Distortion problem

Hi guys,right now chronomancer is almost a must have for any compozition. Anet tried to make possible replacements for him in terms of rev+firebrand but they can never replace chrono (unless chrono is nerfed to the ground) because of distortion shere. This mechanic is very powerfull and involve alot of skill to pull of and i have to say i love it. What would be your suggestions/ideas to make chrono raplaceABLE but without taking this from him.
Any idea about a mechanic that is not the same but would provide similar-ish efect? One of the condition is that it can be picked only on support but not dps position.

My idea is to give guardian trait: "whenever you use your final charge of mantra give to everyone affected damage reduction equal to your boon duration percent (or something like X+boon duration percent)"

you know that's something entirely broken when you can easily achieve 100% boon duration .and pve is not the only game mode .

and why it has anything to do with mesmer . your suggest is for firebrand only .you can already replace one chrono with firebrand + rev .it's really not huge difference on bosses where you can use guard mantra reliably .and distortion share is meta coz it increases dps by ignoring certain mechanic .by your idea , support firebrand will lose too much dps for its 100% boon duration anyway .

we really don't need nerf to chrono or buff to firebrand . anet just has to create mechanic that cant be distorted .easiest solution than messing up two elite spec.

If they buffed protection to reduce damage from conditions as well that might be enough to tip the balance. You would basically then have to decide whether to completely nullify a single attack with group distortion, or reduce all incoming damage for 4-5 seconds. Alternatively they could make protection stacks increase damage reduction rather than duration, although that might make it too strong (100% damage reduction ftw).

Distortion share is core mesmer only. I promise you that it is not the only reason that chronos are still mandatory. Its because they can do it on top of quickness, and alacrity, while also tanking.

Honestly, moving some alacrity generation to core mesmer would probably be the best bet at removing chronomancer from raids. The mesmer could still provide distortion share, could still tank if they were good enough, and with some alacrity generation it would have it all covered. Rev + firebrand would provide the qiuckness needed, and the rev could fill in some of the missing alacrity from the mesmer while they are at it.

The problem isn't that Mesmer can distort share, its that people can't be bothered learning mechanics so they get a Mesmer to distort share and then go on the forums to shit talk the class that just carried them through the raid.

@Levetty.1279 said:The problem isn't that Mesmer can distort share, its that people can't be bothered learning mechanics so they get a Mesmer to distort share and then go on the forums to kitten talk the class that just carried them through the raid.

To a point, why learn and adapt your entire raid group just to change up the composition to something that may or may not actually be any better? Chrono would cap out not just on quickness but every boon that it gets just before a share almost which means extra damage for some classes or enhanced survivability or not having to slot certain utilities or skills to get a certain boon. It does all this while also bringing amounts of CC and some extra utility that would cost other classes more to bring and making the party completely invulnerable at key moments, I cannot stress how important invuln is over aegis.

Invuln lets an ele go ham during goresval burn phase and makes the difference between them doing down and losing a ton of damage and staying healthy enough for the druid to mitigate the retal. Invuln makes the difference between that guy dying to Sabetha’s flame wall and being OK, between getting the rez off on a hand kiter at Deimos and having to potentially reset.

@apharma.3741 said:

@Levetty.1279 said:The problem isn't that Mesmer can distort share, its that people can't be bothered learning mechanics so they get a Mesmer to distort share and then go on the forums to kitten talk the class that just carried them through the raid.

While I haven't done any raiding yet in GW2, I can definitely see Levetty's point. When you have a situation where you can completely ignore certain boss mechanics, it kind of ruins the whole point of the boss fight. It would definitely be interesting to see what would happen if Anet decided to get rid of Distortion sharing for Mesmers. And if people die on boss mechanics, just show them this:

@apharma.3741 said:

Invuln lets an ele go ham during goresval burn phase and makes the difference between them doing down and losing a ton of damage and staying healthy enough for the druid to mitigate the retal. Invuln makes the difference between that guy dying to Sabetha’s flame wall and being OK, between getting the rez off on a hand kiter at Deimos and having to potentially reset.

except that's not gor burn phase to begin with ."getting the rez off on a hand kiter at Deimos " that's not even distortion share .no one really distortion share flame anyway. those things are helpful but not the reason why distortion share is meta .it all comes down to dps , distortion share allows people ignore some of the mechanic to achieve higher dps and let's be honest , most of them are not one shot unlike most people believed .distorting VG green is most valuable coz doing mechanic will cost a lot of dps .on top of that , higher dps could make boss phase faster , further reduce the risk of failing mechanic , but if your squad doesn't have high dps , distortion share isn't going to cycle through every mechanic in most case.

really , if you don't run the whole squad with meta setup and decent players , distortion share is still strong , but no where close to a balance problem .it is a problem only when your squad/group combines it with very high burst dps (weaver ), for anything else , firebrand +rev is good enough if not even better .

and it's more to do with boss design .high dps will skip so much mechanic ,which make initiate distortion share too powerful .think about that if you can't skip updraft , there won't be a point to distortion share gor black goo aoe .

