Guild Wars 2

“However, the system mixes in action elements like dodging which appear to be necessary in order not to die. To me, Wildstar is a joke because it is too action-oriented — is GW2 going to be plagued with the same problem?”

Combat is one of the things that Anet got right. The combat is amazing. Why? Because of the dodge. Because it’s action oriented.

Just what the necro needs!

Elidath.5679:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

@ me ma

First off, most of the time in a dungeon is not spent actually stacked against a wall or behind a corner. The only reason this was done was because on fiery great sword the 4 ability would make you move forward leaving patches of fire behind.

FGS 4 (or norn Bear Form charge) was only one reason among other (and I’m pretty sure Me Games Ma knows about it anyway).
Others reasons are:
- breaking LoS force enemy shooter into melee, allowing to cleave them ;
- no push back on the boss when you attack him, allowing better consistancies for lasting AoE (lava font, anyone ?) and easier time for some techniques (like guardian WW into ennemy hitbox, or dodge with warrior Whirlwind without stopping DPS) ;
- some pull are more efficient when done against a wall (especially with Temporal Curtain, for ex. the first fight of CoF p1) ;
- minor, but allow to cc with knockback without breaking the stack (can be useful with some pugs) ;
- can trigger some useful bug, mainly on lupicus (not saying it is good or bad, but it is definitely a thing) ;
So I’d say stacking against a wall/corner still is a thing, even without FGS.

Yeah definitely, just not for bosses. Only for mobs. That’s all I was trying to explain.

@Fay

Taking a thief depends on the dungeon. I can definitely see quite a few paths not taking thief but I also see quite a lot of dungeons where thieves will still be taken. I would say thief will be taken for just as many dungeons as they are now.

“and I’d be willing to bet that upcoming content is going to attempt to eliminate the mechanic of skipping entirely.’

We will have to wait and see. But the thread says dungeon rotation so I would try to stick to dungeons. It may very well be skipping won’t be used in raids. It could just as easily be the opposite. I could see the 2 ele, 1 warrior, 1 revenant, and 1 chrono comp your talking about. But only when stealth isn’t needed.

“However, there’s something else to consider. In fights that last longer than 20s iirc, sinister engineer takes the place of highest dps build in the game. This means a potential variation will be:

Ele, engie, chrono, rev, warrior."

Potentially, but the engi has to have a perfect rotation for that. And the fight has to last 20 seconds.

“An interesting other thing to note is that if you dropped chaos for domination, you could actually take rending shatter and contribute quite a lot to vuln upkeep yourself.”

Again maybe, but IDK if I would call it a lot of vuln. Which is why I’m interested in whether dueling or domination will be better. And would it be better to take Rending Shatter over Empowered Illusions? Just a thought.

rabidsmiles.5926:

Hey Fry, we get it…you have no love for staff or the Chaos line. However, Fay is giving us a build that has a use for staff and that trait line that isn’t actually terrible. Why are you fighting it so badly? I’m not sure you actually understand what the build is for, with your arguments about phantoms attacking and using skills. This isn’t a phantom build, this is a shattering buff build. Phantom, clone…in the end it doesn’t matter because they are all shatter fodder almost immediately as soon as they are summoned.

Staff skills recharge at a seriously low cool-down rate and has the more reliable way of getting clones out. An 8 second clone summon (with the chance of being able to proc a Chaos armor to lower it even more), a 14.5 sec phantom…you really can’t get that kind of shatter fodder with something else except Scepter. Sure, Scepter is nice but what off hand can you pair that with for a secondary weapon slot that gives a decently timed phantom cool-down? You aren’t concerned with the low damage that Winds of Chaos is doing, you are concerned about getting that cool-down to as low as possible to keep pumping them out to F1-4 with. Makes me miss the old flat 20% reduction to staff skills we used to get. We all know that staff is a terrible power weapon but it’s not being used for that here. Staff also gives you the leap finisher and a reliable way of getting Chaos armor for protection (with the trait traited of course) and a nice AoE daze should you need it. It’s our utility weapon and I am more than pleased to finally find a build that has a use for it.

Have to stop thinking with the old way of doing things and find better solutions for the new toys we’ve been handed. Our damage doesn’t matter in the end and it’s sort of selfish of a Mesmer to try to increase their pitiful damage when they have ways of increasing the whole party’s with these new buffs. Who cares about increasing phantom’s damage when they are being shattered as soon they are created? That’s the point of this build. It looks nice to be able to move away from the normal Dom/Dueling lines and play with other toys with Chrono.

Sorry for the random babbling, I find this thread fascinating and I’ve been reading through it for a good day now. I love my staff and to finally have a build that uses it makes me so pleased.

The problem is, why do you shatter off cd? For the alacrity? More alacrity for yourself is only useful is you wouldn’t have CS off cd for the next boss but with shattering off cd that would change. And I’ve said this already. But you would also need a stable group for this.

" Our damage doesn’t matter in the end and it’s sort of selfish of a Mesmer to try to increase their pitiful damage when they have ways of increasing the whole party’s with these new buffs."

Except I can have both the buffs AND the damage.

EDIT: And as for no love for staff or chaos, I like my bifrost and use it all the time in dungeons for forward phase retreats. And I’m all for quickly swapping to PU for the skips if you don’t have a thief and then swapping back. But just because I like my staff skin doesn’t mean I’m going to say it’s useful in cases it’s clearly not.

Bacon.1835:

Still not sold on the chaos tree and staff. Would suggest running Inspiration and sword/focus instead.

Yeah, I agree with the no staff or chaos. But why inspiration instead of dueling/domination?

Sarathor.2409:

Well, next BWE is next weekend, and I’m sure there will be plenty of mesmers trying out the spec to see which is best. We’ll have to see then.

Yeah, hopefully some math will be done by some math guys. I presume once HOT releases DnT should post a build for chronomancer. Actually, that’s a good idea. Maybe I should start a discussion on the DnT forums.

@ me ma

First off, most of the time in a dungeon is not spent actually stacked against a wall or behind a corner. The only reason this was done was because on fiery great sword the 4 ability would make you move forward leaving patches of fire behind. When used against a wall all the patches of fire would stack in one place resulting in massive damage. But they nerfed that so it’s no longer possible to stack patches of fire up in one place. That being said, most of the time fighting is spent being pretty close to another so you can share buffs. Well of precognition would help with dodges, and thus save some DPS, but the question is, how much? Part of eles DPS is lava font so that can be ticking away while you dodge. And what would you give up? I could maybe see it in raids and even pugs, but I don’t think it will be taken in dungeons with a good group.

Ok, I think it’s time for another comparison because the old one has changed a lot. That being said, it will be a new comparison. Previously I was just comparing between what you guys thought revenant would do. I think at this point there is absolutely no reason for the warrior to go “full” DPS. Or for the revenant to be the guy handling might. Instead, if you take a revenant, the revenant would provide 50% boon duration so the warrior no longer needs to take strength runes. In addition, this means the chronomancer can now totally ditch chaos. Oh and warrior will still keep his EA. And you don’t need to stay within 600 range from the revenant. Really no reason at all to go chaos anymore except for stealthing ( which will be getting a nerf this Tuesday ). In addition IB will be nerfed this Tuesday which will lessen the gap between these two comps.

1 ele, 1 PS warrior, 1 chrono, 1 revenant, and 1 thief

Bonuses compared to other comp: 150 ferocity, warrior no longer needs strength runes.

2 ele, 1 PS warrior, 1 chrono, 1 thief

Bonuses compared to other comp: additional two FGSs and an additional glyph of storms

Ultimately, the first comp will probs be lacking vulnerability because no second glyph of storms. That, and depending on the dungeon, it could make the skips a lot longer ( depends how long the skips are in the dungeon ), and whether there’s a FGS up when the mesmer is about to do a portal skip. I definitely think the difference between the two comps are lessened now. As for which one I believe is better, it’s hard to say. The vulnerability from the ele is really nice, and so his having two more FGSs. But so is having 150 ferocity and some extra warrior damage. I think the 2 ele comp still has a slight advantage, but it’s hard to tell. For some dungeons where the skips are really long, I think the 2 ele comp will pull ahead by a lot. Either way, chaos mesmer is dead tho.

Sarathor.2409:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

rainpool.7189:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Me? Or the other people? If me, would you mind pointing out what? Cause I went into detail to all there responses. Also, sword AA getting 10% damage boost woot woot. Ib getting a 50% damage nerf. Definitely will lesson the gap between taking another ele and a revenant or maybe even make revenant better to take. I’ll probably think it over more tomorrow more.

Was addressing the scepter overwriting phantasms. It has already been covered that you would never have up to 3 phantasms up using the build, yet you still repeatedly say that it would overwrite phantasms

So let me give an example. Let’s say you run into a fight and use pistol phantasm and staff phantasm before you get into combat ( switching them out for the appropriate weapons then ). Then you pop CS, do your whole well/TW thing and shatter your phantasms. While popping both your phantasms. Then you come out of CS and pop both your 3rd phantasm and and then your wells again. Now you shatter your phantasms so they attack again. This is where you do NOT want to be auto attacking on scepter. Then when your sword phantasm is back up, you shatter your phantasms and pop it. Then when your weapon swap is off cd, you go summon another phantasm. Now you may be thinking, HAHAHHA! Two phantasms up, scepter is in the business and start to do a happy dance. Sorry to shatter your dreams ( hahaha ), but this is where you have plenty of time to autoattack. And as we have already established, when you have plenty of time to auto attack, sword wins. Not to mention sword AA is getting a 10% damage boost. Sorry scepter, but you won’t be taken for dungeons. So yeah it’s a combination between you need to not have 3 phantasms up and you need to not have too much time to auto attack. That and the 10% damage boost to sword AA is like icing on the cake.

I’m with the understanding that you keep your shatters on cooldown. And during CS you want to use all 4 shatters so their cooldown is reset and you can do it again. Unless that has been changed. With that in mind, you won’t have phantasms with all that shatters during, or shortly after, CS. The way I understand it is as follows:

1-Get three illusions up
2-Start casting Time warp
3-Before the cast on Time warp end, cast CS
4-During CS use the other 4 shatters, as well as placing your wells and using skills.
5-Once CS ends, use those skills again, along with the other 4 shatters
6-Then, keep wells, shatter skills, and illusion summoning skills on cooldown.
7-Repeat steps 1-5 when CS is off cooldown.

If this is indeed the correct rotation, then you’re not going to have phantasms up for very long. If you decide to wait to shatter after they attack, or attack after the first shatter, then that’s lost alacrity uptime, and you don’t have a lot of duration at the beginning of the fight, you only get high duration after the rotation is complete, which means that 1.5 seconds or whatever the new daze on them lasts, means 1.5 seconds lost on early boon duration.

I’m not going to say whether it’s better to wait until the phantasms attack again or not, as I’ll need to test that out for myself, but the point is, with shatters constantly kept on cooldown, scepter’s ability to generate clones might be worth it. We’ll have to see how it plays out in the end though.

