Is there a reason to play Chronomancer over anything?

I've started playing gw2 because of chronomancer. I was fell in love with it. I loved it so much that I still kept trying make it work after ridicilously overtuned nerfs. I told myself people are exaggeratting, there must be a way to make it work. But there wasn't. It was just so underwhelming and heartbreaking how much effort I have to put into to be only slightly worse than counterparts of the build in other classes/mirage.

Burst/Shatter - Mirage do it better. You can secure your combo with dodge roll. You gain regeneration, protection, vigor and def against condis by passive. You don't have to have a clone to shatter so you can go melee and shatter if you have no clone left. Chrono just doesn't offer anything than a very insignificant dmg boost.

Bunker - Mirage do it better. You might not consider a condi-like build as a Bunker build but it does exactly the same thing what a bunker supposed to do. Tons of condis and boons spam that I already mentioned plus mirage cloak and again being able to use shatters freely makes it a lot better than chrono. You can survive for ages while being outnumbered and even can win as a mirage.

Boon/Support - Chrono was supposed to be all about alacrity and quickness. I mean, alacrity was it's special mechanic and now Revenants can spam it a lot more consistently than Chrono. It's completly ridicilous. Same for Quickness, Firebrand can do it more consistently than Chrono since they don't have to USE SKILLSHOT TO APPLY 1 SINGLE BOON. Also the chrono can apply quickness and quickness only where as firebrand has all those heals, aegis spam and some other boons. Chrono support is just filler in pve now and non-existent in pvp, wvw.

Healer - Any class that has acces to aoe heal is better than chrono now. Traits that heals the group in inspiration line is nothing but a joke and chrono doesn't offer anything to make it better. Forcing people to stand in a small, barely visible circle for 3 seconds for a mediocre heal doesn't have a place in any game mode. Chronomancer has 1 less trait than other specs because of that no-sense trait.

Power/DPS - It was the only build that would worth going for chrono and it's killed too in the last patch. Damage increase on slowed enemies is cool and all but the problem is, YOU CAN'T APPLY YOUR OWN SLOW PROPERLY. So why would you want to have a dd that relies on others to reach a little above the average. No need to mention that Slow is the rarest condition in the game. Chrono's own slow on CC compeletly useless for raid/fractal and it's just not worth to take in pvp. On top of that, they added a ICD for that slow applying trait. I just can't

Condi/DPS - Everything is better because there is no such thing as Condi Chrono.

As you can see, there is not much left from what chrono offers and the thing are left are just outclassed by something else. The only elite spec that brings wells as its utility skills (before scrapper change) has the worst wells in the game. Area is small, bunch of them has unnecessary cast times. Tempest can apply 3 boons and an aura with a single shout whereas Chrono needs its party to stand still until the well ends to apply a SINGLE boon with a mediocre heal (if the trait is taken). Continium Split is so nerfed that it doesn't worth give up on distortion. (I know continium split applies distortion but it's pointless since it already reverts the damage and conditions you receive.) The buff to seize the moment is irrelevant since you relly on others for quickness uptime anyway. Also the range on that is so ridiclously low that it's not usefull out of a organized raid. Besides the reason that support side of the chrono was nerfed to ground was it's quickness spam. Why bring it back now? Why force chrono to be a quickness bot and show it as excuse to keep everything else it has undertuned? We already have firebrand to cover quickness up. I'm sure everyone would trade of quickness spam if it means we will finally have some traits that actually does something special for chronomancer. Nobody asked for chronomancer to be able to keep quickness/alacrity up indefinetly. It was inevitable that chronomancer was going to see a nerf in such situation. But this... This is just too much. Just force gaps between quickness and alacrity and everything would be fine. It is such a incredibly boring playing stlye anyway and everyone will be happy to see it go. Not for chrono but for all supports, It's not fun when your whole existence serves one sole purpose and it's to spam a single boon. When you have it gone, it will open windows for more creative playstyles for all supports.

