Guild Wars 2

Alasteir.7031:

Several things, what setup did you use to reach 2100 condition damage without might? I’m getting everything I possibly can through the build editor, and reaching 1800 is already rough. The only thing missing is condition damage modifiers based on toughness. With those modifiers it reaches close to 1900. So I’d like to know how you did that, so I can replicate it.

2160 no might. Stacking sigils matter.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fhAQNAW7dlknpYttqxUNUrNSphc6nRbiyxhJZgDA-T1xCABpobAgHAAOq/I0+DHfBASUJYWK/IFwiSjA-w

Alasteir.7031:

Secondly, besides going into your vague generalities, confusion by itself wouldn’t be enough of course. Wouldn’t the combination of torment, the bleeds from the clones, and reflect damage add up to rival, or surpass a shatter, or phantasm build in this same setting?

You have no access to good aoe torment. Tormenting sigil is just a tiny bit here and there, it’s not really significant. Bleeds, same problem. 33% of the time a clone will pop for a couple bleeds that will tick for a couple seconds and do minimal damage. Reflect damage is potentially non-trivial, but you can’t rely on it. Zerg metas rely on gtAoE and cleave damage, not ranged. Now and then you’ll get great stuff from feedback, but it’s highly inconsistent.

Alasteir.7031:

Third, depending on the scenario, from experience, organized zergs tend to ignore mesmer clones in favor of higher priority targets. The exception of course being clones being in the proximity of aoe that is meant for an actual player.

Your clones aren’t gonna survive for more than a quarter of a second. If they do survive for more than a quarter of a second, it means they’re not near the enemy group, and so when they pop the clone death traits won’t hit anyone.

Alasteir.7031:

Lastly, in zerg scenarios, I often find that permanent condi cleanse isn’t an actual thing, and that regularly there are periods of time where it does damage, especially in groups that scatter, like in the midst of an actual clash. Otherwise, the glamour build of yore wouldn’t have been nerfed, as the confusion that it originally applied would’ve been just easily cleansed no? It also contradicts the popularity of perplexity runes.

Perplexity runes are not popular in zerg builds, so that’s besides the point.

The meta back then didn’t run with a lot of condition removal. Really the only condition threat for the most part was the glamour mesmer. Now, zergs constantly do aoe condition removal from shouts, ele fields, and other assorted utilities. You’re right that it’s not always going to remove your confusion immediately, but it will a good amount of the time.

Another thing to keep in mind is that glamour confusions only work if they actually walk through your glamours. This means that situations where they’re spread out or not moving much leave you more or less unable to do damage. Glamour builds are most effective on a dense group moving through a choke or some other movement-restricting area, because that forces them all to walk through your glamours. This, unfortunately, is also the period of time that aoe condition is both most potent and most often used. It’s not a good combination for your damage.

Ultimately, yeah…you’ll tag people. You’ll do a bit of damage if you use the glamours right. You’re just not going to do very much. Remember that on top of this all, your damage is 50% that of an old glamour build, before taking into account any of the meta changes like condition removal. Imagine if suddenly shatter builds were just nerfed to 50% of what they used to do. Do you think they’d be useful or in any way decent? Glamour builds are no different.

This is pretty much the glamour build of yore. It’s not really run anymore for a pretty good reason: it does close to nothing.

The confusion doesn’t hurt much (yes, even with your 1500 condition damage, which, btw, is really low. Back when I ran glamour builds, I’d have 2100 before might.). It just gets cleansed off immediately or just ignored. Once you’ve put down your glamours and chaos storm, you’re basically left with almost nothing. You can try to sorta strafe a group with confusing images, but that’s of limited effectiveness. Clone explosions do a little bit, but they often won’t hit many people unless you’re right in the middle of things (dangerous place to be with no stunbreaks or stability).

Ultimately, using this build will get you some tags, but that’s about it. You’re not going to be actually contributing much to your group in a meaningful way.

Titus.2085:

Ross Biddle.2367:

The missing +15% phant damage has become baseline.

I’m trying to find it but so far I don’t know where it is. If I’m assuming baseline as in the 1st minor trait, then I can’t find anything.

It’s just straight up baseline. Phantasms now hit 15% harder.

Eodwen.2613:

Doesn’t chill make your skills recharge at 33% of the normal rate? So like 100% – 66%? Isnt the opposite of that 100% + 66% = 166%?

No, it doesn’t. Take a look at some of the other posts in this thread for how it actually works.

TyPin.9860:

To achieve same win/loss numbers and to simply:
Chill: reduce recharge rate ([skill recharge]/[game time]) by 40% (same effect as CD increase of 66%) —> skill recharges 0.6s per 1s game time
Alacrity: increase recharge rate rate([skill recharge]/[game time]) by 40% (different effect as explained above. It equals approx a 28.6% CD decrease) --> skill recharges 1.4s per 1s game time.

