Guild Wars 2

Chronomancer is first and foremost a control spec. Inflicts Slow better than any other class, wells inflict a variety of cc effects, interrupt traits, etc.

Build link

Note: This is written from a WvW roaming perspective (solo or small group), where things like keeping people from escaping, chasing, and mobility matter far more than group support or team synergy.

Chronomancer brings a lot of exciting things to the Mesmer profession. AoE support options, good access to slow, alacrity, and most of all, tons of new options for lockdown builds. Before, Chaotic Interruption was more or less the only game in time. Now, we have far more options available. I’ve decided to take a less orthodox approach by focusing on increasing the cooldowns of my foes as much as possible with chill and Power Block rather than the traditional “inflict ALL the conditions on interrupt” strategy.

Chaotic Interruption is a great trait, but since the specialization update I’ve hard a hard time justifying devoting an entire tree to it with all the new toys we have. Donination and Chrono are givens with what they provide, leaving a free slot. Dueling is typically taken for Deceptive Evasion, but Chronophantasma makes it unnecessary. Illusions has some nice phantasm traits, but it’s more team support oriented. The Illusions line has some goodies that lockdown players shouldn’t ignore, including cripple on F2 and AoE daze on F3, faster phantasm recharge, and more.

Traits:

Donination: No matter what your take on lockdown is, you want to use Domination. Confounding Suggestions is a no-brainer. It may not keep people still as long as Chaotic Interruption, but a well timed interrupt can still let you land a shatter. You need boon stripping to get rid of stability, so Shattered Concentration is taken over Furious Interruption. Power Lock is the main attraction here. Interrupting a key skill can neuter a build. Interrupting a heal can be a death sentence. With this and chill, your targets won’t be doing a whole lot of anything.

Illusions: Persistence of Memory allows you to melt through your Echo of Memory and Phantasmal Berserker cooldowns with a flat 12 second reduction plus alacrity when you shatter 6 phantasms (which you’ll be able to in quick succession thanks to Chronophantasma), in addition to the flat reduction from Illusionists Celerity. Shattered Strength and Phantasmal Haste are both viable choices for the second trait. Take the former if you want more DPS, and the latter if you want more cripple and slow from phantasms. Master of Fragmentation gives us a lot of nice goodies, including cripple on F2 and AoE interrupts on F3.

Chronomancer: Delayed Reactions vs. Time Catches Up was a difficult choice for me. I ended up going with Time Catches Up because I’d rather have shatters that can’t be outran than a pinch of slow in a WvW roaming environment. Flow of Time is incredibly powerful for a minor. It’s the main reason you’re going to want to shatter as often as possible. Illusionary Reversion allows you to shatter your two shield phantasms for a Continuum Split to use your wells and have a triple shatter ready to go immediately. Chronophantasma is a game changer, and the reason I’m not taking Dueling anymore. It allows you shatter twice in quick succession, and without giving up valuable endurance to generate illusions.

Utilities:

With your strong illusion generation and the low cooldown, Ether Feast is a good choice, although Well of Eternity can be considered if you’re concerned about the lack of condition cleanse. Well of Calamity is taken as an additional source of burst, since we’re giving up some traditional burst items like Runes of Strength/The Pack/Hoelbrak/etc. Well of Recall is an excellent lockdown well that both increases your target’s cooldowns and makes it easier for you to land the Gravity Well/Well of Calamity/Mind Wrack combo, not to mention you get (even more) alacrity at the end. Mantra of Distraction is simply mandatory on any serious lockdown build, period.

Well of Gravity is your main combo starter. Once you have two phantasms, you can Continuum Shift, drop Gravity + Calamity, drop them again out of the shift, Mind Wrack, and wail on them with your various weapon skills. If they’re still alive after 6 seconds of interrupt hell, be sure to interrupt their heal to finish them off.

Equipment:

Gear is mostly Berserker, with a pinch of Valkyrie thrown in for some survivability. The Sigils/Runes of Ice are the unorthodox choice in this build. While the other runes and sigils are nice, I feel that chill is woefully underutilized on lockdown builds. You also get some vitality, which is always nice. Mesmer doesn’t have a ton of skills that implement chill, but I feel that the rune and sigil investment is worth it.

This build is still a work in progress, but I feel like it has potential. Any feedback is greatly appreciated. I didn’t get to actually try this out in BWE3, but I plan on testing it in the new borderlands first thing HoT hits.

