A Split moment of your Time, please..devs..?

Dear Anet, firstly, i would like to state, I love gw2,I love it so much, I even made my own guild, which I greatly care about, and play the game many many hours with great pleasure.I like doing fractals and I like socialising with other players who enjoy the game as much as i do, whenever I speak what i do not like about the game, I say so not not because I dislike the game, I say it, because I love the game.

But recently, I find myself to have questions, questions that remain unanswered, decissions I do not understand, fixes, that seem more like path to ruin or obvious collission courses to me.I'm not a player who has played for 6 years long, only for a little more than 2 years, within that modest time, I played Guardian, Dragonhunter the first year mostly, I loved playing it, and still do, and after that year, I began playing a second class, Mesmer, Crhonomancer, to be precise, and to be honest, I began to love it more than playing my guardian, I was "locked in chronojail" as the saying goes, and i loved being there.I've spend many hours perfecting rotation, learning what is to be learned, adepted when needed, and grew better at it over time.

I geared up my chrono around januari, 2018, when i was finished doing that, news game about "a massive change coming to the chronomancer class", a change so big, that the devs felt a message beforehand would be polite towards the current players.I decided then, that I would not play chrono until that patch, so that i would never know any way else. Some mesmers complained, but, when reading reactions from more experienced players than I, most agreed that the change was needed, that it was a good change.I learned how to play, and much enjoyed playing it, I loved the role it had, the responsibility, the importance of the role, the complexity of it all, and the variety it gave. There were more than one way to provide good results, some were "the meta"others were not, and me and friends/guildies/fellow chrono's had many discussions which was the better choice to choose from and when.

a few months and many content-experience after that, a while after chronomancer became more or less my "main role", a few patches came along in which chrono's remained relatively untouched aside some minor changes and nerfs.but much too soon, suddenly out of nowhere, a patch came that made a big change, the first one for me obviously, the second one for most mesmers.cd's were changed, the way some spells worked were changed.

Because i like to go in depth about the logic behind how classes work, the mechanics behind them, the timing, everything, it took me less than 15 minutes to calculate, that with the new changes, a build i had been "practicing"with (just for the sake of doing things different than the meta) was bound to become the new meta. Back than, Illisionary Soi was still a thing though, but that patch made that a thing of the past, and like i said, it took me less than 15 minutes, to calculate, that mimic-soi was going to be the new standard.In my experience, it was more effective even,but...sadly, a lot more boring. It felt like gaving up freedom, a lot, the use of mimic, in order to use a SoI, which had no real visiable effect or any dependencies, felt much more static, less interactive, but.. I managed, and to be honest, cant even remember else way than that.Raids with two chronomancers became more easy than ever, if both chrono's would desync, ridiculous high amounts of buff uptime could be reached by just just SoI in combination with Mimic and Continuum split alone, again, it took me minutes to calculate this , as it was obvious.for raids, Chrono had become more easy and perhaps more powerfull than ever maybe, for fractals the same could not be said, some more experienced chrono's were able to keep up 100% uptime during combat, newer, still learning chrono's, would have a much higher learning curve though, with less forgiveness, making prebuffing and gg'ing again and again more common.All the while, the game for chrono's did not became more fun because of this, it was much more dull, boring, not feeling "part of the combat" as much as before.

Soon afterward, the sigil changes, a big change indirectly for all support classes. a mechanism, which gave 30% longer boon time upon weaponswap, was erased, changed into flat 10%. Was the 30% high? perhaps, but it allowed the need of weaponswapping, the need to not just mindlessly push buttons whenever, it required practice, making and planning a rotation that you were comfortable with, to make use of this 30%.If you were not that advanced, simply going full commander or minstril gear, would suffice, trading dps in order to still have the desired boon uptime
as one progressed, you could begin paying more attention to the weaponswapping, making it sliightly harder, but at the gain of not just being as boon-bot as much.The sigil change, more or less took that away, forcing a certain degree of boon-botting, no real high adventages could be reached anymore, the difficulty and precision to try and squeeze a certain order and amount of spells into that itme limit...just gone.. under the banner of "more active combat sigils"..to be honest, it felt like a slap in the face, I expressed how i felt about it, but..i knew it was not gonna be changed back obviously.

and now recently, nerf after nerf, this latest patch.While i did not enjoy the other patches, there was still some level of, coping with it, there was still enough left of my class to love and enjoy it.This time, it is different, and I cannot get passed it. as i do not understand why.The class i Learned to love, feels like a butterfly without wings.The top supporting class, now barely able to be of use, meme'd across the whole community for all the right reasons..what good is a support class, that first needs the aid of other classes, to provide boons, in order for it to support those classes . There is no joy in playing that way..

Mesmer/ Chrono, being truly a class that had no comparrisson, a class that had no equal or similurarity in other games, a complex mixture of different kinds, a support class,that wasnt a healer, stripped away from its grace, everytime playing it now, just serves as memory how fun and enjoyable it was before, and reminder of everything it isnt now anymore.I do not understand,

why so many nerfs, so many heavey changes every patch change, in which we had to change our playstyle, only to kill it now. No one asked for this, no chrono or memser enjoys playing it like this, raids will only have even more locked class slots probably... The elite top guilds can manage probably yeah sure. but less experienced groups, or pug groups, are the ones going to suffer because of this, making raiding even more unaccesable to less experienced players than it already was.