With this change the win loss would be the same for the same time of applied effect (for 3s effect 1.2s).

I think this is probably what the devs are envisioning as how they want the skills to act. Were you able to figure out what alacrity does by counting frames on the blog post?

TyPin.9860:

I tested it now with a guildie. But let’s first look again at the wording of chill:

Movement speed decreased by 66%; skill cooldown increased by 66%; stacks duration.

What they mean is (CD always refers to skill cool down):
The time required to recharge the CD under chill is increased by 66%.
This results in 1.66…s (166% of 1s ) that is required to recharge CD by 1s.

I tested it. First I confirmed that the unchilled CD of Chaos Storm is in synch with the timer of my video editing program (adobe premiere 2.0). Then I measured the time it took to recharge one second of chilled Chaos Storm CD with the time indicator of the editing program. And it varied between 1.66 and 1.67 seconds. So I am fairly sure it was actually 5/3s or 1.66…s (166% of 1s ).

That means in return that within 1s of ingame time a chilled CD is recharged only by 0.6s (1/[1+1*2/3]).

Interesting. My test was not done using video capture, but just with a stopwatch, so your results fall well within my margin of error. So the 66% comes from the increase of real time units necessary to recharge a unit of skill time.

TyPin.9860:

EDIT:
So under alacrity, if I understand it right (and that chill and alacrity neutralize each other), the time to recharge CD by 1s would be only 1/3s of ingame time. In turn this means that after 1s of ingame time a CD had been recharged by 3s (1/[1-1*2/3]).

If both effects (chill + alacrity) are applied, the time to recharge the CD would be the same as if none of the effects would apply (t/[t+t*2/3-t*2/3]).

No, this definitely isn’t right. Using that formula, alacrity would be causing skills to recharge at 3 times the normal rate. Watch the video, that’s obviously not the case. So the formula of (t/[t+t*2/3-t*2/3]) is definitely the wrong way to do the comparison.

So lets just straighten a couple things out, that way we can do some sanity checks on this math. Roughly speaking, chill increases how long it’ll take for a skill to recharge by about a third. Also roughly speaking, alacrity decreases how long it’ll take a skill to recharge by about a third. If your math isn’t sticking to those general bounds, then it’s wrong.

So…let me try and get this straight. You’re not worried that chronomancy is going to be better. What you’re worried about is basically that chronomancy is going to have a shiny new toy, and non-chrono mesmer isn’t? But you’re not worried that the shiny new toy is going to be better, you’re just worried about the fact that it exists.

This is a…unique view of the situation.

Arewn.2368:

If I pick Domination, Dueling, and Illusions, I get everything that is standard to mesmer, and three full trait lines of traits.
If I pick Domination, Dueling, and Chronomancy, I get everything that is standard to mesmer, and three full trait lines of traits, PLUS an extra f5 shatter, the ability to wield a shield, and wells added to my ability list.

The basic issue with your arguments and logic is that you’re simply making the assumption that F5, shield, and wells have value greater than what you’re giving up. This is not an assumption that you can just make and forget about.

So lets look at that assumption you made, and see if it holds true.

So there’s 3 things that chrono gives that are unique. It unlocks access to shield, wells, and the F5 shatter. Let’s look at the shield and wells first.

So chronomancy unlocks access to the shield. No other traitline unlocks access to another weapon, but everyone is going to end up with the same number of weapons. If you want to use the skills on shield, you’ll have to trait chronomancer, but that in and of itself doesn’t make the chrono line stronger, it just means you’re forced to take it if you want shield.

Wells are similar. Chronomancy unlocks access to wells, but you’ve still got just 3 utility slots, a heal, and an elite. You get a wider range of options by going into chronomancy, but the majority of builds aren’t going to need or want the options it provides. Some builds will, and those will be forced to take chronomancy. This also is not a valid reason for the line actually being a better choice.

Now we’ve got F5. Unlike the other two things, F5 is absolutely a unique addition to the class that isn’t reflected by other traiting choices. The problem here, though, is that you’re attempting to just end your analysis at this point. You say ‘Chrono gets F5, other specs don’t, and this makes them unbalanced’. That’s an incomplete analysis, and not valid by itself.

Ultimately, the question is this: What is stronger: F5 and the chrono line, or no F5 and a different line? The answer to this question is ‘it depends’. Sometimes F5 and the chrono line will be better, and sometimes they won’t.

Arewn.2368:

It’s a problem to me because it means elite specs get more resources, more ‘stuff’. Not necessarily stronger, but a larger pool, greater variety and flexibility.
They are mesmer+

This is the main issue that you seem to have, and it’s the part that makes the least sense to me. You appear to be complaining purely because they get more stuff. This…makes no sense. What does it matter that one line gets stuff if that stuff isn’t strong, or isn’t worth taking for your build? What does it matter if the guy over there is using a shield if your build doesn’t use a shield effectively? Why should you care if that mesmer is dropping wells when your build is specialized for single target damage?

