Guild Wars 2

Yobculture.5786:

Sword mainhand isn’t meta for Chrono?

Bah >_<

Both main hands synergise pretty well with Shield, TBH. Power builds obviously favour Sword, while Condi Shatter builds like Scepter.

I don’t recall anything about Renown Hearts in Central Tyria being converted to Adventures. I do believe that ANet said they’ll be using Adventures as a replacement for Renown Hearts in future content, though. Maybe you heard from somebody who misunderstood the Adventures blog post?

IMO, StM is mostly worth it in PvP/WvW for rezzing and stomping. If I wanted to play a “medic” build for WvW, I might combine Sieze the Moment with Medic’s Feedback and Malicious Sorcery. Pop 3 clone Distortion before rezzing while under fire.

I leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out whether such a thing is actually useful to have. (But not before noting that Chrono/Insp/Illu gives a pretty good shatter cadence and an ok group condi cleanse, while still pumping out a lot of group Alacrity via Wells.)

Alpha gave a lot of good info about Tides of Time, but I just thought I’d mention that it blocks projectiles. (Blocks, not reflects.) Pretty useful to remember, especially when fighting Bramblebacks. Or when you’re a Ranger fighting a Chronomancer, for that matter.

For organised runs, Chrono runes will help you execute your Well rotation more reliably, which is obviously a huge benefit. OTOH, if you’re already pulling off your Well rotation with time to spare, then the extra damage from Chrono runes will be a nice bit of icing on your Alacrity cake.

In general, though, I’d say that personal DPS loses out to team utility for Chronomancers in organised groups. So if you feel that the Quickness is a significant boost to your utility, then you should prioritise it over the 10% damage.

The primary stat is Adorability, with Fuzziness and Playfulness as secondaries.

Keep in mind that HoT added new stat prefixes to PvE, including Marauder. I’d say stick with Zerk or Assassin for your weapons and trinkets, but maybe substitute in some Marauder and Wanderer armour pieces to augment your survivability. Or else go with the old filler standby of Soldier.

Hm, odd. I don’t normally play with Ineptitude, so I haven’t noticed that happening myself. I’ll have to test it out next time I get a chance to play.

Chaos Storm + Tides of Time just eats breakbars for dinner and asks for seconds. It’s awesome.

Nobody was using this for the damage anyway. It’s not even in the vicinity of a big deal.

They’re all tied to event chains. Did the event you participated in lead to another event, or was it the end of a chain? The adventures only unlock after the chain is completed.

I think I’m ok with being a little bit weak in the Stability department, given that we have good access to active defences to avoid getting hit with CC in the first place. Chrono in particular has really good uptime on evade/block.

Victuswolf.5286:

Where is our end game Dungeon raiding for chests full of gold and rare loot?

It’s coming three weeks after the expansion launch, like they’ve been saying it would since raids were revealed in the first place.

Drennon.7190:

Grats, you used your entire burst combo on a ranger who didn’t use a stunbreak or pop his signet of stone that was clearly up. I could one shot him with vanilla guardian as well.

What’s the point of this?

Welcome to what Mesmers have been dealing with since forever. XD

Wasderty.7803:

I have a bad memory, so I may be wrong here, but last time I helped someone with his hero challenge, I believe I did get a reward. Not sure about exp though.

Yes, you do get event rewards from all of the Champion mobs, even if you have the related Hero Points already.

For some reason, I thought the Nuhoc vendors carried these armour boxes, just like the Itzel vendors have Bladed armour boxes. Is that incorrect?

Just curious whether folks are spending much time on Adventures or not, particularly given all the complaints about Mastery progress. I’ve found that while the meta-event chains give a moderate amount of XP, Adventures give a ton of it, especially for the one-time tier rewards.

So, if you haven’t tried any of the Adventures yet, consider giving some of them a shot to at least get the one-time reward for Bronze tier. It could help your Mastery progression quite a bit.

Relatedly, has anybody done them on more than one character? Are the one-time rewards per-character or per-account? I only have one level 80, so I haven’t been able to test it out for myself.

psizone.8437:

It was much lower last night because some people have been asking others to leave bad reviews to force Anet to answer this thread.

To make a point, if people want to leave bad reviews it’s their right, but make sure they’re well written and you try to justify the score. Also, counter to that, if you leave a good review, mention what you liked and justify your score.