Well of Eternity: You have far better options at your disposal. Leave AoE healing to the Elementalists, Heralds, and Druids.

Well of Precognition: I’m not really sure where the devs were going with this one. It just doesn’t give us anything new. We already get stability from Mantra of Concentration, and brief AoE blur just isn’t worth the utility slot on most builds, even on support builds

Well of Action: Now we’re getting a little more viable. Pulsing slow is nice for CC, although I feel like pulsing chill or cripple are superior, plus we have other sources of slow.

Well of Calamity: This and Well of Recall are what I see people actually using. It does a truckload of damage and the cripple makes it combo into other wells very nicely. The only reason I plan on taking Recall over this is because I can get almost constant alacrity uptime and a double Well of Gravity continuum split combo is sufficient to down people.

Well of Recall: This has everything a lockdown Mesmer could want. Pulsing AoE, CD-increasing chill that can be augmented with runes and sigils, and even more alacrity on finish. I see this as a more cc-oriented alternative to Well of Calamity, since both combo very well into other skills.

Well of Gravity: 3 seconds of stuns, interrupts, damage, and absolute hell on a 90 second cooldown. It is objectively the best Mesmer elite for PvP and WvW and you’re a fool if you can’t see how insane it is.

My burst combo goes something like this:
Start with GS. Illusionary Berserker, GS 2/3, switch to sword/shield, Echo of Memory and Deja Vu, Illusionary Leap, Continuum Split, Well of Recall and Well of Gravity during split, Mind Wrack, switch to GS, Well of Recall and Well of Gravity again, standard GS burst during wells, switch to sword/shield, Illusionary Leap + shatter, blurred frenzy.

Use Arcane Thievery if they try to give themselves stability, use Power Lock if they try to heal.

Rifle. Why is Rifle Ranger not a thing? It’d fit perfectly with the long range DPS spec that some people were disappointed we didn’t get.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

@Stormbolt Interesting.. Very interesting. I saw Embolism talking about how Illusions shrinks Shield’s cooldown, but seeing your build makes me really eager to try it. Chaos was a must for me, if not for Chaotic Interruption (5x might + random boon on interrupt is glorious with staff) but also for Chaotic Dampening shrivelling my staff skills the way I imagine Illusions shrivelled yours.

I’d like to hear more about your WvW experiences. Highs and lows, favorite moments and things to work on? Also.. How did you deal with conditions?

Chaotic Dampening just doesn’t measure up to what the constant alacrity from shatters that Illusions enables, plus the raw damage and cc that the traits give. Chaotic Interruption is still a very nice trait, but it suffers from a painfully high opportunity cost now. I can’t justify taking it over the entire Illusions tree anymore. Condis are a problem with the build I linked, but you can easily replace blink with Null Field or Arcane Thievery since shield makes blink/decoy a bit less mandatory.

Dueling/Chaos/Illusions condition isn’t going anywhere, rest assured.

I ran Domination/Illusions/Chronomancer during the last beta weekend. While it’s definitely phantasm-centric, I wouldn’t call it a pure phantasm build. Here’s what I used: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseRnknBlph9fC2oBEgilTjiMAWggqOav2tFd7ejvD-TliDwAGOEAAM50VJoTlDuU/h2+Df0H4TJXinAQkTAQAgDAGe4IcpAYVqF-w

With Flow of Time, you want to shatter as quickly and often as possible. To shatter as quickly and often as possible, you need good clone generation and upkeep, which gives you the choice of either Deceptive Evasion or Chronophantasma. Dueling doesn’t offer much to a power lockdown build, so I went with the latter. Domination is a given for Confounding Suggestions and Power Block, so that leaves one trait line open. I could take Chaos for Chaotic Interruption, but that’s the only thing it offers. Inspiration doesn’t offer much of anything at all on the offense front. Illusions reduces the CD on my shield 4 by an absurd amount with Chronophantasma phantasm shatters in addition to a baseline 20% reduction, more slow and alacrity from iAvenger, more crits on Mind Wrack, cripple on Cry of Frustration, AoE interrupts on Diversion, and reflect on Distortion. You can get nearly 100% alacrity uptime with this build. Throw in some chill to mess with your opponents even more, and you’re pretty scary.