The greater variety and flexibility inherent to elite specs is available to all mesmers, it’s not like you’re locked out of it for some reason. If you need theutility that chrono offers, then you take chrono. If you want to specialize in something that chrono doesn’t offer…then you don’t take chrono. The fact that it exists doesn’t make everything else less…it just means you have more options. It means everyone has more options. This is never a bad thing. The only possible valid complaint is if chrono was objectively a better choice for all builds. This is not true, and so the complaint is not valid.

Iretha.7625:

The fact that they trade one trait line for another is its own trade-off for them. They replace Illusions with Chronomancy. However, their issue is that there seems to be no trade when it comes to the new shatter. They are not losing a shatter to gain a shatter, and to them that isn’t a trade. Because the Chronomancer, to them, seems to be showing a net gain in the exchange. (Ex: One Trait Line sacrificed for a different Trait Line + a weapon. VS One Trait Line sacrificed for a different Trait Line + a weapon + a fifth shatter.) I’m trying very hard to get you to understand their line of thinking. :/

The problem is that that line of thinking is trying to equate things that simply can’t be equated. It’s not valid to say ‘One trait line + a weapon is better than another trait line’. What if your build doesn’t use the skills on shield well? What if your build doesn’t use wells effectively? What if your build simply doesn’t function without traits in domination, dueling and inspiration?

That line of thinking simply too limited to understand how these lines will interact. Instead of trying to break it down into weapons and traits and skills, which can’t really be directly compared, just look at it generally. Taking (insert trait line here) gives the mesmer “stuff”. Taking chronomancer gives the mesmer “other stuff”. Sometimes the “stuff” is going be better than the “other stuff”. Sometimes the “other stuff” is going to be better than the “stuff”.

Just because “other stuff” contains an F5 and shield doesn’t mean that it’s better or more optimal or even more at all. It just means it’s different.

Iretha.7625:

Fay.2357:

snip

You’re so wrong. So hilariously wrong. You are just simply, and yet eloquently, wrong. WHY are you wrong? Oh don’t be silly, you just ARE dear!

I’m not trying to take sides here.. but if your primary argument against something is “You’re just wrong!” you’re not going to get anywhere. Also, the fact that Chronomancer loses a trait line, to gain a trait line isn’t what they’re complaining about at all. They seem fine with Chronomancer switching a trait line out + getting a weapon.

Try reading the rest of the post, I put plenty of arguments as to why those statements are wrong. I’m simply stating they’re wrong because they’re literally saying an untrue fact that I just showed was untrue.

Iretha.7625:

Their primary concern is Chronomancer getting the new f5 shatter exclusively to themselves. Since there doesn’t seem to be a trade off for that particular specialization’s gain.

Again…(and now I’m really sounding like a broken record). The trade off is NOT GETTING OTHER THINGS.

If you get the F5 skill, you sacrifice something. What that something is depends on the build. Maybe it’s CI/BI. Maybe it’s power block and CS. Maybe staff cooldowns and PU, or DE and reflects. Something major is being sacrificed. If something major wasn’t also being gained…nobody would use chronomancer at all.

I’ve explicitly shown how many existing builds are potentially stronger without taking chronomancy. If that isn’t the most obvious proof of my statements…I’m not sure what could be.

Arewn.2368:

Right, and the problem with this is that I already read your post in another thread. And because I already read your post in another thread, I wrote something in my post with the very specific purpose of addressing what you wrote.

So the problem is that what you wrote is, how do I put this…wrong.

Arewn.2368:

“Does that mean baseline specs will be irrelevant, or nonviable? of course not. But it does mean they are going to be “second class citizens”.”

This is simply incorrect, again.

Arewn.2368:

You have done absolutely nothing to address any of my points with your post.
My problem is that elite specs will have objectively more then their baseline.
Baseline will be just that, baseline. While elite specs will be baseline+1.

Objectively more? You’re obviously missing the meaning of objective. Will they have wells, shield, and f5? Yes. Will they have a full line of trait choices that are potentially incredibly strong? No. There’s no possible way to pull an ‘objectively more’ or ‘objectively less’ out of that.

Arewn.2368:

You have only to gain by switching to the elite spec.

Again, this is so hilariously wrong. ‘You have only to gain’? No, you’re losing an entire line of traits. That’s ENORMOUS.

Arewn.2368:

So tell me, where are the trade offs? What do you lose from mesmer when you spec into chronomancer?

I’m feeling like a broken record here…but.

You lose an entire line of traits. This is an enormous sacrifice. You gain different traits that do different things. The gain is balanced by a loss.

