Chronomancer Tradeoff Brainstorm

[viquing.8254]

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.

Near them you had secondary tools like mantra, stealth, glamour...

Every mesmer builds apart in very specific PvE environnement used theses three pillars.For example a 20/25/15/10/0 hybrid was not easy and also use shatter but wasn't primarly based on.

The right comparison is not engi who play without toolbelt but thieves who get teleport or evade or stealth removed and left like that. Of course every thief builds use this three gameplay can't even imagine if they remove one of these because of forums mafia and a dev who just get killed by it in WvW with his teamfight build.

[Quadox.7834]

@viquing.8254 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.You can still have phantasm-focused builds now, the problem is that the playstyle you are describing is simply not interesting for most (especially when it creeps into PvP). The same goes for builds like turret engi and spirit ranger (Im sure you remember when those were viable).
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.
  1. They wanted shatters to be useful on all builds to promote a more active playstyle (they said so). This fits with the fact that every other profession uses their profession skills.
  2. Many people hated as or versus phantasm and clonedeath builds (and probably anet as well). Summoning 3 phantasms and autoattacking in PvE was stupid, clone death was frustrating and unfun in PvP. Sometimes, keeping a particular playstyle/build is not worth it if most people think it is unfun, passive, frustrating to fight.

Near them you had secondary tools like mantra, stealth, glamour...

Every mesmer builds apart in very specific PvE environnement used theses three pillars.The right comparison is not engi who play without toolbelt but thieves who get teleport or evade or stealth removed and left like that. Of course every thief builds use this three gameplay can't even imagine if they remove one of these because of forums mafia and a dev who just get killed by it in WvW with his teamfight build.

No, I just straight up compared profession skills f1-f4 to eachother, my comparision was correct.

[viquing.8254]

@Quadox.7834 said:

@viquing.8254 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.You can still have phantasm-focused builds now, the problem is that the playstyle you are describing is simply not interesting for most (especially when it creeps into PvP). The same goes for builds like turret engi and spirit ranger (Im sure you remember when those were viable).I'm not talking about interesting (I'm not finding mainting 3 phantasms particulary fun too.) or not I'm talking that they destroyed core mes while never compensate this lost.
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.
  1. They wanted shatters to be useful on all builds to promote a more active playstyle (they said so). This fits with the fact that every other profession uses their profession skills.It was usefull in every build, even in a full clone spamb build, I awlays shatter.
  2. Many people hated as or versus phantasm and clonedeath builds (and probably anet as well). Summoning 3 phantasms and autoattacking in PvE was stupid, clone death was frustrating and unfun in PvP. Sometimes, keeping a particular playstyle/build is not worth it if most people think it is unfun, passive, frustrating to fight.Yeah so mesmer was monogameplay until PoF and their phantasm rework...Near them you had secondary tools like mantra, stealth, glamour...

Every mesmer builds apart in very specific PvE environnement used theses three pillars.The right comparison is not engi who play without toolbelt but thieves who get teleport or evade or stealth removed and left like that. Of course every thief builds use this three gameplay can't even imagine if they remove one of these because of forums mafia and a dev who just get killed by it in WvW with his teamfight build.

No, I just straight up compared profession skills f1-f4 to eachother, my comparision was correct.No because toolbelt is what illusions are to mesmers. It's the core of the class, not a type of gameplay. Whereas for me shatter was just a type of gameplay at the beginning.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

I agree with viquing.Regarding phantasm although I didn't play it it was a type of play like all the others and all it needed was the nerf to prevent summoning while stealthing that was introduced later.The phantasm rework, and I know Quadox agrees with this, was all awful and a huge nerf even to shatter mes.Regarding clone death, it was a beautiful mechanic that represent what mesmers are supposed to be, kill clones and you'll avoid shatter but you'll hurt yourself, let clones be and you'll avoid hurting yourself but a shatter is incoming.The only thing it needed was to prevent clones from exploding while overwritten.Mesmers should have had the F skills reworked on both chrono and mirage, that would have prevent the stall gameplay that we're facing almost since the game was release, the is zero difference playing mes, chrono and mirage.

[Xaylin.1860]

@"Curunen.8729" said:Chrono: shatters changed to create pbaoe effects around the player only, that move with the player (like necro), with durations etc depending on number of clones "shattered". Can range from damage oriented stuff similar to well of calamity to time manipulating fields etc, and CSplit could just be F4.

I like this idea.