“1/10, grindy as hell” and “10/10 because people are whiny” don’t help anyone decide if a game/expansion is any good by looking at the reviews and it makes it harder for Anet to look for feedback.

This is why Metacritic user reviews and Steam reviews are worthless. The numerical majority of submitters are just out to grind an axe, they don’t care about giving a fair review. But at least Steam has the helpful/unhelpful buttons on each review that let them weed out the axe-grinders.

AFAIK, the recipe comes from filling out the full Elite Spec trait line.

Methal.9045:

Depends on your class. I find all encounters like this to be 9,000x easier when doing them with my Ranger than with my Warrior, and 9,000x easier on the warrior than they are on the Thief.

Yes, some classes are inherently disadvantaged in certain PvE encounters, and it kind of sucks. Many of the same complaints were leveled at Living World Season 2, for that matter, where a lot of fights that were trivial on classes with a ton of inherent defenses were almost impossible to solo for classes without those advantages. While I’m fine with the open world content being difficult and requiring a group (even the Champion hero challenges), story content absolutely should be soloable on any class.

Yeah, greyed out conditions are not applied to mobs. Most of them should be damaging the breakbar over time, though I’ve seen some inconsistency about this. Sometimes Cripple will drain the breakbar, sometimes it doesn’t.

ColinJohanson.2394:

While we never like to rush and make snap decisions, in particular with a game that’s basically been out less than three days; I think there are some fair points in here for us to discuss. Much like other feedback about HoT, we’ll be discussing this as well!

Thanks for considering this. I’ll reiterate my previous feedback:

The biggest issue for me personally is not the 400 point requirement to complete the whole Elite spec but rather the fact that I have to replace a full Core Spec trait tree with a sparsely-populated Elite Spec trait tree.

Considering how many builds only become truly effective when they pick a specific GM trait (Daredevils especially stick out in this regard), I feel like I’m hobbling myself if I want to play my Elite Spekittenil I’ve got something like 350 points into the spec, which translates to ~87% Hero Point completion. I need to get through 87% of the new content before I can use an Elite Spec and not feel like I’m downgraded from my base class. C’mon, that’s just not fair.

In general, for Collections, you can safely destroy stuff after you’d unlocked in in the collection. However, for the Chronomancer collection in specific, there is one element of the collection that has a Mystic Forge recipe. I don’t know if the Corpse Flower you destroyed was part of that recipe or not. If it is, the bright side is that it’s supposed to drop from Mordrem Champion bags, so you can possibly loot it again later and still complete the Collection.

EDIT: I looked it up, and I’m pretty sure the Mystic Barricade is the only thing in the collection that requires the Mystic Forge. Corpse Flowers are not part of its recipe, so you should be fine.

5 stacks? kitten , I passed on this as a story reward because I thought it only gave one stack of Might!

Zaklex.6308:

Those that are complaining about group content realize that you don’t actually have to group up to do the content…it only means that there should be a group to do the content. I almost never join formal groups, I just run around the map finding events and do them, if others are there, fine…if not, that’s fine too. You can solo most of the map, it will just take you longer than normal…and HP points are split 50/50 between events and channeling, so it’s an even amount between solo and group.

I’ve been getting by without a formal group by roaming around the map looking for commander tags. It’s been working out so far.

Ugh. There’s no excuse for tying a meta-achievement to a specific race.

Endlos nails the problem. Until you get like 300 points in, you don’t have a full trait line. And then if you want your new weapon/mechanic, you’re down by a full trait line in a zone that’s designed to be harder than the rest of the world. Totally unsatisfying experience.

hurrado.2346:

7. Lower the amount of hero points required to unlock the elite spec, keep 400 for the skins.
-People really enjoy cosmetics in guild wars, that’s why people are willing to work for legendary weapon skins, armor skins etc… It is informally known as fashion wars for a reason.
-Progression and status can be shown through weapon/armor skins, not to mention some of the new skins are worth the time to get, please just don’t make players have to wait for the new core mechanics along with the skins.

I really like this suggestion, actually. My major problem is with not being able to play my elite spec without swapping a full trait line for one with a bunch of gaps. If I could earn all my traits by like 150 points, spend the next 150 on the new utilities, then the last 100 on cosmetics, that would be perfect.

THANK YOU! The gates behind level one or two masteries aren’t too bad, but this one was just too over the top.