Arewn.2368:

And picking a trait line isn’t a chronomancer trade off. It’s a normal trade off. No matter how you spec, you are ALWAYS making trade offs between the trait lines you pick. This is not an example of an elite spec trade off.

This is the point. The chronomancer line gives you an F5….but it doesn’t give you torment on your shatters. The chronomancer line gives you a shield…but it doesn’t give you enormous cooldown potential on staff skills. The chronomancer line gives you wells…but it doesn’t allow you to drastically lower cooldowns of utilities while providing huge amounts of reflections at the same time.

Taking the chronomancer line both gives and removes. That is how it works.

Arewn.2368:

Well that’s a terrible system. I’m completely un-enthused by elite specs now. It’s a bad idea.
Chronomancer will have MORE then baseline mesmer. They will be, in essence, Mesmer+
That’s a mistake. Baseline mesmer was supposed to be it’s own independent but equal entity, relative to the chronomancer spec.
The same can be said for all elite specs for all classes.
But now, they won’t be. Chronomancer will, objectively, no arguments to be had, have more then baseline mesmer. But baseline mesmer, in turn, will have nothing over chronomancers.
I would have expect for there to be trade offs. Continuem Split should have been f4, replacing distortion when spec’ed as chronomancer. Wells should have replaced one of the utility types when spec’ed as chrono. The chrono trait line should have replaced one of the other trait line. And the new weapon should have either been baseline, or replaced one of the current weapons.
You should have had the option to either be “mesmer spec” with its own unique benefits. Or “chrono spec” with its own unique benefits. But that will no longer be the case. You can spec as either one, but mesmer will be mesmer, while chrono will be mesmer+ extra.
Alternatively, everything should have been made baseline, with chrono simply being a new alternative trait line to spec into.

Does that mean baseline specs will be irrelevant, or nonviable? of course not. But it does mean they are going to be “second class citizens”.

And this will continue to be a problem as they expand the system and add new elite specs. Each new elite spec will have something unique, spec defining, and exclusively available to it. Which is honestly great, I think that part is a good system. Until you consider the baseline spec, which outright receive less then the apparently aptly named “elite” specs.
Truly, they will be “elite”. Better then the baseline. And that is a mistake.

Right, well the problem with this is that literally every sentence you just wrote is completely and totally wrong. Allow me to quote myself to explain.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

MSFone.3026:

Fay.2357:

MSFone.3026:

First, the wiki pages says that “for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired” (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled). If this is wrong then everything that follows is irrelevant.

This is wrong, I tested it myself last night.

For 9 seconds real time, a chilled skill recharged for 6 seconds of time.

I’ll just go ahead and update the wiki actually.

Edit: You’re still right about multiplicative vs additive calculations though. However, additive is NOT a % rate, it’s flat. If they want to use % on tooltips, then they need to use it properly.

Even if they calculated it as -.33 seconds per second, and +.33 seconds per second, which would be the additive way of doing it…alacrity is not the rate reversal of chill, it’s simply a flat counter rate.

They just need to publish what the equations are. Trying to parse English descriptions of mathematical equations, which almost by necessity are always cumbersome and confusing, is a waste of time.

Agreed. You can describe mathematical equations in a precise and clear manner with english syntax, but I don’t expect video game developers to have the knowledge and understanding to be able to do that. Publishing the equations would be the best way.

MSFone.3026:

First, the wiki pages says that “for every 3 seconds chilled, only 1 second of cooldown will have expired” (https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chilled). If this is wrong then everything that follows is irrelevant.

This is wrong, I tested it myself last night.

For 9 seconds real time, a chilled skill recharged for 6 seconds of time.

I’ll just go ahead and update the wiki actually.

Edit: You’re still right about multiplicative vs additive calculations though. However, additive is NOT a % rate, it’s flat. If they want to use % on tooltips, then they need to use it properly.

Even if they calculated it as -.33 seconds per second, and +.33 seconds per second, which would be the additive way of doing it…alacrity is not the rate reversal of chill, it’s simply a flat counter rate.

As stated in the Chronomancer release, Alacrity is supposed to function as the inverse of chill; with both chill and alacrity on you, skills will recharge at a normal rate. So, lets do some math.

A skill normally recharges at 1 second of skill time per 1 second of real time.

Under the chill condition, a skill will recharge at .66, or 2/3 of a second of skill time per 1 second of real time. This produces the -66% rate shown on the chill tooltip.

The alacrity buff is supposed to be the inverse of chill. Therefore:

Under the alacrity buff, a skill should recharge at 3/2, or 1.5 seconds of skill time per 1 second of real time. This is a +50% rate of recharge, and is the exact inverse of chill.

/endmath

As we’ve all seen, the alacrity tooltip shows +66% rate of recharge. This was obviously generated by someone assuming ‘well, chill is -66%, so the opposite of that must be +66%’. Unfortunately, rates and percents introduce a bit of complexity to the equation, and so that line of logic is incorrect.