Your already going to have alacrity from the well. And the alacrity you get from shattering is only for you. I mean, I could see something of the sort like this being done but only if say CS won’t be off cd for the next fight and by doing this it would change that. But that would require a pretty stable group. And who knows how many times the extra alacrity will let you have CS just off cd for the next boss. And you will have alacrity from the beginning of the fight because of using CS and then mind wrack, and by then your first well will have ended.

rainpool.7189:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Me? Or the other people? If me, would you mind pointing out what? Cause I went into detail to all there responses. Also, sword AA getting 10% damage boost woot woot. Ib getting a 50% damage nerf. Definitely will lesson the gap between taking another ele and a revenant or maybe even make revenant better to take. I’ll probably think it over more tomorrow more.

Was addressing the scepter overwriting phantasms. It has already been covered that you would never have up to 3 phantasms up using the build, yet you still repeatedly say that it would overwrite phantasms

So let me give an example. Let’s say you run into a fight and use pistol phantasm and staff phantasm before you get into combat ( switching them out for the appropriate weapons then ). Then you pop CS, do your whole well/TW thing and shatter your phantasms. While popping both your phantasms. Then you come out of CS and pop both your 3rd phantasm and and then your wells again. Now you shatter your phantasms so they attack again. This is where you do NOT want to be auto attacking on scepter. Then when your sword phantasm is back up, you shatter your phantasms and pop it. Then when your weapon swap is off cd, you go summon another phantasm. Now you may be thinking, HAHAHHA! Two phantasms up, scepter is in the business and start to do a happy dance. Sorry to shatter your dreams ( hahaha ), but this is where you have plenty of time to autoattack. And as we have already established, when you have plenty of time to auto attack, sword wins. Not to mention sword AA is getting a 10% damage boost. Sorry scepter, but you won’t be taken for dungeons. So yeah it’s a combination between you need to not have 3 phantasms up and you need to not have too much time to auto attack. That and the 10% damage boost to sword AA is like icing on the cake.

rainpool.7189:

pls, read the whole thread once again everytime you make an ‘arguement’, I’m sure you’ d find the answer.

Me? Or the other people? If me, would you mind pointing out what? Cause I went into detail to all there responses. Also, sword AA getting 10% damage boost woot woot. Ib getting a 50% damage nerf. Definitely will lesson the gap between taking another ele and a revenant or maybe even make revenant better to take. I’ll probably think it over more tomorrow more.

Oh yeah, no one at all. No one like Miku, Jerus, and Jackums. Totally not even 1 person. Like I would consider your post here very trolly, but this has been like half of the thread. You really expected I wouldn’t look back in the thread? Or? Like IDK what you were thinking.

Well, if nothing else, at least the “troll” managed to convince some people staff isn’t useful. Now all we have to do is wait for HOT and some dps tests.

EDIT: ooooooooooooo, your wanting me to say I’m a troll? Ok. I’m a troll because staff isn’t taken in dungeons now and it’s getting worse in this build. Scepter will be meta because it overrides your phantasms you summon and obvs clone>phantasm ( duh ), and revenant is going to be taken so you will lose some vuln, IBs, FGSs, etc etc etc. lol. Oh and because I am obvs not supporting my logic at all and am instead just insulting entirely in my post. Yep, you caught me.

So you will point out the fact I forgot some mesmer mechanics and totally ignore the fact the one guy didn’t know anything about thief stealth at all? Then again, idk why I’m surprised. After all, this is one of the less troll things you guys have said. But hey, after all, it’s easier to insult while not even trying to discuss what’s going on.

Yeah, PvE lacks challenge. Fingers crossed on raids. Unless of course you call trying to see even just watch direction half of the bosses in fractals are facing because of all the effects flying about. As for drop rates, the fractal drop rates are low, but I think that’s OK since you will be able to buy fractal skins ( at what 20 a piece? At least make most people do fractals to get the skin they want ).

Chaos Archangel.5071:

My brain… I can’t.

That’s what I’m saying.

Elidath.5679:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

What math?

This math. The alacrity support build (jetlag) is mathematically proven efficient.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The math that shows that sword has a better auto attack while scepter 3 has nice damage? That in no way shape or form tells us 1 scepter 1 sword>2swords.

A swing aaaand a miss.
No one told “scepter is superior to sword”. It was said “scepter as a second main hand is superior to sword as a second main hand in the described build”. Sword is still the go to first main hand.
The math in this thread showed that CI is a great damage skill, almost putting scepter DPS on par to sword. While rotating from sword to scepter, you benefit from sword AA and CI and alacrity (since CI has a CD), while not suffering too much from the scepter AA (since you still camp sword most of the time, and scepter AA improve your ubiquitous shatters).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

“As for the comparison with the guardian staff: no one is telling you to use a scepter right now. This option is only considered in the scope of the build discussed in this thread.”

No, the one guy said: Switch a Sword for a Sceptre, it does nearly as much autoattack DPS at close range and Confusing Images does more damage than Blurred Frenzy; plus since you’re Shattering Ether Clone is a benefit rather than a hindrance. That’s already past the consideration phase and moved into the you should take it phase.

Embolism was commenting your version of the build, where you did put two sword main hand. He adviced to take a different main hand since you gain CI (synergy with alacrity, better burst) instead of nothing by swapping. Staff isn’t considered because you made a build with two main hand. He wasn’t commenting on the current state of the scepter. Then this happened:

Remember, this is for pve dungeons not pvp. This is the first time I’v had someone tell me scepter was even close to useful in dungeons.

So, you rejected it because scepter is bad in the current meta, totally ignoring the fact that scepter makes perfect sense in the proposed build, which is different on a conceptual level from the current meta. Of course no one would find the scepter close to useful now. Because as of now, phantasm are the be-all-end-all of dungeon mesmers. Scepter is bad because it is a shatter weapon, and shatters are bad in pve. If shatters are good, why shouldn’t the scepter be considered?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And I’m just trying to show why I don’t think it’s a good idea to take scepter. It would seem I’ve at least the staff out of the way ( hopefully, because that’s what I thought about the scepter and then people are like its already proven you should take a scepter its just your ego getting into your way )

Problem is, you show only why the scepter is bad right now, and right now the jetlag build doesn’t exist. The whole reason this thread was created was because the meta will change. Discuss those change, not the current state.

’This math. The alacrity support build (jetlag) is mathematically proven efficient."

Talking about a swing and a miss….. The math there does NOT prove staff is good, nor that scepter is good, nor that chaos is better than dueling/domination. All that math shows is that the alacrity and quickness from mesmer is super useful! And I agree, I believe chronomancer will be taken in the meta. I do not agree scepter, staff, or keeping the chaos line on so much will be part of the chronomancer meta.

“A swing aaaand a miss.
No one told “scepter is superior to sword”. It was said “scepter as a second main hand is superior to sword as a second main hand in the described build”. Sword is still the go to first main hand.
The math in this thread showed that CI is a great damage skill, almost putting scepter DPS on par to sword. While rotating from sword to scepter, you benefit from sword AA and CI and alacrity (since CI has a CD), while not suffering too much from the scepter AA (since you still camp sword most of the time, and scepter AA improve your ubiquitous shatters).”

I said “That in no way shape or form tells us 1 scepter 1 sword>2swords.”

Note how I said 1 scepter 1 sword. Lol. And your AA on scepter screws with your phantasms. “while not suffering too much from the scepter AA”. Yeah, the scepter AA will totally screw with your phantasms.

“Embolism was commenting your version of the build, where you did put two sword main hand. He adviced to take a different main hand since you gain CI (synergy with alacrity, better burst) instead of nothing by swapping. Staff isn’t considered because you made a build with two main hand. He wasn’t commenting on the current state of the scepter. "

Well, at least we got this staff thing out of the way. And I am fully aware he is talking about one scepter one sword. I still believe scepter will not be taken tho.

“So, you rejected it because scepter is bad in the current meta, totally ignoring the fact that scepter makes perfect sense in the proposed build, which is different on a conceptual level from the current meta. Of course no one would find the scepter close to useful now. Because as of now, phantasm are the be-all-end-all of dungeon mesmers. Scepter is bad because it is a shatter weapon, and shatters are bad in pve. If shatters are good, why shouldn’t the scepter be considered?”

Except it doesn’t make sense in this build. Your wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones. And the whole reason behind that is more damage from chronophantsma. This doesn’t leave any room for clones.

’Problem is, you show only why the scepter is bad right now, and right now the jetlag build doesn’t exist. The whole reason this thread was created was because the meta will change. Discuss those change, not the current state."

Read the above. Or the above in some of my previous posts. I have said why. You just need to stop ignoring it.

@Fay

’Why not? Swapping out of chaos lowers your party dps with the reward of what…slightly higher phantasm attack damage on phantasms that squish in seconds anyway? Hardly a compelling reason to swap out of chaos. The only reason we spec for phantasm damage right now is because there isn’t a better option, not because it’s actually good."

Because you need to take a revenant. Plz go check my comparison between a revenant vs another ele.

’Shield is party/raid-wide quickness, good alacrity from the new phantasm, projectile destruction, and massive break bar destruction. The only thing it doesn’t offer is pure damage, which isn’t the point here."

The quickness is ok, but only if you need the extra quickness. I think we to a extent both agree on shield. Taken if you need quickness. The thing we don’t agree about is that it shouldn’t be taken if you don’t need the quickness. To get the phantasm you need to wait the duration of the block. Again, you already have plenty of alacrity without it. It’s not worth blocking to get to get two seconds of alacrity. Not to mention the phantasm doesn’t do a lot of damage. Only way I could see the 4 skill being used is if some important skill won’t be off cd when you need it in the next fight and with the shield you would have it up then in time. Which you would need a consistent group to know. Also, it would be nicer for the block to not last so long so you don’t have to lose too much DPS. If you have to wait 2 seconds for the block to end that would be a nuisance. I’ve mentioned this who knows how many times and yet its been ignored. SINCE YOUR FIGHTING IN MELEE RANGE THE SHIELD WALL WILL ONLY PROTECT YOU FOR LIKE 0.5 SECONDS. Hopefully you will see it it now finally. Don’t make my next post just be copying and pasting that for like 10 minutes lol.

“In the 3 cases where you need to prioritize reflects over all else, sure. Otherwise…not so much.”

? 3 cases? Ok, lets have a look, because this is ridiculous. Let’s see. Why not CM. P1: first boss. Perma reflects are used for 1 3rd of the bosses. p2, first champion its used. Same for the the pistol bosses later on in the dungeon. 2 out of 5 bosses. p3, all 3 bosses. So out of 11 bosses in CM 6 bosses perma reflects/projectile destrution should be used. That’s over half of them. Don’t make me move onto the other dungeons. I really really think you underestimate perma reflect/projectile destruction.

