thief and ideal +1 vs certain bunkers.

All the things you just described would affect squishies more than bunkers. bunkers can heal up that minuscule amount of damage you do to them, while that same damage to squishies is way more powerful (since health % is lower) and most squishy classes rely on those “oh sh^t” defenses in order to survive the already apex predator thieves have bene to squishies since the release of the game.

if you go back to the beginning of the game, you will see the main reason squishies were quickly drove away from the meta and into bruisers/bunkers were thieves (and mesmers to some extent)

A better suggestion is; amount of damage based on Effective health (not max hp% since toughness can be stronger in generalthen, and cleric would still be incredibly strong on bunkers)

“Effective health”
Cele bunker chrono has toughness runes and 560 toughness amulet. Would be ignored by the trait that I said can’t crit but ignores armor Also has 560 vit. Marauder amulet that most glass cannons use also has 560 vit. So the trait I recommend that does armor ignoring damage but can’t crit actually affects both classes equally but the bunker has a lot of stats wasted. Oh caTZ defenses that a lot of glass classes use are blinds, dodges, distortion, teleports. These wouldn’t be affected by the trait I recommend.

As I mentioned earlier, you still also need to think of these traits as what does the thief LOSE vs a glass cannon when they pick these kind of traits to counter a block based bunker. Not being able to steal might/fury or prot will make that thief’s damage weaker vs non-blockers.

I understand the devs hesitation to split PvP/PvE and I think there are a few places that could be worked on before splitting numbers.

Well of Precog = Decaps the point. That’s not a major balance change nor would it affect PvE at all while bringing the bunker mesmer much more in line.

Add more unblockable/undodgeable attacks Tells can be added accordingly. Importantly, I think thieves need boon/block hate.

There used to be a warrior trait that gave the warrior might when the warrior was blocked (I think it was called Tantrum). Not exactly punishment for blocking but thieves could use something similar. ID and PS on thief respectively cause PI or torment when interrupting. Make one of these when blocked instead of interrupting: every time someone blocks your attack, X damage happens. Cannot crit/Ignores armor. Long channeled blocks vs quick auto attacks will be able to wear down bunkers without buffing thieves too much vs glass classes that they were already able to counter well in prior metas.

To add team presence to the thief, they also need a trait or skill that makes an enemy unable to block attacks rather than current buffs (signet of might/shiro/necro shout) that make the user’s attacks unblockable. Call it “expose defenses” (replace quick pockets: trait that now affects steal) and/or a trap utility that makes the enemy unable to block all incoming attacks for a few seconds making the thief and ideal +1 vs certain bunkers.

Thieves don’t need to be the apex glass cannon class and shouldn’t for the sake of class diversity but I think making them a bigger threat to certain kinds of bunkers while making teammates also hit those bunkers harder would not mess with PvE balance while giving them a much stronger role in PvP.

I wouldn’t consider myself a convert since I’ve been trying them all from the start and believe they all have their merits.

My group is currently stuck at Gorseval. However, it’s not really for lack of healing when I’m on my tempest. The protection/frost aura actually helps a lot with sustain vs Gorsaval’s auto attacks which my druid doesn’t provide. I’m half zealots/half zerker and not equipped to heal the constant failure to dodge the knockdown slam. I don’t consider that on me though since we lack the dps to burn him and people need to get better at dodging that attack so that they aren’t a DPS loss with the 3 sec KD. Also people keep messing up the gliding and I can’t heal insta dead from falling damage.

The rotation for druid healer is definitely easier. I could see Druid for Sabetha being easier as a ranged role is required. That’s also why I liked Druid on VG for someone that is always going to green aoe. However, I’m liking my tempest more for Gorsaval and think it’s the better one for that fight.

Earix.5684:

Wondrouswall.7169:

Aidenwolf.5964:

Not mine but it demonstrates my point. I used staff and Apothecary gear. The auras are good though aren’t they?

Indeed. I’ll try and get an apothecary set for my Tempest to try this out. You have my interest piqued.

Before buying an Apothecary set, you should know that the Elementalist in this video is running Dagger/Warhorn with a Zealot set (it’s currently one of the best weapon/stat combination for a raid healer tempest).