Even just..the irony, mockery, or..whatever is the correct word for it...of having 4 signature skills of a mesmer/chrono, changed (mutilated), in a way that just makes no sense at all, all for the sake of glueing past mistakes, irregulations and exceptions together and present it as if they are solutions...

Mimic, one of the signature skills, having an exclusion out of the Continuum split, the other major chrono skill, for what? to increase enjoyment? to promote active gameplay? No, only for the sake of not knowing a better way to balance, or perhaps, not thinking not long enough about it.And Soi, not actually giving boons anymore...and, keep in mind, this skill, or something related to it has been changed every balance patch again and again. only to be turned into....this...thing, on which boon duration doesnt even apply... a boonsharing skill for a support class, that first needs the support of other classes, to give boons..its just a disgrace, or a nagging bad joke used to insult someone with.were chrono's in the meta standard becasue of their great boonsharing, thankfully yes. The other classes were just as viable before the patch as they are now.. the change to the portal in wvw ( i dont play wvw, but it just felt unneeded, like...completely unneeded. and more like "sticky post"to emphasize the class'public execution)

I truly have no desire to play my memser anymore now, and i simply do not see, how this..."balance patch" or "fix' is supposed to be seen seriously, its truly monsterous.Thats my oppinnion, and I know others share it, All i want to know is, why?

Why so many changes, so often, that, lead to such obvious results by anyone playing it, only to be changed and nerfed again, cause it didnt meet the results the devs were aiming, results that apparently, no one else but the devs, wanted.

what is so wrong about having a powerfull class, that is not dps, that can be the backbone for a party or raid, that is more complex than most classes, and was enjoyable to play for those who played it, and on which players which less experience, could actually rely upon.

Even if the purpose was to promote other support classes, there were other ways. its not like im thrilled to play firebrand support now, I will probably even hate playing it, knowing my chrono had to die for it.

I really hope for a reply, I want to keep enjoying playing this game, and I know that it wasnt anets intention to take that away from me.

with kind regards,me,in loving memories of my Chrono, 02-02-2018 - 11-12-2018

@"Lolivia.3219" said:Thats my oppinnion, and I know others share it, All i want to know is, why?My guess is because vocal minority on the forums was shouting about how powerfull and mandatory chrono was, and how they can't run their daily chaos fractal without one and have to wait in lfg for an hour. On the other hand, people who enjoyed playing chrono and having chrono in their party were playing the game and having fun, not complaining on forums. Heck, I was not posting/reading anything here for more than a year.So, all, Anet saw the complaint, saw, that most of the groups in high lvl content run with a chrono, and thought, that it was fully justified. So they had two options to go from here:1) Make other supports viable by buffing/reworking them, in the prosess you can make e-specs like scrapper, reaper usefull again and diversifying the meta.2) Just break the chrono and let the players figure out what to do. No chrono = no subject for vocals to complain about = no problem.Guess which option is easier and less expensive to introduse. By the way, "just do something and let the players figure out what to do" is a standart approuch on the balancing team in the last balansing patches. And this is a problem. If they had a vision of what the profession rotation must become, and made changes to achieve it, we won't have a broken and OP mimic rotation becoming meta only to be destroyed a several months after it. And 8 power chrono raids would not even be thought as a meta now.But enough about sad things, Merry Christmas, everyone! The time of joy and sharing! Oh, oops, mesmers can't share anymore...

If you want the devs to listen then you need to be crying about mesmer. Only other things they seem to listen to are buff suggestions for warrior and ranger.

cried about not liking the sigils cause it didnt promote " more active combat play at all, with the concentration sigil, even the opposite" only reply I got was: "really funny to be sharky but not constructive"
when i added my constructive arguments to why and how ,they did not reply/commented, but they did nerf chrono's to being even more simplified, eventhough all constructive protest/comments were pretty much against that, for that very reason.....-feels heard-

> @Ider.1276 said:

@"Lolivia.3219" said:Thats my oppinnion, and I know others share it, All i want to know is, why?My guess is because vocal minority on the forums was shouting about how powerfull and mandatory chrono was, and how they can't run their daily chaos fractal without one and have to wait in lfg for an hour. On the other hand, people who enjoyed playing chrono and having chrono in their party were playing the game and having fun, not complaining on forums. Heck, I was not posting/reading anything here for more than a year.So, all, Anet saw the complaint, saw, that most of the groups in high lvl content run with a chrono, and thought, that it was fully justified. So they had two options to go from here:1) Make other supports viable by buffing/reworking them, in the prosess you can make e-specs like scrapper, reaper usefull again and diversifying the meta.2) Just break the chrono and let the players figure out what to do. No chrono = no subject for vocals to complain about = no problem.Guess which option is easier and less expensive to introduse. By the way, "just do something and let the players figure out what to do" is a standart approuch on the balancing team in the last balansing patches. And this is a problem. If they had a vision of what the profession rotation must become, and made changes to achieve it, we won't have a broken and OP mimic rotation becoming meta only to be destroyed a several months after it. And 8 power chrono raids would not even be thought as a meta now.But enough about sad things, Merry Christmas, everyone! The time of joy and sharing! Oh, oops, mesmers can't share anymore...