’Only if phantasms + utility produces a party dps that’s higher than pure utility. Phantasms are so weak that that conclusion is questionable."

What extra pure utility is your build getting besides the might that warrior will be doing? And if your going to tell me to take a revenant, instead discuss my comparison between revenant over ele. Because that has just been ignored yet you still make it seam like the mesmer will go chaos.

Elidath.5679:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

See, that’s the thing. I’m not the guy that has to show math.

Except, you are.
The math has been done (in this thread and other before). The test run has been done.
Then you come in, saying “nah, doesn’t work. Haven’t tried it, or done the math, but you’re wrong”.
I’m actually puzzled at what you did expect :/

As for the comparison with the guardian staff: no one is telling you to use a scepter right now. This option is only considered in the scope of the build discussed in this thread.
Guardians don’t have a total shift in their meta with the extension. Mesmers do. It goes from phantasm mesmer to shatter mesmer, polar opposites in gameplay. Scepter is a very, very bad phantasm weapon, but a decent to good shatter weapon. Hence, it makes for a valid swap choice for this build.

What math? The math that shows that sword has a better auto attack while scepter 3 has nice damage? That in no way shape or form tells us 1 scepter 1 sword>2swords. And if your talking about the staff, well, like i said, we all know how much staff is used right now, and its going to be worse in this build……… And if your talking about this revenant chaos mesmer thing no math has been done on that. I ain’t a math guy, I don’t enjoy it, nor do I have too much experience with it. That being said, I would do a test on the golems, except for the fact I don’t have access to the betas nor do I have a recording program. Literately, hardly any math has been done, and I ain’t questioning the math that has been done. What I’m questioning is whether scepter is actually worth it, whether staff is useful in the build, and whether chaos should be taken. To me it doesn’t seem worth it. So I’m trying to show y’all why while we wait for the beta to come up so some tests vs golems can be done by some people.

“As for the comparison with the guardian staff: no one is telling you to use a scepter right now. This option is only considered in the scope of the build discussed in this thread.”

No, the one guy said: Switch a Sword for a Sceptre, it does nearly as much autoattack DPS at close range and Confusing Images does more damage than Blurred Frenzy; plus since you’re Shattering Ether Clone is a benefit rather than a hindrance.

That’s already past the consideration phase and moved into the you should take it phase. And I’m just trying to show why I don’t think it’s a good idea to take scepter. It would seem I’ve at least the staff out of the way ( hopefully, because that’s what I thought about the scepter and then people are like its already proven you should take a scepter its just your ego getting into your way )

Fay.2357:

Xyonon.3987:

There’s one question about the warrior that bugs me the most – you try to give him an option not to trait for PS … but … what about EA? :/ I doubt any dmg build will deal so much more damage to ignore EA, a party wide ~5% dmg boost.

I made a response to this earlier, but I think the waves of highly intellectual discussion may have obscured it.

The primary difference would be allowing the warrior to do maximum dps rotations with axe instead of being stuck in GS for the might generation. It also might open up rune/sigil options.

Sigil options? Last I knew you took normal sigils. Its the food that your probably thinking of.

“maximum dps rotations with axe”

It’s not the maximum dps rotation. That would be a pure GS build. Axe and mace are used because of the vulnerability. But even in a PS build you can start the fight out with 2 and 4 on axe/mace. But by going revenant over ele your going to be losing vuln.

Xyonon.3987:

There’s one question about the warrior that bugs me the most – you try to give him an option not to trait for PS … but … what about EA? :/ I doubt any dmg build will deal so much more damage to ignore EA, a party wide ~5% dmg boost.

Yeah, this was something I was thinking about, but for some reason I was thinking that would mean taking strength runes and might food. I would expect this to be better. That being said I still think PS will be meta.

See, the thing is, this won’t really increase illusion survivability. It would probably just make the already thin as paper illusions die faster because all that needs to happen is you get hit with some tiny damage and they are done for. That being said it would be nice to have illusions not die quite so fast somehow.

Yeah, think this would be a good idea. Since phantasms>clones, why should a clone override a phantasm?

Fay.2357:

Holy dingaling.

SEEM

DEEM

What’s a dingaling? I want a dingaling!! Also, I didn’t use the word deem in my post so why are you trying to correct my spelling on that? And yes I spelled the one thing wrong is that really all this is going to turn into? Like I said, I’m still open to discussion if you want to.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I think at this point we have both insulted each other, probably for the same reason. Anyway, this puts us at a crossroad. We could either A, continue to insult each other, B, walk away, or C stop.

B.

Until you start backing up your claims with math or evidence, you cannot convince me to read the things you say, as I have been wasting a great deal of my time reading them and responding to them, and it hasn’t been worth it, and won’t be worth it until you start backing up the kitten you say.

When you do start doing that, you can get my attention again by prefacing your post with “Look Guys, Math!” or “Look Guys, Video Evidence!” or “Look Guys, I Tried It!”.
You’d better mean it though, because I’ll only give you one chance to “cry wolf” before even that won’t work.

Alternatively, you could just walk away also.

See, that’s the thing. I’m not the guy that has to show math. Your the one suggesting a change to scepter on chrono over the current mesmer sword. All I’m doing is trying to show without math why I believe scepter will not be taken. Same goes for this whole chaos thing. And there was some stuff said that seamed really trolly, so yes, things got heated pretty quickly.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I would like to see the rotation your using sometime. I have the feeling you see a shatter button available and are like, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Lets go press this button!!

And with that insult, you just went from being wrong and pedantic to being a total kittenbag. Good job, that’ll really sink your credibility.

And you know what? That’s enough for me.

I had a post written about my findings, about the many, many different rotations I tested, and even why trying to keep up 3 phantasms just ended up getting me less phantasm time (here’s a clue: swapping weapons to get a 3rd phantasm locks me out of the first weapon, and only one viable weapon in this build has a low enough final cooldown to keep up a constant rotation. So we’re increasing our wait time, which loses alacrity and quickness ground, and pretty soon you’re actually losing dps versus a build that just puts its phantasms in and lets them run), and did my usual line by line.
Heck, tbh I’m not even done trying to get 3 phantasms up in a viable shatter build, but even if I succeed it won’t help the chrono support, because they need to shatter frequently in order to get the alacrity they need to be ready for the next fight.

But you know what? Kitten it.

You just threw away civility, and with it went any reason I had to be civil. So I’m done.

It’s clear you have nothing left to contribute. You have spent this entire thread making ungrounded assertions, and steadfastly refusing to do the math or the testing to back up your assertions.
But it’s worse, because your arguments have been—for the most part—terrible.

But thank you for insulting me, because that made me realize: you’re not worth it.

Good bye bad fry, and good luck participating in future conversation with the terrible credibility you’ve established here.

I think at this point we have both insulted each other, probably for the same reason. Anyway, this puts us at a crossroad. We could either A, continue to insult each other, B, walk away, or C stop.

“Good bye bad fry, and good luck participating in future conversation with the terrible credibility you’ve established here.”

Oh trust me, I think we have both established the fact we like to get the maximum lols from people we deam are trolls.

“swapping weapons to get a 3rd phantasm locks me out of the first weapon’

Yeah, for the added benefit of either 1 or two phantasms ( depending which heal skill you take ).

’You just threw away civility, and with it went any reason I had to be civil."

That was gone a long time before now between each other lol.

“Heck, tbh I’m not even done trying to get 3 phantasms up in a viable shatter build, but even if I succeed it won’t help the chrono support, because they need to shatter frequently in order to get the alacrity they need to be ready for the next fight.”

A few second extra alacrity isn’t going to make a huge change. I personally would love to continue the conversation, but yeah I don’t see it going anywhere. Hey, if nothing else, it atleast looks like I convinced you guys staff isn’t good in the build.

Got a friend killed the one time after telling him to attack the chickens haha.

Fay.2357:

Your response in a nutshell:

I haven’t tried it and have zero justification or proof for my beliefs, but I still think you’re wrong.

/facepalm

Its probably better to sometimes wait to shatter so the phantasms can get in a extra hit if there attack is up in x time. I don’t think he took this into account? And this is how you respond to it? Like literately, we could just wait for the third beta, record a video, and see what the optimal rotation is. I find it hard to believe you won’t have 3 phantasms up at all. This is presuming after all scepter does do more damage overall which has still yet to be determined. Like????? Oh no but wait I have to have preordered the expansion because otherwise my opinion on beta stuff is useless! Duh. Seams logical to me. I am now 101% sure I am getting trolled. But hey, don’t let me stop you. I’m dying laughing! Great afternoon entertainment.

EDIT: can we atleast confirm now tho that staff isn’t going to be used nor will chaos be taken in the main build?

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

“and conjures a clone”

Exactly my point. The skill might aswell not exist for pve then.

Enough. This is wrong, and has been every time you mentioned it.

At the rate a support chrono needs to shatter, you will NOT be getting 3 phantasms up at any given moment unless you totally screw up your rotations, or at the beginning of a fight (where you don’t need to worry about summoning a clone).

I tested the phantasm rotations extensively, and it was tricky enough to keep up 2 clones persistently with that as my only objective. This experience was repeated by many of the people discussing the uses of chronophantasma during the BWEs.
The only way to keep up 3 phantasms was the usual method: wait until they recharge. Shattering with any kind of speed just cuts down the phantasms, and puts you back at square one.

All you are accomplishing with your dogmatic insistence is proving to us that you didn’t actually try it.

There is nothing wrong with summoning clones, because the only time this build might have 3 phantasms is right at the start, when you shatter them immediately.

Edit: I should note that I WAS able to keep 3 phantasms up at a time by rotating between iDefender, Signet of Ether, and (sometimes) iDisenchanter. That was a huge waste of utility slots, however, as a clone serves just as well for shatters, meaning I was spending a slot for a single occasional attack from iDisenchanter or iDefender, and a little extra recharge on all phantasms. It’s also not an option available to the well support build, for obvious reasons.

I would like to see the rotation your using sometime. I have the feeling you see a shatter button available and are like, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Lets go press this button!! Rather than thinking if it would be better to wait to shatter so they get in a extra attack. And no I haven’t played the betas because I haven’t pre ordered. I think what needs to be done is for the third beta to come around and someone records 2 perfect DPS tests vs the golems in HotM. Then we add up the coefficients and see the results. I just find it hard to believe you will never have 3 phantasms up. And that moves us onto the next thing. What is the ideal rotation? Kinda hard to discuss without actually playing it and testing.

EDIT: Fay, since there seems to be a conspicuous habit of not reading long posts, let me Tl;dr my post for you: You’re wrong. You were wrong the first time, the second time, and you’re still wrong. : P I’m sure we will get absolutely nowhere if this tl;dr im right your wrong because who knows why thing continues. If this is all that your going to do then I think it would be better to go somewhere else. Or you know you could just say why you think I’m wrong? But no! Feels much better to say your wrong because reasons which I can’t say because who knows why.

