Guild Wars 2

Yes, the cast time sounds pointless since there is already counterplay in the 3s waiting…

I would have loved to do it. But my computer s****. I have between 10 and 16 FPS in best cases which is already annoying for PvP. If I record at the same time, my FPS goes down to 5…

Is her whole album mesmer-themed? :p
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg7L0OQiN78

Wow, shatters, butterflies, clocks and pink dress in the same video o.O

I did my first tests with CP and I switched immediately to seize the moment. Since you’re often fighting 1 v 2-3 phantasms just die immediately even if you invest a bit in their sustain (inspiration). Also, quickness on shatter is now my favorite way to rez/stomp. I use iReversion for illusion uptime.

Hot Boy.7138:

I think that mentality is what’s wrong on the forums.
A lot of people have the crab in a barrel mentality.
Everyone is clawing at each other because they feel like it’s not enough resources for what you think needs fixed and what I think needs fixing.

Developers should strive to balance all weapons for pvp, and all traits. I’m not trying to undercut anyone else wants and say that sword should be the number one priority, but I think it needs attention.

I would be happy to run with another melee wep and swap in combat between that wep and sword, unfortunately sword is the only one.

I agree sword has an amazing auto attack, but you will have a very hard time staying on the target to land those hits for a few reasons that need to be looked at.

By bumping your post on top all the time, you’re clearly saying that your problem is more important than the other because it needs to be on top of the discussion. Funnily enough, I am now helping you with that.

All weapons and traits should be balanced to have a place somewhere. But not the same can be said about all weapon combination or trait combinations. There will necessarily be good combinations with good synergy and also bad combinations. So if you want to run full melee, nobody will prevent you from doing that, but you can’t require the developers to make it work, because it is currently a bad combination. Sword is in the PvP meta for mesmer, because it is a strong weapon. On the other hand, it needs a ranged weapon associated to it, mostly GS.

If you want to stay melee, you have to invest in higher defense and sustain. That is what I have been doing this week (bunker mesmer/chronomancer). I had a staff, but I remained most of my time with sword main hand, defending a point. I had cleric amulet. And it worked very well, because I didn’t care too much about enemies kiting me. Actually, that was somewhat what I hoped as a point defender.

Not all weapons should do everything, they have a role. Mesmer’s sword is a good defensive weapon, not as good as a sticky weapon.

Hot Boy.7138:

Silverkey.2078:

And honestly, the sword is probably one of the best weapon in the game period. Stop bumping this thread and let devs focus on actually unbalanced stuff.

Do you actually play melee only in pvp? Do 10 matches using only sword in main hand and then tell me it’s fine.

It needs more access to cripple.
It needs access to weakness.
Sword 3 isn’t reliable to stay on the target.

I mostly play PvP, and while I often play condi with scepter, I also play sword often and in particular I have played sword the past week. Blurred frenzy is just an amazing skill, our AA is good in particular counting the boon removal. 3 is a great skill in principle, but I agree is not that reliable. But even with this weighted in, the sword is very good. For mesmer, sword and staff are my 2 favorite weapons.

While I am in principle always happy about improvements, I just think the sword is far from the most urgent. There are bugged traits (duelist’s discipline), clunkier weapons (scepter) and skills (mantras have been good for a short while…) , unbalanced traits (CS, PU), unused skills (Phantasmal Defender, Phantasmal Disenchanter) etc…

Also, just a parenthesis, very few people professions work well in “melee-only” (I would argue only warrior does thanks to the huge mobility on GS; ele D/D is not really melee). We have the ability to swap weapons and good ranged weapons (GS/staff). Mesmer is a caster class, it does not have the best tools for melee-only.

I actually want at some point to go into a more numeric comparison of bunker guard vs bunker mesmer (because I feel we are more similar than guard in terms of functionality).

Self survivability

• passive defense: guards have more armor, we have more HP. More HP sustain burst better, more armor sustain long fights better (but not condis).
• Active blocks/invuln/combat mobility: we have invuln on sword, 2 block on shield and F4 but F4 uncaps. We also have phase retreat + I use blink. Unfortunately, in my experience, this mobility (phase retreat) puts me out of point, probably a more experienced player would not feel that. Guards have invuln on heal and more on demand aegis. We may win this part.
• self-heal: we have our heal + shatter. They have heal on boon giving, dodge roll, heal, virtue, weapon skill…. I think you get the idea: they win that part
• condition cleanse: we have shatters + heal + wells + possibly null field (I didn’t take it). They have shouts + focus if they use it We could technically win here, but ours are so more clunky (have to wait 3s for the wells). We win if we take null field.
• protection/regen uptime: we both have basically full uptime. Chaos armor is cooler.
• We have more stuns/daze, they have a very useful knock back if they use the shield or on revive and a line of warding. We may win the CC war, but their CC is a much better area denial.

