Stats for supporting in WvW/raids

Hi there fellas.Ive recently started playign my mesmer abit more due to wanting to cover the supportrole more than i currently can with my mains.

Ive got an ascended zerker set but looking to be able to fill a slot in raids and WvW zergs abit more and need to look further into gear.

I can currently make a minstrel set, soon a commander set.Kinda costy to make both though.

Would a minstrel Chrono be accepted in raids as its currently meta in WvW?Would a Commander Chrono be accepted in WvW as its currently meta in Raids?

What is a good stat/gearcombination to achieve 100% boonduration?Would love some posted builds for reference and alternative routes to achieve 100% boonduration.

Would love to hear from you :)

You can play minstrl chrono in raids and you will be accepted almost all the time. The problem here is that other chrono will have lower toughness then you all the time so you will have to tank bossea that have toughness based agro (Vg, gorseval, kc, xera, deimos, duuhm). If you never played raids then learning the fight + learning chrono and tanking will be quite overwhelming. On the other hand if you already know how to tank then it might nit be that hard.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:You can play minstrl chrono in raids and you will be accepted almost all the time. The problem here is that other chrono will have lower toughness then you all the time so you will have to tank bossea that have toughness based agro (Vg, gorseval, kc, xera, deimos, duuhm). If you never played raids then learning the fight + learning chrono and tanking will be quite overwhelming. On the other hand if you already know how to tank then it might nit be that hard.

What would you recommend for a first time raider and kinda out-dated mesmer ?

Your goal is 100 percent boon duration and as little toughness as possible. Sigil of concentration and runes of leadership are the most effective per slot (1 percent boon duration is equal to 15 concentration so you have an idea how much stats you get from them).Go with boon duration food and use as many commander pieces to get to 67 percent boon duration.With chaos you can go even lower but it is more dificult to play (less room for error) so i would stay away from chaos for now. Domination is much more begginer friendly.And dont try to learn the rotation. Learn the opening and then try to understand the concept so you can adapt during actual fight

@"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:Your goal is 100 percent boon duration and as little toughness as possible. Sigil of concentration and runes of leadership are the most effective per slot (1 percent boon duration is equal to 15 concentration so you have an idea how much stats you get from them).Go with boon duration food and use as many commander pieces to get to 67 percent boon duration.With chaos you can go even lower but it is more dificult to play (less room for error) so i would stay away from chaos for now. Domination is much more begginer friendly.And dont try to learn the rotation. Learn the opening and then try to understand the concept so you can adapt during actual fight

Thanks alot mate :)Just curious, i just read up on "Tank" chrono for raids on snowcrows, and im a bit concerned about what raiders actually WANT the most in their team.I get that chrono is mainly for their boons, but between a Commander and a minstrel set, will the raid always want 1 with each in the squad or is commanders more valuable than minstrel overall?

No. Raiders always want 2 support chronomancers. All fights can be done with commander variant but some bosses hit very hard. Players that are not tanking shouldnt be hit too often so defensive gear is very bad on them (since more dps -> less atacks that will hit them). As a tankYou will get some damage. Chronomancers bring highest squad dps but it doesnt come from their atacks but from their teamates. That means thah if you die your squad will loose very big portion of dps. If you are tanking something then your first job is to not die. If you dont need to dodge (and move the boss) your squad will have highr dps. This is where tank gear comes into play. In fights where you are under heavy preasure tanking with commander or your dps doesnt rly matter (tower chrono on escort, Broken king in statues....) extra tankines is beneficial.

Everyone expect you to provide quickness and alacrity and to tank if you have higher toughness. Your dps is not that important, especialy if you are just strating.

For example I am using minstrel gear for tanking VG, Deimos, Xera, Duuhm, Soulless Horror, Broken king, Eater of souls and Towers on escort. I use minstrel on some of them because I am not that familiar with them yet. Generaly you can use commander everywhere but some bosses punishes mistakes in blocking more and on some bosses you cannot block everything and by playing more tanky option you can take preasure away from your healer(s).