@OriOri.8724 said:Distortion share is core mesmer only. I promise you that it is not the only reason that chronos are still mandatory. Its because they can do it on top of quickness, and alacrity, while also tanking.

This.

Distortion as is right now benefits the raid in following situations:

• Vale Guardian - in 70th percentile and above groups. Most PUGs don't distort share and quite frankly, it's not needed beyond speed running the fight
• Gorseval - distorting the slams helps with dps, even fewer mesmers do it and dps are usually better off to dodge the slam to be safe. Again, with current damage numbers it's not needed by farEDIT: Sloth - Distorting the shake (sorry, slipped my mind) is useful but can just as well be done with Mantra of Resolve or some other class which can condi cleanse if the group doesn't dodge. Useful, not game breaking and definitely not hard to deal without
• Samarog - distorting the waves is done by very few mesmers. Again, very useful but absolutely not needed
• Deimos - cover distorting your aegis (and that of your black kiter) is actually very useful, especially when your groups is weak on picking up tears. This is probably the most useful non speedrun situation in raids where distortion matters
• all other instances distortion is useful in reducing damage to the raid especially when used heavily, it's not needed though

Now with that out of the way, if distortion is NOT the main reason why chronos are taken, what is?

Simple, chrono provides:

• perma alacrity
• perma quickness
• gives constant copies of all raid boons which makes it a lot easier to keep them up
• makes for a great tank

The fact that chrono supplies this much utility is the reason why 2 chronos are run. Distortion could be removed tomorrow from the game, the meta would still be 2 chronos simply because it's worth having all this utility on 1 spot per group instead of having to find 2 individual players of different classes who might bring different skill levels of play.

At the same time, if say quickness provided were to be increased to 10 people (as well as alacrity), you'd immediately see only 1 chrono be run per raid with 1 dps taking his spot in group 2. Very likely a firebrand and renegade. The damage increase of having a full 15-20k more would outweigh the distortion heavily, especially in PUG groups.

@Cyninja.2954 said:

@OriOri.8724 said:Distortion share is core mesmer only. I promise you that it is not the only reason that chronos are still mandatory. Its because they can do it on top of quickness, and alacrity, while also tanking.

• Vale Guardian - in 70th percentile and above groups. Most PUGs don't distort share and quite frankly, it's not needed beyond speed running the fight
• Gorseval - distorting the slams helps with dps, even fewer mesmers do it and dps are usually better off to dodge the slam to be safe. Again, with current damage numbers it's not needed by far
• Samarog - distorting the waves is done by very few mesmers. Again, very useful but absolutely not needed
• Deimos - cover distorting your aegis (and that of your black kiter) is actually very useful, especially when your groups is weak on picking up tears. This is probably the most useful non speedrun situation in raids where distortion matters
• all other instances distortion is useful in reducing damage to the raid especially when used heavily, it's not needed though

• perma alacrity
• perma quickness
• gives constant copies of all raid boons which makes it a lot easier to keep them up
• makes for a great tank

Yep. While distortion isnt needed, it does make the raid much safer when things go wrong. Your druid used CA too early and declares I don’t have CA during retal phase? That 1s makes a difference. Hand kiter goes down, invuln 5 guys so that rez goes off without them taking a ton of damage, same at Matthias and anywhere people go down in a silly place. It isn’t that it is needed just that it carries you through situations where your group should have failed.

I also agree they could remove distortion share and chrono would still be meta because of how much it does, only druids are in the same league of does so much for the raid.

I never understood why so many people, mostly people who don't play mesmer, get so uptight about distortion share in PvE content. Its like they either don't understand why chrono is taken in raids, or willfully ignore it solely in order to try to get mesmer nerfed.

I play and love mesmer. Clearly you are more experienced then me so thanks for your insight. I just dont want distortion shere to be removed because it shows some skill diference. I just thought that if Anet decides to nerf chrono this would be the spot. Again thank for you oppinion.

I know that question belongs to another part of the forum but what would be so broken about that guardian mechanic? You would have to cast your mantra mid fight again (and i was talking about like 1-2 sec damage reduction)

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:I play and love mesmer. Clearly you are more experienced then me so thanks for your insight. I just dont want distortion shere to be removed because it shows some skill diference. I just thought that if Anet decides to nerf chrono this would be the spot. Again thank for you oppinion.

I know that question belongs to another part of the forum but what would be so broken about that guardian mechanic? You would have to cast your mantra mid fight again (and i was talking about like 1-2 sec damage reduction)

yes , it would be very broken unless it has icd like distortion share and even then the cost of it is way too low , chrono has to take 2 trait lines to make distortion share actually worthwhile .and in most case chrono needs to pre-cast soi or phant to get distortion share. now comparing it with guard one trait , multi source from all mantras ,instantly casting time , yeah that would be broken .yeah downside is 2.75s recharge casting time . but since there isn't that much mechanic every 3 second ,this is not going to be much of the problem . but on the other hand , if guard lose too much dps for this effect , they will not be taken as meta quickness bot-tank anyway . like i said , there are already option for same result but with less dps and they are not meta .

also anet only split numbers between pvp and pve . such trait will be grossly op on a spec that's already in every serious AT team .