Support

• AOE heal: essentially all our heals are AOE heals (aren’t shatter AOE? I feel I was healing allies with it…). Only a part of guard heals are AOE, but overall about the same AOE heal potential I think (needs some maths here)
• AOE condi cleanse: wells + heal + null field are AOE cleanse. Here again, we are better if we take null field.
• Boon support: we can provide essentially the same boons as guardians, but our way of doing that is more clunky. We first have to get them and then share them, with at most 2 sharing per 30s, including one not really under our control. Guards also provide might better. On the other hand, we are now much stronger at sharing quickness.
• Rez: we have more quickness uptime (on-demand with shatter) + the shield stuns + quickness. We revive 10% faster. Since I use blink instead of null field, I can also teleport to the downed easier. We have instant F3 and F4 to support our rezzing… Guardians have quickness, but only every 30s. Their revive bubble also knockdown which is amazing. They revive allies with defensive boons. I think we may win this battle.
• Damage: low for both.
• Debuff: we apply slow fairly “well”. They have no debuff.

• Positioning: we have 25% faster speed + I have blink in my build. If you look at WTS, Tage is always in a bad situation because of his speed. He cannot easily move around the map and is therefore much more “stuck” in mid. This is one advantage but an amazing one.

So overall, this is a close match! I really think we have a good potential. Their permanent heal and increased toughness makes them very hard to kill, we have better invuln uptime and in-fight mobility. They have better boon support and in particular offensive support (might fury) we make up for it partly with some slow+quickness. Our best advantage is out of fight mobility.

And honestly, the sword is probably one of the best weapon in the game period. Stop bumping this thread and let devs focus on actually unbalanced stuff.

You should not change evade to invuln on sword 2. As far as I know, all invuln skills make you recap points (example distorsion). The devs want some possible counter play to the skills if you keep the point (ex. signet of stone and endure pain: still susceptible to condition and control)

I am repeating myself a lot, but I think spectral skills would be a very thematic place to put an “evade”, as if you became “ghostly” for 1s or 2 and thus everything just went through your body without touching you. But yes, an evade on RS 2 would also make much sense instead of just projectile deflection.

Ahah, I have the same feeling. My poor necro will not get much love from me in the next weeks because I feel too restrained with it now

I just hope I won’t suddenly feel for jumping in the melee with my zerk necro (I just love that feeling of all-mightiness in reaper shroud when being in frontline).

The tooltip reflects “approximately” the cast times, but do not take into account at all any aftercast. Since the after cast differ from skill to skill, 2 weapons with the same cast time can have rather different total skill time.

I really think in terms of DPS, gravedigger is the biggest offender. It is meant as a execution skill, but is barely stronger than the AA and about as strong as the dagger AA. Also the gravedigger spam really feels awfully clunky right now because of the long aftercast (0.5s!!!) + the slight time between 2 gravediggers where you can fit only first hit of the AA.

Daniel Handler.4816:

Silverkey.2078:

F5

• Improved Alacrity: not amazing in the current form. 33% is not that much and we already provide alacrity to ourselves fairly well with shatters. I would suggest to change this for “nearby allies gain 1-2s alacrity each time you shatter”. This would increase the currently lacking alacrity sharing, and make an additional support trait. The 1-2s would be per shatter and not per shattered illusion (which would be too strong).

Completely disagree. This trait is the only way to achieve perma alacrity. Which contribute to a specific playstyle of continual shattering,

I don’t know if you’re ironic here?

Another interesting tooltip analysis is gravedigger for GS compared to coalescence of ruins for revenant hammer
http://dulfy.net/2015/08/10/gw2-revenant-skills-traits-and-animations/
http://dulfy.net/2015/08/09/gw2-reaper-necromancer-elite-specialization/

It seems that doing more damage, at range, and in half the time makes sense… I used this comparison because both skills are essentially as spammable (if your target is below 50%, while always spammable for revenant).

nearlight.3064:

Silverkey.2078:

Ele is even a bit different because the core is OP, so having a bad elite specialization “comparatively” may just mean it is actually in a good spot. I haven’t tried myself, so I cannot say.

I would disagree with this, just because no one will have any reason to run tempest compared to using base elementalist traitlines. Maybe if tempest is borught up, but the fire line for ele is brought down, then things will be better.

That was exactly my point: the core will need some fine tuning. Mostly, ele should not be able to do that much damage in a near-unkillable build. Or not able to sustain that much in a rather damaging build. Currently the DPS is over the top in full DPS build (PvE/WvW backline) and in defensive builds (PvP). This will probably increase the build variety as many builds currently considered unviable are probably fine but simply eclipsed by the OP D/D. And this MAY make tempest more viable too, although I think more work is still needed there.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Even before the beta weekend, I was pretty sure Tempest would be a miss.

Take a class whose power is predicated in large part on the flow between attunements, throwing down fields and applying finishers, a constant motion of abilities.
Then give them a new ability that says “stop everything and sit there channeling!”
They’re not gonna like it. Locking them out of that attunement if they do use it is just adding insult to injury.

Oh, but they aren’t done!

Not a single Chronomancer trait references f5 or shield at all. Not one.
Meanwhile, Tempest has a bunch of traits based on this rather crappy Overload mechanic.

