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Can we be met halfway on quality of life for Chrono? What playstyle/tradeoff do people want?


Daniel Handler.4816

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The biggest complaints for Chrono seem to be "where is IP?" and "wells don't function well outside of PvE." Unfortunately the changes to Lost Time and Seize the Moment do not fully address these major QoL issues. The former can give us some of the alacrity we would have had from dry shattering but none of the other benefits. And the latter allows us to drop Well of Action but does nothing for the other wells.

@Robert Gee.9246 is it possible to meet us halfway with QoL? For instance if Illusionary Persona replaced Lost Time (still max 3) and Seize the Moment simply made wells PBAoEs. Everyone would still have one or more quality of life issues to deal with and Chrono would still have four altered shatters. It doesn't have to be that. I'm sure you and this community could come up with better halfway approaches. Can there be an open discussion of what tradeoff and playstyle you want for Chrono?

Edit: I realise forum people aren't always nice. If you want to describe your vision in an announcement and not directly communicate with us that's cool too.

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I understand where you're coming from, but frankly I disagree entirely.

Balancing a spec should never come at the expense of usability and fun, and by proposing that you're literally threading back into 2012, where we had to trait for IP. It's not "halfway", it's "back alley 6 years ago".

Not only you're introducing significant gameplay difference within one spec of one class (and not by role- but by literally how it feels to play, which is entirely against their whole excuse of merging CS and Distortion - because "chrono shouldn't have five buttons, it's too different!"), but you're also inducting another round of mandatory, must-have traits like IH. In short, you're proposing an even greater mess and discord into already very clearly troubled class on an extremely troubled spec.

Also, can we ask why Ranger's fine with getting an extra F5 button, but we're supposed to not have an extra one for some reason?

Danger Time must go for DPS chrono to be a thing anywhere but in raid content. Where it's stacked with itself to provide Slow. Which is a completely baffling design in a game where every class is supposed to have a functional DPS spec, yet is not allowed in because that exists.IP must return. If you guys are removing us a shatter because "it's not four", and then you're making it so shatters are Meant to be used completely differently, you're kind of not following your own logic here at all, minus all of the ridiculousness of Distortion not Diversion being our strongest defense and sometimes offense tools, and most often (for Diversion) - most beneficial to use dry. Inability to CS prestack also severely hurt fractal chrono to a point where it's not worth picking. Removal of dry CS use made spec go from "unique and interesting" to "below mediocre" in an instant in a lot of it's QoL uses.There are a lot of your old nerfs that you need to revisit for PvP, as most of them were dealing with indirect symptoms of bigger issues. Now it just leaves a ton of things underpowered and borderline useless.

Conclusion? Bargaining is a stage of grief. Don't settle for less than good, because it already was incredible once - and it can and should be good. There were a lot of ways to make the spec better without any of this IP nonsense 2012 timetravel (heh). Some of it is already implemented even - new Seize The Moment would've actually been great back when you made us run 2 wells+SoI at all times, because this would've meant that it grants us a utility slot back, yay. Now it kind of doesn't really help. We've got bigger fish to fry, like all of the mentioned above. Even if there are some halfway solutions, it's absolutely not what you're proposing, unfortunately.

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@"Gogdarth.6741" said:I understand where you're coming from, but frankly I disagree entirely.

Balancing a spec should never come at the expense of usability and fun, and by proposing that you're literally threading back into 2012, where we had to trait for IP. It's not "halfway", it's "back alley 6 years ago".

Not only you're introducing significant gameplay difference within one spec of one class (and not by role- but by literally how it feels to play, which is entirely against their whole excuse of merging CS and Distortion - because "chrono shouldn't have five buttons, it's too different!"), but you're also inducting another round of mandatory, must-have traits like IH. In short, you're proposing an even greater mess and discord into already very clearly troubled class on an extremely troubled spec.