EDIT 2 @ embolism: So let me get this strait. Your saying because you do something your not wanting to do in this build every second it’s somehow is now good to do?

Embolism.8106:

Eponet.4829:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

I should note that for both my math and Pyro’s, any departure from auto-attacking will give ground to the scepter.
Summoning phantasms, casting wells, casting mantras, blocking, etc. etc. will raise Scepter’s level, because CI has better dps than BF, while sword AA beats scepter AA. So if you don’t AA much, scepter wins.

On the other hand, any dodging that you need to do takes away from the scepter. Blurred frenzy being a minor increase in dps over the autoattack is when it’s used in place of the autoattack.

Blurred frenzy lets you maintain DPS uptime in situations where you would otherwise need to spend time dodging.

Unless it involves a flurry of attacks, don’t forget Illusionary Counter. It’s on a much lower CD than Blurred Frenzy and conjures a Clone to beef up your constant Shattering.

And I think you’ll find you spend much more time not autoattacking and casting other skills than dodging either way.

“and conjures a clone”

Exactly my point. The skill might aswell not exist for pve then.

Filosophi.7251:

I’m sorry, but if you haven’t realized the meta zerk is and has been dead, then you haven’t played long enough, or played enough difficult content. The only reason it was ever atop the list was it is direct immediate damage, and generally single target. The fact is more and more content requires organizing mobs, killing multiple mobs, and not single target pure damage. I can take a condi necro to fractals and wipe out every last elemental in the shaman fractal in a couple seconds. Tell me what zerk warrior does that. Not even a zerk ele can compare to what a necro can do in situations. A pet is even valuable when used properly, making rangers position, at least those who can play one properly, much higher.

Every class can hold its merit in virtually any situation when used properly. Following these meta zerk builds only creates horrible players because they’re not learning the class or mechanics, they’re learning how to deal the most damage the fastest, and that is it. They’re not learning what the, or any class, is truly capable of.

omg. https://www.youtube.com/user/Iamoneandiamlegion

go crazy

Eponet.4829:

AlphatheWhite.9351:

I should note that for both my math and Pyro’s, any departure from auto-attacking will give ground to the scepter.
Summoning phantasms, casting wells, casting mantras, blocking, etc. etc. will raise Scepter’s level, because CI has better dps than BF, while sword AA beats scepter AA. So if you don’t AA much, scepter wins.

On the other hand, any dodging that you need to do takes away from the scepter. Blurred frenzy being a minor increase in dps over the autoattack is when it’s used in place of the autoattack.

Blurred frenzy lets you maintain DPS uptime in situations where you would otherwise need to spend time dodging.

Yeah, good point. I think the discussion over scepter kinda died to its not useful, but this is the final nail in the coffin. Scepter is still in the trashcan for pve.

Fay.2357:

Staff allows me to summon 2 illusions at 1200 range while approaching a boss. This is actually really key in being able to properly initiate the combo at the start of a fight.

Also. The proper way is >5. The > sign can be replaced with the words ‘greater than’. The way you write it it would be ‘5 greater than conditions on the boss’. This makes no sense.

In my version of the build, you can just summon your phantasms when walking to the boss ( presuming you don’t have to wait for the boss to activate, in which case it doesn’t matter anyway ), and sword 3.

EDIT: or you could even start off with say staff or pistol to summon additional stuff and then swap back to your main sets before you get in combat.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Jerus.4350:

Not disputing Alacrity + Quickness benefits, more the need for this level of up time and the value of shedding the defensive support. We don’t live in a vacuum of paper theory perfection.

Except, you’ve been talking more about offensive than defensive support.
Pyro has already conceded (long before you or French Fry came into the picture, this came up right at the start) that swapping for Feedback may be necessary.
Doing so is a compromise between the need for reflects and value of that improved offensive support. You can compromise further, if need be, by swapping an entire trait line and weapon-set to get focus reflects, as Pyro has also conceded. That’ll weaken your offensive support even further, at the gain of reflect support.

But if you really need more…

If it was worth bringing along inferior dps (guardian, mesmer) for reflects in some dungeons before Chrono, why isn’t it worth bringing along a guardian in addition to the Chrono? I’ve already demonstrated mathematically that the chronomancer is adding more dps to the whole group than another ele would (which means he’s adding more than any other class would either), so why not just bring along a guardian for reflects in those dungeons where Feedback+Alacrity isn’t enough? Indeed, the guardian’s reflects will be even better than usual, given the effect of Alacrity, and guardian dps is already known to be decent, so they’d presumably contribute decently when boosted by Alacrity and quickness.

Yes, I’m glad we settled that when more reflects are taken more reflects/projectile destruction will be taken. I believe this is a big thing and will be more like the main build because projectile destruction is a big thing. And yeah it goes to show it was worth taking a guardian whose main job is reflects in a dungeon even with inferior DPS. And its not worth swapping a guard for another ele at all. This would now put your comp into a chrono, guard, warrior, chaos mesmer, revenant, and thief. That’s NO eles. Your going to be lacking vulnerability, IBs, and FGSs ( a big thing, one of the reasons mesmer is taken is for portaling with FGS ). While you could just swap out staff for focus. And that’s another thing. Idk what you guys see in chaos. A tiny bit of boon duration that isn’t going to change anything and some might which the warrior can provide. Which leads us to this whole revenant thing. Let’s look at the comparison again.

1 ele, 1 “full DPS warrior” ( I’ll talk about this below ), 1 chaos chrono, 1 revenant, and 1 thief comp

Bonuses compared to the other comp: 150 ferocity, some extra warrior DPS ( like I said I’ll talk about this below ), and some extra vuln from revenant and warrior going axe mace ( tho overall think the 2 ele comp has better vuln )

2 ele, 1 PS warrior, 1 dueling/domination chrono, and 1 thief

Bonuses compared to the other comp: 150 power, Don’t have to stay within 600 range during the skip to the next boss, an additional 2 IBs, an additional 2 FGSs, and a additional glyph of storms ( so you shouldn’t be short of vulnerability in addition to the one air trait that provides vuln ). Oh and chrono does more DPS.

Ok, so first, this whole warrior full DPS thing. Literately, the only thing you gain DPS wise is burst mastery, scholar runes, and better DPS food. And second, you gain the ability to use axe mace for more vuln ( tho remember you actually are loosing vuln because you only have one glyph of storms ). Also remember, pure GS builds do more damage than GS axe/mace builds. So you lose some vuln and gain some extra DPS. Not to mention in a PS build you can still start the fight out with axe 2 and mace 4.

Two additional IBs increase the damage done/vuln output, two extra FGSs greatly increasess mobility which is actually a huge thing in dungeons ( especially if the FGS from the first ele isn’t off cd when the mesmer is going to portal ahead again ), and don’t underestimate the vuln from glyph of storms. Overall can cover vuln while the 1 ele comp won’t.

Another question is how exactly does revenant DPS compare to a eles? This is also presuming with 100% alacrity and 100% quickness. Because some classes gain more out of alacrity and quickness than others.

And last of all a DPS loss to mesmer/some extra utility from say more condition removal when you swap to mantra if you go with the one ele comp.

I find it hard to see the extra ferocity and warrior DPS being worth it over all the other stuff. Which is why I believe revenant will NOT be meta nor will you have chaos equipped so often.

Oh, and one more thing. You make it seam that staff would still be better than an additional offhand if you don’t need the extra projectile destruction? I don’t see what you see in staff. The DPS doesn’t compare to an additional offhand at all. The only way I would take staff is if you have 5> condis on the boss and the boss dies before you would be able to summon a 2nd phantasm from that 2nd offhand. So in fact staff is limited more in this build than right now, and we all now how much staff is used now while fighting.

EDIT: also, another thing to take into account is revenants DPS probably took into account the quickness it can get. But all classes will be getting quickness. So yeah, emphasis on the how much damage does revenant do compared to a ele with perma quickness and alacrity

Gav.1425:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And phantasmal haste reduces the cd on your phantasms so you can re-summon them faster.

Phantasmal Haste: Phantasms attack more often (20%).

Illusionists Celerity: Reduce recharge on illusion-summoning skills (20%)

Yeah, I already noted I got the two mixed up. But it’s not like there is anything better to take there and who knows you might get some use out of it.

@Jerus

“Now we get to the stealth/skip part, that’s one thing that really troubles me. I’m often sitting on one or even 0 swappable utility slots at the beginning of an encounter having used them all up to get us through a skip. Do i sit around and wait to get my Timewarp? do I sit around and wait for the well(s)? Viel, Mimic, Mass Invis, they have long cooldowns. It’s a concern of mine.”

I think this is a good point. So I think we can expect for most dungeons a thief will be taken.

@Fay

“There’s extremely little content where you actually need permanent uptime on reflects. You’re pretty much limited to uncategorized and maaaybe ascalon/cliffside. In those situations, it would probably be worth to drop staff in favor of focus, and shift chaos to inspiration for the trait…but those are niche situations.”

I would hardly say that only uncategorized and ascalon/cliffisde. But at least we can agree focus will be taken when projectile destruction is needed.

“The math has been done for this. Permanent quickness + alacrity is more party dps than an additional elementalist. You also drastically overestimate the amount of damage even a 100% fully damage specced mesmer does. Mesmer damage is nothing
sort of abysmal.”

Quoting Jerus because he/she said it quite well: " And also what about a more damage focused Chrono able to provide a lot of quickness and a good bit of alacrity"

“Well, here’s the nice thing. If you’re rotating things properly, you’ll finish a fight with still 15-20 seconds of alacrity ticking on you. You can additionally roll through your 3 lower cd shatters out of combat (assuming you keep away from the aoe radius of hitting things) to maintain around 50% uptime on alacrity for some time after that. This means that the 72s cooldown of mass invis suddenly drops to around 50 seconds. In some places, that’s enough for it to be ready by the next fight. In others…you’re certainly losing a little bit of utility, but it’s generally not the end of the world, especially if there’s a bit of trash to clear first.”

Still, there is quote a lot of times where it would simply be better to take a thief and keep your elite/utility off cd. Because there will be plenty of times where it won’t be off cd by the time the next boss fight is ready. Even with alacrity. I mean, how often does it take 50 seconds to get to the next boss?

Fay.2357:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The thing is, since you will be fighting in melee range, the shield won’t be really protecting you. And even with feedback, that’s 12 seconds of reflect.

Sure, but feedback ends up on a pretty short cooldown with permanent alacrity. There’s not a lot of fights where you need continual reflects any more, for a simple reason. If you need continual reflects, then the reflects are trivializing the fight, which means anet is gonna nerf the ability to reflect, and this has happened quite a bit already.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And while the heal skill does provide condition removal, its only 3 conditions.

