Guild Wars 2

Daniel Handler.4816:

You can give perma resistance.

….?

A thought.

Illusions isn’t doing too much for you defence-wise (other than slightly lowered CDs for Diversion and Distortion and maybe AoE Diversion), and offence-wise you might get more out of going Domination with Mental Anguish, Shattered Concentration and either Confounding Suggestions or Empowered Illusions.

If you want a proper burst you’ll need to fit GS in there somehow, since Staff is the better defensive weapon I’d drop Sword-Sword. Then take Blinding Dissipation for more defence.

Pretty much one or the other, although people like to take PU in Chaos for defence through stealth. Blinding Dissipation is also pretty great for mitigating damage.

Some people also like Inspiration instead of Chaos for great condition cleansing and healing.

I was half-joking. You’re playing Power Shatter that trades burst for personal defence. That’s absolutely fine.

In higher level play though Mesmers are brought primarily for two things: maximum burst and Portal. To achieve maximum burst you need GS and Domination.

Power Shatter with neutered burst.

I would say Shield does a lot for condi. It generates a lot of Illusions with Shield 4, PoM and CP, and condi builds are a lot more illusion-hungry than Power builds.

Not to mention in PvP/WvW, using Continuum Shift comes with a risk, the risk that your enemies will kill your rift and burst you to smithereens when you’re pulled back.

It is far, far too early to talk about balancing for Continuum Shift when the majority of players don’t even try to kill the rift.

Sorry, I’m really argumentative as you could tell.

EDIT: Fixing the bug.

Sorry, I’m really argumentative as you could tell.

Mikkel.8427:

If you’re only going to look at it from a conquest PoV… yeah, its not the best.

Theoretically you could probably do this already with a Dom/Insp/Chrono Blurred Inscriptions build in PvE or WvW if you want. I don’t see it as being really useful however.

Like it or not Conquest is the primary mode the game is balanced around, because it’s the mode where balance has the most impact. PvE comes a close second, and WvW… a distant third (personal opinion).

But if a change would have minor benefit in one mode but a huge detriment in another, then it’s a bad change.

Mikkel.8427:

Its synergy with the inspiration line would be pretty crazy though… AoE Distortion spam, anyone?

I’m sure your team will really appreciate you constantly forcing everyone to decap.

I think it’s more accurate to say that Chronomancer is a fixed Mesmer. A lot of fixes that really should be part of the core Mesmer were shoehorned into the Chronomancer.

Which leaves the question of what future Elite specs will look like. Will they all have to include the same fixes Chronomancer has?

I’d actually consider turning it into Distortion a nerf, because that means you can’t contest points while using it. Chronobunker will take a huge hit.

Given that HoT releases much earlier than I expected and all the groundwork is done, I’m expecting the next set of Elites within ~1 year.

No pressure Rob.

ESO has this and it’s great. No confusion.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Embolism.8106:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

• Leave alacrity and AWtEW as it is. The current group alacrity-share potential is carrying mesmers into PvE, and nerfing that kitten many have suggested will relegate us back to PvE obscurity.

For me personally I’m not suggesting nerfing group Alacrity, just delegating it away from Wells. I realise you probably aren’t aiming this at me at all but anyways.

Yours were the only suggestions that made sense as far as changing group sharing goes: shift it away, but restore it somewhere else.

That said, were you among those who wanted to kneecap personal alacrity generation?
I’m not on board with that at all, the math just doesn’t bear it out.

Well I want Improved Alacrity to be changed to a Alacrity sharing trait. IMO Flow of Time is all the personal Alacrity we need, plus whatever we get from Alacrity-granting skills.

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[ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL]

[IMPROVED ALACRITY]
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I’d like to talk about these two together. There’s some complaints about Alacrity sharing being too Well-dependent, and the Mesmer having a bit too much personal Alacrity. I’d like to fix this by changing these two traits to:
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• All’s Well that Ends Well: Wells grant 1s Alacrity and 2.5s Protection to allies when they end.

• Improved Alacrity Bounty of Time: 50% of Alacrity you gain is shared with up to 5 allies within 360 range.