The alacrity tooltip should read ‘Increases the rate of skill cooldowns by 50%’.

This leads me to another, potentially more impactful point: Alacrity might be coded wrong. If the person that coded alacrity didn’t understand the math I just went through, they may have simply coded in a 1.66 modifier, thinking that was the proper inverse of chill. If this is the case, alacrity will actually be performing better than they have conceived it to perform.

Allow me to quote myself.

Fay.2357:

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This makes that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

Toxsa.2701:

In fact, the shorter the cd of a skill, the more it benefits from alacrity.

This isn’t true at all.

Say a skill normally recharges at 1 second of skill time for every 1 second of real time. With alacrity, skills will recharge at 1.5 seconds of skill time for every 1 second of real time.

This doesn’t have a bigger benefit for short skills. In fact, if maintained for the duration of a recharge, it has a significantly larger effect on a long cd skill.

No, you must use the chrono line to take wells, use the shield, and have an f5 shatter.

dank.3680:

Fay.2357:

dank.3680:

DaShi.1368:

I worry that the shield phantasm will be another iMage.

I don’t really. To me it looks like it functions much like scepter 2, it has counter play but when landed right, good effect.

Better to compare it to the pDisenchanter. A phantasm that uses a bouncing projectile attack that deals low damage, but makes up for the lack of damage with incredible utility.

Well I meant the fact that there is a delay after the attack landing/blocking before the phant comes out, similar to scepter 2.

That may be, but I think a critical difference is that you won’t be able to dodge the counter like you can scepter 2. Phantasm casts can’t be dodged.

keenlam.4753:

MailMail.6534:

Stormbolt.7293:

I’m more worried about other classes whining and moaning until we get nerfed. Chrono interrupt will be painful and annoying to play against, even if it isn’t actually that overpowered in practice

So your suggestion is a watered down version that’s ineffective? While this is a legit worry, we should criticize them for unnecessary nerfs and keep the focus on that.

He’s worried about other classes will QQ and get us nerfed so he just preemptively asks for nerfs first? Logic?

Seems legit.

StickerHappy.8052:

Would we happen to know how many traits is it for 1 trait line? I hope its a lot of stuff to choose from!

Presumably the exact same as the current ones. 3 minor, 3 adept, 3 major, 3 gm.

Stormbolt.7293:

Fay.2357:

Stormbolt.7293:

It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.

We don’t, that would be stupid.

The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.

With the exception of a few builds, you just get so much more out of Chronomancer.

Well, this would be true, except that you’re just flat out wrong.

Let’s start with interrupt builds. Standard interrupt will probably be domination, dueling, and chaos. Chaos gives the strong CI/BI effects, along with good staff boosts. Dueling has the incredible pistol trait, along with standard DE for clone generation and other utility stuff. Domination has the amazing reworked CS, along with the power block + upgraded halting strike trait. This a really well-working, strong build. Now, to take chrono, you’d have to sacrifice some of that. You could…but it would be a significant sacrifice. From what we know of chrono, some stuff is comparable to stuff from other traitlines. This that sacrifice a viable option, but absolutely not the single best one.

Alright, now lets do power shatter builds. Power shatter is domination, dueling, and illusions. You’d have to sacrifice one for chrono. Domination has incredible damgae amp. Dueling has DE. Illusions has the powerful shatter cooldowns + shatter boosting traits. Chrono might be worth dropping one of those for…but it’ll be a big sacrifice. One that some people might take, but is definitely not the single best choice.

Now lets look at condie shatter. Condie shatter is generally going to be dueling, chaos, and illusions. This is a really strong set, with dueling providing conditions on crit plus DE, chaos giving staff traits and PU, and illusions providing Maim. One of these must be sacrificed for chrono. Again, maybe you could sacrifice chaos, maybe dueling…but it’s a hard choice. One that some people might take, but definitely not the single best choice.

I could do this for phantasm builds, mantra builds, literally any standard build archetype….I could do this same analysis for.

Conclusion
You’re wrong. You’re completely and totally wrong. Chrono is an interesting specialization, has some strong utilities, useful traits…and is absolutely not going to be the only option.

dank.3680:

DaShi.1368:

I worry that the shield phantasm will be another iMage.

I don’t really. To me it looks like it functions much like scepter 2, it has counter play but when landed right, good effect.

Better to compare it to the pDisenchanter. A phantasm that uses a bouncing projectile attack that deals low damage, but makes up for the lack of damage with incredible utility.

