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Chronomancer changes need a hotfixing


Provocative.3561

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Hi, i am a Mesmer main sitting in platinum, with being in the top 25 back when leaderboards were around... with roughly 9k mesmer games and ~6k wins.

i am clearly saying that with the current changes to chronomancer, i believe a hotfix is needed immediately. Illusionary persona should be brought back to chronomancer and separate continuum shift from distortion bringing back 5 shatter abilities.

Originally when the game came out, illusionary persona was essential for any shatter mesmer. It allows a mesmer to shatter on contact, like blink diversion and to distortion on call when needed while setting up either mind wrack bursts and or condi bursts with cry of frustration. This essential trait was added by popular demand of the mesmer community and has hence forth been a key to their overall success. The problem with mesmer was they were not able to really shatter, with all the aoe our clones would instantly be destroyed and in a pinch we were not able to use skills that are core to every mesmer just because we didn't have clones? With the added illusionary persona being baseline, mesmer have been able to create plays or turn around a fight with and more importantly, without clones.

Now chronomancer was stripped of distortion and illusionary persona? How does even make sense when mesmer didn't need clones to shatter. We can't use our core skills because we dont have clones? That is a problem revisiting prior to the 2015 patch where illusionary persona became baseline for all mesmers. Chronomancer does not feel like a mesmer, it feels outdated and backwards. Instead of creating sick plays and turning around fights with shatters, im simply not able to shatter. There is too much going on in the game currently, for chronomancer to be forced to shatter without illusionary persona. Here's why, with every class basically aoe cleaving, clones become destroyed instantaneously, thus not allowing chronomancer to use its core skills? That would be like thief not being to steal or a gaurdian being locked out of virtues. That is beyond frustrating and doesn't seem right. right? The other issues is that i cant instantly shatter phantasms anymore(i spoke about this before), thus once casted i can no longer shatter them for shatter affects, i am forced to wait for them to finish and then wait for them to generate a clone then shatter, that is problematic when building up illusions for powerful shatters(that change ultimately paved the way for phantasm mesmers to rise in power, while it hurt shatter mesmers who just shattered the phantasm for a more powerful affect).When trying to shatter on chronomancer, it felt fluid... now it feels outdated and clunky. Chronomancer cannot distortion which is a major issue and cannot shatter without clones...

I recommend seriously hotfixing chronomancer, either reverting the current changes. Or simply giving back illusionary persona and separating distortion from continuum shift and allowing chronomancer 5 shatter skills.

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Agreed. I could live without distortion but lack of IP is too strong. The game has evolved into both more active and mobile combat. Clones just insta die and cannot keep up. They just killed all chrono builds, even the non-meta one.

Good solution would be to rework chrono shatters to powerful spells and make all shatter effects cast on player. (Still requires clones to cast)

Or

Trait that benefits from dead clones

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My assessment is that clone reliance for the profession as a whole is a problem, they should not be able to be killed or targeted, but neither should they apply any kind of damage, all damage should be funneled through the Mesmer; including shatter damage, by way of on next hit effects. Target breaks should make the Mesmer not targetable for a brief duration. A few traits would need adjusting (rending shatters, cry of pain, time catches up). This would solve basically all of the issues with clones, being distracting for enemies and a destroyable resource for Mesmers, of all kinds, Mirage and Chrono included.

Several Mesmer effects and condition applying auto attacks would likely need to be boosted based on the number of clones in play (sword auto combo boon strips, conditions applied by weapons). All this revolving around the idea of less passive effects applied by AI and require at least facing our enemy, but also indicating to the enemy that the Mesmer has more damage up when clones are up.

This is my hope and dream, because I want the profession normalized a bit and the perception of the profession changed (not OP anymore, clones not a distraction, damage telegraphed and avoidable).

