Gravity well vs moa pve bar breaking

So wiki says gravity well does a total of 550 break bar damage. Since you can do 2 of them every continuim split, thats 1100 break bar damage every 45-50 seconds depending on traited cd of cont split. Since you can only do 1 moa (1000 BB dmg) every CS why isnt gravity well the better option? Also the wiki states it's 550 bar damage over 3 seconds so im wondering if you stack them will it do the 550 of each with them stacked or do u have to wait for the first to finish and then start second one to get the full 1100 of them both? I know some bored mesmer has tested this. Ive always used 2 gravity wells and waited 2 seconds then started casting the second thinking thats how it worked but say you cast them both on top of each other will you do 1100 BB dmg in 3 seconds not taking into account cast time of second well, so say 4 seconds.

Gravity well's pull isn't well suited to certain encounters where CC bars are necessary; in particular, if the boss doesn't stand still for the full duration of the bar, or if you need to break a bar quickly (GW takes about 4-5 seconds to get the full break duration on both wells, Moa is instant), or if there are certain things you don't want to be pulling in (hello seeker orbs on VG and flesh golems during Soulless Horror) then an AoE CC isn't gonna help that much. The damage from gravity well is also not too hot, and the time you lose for the extra cast and added aftercast of wells can cut into your rotation resulting in an overall DPS loss.

That said, do not dismiss the power of the AoE CC. For fights where you have to frequently pull in adds and mobs (for example 90% of fractals) then Gravity Well is a significantly better choice. Also for mobs without breakbars, Gravity well wins, hands down, no contest, it's not even close there are very very few encounters in open world PvE and Fractals when Gravity Well is a choice other than for the lulz. If you have any doubts, just keep in mind that moa is a single mob CC for a few seconds during which the mob can still auto attack, which is technically what they were doing anyways, and if they weren't, then ANet never checked the power scale of that mob assuming it can autoattack, which means it may ABSOLUTELY DESTROY YOU as a moa. Gravity well is 3 interrupts, delivered over the course of 5 seconds, during which the mobs are almost completely unable to act period. In a Fractals like Urban Battleground and Molten Facility, you can use gravity well in conjunction with focus to completely block the trash for 5 seconds, which hopefully your fractal group can finish them off in that amount of time.

To summarize, situations where Moa is useful:

• you need to break a bar quickly
• you're fighting a single mob with a breakbar
• pulling in adds is bad
• the add in question moves around a lot (an open world PvE example would be those fights where you have to chase down a mob running away from you and they have a break bar)
• you need to maximize your personal DPS
• you're not a chronomancer

Situations where Gravity well is useful:

• you're fighting lots of mobs
• you're fighting mobs without a breakbar
• the mobs you're fighting have a breakbar, but are stationary
• there isn't a tight limit on how quick you have to break the bar
• you don't want to murder someone with moas

Hope that helps!

Can’t you also moa a second time using CS?

@Sinful.2165 said:Can’t you also moa a second time using CS?

Sure but it wont be available to do on next CS so in my questions scenario the next cc/wipe phase would be without elite cc.> @Sharkey.9805 said:

Gravity well's pull isn't well suited to certain encounters where CC bars are necessary; in particular, if the boss doesn't stand still for the full duration of the bar, or if you need to break a bar quickly (GW takes about 4-5 seconds to get the full break duration on both wells, Moa is instant), or if there are certain things you don't want to be pulling in (hello seeker orbs on VG and flesh golems during Soulless Horror) then an AoE CC isn't gonna help that much. The damage from gravity well is also not too hot, and the time you lose for the extra cast and added aftercast of wells can cut into your rotation resulting in an overall DPS loss.

That said, do not dismiss the power of the AoE CC. For fights where you have to frequently pull in adds and mobs (for example 90% of fractals) then Gravity Well is a significantly better choice. Also for mobs without breakbars, Gravity well wins, hands down, no contest, it's not even close there are very very few encounters in open world PvE and Fractals when Gravity Well is a choice other than for the lulz. If you have any doubts, just keep in mind that moa is a single mob CC for a few seconds during which the mob can still auto attack, which is technically what they were doing anyways, and if they weren't, then ANet never checked the power scale of that mob assuming it can autoattack, which means it may ABSOLUTELY DESTROY YOU as a moa. Gravity well is 3 interrupts, delivered over the course of 5 seconds, during which the mobs are almost completely unable to act period. In a Fractals like Urban Battleground and Molten Facility, you can use gravity well in conjunction with focus to completely block the trash for 5 seconds, which hopefully your fractal group can finish them off in that amount of time.

To summarize, situations where Moa is useful:

• you need to break a bar quickly
• you're fighting a single mob with a breakbar
• pulling in adds is bad
• the add in question moves around a lot (an open world PvE example would be those fights where you have to chase down a mob running away from you and they have a break bar)
• you need to maximize your personal DPS
• you're not a chronomancer

Situations where Gravity well is useful:

• you're fighting lots of mobs
• you're fighting mobs without a breakbar
• the mobs you're fighting have a breakbar, but are stationary
• there isn't a tight limit on how quick you have to break the bar
• you don't want to murder someone with moas

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the great response, helpful to me and im sure many others new to class. I am still wondering about a specific question I had so hopefully anyone else reading might have tested this, ill try to figure it out tonight myself as well. Assuming the boss is stationary during the break phase, if a single mesmer places 1 gravity well, continuum splits second gravity well immediately , so both wells on top of each other .5-1 second apart, will the cc of both go towards break bar damage giving the full 1100 combined total over about 4 seconds because of second wells cast, or do you have to wait for first to fully run, 3 seconds according to wiki and skill tooltip (is that wrong?), and then place the second as first ends to get the 550 bb dmg of both wells???

Another few points. Moa is better if breakbar is not that frequent since you can use it 2 times on one breakbar. Also dont forget the passive effect. I main chronomancer in raids/fractals and I use gravity well only in mob fractals. Since in fractals most of the bosses need only 1000 breakbar damage one moa at the start of the fight during cs is enough to break it instantly which helps your damage significantly since dpsers open with much higher burst

In raids the most cc heavy fight is samarog. It require 4000 breakbar damage. Since cc needs to be quick moa is better.

Dont forget that both gravity wells have a cast time and you can cast tides of time in time you are casting second well.

And finaly you can use moa to distort when using domination :D

Another problem with double gravity wells in cs is that when you actualy are in cs, you want to cast as many spells as possible. That means even more time before second gravity well

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:In raids the most cc heavy fight is samarog. It require 4000 breakbar damage. Since cc needs to be quick moa is better.

Counterpoint here though is that you need to break every 10%, and that's gonna be far more often than you can use moa for. Usually what I do is have 1 chrono take gravity well to break on basically every other 10%, and have the other chrono take moa so that they can use it as a panic button to crack the bar if necessary.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:In raids the most cc heavy fight is samarog. It require 4000 breakbar damage. Since cc needs to be quick moa is better.

There is no reason to waste 5 seconds to break him when you have 3 tides of times and one moa on every breakbar. Especialy if you have core banerslaves