The OP plays Apothecary with Staff which is, in my opinion, the worst combination. I main Elementalist in PvE and I wouldn’t recommend it. It might work if you sit in water, spam heal and don’t care about damage, but even for this, there are better stat choices.

Yes, auras are great. Both druid and tempest can main heal the current raid wing. But Apothecary + Staff is a mistake. If the OP enjoys it, fine for him but don’t be misled

PS: This thread should be moved to the Elementalist forum

I tried D/F and D/WH for a glass condi tempest. Camp fire and spam F1/2/3 on CD + fire field on offhand. Quite a bit of burning that I was able to replace a viper/sinister engi.

I don’t think it would be too bad using apothecary instead but I agree that staff is a terrible choice for a condi tempest. Fire/earth would be the go to attunes to keep the condi dmg going with air/water for brief aura bursts and healing.

Edit: maybe not apothecary actually unless you are also tanking as that does come with toughness. Viper+Apothecary or maybe even some shaman to avoid aggro otherwise.

Having played a zealots/zerker druid, tempest and ventari herald in raids, I think all of them have something to offer. That said, it depends a lot on the fight and group.

Healing wise, I found all of them to be sufficient to keeping decent players alive but they all have different perks/niches.

Tempest Support: Besides healing, tempest with frost aura and protection on aura was great for preventing damage to the team when we didn’t have a hammer guard. Furthermore, the shout aura + powerful aura meant I often affected more than 5 people with each shout. No DPS buffs to the team.

Ranger:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQJATWnUqAVsglsC2sCEtgFDBDerGWLrPbhbXOjJAsuaAnskwJB-ThSBABNqE8hrAAlq/clyjT1Eg1+DlpEDPdA6fIAA4BAQKA/maB-e
The important combo was resounding timbre, we heal as one, rune of water and cultivated synergy. As long as I used only #3/4 on the green aoe then immediately leave CA, just using #6 as well as signet of the wild was plenty of AF to camp longbow most of the time. Staff was for emergency heals/mobility when people screwed up. Much better offensive buffs than tempest but no damage reduction. Longbow could be replaced with sword/axe depending on the fight for power builds. This build could easily be a axe/torch quickdraw apothecary build instead if the team was good enough to not require me to swap to staff for clutch heals.

Herald: Best +outgoing heal modifiers (can reach like 200% bonus outgoing heals) and some massive burst heals but the biggest problem I had was that my team often didn’t want to stay near the tablet and the tablet is slow. For VG, I decided not to bring my herald for heals. For the next two fights though, it’s a lot easier to be a ventari healer while camping sword auto. Provides ferocity bonus for the group depending on traits. Does have offensive boons while channeling glint but it means you aren’t healing. Also depends on if the group has DPS heralds/PS warriors for boons.

TLDR:
So overall, all the classes bring a different style of healing. While I did do power for all 3 builds, the tempest and druid can both swap to condi+ heals. Herald… not so great with condi while healing. Overall damage was actually comparable.

Tempest: Reduce Dmg to team
Druid: Increase Dmg of team with unique buffs
Rev/Herald: Best heals vs still bosses and provides common buffs.
All of them: Good enough healing in mostly zerker gear to keep decent teams alive.

Never optimized my condi necro too much but will probably use for the last 2 bosses in raids. A few questions:

1) Normally condi duration is more important than condi dmg but if epidemic isn’t affected by the % duration of the necro, is it really worth it to max out duration instead of trying to get the biggest epidemic bursts? Would zerker runes/bursting sigil be better for stronger epidemic bursts? Similarly, more sinister instead of viper?

2) If there are multiple necros/other people in the group that chill, what do you take instead of Reaper? Is SR worth it for the shorter CD on lich form? Death magic extending the life of Jagged horrors as well as spawning minions when the adds die seems potentially more useful than what amounts to 2 burn stacks (that won’t always tick when other ppl chill) and 50% crit chance. Has anyone tried death nova on the 2nd and 3rd fight and do they proc when adds are killed?