So it’s a double whammy! Give them a bad mechanic, then give them a bunch of traits based on that bad mechanic!

All that said, it’s absolutely true that Ele is still in the best spot right now. If they get left there, it’s not like they need any boosting to their core mechanics, so an elite specialization could be effective at creating a “different” kind of ele than usual, a support ele that makes good use of large aoe channels and shouts and such.
It just sounds like they didn’t do a good job of that.

It didn’t need to be a miss. You could say for mesmer “they put wells to lock you in the same place while mesmer is all about mobility”. But that’s the point: allowing a different playstyle. The problem is that this playstyle needs to be made viable and I don’t think it is the case for the elementalist. And I believe the problem here is simply that the overload does not really add anything the ele cannot do with a shorter cast time… And it also comes to the fact that ele is already fairly polyvalent.

nearlight.3064:

My only problem with chronomancer is that the other elite specs revealed so far don’t packso many useful things into one new traitline.

Chrono gives you a powerful new shatter mechanic, easy to maintain alacrity, and then choices to get several other useful things, like slow, quickness, shatters that stop disengaging, or greater illusion management for shatters. Its just so great, and mesmer is also really strong as a base class.

Meanwhile reaper gives a great new mechanic (that needs more damage), but the traits don’t pack in all these new powerful tools. The only one you really get is a little bit more chill and blighter’s boon. Everything else isn’t a very impactful, and while the new ,echanics are very great, it feels partially held back by the flaws of the base class.

And then for Tempest, the traitline is even worse as the overload mechanic has proven to be bad, and the traits almost overwhelmingly focus on improving the overload mechanic, which in of itself is bad. All the non-overload traits like earthen proxy and latent stamina just aren’t very impactful new tools.

I believe builds based on the elite specialization should be as good on average as builds based on the core class. So the question is: is chronomancer better than core mesmer. I honestly cannot answer. Currently, we are all a band of skritts happy about our new shiny tool and a few mechanics seem slightly too strong. But I don’t think chrono is in a bad spot (neither UP nor OP) but we need more time to kitten that.

For the other elite specialization, it is clear that they need more work than chronomancer. Reaper feels like in a good spot design wise but the damage or the cast time need some balancing. I cannot say anything about elementalist and guardian, but I hear they are not happy. But this just means THEIR specialization needs work, not ours. Ele is even a bit different because the core is OP, so having a bad elite specialization “comparatively” may just mean it is actually in a good spot. I haven’t tried myself, so I cannot say.

Since I want to be very fair, the hammer of guardian is actually slower if I believe the wiki: 3.7s instead of 3s for the reaper GS. The hammer AA DPS comes higher if you count that all the symbol pulses hit. Also, the hammer has more than just the AA to boost its DPS while gravedigger is very bad in its current state for necro.

Then I will say the hammer is not meant to be a DPS weapon but a CC + defensive weapon. Also in terms of pure DPS (for example in PvE), the guardian has more damage multipliers.

Curunen.8729:

I believe if Cp is nerfed to maintain phantasm attack cycles then that will solve the whole thing – no need to move or touch anything else.

It will solve the very strong post-shatter phantasm burst, which is one part of the problem. The very strong illusion uptime that both create is another problem (of a different type), especially strong on condi builds since all shatters can be used for good damage on condi builds (while power build really only uses MW for damage).

Curunen.8729:

I don’t like quickness with Blurred Frenzy. I don’t have a lot of use for quickness in my primary build besides stomps/resses. Therefore I don’t want it.

I haven’t played this beta because I’m away but I also don’t want to use Lost Time because it is counterproductive with Confusion – please correct me if it doesn’t reduce confusion skill use ticks on enemy skills.

Therefore the only choice for me currently at GM level is Cp.

And IR is mandatory for me at Master level for reasons already stated.

If StM is master tier with the other two choices being danger time (utterly useless if not having any source of slow) and improved alacrity (this is the only thing I would consider taking in that case) then I find the master trait choices are… not ideal for me.

You seem to say you want good confusion procs + blurred frenzy, which is not a very typical combination (since sword is not a condi weapon). But why not. In this case, the quickness comes after a shatter, so you can very well predict it and thus not blurred frenzy at this time. I would argue that stomping and rezzing are good arguments on their own, but quickness on sword AA, phantasm cast, heal etc… is a huge addition too. So I think the quickness is far from being a bad idea even in your case. But you still have the alacrity trait which is far from useless: alacrity really benefits most builds, although sadly as Fay mentioned, mostly shatter builds.

And with the new system, it is not rare to have a build for which one trait tier seems unideal. That is part of the game.

MailMail.6534:

This may be true, but what we have to ask ourselves from a broader perspective is this: does our AOE capabilities need to be buffed? No, because this is what our main mechanic (shatters) excels in already. Include glamours and now wells and we are in a good spot in terms of AOE capabilities.