With these changes, Alacrity sharing becomes more about sharing your Flow of Time than Wells. It also serves to improve our Alacrity sharing skills: iAvenger gives 3s Alacrity to allies and Well of Recall grants 7.5s or 9s with AWTEW (provided you’re affected).

Duel/Chaos/Illu is an easier condi build to play but I think I can safely say that X/Illu/Chrono is stronger overall.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

• Leave alacrity and AWtEW as it is. The current group alacrity-share potential is carrying mesmers into PvE, and nerfing that kitten many have suggested will relegate us back to PvE obscurity.

For me personally I’m not suggesting nerfing group Alacrity, just delegating it away from Wells. I realise you probably aren’t aiming this at me at all but anyways.

I love it. It’s got flavour and it’s well-polished. Few thoughts…

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• Both Cry of Astonishment and Bedazzle are AoE CCs, seems a bit too much. I’m also a bit confused as to what Bedazzle does: what does it mean to “captivate” enemies? And when the Taunt is activated, what are enemies Taunted against?

• Curtain Call has a really short CD. People already cry a lot about The Prestige, I shudder to imagine what kind of QQ Curtain Call will generate. Plus the potential to use this with Torch, the stealth heal, PU… urgh.

• Phantasmal Jester’s Blast finisher every 4s is really, really strong. I guess it’s offset by the fragility of melee Phantasms but balance shouldn’t be based around a major design flaw that really needs addressing.

• Does Disguise also change your name, etc. to mimic a Phantasm? If it’s purely visual then it’s not going to trick anyone. Does it have any effect on AIs?

• No current GW2 skill works by targeting allies, so how will Improvisation work? Does it just choose a random illusion, is it ground-targeted? If it does work by targeting allies, that seems really clunky.

• Avvio Diavolo seems like a Trap skill. Bit out of place.

• Shouldn’t the Elite be a Trick as well?

• Ether Renewal is already the name for an Elementalist heal.

• Master Prankster better have an ICD or it will be extremely overpowered.

• There seems to be rather too many traits that affect Tricks. Or maybe these are meant to be options rather than all at once?

• I wish Illusionary Circus was baseline, although it seems like it might be troublesome if it interrupts Phantasm attacks (e.g. Warden).

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Yes, a lot of criticism heh. But I do love the idea and flavour of everything you suggested.

Remember that Well of Precog also grants Endurance on ending, allowing you to dodge and mitigate any burst attempts. Plus it doesn’t lock you or anything so you can just as easily use Blurred Frenzy or another form of mitigation just before it ends.

Decoy doesn’t even compare to Well of Precog considering a lot of burst attempts use Immobilise too which makes you continue to eat a burst after Decoying.

Honestly after it got nerfed on arrival I think Duelist’s Discipline is just an all-around shoddy trait. The Pistol deserves better.

You probably already know this, but it has to interrupt a skill to reduce CDs.

Polismassa.6740:

Embolism.8106:

Why exactly do you feel the Mesmer “should” give up something for Continuum Shift when most elite specs don’t? Let’s take a look.

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Berserker: Berserk mode changes burst skills, but outside of Berserk mode you retain your normal burst skills.

Dragonhunter: Virtues are different, but the passives are the same and the actives mostly build on existing functionality. Only real drawback is they have cast times.

Revenant: An always available Facet, no drawback.

Druid: Celestial Avatar replaces your weapon skills but, again, while not active you suffer no drawbacks.

Daredevil: extra dodge and dodge effects. No drawback.

Scrapper: better ressing/stomping. No drawback.

Tempest: using Overloads increases attunement CD, but you can just as easily ignore them and suffer no drawbacks.

Reaper: Completely changes your Death Shroud. You can consider this a drawback maybe, but given the melee is the Reaper’s thing I think every Reaper would prefer Reaper Shroud over Death Shroud.

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Aside from Dragonhunter and Reaper no Elite spec takes away from the core profession, and even with DH and Reaper there’s a much stronger argument for them being upgrades rather than drawbacks (apart from DH’s cast time on Virtues, which IMO should be removed).