Xaylin.1860:

Does anybody know how exactly ‘Unblockable’ works? Interrupting through blocks etc. could also be pretty nice. Can’t wait to theorycraft a point defender…

Just what it says on the tin. Blocks have no effect on unblockable skills.

skcamow.3527:

Going to experiment with more blind spiced builds as I have for some time. One thing I’ll look to exploit is the new shiny elite we’ll get, which is a dark field, our first. Too bad we don’t have more blasts, but I can see some nice team plays, opportunities with torch and our plentiful access to leaps.

120s cooldown makes it only ever a somewhat niche use. Handy when you use it certainly, but not something that could be relied on for much.

Sebrent.3625:

@Kelthien:
Heck, we may even have a Phantasm-Shatter hybrid thanks to Chronomancer.

• F5 – set
• Summon phantasms w/ shatter resummon trait
• Shatter phantasms
• New phantasms unload their attacks
• Shatter phantasms
• F5 – reset

Might be a Phantasm build centered less on keeping phantasms up and more churning through them.

Back when GW2 was in beta, there were whole threads on trying to get the optimal balance of shatter timing so you could benefit from shatters and get potentially more attacks out of your phantasms through proper timing of shatters and resummons.

This could be interesting. I feel like phantasm builds are (currently) going to be significantly weaker than they were previously unless a good number of traits are moved/combined though. Just in the base mesmer traitset, they’re too spread out to take in one build. Adding in chrono means you’ll sacrifice even more.

StormHawk.9862:

Foefaller.1082:

StormHawk.9862:

Fay.2357:

StormHawk.9862:

So you have to go for a shatter build/shatter clones if you take Chronomancer?

Uh. How on earth did you manage to disfigure any of the information released today into this? Nothing even remotely close to that was stated, hinted, or otherwise implied.

Well it mentioned there’s a trait that, when you shatter a skill it gives you alacrity, so I assumed naturally that there would be more traits like that, that require shattering.

They also mentioned in the PoI they did today a Grandmaster trait (Chronophantasm) which will resummon phantasms once after using a shatter skill. they are still balancing it (afraid of what might happen if someone shattered a trio of duelists to unload on a single target at the same time) but even in a lesser form, it would let your Phantasm-based Chronomancer still take advantage of shatter traits, like the alacrity minor.

Yeah, I did see that today in fact, yeah I think that trait is useful, indeed. Do you think it’s a must-take for non-shatter builds?

No, but it could be handy. It won’t matter all that much for PvE, since in PvE the phantasms die, and that trait only triggers if they shatter. It’ll be useful for PvP phantasm builds…but it still won’t affect their viability in group fights for the same reason as it won’t work well in PvE.

I still want a pinnacle shield. Shame I probably won’t have it for another couple years…

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:Pinnacle_Ward_Skin.jpg

I’m getting the feeling that for a build that’s heavily shatter-based, so power shatter and condie shatter…chrono will not provide enough illusion output to replace DE. Power shatter and condie shatter will likely not take chrono.

For builds that don’t revolve completely around shattering, chrono should be definitely a viable option. Lockdown builds, supporty builds, phantasm builds, and probably some others that I haven’t thought of will have a viable option in the chrono line.

Stormbolt.7293:

It makes sense that we don’t give up any shatters since we only get an offhand. Anet said that specializations getting an offhand would get “something extra.” As long as we do give up a few utilities for wells, I’m happy.

We don’t, that would be stupid.

The opportunity cost in speccing chrono is the lost traitline that you could have otherwise taken.

Sorel.4870:

I think the man has a point there, even if he doesn’t express it quite clearly. There is no real trade-off for being a Chronomancer it seems (I’ll wait for the stream to be sure). You will lose some skills, gain some, but in the case of shatters, you just gain one.

The new F5 looks a lot like our current Distorsion. It’s technically an immunity to all incoming damage for 1-4s (I’m pretty sure about the length, though it hasn’t be confirmed). The differences are:
- The new F5 will likely be on a slightly longer CD.
- You cannot wait for your skills to recharge with the new F5 (since you return to where you were in space-time)
- You can cast skills and they will be recharged instantly after the F5 ends.
- You can maybe die during the new F5 if you’re not careful, but that’s not even sure.

A logical choice would have been, regarding the similarities between the two skills, to just replace Distorsion by this new shatter. But since we can use both, I fear that not picking the elite specialization will be a bad choice, no matter the build.

If you actually think about it, there are obvious tradeoffs. You don’t just get to take chrono for free, you have to give up one of the other traitlines. Say you’re doing power shatter with dom, duel, illu. Which do you give up? Either way, you’re giving up something significant.

Xaylin.1860:

Maybe I’m wrong but I think I remember the devs saying or writing that picking an elite specialization would or at least could also mean being locked out of certain skills etc.

They didn’t. I don’t know why this keeps popping up from time to time. It’s absolutely factually wrong.

Strill.2591:

Jokubas.4265:

Like it or not, every class has a theme. Shield feels weird to me, but I at least get the clock thing. I think Rifle really would have been a stretch.