The randomness of our bounces is something I have always enjoyed from a character design aspect as it taps into the Mesmer’s “chaotic theme”. Yes, the bounces don’t do well in 4v4s or more, but it does very well in match ups with lower numbers, and I don’t think it’s a big enough drawback that we need to look for buffs.

Your argument is very valid. But if you look at the list of phantasms with bounces, you will notice they correspond 1 in 1 to the list of phantasms people don’t like and which are at best used kittenter fodder. There is a correlation between those 2 facts

edit: the kittening of this message was odd…. “best used as a shatter fodder”

Amityel.5324:

Aktium.9506:

You never did specify which mode. 5k is pretty decent in PvP, about the same as Life Blast on another zerker assuming PvP stats.

yup sorry I play only spvp so I meant in spvp last hit from AA was for 5500 and number 5 from RS was hitting for 9k

There is no need to argue, dagger is stronger in any game mode because

• higher damage coefficient
• faster so less easy to avoid.

5k is a very decent amount, but not if you take 3s to give it and that at the end it is avoided 90% of the time. It is a fact, GS is too slow for the damage it gives or does not hit hard enough for its speed. At least one has to be fixed, else dagger will be always better.

RS 5 is different because it is also a strong chill + stun.

It kinda depends how far in support you want to go. The “traditional” boon-share keeps most of the offensive ability of the mesmer but adds boon support. You can also go for a full support + defensive (bunker) which works particularly decently with chronomancer.

Your build seems of the first type. I would just swap your second signet (illusion) for a blink. I am addicted to blink, and especially since you play marauder, a stun break + mobility/escape is very very needed.

Carighan.6758:

I don’t see what the problem with bouncing attacks is?

That it is vastly inferior to AOE in number of targets and randomness. So it makes those phantasms fine in 1v1 but worse as the number increases.

@Curunen I didn’t ask for any change to iRev except putting as a GM to prevent both chronophantama and iRev which honestly are too strong together because they give 2 free shatters in a row and a very cheap third one. So this allows NOT to change iRev, which was also an integral part of my bunker build and definitely not OP on its own. It merely allows to live without deceptive evasion.

Xaylin.1860:

iDefender – Area taunt to make it actually worth casting. More HP.

Currently it dies very fast. Do you want to attract enemies to hit even more? It has a very strong effect (half damage, that’s good) but does not live long enough to proc it properly.

Brazil was arguing that the elite shout could be good as a AOE deep freeze (of course quite a bit shorter).

GS DPS needs to be increased, that is quite clear. I feel like the devs put what they thought was a very high damage coefficient (especially gravedigger) but forgot that the final DPS is low because of cast and aftercast… Gravedigger is conditional and takes very long time, it should be clearly stronger than dagger AA…

@Fay Many of your comments are somewhat already in my text, I will add the others. Thanks

Are you specifically asking for unblockable?

I agree with OP and also with AlphatheWhite when it comes to higher HP for utility phantasm. Those phantasms are designed for group fights (because they specifically mention “allies”) but do not last more than 1s in a group fight (the 1s is the 1s distorsion from inspiration, without it, it’s instant death).

Xstein.2187:

I have explained this in a different thread. However, once again I don’t think people will take illusionary reversion over chronophantama. My suggestion is still to make is so illusionary reversion resumons a clone the first time it shatters. This will help end shatter sequences. I have also explained before why chronophantama is better than illusionary reversion in burst shatter builds.

And I answered in this thread that I disagree. A burst shatter can indeed benefit from chronophantasma more, but a more sustained shatter build (like condi builds or support mesmer) benefits more from iReversion.

I have also explained in a different post that I think siege the moment should remain where it is and it should grant 1 second of quickness per shatter to 5 allies. I used it with signet of inspiration and illusionary inspiration. It only gave about 2 sec on quickness to allies since you have to press the signet or cast another phantasm. Seems very lacking for a grand master trait paired with a specific trait or skill. I think this change will help it compete better with chronophantasma and lost time.

I am not against this suggestion. But I think 3 or 4s personal quickness is strong, and you do have ways to provide excellent group quickness from well + time warp + shield etc… So I am quite fine as it is. This is the difference with alacrity which I would argue is weaker than quickness and yet we can’t provide easily to the group (well has high CD, very little alacrity from shield, not shareable with signet of inspiration etc…) which is why I suggested the alacrity trait to become AOE alacrity (which is what you suggest for the quickness trait).