GummyBearSummoner.7941:

Stormbolt.7293:

I get Anet catering to casual players in the base game, but this is an expansion designed and marketed towards veterans. It should be tough as nails. It’s a level 80 zone in an expansion, casuals or newbies won’t be playing this.

Agreed! The last Beta weekend was so great because the mobs were difficult and it actually made you think twice on what to do next. I also miss those snippers </3

It’s all about understanding your audience. The core game is populated with casual PvE players who want to grind a few world bosses. HoT will be populated with seasoned veterans who run meta builds and can tear through trash mobs with no trouble.

I get Anet catering to casual players in the base game, but this is an expansion designed and marketed towards veterans. It should be tough as nails. It’s a level 80 zone in an expansion, casuals or newbies won’t be playing this.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Or you are just better at playing, as you now know what to expect? People seem to forget that what makes most things difficult is not knowing what you are doing. Once you do. Most of the difficulty is gone.

No, they were statistically nerfed. They die in noticeably fewer hits. It’s not a skill thing.

Ross Biddle.2367:

tobascodagama.2961:

You can lock someone down by interrupting them. Like if we had a trait that increased the cooldown on a skill that got interrupted, maybe call it something rhyming with “Mower Mock”.

Technically you’re locking someone out of a skill, but not locking them down in that instance. Unless you’re broadening the definition of the term, but by doing that you’re making the distinction meaningless.

However, if you’d used CI as an example then yes, you can interrupt someone to impose an imob which is locking someone down, especially if you apply a daze or stronger.

I’d say blocking a key skill for 15 seconds can pretty heavily limit their options. Imagine having your Mantra of Distraction locked for 15 seconds. Hell, imagine having a heal locked for 15 seconds when you need it most. Burst and Power Block are hardly mutually exclusive. I’m planning on running this build which includes Illusions for plenty of burst. Mental Anguish is a very potent DPS trait, but you’re sacrificing a pretty nasty interrupt for it. In my case, I’m taking illusions over chaos for the sole purpose of raw DPS, absurdly low cooldown on Echo of Memory and the cripple on F2 shatters/AoE daze on F3 shatters.

Need some fashion advice. Which one of these gives more of a creepy/“I’m going to kill you in your sleep” vibe?

Mikkel.8427:

I’m going to assume this whole post is from a PvP perspective. Unless something is changed about the defiance system in HoT, our many ‘on interrupt’ traits are worthless for the vast majority of the new PvE content.

PvP and WvW, yes. Lockdown and interrupt are generally mediocre in PvE.

Noss.4105:

I feel kinda bad about it, but I’m more excited about lockdown/interrupt Daredevil than Mesmer/Chrono in HoT.
Just imagine a Daredevil with S/P, Acro/Trickery/DD. Each interrupt will do about backstabs worth of damage, and they have loads of them.

Eh, Chronomancer and Daredevil lockdown are two very different beasts. Chronomancer is all about limiting options and subduing your opponent, while thief focuses more on raw interrupt DPS.

Ross Biddle.2367:

You look at Domination, you mention power block, but not mental anguish? In terms of raw damage under Lockdown you can pump out an insane shatter burst, and without the need for an interrupt.

If you’re talking pure interrupt, well, you used the wrong term.

I still think Power Block is the superior trait for lockdown builds, but I’ll mention MA as a DPS-oriented alternative

Weapons

Main Hand
This choice is pretty black and white. Sword if you’re power-based, scepter if you’re condition-based. Going into detail would be stating the obvious, so I won’t waste your time.

Off-hand
On the other hand, we have a ton of options here, (almost) all of which are viable in some form.

• Pistol: The offhand of choice for a condition interrupt, although it can work on power builds too. Magic Bullet synergies very nicely with Duelist’s Discipline, and iDuelist delivers some of the best DPS out of any phantasm.

• Sword: For a while, sword was a pretty appealing lockdown weapon. However, with competition from the shield, the offhand sword just doesn’t cut it (pun fully intended). The block is rather mediocre compared to Echo of Memory. The phantasm deals some nice damage, but so does iDuelist, which comes with a much more reliable daze. If sword continues to see use, it’ll be in PvE.

• Focus: A rather niche choice, but it works well as a support environment. Everybody appreciates swiftness, and the Temporal Curtain can be shattered for a nice AoE interrupt and some cripple. The iWarden on the other hand will end up being shatter fodder 99% of the time.

