Guild Wars 2

Chaos Archangel.5071:

I really like the chrono traits but I’m glad they made the other traits competitive enough that its an actual choice and not a requirement.

Completely agree on this. Chrono is strong and I’ll probably play it for large scale WvW, but the “core builds” are strong as well: power and condi shatter, interrupt and possibly even the PVE “meta” builds (but we don’t know much about HoT PVE yet).

Are traveler runes worth a few coppers yet?

phys.7689:

ASP.8093:

Menaka.5092:

JonPeters.5630:

• Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill.

This helps making Chronomancy viable for shatters by itself and really strong with Dueling and Illusions. Power shatter can even drop Dueling for Domi…

Drop Illusions. It doesn’t do much for you now that IP is standard. Domination, Dueling, Chrono. Tons of clones, powerful shatters, easy comboing.

15% faster shatters. 20% illusion resummon time (better than alacrity even if you do it every second off cooldown)
phantasmal haste
master of fragmentation.

i mean you can live without it, but you are losing a lot of power whether you are condi, shatter or phantasm by dropping illusions.

^ I was going to reply exactly like this
in Dueling you’re giving up “only” DE (and some other nice stuff), illusions has a bigger impact on the shatter play (what’s the point in having illusions when your shatters are on cooldown?)

voteforwinners.9576:

What I dont like is that DE should be minor because its bread&butter of every shatter build, if not most mesmers. Now you need to put 6 instead of 4 points to dueling for not much rly.

not sure if you got the note where you pick the whole traitline now, you don’t have points to spend in major traits, you pick 3 traitlines and one adept, one master and one grand master per traitline (or Specialization in newspeak)

Zenith.7301:

A trait to make shatters land before they die to a zerg.

nah the clones will die to aoe anyway.

Zenith.7301:

A minor to gain 25% movement speed that any other class gets high to permanent swiftness uptime via weaponskills while we’re stuck with a temporal curtain that doesn’t even renew swiftness and has an uptime of 12 seconds per 25 seconds.

Reduced cripple/chill/immob duration, which is useless in PvE since everything gets cleansed immediately in group content.

did you really complain about that trait? you mention WvW and a second later you forget about it? this trait is huge for PVP mesmers and a nice addiction for every mesmer in general.

Zenith.7301:

All’s Well that Ends well is the only real PvE option of that trait tier. Delayed Reactions is underwhelming for PvE given the attack intervals of mobs and the weakness of interrupts in PvE (all of them high cooldown except for offhand sword). And a well with large cooldowns removing a single condition is just a bad trait.

I agree that removing one condition, on a delay (after 3 seconds) and with a positional requirement (stand inside the well) isn’t very appealing. But I think the interrupt trait might be useful in HoT PVE.

Zenith.7301:

1 second of alacrity per shatter. And some alacrity from a long cd well. 33% duration increase is a marginal effect given the uptime of alacrity on the mesmer.

Yep, if it’s only 1 second per shatter and not per illusion shattered, this trait could use a buff.

Zenith.7301:

It’s gonna basically be All’s Well that ends Well, Illusionary Reversion (to keep compounding power uptime), and Chronophantasm.

isn’t 30% crit chance on slowed targets better than 3% damage? you could give up assassin’s and go full zerk if you can make sure you have slow on the target during the reflects

JonPeters.5630:

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

I literally went OMGLOL on this.
woohoo! \o/

JonPeters.5630:

• Time Catches Up – Activating a shatter gives your illusions Super Speed

Amazing!

JonPeters.5630:

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

Very good!

JonPeters.5630:

• All’s Well that Ends Well – Wells remove conditions from allies when they end. (1 condition)

This could use some help: what about one condi removed when you drop the well (so you can use it to timely remove condis) and one at the end? Ok, we’re talking Chronomancers, but we can predict if we’ll be immobilized in 3 seconds (yet)

JonPeters.5630:

• Illusionary Reversion – Gain a clone after you activate a shatter skill.

This helps making Chronomancy viable for shatters by itself and really strong with Dueling and Illusions. Power shatter can even drop Dueling for Domi…

JonPeters.5630:

• Improved Alacrity – Alacrity applied to you lasts longer. (33%)

It’s hard to tell without playing it how good this will be, but seems solid!

JonPeters.5630:

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

This one, too, seems very good!