The reason I feel that mesmers should give something up to take continuum shift is because I thought that chronomancer felt extremely strong during the beta. In addition, The current placement for the continuum shift icon on the skill bar feels very out of place.

This is purely a suggestion, and maybe you disagree, but I don’t think that there’s a lack of precedent here. As mentioned, both reaper and dragonhunter lose previous profession skills to use the new ones. This makes the elite specializations more of a horizontal shift in the way the class plays, where they become better at certain things and worse at others (reaper is much stronger in close quarters, but becomes weaker at range).

Reaper and DH gain different (upgraded) versions of existing skills. Continuum Shift is not a different version of an existing Shatter skill. They’re apples and oranges.

Now, if you’re suggesting reworking Continuum Shift’s functionality into Distortion (on Distortion’s CD of course), I might be inclined to agree.

Why exactly do you feel the Mesmer “should” give up something for Continuum Shift when most elite specs don’t? Let’s take a look.

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Berserker: Berserk mode changes burst skills, but outside of Berserk mode you retain your normal burst skills.

Dragonhunter: Virtues are different, but the passives are the same and the actives mostly build on existing functionality. Only real drawback is they have cast times.

Herald: An always available Facet, no drawback.

Druid: Celestial Avatar replaces your weapon skills but, again, while not active you suffer no drawbacks.

Daredevil: extra dodge and dodge effects. No drawback.

Scrapper: better ressing/stomping. No drawback.

Tempest: using Overloads increases attunement CD, but you can just as easily ignore them and suffer no drawbacks.

Reaper: Completely changes your Death Shroud. You can consider this a drawback maybe, but given the melee is the Reaper’s thing I think every Reaper would prefer Reaper Shroud over Death Shroud.

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Aside from Dragonhunter and Reaper no Elite spec takes away from the core profession, and even with DH and Reaper there’s a much stronger argument for them being upgrades rather than drawbacks (apart from DH’s cast time on Virtues, which IMO should be removed).

To bunker doesn’t mean to sit on a point all round, a good bunker should be a strong presence in team fights. This is especially true for Guardian bunkers but even Mesmer bunkers have a lot to offer to the team.

The major weakness of the traditional bunker guard is a lack of mobility: it takes them time to rotate and mobile professions like Thieves can easily outmaneuver them. A Mesmer bunker with Portal on the other hand can rotate very rapidly, allowing it to participate in team fights while protecting the home point at the same time.

Toeofdoom.6152:

• drop tides of time to 1.5s

Do you mean Echo of Memory?

Velimere.7685:

Embolism.8106:

Also bear in mind that a Chronomancer with Well of Precog is missing a core utility, e.g. Blink, Decoy, Mantra of Distraction/Resolve, etc.

…Or Portal! I’d absolutely love to take Well of Precognition, but my bar can’t afford it!

I consider Portal pretty much non-negotiable, so…

I’d rather they don’t nerf the core Mesmer for the sake of the Chronomancer. Keep Chronomancer fixes to the Chronomancer please.

Well. Here’s my consolidated feedback for the Chronomancer in BWE3.

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Chronomancer is in a really good place right now. Shield, Wells, Continuum Shift, traits… everything feels smooth, polished and, most importantly, fun. Some numbers might be a bit overtuned but overall there are no glaring mechanical flaws that need attention.

Things that I think could do with some tweaking:

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[ECHO OF MEMORY/DEJA VU]

kitten Block on a 30s CD that also conjures two Phantasms that Slow/Alacritise is a bit much considering the Mesmer is already well-endowed with active defences. I suggest reducing the Block duration from 2.25s to 1.75s. Also, Malicious Sorcery really, really needs to stop reducing Block duration now that we have a continuous Block.

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[WELL OF CALAMITY]

Given that it’s meant to be our damage well, I don’t see why it has lower pulsing damage than Action and Recall. Should be at least on-par if not a bit higher. As it is it seems to be used more for its low CD proccing of AWTEW than for its actual effects.