Also, if they wanted to give CS a drawback: You could deal (but also receive) 50% less damage while shifted in time. This would still enable interesting moves but avoid CS from being exploited for dublicating simple damage rotation in the respective time-frame.

@viquing.8254 said:

Never forget that core was cut from a third of his gameplay while they removed on death traits [...]

And I'd never want to see them return, seriously...Why ? Can't find a good reason apart the bad synergy with 2 traits.Was it op ? 240 radius, only damage where 2/3 bleeds stacks and 1 confusion.Was it passive ? clone never auto-pop with no actions.It was never on death traits who killed people but condi by clones auto during the forum gameplay destruction wave.[...]The problem I see with mirage and what I'm little frustrated about is that they give back a clone based spec after removed clone based gameplay on core. I mean core should never be left blowing with only 2/3 of his original gameplay.

I disagree on your assessment. While yes, we lost a mechanic when on death traits were removed, it never was anything I'd call a fully fleshed out playstyle. Mirage has its design flaws but Ambush skills and Infinte Horizon is way more than on death traits. I'm also in the 'Make IH baseline and rebalance Mirage'-camp due to this reason.

Why I don't want on death traits to return?

• While you could shatter those build heavily discouraged doing so and therefore neglected the whole class mechanic.
• It also discouraged using Phantasms, another core mechanic of the class.
• It wasn't really active gameplay considering you just pooped out Illusions regardless of what you did.
• It encouraged very high stealth uptime which made it even more passive.
• It had close to no counterplay because it was unblockable (while I disagree the damage itself was a problem)
• (At least back then) Those trait hold back further class developement.

@viquing.8254 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.

Yes, you could classify builds in those ways back then. But how does evaluate wether a class is in a good state or not? Both, Phantasm builds back then and on death builds avoided or totally neglected using the class mechanic. That's a major design flaw. The rework might not have solved all issues but it was a great improvement on the overall state of the class.

On a different note, we still (or yet again) have those gameplay styles:

• Shatter (base and Chrono)
• Clone (Mirage)
• Phantasm (mainly Chrono because of Chronophantasma)

We also gained at least one: Support/Tank (Chrono)

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:I agree with viquing.Regarding phantasm although I didn't play it it was a type of play like all the others and all it needed was the nerf to prevent summoning while stealthing that was introduced later.The phantasm rework, and I know Quadox agrees with this, was all awful and a huge nerf even to shatter mes.Regarding clone death, it was a beautiful mechanic that represent what mesmers are supposed to be, kill clones and you'll avoid shatter but you'll hurt yourself, let clones be and you'll avoid hurting yourself but a shatter is incoming.The only thing it needed was to prevent clones from exploding while overwritten.

I disagree on two statements.

First, summoning Illusions from stealth shouldn't prevented. It is no different than covering the cast of other skills by stealthing up. The issue was staying in stealth which they fixed by adding (unfortunately mostly unimaginative or useless) attacks to Phantasm summons.

Second, on death traits are in no way a beautiful mechanic nor what Mesmers are supposed to be. Mesmers, if you really need to bring it down to its bare bones, are about Illusions and Shatters. There are not about auto-punishing people who try to counter their game-mechanic. It is like saying that people hitting Necros in Shroud should get penalties for doing so because they are depleting their LF. It's somewhat like wanting an anti-unblockable-skill to counter unblockable skill. Or encouraging Rangers to let their pet die because it is a more successful way to play than actually using it.

I do agree that the rework did change Shatter builds. However, it mainly changed the flow of gameplay. It didn't make it worse by default. They added Clone generation in several places to make up for the loss of instantly shattering Phantasms (which was bad game design...). If those other options are not enough, why should talk about it and not condemn the approach of the rework.

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Mesmers should have had the F skills reworked on both chrono and mirage, that would have prevent the stall gameplay that we're facing almost since the game was release, the is zero difference playing mes, chrono and mirage.

I do agree that ANet was mainly successful on the concept of Mesmers e-specs rather than the implementation. Those were very lazy. However, that doesn't change the fact that we have more styles to play now and that on death traits wouldn't have made it any better. ;)

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

@Xaylin.1860 said:

@"Curunen.8729" said:Chrono: shatters changed to create pbaoe effects around the player only, that move with the player (like necro), with durations etc depending on number of clones "shattered". Can range from damage oriented stuff similar to well of calamity to time manipulating fields etc, and CSplit could just be F4.

I like this idea.