3) Why don’t I see warhorn in the offhand for these builds? Swapping to on CD, not just for geomancy but for WH#5 to proc more bleed on crits seems worthwhile compared to scepter auto? Might as well trait WH too if other necros have VA? 20 sec CD on the CPC/BiP/D#4 is plenty of time to get to wh and back.

Most of this game just doesn’t require a dedicated healer and it wasn’t designed with it in mind. Raids are a new exception to this. I don’t believe that only ranger/druid should heal well because rangers need something unique. Revenant and Tempest can also heal anyways (maybe not optimal but viable). I’m ok with HT being the best heal in most areas of the game for engi as long as med kit has it’s niche. That niche really seems to be the dedicated healer niche for mostly raids or maybe wvw.

Therefore, MK#1-5 all should be aoe (5 target) Bunker down healing drop should have similar aoe effect. MK#1 also needs to do some damage. It can be very little but has to do some so that it can crit and have synergy with traits like bunker down. However, in order to prevent this from being the super bunker in pvp though, MK-F1 needs a bit of a nerf and #1 shouldn’t affect the base engineer. HOWEVER, medical dispersion field should be reversed and work like AH guard or Live Vicariously on Druid: 5-20% of outgoing healing is received by the engineer. NO icd just reduce % to balance. Overall, I think this will offer a nice choice when going into inventions: Do I get my aoe healing on myself through just MK-2-5 and increase overall team healing with BD? or Do I make sure I get my own health up through medical dispersion while spamming #1 for max team heals?

I think MK can keep the overall mechanic of heal with more boons on target. Numbers of course need to be buffed. To make it a bit more “skillfull” for pvp etc, make it so that MK#1 requires a 2-3 second channel. The majority of the heal comes at the end of that channel and again, doesn’t heal the engi but does minor dmg. I think MK#1 should also be the most potent heal on the kit (maybe #5 is a stronger burst heal) with 2-4 being more utility oriented. Aoe protection, resistance, regen or maybe even an aegis on #5 seem like obvious answers to me. However, this also leaves the question of how much internal vs external synergy there is with the kit. Alchemy is an obvious choice for a healer with 15% outgoing heals. But do I pick HGH and toss potions for more boons and therefore stronger MK#1? or do I bring drop stimulant? Drop stimulant should be a strong choice for this build and to be a strong choice, it needs to somehow buff MK2-5 and stimulants in general. So long as it’s a trigger on #6, it’ll remain weak because it would otherwise be OP with HT in pvp. So it can either buff all stimulants (including bunker down and supply drop) directly by giving them an additional boon to buff MK#1 or maybe something like remove one condition for each stim used.

Overall, I think these proposed changes to MK and a few traits in alchemy and inventions would give the engi a strong role as a healer without making it OP in PvP settings. As engineers are at their best when swapping kits and these kits have no ICD, I think it should be more akin to druid staff numbers instead of druid astral form but either way, MK raw healing numbers need a big boost.

I too have been messing with healing builds that maximize bringing passive damage for raids.

Specific advice to your build: Scepter and Malicious Sorcery (If it still affects everything) might be better for spamming MoP. Since, you’ll be spamming MoP, you’ll only have time to channel #3 every once in awhile so clone generation won’t matter.

Gear Choice: I‘ve been telling all my guildies to have NO TOUGHNESS since it controls aggro unless they are the tank. This means clerics and apothecary are no goes. Shaman’s and magi’s are the cheap choices but not ideal stats. Zealots is the obvious DPS and heal armor but it’s expensive and I would feel bad for telling my allies to bring it. If you are willing to spend 80-100g on that sigil though, then I would definitely recommend going for zealots. Trinkets are another story since there is only exotic zealots trinkets and I hate not having account bound healing gear so I went magi there.