Main Hand Pistol is something that should be part of the base class. That’s the thing about Shield. It’s not a Mesmer thing, it’s a Chronomancer thing. Rifle could end up being a thing, but it needs a slightly different theme.

Shield-based Chronomancer is a blatant reference to Homura Akemi from Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Call me crazy, but I find it hard to believe the actual relevance of that anime to shield chronomancer.

Hamster.4861:

Man, i was hoping this was going to be a suggestion about what key to rebind the F5 to. that thang is way too far away to reach for mortals with hands.

Ctrl+5.

No, it shouldn’t. % is better, it effects all skills equally. Seconds would be disproportionately strong for low cd skills, and disproportionately strong for high cd skills. This one the devs got very right.

I think the time to answer this question is after the thief specialization is revealed and everyone has had some time to play with the revamped traits.

Currently, mesmers have gotten drastic increases to potential control and damage output, along with significant boosts to condition pressure and general condition damage/defensive builds. This could very well be enough to allow us to hold our own against thieves.

That being said…thieves also got a good number of strong changes. It’s really not easy to tell how all the changes will play out.

Menaka.5092:

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Fay.2357:

Sebrent.3625:

I’d also like to point out the additional reflect we get. Now we have Focus and Shield giving reflection.

Additionally, that’s another potential reflect in PvP/WvW that Greatsword Mesmers can just smile at while they use their lasers :-p

Absorb, not reflect. However…it does sound like a potentially high-target stun. That has obvious implications.

Not sure if you meant what I was thinking but if this works the way I think it will, mobile static field/line of warding has no target limit. Double halting strike on an entire zerg

You guys are playing in heaven or something?
Because zergs have tons of stability where I play :°)

Yeah, but stability can be stripped through excessive CC now, along with the fact that mes comes preloaded with lots of lovely boon strips.

Necrotize.2974:

I’m just getting 66% off this bit here : “Alacrity functions as the inverse of chill by speeding up skill recharges rather than slowing them down.”. It could be anything, but I’m just gonna assume it’ll be 66% but have short durations of like 3 seconds max as that seems to be how mesmers apply special buffs, in quick, short durations, reapplied rapidly.

As for 66% being OP, hard to tell without actually being able to playtest it. Mesmers have a really complicated playstyle and it’ll be hard to provide a definite answer just off speculation. Also since 66% is just an assumption on my part, no real point to argue whether it could hypothetically be OP :P

Also depends heavily on durations. The actual amount reduced is going to depend on how long you’ve got the buff for, so short duration means effectively less cooldown.

Heh. You’re roughly 5 months too late for this one. That ship has sailed.

Vortok.6975:

F5 = Spectral walk from necromancer. I don’t like to share a specific skills like this one rather than a type like wells. Thanks Robert Gee. /sarcasm

Yes, f5 is so similar to spectral walk. Spectral walk totally affects your cooldowns and health.

Bro, I heard you wanted some…http://cdn2.kevinmd.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/salt_0310.jpg

Me Games Ma.8426:

Fay.2357:

Korusef.3714:

From what they said the Shield might be actually better for Zerg tagging than any other weapon at our disposal right now.

Maybe.

Chaos storm base cd = 35s.

Normally, you can phase retreat once through a chaos storm. If you have the staff trait and alacrity, you will be able to do it twice.

Chaos storm —> phase retreat (5s CA) --> phase retreat (5s CA) —> Chaos armor skill (5s CA).

While under the effect of chaos armor, chaos storm at a rate of 2.75 (1s + 35s*.05) seconds per second. This means chaos storm will recharge in 12.72 seconds. At this point you can restart the combo from the top.

12.72s chaos storms are going to be pretty handy for tagging too. I’m thinking sword/shield + staff. Dom, Chaos, Chrono. Wells, Interrupts, alacrity, slow, quickness.

where did you get the number for alacrity?
With stafftrait+CA Phase Retreat only recharges in 7.5s. how can you be sure that alacrity lowers the cd to <5s?

IC drops phase retreat to 8s, CA drops it to 5.5. I’m just assuming alacrity is enough to take off the last tiny bit.

Edit: Oh, but in that setup, you wouldn’t have IC of course. Instead of IC, you’d just rely on other mesmers nearby. If everyone is dropping ethereal fields, it shoudl be fairly easy to maintain close to 100% uptime on chaos armor.

StormHawk.9862:

So you have to go for a shatter build/shatter clones if you take Chronomancer?

Uh. How on earth did you manage to disfigure any of the information released today into this? Nothing even remotely close to that was stated, hinted, or otherwise implied.

Korusef.3714:

From what they said the Shield might be actually better for Zerg tagging than any other weapon at our disposal right now.

Maybe.

Chaos storm base cd = 35s.