8 power chronos raid? I want to be there :O

There is no such thing as perfect balance, not in this game, not in this world.The changes they made to chrono had its reasons, and the reason is to make chrono unusable because a lot of people were complaining chrono having all the support role in the game. So they changed chrono to a thing where it can be replaced, ANet wants to create a game where every class is capable of fulfiling all the roles with the same benefits. Anyone who has some common sense know that this cant be done, one class will always be better than the other. The changes with the sigils were to stop chronos doing damage by forcing them to take more concentration gear, i dont think ANet planned on the recent changes when they said that they will try to compensate people for the loss of boon duration from the sigil( as the recent rumors about Diviner stats) because chrono got changed to something that does not even need boon duration.Like, if they would wanted to nerf chrono boon production they could just kill chaos traitline or restrict what kinds of boons can be shared with SoI, but they nerfed the share aspect of it as a clear indication that Chronos are not allowed to generate boons then share them.Same with the mimic nerf, people did skips with it, they do it even now, it was a completly unnecesary change for portal skips and stuff, it was made to restrict the boon share(upkeep) on chrono.If anyone wants to blame someone for MUCH MORE painful PUG experience in raids(and in fractals too) because of the lack of boons/utility/CC, blame the people who cried about mesmer being the ultimate support.People who wanted to play revenant and firebrand support could play it even when mesmer did its thing with 11 boons, they could always find a group even if not in LFG who let them play it, but its always easier to come on forums tag ANet and start crying about how good mesmer is.How to solve the mesmer problem?

1. Revert SoI to scale with boon duration, restrict the boons it can share or rework chaos traitline
2. Make gWell or Moa to scale with some trait traits in a traitline what punishes boon production/upkeep
3. If the skipping utility that mesmer has is that big of a problem(even tho i dont see the problem for it) rework how portals work in raid instances
4. If no SoI revert, then atleast make Bountiful Disillusionment to share to alies to help prestack and upkeep.I did some PUG runs and the boons and the uptimes were disgusting, lack of fury or alac even might and swiftness and protection ofc. Am not saying i want to run around with permanent resistance and stability and aegis, because everyone agrees that chrono with the 11 boon upkeep was in need of balance, but srsly whats the meaning of a end game content where you cant get the boons what other classes upkeep for themselfs in open world?

Why so much hate ?Lol...Buy new stuff customer and shut up please.Nice post...Feel your pain and only one advice...don't forget they do not love the game like you.They just have to make money pressured with low means like in every company. After more than 6 years...they are tired and don't dream anymore like you.

Wow, so sensational guys. Chrono is not a shell of it's former self. The only thing wrong is that Anet allowed the state of the Chrono to exist for as long as it did'; that was ridiculous. It's still wonderfully powerful so all this complaining about the changes in PVE ruining the class is really narrowminded. Did everyone forget how to stand in wells?

Why so much hate? because the change was necessary; the class trivialized almost EVERY other class in group content. It was Chrono, some healer and 8 DPS. If you can't see that, you aren't fit to complain it was changed. It's got nothing to do with getting people to buy new stuff either; that's silly. There are hundreds of more effective and efficient ways that Anet would take to get money from your pocket. Give your head a shake.

@Obtena.7952 said:Wow, so sensational guys. Chrono is not a shell of it's former self. The only thing wrong is that Anet allowed the state of the Chrono to exist for as long as it did'; that was ridiculous. It's still wonderfully powerful so all this complaining about the changes in PVE ruining the class is really narrowminded. Did everyone forget how to stand in wells?

Why so much hate? because the change was necessary; the class trivialized almost EVERY other class in group content. It was Chrono, some healer and 8 DPS. If you can't see that, you aren't fit to complain it was changed. It's got nothing to do with getting people to buy new stuff either; that's silly. There are hundreds of more effective and efficient ways that Anet would take to get money from your pocket. Give your head a shake.

Well, thats just it. Chrono wasnt really broken anymore. I would argue that it was relatively balanced, but it depends on how you measure balance.

If you measure it in terms of functionality, it was pretty busted because it was just such a unique spec, it didnt really have a suitable comparison, kinda like condi mirage atm. But if you measure its theoritical contribution to group dps youll find it was sitting around 50k, which is similar to where BS warrior is right now depending on individual build, strat and comp decisions. Its extremely reasonable for a spec to contribute so much dps to the group, because it was a pure support spec and depended on perfect execution from 4 other players to achieve these numbers. For a support spec to even be considered viable, its contribution through functionality to the dps of the group must be greater than that of any individual dps.

Whether it should have been able to maintain 100% uptime of every single boon in the game though.

Typical anet. Instead of nerfing chaos trait line that was the problem, they did something "original" but not rly fun, meh