And for the self sufficient side, if you force a spec to rely on a mechanic, than the class that has the spec must have proper acces to that mechanic. Otherwise it just doesn't make any sense. Why make so many traits that synergies with slow if chrono will not be able to apply slow consistently. "It would be too strong, if it could" is not excuse. If that's the case, proper way to balance it to tune the traits that works with slow, not to reduce acces to slow. In the current situation, slow related traits are beyond useless except Danger Time with a imaginary perma slow team. Slow fits really well to chronomancer theme so it's better remain as a part of the spec, since chrono doesn't have much to make it special. It's just a shield wielding core mesmer with worse shatter skills.I know finding a unicorn under my bed is more likely to happen than a well-thought chrono rework but still one can dream. These are just my thoughts anyway but I know many would agree on these. Otherwise, I would really love to hear if any of you guys could point something chrono does better than anyone else.

Personally, never a fan of chrono, but I do not understand Anet changes either. You would think 4 years in, Anet would have a clear vision of how chrono should perform, but that clearly is not the case.

I also do not understand Anet obsession with slow as being an extremely powerful debuff, cuz it surely is not. In PvE it is not different than cripple. In PvP chill, weakness, immobilize are far more effective and far more available. Heck, even cripple is more effective in many situations. And its lack of availability hurts chrono significantly.

Chrono in pve is extremly bad. That is why it is still best option on 80 percent of bosses in raids.

.......................

Yeah there really is just very little reason to play chrono atm other than for subjective enjoyment, which is so sad to say. Tbh I would've been ok with the loss of distortion shatter for chrono shatter if the others had remained the same, including the ability to self shatter which used to be a trait way back and was made baseline for a reason.

@otto.5684 said:Personally, never a fan of chrono, but I do not understand Anet changes either. You would think 4 years in, Anet would have a clear vision of how chrono should perform, but that clearly is not the case.....

Totally agree with this. They need to bring some clarity to chrono and decide what they want it to be good at and bad at. However, I think that's an issue for pretty much all of the professions right now. For example: on HoT release they expressed that Reaper was a slow and scary dps focusing on big slow hits and the chill condition, and Chronomancer was a group support centered around the balance of quickness + slow (very mesmer) as well as a new unique boon (alacrity). I feel like a lot of that clarity of design has disappeared as they've tried to make all the elite specs more or less viable for everything, probably in part because there was only one per profession for a long time. All that said, chrono is definitely getting the short end of the stick rn.</ rant>

Yeah mirage is like better now in many ways. Also chrono wells still don't work underwater lol.

Even chaotic interruption is like directly designed for sword ambush mirage.

I mean, Boon Chrono is still a strong build in raids, and Power Chrono is good if you have consistent slow application (namely stacking power chronos or a condi renegade). Power Chrono is also very strong for open-world due to the amount of self-boon application along with burst it has. You can play Condi Chrono (DPS) for like 2 raid encounters, although it's still worse than Mirage on both. I dunno like in regards to PvE Chrono is still a great class, just not fractals

The new F2 with 5sec CD can be really strong, even better than mirage if you don't fail your clone spam; but it is still really situational for some raids. Otherwise mirage is better everywhere else, no need to mention PvP or worst, cancer conditank mirage in WvW.In support it still has some goods. It's just people are used now to fb/ren in fractals, whiwh carry heavy, but if you don't need Healer you can easily replace the both and take an other DPS/might bot. In raid it is relevant.I'm pretty sure with the new quickness trait we can equip less BD, and do a pretty hybrid boon/dps.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:Chrono in pve is extremly bad. That is why it is still best option on 80 percent of bosses in raids.