Else I agree

Xstein.2187:

I understand the problem, but just listen to me a little bit.
I personally don’t think illusionary reversion will ever be better than chronophantasma in pvp. Making builds that max how many times you shatter didn’t work for me as much as maxing your first shatter. I think it will become a lost trait if moved up. However, it is still a problem. I would keep it where it is and change it so it is more like chronophantasma. Clones reappear the first time they are shattered. I also agree that switching improved alacrity and alls well that ends well may be a good move, specially if you make changes to the well trait. For seize the moment, I know I talked to you before about the trait. However, after actually testing it, it didn’t work as well as I thought. This trait was dropped down from 1 and a fourth seconds of quickness to 1 second of quickness in the beta (I don’t know why this was the case). When I used it with signet of inspiration or illusionary inspiration in the inspiration line, I only gave allies about 2 seconds of quickness for a full shatter (or thats what they told me, takes a sec or so to cast a phantasm or signet of inspiration. Signet of inspiration and the trait also both have a 30 second cool down. If it is changed to per shatter instead of per illusion shattered and the quickness was given to 5 allies then just with mind wrack and cry of frustration you would be able to give allies the same amount of quickness on a shorter cool down. You would also not have to worry about casting a phantasm right after a shatter or pressing signet of inspiration right after a shatter. This will give the trait a wider range of use in more builds. You won’t be forced to take a certain trait line or skill. I now its too late to test this now. However, if there is another beta I would recommend testing seize the moment with signet of inspiration and saying weather it should be changed. I still think these changes will make it compete better with chronophantasma and lost time.

It is because you still think in terms of “burst mesmer”. I can tell you that in my bunker build iReversion is a must-have because it is about sustaining shatter cadence. Phantasms have high CD, can be killed and only sustain 1 shatter with chronophantasma. Both have their niche. But together, they are over the top!

There is a WvW reaper thread on the same page, so I think these threads replica should be avoided. Anyway, GS is great in a zerg. The LF generation is actually very good in those cases. I still think it needs more damage and a bit shorter after casts, but it is great.

Also, It is 2 phantasms in a 30s CD. Most phantasms are on about 15s CD. The only benefit is that you can have a “burst” of phantasms and then swapping weapon while waiting for the remaining 20-ish seconds. But this is partly offset by the possibility to get only 1 phantasm (in particular, you cannot start a burst from stealth like some are doing) + the cast time can be very long if you don’t block immediately.

F5
This shatter is probably the best embodiment of the chronomancer and its high skill cap. So many good ways to use it, and even more bad ways. It allows counter play thanks to the possibility to kill the rift, but since players haven’t been used to that yet, it is hard to evaluate how easy it is to counter it properly.

As it stands, this skill might be overpowered. But at the same time, it is a very hard skill to balance. Increasing its CD is a possibility, but not a satisfying one I would argue. Some people suggested preventing elites to be used during the rift, but I also feel that this is odd. Decreasing its duration is also possible (6s possible duration is very strong, maybe make it 1s base and 1s/illusion shattered?).

Hard to say what to do about it, but I would suggest not to change it too much because people don’t know yet how to react to it which plays a bit role in it being OP.

Traits
Here again, nice job overall, many interesting traits.

• Flow of Time: our best alacrity source. Rather strong but not over the top.
• Time Marches On: Quaggan is very happy
• All’s Well that Ends Well: very useful for the bunker build I mentioned, but not overly amazing. Putting the condition cleanse in the first pulse has been suggested. I would also suggest instead adding enemy boon removal to fit the usual well duality theme. This could be strong, and somewhat stepping on null field, but null field is very much stronger in any case.
• Delayed Reactions, not much to say about this. Definitely helps interrupt builds since it makes interrupting easier.
• Time Catches Up: surprisingly useful and loved by all shatterers (not the draconic ones maybe)
• Danger Time: can be useful, especially in PvE, but many enemies cannot be slowed… Has been suggested to change it into a damage multiplier instead since PvE already max crits. This is a bit out of the “debate” here, but I think the defiant enemies are a particular problem for mesmers. I believe that even if you can’t interrupt a boss, you should be able to proc the “on-interrupt” effects for yourself. Same with slow: the boss could keep the condition for the trait to proc, but simply not getting slowed from it.
• Illusionary Reversion: good!
• Improved Alacrity: not amazing in the current form. 33% is not that much and we already provide alacrity to ourselves fairly well with shatters. I would suggest to change this for “nearby allies gain 1-2s alacrity each time you shatter” or “each time you gain alacrity” to prevent being too shatter-based. This would increase the currently lacking alacrity sharing, and make an additional support trait. The 1-2s would be per shatter and not per shattered illusion (which would be too strong).
• Chronophantasma: in its current form still too strong. A very good idea has been made in the forum which is that the phantasm should keep its usual attack rotation and on the first shatter, it “clones itself” and only the clone gets shattered. This clone would not count for the illusion count of course. This prevents the phantasm burst after the shatter, and also keeps the phantasm position.
• Lost Time: I have seen some complains about being a bit too strong, in particular with the GS AA. Maybe a very short ICD (0.5s?) for each charge or a larger one (4s?) on the slow coud do the trick to prevent excessive slow. Alternatively, slow itself may be reduced to only 33% slower.
• Seize The Moment: great traits. It does not proc with illusionary persona. I don’t know if this is intentional. In any case, I believe that all shatter and traits should have their text made more clear. Beginners cannot guess that their own toon count as a clone by default now.