• Torch: The one offhand that doesn’t have any sort of daze. Literally the only wrong choice when it comes to offhands.

• Shield: Everything a lockdown Mesmer could want. A wall that destroys projectiles and interrupts, blocks, and phantasms that inflict slow. Unless you want the raw damage from pistol or the support options from the focus, you should most definitely use this.

Two-hand
With our mainhand situation, odds are you’ll be taking one of these. Both offer plenty of options for lockdown.

• Staff: The more defensive option. The autoattack may be a bit soft and the phantasm a bit useless, but Phase Retreat can get you out of danger very quickly and chaos armor/storm can lock down multiple people. Very good for group situations.

• Greatsword: The offense option. Much more single-target oriented than the staff, but the skills hit like a truck. The autoattack is very powerful and incredibly useful when chasing people down. Mind Spike is one of our few boon stripping options. The phantasm hits hard and cripple is great for lockdown.

Slot Skills

Heals

• Ether Feast: If you aren’t running Harmonious Mantras or Chaos, this will likely be your default heal. It doesn’t benefit from any of our traits, but you should be able to generate more than enough illusions to get the most out of it.

• Mantra of Recovery: The worst heal if you aren’t running Harmonious Mantras, the best heal if you are. The cool thing about this skill is that it lets you exploit on-heal runes with 2-3 procs in relatively quick procession.

• Mirror: It may not heal as much as the other skills, but you can get this on very low cooldown with Master of Manipulation

• Signet of the Ether: Not the best healing skill. The passive healing and instant recharge on phantasms is nice, but they’ll be on ridiculously low cooldown already with alacrity and other traits.

Utilities

• Decoy: The illusion is good shatter fodder, and a little stealth is always nice. CD is reduced by Illusionist’s Celerity.

• Mirror Image: If you aren’t running Deceptive Evasion or Chronophantasma, you may want to consider taking this. Breaks stun too, which is always nice.

• Glamours: Grouping all these together since I have the same opinion on all of them: take at least one or two if you’re in PvP or a zerg. If you’re roaming or solo, manipulations generally function better.

• Blink: Excellent for both escaping danger and chasing. A great choice on any build.

• Arcane Thievery: This skill is quite evil. Gives both boon stripping and condition cleansing. Shame it bugs out half the time.

• Mantra of Distraction: A staple skill on any lockdown build. Power Lock is easily your most reliable interrupt. I can’t think of a single lockdown build that doesn’t run this.

• Well of Action: The DPS isn’t be best, but some slow always helps. Generally better in group situations in my opinion.

• Well of Calamity: Our most viable well by far. This works great even in 1 vs 1 situations. Cripple and burst in one makes this very deadly.

• Well of Recall: Another good support well. Gives you a hefty chunk of alacrity and inflicts a pretty long chill when it ends.

Elites

• Mass Invisibility: This was once the go-to elite, but it faces stiff competition from the other elites post-specialization update.

• Signet of Humility: Fully locking down an opponent for 10 seconds may sound tempting, but the massive cooldown detracts greatly from the skill’s viability.

• Time Warp: One of the two real choices for a lockdown elite. The cooldown may be long, but 10 seconds of AoE slow can make all the difference in a clash.

• Well of Gravity: Pulsing interrupts on a 90 second cooldown? Hell yes.

(Note: This is from a PvP/WvW perspective)

While Mesmer is capable of running a wide range of builds, and many classes can fill many roles, there is no doubt that Mesmer excels at lockdown above all others. For a long time, interrupt and lockdown builds were relatively niche, with Confounding Suggestions vs Chaotic Interruption being the only real distinction between builds. Heart of Thorns changes all of this. The Chronomancer elite specialization is heavily geared towards cc and lockdown, and gives us an insane number of new tools at our disposal. Now that we’re coming up on the third beta weekend event and have had every elite specialization revaled, I feel we have a fairly good idea of how things will look at launch. That said, now would be a good time to take an in-depth look at what all we have available to us.

Traits

Domination
If you’re playing lockdown, you’re running Domination, period. This line revolves around cc and interrupts, and therefore is the one constant in lockdown build. The only real decision to make here is whether you want to run Furious Interruption or Shattered Concentration.