The mantra only removes 4, this isn’t exactly a huge difference. Condition removal is never an issue in an intelligent team anyway, every class has solid options for it.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And there isn’t much of a reason to take staff nor chaos if you have a warrior with PS. I think this is a tl;dr version of all that I have said in the thread

And as we’ve responded to you like 12 times already, your warrior doesn’t need to take PS if you have this build and a herald, but for some reason this logic seems to be above you…

Actually, there are a good amount of fights where perma reflects are needed. And with 2 eles, chrono, thief, and warrior, chrono is the best option for condition removal. And its 6 if you go dueling.

“And as we’ve responded to you like 12 times already, your warrior doesn’t need to take PS if you have this build and a herald, but for some reason this logic seems to be above you…”

The difference between PS and discipline warrior isn’t actually that large. Because remember the one big thing with going discipline is you get quickness, but with chrono that doesn’t matter. While going revenant means replacing a ele. Which means minus 2 IBs, minus two FGSs, minus glyph of storms, and minus 150 power, and minus some mesmer DPS. If your taking a thief, that means only 1 ele in the group. While you gain 150 ferocity and some tiny warrior DPS increase. And if you only take one ele you are going to be short on vuln. It would seam at a glance its just not worth it. I would be happy for some DPS tests to be done, but it doesn’t look too promising at all. After having looked it over more thoroughly, I think I can finally say I’m 100% sure its better to not take a revenant. Now that’s not to say you can’t go the other route, that’s just to say I don’t believe it will be the most efficient thing to do.

Fay.2357:

Jerus.4350:

Strengths I see are Reflects for sure, Skipping, and Condi cleanse as a main 3, of course we have a lot of stuff to offer but if I had to say there were 3 things I did the best, it would be those.

So the shield provides projectile destruction, and if you’re in a situation that requires reflects, you’ll swap off calamity for feedback instead. The heal well is cleansing 3 condies in an aoe + a large heal every time you use it. If that’s not enough cleansing, your party has some serious issues. You can swap from BD to PU, swap on MI, and double tap it for an instant 20 seconds of stealth for skipping.

Jerus.4350:

Weaknesses, well, it’s mainly just one, the impracticality of illusions, the way they can die so quickly, even the 1s of distortion hasn’t been enough in my experience considering it’s only phantasms. So I don’t think shatter becoming stronger will really fix that issue, help yes, eliminate no.

This build completely eliminates that weakness. Instead of trying to do damage yourself, you’re making everyone else on your party do far more damage. Providing permanent alacrity and quickness to the other 4 members of your party makes your effective dps (the amount of damage that your party gains by having you there) higher than an additional elementalist.

The thing is, since you will be fighting in melee range, the shield won’t be really protecting you. And even with feedback, that’s 12 seconds of reflect. And while the heal skill does provide condition removal, its only 3 conditions. With that being said you can just take the mantra if you need condition removal. And there isn’t much of a reason to take staff nor chaos if you have a warrior with PS. I think this is a tl;dr version of all that I have said in the thread

Jerus.4350:

I don’t think it’s a bad build. I guess I just don’t see it going meta as I don’t see it as being as min/maxed as the alternatives. It won’t really add that much DPS to the warrior as the allowance to move from PS will not help as much as the allowance to move from strength runes and other such might boosters which is what a Rev will allow on his own with the boon duration buff. And his more practical damage output. I could very well see chrono being a large thing, and I could see getting use out of this build as well, but just not in a meta setting.

So the idea of calling it “The” chronomancer dungeon rotation is a bit off to me. I’d call it something like the Illusionary warrior, or buffbot extreme. It’s nice, it has certain qualities, but I just don’t see it playing to mesmer’s strength fully, and I don’t see the weaknesses of the class disappearing such that it’d allow this build to be an optimal setting outside of a few niche cases.

I’d be happy to elaborate but I think the discussion on this topic has already hit many of the points I’d make, strength of reflect, impracticality of clones and phantasms in PVP even if you’re shattering them. I do forsee me putting most of my specialization trees to use though. Chrono/Illusion/Inspiration on one fight, swap inspiration for chaos to skip, swap chaos to duelist for next fight, then back to chaos to skip, and then maybe even dropping chrono at times and, I don’t know I forsee a lot of swapping to optimize, which we already do but it’ll only increase.

This. And yeah I can definitely see a use for all specialization trees. Can’t wait for chrono.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

By the 15% boon duration?

And Might sharing through BD.

Which the warrior will be doing. Unless the dungeon doesn’t require much stealth and going revenant over a 3rd ele is better. Which is what we need some math done on.

@Embolism

Yes I believe at somepoint you will have 3 phantasms out for the auto attack to mess up.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, I did forgot about CS and I didn’t relise the well was on such a low cd. But remember your giving up 12 seconds of relfects for 8 seconds of alacrity.

Do note that Pyro has already said he’d swap out Calamity for Feedback in fights where that matters more.
Also, as I noted earlier in the thread, shield is providing additional alacrity via the revamped shield phantasms. We haven’t calculated what kind of potential you get out of those, though, because it’s complicated and messy (Persistence of Memory + Chronophantasma + Quickness + Shield 4×2 = ????)

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

With my build you already have 18 seconds of alacrity which should be plenty. If there isn’t a need for reflects against a certain boss then you can go for the well.

What percentage of boss fights are only 18s long? Is there a source to find that kind of information?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m saying you can take well eternity sometimes, but you will also use well of eternity. And you can swap in shield if for some reason you already don’t. But the significant changes between our builds are STAFF and the trait line CHAOS.

I do agree with you on the staff, actually. If this were a boonshare build as well as an alacrity build, I’d probably stick with staff for the protection sharing, both otherwise I think you’ll get more mileage out of a second offhand.
The main key to the chaos is the might stacking, which is definitely more support than your build…given the right party. A PS warrior would make BD (mostly) moot, which would give a good reason to go Dom instead.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And the fact that my build has reflects while his has 0. I’m simply discussing changes to his build.

Already mentioned the feedback swap. Your build has 1 reflect, which his build has with a simple swap, the same swap you just suggested you’d be willing to make on any boss where reflects aren’t critical (most bosses).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

???? Glad you can see into the future about what my build will be like.

Just responding specifically to your trend of taking stuff from his build and incorporating it. You keep going that way, and that’s where you’ll end up. Taking my phrase out of context doesn’t help you.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m saying my build should already have enough quickness and if not you can just swap shield in. It really depends on the dungeon and the group you have. I have yet to play chrono so idk how often shield will be used or not.

If the fight only lasts 17s, yes. If it does not, no. See above, do you know how many fights that will be? And what are your sources on that?
As far as shield itself, it’s pretty boss, you should try it, I think you’ll like it.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

My build has reflects and projectile destruction. his doesn’t. See what I’m getting at? if your wanting to do a ele, ele, chrono, warrior, revenant comp, your atleast going to need reflects. Thus my build has significantly more support.

1. Shield5 destroys projectiles (though there’s been some bug reports around that). You’d know that if you’d read the ability.
2. He can easily swap to Feedback for the important fights, which means your build only has “more support” in places where reflects are less important than alacrity, in which case it is by definition not “more support”. Only on fights where Feedback and Shield 5 aren’t enough projectile destruction will your build have “more support”. Which fights are those, do you know?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

What? You saying all the stuff below that ( quotes from me ) is somehow ignoring it? Are you * with me? Like?!??!?!?!?!?!? Are you for real? You gotta start making some sence or I am gonna just strait up start ignoring you. I’m like 99.999% sure your just a troll at this point.

I edited this out 24 minutes before you posted.
I’ve found it’s useful to check the thread again before I post, to make sure everything I’ve said is still accurate.
(I also double-check my posts after I post them just so I can catch little mistakes like this one and edit them out).
I highly recommend both habits, especially in a conversation that’s going as fast as this one.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Never going to end up with 3 phantasms? Wah?!?!? May I ask why you think we will only ever be getting up to two phantasms out?

We’re shattering Mind Wrack on cooldown, at 100% alacrity, which means a shatter at least once every 7s. But we’re also shattering CoF on cooldown (13s), and the other two shatters on cooldown as well (20s and 26s). Between all of them, even Chronophantasma can’t keep your phantasms alive long enough to get three out except right at the start (remember we’re using Well of Eternity over Signet of Ether).
This isn’t just because of BD in Pyro’s build, but also because you need the 100% alacrity to keep your CS cooldown low for more frequent fights. Even if 18s is enough for your team, it’s unfortunately not enough for you, the chronomancer. So you’ve gotta be shattering.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

not to mention, the auto attack can give more than 1 close if you repeat the cycle twice……..

Clones always overwrite clones first, so you never need to worry about overwriting a phantasm unless you have three phantasms.
This is another mesmer thing I’m surprised you don’t know, given how hard you’re arguing today.

Feedback isn’t going to be enough reflects. And you have to wait for the end of the block to get the alacrity and like I said you should have enough alacrity already. And I think its safe to say in lower lvl dungeons bosses die before 18 seconds. If not simply equip a shield. And warrior is the guy providing might. We still need some math tho if its better to go chaos and grab a revenant ( if you don’t need much stealth of course ) or to go with a 3rd ele and PS warrior. And yes my build has 1 reflect but it also has projectile destruction via the focus phantasm.

“Just responding specifically to your trend of taking stuff from his build and incorporating it. You keep going that way, and that’s where you’ll end up. Taking my phrase out of context doesn’t help you.”

Pyro said he would take feedback if reflects are needed! Your build is gonna end up just like mine! Tehehehehehehehehehehehe.

“If the fight only lasts 17s, yes. If it does not, no. See above, do you know how many fights that will be? And what are your sources on that?”

On lower lvl dungeons 17 seconds of quickness should be plenty. In something like arah it might be better to take shield.

“1. Shield5 destroys projectiles (though there’s been some bug reports around that). You’d know that if you’d read the ability.”

Yes, it does provide projectile destruction. That’s why i have trying to pay attention to the prices on tormented shield incase i want to get that because I could see it having niche uses in pvp like vs power rangers. But providing your in melee range its only going to provide projectile destruction for a tiny bit.

“2. He can easily swap to Feedback for the important fights, which means your build only has “more support” in places where reflects are less important than alacrity, in which case it is by definition not “more support”. Only on fights where Feedback and Shield 5 aren’t enough projectile destruction will your build have “more support”. Which fights are those, do you know?”

The fights that involve projectiles and last over 12 seconds ( or 13 or something if you want to count the shields projectile destruction ). Which are plenty of bosses.

“We’re shattering Mind Wrack on cooldown, at 100% alacrity, which means a shatter at least once every 7s. But we’re also shattering CoF on cooldown (13s), and the other two shatters on cooldown as well (20s and 26s). Between all of them, even Chronophantasma can’t keep your phantasms alive long enough to get three out except right at the start (remember we’re using Well of Eternity over Signet of Ether).
This isn’t just because of BD in Pyro’s build, but also because you need the 100% alacrity to keep your CS cooldown low for more frequent fights. Even if 18s is enough for your team, it’s unfortunately not enough for you, the chronomancer. So you’ve gotta be shattering.”