I suppose you're talking about Support Chrono. I knew someone was going to come up with this. I won't say it's bad but why would I spend a month or more for full minstrel gear which will have no use outside of raids? Chrono in raids exists only for quickness and alacrity and both can be done by other supports too, namely Revenant and Firebrand. Both can be played in WvW as a support with the same gear they play with in raids and they are even top tier in that manners so your efforts for support gear will have a big pay off. Mesmer is already bad for WvW because of many reasons and Chrono makes it only worse. Personally, if I was to gear up a support for raids, Chrono would be my last choice. There is nothing that Chrono can and other supports can't. Not even mentioning that it has the worst healing among all possible supports (Heck, even new support warriors have better healing than Chrono now)

@Painbow.6059 said:I mean, Boon Chrono is still a strong build in raids, and Power Chrono is good if you have consistent slow application (namely stacking power chronos or a condi renegade). Power Chrono is also very strong for open-world due to the amount of self-boon application along with burst it has. You can play Condi Chrono (DPS) for like 2 raid encounters, although it's still worse than Mirage on both. I dunno like in regards to PvE Chrono is still a great class, just not fractals

As I already mention Chrono completley relies on other for slow application and no one takes traits that applies slow for PvE. There is only Revenant who applies slow by default and they are not the most popular dpsers in PvE. For open worlds, I am not saying it's unimportant but it shouldn't be focus of balance changes for any profession.

@otto.5684 said:Personally, never a fan of chrono, but I do not understand Anet changes either. You would think 4 years in, Anet would have a clear vision of how chrono should perform, but that clearly is not the case.

I also do not understand Anet obsession with slow as being an extremely powerful debuff, cuz it surely is not. In PvE it is not different than cripple. In PvP chill, weakness, immobilize are far more effective and far more available. Heck, even cripple is more effective in many situations. And its lack of availability hurts chrono significantly.

Agreed. With the alacrity made generic,(which I actually support) Chronomancer doesn't even have a special mechanic anymore. Those new shatters can't be counted as one since they are worse than their originals. It's initial design was a support which speeds up allies or a control focused damage dealer which slows down enemies with time magic but it ended up worse than other proffesions in both sides. Those shatter abominations needs to be gone for good and be replaced with a new mechanic which actually makes chrono special.

@Lethion.8745 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:Chrono in pve is extremly bad. That is why it is still best option on 80 percent of bosses in raids.

@Painbow.6059 said:I mean, Boon Chrono is still a strong build in raids, and Power Chrono is good if you have consistent slow application (namely stacking power chronos or a condi renegade). Power Chrono is also very strong for open-world due to the amount of self-boon application along with burst it has. You can play Condi Chrono (DPS) for like 2 raid encounters, although it's still worse than Mirage on both. I dunno like in regards to PvE Chrono is still a great class, just not fractals

@"otto.5684" said:Personally, never a fan of chrono, but I do not understand Anet changes either. You would think 4 years in, Anet would have a clear vision of how chrono should perform, but that clearly is not the case.

I also do not understand Anet obsession with slow as being an extremely powerful debuff, cuz it surely is not. In PvE it is not different than cripple. In PvP chill, weakness, immobilize are far more effective and far more available. Heck, even cripple is more effective in many situations. And its lack of availability hurts chrono significantly.

I see you dont play raids that often so let me explain.Support chronomancer almost never run minstrel and it is definitely not standard build.Also there are many things that other supports cannot do and chrono can like portal.Right now there are 3-4 diferent chrono builds used in raids (with many variations). Power support, condi support, power dps and condi dps.Yes, support chrono is still used frequently but dont forget about others. Many records were done with 7 dps chronomancers. Last one was 2-3 weeks ago.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

All you're showing is that Chrono's slow reliance is a toxic double-edged sword that makes it a bad DPS everywhere but in Raids where you stack a bunch of them for a chrono 7-way. For the record, if you have to stack same class x7 or with a very specific condi-pair to make it a good DPS actually, then it's very safe to say that it's straight up toxic with it's restrictiveness towards other DPS options and should be reworked.

I have no idea how come people claiming that chrono's good for Open World either, because there are things that have way better survival perks (remember, you're playing alone - not dying is kinda important, and Chrono literally lost Mesmer's most defensive button lol), or things that have way better self-generated damage. PvP modes - fully dead, Jim, and new traits make it even worse than after the initial IP blow. I tried it. It felt like I was slapping myself repeatedly, because people literally can avoid my damage by walking backwards now.