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How about this, for chrono to be distinguished from base mesmer and mirage, if shatters worked different. For example what if all shatters worked like continuum split? All shatters would take place on the mesmer and leave a mark behind. If the mark is destroyed, the effect ends. All shatters would pulse around the mesmer, F1 pulse damage, F2 pulse confusion and F3 daze. Shattering more clones would prolong the effect. With these changes I think we could bring F4, Ip and shattering without clones back. As the effect could be stopped from outside by destroying the mark there would be counter play and a distinguished downside.

But as Delofasht.4231 said, maybe it is time to revisit clones in general. They are the main culprit why mesmer is general underperforming in wvw. Clones are cleaved too fast. I think we all know the situation. One or two mesmer per Zerg anymore simply won’t help as you don’t need more vails, and they can’t bring much to the table. They can’t use their class skills to the fullest. The whole skill packet is balanced around small scale 5v5 pvp. Their class identity simply is not up for anything else. And no other class has to suffer from a similar epitome. Does warrior loose adrenaline through random hits? Are guardians tomes deactivated through cleave? Only ranger I would think is and was in a similar situation.

Edit: Just a small thought that cam to me by the end of writing, what if the clone counter was replaced by some kind of energy bar. Every time a clone gets up you get energy, and can use this to shatter. So you wouldn't loos everything the moment the clones are destroid. Of course it would need some balance adjustments but your clones would behave more like a ressource an be no longer just fodder. This might also help in pve as you no longer would loose everything the moment a enemy dies and your clones dissapear.

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Agreed 300%, please give us back Illusionary Persona and all 5 shatter skills. They're really mandatory to the chrono gameplay, not just that chrono is quite weaker without them and often doesn't stand a chance against other classes, it's simply no fun and pure frustration. The changes to F1, F2 and F3 would fine imho, with a bit of tweaking and balancing. But as it stands now, I'm about to drop my favourite class with over 9000 hours of playtime since I'm really, truly and utterly frustrated. Maybe I should stop playing GW2.

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@AllNightPlayer.1286 said:Do Chronomancers’ clones come with 100 % more health or how am I supposed to shatter them in WvW zergfights? Maybe it is time for clones to get the 90 % damage reduction from PvE, if they are not directly targeted.

At least in WvW, this is necessary. Chronomancer is pretty much useless without clones, so it's imperative that their clones should last more than a blink.

The suggestion from Mithos is also sound, as it allows shatter usage based on clones spawned and is not reliant on the clones surviving to do so.

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@Delofasht.4231 said:My assessment is that clone reliance for the profession as a whole is a problem, they should not be able to be killed or targeted, but neither should they apply any kind of damage, all damage should be funneled through the Mesmer; including shatter damage, by way of on next hit effects. Target breaks should make the Mesmer not targetable for a brief duration. A few traits would need adjusting (rending shatters, cry of pain, time catches up). This would solve basically all of the issues with clones, being distracting for enemies and a destroyable resource for Mesmers, of all kinds, Mirage and Chrono included.

Several Mesmer effects and condition applying auto attacks would likely need to be boosted based on the number of clones in play (sword auto combo boon strips, conditions applied by weapons). All this revolving around the idea of less passive effects applied by AI and require at least facing our enemy, but also indicating to the enemy that the Mesmer has more damage up when clones are up.

This is my hope and dream, because I want the profession normalized a bit and the perception of the profession changed (not OP anymore, clones not a distraction, damage telegraphed and avoidable).

I would love something like this.

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Power Chrono here. I have mained power mesmer, eventually turning into chrono as soon as it was released. I have quietly sat through nerf after nerf while the broken mirage has been buffed. I have changed my build around all of the previous nerfs and been the one fighting tooth and nail to keep chrono a thing. Im so salty right now...... this 100% broke the class and im done. Only thing this class is viable for, sort of, is condi and well... we all know how us power builds feel about condi builds. I get anet wants people to buy their Xpacs and use their "latest and greatest" but this is bullshit when we are literally being pushed into either going back to core mesmer or "moving up" to mirage. They broke the class so bad we don't even have the option. As bad as it was in zergs pre "balance patch" I was still able to get in, hit the backline and get out (most of the time). Now that I cant use shatters let alone the 1s of distortion because lets face it, clones dont last long enough in a zerg to get anything more than the bare minimum, I am useless and can do nothing besides for throw a few zerkers from the backline. Anet killed roaming and now they killed my class. Hot fix this back and stop trying to add new class mechanics when you cant even balance the ones you have now. At least get your damn balance team on the same page. Im done with this damn game until chrono is fixed.

