Mesmer for Strike Missions?

I've resumed playing after about a year (or more), and it seens the nerfs to the Mesmer have piled up; I've been wondering: is the class still useful as support? I've built myself a Diviner (pwr, crit, fer, boon) on a whim back then, and it seens that it has no place anymore. HB or Rev does everything better. Is it still useful, at the very least, as an alacrity support? What gear (besides zerker) should I bring so that I'm useful to a party?

Your typical role as chrono will either be dps or 5 man quickness. For dps you use a mix of berserker's + assassin's to reach the crit cap. For the quickness role you either use the exact same stats if you are able to maintain permanent quickness with 0 boon duration or you add boon duration food / mix in some diviner's to reach comfortable amounts of boon duration that will allow you to keep up 100% quickness uptime (meta build suggests 10% boon duration). As you get more experienced with rotation and boss mechanics, your aim is to lower the boon duration as low as you can, so you can maximize your dps while still providing perma quickness to your subgroup. There are some niche setups in raids which incorporate alacrity distribution, as well as tanking, but if you focus on strikes, there's no need to dive into that just yet.

Not really, people want alac renegade for 5 and 10 man. Its not that mesmer cannot possibly do support, its just inferior to renegade doing it.

Edit: or Firebrand if you are talking quickness Either way, its not Chrono support people will be asking for

DPS too other classes are much better in general at it

It's average DPS without slow uptime (you lose ~15% damage) from others in the squad but StM chrono is relevant if you can't find firebrands. I would not even bother running boon duration just for alacrity.

https://lucky-noobs.com/builds/power-chrono-support0% Boon duration Variant:

• Assassin Legpiece, back, amulet plus Berserker on everything else
• Scholar Rune , force+ impact sigil
• Hero panel stat: 2784 power, 55.47% crit chance, 233.7% crit , 0% boon duration** 100% crit chance via banner + spotter + 15% from slow , so ~85% if without slow

50% Boon Duration Variant:

• Diviner Helm, back, legpiece , one ring
• Pack Runes , one concentration sigil + force sigil
• 18 Mystical Infusions
• Hero panel stat: 2715 power , 56.23% crit chance , 208.8% crit , 50.53% boon duration** 100% crit chance via banner + spotter + 15% from slow , so ~86% if without slow

imo its kinda a waste building for any additional boon dura, if you read sc page properly you can see that it attempts to get permaquick with just shatters only (time warp is purely optional)

i would instead advise taking the usual full dps gear but incorporate both time warp and well of action (over well of calamity) into your rotation, since additional cc (i.e. grav well) is mostly unnecessary in strikes and both skills help with slow uptime. i would also advise taking delayed reactions over time catches up as well (pretty much always, not just a strikes/raids thing)

that way you dont need to worry about the random conc sigil/10% boon dura unless optimising, and tbh i feel you end up using delayed reactions + time warp + well of action everywhere (even as dps) because slow uptime always seems to be subpar

edit: i believe you can drop mantra for mirror images (and gs trait) for non gs setups and still get permaquick when using time warp + well of action with 0 boon dura as long as you shatter properly