JonPeters.5630:

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

WOW!
(please no ICD, no ICD! we promise we won’t crit much!)
(does it work on shatters?)

JonPeters.5630:

• Chronophantasma – Your phantasms respawn the first time they are shattered.

This looks VERY strong for PVP and a decent option for PVE (and keep in mind we didn’t see much about the PVE in HoT).

JonPeters.5630:

Seize The Moment – Gain quickness for each illusion you shatter. (1s of Quickness)

It’s hard to tell if I would take it over the others… access to quickness is so rare right now that I can’t imagine how the playstyle changes when you have many ways (on short cooldown) to access it. But sounds good!

I didn’t level a mesmer after the changes they made to leveling, but as general advice, you might want to have a focus on you for the swiftness (running around without swiftness is … painful).

Conditions takes longer to kill NPCs, but staff is a “safer” option since it has a lot of defensive skills and allows you to play a more “passive” playstyle.

Traits: if you go for sword/focus, the sword cooldown trait is nice and gives you some stats on top. If you go staff, Illusionary Elasticity makes the staff and staff clones more effective (it’s good for GS2 too).

Utilities: Mirror Images allows you to use your shatters effectively and it’s a stun breaker. Blink is useful to get away from danger. In the remaining slot you can have Mantra of Pain for more damage, Mantra of Resolve or Null field for condi removal.

The last time I leveled up, I used GS + Sword/Focus with power/precision(/ferocity) gear. Some useful combos:

• GS4, GS2 + F1 (and GS3 if the target is not dead)
• Focus4, Focus5 + Focus4 to pull the mobs while spawning the phantasm, this way they’ll end up in the middle of the AoE

Learn to use all your shatters: sometimes a quick GS2 or Sword3 + F3 for an interrupt is more effective than dodging. Same goes for using F4 effectively to avoid spike damage that would otherwise kill you.

Also, don’t be afraid to shatter even if you have only one or two clones up.

Fay.2357:

Menaka.5092:

It would also be interesting to see if other mesmers’ Wall affects your cooldown.

It shouldn’t. If it did, that would be hilariously broken.

yeah I agree
running 4 mesmers you would be able to spam it

Until the traits are out (or, better, until the meta settles) it’s hard to tell.

I definitely see good uses for Calamity, Gravity and Precog in WvW, but the “requirements” for Blink and Veil/Portal will leave only 1 utility slot open, and Mantra of Restoration+Mantra of Pain with Mender’s Purity will be even stronger than it is now.

Took a while, but here I am with my first one (2 more in the pipeline, with Hammer and Shortbow weapons).

Specialization: Nightmare – Dagger-based close combat/single target with fast attacks, distortion/evades and gap closers
Specialization mechanic: Haunt – The mesmer focuses on a target, for 10 seconds every time the mesmer is out of a 240 radius from his target, he’ll be ported back in range. 90s cooldown.

Weapon: Dagger (MH + OH)

1. Grazing Fang: strikes the target for average damage applying one stack of bleeding. Sudden Fang: strikes the target again, applying a stack of confusion (cleaves 2 targets). Ravenous Fang: leaps (180 unit range) to the target, striking it twice and applying cripple for 1 second.
2. Shadow fang: an illusionary shadow emerges from below the ground, trying to swallow-up up to 3 targets in a 180 radius for a large amount of damage and applying 3 stacks of bleeding. 10s cooldown. Ground targeted, 600 range.
3. Chilling comeback: the mesmer dashes toward the target, gaining distortion for 0.5s. If the dash connects, damages the target, applies chill AoE (5 targets) for 2 seconds and spawns a clone using Grazing Fang. 12s cooldown. Leap finisher.
4. Shadow assassin: the mesmer summons an illusionary assassin that will attack his target throwing daggers that bounce 2 times, applying randomly confusion, bleeding or poison. 600 range. 20s cooldown. 20% projectile finishers.
5. Fearful Strike: the mesmer evades away from his target (240 units), while applying Fear for 2s to his target and 4 enemies around him. 30s cooldown.