Squeezzy.4718:

Mantras of Distraction is still strong (even after nerf), Mantra heal still has its uses, and mantra of resolve you see in wvw on some players. But since HoT just came out most players are trying to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

It’s pretty useful for all the breakbars in Maguuma. Seriously considering whether I should take Confounding Suggestions as well.

Levetty.1279:

Patch notes

Superior Sigil of Absorption: Updated the text to reflect the correct functionality of stealing one boon when interrupting an enemy.

Except that mine still says it steals three boons. XD

I don’t think anybody has ever said that’s not working as intended, and it’s certainly a valid reading of the trait text.

(But I still half-expect it to get a stealth nerf in a future patch.)

So, I was looking around at some of the new skins that came with HoT, and apparently the Improvised Focus is a clock:

http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gw2-improvised-focus-skin.jpg
(Source: http://dulfy.net/2015/10/23/gw2-improvised-weapon-skins-gallery/)

I was wondering if anybody else has noticed some new items that fit with Chrono’s theme or with Mesmer’s visual language in general. Here are some of the ones that stuck out for me from poking around Reddit and Dulfy.

Leystone armour could be very Mesmery when dyed: https://i.imgur.com/HAxRfQU.jpg

Same for the Crystal Arbiter glider: http://dulfy.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gw2-crystal-arbiter-glider-4.jpg

Speaking of Crystal Arbiter, the whole Immortal set is kinda pink and shimmery: http://dulfy.net/2015/10/23/gw2-immortal-weapon-skins-gallery/

Anybody else found new skins they like?

Full list of stat combos and runes on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/3pwdzu/new_stats_and_specialization_runes/

I feel like Marauder should become the new Baby’s First Ascended Set for direct damage classes, provided that the recipe is fairly cheap. It’s perfect for being slightly less glassy than Zerk without completely sacrificing your damage. Good for open world and for learning new content, replacing the old mix-match Zerker/Soldier combinations.

Commander, Viper, Wanderer, and Vigilant stat spreads are all interesting as well. Concentration is potentially a pretty cool stat for supporty builds. Commander looks great for PvE Chrono Support, while Wanderer and Vigilant both are very attractive for PvE Chrono Bunkers. Viper also providers what can possibly be considered the first true hybrid damage option. Yeah, there were Sinister/Rampager’s before, but the Expertise on Viper is really nice.

Ugh. Agreed with Curunen, just toss the skill at this point if it’s always going to be this buggy.

Oh, this is quite nice, actually.

So. I don’t think either of the options besides AWTEW are really all that relevant to PvE. I also think that Well of Calamity and Well of Action are more than attractive enough that they’ll still get slotted. Well of Eternity and Well of Recall are just as good as anything else for PvE, barring a fight where reflects actually matter. If I dropped Well of Recall for anything, it’d be Well of Precog, not some non-Well utility.

Basically, what I’m saying is that you’re probably going to take AWTEW and a bunch of Wells no matter what. Why maintain three iAvengers if you’re already overflowing with Alacrity like that?

Just to confirm some speculation:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/hot/Upcoming-Global-Change-to-Player-Minions/5629000

Hey Roy, the question has been floating around about what’s going to happen with creatures that split damage, such as phantasmal defender and bulwark gyro. We haven’t heard anything yet, could you explain to us what happens when those are in play?

The damage transferred works like it normally does, the minion takes a percentage of damage the player would have taken. The change is only from creature attacks against player minions, nothing else is different. I mean, sure, the defender will live longer because it dies to less AOE so it can soak more damage, if that’s what you mean.

Like Fay says, they’re pretty close.

IIRC, Zerker comes out ahead slightly in the majority of situations. Assassin comes out ahead dramatically in reflect-heavy fights (but there aren’t many any more). Assassin has a side benefit of more Sharper Images procs, but it doesn’t have the Condition Damage to capitalise on them, nor do we have any interesting interactions with Bleeding.

AlphatheWhite.9351:

Kaamau.5341:

This could be really really interesting for I-defender, if you set it on a raid boss, have some one come in to tank it, the the defender will only take 5% of 50% of the tanks damage, unless it some how still takes the full hit. If the tank out puts any healing or if there is a druid, the defender could be sustained indefinately. Making it instumental in raid encounters that use any kind of a tank as it will be a almost constant 50% damage reduction.