• Illusion of Vulnerability: Mesmers can inflict a ton of nasty conditions with interrupts, starting with vulnerability. As a baseline, this will be universal across all builds. The vulnerability plus the stun from Confounding Suggestions and possibly Chaotic Interruption combo well into a shatter.

• Confounding Suggestions: Once a build-defining trait, Confounding Suggestions is (rather controversially) taken by interrupt and even non-interrupt Mesmers nearly without exception. This takes away some of Chaotic Interruption’s thunder, as you have a way to briefly immobilize targets for shatters even without it. Granted, Chaotic Interruption still makes it easier.

• Dazzling: The majority of our interrupts involve dazes. Expect 8 stacks of vulnerability when you interrupt with anything that doesn’t involve a knockback or stun.

• Furious Interruptions: Alongside Shattered Concentration, this represents the main decision you have to make in the Domination line. Furious Interruptions is the more offensive choice, as you’ll be able to capitalize on the various crippling effects after an interrupt easier, but you’ll have little to no boon stripping without it depending on utility choices.

• Shattered Concentration: If you want to play it safe, take Shattered Concentration. You have limited utility space for boon stripping, and you will need a way to deal with stability.

• Power Block: Good god this trait is cruel. The damage is secondary here, 15 second cooldown on successful interrupts is beyond insane. If you manage to interrupt a heal or another key skill, your opponent is as good as dead.

• Mental Anguish: Power Block is extremely appealing for lockdown builds, but Mental Anguish is worth considering if you’re more interested in raw DPS. We’re good at keeping people from using skills, and you get 30% more damage from shatters when they aren’t using skills.

Dueling
Dueling is a mixed bag. Condition Interrupt is considered a cheese build by some, but if you’re serious about it, you’re doing to need Dueling. The other main draw here is Deceptive Evasion, which serves as one of our main ways to generate illusions. Other than that, there’s not a great deal here for more power-based lockdown Mesmers.

• Duelist’s Dicipline: This is a very powerful trait if you decide to run pistol. 25% cd reduction per interrupt is nothing to sneeze at. With quick reflexes and good timing, you can churn out iDuelists like no tomorrow.

• Deceptive Evasion: The main reason people take this specialization, although all three grandmaster traits are viable for different builds. Even if you plan on playing a cc role, you’re going to need to do some damage, and as Mesmers you do that by shattering. This used to be essential across almost all builds, but the advent of Chronophantasma has made Deceptive Evasion much more optional.

• Harmonious Mantras: A great option for more defense or support oriented lockdown Mesmers. Three reliable dazes and heal rune procs make this a viable option.

• Mistrust: The core of condition interrupt builds. Otherwise, you won’t get a great deal out of this.

Chaos
Although more defensive in nature, Chaos has plenty of goodies for the lockdown Mesmer. Chaotic Interruption remains popular even with Confounding Suggestions and Power Block no longer being mutually exclusive. If you’re using a staff, taking this specialization is highly recommended.

• Master of Manipulation: Mirror is a manipulation, and reduced CDs on heals are always nice.

• Chaotic Dampening: It may not be as potent as it was when the specialization update came out, but reduced cooldown on your staff skills is always useful.

• Chaotic Interruption: The star of the show in this specialization. Two seconds of immobilization is more than enough time to land a shatter. The random boons and conditions are nice, but immobilization is what people want when they take this. With our new options, this trait isn’t as mandatory as it used to be although it remains very potent.

Inspiration
There’s not a great deal here that lockdown Mesmers would want. The main attractions here are the traits that benefit your phantasms, which synergies well with Chronophantasma.

• Mender’s Purity: Condition cleansing is one of the Mesmer’s weaker areas, so every little bit helps.

• Persisting Images: Not a game changer, but beefier phantasms means more DPS. Pretty much the only trait worth considering in this tier.

• Protected Phantasms: When resummoned via Chronophantasma, phantasms are dazed for 1.5 seconds. This trait keeps them safe for 2/3 of that.

Illusions
This line may not look appealing at first glance, but there are some pretty sweet combos you can pull off with other traits and weapons if you’re willing to make the investment, especially the shield and Chronophantasma.

• Persistence of Memory: Echo of Memory allows you to summon two phantasms in quick succession, and Chronophantasma allows you to summon them again after shattering them. That’s 8 seconds of cooldown reduction alone, 12 if you throw in a third phantasm from your other weapon. Add alacrity, and Echo of Memory, a skill that blocks all damage for 3-6 seconds, suddenly has an absurdly low cooldown.