Overall trait order: chronophantasma and illusionary reversion may be a bit too strong together. Putting both of them as GM could prevent this problem. Added with the change to improved alacrity, we would have 3 clear paths theme (like Robert Gee did for reaper):

• shatter: Time Catches Up, Seize The Moment, Illusionary Reversion
• support: All’s Well that Ends Well, Improved Alacrity and Chronophantasma (I think phantasm are a big part in a support idea since in solo you can support them + there are many support phantasm and inspiration traits)
• slow: Delayed Reactions, Danger Time, Lost Time

While I think the mesmer forum managed to keep most of its comments in a few threads (compared to awful mess in necro forum for example), there are still a lot of messages to parse so I thought a summary would be welcome.

I will try to be exhaustive, but if I am not, please add messages on this thread and I will keep the summary updated. Also, while not intentional, I cannot promise I won’t have a slight biased toward my own idea, please excuse me for that.

General comment
First, I think most of us agree that the chronomancer was amazing. It seemed more polished than the other specializations and it really offers a very unique playstyle. It does have a lot of intricacies which means it has a fairly higher skill cap than the core mesmer (which is already not the most straightforward profession). So thumbs up Robert Gee and A-Net, this was a great week-end for me.

Now let’s go in more details.

Shield
The shield is very good as it stands. It definitely has its niche and is mostly well balanced. Possible suggestions/problems:

• The skill 5 has trouble when the moving field hits terrain, preventing it from returning.
• We have many block skills, but always a single block. Some people have suggested turning this in a “block everything during 2s and then cast phantasm”. May be a bit strong since we can block twice though.
• The phantasm seems to have a low attack rate, and being bounce-based, it is not very good in providing alacrity to a party (and 1s is really nothing). In general, party-wide alacrity is missing and non-shatter alacrity is weak. AOE instead of bounce and 2s alacrity would be a good start.
• Skill 4 is currently not affected by Illusionist’s Celerity/Persistence of Memory
• Skill 4 may have a too short CD.

Wells
Many people dislike them: a mesmer is usually very mobile, so staying on points for 3s to have the benefits seems impossible. On the contrary: I feel like wells do precisely what the elite specialization is meant to: promoting a different playstyle. I have myself enjoyed very much playing a bunker playstyle, and the wells were an essential component of it. Still some people think the radius should be increased and they should be unblockable like necro wells or ranger traps. A few suggested that we should be able to prematurely end the well to get the final effect albeit in a weaker form (the earlier you abort the weaker the final effect).

• Well of eternity: the comment above being taken into consideration, this is a very good heal. High AOE heal + vigor without being a weak heal for yourself if you manage to stay on points is great.
• Well of Action: I think a favorite for most people, mostly because it is used as a mini time warp so people already knew how to use it properly.
• Well of Calamity: very decent. Some people felt that having only the last pulse giving high damage made this well rather weak and suggested instead that the pulsing damage simply increases with each pulse or have the final damage really stronger.
• Well of Precognition: very hard to use. Because the defensive part of it is delayed, it is very hard to time it right. Some people suggested inverting the effects, but the unblockable part is also something you want to time right… I don’t know what to do with this well, but if kept as it is, its CD probably needs to be reduced to see any use.
• Well of Recall: our only source of AOE alacrity, but I feel it is not worth it currently. 3s alacrity means 2s reduced CD for your party. That is not that strong. The chill is nice, but at the end so less likely to happen. I would at least reduced this well’s CD and cast time.
• Gravity Well. By general consensus, this well is underperforming. While I can see why 4 CC was basically unescapable, only 1 and at the end is really underwhelming. There should be some mechanics so that people have a higher chance of taking the last pulse. Having a big pull in the first pulse is a very possible idea. Making everyone “attracted” to the center with a centripetal force stronger the closer we are from the center is a cool idea but probably needs a lot of new coding. A more simple reduce speed (cripple/chill or some unique effect) in the well works too. An increased radius can also be useful. Essentially someone playing well should be able to escape the well, but it should not be “too easy”.

Exciton.8942:

Illusionary Reversion is no way as good as deceptive evasion.

It takes only 5 seconds to fill 50% of the dodge bar w/o any vigor. With vigor and energy sigil, it gets even better.

Illusionary Reversion does not have that power. Moving it to GM tier will kill this trait ultimately.

Seize the moment is definitely worth its GM tier slot.

Since the position as master or GM only really influences which trait it is competing with, I think having chronophantasm and iReversion competing is necessary. iReversion may not be as good as DE, but it allows builds which cannot afford dueling to still proc a lot of clones and provides insane clone generation for those who use both.

Totbot.4583:

You can already run a frontline Necro in zerg groups. I’ve done it in T1 and T2 and its more than doable. I’ve even done it without being in a Guardian group so I didn’t have a lot of stab options and I still live just fine. Blood Magic and Wells on the enemy zerg is really good sustain.

Reaper will be more than fine for surving frontline fighting. Reaper/Blood Magic/Soul Reaper will work nicely. Reaper gives you a couple more stab options and some sustain, blood magic gives sustain, and Soul Reaper gives stun break when going into Shroud. Surviving frontline as a Reaper will not be the issue.