The damage to the iDefender should be coming from the buff itself, not the NPC directly, so I’ll be very surprised if iDefender actually takes any less damage that way.

Yeah, agreed with your interpretation. Creature attacks against minions have their damage reduced, but the iDefender buff is not a creature attack against a minion.

Worth testing out when the change hits live, though, just in case.

I actually really like the original suggestion. It has a slight flaw in that it’s most effective when you have two other Phantasms active, but it actively kills your illusions. I really think that a Phantasmal Commander should do something to increase illusion survivability instead. For example, if it worked as the pDefender currently does but specifically only absorbs damage from other Phantasms. That would make pCommander useful to temporarily extend the life of your Phantasms whether they’re in a trash-heavy or AoE-heavy environment.

As for pDefender… It’s fine in concept, it just needs a way bigger health pool than it has. And it’d be nice if its weaksauce attack actually did something useful, like applying Weakness or Taunt or whatever.

Xyonon.3987:

Not every party will essentialy have a ranger.

Are we talking about raids? Because I’m pretty sure every party will have a Druid for raids.

So, Irenio posted this in the Scrapper forum:

Gyros are going to be affected by a systemic change that should increase their survivability quite a lot.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but the way he says “systemic change” there implies it might be a new mechanic that affects pets across the board and not just the Gyros specifically. Agree with that interpretation, or am I letting my optimism get the best of me? If the former, what form do you all think the “systemic change” will take?

keenlam.4753:

I’m surprised no one mentioned Blurred Inscriptions yet. This trait on its own, is quite powerful, but the problem I see here is the total lack of synergy. Sig of Dom and Midnight have great synergy in a condi build, yet the Dom line offers nothing for condi, so it would make sense to move this into Illusions line, perhaps switch with Shattered Strength?

Moving BI to Illusions is interesting. It’s slightly weird to have two skill-based condition cleanses in the same trait line, though, isn’kitten Especially in a trait line that is otherwise offensively-oriented. But I guess you have a point about the Signet skills themselves having better synergy with condition builds than power builds.

This is probably as good a place as any to wonder aloud if BI actually procs Inspiring Distortion. Based on tooltips, it should, because it’s Distortion rather than Blur, but I’ve never tested it.

Ross Biddle.2367:

I just want to point out that you can now alter the stats on ascended armor/weapons in the mystic forge.

It’s way cheaper than crafting a second set, but definitely not free. Important to know that it’s an option, though!

BD is overshadowed only in popularity, not in power.

I’ve found that BD is especially useful for dynamic events, where players don’t always coordinate Might-stacking. Spreading around some boon love helps make up for our (many) shortcomings in dynamic events, since individual targets die too quickly for Phantasm DPS to ramp up.

BD is also, in my opinion, a core part of any Chronomancer bunker. If you’re dedicating your build to holding points, getting Stability on demand is absolutely invaluable.

As for Temporal Enchanter… yeah, its functionality is a bit of a mess with the Glamours we have. Like Silverkey said, most Glamours other than Time Warp and Null Field aren’t being cast directly on top of allies, but casting Glamours onto allies is the only way to obtain any benefit from the trait. I don’t think there’s any way to fix the issue, frankly, though having Glamours pulse something once per second would be a good start.

Which is kind of my point. The GW2 pro scene is so laughably small that no conclusions can be drawn from it.

GaruruMoon.4153:

the only thing they give us later are Raids and the new Legendary weapons (if I missed something, please tell me).

Correct.

I’m assuming that the other Legendaries will be released on a similar schedule as the raid wings.

I don’t even give a crap about League of Legends pro scene drama, why would I care about GW2 pro scene drama?

Time Catches Up is a really solid trait for ranged shatter, as others have mentioned. AWTEW is clearly a teamfight trait, so there could be call for dropping it in sPvP solo roaming/decap builds. If you did that, the faster illusions could be pretty useful for landing shatters while kiting.

Seize the Moment is a super powerful GM… but it’s also really hard-pressed by Chronophantasma. In BWE2, I used StM instead of CP for my bunker build, and it was great for securing stomps and rezzes, especially in combination with Bountiful Disillusionment. But in my bunker build Chronophantasma means more Phantasm attacks, more shatters, more boons, and more healing… So I’m leaning toward CP, but to be totally honest I think StM is competitive for PvP purposes.