• Illusionist’s Celerity: Continuing off the combo above, Echo of Memory qualifies as an illusion-summoning skill. Let that sink in for a moment.

• Phantasmal Haste: The choice between this and Shattered Strength depends on whether you’re more concerned about damage or control. This is the control option, since it’ll make your iDefenders apply slow more often

• Shattered strength: DPS isn’t everything to us, but we still do a lot of shattering and might is always in demand.

• Ineptitude: Condition interrupt Mesmers will want to pick this up.

• Master of Fragmentation: All of the improved shatters are very beneficial from a lockdown perspective. 10% higher critical chance on F1 means that you can sacrifice some berserker trinkets for valkyrie ones. F2 goes from being borderline useless to a great source of cripple and boon stripping. AoE daze from F3 and reflect from F4 can help you out of a lot of sticky situations

Chronomancer
The newest set of tools in our kit, and among the most potent. Slow looks like it’s replacing torment and somewhat confusion as the Mesmer’s “thing,” and the Chronomancer specialization is where you get it.

• Delayed Reactions: No surprises here, this is the trait of choice for lockdown Mesmers in this tier. The slow on interrupt makes follow-up interrupts much easier to land, keeping your opponent locked down longer.

• Flow of Time: You may as well shave off a hefty chunk of all your cooldowns when you’re planning out your strategies, because you’ll have more alacrity than you’ll know what to do with.

• Danger Time: This could make shatters after interrupts hurt a lot more, although it may be overkill depending on what you’re running.

• Illusionary Reversion: Shatter two illusions, get one free! With Chronophantasma, all you have to do is shatter two phantasms, and you’ll get a free clone when they reappear.

• Time Marches On: About time we got this (no pun intended). Roaming lockdown Mesmers actually get to choose runes now!

• Chronophantasma: This trait is a game changer, especially with how it interacts with Illusionary Reversion. Chronophantasma liberates us from the semi-hard requirement that was Deceptive Evasion. Now, we can keep a healthy supply of illusions and not have to take Dueling.

• Lost Time: It may be tempting to combo this with Danger Time, but the only skill that hits fast enough to maintain a steady supply of slowness is Spatial Surge on the greatsword, and to the point where you hardly use anything else.

It used to be 1 second extra, PU was insanely buffed in the specialization update. I saw this coming from a mile away, and I don’t particularly mind. PU dominated the Mesmer meta a little to hard for my liking.

May as well post my theory:

What we saw was a partially grown version of him. He can deconstruct and regrow himself at will. The Mordrem what we saw regrown at the beginning appeared to start off as a mass of vines that solidified into a bark-like skin. What we saw in the trailer was Mordremoth’s head starting to take shape, with his body unformed. It’s a good compromise between keeping it a total surprise and spoiling his full form. His fully grown body will have the bark-like Mordrem skin covered in vines, and may or may not be rooted to the ground.

Ryou.2398:

Jack of all trades classes always existed in mmorpgs, usually they can fill any hole in a group on the spot and thats what made then liked in groups but they would also offer a few unique buffs as well, anyways I do agree with you, but every mmo has a self sufficient class that does not need to rely on others.

True, although I still feel that the fact that the other classes can fill gaps in other areas (i.e. DPS-er running some condition cleanse) makes a jack of all trades a bit less appealing.

…what do you guys think of the direction they went in? Do you like the whole “made of vines” thing? Do you think that it’s just an avatar? His actual body? Only partially grown like the Mordrem in the beginning of the trailer? How does he measure up to Zhaitan in looks?

I know this probably a controversial opinion right now, but hear me out.

The Ranger has always been a very strange class. All the classes have been designed to be somewhat self-sufficient, but let’s just say whoever balances the Ranger saw the “wilderness survival” trait line and decided that the class should play like a paranoid survivalist who doesn’t trust anybody. The Ranger can do it all, but in order to be balanced it can’t do it all well. Every role the ranger can fill, another class can fill better. Want to play a ranged DPS ranger? Warrior, Dragonhunter, and Engineer do it better. Condition? Necromancer, Berserker, and Engineer have you beat. CC/Support? Chronomancer and Necomancer eclipse you.

