The positives after July 2019 balance patch

[Requiem.9648]

Only good thing positive about that patch his everytimes i will feel dumb i will remember somebody approved that patch.

[Documental.5946]

for/10char

[YtseJam.9784]

I think you are missing my point. I've never ran any meta builds, I'm disgusted by metabattle's existence and all the people that only play with the "meta" builds. I'm a PVE player, fractals, raids and casually do WvW and PvP. I never used IP, so I don't even care about it being removed or not. My biggest beef with this is that after the multiple attempts to nerf the class, they finally decided to redo the shatters to kill it completely and add this 1 illusion requirement years after being released. If this is the way it was intended, it should have been done years ago with HoT release, and not go redo it now. The trade-off is way too big, makes the whole class unappealing and weak. Why would anyone want this requirement JUST to do alacrity and quickness, which btw is the only thing the class can share now after the nerf to shared distortion and boon sharing? There was so much more to this class than an alacrity/quickness slave and it seems that it is now just reduced to that.

Historically speaking, one of the biggest issues core mesmer had before HoT came out was the lack of condi removal. The day ANET added the condi removal trait when you shatter, that made it very decent. I think that was the same time they added GS3 being an AoE. Anyways, with this new system, you can literally die from condis after you kill a mob in PvE for example, cause you simply cant shatter to remove condi anymore and you just sit there and wait til it runs out or you die since you are required to be in combat and targeting an enemy to be able to have an illusion. This limits the condi removal ability a lot, but core mesmer and mirage can still do it. Obviously this also applies to PvP and WvW scenarios, not just PVE. And we know that all PvP and WvW builds are mostly condi so this kills chrono entirely in those game types and forces you to either play core mesmer or mirage.

[YtseJam.9784]

Also, for those that really cared about IP, why just not do a simpler balance adjustment. Cap it at 3. Simple. Cap it at less on PvP and WvW like you do with other classes.

[musu.9205]

people were running shatter builds before metabttle was even a thing . Like most of old players know the mesmer inside and out for a long time .and IP wasn't meta in pve coz you shatter skills would destroy your sustain dmg source which was key in most pve dungeons until FGS ele team was discovered .

condi removal on shatter skills existed long before HoT , guess why no one runs it in pvp ? coz we had to take IP which was in illusion trait line ,dodge clone which was in duelist trait line, and few dmg boost traits from dom line . condi removal on shatter was /is in a support trait line . ofc no one was goingd to take it.GS 3 was always an AOE .

[Menaka.5092]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@"viquing.8254" said:Then my first question is :

Where were you when it was the time do defend gameplay diversity ?

Where was I? I was right here, arguing both on these forums and in much less public but much more direct avenues against restrictive and unnecessary changes to the class, for all the good it did. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the last remaining vet in a forum of fresh meat. Half the people you pinged were around here fighting back then too, and some of us actually

made

these builds that you mention as being removed.

LOL, I would say check our post history.

We had dozen of posts documenting how mesmer mechanics are utterly broken in large scale fights because of the reliance on shatters and illusions that would just be obliterated by random AoE. Back in the days, Illusionary Persona was pretty much required if you wanted to be able to at least use some of the secondary effects of shatters (cleansing, boons) even without reliable access to illusions.

Setting a requirement of at least one clone (you can't even shatter phantasms nowadays) means you can only play chrono in small scale scenarios where maybe some of your illusions will live long enough to give you a chance to use shatters.

Where are these small scale scenarios?

In Open World PVE you usually end up in giant events with dozens of squishy NPCs targeted by dozens or hundreds of AoE effects by other players, so your illusions will probably just die before you can even shatter.In WvW roaming and PVP Mirage is vastly superior to chrono.

So where does chrono shine now? The unification of F4 and F5 means the rotations are probably weird in raids and fractals, but I was never really into that so I'll let someone else chime in.

Frankly, I don't see how these changes makes for "better build diversity", but whatever floats your boat.

[icy.9250]

chrono has HIV? /s

apparently condi chrono can stack a reasonable amount of confusion, even if it may feel clunky now.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Menaka.5092 said:So where does chrono shine now? The unification of F4 and F5 means the rotations are probably weird in raids and fractals, but I was never really into that so I'll let someone else chime in.

In fractals, it's probably going to drop out of meta even more than it already has just because of how annoying it will be doing anything with shatters unless you're on a boss. While a significant amount of fractals revolves around boss fights, there's also a lot of content that doesn't, and that content can be very challenging if the wrong instabilities show up.

In raids, this change doesn't really impact the buff chrono setup too much. They did nerf shatter damage, so that'll lower the benchmarks for power chrono (and buff chrono but w/e). The main difference is that it becomes more difficult to upkeep personal alacrity since you can't use other shatters during CS or whatnot, you need the clones. Additionally, it means that you'll need to relearn your keybinds, which is a pain but not actually a performance ramification. The main impact is basically that a class that was already very clunky and finnicky to play (needing to wait for wells to expire for buffs, needing to assume sight-unseen that your SoI is working) becomes even more clunky to use.