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[WELL OF PRECOGNITION]

For such a strong effect I wonder if kitten CD might be a bit on the low side. I’d suggest at least increasing it to 50s.

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[GRAVITY WELL]

Without Pull on cast, the AoE is a bit too small especially when you also take into account the 1s cast time: it can be tricky to land on fast-moving targets and isn’t difficult to escape if you’re not caught dead-centre. I suggest increasing its radius from 240 to 360, and maybe increase its CD from 90s to 120s to balance it out.

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[ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL]

[IMPROVED ALACRITY]

I’d like to talk about these two together. There’s some complaints about Alacrity sharing being too Well-dependent, and the Mesmer having a bit too much personal Alacrity. I’d like to fix this by changing these two traits to:

All’s Well that Ends Well: Wells grant 1s Alacrity and 2.5s Protection to allies when they end.

Improved Alacrity Bounty of Time: 50% of Alacrity you gain is shared with up to 5 allies within 360 range.

With these changes, Alacrity sharing becomes more about sharing your Flow of Time than Wells. It also serves to improve our Alacrity sharing skills: iAvenger gives 3s Alacrity to allies and Well of Recall grants 7.5s or 9s with AWTEW (provided you’re affected).

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[DANGER TIME]

If it’s not possible to let our Illusions benefit, then I think this trait needs a buff. Say 40% extra crit chance instead of 30%. Mesmer personal DPS is really low, Chronomancy doesn’t really fix this.

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[LOST TIME]

I feel like this trait is needlessly complicated. Why not just “your critical hits inflict 3s Slow, 5s ICD”? It’d be much easier to balance what kind of Slow uptime you want without having to take into account different weapons and their rate of fire. I’d also consider swapping this trait with Danger Time and buffing Danger Time up further, to give a sort of personal DPS alternative to Chronophantasma.

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[SIEZE THE MOMENT]

It’s a good trait but needs a bit more to compete with Chronophantasma… allow the Mesmer itself to count as an Illusion for this. All other traits that scale with Illusions Shattered do this, why should this be an exception? Plus as established Mesmer personal DPS is really bad, Quickness is much less valuable to us for DPS purposes than other professions.

Silverkey.2078:

Embolism.8106:

Silverkey.2078:

Well to be fair the only class which can grant slow is mesmer on time warp. The rest is only by corruption/transfer.

The Daredevil and Druid also has access to Slow.

Ok you win :p

Where’s my prize?

Silverkey.2078:

Well to be fair the only class which can grant slow is mesmer on time warp. The rest is only by corruption/transfer.

The Daredevil and Druid also has access to Slow.

Side note: a benefit to a new IA “50% of Alacrity you gain is shared with allies” is it improves our Alacrity-sharing skills. Well of Recall for example becomes 5s self-Alacrity but 7.5s shared Alacrity, or 6s/9s with my suggested AWTEW.

Silverkey.2078:

That is a weak argument honestly. I could say “slow is core to chronomancy, you should not be able to build a chronomancer without slow” and I would not be more right or wrong than you are. I like alacrity, I just think we have too much of it too easily (maybe I am the only one to think this way).

You would be more wrong than I am because Chronomancy is the only way to gain Alacrity in the entire game, and a lot of balancing seems to be done with Alacrity in mind. Slow on the other hand is available to multiple professions including the base Mesmer, and it has no where near the impact of Alacrity to the entire profession.

I do believe we have too much personal Alacrity too easily, hence why I’m for the removal of Improved Alacrity. Take that away and I think it will be much harder to maintain excessive personal Alacrity without wasting your Shatters.

Also, condensing my feedback from another thread…

I feel like Gravity Well should have a larger AoE. Without Pull on cast it’s not difficult for enemies to escape the Well, and with a 1s cast time it’s a bit tricky to land on running targets in WvW and the centre point of Foefire.

I suggest increasing its radius from 240 to 360, and increase its CD from 90s to 120s.