Also, can we ask why Ranger's fine with getting an extra F5 button, but we're supposed to not have an extra one for some reason?

Danger Time must go for DPS chrono to be a thing anywhere but in raid content. Where it's stacked with itself to provide Slow. Which is a completely baffling design in a game where every class is supposed to have a functional DPS spec, yet is not allowed in because that exists.IP must return. If you guys are removing us a shatter because "it's not four", and then you're making it so shatters are Meant to be used completely differently, you're kind of not following your own logic here at all, minus all of the ridiculousness of Distortion not Diversion being our strongest defense and sometimes offense tools, and most often (for Diversion) - most beneficial to use dry. Inability to CS prestack also severely hurt fractal chrono to a point where it's not worth picking. Removal of dry CS use made spec go from "unique and interesting" to "below mediocre" in an instant in a lot of it's QoL uses.There are a lot of your old nerfs that you need to revisit for PvP, as most of them were dealing with indirect symptoms of bigger issues. Now it just leaves a ton of things underpowered and borderline useless.

Conclusion? Bargaining is a stage of grief. Don't settle for less than good, because it already was incredible once - and it can and should be good. There were a lot of ways to make the spec better without any of this IP nonsense 2012 timetravel (heh). Some of it is already implemented even - new Seize The Moment would've actually been great back when you made us run 2 wells+SoI at all times, because this would've meant that it grants us a utility slot back, yay. Now it kind of doesn't really help. We've got bigger fish to fry, like all of the mentioned above. Even if there are some halfway solutions, it's absolutely not what you're proposing, unfortunately.

Then what would you propose if they absolutely did not want IP to come back to Chrono? Assuming that's their vision, but who knows. Radio silence does neither party any good.

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

So the topic is meeting them halfway. Not burn it all down.

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

So the topic is meeting them halfway. Not burn it all down.

it kinda is meeting half way.becouse of chronophantasma and csplit, every single mesmer phantasm is bad.we have 0 utility phantasms that provide any sort of damage. why? becouse with csplit and chronophantsma you can make them hit 2-4times so they have to be made shit.rework csplit, rework chronophantasma. give us something else, buff back phantasms/mesmer skills, nerf clone damage. yeeeet fixed.

PS people use phantasmal defender for damage ( it hits for like 2k LUL, but there is nothing better to take )inb4 they overnerf chronophantasma, csplit and give us " new chaotic interuption " level of trait.

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@"Daniel Handler.4816" said:

Complete redesign of it's core aspects. If it isn't supposed to grant the same degree of illusion control, then what is it that we're supposed to turn to? It used to be the insanely deep mechanical complexity and how Chronomancer pulls about third of mesmer kit out of garbage bin, the unique party enhancements that were never seen before from a support (quickness/alacrity being permanent, mainly). Did they want it to be a support? It could do more with that by giving it something better to heal and maybe stack some defensive boons better, especially since current competitors for Chrono generally do exactly that. Did they want it to have DPS? Make it good without relying on DT, then. Even after that "tradeoff rework" nothing about it's identity crisis was addressed or improved to a positive degree much.

Let's look at where we at right now and make an easy overview because I'm actively procrastinating from my work, so I'm gonna write a thinkpiece about "how do I want to see chrono improved". Yes, I am productive. Hire me.

Let's also preface it by saying that I'm by no means an expert, and I'm not pining to be one, either. If anyone reading this has better ideas or improvement suggestions, please be my guest and build upon any of that, or disagree with it freely. Opinions are exactly that, opinions. I'm just sharing mine in a bigger text this time.


Class weapon is shield, and overall it's pretty good. I wouldn't mind seeing the return of Alacrity on shield phantasm attacks, as it COULD allow us to drop the Recall well - if it's balanced right. Before I hear a complaint about "it'll make alacrity too easy", I'll humbly remind you about rev literally pressing 1 button for 100% uptime on CD. Clearly, in current design providing boons isn't supposed to be that challenging. Opening options about your choices (do I want to rely on wells for my alacrity, or weapon skills) could be a beneficial move for build diversity within a spec.