Also, if they wanted to give CS a drawback: You could deal (but also receive) 50% less damage while shifted in time. This would still enable interesting moves but avoid CS from being exploited for dublicating simple damage rotation in the respective time-frame.

@viquing.8254 said:

Never forget that core was cut from a third of his gameplay while they removed on death traits [...]

And I'd never want to see them return, seriously...Why ? Can't find a good reason apart the bad synergy with 2 traits.Was it op ? 240 radius, only damage where 2/3 bleeds stacks and 1 confusion.Was it passive ? clone never auto-pop with no actions.It was never on death traits who killed people but condi by clones auto during the forum gameplay destruction wave.[...]The problem I see with mirage and what I'm little frustrated about is that they give back a clone based spec after removed clone based gameplay on core. I mean core should never be left blowing with only 2/3 of his original gameplay.

I disagree on your assessment. While yes, we lost a mechanic when on death traits were removed, it never was anything I'd call a fully fleshed out playstyle. Mirage has its design flaws but Ambush skills and Infinte Horizon is way more than on death traits. I'm also in the 'Make IH baseline and rebalance Mirage'-camp due to this reason.

Why I don't want on death traits to return?

• While you could shatter those build heavily discouraged doing so and therefore neglected the whole class mechanic.
• It also discouraged using Phantasms, another core mechanic of the class.
• It wasn't really active gameplay considering you just pooped out Illusions regardless of what you did.
• It encouraged very high stealth uptime which made it even more passive.
• It had close to no counterplay because it was unblockable (while I disagree the damage itself was a problem)
• (At least back then) Those trait hold back further class developement.

@viquing.8254 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.

Yes, you could classify builds in those ways back then. But how does evaluate wether a class is in a good state or not? Both, Phantasm builds back then and on death builds avoided or totally neglected using the class mechanic. That's a major design flaw. The rework might not have solved all issues but it was a great improvement on the overall state of the class.

On a different note, we still (or yet again) have those gameplay styles:

• Shatter (base and Chrono)
• Clone (Mirage)
• Phantasm (mainly Chrono because of Chronophantasma)

We also gained at least one: Support/Tank (Chrono)

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:I agree with viquing.Regarding phantasm although I didn't play it it was a type of play like all the others and all it needed was the nerf to prevent summoning while stealthing that was introduced later.The phantasm rework, and I know Quadox agrees with this, was all awful and a huge nerf even to shatter mes.Regarding clone death, it was a beautiful mechanic that represent what mesmers are supposed to be, kill clones and you'll avoid shatter but you'll hurt yourself, let clones be and you'll avoid hurting yourself but a shatter is incoming.The only thing it needed was to prevent clones from exploding while overwritten.

I disagree on two statements.

First, summoning Illusions from stealth shouldn't prevented. It is no different than covering the cast of other skills by stealthing up. The issue was staying in stealth which they fixed by adding (unfortunately mostly unimaginative or useless) attacks to Phantasm summons.

Second, on death traits are in no way a beautiful mechanic nor what Mesmers are supposed to be. Mesmers, if you really need to bring it down to its bare bones, are about Illusions and Shatters. There are not about auto-punishing people who try to counter their game-mechanic. It is like saying that people hitting Necros in Shroud should get penalties for doing so because they are depleting their LF. It's somewhat like wanting an anti-unblockable-skill to counter unblockable skill. Or encouraging Rangers to let their pet die because it is a more successful way to play than actually using it.

I do agree that the rework did change Shatter builds. However, it mainly changed the flow of gameplay. It didn't make it worse by default. They added Clone generation in several places to make up for the loss of instantly shattering Phantasms (which was bad game design...). If those other options are not enough, why should talk about it and not condemn the approach of the rework.

Stealth is beyond awful in gw2, it's by far the worst stealth implementation in mmos.Not only it has no drawbacks but it even has benefits and it's so prominent.No skill should by allowed to be cast and remaining on stealth.

As for clone death, no, mesmer is supposed to make the opponent make choices and whatever the choice is he'll get punished for it. It is a profession design to be akin to blue counterspell deck in MtG.That's why mesmer was the most inventive and loved profession in GW. Some of the stuff still is there in form of confusion, rupts but most is either gone through design or through patches (clone death).

[praqtos.9035]

What exactly you want to 'trade-off' from core mesmer which is actually more than dead? With all recent nerfs barely can find themRevenant has no trade off at all despite it being the most broken class in the entire game. Does it make any sense ?Other classes give nothing or trade alrdy worse class mechanic for upgraded-way more powerful .