I will have 27 seconds of alacrity on me thanks to the one trait I picked in my build. not counting my shatters of course. Not to mention if you have enough alacrity for the fight you make it seam like you would still want more for during the skips? This is true, but your not going to be popping wells during a skip and standing in them long enough to get the alacrity.

And you don’t just shatter off cd. The point of shattering is so that your phantasms can get another attack. If you have 3 phantasms up that you already shattered once and you don’t have another phantasm up, you don’t shatter. And even if you do have a shatter up it might be better to wait till your phantasms attack again depending on how long it was since they last attacked. And thus scepter would totally screw with all this.

“Clones always overwrite clones first, so you never need to worry about overwriting a phantasm unless you have three phantasms.
This is another mesmer thing I’m surprised you don’t know, given how hard you’re arguing today.’

This is something I did forget about. Tho to be far this knowledge isn’t every really used when you play a mesmer.

Fay.2357:

For those questioning my assessment of Mesmer damage as worthless…have you seen recent speedruns with a Mesmer? The Mesmer literally drops portal, time warp, picks up an fgs and runs to the next boss. Obviously Mesmer dps output is not the crux of what makes a dungeon group clear faster.

Specifically though, let’s look at domination vs chaos. What does domination give?

Well, it gives a boost to damage from vuln, this ends up as a 12.5% boost at 25 vuln…but it’s personal only, and we know how awful our personal damage is.

Domination also gives a 15% boost to phantasms…but this build has a high rate of shattering, the shield phantasms don’t do strong damage, and phantasms tend to squish quickly anyway, so this boost will be very minor as well.

Lastly, domination will boost our mind wrack damage by 15% (doubt you’ll get the inactive bonus much vs bosses). This makes a bit of a difference, but ultimately it’s still not that impactful. MW will at best be about 12k damage every 6 seconds or so, which is 2k dps, so a 15% boost gets us another 300 dps. Hardly worth mentioning.

Ultimately, swapping to domination gets you extremely little. Staying in chaos means you can make sure the real dps classes keep turbo mode on as long as possible.

@Chaos: I put a build link earlier in a post, you may want to update the op with it.

By the 15% boon duration?

@Embolism

It’s better for you to shatter phantasms than to shatter clones because the phantasms do damage and then you shatter them and they do damage again.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

Mmhm. And how does Ether Clone work against this?

Because it summons a clone.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces.

I did say I don’t want to discuss this anymore but this made me curious.

Do you care to explain this a little more?

The idea is to shatter your phantasms because of chronophantsma so that they come back and attack again. Then you shatter them again and pump out more phantasms.

Embolism.8106:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Embolism.8106:

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

Yeah, probably better to go to the guardian forum and start trying to get people to use staff for meta builds. : P

As for the other two new posts, Ill get to them at some point, but I’v spent way to much time replying already right now with huge posts.

People have already shown you the numbers (for Sceptre, amongst other things). At this point all you’re doing is floundering, you know you’re wrong but your ego prevents you from admitting it.

For your own sake, just stop. Walk away. No need to make things more tiresome than they have to be, for all involved.

Yeah, people have shown the numbers. That is true indeed. It showed that sword auto was significantly better while scepter 3 did good DPS. More dps test would have to be done to tell whether scepter is better or not. Except for the fact that you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not CLONES which the SCEPTER produces. I think Miku summed it up quit well: I think the scepter case was closed on page 1.

Embolism.8106:

I’d love to jump into this discussion, but half a page of talking to a brick wall is enough for me.

Yeah, probably better to go to the guardian forum and start trying to get people to use staff for meta builds. : P

As for the other two new posts, Ill get to them at some point, but I’v spent way to much time replying already right now with huge posts.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I’m talking party wide stealth not personal stealth lol.

What are you talking about? Veil and MI are party stealth, and they’re the skills I am talking about.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

So that’s either 10 seconds of stealth using your elite so that either your next TW will have double the cd or you don’t get to use TW next fight. Or 4 seconds of stealth or 8 if you use your f5 for stealth.

I swear you’ve given me reason to believe you actually play mesmer before, but statements like this make me wonder.
MI’s base cooldown is 90s, fully half of Time Warp. Furthermore, Master of Manipulation is in the chaos tree, so it’s an easy pick to reduce MI to 72s. With alacrity, that comes down to 48s or less, which is less than Shadow Refuge (pretty close if SR is traited)
With f5 running about the same, you get both of them as often as the thief gets Shadow Refuge, which is the lynchpin of their stealth skipping anyway.
So f5 -> veil -> MI -> f5 -> MI = 24s of party stealth, which around what you’re getting from Wall -> SB3 -> Shadow Refuge. Thief can increase that with Blinding Powder, Mesmer can increase that by casting veil after f5, or even more with mimic-> veil.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

The point is, while mesmer stealth is good, it comes at a heavy price. Thus thief will definitely still be taken for some dungeons.

I did note that this is possible, see my previous post. Another good example is Arah p3, where a thief can do the glowing ball toss solo.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Yeah, the DPS should be tested. But I would like to point out the extra boon duration for quickness isn’t necessarily that good. It depends, you might have perma quickness without it. Or the extra boon duration might not do anything. Think about it, with TW and the one well, you have 17 seconds of quickness. This is more than enough for a lot of bosses in dungeons.

Certainly possible. See my earlier note about some bosses calling for the chrono to shift closer to dps as the situation calls for it (good speedrunners will get good at it).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Has Pyro actually done some math on chaos not being much of a DPS difference or is he just guessing?

In PvE, I’d guess that the math that’s been done has largely been the efforts to make a mesmer that can compete for dps. Sadly, it’s always so kitten low that taking less efficient abilities just doesn’t make much difference.
For an example of just how big a difference it is, you can see the exercise in the WvW zerg thread, where Pyro demonstrated that a mesmer burst was doing less damage than a single meteor from meteor shower.
We’re talking 6000-7000 dps for an entire build, versus the 19k that buffed eles are supposedly getting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And how much is not much lower? You could say the DPS difference between PS and full DPS warrior is low. And you also have to take into account FGS which is great for mobility. But I’m learning strongly on the ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief/ele comp being better than ele, ele, chrono w/ chaos, full DPS warrior, revenant. We will see.

Yes, this is my point.

You mentioned torch 4….

“MI’s base cooldown is 90s, fully half of Time Warp.”

And I said where that it wasn’t?? I said you can use your elite pop CS at the end of teh cast so it goes off cd then swap back to TW. If you use TW then it would have double the cd than normal because CS has a 90 seconds cd while TW has 180 second cd.

“Furthermore, Master of Manipulation is in the chaos tree, so it’s an easy pick to reduce MI to 72s.”

This is a good idea that I didn’t think of.

“With f5 running about the same, you get both of them as often as the thief gets Shadow Refuge, which is the lynchpin of their stealth skipping anyway.”

Except for the fact you don’t get TW then? Presuming your oping your alacrity during the skip?

“Certainly possible. See my earlier note about some bosses calling for the chrono to shift closer to dps as the situation calls for it (good speedrunners will get good at it).”

Exactly, this is my point. Chaos isn’t needed.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Frenchfry, I mean no offense whatsoever honestly it seems like you like to argue for the sake of arguing. And you throw hyperbole around like a major league pitcher.

You keep challenging people and telling them they’re wrong based off your… opinion? You’re arguing against proven facts and numbers with situational scenarios and your own ideals, but you’re not providing anything (no math, no videos, no references) to back your claims up.

Your own personal experiences are not the be-all-end-all, and you’re making it very difficult to separate fact from opinion. You can’t keep saying things like “tons of places you can do that.” or “plenty of quickness without shield” with no background to your claims. For one, the only other time Chronomancer has Quickness is with Seize the Moment, but that’s a pretty drastic change to the build.

So please, just a bit less confrontation would be appreciated unless you know your facts are solid.

No, I am discussing why I don’t think staff or scepter or chaos will be in the meta build. Against proven facts? What am i still arguing about that has been proven? And about this whole rev vs another ele thing, I have said this already, I could see it both ways. But without math being down it would seam like its in favor of another ele to me. And I’m just trying to get across why i think that is. i’v also already said the only way for us to now for sure is for matht o be done. I’v also already said I am terrible at math and don’t enjoy it at all, so I’ll leave it for the people who do like it.

“plenty of quickness without shield”

Yeah, I got 17 seconds of quickness without shield. Is that enough background for my claim? Or are you saying you want me to say in my post how I get that other quickness? if so, well, i figured you could just see how I got that other quickness my looking at the build i posted.

I think people think I’m saying 100% on say ele is better than revenant when I am simply saying without doing math that to me it looks like another ele would be better. And that I even said the only way to really know is to do math. I aint saying 100% 3rd ele>a revenant. I’m simply trying to show you why without math it would seam like that to me. I will wait to say I 100% believe a 3rd ele is better than a revenant or vice versa when math has been done.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Egad man, you’re really mucking up the logic here:

You make it seam like your build somehow has significantly more alacrity or quickness. If you really need more quickness you can just swap in the shield, but chrono already has a lot of quickness without shield. And I take a feedback for extra reflects rather than TWO seconds of extra alacrity.

1. It is clear from this statement that you either didn’t read the rotation, or if you did, you didn’t understand it.
Well of Calamity = 2s per cast.
WoC during CS = 2s. WoC after CS = 2s. WoC 13s after CS = 2s. WoC 26s after CS = 2s
That’s 8s of alacrity coming from Well of Calamity, not 2. For the record, that’s 44% more alacrity than your build had.

2. Every compromise you make (well of eternity, swap in shield, etc.) makes your build less like your build and more like his. Eventually “your build” will be essentially the same as his, and then what will you be arguing about?

3. Yes, the build already has quickness. No, that quickness does not keep up with the alacrity, unless you build for it specifically. But you need it to, for the full dps gain, because you need cast time reduction and cooldown reduction to walk hand-in-hand both for the synergetic effect, and for your team’s pacing (so they have consistent results, not sometimes quickness+alacrity, sometimes alacrity alone).

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

That’s the thing. You make it seam like your build does tons of extra support, and yet it’s the other way around. My build can do just as much support as yours, except for the might which other people will be providing and same goes for the fury. But my build provides reflects, which yours doesn’t at all. So its not your build provides greater support with less DPS, its your build does less DPS AND less support.

1. You are contradicting yourself. If your build does the same support and more dps, that’s not the same as his build doing less dps and less support, it’s his build doing less dps and the same support. The raw abuse of logic that this paragraph contains is driving me crazy. I mean, seriously? Even if your build provided close to the full amount of alacrity, that doesn’t in any way mean it’s “the other way around,” because even 2s of alacrity is still more support than not!

2. No, your build does not do the same support. By the time your build provided the same support, it wouldn’t be your build anymore, it would be his. See above.

