First, we cannot one-shoot people (at least not anymore). You have to practice the burst rotation on a golem, to make it fast and efficient. When you see in ESL, the combo is so fast that you almost don’t see the mesmer doing anything but the health of the enemy dropped.
The current “best build” involves PU, so survivability is about going back to stealth to prepare a next burst. But obviously, you cannot do high damage AND high survivability (you’re not an elementalist), so dying is part of the experience, especially in the beginning.
I guess thats the point. I suppose I see the potential already as i three shotted a few targets (pBerserker, Mirror Blade, and mind stab finished them pretty quick), and i’m wondering if going pBerskerer→Mirror Blade→Signet of the Ether→pBerserker may get the same results, all from under stealth.
I’m just not used to that fast of a burst, always having played with at least some defensive stats, so adjusting my mind set here; I’m just not sure what they typical burst rotation is.
There is a concept in chess called Tempo. What it means, for those of you who don’t play chess, is once you get the initative you keep it by keeping the opponent on the defensive.
I was eyeballing the chronomancer, and of course the various shatter and other builds have been obvious. With the shield we now also have another stun for stunlock (clockdown as someone called it? LOL )
anyway, I started looking at combining CC, slow, and quickness to create a kind of tempo mage, grabbing and keeping the iniative by keeping the foe slowed, you quickened, and stacking it with interrupts and effects as well.
I have played around with different versious using the skill builders, as there are various means of getting quickness and distributing slow, but I think this may be the best version.
Obviously, since the chronomancer is still in beta, critical components may end up changing and invalidating it, but I thought I’d post the build here.
The idea here is to keep the foe… managed, I think is the best way to put it. Once you get the foe under 75% health, you will start getting fury up all the time, minus boon stripping, and stacking slow up fast with crit hits as well as the other control effects.
Plus a few AoE effects to bolster your group as well, both with AoE CCs and well of action and timewarp.
The heal skill can be anything. 
I usually play condi, or sustained balance, or something. I’ve known all the arguments, but it just hasn’t been my style.
But one day a mesmer did a great deal of damage with a power shatter against me, and recently I was playing some pvp and using either a zerker or assassin set, which I don’t normally do, and watched just using my pZerker and one use of Mirror Blade drop a ranger and a thief during a match drop them down to a fraction of their health made me think I should get past my prejudice against such builds and try it out.
My problem is that I’m only an adequate dodger, so my survivability has been lackluster; plus having a thief in one match one shotting me with over 16k backstabs from stealth wasn’t fun either.
However, I’ve been reading here of people talking about stealthed mesmers bursting people down almost instantly, not quite one shotting, but within a couple seconds, various targets.
It really hasn’t been my style to play that kind, but reading all this combined with these recent experiences makes me want to try it out. So, I was wondering if someone could share with me both the build and the tactics revolving using the build in pvp and wvw.
Gonna try it out and see if I can make myself like it
(edited by Morfedel.4165)
All that looks reasonable to me. The alacrity changes are very similar to what I suggested elsewhere
I feel it’s really important to have an alternative to DE so the only thing to keep an eye on is illusionary reversion. In small fights I expect the new one stacks up just fine, but in larger fights… illusions die very fast. That’s particularly important when you consider chronomancer is making bunker/brawler type builds much more plausible. I’d be more comfortable with an ICD as it treats both large and small fights equally – still, we’ll see if this one works fine in the next test
You could also alter the trigger to be 1 phantasm OR 2 clones, that would prevent chaining too.
You know, you could do what they did with Chronophantasma: remove the restrictions you have now and have each new clone summoned is stunned, IE cant move to shatter for that brief stunned period.
Just an idea.
Gravity Well is definitely an improvement that can make it worth taking over Moa for PvP, and useful for open world PvE. However, the float is really fun. How about making the third pull a float instead?
I agree that the float was really fun. And if you are worried about three pulls being OP, why not make it a 3 second float, one instance, and have it pulse a condition such as slow, crippled, chill, or something similar? that way they can use one stun breaker, which fixes that problem, but you still get some other effect. Maybe a small damage pulse going on as well?
The float is really fun and cool looking. I’d love to keep it
EDIT: never tested it, when the target is floating do they end up out of melee range?
Any comment on Slow and the interplay of Lost Time+Danger Time in PvE on bosses? Will enemies currently immune to CC get the debuff with a reduced/no effect to allow for the bonus crit, or are those traits irrelevant for PvE?
We have a tech solution in the works CC effects like slow, chill, cripple, etc on defiant creatures. I don’t want to say too much about it since I’m not sure when it will ship or how much it will change before then but we do want your traits to work on bosses.
while we are at it, any plans on fixing Duelist’s Discipline? =-]
(edited by Morfedel.4165)
What if they announced 3 PvE maps for HoT?
in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns
Posted by: Morfedel.4165
Elementalist: this one has a lot going on. Condis, power, damage, etc. They can only have one weapon set, and thisn will determine a lot about the ele’s capabilities; that being the case, however, they can provide excellent support with water, for instance, some good CC options, good dps…. they are also very mobile. I take it back what I said about high skill, as there is a lot to juggle with them.
Necromancer: The tankiest of the spellcasters. Has a secondary form that has an additional set of hit points. Can do some impressive conditions, group support mostly consists of things such as converting conditions to boons. Can steal health, generate fear effects. Fear is a great cc, and few classes have any real access to it – unfortunately I’d say even the necro doesn’t get enough access to fear effects, lol. Can use minions to complicate the battlefield. this is tied for second place with engineer for most fun for me
Mesmer: my favorite and, especially after the xpac comes out, is supposed to be the most skill-based of the classes. Time will tell; has impressive access to CC effects; of the spellcasters has the least direct defense abilities, but has lots of indirect defenses; the class has the second best stealth, and has clones as well, making it more difficult to fight until you can identify the caster from the clones (note, a veteran player who knows what to look for can do so easily… in a non crowded battlefield. Newbies struggle a lot more, so play a mesmer to learn how to fight them. Also, when the battlefield is mroe crowded, its harder to locate the mesmer. Imagine fighting a necro with minions AND the mesmer at the same time, makes it hard to find any good targets lol); mesmer has some great access to conditions as well; will have a unique effect called Alacrity and can “rewind time” a few seconds if planned right. DPS and such usually comes from either phantasms or shatters, both of which take some planning and set up to go right – great in small groups, but vulnerable against very large groups.
Revenant: too new, imho, so I’ll reserve comment for now.
Honestly, if you like CC, group support, and reflects, I’d say either guardian, elementalist, or mesmer. The way you are leaning and the stuff you like… I’d suggest… elementalist I think.
(edited by Morfedel.4165)