The bigger issue for frontline Necro is justifying it over playing backline. What exactly does a Necro gain from moving to frontline? Warriors and Guardians are good frontline because they buff the groups with Might and other buffs, Condi Clear, and CC the enemies. Soaking damage is only part of what frontliners do. What does frontline Necro bring to the table? Vamp prec and Last Rites have small radius’s so a frontline Necro can buff the frontline with those while a backline Necro couldn’t buff the frontline with them as easily. Frontline Necro could justify running Well of Power which is decent for the frontline as long as you place it so you don’t mess up water fields. Each well cast also gives Allies protection and protection is always decent for the frontline. Plague Form is probably the biggest thing a frontline Necro can have. Even my Zerk backline Necro can survive for a little bit in the enemy zerg with Plague. A frontline Necro using Plague will be great.

I think wells should be kept backline and shouts frontline. Shouts clear condi, which is nice, and decent AOE debuffing (I think unblockable can be nice vs guardians, would love shorter but also affecting allies). The pulsing blind for GS is a nice addition, the poison on RS 4 is very good (even if it is cleansed fast, you apply a lot of it to many enemies so you reduce their regen during this time), the chill can be annoying for a short while etc… Also I think damage is good especially if they buff GS (which they really should).

Plague is awesome indeed.

Jackalrat.5493:

I’ve been whining about the state of the necro GS so much on the forums that I haven’t touched the actual game. Not so much blue in the face as I am…red and blistered in the fingertips.

Any rate, it’s no question that the dagger is a vastly superior weapon. I’d like to see the following changes, in brief (This will be a summary of the giant post I left the other day):

All greatsword skills gain range. At least their intended 170, if not something closer to 200-220ish.

• GS1 gain a bit of damage and Life Force gen. Perhaps some speed or a bit more chill uptime.
• GS2 gain damage or attack speed, whatever it needs to actually be good DPS. It should out damage dagger AA vs <50% HP targets, IMO. Perhaps a bit of LF gen when hitting foes below 50%, as this weapon’s current LF gen is laughable.
• GS3 Give this a dash mechanic, and distribute its life force generation over some other skills.
• GS4 Self buff the caster with protection, eliminate the aftercast root.
• GS5 More range/width + a better targeting function.

Mostly agree but no more LF generation. I think dagger should remain our LF generator for few targets and GS our LF generator for many targets (GS can generate more LF than dagger if you hit many enemies). But yes, the DPS of GS has to be strongly increased to be viable in any game mode.

I personally dislike improved alacrity in its current form. I feel like personal alacrity is currently rather strong, but not over the top. But improved alacrity is a very boring trait, increasing our already high alacrity uptime by at most a second on a full shatter. I would love to see improved alacrity change to something like “each time you shatter, nearby allies gain alacrity”. It should not be the full 1s per shattered illusion, maybe only 1 or 2s per shatter (regardless of number of illusions). Because currently, the alacrity as a group support is very very limited (just 1 well for 3 or 4s alacrity on a high CD).

Else for the trait order, I think it should be

• master: Danger Time, Seize The Moment, Improved Alacrity
• GM: Chronophantasma, Lost Time, Illusionary Reversion
  to keep the slow synergy but putting chronophantasm and iReversion in competition.

This would allow 1 trait in each tier for the 3 possible orientations:

• shatter: Time Catches Up, Seize The Moment, Illusionary Reversion
• support: All’s Well that Ends Well, Improved Alacrity and Chronophantasma (I think phantasm are a big part in a support idea since in solo you can support them + there are many support phantasm and inspiration traits)
• slow: Delayed Reactions, Danger Time, Lost Time

Is it again an elementalist complaining mesmer is OP??? O.O

Iavra.8510:

iReversion should be GM, then, to force a choice between it and Chronophantasma.

I somewhat agree with that. Together they are too strong, they should define 2 different playstyles (pure shatter vs phantasm/shatter). But I really don’t want iReversion competing with Seize the moment. My build really needs both.

What you probably saw was someone without toughness and/or without soul reaping. In soldiers, the shroud remains decently long. Sure, if you jump in a zerg fight without your zerg, you’ll die fast anyway. But I did some short 1 vs 5 in WvW (protecting a tower) and it is fairly tanky.

I ran soldier’s amulet and trooper’s runes. I took blood magic to try provide some team support (death magic is a possible choice for increase personal survivability). Soul reaping is mandatory and I tried to use it offensively with “Death Perception” because I don’t think the extra stab makes such a huge difference in a big fight. Reaper was “Augury of Death”, “Soul Eater” and “Blighter’s Boon”. Blighter’s Boon is amazing because it allows to recharge your shroud during the regroup phase with all the boons given. Augury of Death makes your healing in particular very strong. Finally, death perception means that you effectively deal some very decent damage (I think very much on par with guardian and warrior).
The stability on RS on short CD is absolutely amazing, that makes the difference between life and death and allow you to safely land your RS 4 which is amazing. You still need a guardian or 2 in your party obviously, but that really helps.