A well-prepared Mind Wrack has a lot more impact than one that’s used on CD. Not saying the reduced CDs across the board isn’t powerful but it’s not like you’re going to be executing 100% perfect bursts every 6s… except against Golems I guess, which Anet seems to have an unfortunate predilection to base their balancing on.

With regards to Alacrity, Flow of Time should definitely not become a Major. Alacrity is as core to Chronomancy as Continuum Split (I’d argue more so), it should not be possible to build a Chronomancer without Alacrity.

Improved Alacrity however is excessive. Flow of Time gives all the self-Alacrity we need, and if you want more Illusionary Reversion should be the trait to go with (ATM IA seems to be taken over IR most of the time).

I’d like to see IA replaced, perhaps with another Alacrity-sharing trait so we’re not so reliant on Wells. Say 50% of Alacrity you gain is shared with allies, and AWTEW becomes “Wells grant 1s Alacrity and 2.5s Protection to allies when they end”. This isn’t an entirely altruistic trait either, remember Phantasms also benefit from Alacrity if there are no allies to share it with.

…..

With regards to Shield 4, I still believe the Block is too long even disregarding its synergy with PoM (4.5s over 30s plus 2x Phantasms that AoE Slow/grant Alacrity). The Mesmer already has a lot of active defence, IMO its Block should be good but not equal or (as is the case) straight up better than other shield blocks.

Many people have suggested reducing the Block duration to 1.5 or 1.75s, and I agree. It remains a very strong Block, and better than most other Blocks if you trait for it (which is fine).

The Mesmer’s DPS is higher but its burst is not. Since Mesmer DPS was one of the lowest out of all professions that isn’t a problem.

It’s more forgiving yes, because a big part of Chronomancy is improving the Mesmer’s survivability (hence why it gives access to the Shield). Again seeing as that’s the point of Chronomancy, not a problem.

(Numbers are subject to change of course. I feel Mesmer bunker might be a bit too survivable compared to Guard bunker, but on the flip side it doesn’t have the same team fight presence so it probably balances out. It’s a more selfish type of bunker, if you will.)

Well of Precog is indeed quite strong, but it is on a significant CD. Overall bunkering is one of the Chronomancer’s strengths, which makes sense given that its weapon is the Shield.

Also bear in mind that a Chronomancer with Well of Precog is missing a core utility, e.g. Blink, Decoy, Mantra of Distraction/Resolve, etc.

Most of us expected (and know) that it doesn’t, seeing as all of our older traits (Harmonious Mantras, Compounding Power’s direct damage) don’t.

Phloww.1048:

tobascodagama.2961:

Phloww.1048:

Hmm….I’m trying out other elite specs and notice their stunbreakers have very short cooldowns. Well of Precognition is 45 secs long and the stability only applies to the mesmer. Think the cooldown’s too long? Maybe shorten it down to at least 35 or 40 secs?

Yeah, but we also have multiple other stunbreak options on shorter cooldowns, and Precog does a lot for us beyond just breaking stuns.

While that is true, Well of Precognition currently has a casting time while all other stunbreakers are instant. There were a few times where I was casting it and then get interrupted (whether by mob or I try to dodge into it for the blur.

The cast time is why it also grants Stability. See also: Well of Power, and other stunbreakers with cast times.

The problem with Gravity Well in a Settler Bunker is the lack of Power to take advantage of its direct damage. That said I’ve come to appreciate double-casted Gravity Wells, 6s of AoE CC is generally better than 10s of single target CC. Plus it’s something else for AWTEW.

I do feel it should have a larger AoE though. It’s fine for most points but for Foefire’s central point it’s a bit small. And without Pull on the first pulse it’s not too difficult to escape.

Personally I’d be willing to take a CD hit (say to 120s) if its radius could be increased to 360.

Because it’s the only heal you can cast while Continuum Shifted and still get a benefit… that’s a pretty good thing in my books.

I don’t think that’s worth losing to cater to disorganised WvW groups. Not to mention AWTEW has the same mechanic, next thing you’ll be asking for Alacrity to be on-pulse as well. Either go all the way or not at all, and in this case I think it’s better to go with not at all.