Heal skill: Back in the shadows: gain Stealth for 3 seconds and heal for a small amount. 25s cooldown.
Utilities (Tricks):

• Get out!: the mesmer evades back for 600 units leaving a clone behind. 30s cooldown. Breaks stun.
• Going in!: the mesmer teleports to the target, dazing them for 0.5s and applying moderate damage and 2 stacks of confusion. 600 range. 20s cooldown.
• Ethereal shards: the area is covered in ethereal shards that pulse damage, cripple and confusion on up to 5 targets. 240 radius, 600 range, 40s cooldown.
• Flurry of Fangs: gain Distortion for 3s while spinning and hitting up to 5 targets around you multiple times inflicting damage and bleeding for each hit. Breaks stun. 40s cooldown.

Elite Skill: The great illusion. The target is lost in the nightmare: he sees everyone as an enemy and everyone sees him as an enemy for X seconds (he can attack and be attacked by everyone). 1s cast. Single target. 180s cooldown.

Minor traits

1. Deep focus: as a Nightmare, you have the option to Haunt a target.
2. Close quarters: your damaging conditions do 10% more damage and your direct damage is 10% more effective when you are less than 240 units from your target.
3. Strength from Endurance: gain Power and Condition Damage based on your endurance (2 points of Power/CondiDmg per 1% endurance).

Adept traits:

1. Tormenting cripple: whenever you or your illusions apply cripple to an enemy, you also apply one stack of Torment.
2. Chilling cry: Cry of Frustration also inflicts Chill
3. Bountiful dissipation: every time one of your clones is destroyed or shattered, you gain a random boon.

Master traits:

1. Sudden Wakeup: interrupting an enemy removes 50 endurance from them and inflicts Chill and Slow for 2 seconds.
2. Resourcefullness: tricks recharge 20% faster.
3. Relentless Phantasms: your phantasms gain Quickness (3s), Swiftness (5s) and Resistance (3s) when they attack.

Grand Master traits:

1. Defensive cuts: whenever you or your illusions apply bleeding to your targets, you also apply Blind, Weakness or Slow randomly. 3s ICD.
2. Dazed and confused: dazing a target also applies 2 stacks of confusion.
3. Critical evasion: gain back x% of your endurance whenever you crit.

I don’t think they have a counter to see how many times you catched a single wall and to prevent you from getting it twice…

It would also be interesting to see if other mesmers’ Wall affects your cooldown.

Me Games Ma.8426:

How about a mechanic that mesmer individual has a quite high dps but the dmg done by the mesmer decrease for each phantasm up.
Like this:
0 phantasms: Mesmer 100% dps | phantasm 0% dps
1 phantasm: Mesmer 90% dps | phantasm 15% dps
2 phantasms: Mesmer 80% dps | phantasms 30% dps
3 phantasms: mesmer 70% dps | phantasms 45% dps
Could this help? Is it bad because of phantasms like the defender/mage that deal (almost) no dmg?

I had something similar in my redesign suggestion – Phantasmal Compensation: Increases your damage by X%, and by another X% for every Clone or Inactive Illusion. (basic idea behind this is: you get a sizable direct-damage bonus when/if you are not using your Phantasms, the numbers should be adjusted so it feels like a decent tradeoff in PVE or WvW zergs, but not overpowered)

I think X=7 is a “safe” (as in “not game-breaking”) value, and X=10 should be fair in most PvP situations and very good for PvE.

Robert Gee showed an example using F5 to go through the return wall twice during the video

Edit: and indeed it lowers the cooldown twice

Guardian looked a lot better than the name and the teaser video would let us imagine. Those traps put the traps currently in game to shame (25 stacks of vuln reapplied every second for several seconds!?) and longbow skills will probably need to be toned down (4k piercing projectile on 4s second CD!?).
Also, over 4k burning per tick… wow.

I don’t know, feels like the combo “few hard hitting” and “projectiles” might be way too easy to counter. The new virtues look quite interesting.

The thing I’m most interested about is to see if they manage to split the “support” role from the “frontline” role in WvW. That might change the meta a lot: frontline guardians could run GS+hammer and support guardians (LB+Staff) would only join them on regroups for empowers and run longbow for damage and support with Zealot and Valkyrie gear… That would leave some spots in the frontline for Revenants…

Not mind-blowing as Chronomancer, but interesting.

calivaty.8295:

I don’t have much pve exp with my mesmer, but i tried some pvp builds without DE and I really disliked it. Less close means less shatters and less confusion the enemy = less survivability and damage.