If you chose minstrel you will1) always tank (where agro is based on toughness)2) have easier time tanking harder hitting bosses3) have bad gear for easy bosses (since you are wasting stats there)

If you go with commander you will1) sometimes tank and sometimes be secondary chrono (much easier to play)2) If you have to tank you will have harder time tanking harder hitting bosses. (my adivice is to buy TOUGHNESS/power/precision trinkets so you can exchange your berserker ones for them. This will help you get some defense if needed and also you can use them if other chrono have same toughness as you)

As for gear, start with focus and shield. Offhand sword have better dps then focus but it is not as needed as focus pull on some encounters.As for sigils if you go with minstrel go with transference and if you go with commander go with paralization (you can take force on focus)

@ButcherofMalakir.4067Damn man, thanks for taking your time. Ill take all your advice and think ill actually start with minstrel allthough it might be harder, if im second chrono i can always switch out some trinkets to lower my toughness then. sure i might waste some stats that way, but then ill have myself a role in WvW zergs aswell :)Thanks alot for taking your time!

@Noha.3749 said:@ButcherofMalakir.4067kitten man, thanks for taking your time. Ill take all your advice and think ill actually start with minstrel allthough it might be harder, if im second chrono i can always switch out some trinkets to lower my toughness then. sure i might waste some stats that way, but then ill have myself a role in WvW zergs aswell :)Thanks alot for taking your time!

Well, if you are going minstrel then you cannot lower your toughness. With minstrel you have areond 2300 toughness. With commander you have 1400 and with chaos less then 1200. If base toughness of every character is 1000 then you see how much you need to swap.That beeing said, begginer bosses dont have toughness based mechanic so it will nit matter (cairn, mursat overseer, samarog and escort are the easiest fights where i would suggest you to start)

So there's 2 questions here. WvW is the easy one to answer: minstrel gear only. If you go for a squishier setup, you'll still function in the same role, but you'll just die a lot more often.

PvE is more nuanced. As malakir said, going minstrel means you will be guaranteed tank on many bosses. This is pretty rough for an inexperienced player, because you'll not only be dealing with a complicated rotation, you'll simultaneously have to perform the tank mechanics. It can be done of course, but you'll need to put in a lot of work learning every single tanking fight extremely well; pugs have very limited tolerance for tanks that wipe the group due to inexperience.

I would recommend going for the lowest toughness setup that you can for PvE, because that means you'll be off-chrono instead of tank. This is pretty sub-optimal for WvW, but you won't find a pugmander that's going to squabble about the stats on their Chrono as long as you're competent enough to use veil intelligently.

So..Long story short (?):Minstrel = Welcomed in WvW and Raids, but better used in raids once i get experienced enough because i need to learn mechanics. Works fine for easier raids(where boss doesnt aggro based on toughness) but not optimal.Commanders = Not that welcomed in WvW, but equally welcomed in Raids as Minstrel. Easier overall in raids due to not tanking on toughness-based bosses.

Im getting it right, right :/ ?

If i get it right, i might aswell start with a minstrelset since i can WvW and do the easier raids and learning a bit from them. Once i get to the harder Raids it will be a tough journey, but by then i might aswell have enough materials to either craft a commander set or convert my minstrel into commander if i find out that its more fun to raid than WvW?

@Pyroatheist.9031@ButcherofMalakir.4067

If you want to learn raids, i suggest giving some training guild/discord a shot. I started in one and now I am part of the staff there. Most of new raiders dont start with chrono so staff members are playing one of the chronos quite often. And many new chronomancers started with tank gear there.As a member of staff i tanked only 2 times. It is combination of gear choices made by new chronomancers and also where else should new tanks learn right?

I'll second the use of raid training groups. They're a great way to learn the fights and mechanics. It's also worth noting that the toughness-aggro fights are not necessarily the hard ones objectively, but they're the ones that would put the most load on you personally.

Alright thanks alot for your time and help fellas :) ill take all your advice in consideration!