Comparison to other healing/passive builds: Keep in mind that with 10 ppl over several minute long fights, I highly doubt that blasting fire/water fields for might/fury or healing will work in raids. These are the two main raid healing builds I’ve been thinking about which makes me skeptical of a mesmer healing in magi. PSEA warrior is also not going to be great vs a boss that is constantly being moved around.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlUQNAsemn3gmNSuQzJRboNlsP0oS4I6UJ4ENskFglh9iNKZNgDSw+2eDG-TxRGABA8EAmUfQlq/U0+DmfKAsU5nUKBJFgfTtA-e
Can still provide perma fury, tons of might, and protection for the group. About 30-40% less DPS than the full zerker. Rev build that has 87 to 132% outgoing healing bonus means regen between 500-600 despite having less HP than your build. The ventari tablet passive pushes out ~1k health every 3 second which is better than the MoP spam in your build. The active heal movement is another 2.3-3k heal when it slides through people. Then the burst heal from the tablet heals 4-5k. That seems like a much better mix of passive damage, passive damage mitigation, active heals and active damage.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNUQJAWWn0rCNrgtqA2sCEtiFDBDurGWLrOrumVPgJAsuaAnskwJB-TxhXABOpLwunAAUq/Aw+DheJAiS5XDKBJFgfTtA-e
The tiger alone provides perma fury. Frost/fire spirits. Spotter. Glyph = 10% bonus during burn phases. 15% power/condi dmg ally buff from astral form. Pets don’t care about the loss of stats for DPS and don’t die so easily now. And of course, much better healing than the mesmer in both sustain and burst healing because druid and because of the extra +% outgoing healing to allies. Spirits are much harder to kill now and when traited have 1500 range. Banners have 600. So I think ranger spirits will actually be the new banners for raids since they are much more practical for mobile fights.

So while I’ve been trying to make mesmer healing work, I’m just not convinced that they are the best for this role. Herald and Druid do a much better job and bring a lot of passive DPS too. A lot of this is poor scaling on MoP and more importantly, lack of % outgoing healing modifiers. Furthermore, in mobile fights, mesmers have much better reflect uptime and are going to need that precision/ferocity ideally. That’s not to say your build can’t work but I’m very skeptical. If anything, embrace the toughness of clerics and the aggro it brings. Embrace channeling mantras with 600 bonus toughness. Embrace the 50% dmg reduction we can bring with p.Defender and be the tank with some clutch healing. Otherwise I think the perma alacrity, quickness, reflect mesmer is still better off using zerker/assassins with an occasional clutch heal from MoP.

Perhaps I should have been a bit more clear about the purpose of the build. This is meant to be a mesmer in the thick of large zerg fights. Especially since it’s in a large zerg fight where illusions die before they act, I would not grab torch phantasm for single target burning regardless of how many stacks it added. If this build breaks off from a zerg then sure.

Shield 4 was changed to a channel instead of a single block and dejavu =~5 second of channeled blocking when zergs clash = lots of burning that spikes higher than 1 stack at a time. This is especially good at tagging since it doesn’t have a target limit. Food+giver shield+ traits+ sigil = 70-80% burn duration so it’ll turn into a few stacks of burn per person attacking you.

Each interrupt = 2 confusion aoe. There is no ICD on mistrust. If it interrupts 1 person =2 confusion in an aoe for 5 targets. MoD interrupting 5 ppl = 10 aoe confusion. Gravity well getting 3 procs off = 30 aoe confusion. Shield 5 has no target limit and can interrupt twice = $$$. Then factor in CI for immob and extra conditions tossed in there. F5 would be hard to do much with but you could at least double up on one of these interrupts.

Sure, there will be stability and those numbers above are ideal circumstance but it’s kind of a return to form for the old mimic+RoG and glamour bomb.

Offhands that would work better here: GS#5? focus 4? sword 4.2? Pistol 5+ DD even? Chaos storm and staff for some extra mobility? I was wondering what people mostly thought of utility choice given the build concept.

Was thinking about the old mimic+rune of the guard effect during the beta and dueled a friend with shield+rune of the guard in pvp. Dead stop shield coming up from halloween made me think about burning shields again but this time I got on a wvw thought process with the food/stat choice that could make this a bit more viable.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQNAreWncfC1ohVoB2fCEgiFcjycBitKoMAWtXruVv1eF-ThiAABnfEAIULA0PAgE1FAwJAwq9HG5QAcq6PSqEUMlfkCAmlVA-e

Shield+Rune of Guard = spammable burn that isn’t easily removed
AOE Interrupts+Mistrust+CI = aoe confusion+cover conditions
It’s wvw = as little reliance on illusions as possible.