I tried making some HoT pvp builds with the new editor and I feel I have even less choice as a pvp mesmer then before. The dueling line is mandatory in my opinion because of DE. So i’m left with only 2 others trait lines to choose from. I wanna go for a shatter build? Well i have to pick Domination and Illusions.

We don’t know the chrono traits yet. Even if there is a trait that can replace DE that just results me being locked in chrono instead of dueling.

so… you have to spend 4 points for DE now and you’ll have to pick dueling traitline after the revamp: what changes? except now you have another major to pick in that same traitline “for free”

I played a fair amount of Silverwastes and got ALL the story achievements (except the ghost escort in 8 minutes, I’ll need to bring more people for that) on my mesmers… did you try a phantasm build? I’m running 26060 with gs+sw/focus in pve usually.

fluxit.8247:

For anyone who is inspired to join the mesmer cause but not confident in their ability to run around in a zerg as a mesmer, an amazing player “Caos Danzante” took the time to make a series of training videos. He goes through the basics, positioning, skill usage and enemy movement awareness mainly from the perspective of a mesmer but not always.

Even if you consider yourself able to hold your own and support your team members it’s still nice to refresh your memory of the basics every now and again.

How To Play WvW as a Group

• Lesson 1 – What the hell is going on?
• Lesson 2 – Why do people die? Positioning
• Lesson 3 – Like gods walking among mere mortals
• Lesson 4 – Hit ’em where it hurts

Bear in mind that this is pre-stability changes.

that would be me o/
and all my guild is behind the theorycrafting and work for those videos

we might have some more videos incoming, an update about stability would be nice, but I’m a bit short on time these days

Looking back at what I theorycrafted months ago for a mesmer-only raid mocking the current meta, a few notes:

• torch might be a valuable option for spike damage and blasting all those ethereal fields
• same goes for focus pulls (on a far lower CD than well of gravity)
• null field coupled with mirror images + shattered concentration/shattered conditions and mender’s purity is a lot of condi and boon removal
• some members of the raid can go full zerk and run shatter or interrupt/harass builds and work as a focus party

Also, consider organizing raids (maybe once per week?) in EOTM. People on other servers of the same color can join you there

Arewn.2368:

@Menaka’s most recent reply to my post
Of course choosing the chronomancer trait line presents a trade-off. Obviously. That’s the exact same trade off we’ve had since launch. Whether you’re picking chrono, or illusions, or dueling, or whatever as one of your trait lines, you are always finding yourself with that exact same trade-off situation. The “flexibility” one gives up by choosing the chrono trait line is the exact same as when you chose any other trait line.
If you were to look at mesmer and chrono and say “all things held equal”, this common trade-off they both have to deal with would be one of those things.

this isn’t exactly true.

if you want any of the chronomancer “bells and whistles”, you’ll need to spec into chronomancy: you don’t need to spec into Inspiration to use a focus offhand, or into chaos to use stealth, or into Illusions to use shatters

Arewn.2368:

And core builds? to heck with core builds. Core builds have, and will continue, to be developed regardless. Some will incorporate the new chrono additions, some wont. It’s irrelevant to the argument at hand.

You didn’t understand what I meant with “core builds”: I meant builds made using only the core specs (Domination, Dueling, Chaos, Inspiration, Illusions). None of them will “incorporate” anything from chronomancer, because when you spec into chronomancy you’ll be a chronomancer, not a mesmer.

Arewn.2368:

If on one hand I’m presented with a mesmer, and on the other hand I’m presented with a mesmer with all the bells and whistles attached (read: chronomancer), then obviously the one with all the bells and whistles is going to be more enticing.

but you aren’t.

in one hand you’ll have a mesmer, on the other hand you’ll have 2/3 of a mesmer and some bells and whistles.

Arewn.2368:

Picking chrono by default net’s me some extra features compared to just mesmer.

Picking chronomancy you can’t run DE+PU+MtD. Easy as that.

Sure, you’ll have different traits in chronomancy, maybe even stronger traits. We don’t know. But that build? You can’t have it if you go chrono.

Saying you get “a mesmer plus something” is just wrong.

Arewn.2368:

If I need a music player, and what I need from it is just the ability to play music, then obviously all the additional features of an Ipod are worthless to that goal. And I could listen to music perfectly well, perhaps even with better quality, on some no-name mp3 player. But that doesn’t mean the Ipod’s additional features don’t exist. That doesn’t mean they aren’t nice to have. That doesn’t mean they don’t hold some value or feeling of attraction. Those additional features sell Ipods, and are subsequently used by the users.