Normally, you can phase retreat once through a chaos storm. If you have the staff trait and alacrity, you will be able to do it twice.

Chaos storm —> phase retreat (5s CA) —> phase retreat (5s CA) —> Chaos armor skill (5s CA).

While under the effect of chaos armor, chaos storm at a rate of 2.75 (1s + 35s*.05) seconds per second. This means chaos storm will recharge in 12.72 seconds. At this point you can restart the combo from the top.

12.72s chaos storms are going to be pretty handy for tagging too. I’m thinking sword/shield + staff. Dom, Chaos, Chrono. Wells, Interrupts, alacrity, slow, quickness.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Also does the shift reset it’s own cool down? Could you infinitely dodge by spamming f5?

What do you think? Honestly…

Sebrent.3625:

Do we actually know how much damage the abilities do? I’ve seen nothing about how much damage they do, but AOE damage while in melee would be nice if they do.

We don’t know the first thing about echo of memory, but we can definitely assume the wall won’t do much damage. It’s a multi-target stun and quickness buff. If it also did good damage, it would be stupidly overpowered.

Sebrent.3625:

Do we know for certain that the shield doesn’t summon any illusions? I believe they only showed us one of the Shield’s two weapon skills.

Absent other information, I’d assume that echo of memory will summon a phantasm somehow. That being said…I highly doubt that phantasm is going to do the damage of swordsman/duelist, and it’s obviously not going to have the stealth utility of the torch.

Sebrent.3625:

Additionally, wouldn’t that alacrity speeding up your cooldowns allow you to summon more illusions so you could shatter more?
Perhaps even recharge shatter cooldowns quicker? Heck, have we not already discussed some potential scenarios where the new F5 from chronomancer would be excellent for a shatter burst?

Sure, but you have to consider what you’re giving up. Are you going to give up dueling and DE? Are you going to give up illusions and everything that line gives? Are you going to give up domination with the strong CS and power block or mental torment? It’s not like you’re just getting this new stuff for free, you’re going to have to sacrifice something to trait into chrono, and that might not be worth it for some builds.

Sebrent.3625:

No apparent condition applier … unless it does summon a phantasm that hits several times like the Duelist/Warden … I don’t think anyone says Duelist sucks in condition builds and it’s just taking advantage of bleed on crit right now, not even the new confusion on crit.

Unlikely that it’ll hit a bunch of times. Hitting a bunch of times usually means doing damage. I highly doubt it’ll do damage. Since the wall doesn’t provide alacrity or slow, it stands to reason that the other shield skill will. Similarly to the wall…a phantasm applying alacrity/slow and doing lots of damage would be unbalanced.

Sebrent.3625:

@Pyro:
Why exactly do you think that Shield won’t have a place in PvE at all?

Because the shield appears to offer utility and control. Nobody cares about that in PvE, you want damage first and everything else second.

Sebrent.3625:

Why do you think that Shield won’t have a place on a Shatter build?

It could. However it would have to displace sword/pistol/torch, each of which have very good reasons for being used.

Sebrent.3625:

Why do you think that Shield won’t have a place on a PU build?

Because it doesn’t have stealth. You could potentially use it on a second set, but then you’d have to give up staff.

Sebrent.3625:

Why do you think that Shield won’t have a place on Condition builds?

Because it doesn’t appear to apply any conditions.

MailMail.6534:

I just want to know if Pyro still thinks 90% of Mesmers will NOT be using Shield because our other offhands are simply much much better. #shade Love you!!

Thoughts on everything soon.

I think shield will have a place in WvW groups. I don’t think shield will have a place in PvE at all, in any way. I don’t think shield will have a place on a shatter build, obviously not on a PU build, and probably not on other condie builds either. It might have a place in interrupt builds.

Dondagora.9645:

tevoro.1587:

Maybe its just because I use phantasms more than clones/illusions, but the post seemed to make it sound like the elite favored shatter builds hell of a lot more, yes the post said we can give alacrity to our phantasms (love it), but later it says that all those wells have high recharge so we should keep the alacrity flowing, which would do nothing if it is flowing to our phantasms instead of us. I’ll reserve judgment until tomorrows POI, but did anyone read it differently?

Well, you can use Continuum now to summon a phantasm, Shift back, and summon it again in a short duration. If you add Sig of Ether in there, you can quickly get 3 phantasms up at the beginning of a fight. In theory.

If you’re going to use continuum….

Shatter → Summon → SoE → Summon → Shatter → Summon. 3 phantasms up, SoE still up.

Sebrent.3625:

I’d also like to point out the additional reflect we get. Now we have Focus and Shield giving reflection.

Additionally, that’s another potential reflect in PvP/WvW that Greatsword Mesmers can just smile at while they use their lasers :-p

Absorb, not reflect. However…it does sound like a potentially high-target stun. That has obvious implications.