@Irenio CalmonHuang.2048 , @Robert Gee.9246 , Imma gonna ping you both as other dude above did, because I really want answers about how's that a thing and why arguably one of the most interesting specs with the coolest mechanic ever (CS) to grace GW universe is so bad now. Can we please hear something? The design goals? Is Chrono being beaten repeatedly because it's balanced around that one part of PvE in a game with at least 2 other gamemodes and with PvE that is much bigger than just raids? I'm not being melodramatic, hopefully, but there's no way to put it lightly - these "advantages" to Chrono that people use to claim that "it's fine" are actually terrible as well, because stacking 7 of the same class for it to be top DPS is not fine, ekshully.

And please, oh please, if this reaches anyone's eyes upstairs - guys, if you're going to do anything about this and actually communicate, please do it soon. It's already been long enough, and despite you asking for feedback and people very reasonably being like "what about your awful chrono changes" you gave us radio silence. All we are asking for is clarity, and hopefully improvement (though I'll be hard-pressed to call myself hopeful after all Mesmer was through and still goes through to this day for years).

@Gogdarth.6741 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

I couldn't point it out any better. Imagine there was a skill that reads "Deal 100k dmg if you have 25 stacks of might, enemy is not facing you, it's Friday night, there are no Asuras in your current zone, choyas speak to you and you are walking backwards." In your perspective such skill should be considered strong and even broke. In fact, it's just toxic as he said and badly designed. I already pointed the correct way of balancing such mechanic in the first post; Reduce the dmg, increase the slow application. Also those things that other supports cannot do and chrono can like portal are not part of the Chronomancer spec. We are complaning about chronomancer spec not mesmer as a whole.

@Lethion.8745 said:

@Gogdarth.6741 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

Power chrono is at around 35k. Most used dps is dragonhunter, at around 35k. There are small variants because of specific mechanics.

Yes, portal is core mesmer thing. But you would almost never take core mesmer just for port. You can take scourge or thief just for port but it is better to take something that will do anything else and not just port.

And tell me which build overcomes chrono in openworld. A build with high burst and abikity to give itself permanent 25 might, fury and quickness without taking any boon duration or gear choices to help with that while also having so much cc that every breakbar is broken instantly

Witch chrono i have many blocks in OW but I never need any since everything dies before I take a hit. Dont know what class you are playing

I know that in wvw and pve chrono isnt doing well. That is true. But I dissagree about pve.

And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

I just find this point extremely hard to agree with.

When there’s a massively powerful trait that hinges heavily on the presence of a condition, and you don’t even build around it (instead forcing others to build around you), what does that say about playing chrono? That you’re more of a selfish dps hog than other dps specs? You’re sacrificing others’ dps/utility to trait for slow so that you can do more dps while you’re epically failing to trait for it yourself? What kind of counterintuitive design is this?

Was it fair that the no-slow version of chrono, who was ‘average’ and decent beforehand, was nerfed in favour of balancing an obviously unstable build whose viability is dependant on the viability of other specs?

As I mentioned in another thread, all that this reliance is doing is pigeonholing chrono into a position where it will need to rely on slow to do anything anywhere. Supporting its existence doesn’t help change the problem. OW pve, wvw, pvp... what’s a power build when it can simply be countered by condi cleanse?

Would a viable no-slow build and another build that has a only small advantage (5-7%) using slow been more acceptable than the ‘slow or trash’ scenario we have today?

Since you mentioned ‘options’, would it be acceptable to have the reliance of slow as an option in itself (for ‘theory and optimisation’, as you said), whilst having another perfectly viable, slightly weaker option that isn’t so bogged down by this slow or trash issue? Wouldn’t that theoretically ‘leave more options for theory and optimisation’?