I’m glad you choose this example. As far as I know the only way to put music on your iPod is to use Apple’s iTunes. That’s the tradeoff.

Arewn.2368:

This is the kind of value I place on the chronomancer’s(elite specs) additions. And this is the kind of value I would like to find in mesmers(baseline specs).
I don’t want to see base specs remain mundane in an ever growing pool of special elite specs. I want them to be distinct, and hold their own exclusives.

As I said earlier, core specs are already “exclusive” because you get to pick 3 core traitlines and you can’t do that when speccing in chronomancy.
If you can’t see this point, it’s completely useless to continue this discussion.

Sebrent.3625:

Menaka.5092:

Sebrent.3625:

People need to get out of their heads ideas like “Standard Shatter Mesmer”. Sure, with the current trait system we have two mainline shatter specs, Condition and Power.

If you look at the possibilities available from the new Specializations system and baselines, there are drastically more ways to build a “Shatter Mesmer”.

there might be more shatter builds, but all of them will play differently than the “standard power shatter” (it was between quotes for a reason)

The “Standard Power Shatter” never used a shield nor had an F5 shatter either … so I fail to see your point here in the context of this thread.

as I said, that was an example of what you are giving up by speccing in Chronomancy: you cannot play that shatter build anymore

Sebrent.3625:

People need to get out of their heads ideas like “Standard Shatter Mesmer”. Sure, with the current trait system we have two mainline shatter specs, Condition and Power.

If you look at the possibilities available from the new Specializations system and baselines, there are drastically more ways to build a “Shatter Mesmer”.

there might be more shatter builds, but all of them will play differently than the “standard power shatter” (it was between quotes for a reason)

Sebrent.3625:

• After being shattered and resummoned, the phantasms are now in shatter (see: melee) range of the target … where they will quite likely be killed; especially in PvE.

they might still be working on that: it would make sense that the trait would use the code you use to spawn the phantasms in the first place, to re-spawn them, so it’ll place them properly

Sebrent.3625:

• A phantasm has to survive running into melee range with its target in order to shatter … if it dies on the way, it could possibly not benefit from the extra life since it didn’t get to shatter.

this makes sense and adds counterplay to the trait

Arewn.2368:

I’m going to try to re-identify my problem for you here. Maybe from this perspective it will be easier for you to get where I’m coming from.
Base mesmer is facing an identify crisis. Chrono Mesmers will have everything base mesmer has, plus chrono additions making them distinct. When we get more elite specs, each of those will have what base mesmer has, plus new-elite-spec additions making them distinct.

Unless some traits in the chronomancy spec completely overlaps with traits in other lines, that is the difference between a Chronomancer and a Mesmer.

Let’s pick an example: the standard power Shatter build, that has been in game since the start, after the trait rework will probably still look Domination/Dueling/Illusions. If you pick Chronomancy over any of those lines, you won’t be able to run the “standard Shatter build”. You can run “a Shatter build”, using what the Chronomancy spec may offer in clone generation and Shatter damage, but it won’t play exactly the same.

If for any reason you’ll end up thinking “wow this Domi/Chaos/Inspi build would work perfectly with F5, shield or Wells!”… sorry! No dice… if you want access to shield, F5 and wells, you need to trade one of those specs for Chronomancy, even if the traits are less suited to what you had in mind.

While you say a Chronomancer has more flexibility, in fact it has less, because if you want access to any of the Chronomancer goodies you are forced into choosing that Specialization and your “flexibility” is reduced to two other specs you can choose from the 5 core specs.

You are saying there’s no tradeoff, but that is the tradeoff: you are giving up your nature of “mesmer” as defined by a “core build” (made only with core specializations) to get access to the new shinies. You’ll be a Chronomancer. ANet even said you’ll get a new class icon when you pick the Elite Spec.

MandJ.8965:

The skill in one of the vids, where the mordrem? cant get out the are because they were always pulled back in the middle of it (pulsed a few times). What skill was that? Shield or well?

Gravity Well, the new Elite skill.

Hard to say if I’d rather have a main hand, before seeing our traits and what they did with other classes, but at the moment I’m quite happy with what I see.

Alacrity seems really interesting and CShift will allow for some crazy combos.