Delayed ReactionsWhy's it not minor? You literally baked slow damage bonus into new and shiny Split Second™, and the "alacrity on shatter" and "movement speed boost" minors are both mediocre and provide lip service to a bygone era of classes actually needing those 25% movement traits. It could easily be a part of Flow of Time and open us up for a new trait entirely.

Trait rating: Bad.

Time Catches Up

It's supposed to be a damage boost trait, but it directly competes with Delayed Reactions, which you need to abuse Danger Time in case there's no 6 more Chronos around, throwing timewarps. Flawed design just because it's synergy with Chrono's own kit is... eh? Again, do something about Delayed Reactions. Let's call this one a DPS build trait for now, as it provides a flat bonus.

Something also needs to be said about the fact that it is, in fact, just a meh damage bonus and it's "meat" of the trait is that superspeed, which is super useful in PvP, actually. Perhaps the damage bonus could be shifted into this new theoretical trait in place of Delayed Reactions and this trait can become a "shatter utility one"?

All's Well That Ends Well

Too meh to really bother building for a healer chrono, which is evidently intended, yet underused. It still locks you into as many wells as possible, and we all know that wells in current age ain't that good for most of the content, to be honest. It's a trait that could be reworked to allow Healer true-support chrono to happen. Or if it's not what's intended, then why does it exist?

Danger Time

The root of all DPS Chrono problems. Kill it, give it something that can be used much easier in 5-man or solo as well as in raids. Preferably something engaging too, not just flat number inflation - make me press my shatters differently, make me avoid getting 3 clones up at all times or whatever, changes Split Second functionality or even CS itself, anything fun, really.

Illusionary Reversion

It's a sad and underused trait. Help it by changing it's functionality, because the way chrono designed right now - it craves additional clonegen without Scepter at all times, and this one ain't cutting it very well most of the time.

Improved Alacrity

Is a bandaid trait to fix the fact that they removed CD reduction for wells out of AWTEW and to still allow 100% uptimes. How about we just reduce well CDs by default, and free us up a slot for a new support-oriented trait? Or a defensive one? Both this and Reversion also just feel so... underwhelming compared to a gigantic damage bonus Danger Time provides. It's only picked out of necessity, not because anyone really wants it in their life. And that''s not fun.

Time Marches On

In current day and age, this trait is "meh". Mounts exist. Also, it's mesmer. We blink through everything when mounts are being all lazy.

Maybe give us a strong movement speed bonus after breaking stuns or something, or when using CS. Like, to really sell the whole "time marches on" pun, if Chrono gets somehow slowed down - they just speed up and march on?

Lost Time

Self-alacrity trait that only really works if you got Delayed Reactions, otherwise by default you have minimal access to Slow to really capitalize on that.Why? I dunno. It exists, though.

Make it into something useful.

Seize the Moment

Is currently good and could open interesting things, if other aspects of the spec were brought up to speed.

Chronophantasma

Kinda super-duper dominant, but also dead in PvP because that 50% damage reduction is steep and it also significantly slows down time before your clones actually become usable for shattering. It's a... "fine"?.. grandmaster DPS trait with it's own payoff, but please revisit it's plethora of PvP nerfs. Right now, picking it is actively detrimental, because they're dazed for too long and can easily die while standing still being useless, and it slows your clone generation time for no real reason - those 2.5k extra damage on giant delay which will probably be dodged/blocked if my berserkers ain't dead before a second whirl are seriously not worth the hassle at this point, yet no good alternative to run is provided. Lost Time was that, but it's gone.


So, yeah, that's the issues I'd wanna see addressed. It doesn't even have a lot to do with the IP thing, but IP was definitely a last straw on top of all of that.

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IPIf they wanna keep the ‘shatters require clones to activate’ then chrono definitely needs a way to retain their profession resource (either clones or clone shatter level).