Now, I know that most of you hoped for a spec that accentuates the ranged DPS aspect of the Ranger. Sure, Anet could have done that. However, one has to ask themselves what that would really bring to the table. DPS builds are a dime a dozen. It would have been by far the easiest out for Anet.

A dedicated support class on the other hand is truly unique. The closest thing we had before this was Ventari on the Revenant. Druid is the first class that has an exclusive emphasis on healing and support. This isn’t your standard “stand back and spam heal” MMO cleric either. I was immediately reminded of the Team Fortress 2 Medic when I saw the gameplay on the stream. It’s a dedicated healing class, but it’s one of the most fast-paced and chaotic in the game. You’re running around constantly, keeping your team healed while everybody on the enemy team prioritizes killing you. You win games. As Druid, you’ll be running all over the battle, healing constantly and protecting your team from projectiles and conditions while you build your ubercharge celestial avatar charge, then pop it to let your team push the objective.

In the span of a few hours, the Ranger has gone from being garbage to having a near-monopoly on the dedicated healer role, that the devs have said will be essential to high level fractals and raids. Rangers are desirable, coveted, and meta now. Even as a Mesmer main who is hyped like mad for Chronomancer, I envy you guys and I can’t fathom how you could see this as anything other than the best possible outcome.

Reaper and Herald. The Reaper can provide a strong frontline like you said, and we can keep the enemy locked down at mid-close range pretty thoroughly. The Herald can sit back and pulse boons and provide some additional CC with hammer, or maybe even some staff support.

I’m going to be giving this a shot: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQNAseRlknhG1YZawGNwtGLnGFZAsABVd0etbL629GfHA-TFTDAB9oE5VlgH8EACw0WCHCgnUGgz+Dvo+DI6DAwExPKtk4EAEAABgjGAA-w

Based on Chaos Archangel’s Clockdown, but tweaked for WvW roaming

Sorry to bump an old thread, but recently I’ve been toying around with the idea of taking Inspiration or Illusions over Chaos for WvW roaming with this build. Clockdown is very Phantasm-heavy, and both of those trait lines do tons to augment your Phantasms. Chaotic Interruption is nice, but Phantasmal Haste, Master of Fragmentation, Protected Phantasms, and Mental defense are all very compelling options. It’s worth noting that GS is better than Staff for roaming in my opinion (can’t have people running), so Chaos loses a bit of it’s allure.

Mental Anguish and Power Block are two very different traits that serve two different playstyles. MA is a straight damage trait meant for raw DPS shatter builds, while Power Block offers insane CC. The damage is just a bonus, the 15 second cooldowns are what you get out of it. Interrupt a heal, and they’re done.

Depends on your build. Regular shatter and support players are normal, well-adjusted people. PU Mesmers are middle schoolers who think using a cheap build makes them good. Lockdown and interrupt Mesmers are true sociopaths.

I’m currently a T3 on Stormbluff, considering a transfer. Is life better on any of the other tiers?

Chronomancer, with Reaper and Daredevil tied for second.

I’m satisfied. I’d rather have 4 Verdant Brinks than 8 Lornar’s Passes.

Going to submit a WvW variant of your Clockdown build.

• Damage type: Power
• Playstyle: Lockdown
• Intended role: WvW roaming, solo or group
• Things of note: Functionally identical to your Clockdown build, with some tweaks for WvW. I took gravity well for the lower CD to work better with runes, along with some Valkyrie trinkets for a little extra sustain.
• Gametype: WvW
  http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhUQNAseWnsnBlphtfC2oBEgilTjycHGibgMAWggqOav2tF-T1SDwA9UCN5QIc4JF4VJYAzH42f4l6Pg038T5DATISOhABAQAIY0CBoYOA-w

Come hang out at the Mesmer forums. We’re the most chill by far.

If you’re exploring power Mesmer but want something a bit more sophisticated than “F1+three clones to win,” you should check out some lockdown/interrupt builds.

I’ve noticed that repping in the guild is at an all time low. Is there a reason for this?

The thing to understand about Mesmer is that it’s a little backwards in terms of skills vs traits. With most other classes, traits are bonuses that augment the skill and weapon choices. When making a Mesmer build on the other hand, traits are the defining point of your build. If you don’t take recommended traits as something like a condition necro or burst thief, the build will perform worse. If you don’t take Power Block as a lockdown Mesmer or DE as a shatter Mesmer, your build will not function. Because we are so dependent upon traits, the Chronomancer comes with a massive opportunity cost. I can already see PU condition builds rejecting it outright, and shatter Mesmers being skeptical (particularly with the Illusionary Reversion nerf). Chronomancer was made with support and lockdown in mind.