@"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:snip

For open world point, please explain me since when it was important to have self-reliant boons for it? I will not deny that it has the advantage of double-bursting once every minute and a half, that is true and unmatched by anything (because they don't have CS), but I'll point out that being a fragile build with palpable multitarget, cleave and tagging issues is far off from "best for open world PvE" if your concern is not "speedrunning open world". For this, I strongly believe that "ease of use" is a crucial consideration, and unfortunately Chrono falls short on that. Also, you can't Seize The Moment without clones anymore to gather nodes, so that's sad too.

In short, Power Chrono is a risky overkill that provides you none of the usual OW advantages you'd want aside from having so much damage nothing survives for too long. That doesn't matter, because OW bar is very, very, extremely low in that regard. As for CC point, that's a non-issue even since sliced bread planks, but true - with chrono you can also stuff some Humiliations in there real quick. Again, bar in OW is so low you'll be fine with a plank + headbutt - esque CC anything under the sun has, like lil less often than "always".

The "specific condition reliance thing" is... In theory, your argument looks sound. Kinda creates niches and diversity. But reliance on Slow absolutely should not be it. It's exactly because of it's rarity you stuff in 7 chronos into raids, otherwise in any content that isn't 10man Chrono's simply suboptimal as a DPS. (or as a support too, hi firebrigade). It's an extremely narrow and backwards way of creating a niche, when it's the class itself that is supposed to provide it's niche to operate in.

But moving forward, I strongly believe it'll only be beneficial with this stupid reliance gone entirely. Even more widely-available Weakness for Ele didn't work out too well, didn't it? Instead of making it this way, how about we change the way our buttons work? Imagine something like a trait in DT's place that allows you to use CS much more often, but only for weapon skills, for example, and for a shorter duration. Would that be a trait that affects DPS? Heck yeah. It'd also make you literally play differently, as you'll be aiming to milk out phantasms out of that variation of a shatter, making you reshape your rotations into something significantly different from other specs within the class. Wouldn't that be a preferable option?

Keep in mind, I'm not saying "literally do that", but it does sound way more fun than stacking 7 of the same or asking for a condi renegade to pop into existence to be viable. It's just a rough example I came up with on the spot to illustrate the point of what I mean.

And tell me which build overcomes chrono in openworld. A build with high burst and abikity to give itself permanent 25 might, fury and quickness without taking any boon duration or gear choices to help with that while also having so much cc that every breakbar is broken instantly

You mean power reaper? They're all over the place and regularly take top dps in every meta event.

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

No slo power chrono (with IA) or just solo chrononwith DT is still good. Not best option but close. Just DT pulls the class to first position on certain fights.

And you look at squad as 10 times solo player. Then yes. It is selfish trait.But squad is 1 team. Its like saying that dps counting on 25 might from other source is bad design

@Gogdarth.6741 said:

@"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:snip

In truth. If there is 1 best dps on a raidboss, why use diferent dps option?

Every top tier comp stack only one dps class. Only time you see more is to deal with certain mechanic (epidemic on scourge, renegade boonstrip, deadeye kiting, soulbeast frost/sun spirit....)

Take Deadeye for example. Deadeye is almost never goid pick in raids. There are 2 exeptions, one is kiting on qadim2 because of lifesteal, long range and not needing to move. And other is mursat overseer.And the reason to take it on MO is that again, you dont need to move and also because support thief/dd can steal detonate plasma to give all boons to deadeyes so they benefit from trait that gives 1% damage per boon on them. That is also very nieche option dont you think?

And yes, in OW trash mobs dies fast. It doesnt matter what you play.Veterans/champions dies slower but that is what you have cc and burst+boons for.Boons are more then half of the damage. That is why they are important

The only reason to play Chronomancer is for the trait Chronophantasma. That one trait carries the whole elite spec.

@Hot Boy.7138 said:The only reason to play Chronomancer is for the trait Chronophantasma. That one trait carries the whole elite spec.

Even with chronophantasma, since his icd, 50% damage reduction, no double clone pop and I'm not even sure if it double proc all illusions traits, it's not even worth it.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

What do you mean by ‘close’? One’s way above reaper (a.k.a the spec that ppl call ‘low dps’ for some reason) whilst the other is below it.