Otherwise, IP or riot.

Chrono shattersCurrently inferior copies of core shatters with slapped-on effects to make them seem more powerful. Where is the chrono theme? What makes these worth losing IP and Distortion?

  • There is no ‘split second’ in Split Second.
  • Rewinder makes sense.
  • Time Sink should focus on making the opponent waste time, rather than just only making them slower (which can be passively/easily cleansed anyway).
  • Csplit also fits but still needs some serious QoL, for both the chrono and the opponent.

There’s definitely other areas for complaint, but IMO these two strike as the most obvious when discussing chrono + trade offs.

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@"Noodle Ant.1605" said:

Yeah, hard agree.

You know, with a name "Split Second™" they could literally give us a second of splitting which only works for weapons skills that does PBAOE damage equal to like 1.5 clone shatter and minus the "revert HP/endurance/position" at the end, which only uses one clone per activation. Like, you warp time to deal more damage by pouring out more phantasms or using high-damage skills (I know, we have grand total of 1 and it's only that in PvE), but you give up that one-shot bomb combowombo that was so "problematic" in the process and kinda leave the whole "Core mesmer but with slight improvements" niche to Mirage. This way we get to actually use our profession mechanic more than once in forever, at least. Rewinder could give you more self-alacrity built in, because, like, it rewinds (which will make it of more use for power oriented builds too from utility standpoint), and Time Sink could pulse chill and slow around you for 2/3/4 pulses (+ initial Diversion CC, but that could actually be toned down to a static second of daze/stun if traited for that as the focus will go into exactly sinking time). It could reward you for staying close by pulsing you a second of quickness each time you slow down something in pulses, act as a good "cover condition source" and will slow enemy cooldowns and movement. Oh, and we could get our CS down to normal distortion CD if we gave up weapon skills duping to Split Second, maybe - CS now doesn't reset weapon skill CDs, but has normal cooldown and still does the rest of potentially-defensive stuff you can do with it (even though we all know that once you're focused - you're dead, so the whole "revert your HP" thing very rarely saves your hide).

So your critique got me thinking about how could shatters be made truly different and embrace the theme more now and it took me about 10 minutes to awkwardly come up with that. Yet we get a "Mind Wrack but worse 90% of the time".

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guys forget it, as if anet even cares, they screwed up, but they are so pride they won't admit it in a hundred years, either that or they did it to push hot players to buy pof if they havn't already, they won't answer you, or bring chrono back, or make anything usefull on regard of pvp and wvw, don't even waste your time

right now to me we who love pvp have 2 paths

  1. if we are lucky enough to have 1 of our builds in meta, and still like the game, play that, enjoy it as long as you can, shut up and take it as a man
  2. go and look for other game

and i'm not beeing mean to you guys, it's just i spent so much time doing post after post giving feedback demanding changes, asking for insights etc, yet all i got as a customer is silent treatment and the infamous "coming soon" indirect response, they don't care about us anymore, or about quality of product, all they want is to cash in all they can and put gw2 into maintenance mode

think about it, wvw and pvp subsections have no respones whatsoever from devs, yet when someone asks something about the gem store, devs fight for beeing the first ones to answer, official forums on regard of pvp an wvw are completely silent from anet side, yet you go into reddit and in the pve and gem store related section they have tons of respones...

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

How about the utter removal of every skill in the game so everything can be replaced with a stick? Because it seems like all people can do is complain about things they can't deal with and call them "toxic" which is how we and some other specs got neutered so unnecessarily in the first place.

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

How about the utter removal of every skill in the game so everything can be replaced with a stick? Because it seems like all people can do is complain about things they can't deal with and call them "toxic" which is how we and some other specs got neutered so unnecessarily in the first place.

im preety sure neutering chrono over the years was 100% needed, you simply cant introduce trait that makes some abilities twice as strong ( chronophantasma ) then add another that resets all cooldowns, making you use your abilities again. then phantasms hit 4 times, instead of one. Partly becouse of that, we can NOT have good phantasms, ever. if you add good damage dealing phantasm that would be fair and balanced for mirage/mesmer, it would be utterly broken for chrono that gets to use it 4 times over.