3. See below regarding reflects.

4. See below, and other posts, regarding the discussion on PS warrior.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that people who don’t know what there doing can totally do close to 0 DPS.

Fortunately when we’re talking about the meta, we don’t have to worry about this possibility. If we aren’t talking meta, a dps chrono isn’t likely to top keeping people alive via Inspiration anyway, is it?

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And I still don’t get where all this herald might stuff is coming from that people will think will replace PS warrior. The best I could come up with is the build I’ll link at the bottom of the description. But it hardly looks even close PS. The rampup time takes way to long not to mention idk how it would get 25 might.

I was working on that myself, and Pyro pointed me in the right direction:
1. Facet of Nature + Chaotic Persistence = +65% boon duration for Mes (more with more boons). Rev has their own +15%, so both are at 65% without food/gear.
2. That puts the might durations at: 24.75s from BD (mes), 20s from Facet of Strength (rev), 13.25s from Shared Empowerment (rev).
3. The mes can hit MW every 10s out of combat, proccing 3 stacks from BD. At 24.75s each, that’s 74.25 stack-seconds, or 7.4 stacks persistently.
4. The rev tics Facet of Strength every 3 seconds, granting 1 stack of might at 20s, or 6.67 stacks persistently.
5. Every time the rev tics Facet of Strength, he grants another stack at 13.25s via Shared Empowerment, which means 4.4 stacks persistently. That gets us up to 18 and a half stacks persistently right there.
6. Shared Empowerment has a 1s icd versus the 3s interval on Facet of Strength, so with the right timing you should be able to get more stacks out of it by using other facets. All three other facets grant a boon on a 3s interval, so that’s another 4.4 stacks there. that takes us up to 22.9 stacks persistently out of combat. (2 pips from Facet of Nature, 2 from Facet of Strength, 1 from Facet of Light or Facet of the Elements).
Once you’ve swapped to Facet of Darkness for combat (which puts your pips in the negative zone) to get permanent fury, FoD will be picking up the Shared Empowerment tab.
7. Now that we’re starting combat with about 23 stacks of might, we only need to burst an extra 2 stacks on average to get to max. Given that the chrono opening rotation procs Mind Wrack (BD) twice, we’re done. This could also be filled by just a little bit of pre-blasting, or even opening blasting.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I really don’t see rev being meta at all. I really think the meta is going to be ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief. What would you even get rid of here for revenants mediocre ability to stack some might and 150 ferocity? The eles and thus lose a IB and vuln and a FGS for mobility? Chrono, losing all that quickness and alacrity and reflects/projectile destruction and condition removal? Or the PS warrior that applys might better than revenant and has 150 power and both banners? Or the thief with his stealth and blinds? There just isn’t a place for revenant in a meta comp.

Do note that currently, we aren’t proposing getting rid of the warrior entirely, just turn him into a dps warr instead of a might-bot. So we still keep the banners.
The weakest link really is the thief, as the chronomancer is better able to fill the stealth role than mes was before, the thief’s dps is (reportedly) below that of the revenant right now, and the blinds aren’t as critical (and yes, the mes can fill in those too, by shifting closer to your build and picking up Blinding Dissipation instead of Fencer’s Finesse).
The real question, as you and Miku both noted in subsequent posts, is whether we might not be better off skipping the Herald entirely, keeping the warrior as PS, and putting in a 3rd ele. I noted more detail in my response there about what needs to be calculated to know that.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Also, another reason I don’t think scepter will be good for a chrono is because it still does give off clones. Even so your going to be shattering with chrono you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones.

You’re never going to end up with 3 phantasms on this build, so this is a moot point.

Yeah, I did forgot about CS and I didn’t relise the well was on such a low cd. But remember your giving up 12 seconds of relfects for 8 seconds of alacrity. With my build you already have 18 seconds of alacrity which should be plenty. If there isn’t a need for reflects against a certain boss then you can go for the well.

’ Every compromise you make (well of eternity, swap in shield, etc.) makes your build less like your build and more like his."

I’m saying you can take well eternity sometimes, but you will also use well of eternity. And you can swap in shield if for some reason you already don’t. But the significant changes between our builds are STAFF and the trait line CHAOS. And the fact that my build has reflects while his has 0. I’m simply discussing changes to his build.

“Eventually “your build” will be essentially the same as his, and then what will you be arguing about?”"

???? Glad you can see into the future about what my build will be like.

“3. Yes, the build already has quickness. No, that quickness does not keep up with the alacrity, unless you build for it specifically. But you need it to, for the full dps gain, because you need cast time reduction and cooldown reduction to walk hand-in-hand both for the synergetic effect, and for your team’s pacing (so they have consistent results, not sometimes quickness+alacrity, sometimes alacrity alone).”

I’m saying my build should already have enough quickness and if not you can just swap shield in. It really depends on the dungeon and the group you have. I have yet to play chrono so idk how often shield will be used or not.

“1. You are contradicting yourself. If your build does the same support and more dps, that’s not the same as his build doing less dps and less support, it’s his build doing less dps and the same support. The raw abuse of logic that this paragraph contains is driving me crazy. I mean, seriously? Even if your build provided close to the full amount of alacrity, that doesn’t in any way mean it’s “the other way around,” because even 2s of alacrity is still more support than not!”

My build has reflects and projectile destruction. his doesn’t. See what I’m getting at? if your wanting to do a ele, ele, chrono, warrior, revenant comp, your atleast going to need reflects. Thus my build has significantly more support.

“2. No, your build does not do the same support. By the time your build provided the same support, it wouldn’t be your build anymore, it would be his. See above.”

No, my build doesn’t do the SAME support. But it does more important support like reflects rather than provide some might that warrior will be providing.

“4. You’re ignoring the discussion on the total group gains from not requiring the warrior to go PS. Is this intentional? Because it completely undercuts your point, if you don’t deal with it.”

What? You saying all the stuff below that ( quotes from me ) is somehow ignoring it? Are you * with me? Like?!??!?!?!?!?!? Are you for real? You gotta start making some sence or I am gonna just strait up start ignoring you. I’m like 99.999% sure your just a troll at this point.

" If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken."

“Fortunately when we’re talking about the meta, we don’t have to worry about this possibility. If we aren’t talking meta, a dps chrono isn’t likely to top keeping people alive via Inspiration anyway, is it?”

I was replying to to this: “Additionally, even a somewhat clueless ele or warrior is going to dps that leaves you, a mesmer, in the dust.”

I was just saying a clueless warrior will probaly be doing less DPS than a mesmer.

“I was working on that myself, and Pyro pointed me in the right direction:
1. Facet of Nature + Chaotic Persistence = +65% boon duration for Mes (more with more boons). Rev has their own +15%, so both are at 65% without food/gear.
2. That puts the might durations at: 24.75s from BD (mes), 20s from Facet of Strength (rev), 13.25s from Shared Empowerment (rev).
3. The mes can hit MW every 10s out of combat, proccing 3 stacks from BD. At 24.75s each, that’s 74.25 stack-seconds, or 7.4 stacks persistently.
4. The rev tics Facet of Strength every 3 seconds, granting 1 stack of might at 20s, or 6.67 stacks persistently.
5. Every time the rev tics Facet of Strength, he grants another stack at 13.25s via Shared Empowerment, which means 4.4 stacks persistently. That gets us up to 18 and a half stacks persistently right there.
6. Shared Empowerment has a 1s icd versus the 3s interval on Facet of Strength, so with the right timing you should be able to get more stacks out of it by using other facets. All three other facets grant a boon on a 3s interval, so that’s another 4.4 stacks there. that takes us up to 22.9 stacks persistently out of combat. (2 pips from Facet of Nature, 2 from Facet of Strength, 1 from Facet of Light or Facet of the Elements).
Once you’ve swapped to Facet of Darkness for combat (which puts your pips in the negative zone) to get permanent fury, FoD will be picking up the Shared Empowerment tab.
7. Now that we’re starting combat with about 23 stacks of might, we only need to burst an extra 2 stacks on average to get to max. Given that the chrono opening rotation procs Mind Wrack (BD) twice, we’re done. This could also be filled by just a little bit of pre-blasting, or even opening blasting.”

If you are all walking together yeah. Unfortunately, in a dungeon, not everyone has the same speed…… but yes if you are in the range I now relise you can get up some nice might.

“Do note that currently, we aren’t proposing getting rid of the warrior entirely, just turn him into a dps warr instead of a might-bot. So we still keep the banners.
The weakest link really is the thief, as the chronomancer is better able to fill the stealth role than mes was before, the thief’s dps is (reportedly) below that of the revenant right now, and the blinds aren’t as critical (and yes, the mes can fill in those too, by shifting closer to your build and picking up Blinding Dissipation instead of Fencer’s Finesse).
The real question, as you and Miku both noted in subsequent posts, is whether we might not be better off skipping the Herald entirely, keeping the warrior as PS, and putting in a 3rd ele. I noted more detail in my response there about what needs to be calculated to know that.”

I agree, some more math has to be done. But mesmer hardly fills the role of blinds. Fortunately, ele got us covered, tho at the cost of losing vuln.

“You’re never going to end up with 3 phantasms on this build, so this is a moot point.”

Never going to end up with 3 phantasms? Wah?!?!? May I ask why you think we will only ever be getting up to two phantasms out? not to mention, the auto attack can give more than 1 close if you repeat the cycle twice……..

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

I don’t understand that comment then, where’s the use for Herald if elementalists do the boon job already? Except carrying a poor chaos mesmer’s boonshare. Not saying Herald is irrelevant for dungeons, the ferocity buff is solid.

I’m assuming the same place as PS warriors have. Why is PS warrior meta for 25 might stacks if eles can just provide it for you? If there’s an answer for that, then there’s the reason for the herald’s might.

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

I wouldn’t so easily say thief isn’t needed. If your chrono can swap trait lines fast and is OK with that, then he can either use his elite ( and thus lose a lot of quickness ) or use a utility which has a decent CD and only provides 4 seconds of stealth.
So it really all depends on the dungeon. I could see no thief for say SE p3, but not so much for say CM p1.

I do it all the time, when I swap to stealth for the Labyrinth in Silverwastes. It just takes 3 or 4 seconds, and that’s more involved that I would need for most skips (since I swap to torch/decoy/the prestige for labyrinth, which I wouldn’t need for a normal dungeon skip).
The keys though, are:
1. F5 allows double-proc on Veil and MI, or at least a much lower cooldown on both.
2. Alacrity lowers the cooldown on both Veil and MI.
3. 100% personal stealth means a chronomancer can execute longer/trickier skips with Portal than they otherwise used to (or for triggering waypoints, like in Arah P3).

That said, you are correct that it’s possible there will be some paths that still want a thief for the skip. That’s how it is with mesmers now though, isn’kitten Mesmers are taken for portal from time to time, but that doesn’t make us “meta”, it makes us “situationally useful”.
Heck, the way Anet talks, that’ll be the norm for raids too: “oh, this raid really needs fear and chill, I guess we gotta grab a necro!”