And you look at squad as 10 times solo player. Then yes. It is selfish trait.But squad is 1 team. Its like saying that dps counting on 25 might from other source is bad design

25 might is different story. It is general utility that is applied to and is helpful for the whole group. Other boons are similar. At the very least, these conditions are already catered for in the first place.

Slow pretty much does nothing other than ignorable breakbar dmg, and is mainly applied only when DT chrono players exist (not even for +dmg% traits per condi such as on thief or engi).

And it’s also a boring free dmg% increase, because it isn’t forcing the chrono to do anything.

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

And you look at squad as 10 times solo player. Then yes. It is selfish trait.But squad is 1 team. Its like saying that dps counting on 25 might from other source is bad design

If your squad is only chronos then slow benefits whole squad.Yea, it is not optimal at all to run IA but it is still decent (if you count scourge decent for example)

Chrono provides some slow alone. Even without other power chronos, usualy you have decent uptime on danger time. Far from ideal but it is there.

Edit: and reaper doesnt have low dps. Problem is that it has very bad burst for power dps

@"ButcherofMalakir.4067" said:

Of course I think so. In fact, I believe current Deadeye's design to be sub-par as well, because the entire "immobile" idea doesn't mesh well with entirety of GW2 combat, and new Malice attacks relying on stealth not only makes it overly similar to your regular old teef but also condemns it to be forever groanworthy for anything PvP related, but I'm here to argue for Chrono's case. I'd argue that in ideal world, DPS specs should be balanced around the same expected benchmark and should mostly be free-for-all, and you pick some specific DPS because of it's unique utility, damage application way or just because you happen to like it, not because it just benches at some k higher assuming perfect rotation execution. Homogenizing the DPS bar could go a long way into overall balancing. But that's just what I think on the issue overall.

The fact that some classes are stuck in a similar boat should not be the reason why we tolerate DT builds being bad anywhere but in raids. It should be the reason why we examine why some of the specs are just so heavily situational you barely see/use them ever, and how we can fix that.

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

And you look at squad as 10 times solo player. Then yes. It is selfish trait.But squad is 1 team. Its like saying that dps counting on 25 might from other source is bad design

Which leads back to the problem and all the comments made by others about chrono only working best when 7 of them are present.

Still, is the huge dps discrepancy between slow and no-slow really that acceptable? Or alternatively, what is your opinion on the ‘slow or trash’ issue?

No one’s also seemed to have mentioned that the spec already relies on AI which can make or break the spec depending on the situation.

The overall answer to the OP’s question from all these responses so far would still be: not in competitive gamemodes, and only compared to low tier specs in pve (because it is one) or in hardcore solo OW, unless slow is very conveniently supplied by others (applicable in raids and world bosses only). So basically - no, unless you specifically like the theme or want to be special.

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:

@Noodle Ant.1605 said:

@ButcherofMalakir.4067 said:And relying on specific condition is a good thing since it leaves options for theory and optimalization.

And you look at squad as 10 times solo player. Then yes. It is selfish trait.But squad is 1 team. Its like saying that dps counting on 25 might from other source is bad design

In my opinion this kind of balance (at least in raids) is bad. If all classes are on same number everywhere then one is best because it has unique mechanic others dont. Then there is no reason to take the others.Take ele for example. It used to be that skills dealt more damage based on size of the hitbox. This was great because on big bosses it shined but on smaler one it wasnt as good because others were more flexible with sama damage. After change it is either top dps by alot everywhere or it is usless everywhere because it provides nothing else then damage unlike others.Because of those nieche situations like boss atack speed, boss movement, duration of phases, diferent toughness, detonate plasma and damage per boon traits, flanikng, cleave there are diferent there are more options. Take it away and there will be only 1.

Also dragonhunters share the same "problem". They are stronger, the more you have.They work with specific boon, retal in this case, but they cannot get 100% uptime alone. Guess who provide more retal? You guessed it, other dragonhunters.Also if you take enough of them you get up to 10k dps because of Feel my wrath stacking. Is this problem too?