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I mained Mesmer for 6 years and chrono for as long as I can remember.. Every change was like "oh, okay, well that's bad but it's fine, I'll get over it". Time after time.This last patch.. I tried going to core mesmer and found it is actually BETTER besides feeling very sluggish without the boons and 25% passive minor trait. Still, it doesn't make up for the CS and extra phantasm cast.The loss of self-shattering is very impactful in a negative way.The loss of Distortion on top of that just seals the deal for me. Why have a one second distortion after using CS which is on a 105 second cooldown? Or 90 something with the trait. But still.. One second duration?

To me, this ruined the only profession in the game that I liked and learned to love. After this, it's broken. Sadly, I stripped my character down to try to play something else but cannot. So... I'm officially done with this game. :(

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@Genesis.7864 said:This last patch.. I tried going to core mesmer and found it is actually BETTER besides feeling very sluggish without the boons and 25% passive minor trait. Still, it doesn't make up for the CS and extra phantasm cast.

I might make another separate thread for this, pre-patch I remember roughly listing numbers as:

  • DT chrono (enemy w/ slow): 37k
  • Non DT chrono (enemy w/o slow): ~30k
  • Core mes: ~27k
  • Mirage: ~24k? (lol)
  • Disclaimer: I’ve put ~ to indicate projected benchmarks since I am incapable of actually getting them myself, and no one else does them.

Post patch, all power builds got hit by an undocumented change to F1, but ‘no-slow’ chrono got hit the hardest because its F1 got a crazy 36% shave. Therefore post patch numbers would look something like:

  • Chrono w/ slow: 37k
  • No-slow Chrono: ~27-28k
  • Core mes: ~26k
  • Mirage: ~25k? :yum:

So even with the seemingly ridiculous trait Chronophantasma and Csplit, chrono w/o slow is not that much of a better pick than core.

What’s hidden behind the numbers is the fact how no-slow chrono’s benchmarks are boosted by its superbursts. It’s burst sits in the mid to high 30k’s, while it’s sustain dmg is now fairly garbage hovering around or below 20k. Core actually maintains a constant figure throughout, making it a clearly better choice for open world and similar scenarios where chronoburst is too excessive.

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@Richard Marcinko.5132 said:Between this patch and the Dec. 11th patch it's obvious that someone at Anet is seriously out to destroy this class.

I suspect that Robert Gee, the man behind chronomancer and Mirage, is no longer working on the balance team (or gw2 in general?). On the forums his last post was about the time they(he) did phantasm rework and I believe that's also his last piece of work that went into the game. It's sad to see that a man with the talent to design fun classes is no longer there.

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Right, Chrono is only better in Raids for support and tank (little iffy here now). But even with fractals, if going dps just use core mesmer, can't go wrong with the distortion and self-shatter.If in PvE: Go core mesmer, less stressful trying to maintain that Slow constantly for every enemy approached. And with the removal of Distortion, it's not as survivable in metas like DB Shatterer, Chak Gerent and many others.. Just gotta go back to using speed runes or traveler runes if wanting that sweet speed bonus.

Back in the day, there was at least a trait for self-shattering which I always used. Even when I had chrono.When the trait was given by default to mesmer: that's when builds really opened up. And now having that stripped from Chrono completely:Honestly, it feels as if we're being punished for even using Chrono

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@Kyley.9436 said:I have quietly sat through nerf after nerf while the broken mirage has been buffed.