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I mean, exactly. It'll be easier to answer if we'll hear something at all.

Well yes. But as yelling into the void seems to be the only solution. What would you propose for Chrono if IP could not return?

utter removal of elite spec and start over.chronophantasma is toxic.csplit is toxic, remove and start over.

So the topic is meeting them halfway. Not burn it all down.

The problem is the halfway meeting doesn't solve anything. IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.As an example, it doesn't matter how many sides you want your wheels to have. As long as they are not circle, they will be bad wheels.

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@"Ansau.7326" said:... IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.....

I'm fairly new to mesmer and am enjoying Mirage, but I wanted to play around w/chrono too. I'm confused about the discussions re Illusionary Persona. The wiki says "This trait is now baseline and has been removed from the game", but the above quote and other posts seem to indicate that it is in fact not baseline (i.e., included by default), but instead removed entirely. Can someone clarify for me?

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@TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

@"Ansau.7326" said:... IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.....

I'm fairly new to mesmer and am enjoying Mirage, but I wanted to play around w/chrono too. I'm confused about the discussions re Illusionary Persona. The
says "This trait is now baseline and has been removed from the game", but the above quote and other posts seem to indicate that it is in fact not baseline (i.e., included by default), but instead removed entirely. Can someone clarify for me?

it was made baseline for every type of mesmer becouse playing without it was clunky and unfun. then they forgot why it was baseline and removed it from chrono.

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@TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

@"Ansau.7326" said:... IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.....

I'm fairly new to mesmer and am enjoying Mirage, but I wanted to play around w/chrono too. I'm confused about the discussions re Illusionary Persona. The
says "This trait is now baseline and has been removed from the game", but the above quote and other posts seem to indicate that it is in fact not baseline (i.e., included by default), but instead removed entirely. Can someone clarify for me?

im fairly new too to Mesmer not sure if core Mesmer is the go to or chrono for open world pve.

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@Axl.8924 said:

@"Ansau.7326" said:... IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.....

I'm fairly new to mesmer and am enjoying Mirage, but I wanted to play around w/chrono too. I'm confused about the discussions re Illusionary Persona. The
says "This trait is now baseline and has been removed from the game", but the above quote and other posts seem to indicate that it is in fact not baseline (i.e., included by default), but instead removed entirely. Can someone clarify for me?

im fairly new too to Mesmer not sure if core Mesmer is the go to or chrono for open world pve.

For OWPVE I'm really happy with Lord Hizen's condi mirage:http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQJAWWn0nBtph1oBGpBMMjFcjqMAatfxcBChRyf9j/6H-jxxHABmpLAgLBAtPBAX2f4JlgDq+DRK/CAcAs7up7uB2d3d3d3dru7u7u7u7u7u7ulCoK9WA-e

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@TheAgedGnome.7520 said:

@Axl.8924 said:

@"Ansau.7326" said:... IP not being base for Chrono is a core design flaw, and any discussion with such a bad design as a base will be futile.....

I'm fairly new to mesmer and am enjoying Mirage, but I wanted to play around w/chrono too. I'm confused about the discussions re Illusionary Persona. The
says "This trait is now baseline and has been removed from the game", but the above quote and other posts seem to indicate that it is in fact not baseline (i.e., included by default), but instead removed entirely. Can someone clarify for me?

im fairly new too to Mesmer not sure if core Mesmer is the go to or chrono for open world pve.

For OWPVE I'm really happy with Lord Hizen's condi mirage:

I don-t have mirage I don-t have pof yet I can only access either hot or core for Mesmer.

I really hope that core is viable.

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