[viquing.8254]

@Xaylin.1860 said:Why I don't want on death traits to return?

• While you could shatter those build heavily discouraged doing so and therefore neglected the whole class mechanic.
• It also discouraged using Phantasms, another core mechanic of the class.
• It wasn't really active gameplay considering you just pooped out Illusions regardless of what you did.
• It encouraged very high stealth uptime which made it even more passive.
• It had close to no counterplay because it was unblockable (while I disagree the damage itself was a problem)
• (At least back then) Those trait hold back further class developement.

@viquing.8254 said:

@Quadox.7834 said:Of course every mesmer build use and rely on shatters, it is literally mesmer's profession skill. Are you also asking to play engi without ever using toolbelt skills, thief without using steal, and so on?Ok let's talk about 3 main ways to play before HoT :

• Phantasm who were principally based on buffing phantasm then maintain/refresh them, thoses builds used little shatter and clone death.
• Clone death who were principally based on clone production, thoses builds use little phantasm and shatter.
• Shatter who were based principally on illusions production to shatter, thoses builds used little phantasm and clone death.Yes, you could classify builds in those ways back then. But how does evaluate wether a class is in a good state or not? Both, Phantasm builds back then and on death builds avoided or totally neglected using the class mechanic. That's a major design flaw. The rework might not have solved all issues but it was a great improvement on the overall state of the class.Ok then we do not agree about what is the mesmer class mechanic.
  IMO shatter aren't our class mechanic. Illusions are.
  Shatter is just a type of gameplay of playing our class mechanic. Like clones or phantasm were.And the problem begin when we have only one way to play our class mechanic. Because other gameplay were neglected/removed.Therefore you can play clones, phantasm, shatter.Like steal was thief class mechanic then he can play evade, teleport, stealth.

On a different note, we still (or yet again) have those gameplay styles:

• Shatter (base and Chrono)
• Clone (Mirage)
• Phantasm (mainly Chrono because of Chronophantasma)Yes I totally agree
  but
  fact is that they removed theses gameplay on core to put it in elites. Hence my frustration.We also gained at least one: Support/Tank (Chrono)

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:I agree with viquing.Regarding phantasm although I didn't play it it was a type of play like all the others and all it needed was the nerf to prevent summoning while stealthing that was introduced later.The phantasm rework, and I know Quadox agrees with this, was all awful and a huge nerf even to shatter mes.Regarding clone death, it was a beautiful mechanic that represent what mesmers are supposed to be, kill clones and you'll avoid shatter but you'll hurt yourself, let clones be and you'll avoid hurting yourself but a shatter is incoming.The only thing it needed was to prevent clones from exploding while overwritten.I disagree on two statements.First, summoning Illusions from stealth shouldn't prevented. It is no different than covering the cast of other skills by stealthing up. The issue was staying in stealth which they fixed by adding (unfortunately mostly unimaginative or useless) attacks to Phantasm summons.Second, on death traits are in no way a beautiful mechanic nor what Mesmers are supposed to be. Mesmers, if you really need to bring it down to its bare bones, are about Illusions and Shatters. There are not about auto-punishing people who try to counter their game-mechanic. It is like saying that people hitting Necros in Shroud should get penalties for doing so because they are depleting their LF. It's somewhat like wanting an anti-unblockable-skill to counter unblockable skill. Or encouraging Rangers to let their pet die because it is a more successful way to play than actually using it.

On death trait considered apart from the PU synergy were all about positionning you and ennemies. (Also single target distance counter it.) But many people just focus on the PU+condi+on death build.Cripple on death was used in nearly every shatter builds.

I do agree that the rework did change Shatter builds. However, it mainly changed the flow of gameplay. It didn't make it worse by default. They added Clone generation in several places to make up for the loss of instantly shattering Phantasms (which was bad game design...). If those other options are not enough, why should talk about it and not condemn the approach of the rework.Worse or not it make shatter the only way to play.

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:Mesmers should have had the F skills reworked on both chrono and mirage, that would have prevent the stall gameplay that we're facing almost since the game was release, the is zero difference playing mes, chrono and mirage.

I do agree that ANet was mainly successful on the concept of Mesmers e-specs rather than the implementation. Those were very lazy. However, that doesn't change the fact that we have more styles to play now and that on death traits wouldn't have made it any better. ;)Yes but mirage clone orientation should be what still be in core replacement of clone gameplay.