I’m already in love with Tides of Time, while I’m a bit disappointed with Echoes of Memory since I was hoping for a “real” block.

I think the shield fits this spec.

What about lo (low, bottom trait), mi (middle trait), to (top trait)?

Domi: lomito
Duel: loloto
Chaos: mimilo

sounds funny

TyPin.9860:

Chill: Increases skill cool down by 66%

Alacrity: Increases the recharge rate ([skill recharge]/[game time]) by 66%.

I arrived at the same conclusions while trying to visualize this (I’m bad at math but visualizing problems helps me understand).

roll one, finish the tutorial and jump in the pvp lobby, there you can try out some builds, how the weapons work, see the skills in use and decide for yourself

Xaylin.1860:

Having Wells is all nice but when looking at what we’ve seen so far they won’t specifically hurt Thieves. Again: Chills. Slows. The damage is nice but it’s doubtful it will be enough. It will only work in confined space or on cap points. The only thing which might really screw with Thieves is the Well of Gravity. Which is an elite. And even there they might be able to port out.

Just noticed Well of Calamity applies cripple and weakness, that could help even more

ronpierce.2760:

Menaka.5092:

ronpierce.2760:

Personally, and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of contest with this, but I don’t think stomps should be affected by either quickness of slow… I feel like they disrupt down state balance.
#NoRegrets

what “downstate balance” you are referring to?

I’m referring to 2 classes having single target ccs. Several having AOE, and others that have complete stomp resistors.

And we’re just going to have to agree to disagree about the stomp thing. Stomping should be a streamlined process, thats just my general feeling, invuln stomping being the worst aspect, but quickness too. You don’t have to agree with me, but I’m pretty firm on that belief and it tends to be a split issue, not a big deal, but respect that I have a different opinion.

I respect your different opinion, but I don’t agree on the notion that there’s any kind of “downstate balance” and/or “stomping balance”.

As I mentioned and you acknowledged, some downstate skills are a lot stronger than others. At the same time, some classes have access to utilities that counter some of those skills, for example stability counters interrupts, teleports counter teleports, etc.

There’s no way to fix this unless you rebalance the whole game around the downstate, and that would be pretty silly.

Stomp is a channel that roots you in place, like many other channels in the game is influenced by various effects. If you start tinkering with how stomp should be treated differently, then you’ll soon start thinking that, after all, quickness and slow shouldn’t affect other channels like for example the warrior elite banner, or mesmer illusion of life… it’s a slippery slope and doesn’t make sense at all to me.

Using this template for the 2 I’m working on:

*Specialization*: Name - General description
*Specialization mechanic*: description

*Weapon*: Weapon name

# *Autoattack*: description and details
# *Burst with a hint of self defense*: description and details
# *Clone spawning with a secondary effect*: description and details
# *Phantasm*: description and details
# *Crowd control or utility*: description and details

*Heal skill*: 
*Utilities* (class of utilities):

* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description

*Elite Skill*:

*Minor traits*

* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description

*Adept traits*:

* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description

*Master traits*:

* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description

*Grand Master traits*:

* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description
* *Name*: description

Xaylin.1860:

Menaka.5092:

it’s very late, but…

• chronomancer spec has shield with an area effect that stuns and has access to ground-targeted AoE that inflicts slow and chill – and maybe more goodies in the traitline
• weakness on interrupt on domination spec
• PBAoE blind on shatter on dueling (iirc) spec
• chaos armor granting protection in chaos spec

All fancy and stuff, but…

• Slow and Chill have aren’t that effective against Thieves. Why? Because ANet.
• PB 2.0 is nice but interrupt builds aren’t that particularly good against Thieves.
• Blinds are nice. But we all know that Thieves will just stab a second time.
• S/D Thieves (or anyone with Trickery) will say ‘Thank you!’ for the extra Protection.

Not meaning to be too pessimistic here. We don’t know about new traits yet and there also might be changes to existing skills. But so far I haven’t seen anyhting which makes me think that Thieves will have a hard time against it.

how are Slow and Chill not effective on thieves? :\
also, you seem to dismiss the fact that wells are a damage source that we can apply to either create an area that thieves will try to avoid or just to apply damage to them even if we cannot target them

it would be easier if you didn’t waste your block/dodge on the shattering of 3 phantasms… if you did, say goodbye to this cruel world…

LughLongArm.5460:

DO you think the F5 thing will also work with rune and sigils bonuses, like rune of the grove or Rune of Perplexity(for 10 confusion combo) ?