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

And even if you don’t take a thief, why take revenant over say another ele? With taking revenant AND mesmer going chaos ( and thus losing DPS ), you can allow the warrior to gain some DPS. If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken.

This really hinges on the relative dps gains and losses.
How much dps does the mesmer lose by taking Chaos?
How much dps does the warrior gain by going axes instead of PS/Greatsword?
How much dps does the Herald lose vs another Ele?
How much dps does the party gain from the Herald’s ferocity and the boon duration on chrono’s quickness?
How much dps do the eles lose when they have to provide the might/fury?

Pyro says the mesmer’s dps is so low already that swapping Chaos for Dom doesn’t really accomplish much.
Zenith and Pyro say the Revenant’s dps is probably at least 3rd place in the dps potential rankings, behind Ele and Warrior. Is that more or less dps than PS warr?

But really, the only way to have a good sense for it is to actually figure out the dps of each build, and what they lose or gain. That’s when there’ll be enough meat to convince speedrunners to put it to the test, and then we’ll get the real numbers a couple weeks or so after HoT drops.

“1. F5 allows double-proc on Veil and MI, or at least a much lower cooldown on both.
2. Alacrity lowers the cooldown on both Veil and MI.”

I’m talking party wide stealth not personal stealth lol. So that’s either 10 seconds of stealth using your elite so that either your next TW will have double the cd or you don’t get to use TW next fight. Or 4 seconds of stealth or 8 if you use your f5 for stealth. The point is, while mesmer stealth is good, it comes at a heavy price. Thus thief will definitely still be taken for some dungeons.

“This really hinges on the relative dps gains and losses.
How much dps does the mesmer lose by taking Chaos?
How much dps does the warrior gain by going axes instead of PS/Greatsword?
How much dps does the Herald lose vs another Ele?
How much dps does the party gain from the Herald’s ferocity and the boon duration on chrono’s quickness?
How much dps do the eles lose when they have to provide the might/fury?”

Yeah, the DPS should be tested. But I would like to point out the extra boon duration for quickness isn’t necessarily that good. It depends, you might have perma quickness without it. Or the extra boon duration might not do anything. Think about it, with TW and the one well, you have 17 seconds of quickness. This is more than enough for a lot of bosses in dungeons.

“Pyro says the mesmer’s dps is so low already that swapping Chaos for Dom doesn’t really accomplish much.
Zenith and Pyro say the Revenant’s dps is probably at least 3rd place in the dps potential rankings, behind Ele and Warrior. Is that more or less dps than PS warr?”

Has Pyro actually done some math on chaos not being much of a DPS difference or is he just guessing? And how much is not much lower? You could say the DPS difference between PS and full DPS warrior is low. And you also have to take into account FGS which is great for mobility. But I’m learning strongly on the ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief/ele comp being better than ele, ele, chrono w/ chaos, full DPS warrior, revenant. We will see.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Chrono/3 Eles/Banner bich new meta confirmed, spamming them lavafonts like there’s no tomorow, a full clear of CM will be faster than skipping with shadowrefuge and blasts xD.

Yeah, if you thought dungeons were fast now………. That’s why I hope raids are good.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Notes taken for Domination, was more focusing on the majors than minors, my bad.

Yeah, I’m surprised nobody mentioned that. Being able to help stack vuln is good, but the real power of dom is in that boost off all vuln generally.
Mental Anguish is strong for amplifying shatters, but sustained shatter dps is so terrible in general that it’s not really accomplishing a lot.
Stacking vuln is great, but meta groups already have ways to get that done.
Phantasm dps is useful, but subject to all the same issues as phantasms generally, and Phantasmal Haste is competitive with it anyway.
That leaves removing boons on shatters (so you’d be swapping to dom for any boss that has boons anyway, and just swapping back otherwise), and the vuln damage increase, versus the ferocity increase from dueling and the extra fury/vigor. Traditional builds have actually used mantras, so Dueling usually gets a strong mark in its favor right there. Though, traditional builds just pick both because they don’t need Chrono. (they can take Insp instead of Illusions too, because they don’t need the shatter cdr for f5 or alacrity on shatter).

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Thus my “I feel”, i’ll come back here when I get some info on that because I don’t remember correclty what the spreadsheets of Nike were saying.

I really think this is where Herald’s participation hinges. If it’s worth it to free the warrior to not go PS, then it’s worth it to bring in a Herald. Otherwise, the 50% boon duration can be replaced by other means at a cost to the chrono’s personal dps, but the gain of bringing another icebowele along (because we don’t technically need thief anymore).
I think Berserker is probably going to play into this as well, as it seems to me to be designed for this kind of role. I do wonder how Berserker dps will compare to the previous warrior records.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Pre-might is when you blast firefields because the boss is friendly, which happens in many dungeons.

Well, that could relieve a little of the pressure on the Herald (getting 16 might ooc is harder than 11). It’s largely unnecessary though as I mentioned, since you can start at 23 might on the group, and getting past that is rather trivial.

I wouldn’t so easily say thief isn’t needed. If your chrono can swap trait lines fast and is OK with that, then he can either use his elite ( and thus lose a lot of quickness ) or use a utility which has a decent CD and only provides 4 seconds of stealth. So it really all depends on the dungeon. I could see no thief for say SE p3, but not so much for say CM p1. And even if you don’t take a thief, why take revenant over say another ele? With taking revenant AND mesmer going chaos ( and thus losing DPS ), you can allow the warrior to gain some DPS. If you go the revenant style ( providing you don’t need much stealth ), you gain 150 ferocity and extra warrior damage while losing 150 power, less DPS on mesmer, two IBs, glyph of storms, and two FGSs. This is where some math is needed, but I am learning towards the 3rd ele being taken.

Fay.2357:

TheFrighteningFrenchFry.3275:

Interesting. So, presuming the fight lasts 30 seconds, what would the optimal rotation be for double sword and what would the optimal rotation look like for scepter? When beta weekend 3 comes we could just test the optimal rotations for both builds vs golems in hotM and compare the coefficients. Another question is would you run scepter/s s/f or s/s scepter/f to try it out with? I’d volunteer to test it out but I don’t have access nor am I good at math ( at all ).

EDIT: and how does dueling compare to domination?

Honestly, it all comes back to this central issue:

Your autoattacks do absolutely awful damage compared to every other class in the game. Your phantasms do damage, but get smushed by every boss in the game. All this time and effort you’re putting into dealing more damage culminates in a grand total of not very much.

That’s why this build was created in the first place. Alpha ran the numbers, and it turns out that keeping permanent alacrity and quickness up on the remaining 4 members of your group, assuming that you do zero damage and provide zero boons other than quickness/alacrity, contributes more damage than adding an additional elementalist.

So then I went and ran the build. It turns out that it does okish damage for a mesmer, while also sharing a solid amount of might as a by-product. Then I played herald and realized that it’s just a walking boon stick with zero effort, and that culminates in the conclusion that with herald and this chrono build, eles don’t need to stack fury and warriors don’t need to take PS and gs for might.

So that’s all just additional icing on the cake. The build by itself, doing absolutely nothing but quickness and alacrity is worth more damage than another ele. On top of that, it (along with herald) lets warriors spec for full damage rotations away from PS. On top of that, it does ok personal damage for a mesmer.

You make it seam like your build somehow has significantly more alacrity or quickness. If you really need more quickness you can just swap in the shield, but chrono already has a lot of quickness without shield. And I take a feedback for extra reflects rather than TWO seconds of extra alacrity. That’s the thing. You make it seam like your build does tons of extra support, and yet it’s the other way around. My build can do just as much support as yours, except for the might which other people will be providing and same goes for the fury. But my build provides reflects, which yours doesn’t at all. So its not your build provides greater support with less DPS, its your build does less DPS AND less support.

@Blood

“All of this sounds quite powerful. I have a concern or two, though. Firstly, who is handling reflects in an ele/ele/war/rev/mes group? Does the build swap out calamity for feedback as needed?”

IDK if your talking about my build or the OPs, but in my build the chrono does the reflects/projectile destruction.

@Embolism

“You won’t be running Mantras so there’s no Dueling GM you’d be using”

If you need condition removal, you WILL be taking mantras. If you do not need condition removal, you will be either taking the healing signet or if the fight is pretty short you will be taking the mantra heal. In addition, if you need stability, you WILL be taking a mantra.

" Empowered Illusions > Phantasmal Fury (I think) and the Ferocity bonus from Fencer’s Finesse is really quite small. With Domination you also get Mental Anguish to buff up your Mind Wracks and CoFs (which remember in a Chronomancy build will be spammed on CD), extra damage from Vulnerability plus the ability to help stack Vuln if that’s an issue."

I would still like to see a DPS comparison between domination and dueling. Both are good trait lines. I could see either of them being the meta. Can’t really tell until some math is done.

@Fay

“his build pumps out a massive quantity of aoe healing from the heal well”

I wouldn’t call it massive. At all.

“Additionally, even a somewhat clueless ele or warrior is going to dps that leaves you, a mesmer, in the dust.”

I wouldn’t underestimate the fact that people who don’t know what there doing can totally do close to 0 DPS.

And I still don’t get where all this herald might stuff is coming from that people will think will replace PS warrior. The best I could come up with is the build I’ll link at the bottom of the description. But it hardly looks even close PS. The rampup time takes way to long not to mention idk how it would get 25 might. I really don’t see rev being meta at all. I really think the meta is going to be ele, ele, chrono, PS warrior, thief. What would you even get rid of here for revenants mediocre ability to stack some might and 150 ferocity? The eles and thus lose a IB and vuln and a FGS for mobility? Chrono, losing all that quickness and alacrity and reflects/projectile destruction and condition removal? Or the PS warrior that applys might better than revenant and has 150 power and both banners? Or the thief with his stealth and blinds? There just isn’t a place for revenant in a meta comp.

Also, another reason I don’t think scepter will be good for a chrono is because it still does give off clones. Even so your going to be shattering with chrono you are wanting to shatter PHANTASMS not clones.

EDIT: I ALWAYS forgot to link the link dangit. Here it is: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlAQNAscmnrBl4CFZDl5DFaEF4ElFNFiNMnpNtBYBNwegJshA-TxRBABXp8jm9HwTfQenCAAeCAUq+jZKBFDQeA-e

Interesting. So, presuming the fight lasts 30 seconds, what would the optimal rotation be for double sword and what would the optimal rotation look like for scepter? When beta weekend 3 comes we could just test the optimal rotations for both builds vs golems in hotM and compare the coefficients. Another question is would you run scepter/s s/f or s/s scepter/f to try it out with? I’d volunteer to test it out but I don’t have access nor am I good at math ( at all ).

EDIT: and how does dueling compare to domination?