What combination of gear gets you as close to Marauder’s stat spread as possible? I’ve been playing around with various combinations of gear but nothing seems to fit.

Not only are they viable, they’re better than ever with the specialization update. Now it’s possible to take Confounding Suggestions, Power Block, and Chaotic Interruption in one build. Mistrust means that condition interrupt is a thing too. Chronomancer brings even more exciting things for interrupt/lockdown with slow phantasms and slow on interrupt.

So much QQ

(Seriously, with the changes they are not even close to OP)

Certain aspects were nerfed for sure, but I think it’s perfectly reasonable. Anet was in a difficult position. You could argue that some aspects are “pay to win” but 5% Chaotic Dampening would have been game breaking with alacrity. Elite specializations introduce many new mechanics, and those mechanics will inevitably affect the balance of the core specializations. I wouldn’t necessarily say that Chronomancer is pay to win or mandatory either. It offers nothing to PU condition builds, and traditional power shatter has better options (especially with the IR nerf). Chronomancer is geared towards lockdown, support, and zerg builds, all areas that the Mesmer was deficient in before. Other elite specs seem to be trying to achieve similar things (Reaper with melee, Dragonhunter with raw DPS, etc).

I’ve stopped using Arcane Thievery altogether because it’s so buggy. Half the time it doesn’t even work, despite using it on an immobilized opponent at point blank range.

That’s why I use lockdown instead of PU, even though PU is considered the meta roaming build. I’d rather struggle but feel good when I succeed than stop with a braindead build

I’m planning on using this for WvW, which gives me the luxury of being able to mix gear. What spread of equipment will give me sufficient damage while keeping the survivability that Marauder’s gives? I’m thinking I should focus a little on vitality over toughness, since condition pressure is more of a problem than direct damage.

Will the changes to Chronomancer post-BWE have any impact on this build?

What kind of gear would you recommend using with this? Also, if you were to take Dueling over Chaos (using Greatsword), would pistol be preferable because of Duelist’s Dicipline, or does Shield still offer better utility?

Even though every class is designed to be reasonably autonomous, every one excels at something above all others. So far, we have

Warriors: Single target DPS
Guardians: Durability and survival
Thief: Agility, picking off isolated targets
Ranger: Long range attacks
Engineer: Area control
Necromancer: Debuffs
Mesmer: Misdirection, CC
Elementalist: AoE DPS

Revenant has access to a lot of different tools, but so far I can’t think of something that it alone excels at. Every class needs something like this in order to feel unique and interesting to play. Is there something about the class I’m missing so far? What should Rev’s “thing” be?

Please, for the love of god, don’t give Anet any ideas

Selya.5039:

2) PU change was idiotic to begin with. It was the one of the most brainless and complained about traits in the mesmer’s kitten nal, and they made it even more obnoxious. Defenders of this trait ought to think back to the pre-patch days when the “guessing game” with stealth bursts (which we almost always lost) was one of the main reasons why the mesmer vs thief matchup was extremely frustrating. No reason to foist this upon every matchup in the game now.
The increased stealth duration will hopefully be sharply reduced, together with some corresponding change to increase the group support provided by this trait (eg. decreased to +1sec stealth, but allies benefit from the boon ticks in stealth as well).

I still cannot for the life of me understand why they nerfed Chaotic Dampening and not PU.

I feel like one massive indirect buff that people aren’t talking about is the fact that burst thieves, our biggest counter, got nerfed. Yes, the nerf to Chaotic Dampening and MtD are disappointing, but as a whole we are in a much, much better place than we were pre-patch. As long as we don’t get nerfed again I think we’re good.

How have the new traits affected the class? Are we better or worse? Which builds are op and which builds became garbage? Did the patch put Mesmer in a better place overall?

Make it 3%-3.5% and we’ll be happy. Staff desperately needed love. GS is already disproportionately favored.

Taiyetos.3260:

Generally just run exactly the same meta build as in the past. Just use Blood as the third spec.

Blood isn’t listed on the main meta build. Which 3 traitlines do I use?