I can’t judge survivability compared to a guardian or warrior since I’ve not played frontline warrior or guardian. But I felt ok. I rarely was among the first to die. I felt that I could last a bit longer in the field when defending a keep outnumbered. Our double health pool allows us to go out, dish damage and run to the door safe, using in particular RS 2.

My beta chronomancer “Phantasmal Kitty”

Bhawb.7408:

Silverkey.2078:

• Gravedigger: this skill just does not have enough damage. It needs to be stronger than dagger AA by a decent margin to make it worth it considering it is SO EASY to dodge. Currently dagger AA is more powerful… if a-net is afraid of high numbers, just reduce a bit the cast time and reduce a lot the after cast.

I disagree, especially if the Ice Field idea is taken. As long as it doesn’t totally get crapped on DPS wise (which it wouldn’t in either of my suggestions), the utility of chill would more than make up for a small DPS loss in anything except PvE.

I think you are confusing with the AA. I’m speaking about the supposed executioner skill which is too weak to execute anything.

Silverkey.2078:

• Decimate Defenses: I think necro is already over the top in terms of crits. You can get 124% with 2 traits and fury without having crits on your gears. What about a damage modifier instead? 2% crit = 1% extra damage if you have no ferocity so change to “1% damage for each vuln”.

Yes and no. In PvE Decimate might be over the top, but it allows soldier to regularly hit high crit chances in PvP, where fury won’t be common. It also allows for high crit chances outside of DS, which is also very nice; you can hit 100% crit chance in PvP outside of DS and without fury. I really like it as is.

Necro needs badly damage multipliers in PvE. And if you run soldier’s amulet, 25% increased damage is exactly the same as 50% more crits. It is only for Valkyrie (or anything which does not have crits but have ferocity) that it is a bit weaker. But for berserker (PvE mostly), this would be a huge improvement. Maybe the best idea is to keep this trait, but change the one in shroud to be 25% increased damage while in DS. This way you can keep high crit everywhere but also high damage in shroud.

I had a lot of fight in zerg frontline with the reaper. I though the shouts were good, in particular the healing. The condi cleanse came from trooper runes. Thanks to the low base CD + the trait, the healing is strong. Basically you can go in shroud, spin to win (just love RS 3 and 4), go out of shroud and your heal is available, which recharges your health and the shroud.

On the other hand, as soon as the commander decided to retreat, I had a bad time doing so… TS 2 is a great start but we do lack mobility.

I want to add a few things:

• Gravedigger: this skill just does not have enough damage. It needs to be stronger than dagger AA by a decent margin to make it worth it considering it is SO EASY to dodge. Currently dagger AA is more powerful… if a-net is afraid of high numbers, just reduce a bit the cast time and reduce a lot the after cast.
• Grasping Darkness: currently fails more often than succeed. Attack speed of the “projectile” needs to be increased.
• Are you sure about Trooper rune? I used it in WvW, and while I haven’t really checked, I felt that I was loosing conditions. Maybe someone around me cleansed me…
• Soul Eater: considering how slow the weapon is, a weak life steal is really a weird idea. I don’t know really what to have instead: nightfall removes one boon on each pulse from each enemy hit? I feel like reaper trait line lacks boon hate.
• Decimate Defenses: I think necro is already over the top in terms of crits. You can get 124% with 2 traits and fury without having crits on your gears. What about a damage modifier instead? 2% crit = 1% extra damage if you have no ferocity so change to “1% damage for each vuln”.

Zenith.7301:

Problem being your condi reaper, who pays in a minor for the privilege to equip a greatsword, doesn’t even make use of it. So you’re essentially trading shrouds. It’s a weird choice because the condi necromancer is more of a midliner or sits at elevations instead of wanting to swoop into melee range on reaper shroud to take advantage of the synergies you proposed.

The RS is enough reason to use condi. With dhuumfire, terror, poison and chill, each RS skill has a condi associated to it. Then, you probably have hybrid builds possible using sinister/rampager/carrion which could benefit from the GS.

But in any case, it’s not because you are allowed to use GS that you have to. Ideally, there should be something for everyone in every trait line. So I don’t see any reason to prevent condition reaper build to exist.

Finally, currently a condi build does not stack condi strong enough so you have to play defensively and thus stay at range. But if chill becomes a stronger condi, with fire, terror being fairly bursty, there is nothing to prevent you staying in melee range.

I felt the opposite :p

With chronophantasma, you end the duality phantasm/shatter. With the whole line, DE is definitely not as needed anymore. F5 opens a world of possibility.

And I think the most important part is that it may allow very different role for mesmers, in particular favor support.

• Currently in PvE, mesmer is used for portal and reflects… that’s basically it. The rest of the time, just try to DPS as much as possible and your DPS takes a lot of time to build up . Now you open a new role of offensive support through quickness management. And through well and shatter+chronophantasma, you can also have burst DPS.
• In PvP, mesmer is currently mostly for portal and as a burst roamer. Now, keeping a mesmer in a group fight can be very beneficial, and I even think the bunker build is fairly decent.
• I had too much fun with the reaper in WvW, so I haven’t had time to try chrono there.