I like Well of Eternity as it is, gives it some synergy with Continuum Shift. Distributing the final heal to the pulses ruins this.

AoE Slow for Lost Time sounds like a good idea.

EDIT: fixing the bug.

Agree 100%. For the Mesmer, it seems like a lot of fixes for core Mesmer problems went into the Chronomancer.

The other problem with balancing core professions with Elites is that future elites will need to incorporate fixes for the same problems, causing every Elite to reinvent the wheel.

I like Well of Eternity as it is, gives it some synergy with Continuum Shift. Distributing the final heal to the pulses ruins this.

AoE Slow for Lost Time sounds like a good idea.

This is my version.

It’s a more offensive variant. Compared to yours it sacrifices Protection and Stability for condition pressure and lower CDs across the board, particularly to Echo of Memory. Health pool is much lower but IMO for a healing-heavy build that doesn’t matter, and the somewhat higher Toughness plus a bit of Healing Power makes up for it.

For me the deal breaker is Shield 4’s interaction with Persistence of Memory + Chronophantasma + Disenchanter/Mental Defence/Warlock. You mentioned that it’s on a rather lengthy CD so it should be used carefully: in my variant I basically get Echo back a few seconds after Deja Vu finishes, or even immediately if I hold off on using Deja Vu.

Main problem is, of course, Necromancers. Not only can they turn conditions against you (although that’s really not a problem with the cleanses and active mitigation you have), they also potentially have a lot of unblockable attacks (more troublesome).

I use Signet of Humility because I feel a long CD elite takes the most advantage of Continuum Shift, plus the stun reduction isn’t shabby (and by using it with Continnum Shift it’s basically always active even if I Moa people on CD).

Curunen.8729:

Embolism.8106:

Currently playing Condi Chrono Shatter Bunker (jeez that’s a mouthful). Really tough, outputs decent condition pressure, with a smattering of team support.

From a Bunker standpoint it’s not as supporty as Guardian, but is much more capable of holding its own when alone and of course is more mobile. You can customise a lot of the build to your taste and still retain its core functionality too: if you want more offensive pressure or mobility you can have it. The format I’m playing is probably one of the tankier variants.

Overall I really like the template of Condi Shatter with Shield. There’s so many variations that are all viable.

Just a side note – nice to see you taking Sword instead of Scepter.

It’s a fun build for sure.

Yeah, Sword adds a lot of tankiness (and it’s funny how desperately some people try to stay out of range despite you doing very little damage) at the cost of condition burst. Really nice to finally be able to play a proper Mesmer bunker.

I feel like Improved Alacrity shouldn’t exist. Flow of Time gives Mesmers a lot of Alacrity already, we really don’t need more. I’d like to see it be replaced with another Alacrity-sharing trait and maybe reduce AWTEW’s Alacrity (although then I feel AWTEW might need a bit more…).

Something like, 50% of Alacrity you gain is shared to allies. And AWTEW would be grant 1s Alacrity and Resistance to allies when wells end.

EDIT: We probably shouldn’t be splitting general feedback like this.

I assumed he was talking about Alacritised Distortion and Well of Precog (maybe Alacritised Blurred Frenzy too). Since Distortion prevents capture point contribution I don’t see that as a problem, and Blurred Frenzy roots. That leaves Well of Precog which is on a pretty hefty CD, so again not a big deal.

Chronomancer certainly improved Mesmer tankiness by quite a bit, but then again: it uses a Shield. What did you expect?

Zenith.7301:

Hurray, more PvP lobbying to ruin perfectly fine PvE skills and mechanisms.

They buffed the shield to make it attractive in PvE over the other weapons, but this won’t last long if the PvP concern trolls have their way as usual.

From a PvE perspective I really want a way to conjure iAvenger quickly, reducing the Block duration helps with that and doesn’t really affect its effectiveness as a defensive skill for the same reason Confusion isn’t viable in PvE.

I think you often have good points, and I respect that; but I feel you come across as aggressive and “knee-jerky” sometimes, which makes people lash out and devolves discussions.