Staff is there for emergency condi cleanse/get out of jail but I’m not married to it at all. Not super set on utilities as I can’t decide how many wells/condi clears to toss in there vs signet of midnight and MoD for more confusion. Chrono GMs also seem off. Quickness will decrease block channel time but other two don’t really fit either.

Thoughts?

https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3pig2o/so_i_analyzed_chronomancer_today_on_the_gw2/cw6m17y
Chronomancer OP ^^

There is some merit to saying mesmers or other classes are OP. I mean rock is OP vs scissors: 100% win rate is unfair… but then you are missing the point of the game.

Jurica.1742:

I think strength will be the choice. You will get might from mirrorblade, eles ect. Pack I do not see place for as the swiftness you already have and you also have perm. fury from traits, but hey, there are also new runes coming out so we may end up using some of them.

One of those stickler things:
Boon duration does NOT affect boons allies give you.
Boon duration does affect boons you give to allies.
So ele should not be on that list.
With MB, CI, SS, I still think hoelbrak or strength are good choices. As others mentioned, hoelbrak with WvW food would be an especially good combo for ignoring soft cc conditions (-93%).

Although not directly power related, runes of defender
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_the_Defender
looks to be extremely potent with shield 4 x2. No ICD on regen on block. Bonus aegis on heal. 4k heal on a 30 sec CD when you block. If this is a new rune added, bunker chrono got a whole lot easier.

Pack is my go to for most power builds unless a new one shows promise.

Faab.8049:

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

Not trying to ruin the mood but the way people simplify their steps kind of makes me less motivated than excited about HoT……

We need more delicate elaboration on mesmer’s grand quest to become a chronomancer, an adventure worthy of songs. \o/

…
Just a little longer…

A short while to wat…

And release the accumilated knowledge of 200+ hero points, waiting to channeled into understanding the arcane art of chronomancy.

All of my alts are basically 100% of the map on hero points and ready to go. Revenant is going to have a ton of books to read. It does feel like a bit of a buzz kill but there isn’t a better way to go about it since there isn’t a story/quest associated with learning an elite spec from what I can tell.

I’m just super hyped for the story and mastery stuff so I probably won’t PvP at all for the first few weeks. Saddly, this also means I won’t mesmer at all for a while. Sinister engi with maxed out experience boosters: FT to mass tag mobs in zerg events where stuff dies too fast for rotations. FT is still useful in both engi meta builds and CC.

Once mass zerging dies down a bit and my masteries are unlocked, I’ll play the story again on the human mesmer to get a different perspective and prep for raids.

@Telekenisis
How does assassins and sinister have the same power output?
Same power doesn’t mean same crit chance nor same ferocity which both affect power damage and reflects. The condi builds are lacking in damage multipliers which further weakens their reflect damage (traits, runes, sigils and food all apply here)

Instead of phase retreating mirror image etc, just drop a bunch of wells, phantasms, MoP when you run at them. Worked fine for me in the beta. Then I just sword autod…

Why change your gear for just husks is the better question. That 20k sinister engi condi dps is going UP a lot. They have 4 main heavy hitters with burning. Reduce that CD with alacrity and their DPS goes insane. Quickness and alacrity on them in general… I’m guessing they could easily get to 30 maybe 40k DPS once a mesmer buffs them.

So minor DPS quibbles aside for a moment, at the end of the day, I just use power on mesmer because it’s less reliant on a specific trait setup that gets screwed if I want to bring inspiration instead of illusions or chrono for specific fights. It doesn’t get shafted as much in a lot of encounters. Other classes do condi so much better. Even something as simple as boon removal in the raids is going to be easier in zerker gear.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/Alacrity-and-ICDs/first#post5463854
TLDR from what I saw, alacrity probably won’t affect runes/sigils ICD since it didn’t affect similar traits. It only affects traits that are based off of skills.

Clearly the answer is nomads with
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Superior_Rune_of_Exuberance
to convert that vitality into MOAR stats.

Or we could just wait another day to check out the beta on the first wing.