I think it really depends on how those are implemented in game… if they are hidden “skill cooldowns”, they might work (and be affected by alacrity maybe?), but I doubt that.

Necrotize.2974:

It only blocks 1 attack(2 if you count Deja Vu) and you can move while holding the shield up even though the screenshots show you kneeling down and holding it up. While I do wish it blocked all attacks for a duration, the phantasm it summons seems really good, especially since I think you can potentially summon two of them with one skill use and their alacrity buff can bounce between other phantasms. So multiple phantasms giving you and other phantasms alacrity.

Seems good on paper, I hope it won’t be another iMage, failing to hit even a slowly walking dolyak.

StickerHappy.8052:

Thanks necrotize, I think I missed that part. Is the block like the engie gear shield or blocks 1 attack?

sadly, I think it only blocks one attack, seems like mesmer can’t have blocks that last a few seconds like everyone else in this game

denis.9487:

Anyone have idea when will new trait system be released? Thank you.

When it’s ready™

it’s very late, but…

• chronomancer spec has shield with an area effect that stuns and has access to ground-targeted AoE that inflicts slow and chill – and maybe more goodies in the traitline
• weakness on interrupt on domination spec
• PBAoE blind on shatter on dueling (iirc) spec
• chaos armor granting protection in chaos spec

skcamow.3527:

Oh I know that. Still it’s not a bad recharge and alacrity of course will help.

And continuum shift.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Didnt we already do this thread?

we did :P

rchu.8945:

I bet it will good for the first few months, then other classes will cry and moan until it’s nerfed to the ground. The Mesmers become food for other classes again…

months? it took like 24h to nerf power block…

• Lovestruck
• Guild Tower Shield

@Ansau: I might get one of those mistforged hero shields if we have another tournament before the expansion!

Domi/Chaos/Chrono for power/interrupt
Duel/Chaos/Chrono for condi/interrupt
Duel/Inspi/Chrono or even Chaos/Inspi/Chrono for support/shatter
Duel/Illus/Chrono for… chronoshatter?

Hard to tell without seeing the traits

We don’t know if shield will have a trait to reflect attacs, they only said it’ll absorb projectiles.

And F5 only resets skills you use during its duration.

Let’s say it lasts 1 second per clone and that it works with IP and that IP is baseline. You need to ramp-up 3 illusions, F5, use for example iWarden, wait for it to end it’s attack… and F5 effect will be gone, you’ll be able to use iWarden again, but nothing else.

ronpierce.2760:

Personally, and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of contest with this, but I don’t think stomps should be affected by either quickness of slow… I feel like they disrupt down state balance.
#NoRegrets

• quickness already affects stomps since the start of the game: if someone invests in traits giving them quickness on some specific cases (interrupts, enemy going below a certain % of health) or if they skillfully apply quickness for stomping, why punish them?
• necros can 1v3 from downstate
• thieves can teleport wherever they want while we get a random, short range, useless teleport
• warriors can interrupt one target vs guardians can interrupt AoE / warriors can go into vengeance vs guardians drop a symbol that sloooowly heals

what “downstate balance” you are referring to?

DuckDuckBOOM.4097:

Each pulse of time warp gives 1 second and then wears off, so you only ever share 2 seconds with double time warp (assuming it stacks and pulses twice).

being now a boon, it is influenced by boon duration

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

hmm you guys does make a good point, continuum is probably not the best skill to use when dying.

10/10 would die again.
presses F5

Fay.2357:

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.

I’m not saying this doesn’t have the potential to be very strong, especially if played together with the well that makes everything unblockable, but playing WvW every day I realize how unlikely it is to get even 2 halting strikes off from one of our multi-target CCs.

Caelus.7139:

Not meaning to be negative or anything, but if Chronomancer spec seems this powerful, do you guys think it’ll be a battle of super OPness when the other specs get announced too?

Nothing is final, numbers and details might change. Maybe even bigger stuff, they said they were evaluating and discussing IP being baseline.

That said, yes, I think all the elite specs will be “OP”.

But you should consider what you are giving up, too: by speccing in the new traitline you give up one of the old ones. Gain some new tricks, lose some others.