Are we playing the same game? Both Condi and Power Mirage were brokenly overpowered at PoF launch, but Mirage has received nerf after nerf to the point where Power Mirage is underperforming compared to other classes and Condi Mirage is... less cancer. Imo the issue with mirage is and has always been Infinite Horizon which allows Condi Mirages to play passively 75% of the time and still deal damage. its reminiscent of the old Phantasm Mesmer and Conditions on clone death builds that Anet jumped through hoops to rid the game of. Back to the point, regardless of your feelings towards Mirage, lets not pretend that it hasn't received a litany of nerfs with no buffs to speak of except Dune Cloak.

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@Jables.4659 said:

@"Genesis.7864" said:

Back in the day, there was at least a trait for self-shattering which I always used. Even when I had chrono.

Illusionary Persona was removed from the game 4 months before Chronomancer existed. I agree though, the lack of IP on Chronomancer is trash tier.

Right. I quit then too. Lol. Mesmer is worthless without it since self shattering is very versatile in terms of tactical, offensive and defensive.I feel handicapped as Chrono now so I am not ever touching that "Elite" again. If anyone could even consider to call it that.Unless anet reverts just that change.. Otherwise why not remove FA from just Weaver, remove toolkits from Holosmith, remove every useful key component of each Elite and rename from "Elite Specialization" to "Handicapped Specialization" and call it a day.Everyone will go back to playing core builds for a little while until they realize this game is terribly unbalanced after all the nerfs and now it's no longer fun.

Balancing is what ultimately destroyed so many other MMOs. Balancing even broke Overwatch which isn't even an mmo but that's a lesson that needs to be learned.I'm fine with some builds being able to counter me in pvp. It's like in gw1. There are always counter builds which made teamwork more of a requirement than an option.Making pvp more of a soloable idea is the worst idea in the history of every mmo. It's not fun. It's impossible. Also it results in a lot of angry people who invested a lot of time and money in this game.As for PvE content: why make the game harder when that was the entire point of GW2 in comparison to GW1?We bought the expansions for these elite specializations which we've had for years now and finally are becoming nerfed each and every patch to become as weak or if not weaker than their core build. I can just imagine how this will negatively impact most metas, raids and fractals.I understand it'll make the game more challenging but there's a difference between "challenging" and "frustrating". To me: this nerf is incredibly frustrating.

Btw. I'm not saying that balancing is bad. I'm saying that constantly attempting to overbalance things will break other things in the process like a game of cat and mouse. Nothing will ever be perfectly balanced.. GW1 had balanced pvp and in a sense there were professions which far outperformed others. It just meant we had to use more communication.Pvp in gw2 lacks communication and each patch it's getting worse.The characters that get nerfed for "balancing" aren't the ones that need the nerfs.Sure chrono was strong in pvp. But why break it entirely in both pve and pvp?

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@Me Games Ma.8426 said:

@Richard Marcinko.5132 said:Between this patch and the Dec. 11th patch it's obvious that someone at Anet is seriously out to destroy this class.

I suspect that Robert Gee, the man behind chronomancer and Mirage, is no longer working on the balance team (or gw2 in general?). On the forums his last post was about the time they(he) did phantasm rework and I believe that's also his last piece of work that went into the game. It's sad to see that a man with the talent to design fun classes is no longer there.

That is what I said back in October in a bit more ardent manor and got infracted/banned from the forums for a bit.

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@Xstein.2187 said:

@Richard Marcinko.5132 said:Between this patch and the Dec. 11th patch it's obvious that someone at Anet is seriously out to destroy this class.

I suspect that Robert Gee, the man behind chronomancer and Mirage, is no longer working on the balance team (or gw2 in general?). On the forums his last post was about the time they(he) did phantasm rework and I believe that's also his last piece of work that went into the game. It's sad to see that a man with the talent to design fun classes is no longer there.

That is what I said back in October in a bit more ardent manor and got infracted/banned from the forums for a bit.

Wait what part of that got you bannes?Were you offensive regarding the other devs?

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