Edit: Insofar as group WvW goes, our single chrono in a raid (the driver) is now no longer using chrono and will either be using base mesmer, mirage, or probably holosmith, we haven't fully decided yet.

[Cyninja.2954]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Menaka.5092 said:So where does chrono shine now? The unification of F4 and F5 means the rotations are probably weird in raids and fractals, but I was never really into that so I'll let someone else chime in.

In fractals, it's probably going to drop out of meta even more than it already has just because of how annoying it will be doing anything with shatters unless you're on a boss. While a significant amount of fractals revolves around boss fights, there's also a lot of content that doesn't, and that content can be very challenging if the wrong instabilities show up.

To expand on this, the only reason people stuck with chrono+druid before this last patch was unwillingness to adapt to Firebrigade and some top 1% players using chrono for skips in fractals mostly in static groups. This can be summarized as:

• 99% of the player base who remained with chrono+druid were to lazy to adapt (or lacked the ability to immediately gear another character)
• 1% were using skips and portal in their static groups to cut down on their faily fractal clear times

Firebrand+Renegade was the better setup for a while now with not only access to quickness, alacrity, fury and might (also way easier to apply) but also protection, stability and aegis as well as superior heals (on either if running with a healer comp) and higher damage paired with Soulbeasts. This composition can now basically just take a thief for the skips and be faster in every way. My static shifted to Firebrigade about 3 weeks ago, we have literally NEVER switched back even if someone was missing (we'd rather get a PUG Firebrand or Alacrigrade over going chrono+druid).

Chrono's ability to prestack was severly reduced making the necessity for proper stacking and decent rotation even higher. Compared to alacrigrade and firebrand who basically just need to press 1 button every couple of seconds while semi in range of their group.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:In raids, this change doesn't really impact the buff chrono setup too much. They did nerf shatter damage, so that'll lower the benchmarks for power chrono (and buff chrono but w/e). The main difference is that it becomes more difficult to upkeep personal alacrity since you can't use other shatters during CS or whatnot, you need the clones. Additionally, it means that you'll need to relearn your keybinds, which is a pain but not actually a performance ramification. The main impact is basically that a class that was already very clunky and finnicky to play (needing to wait for wells to expire for buffs, needing to assume sight-unseen that your SoI is working) becomes even more clunky to use.

Chrono loses ability to:

• shatter unused F skills inbetween summoning clones for additional alacrity
• shatter unused F skils to remove conditions on self
• use F4 as an emergency immunity when tanking
• use F4 to share aegis with party at will

Overall the gameplay becomes even more clunky and the room for error becomes even tighter making certain bosses even more annoying to tank. Less of an issue to experienced chronos or high end raiders (who don't tank on chrono in the first place). More of an issue to newer chronos and less experienced groups.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Edit: Insofar as group WvW goes, our single chrono in a raid (the driver) is now no longer using chrono and will either be using base mesmer, mirage, or probably holosmith, we haven't fully decided yet.

As Teapot put it (or Roy on his stream, not sue which of both): as long as chrono has Illusion of Life, Feedback Pull and Gravity Well (I would add Veil and Portal even if both have become lackluster) he can be naked with no skills and 1-2 would still get taken in blobs. As far as being useful outside of those utilities: nope.

[Dadnir.5038]

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.

Mesmer

wasn't used in PvE, unless you call taking an fgs from elementalist and portaling the real classes to the next fight being "used". Even in very niche situations, phantasm builds were extremely weak until well into HoT when they added a number of phantasm buffing traits.

Pretty sure you're forgeting about a lot of things here... Be it in speed run (where obviously elementalists were dominant) or more regular runs, the mesmer was an interesting choice for it's ability to reflect projectiles, grant quickness to the whole group and skipping mobs. Generally, a great pick in CM, arah and SE. It was also a good pick in TA and a carry pick in CoF. It wasn't exceptionnal in AC, HotW and CoE. As for fractals, Mesmers were great pick for almost all fractals mainly due to reflect and mob packing (focus).

It wasn't meta as elementalist was but no profession was meta as elementalist was at that time. Before HoT kicked elementalist was god tier and a bit behind you had thief warrior and mesmer on the same tier adding some QoL to the elementalists. Guardian and Engineer could occasionally be taken while Rangers and Necromancers were a "no go!".

I dare say that mesmers were in a pretty good spot in PvE. Not top DPS, but they added enough QoL to the group to make them valuable.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:

• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.

Mesmer

wasn't used in PvE, unless you call taking an fgs from elementalist and portaling the real classes to the next fight being "used". Even in very niche situations, phantasm builds were extremely weak until well into HoT when they added a number of phantasm buffing traits.

Pretty sure you're forgeting about a lot of things here... Be it in speed run (where obviously elementalists were dominant) or more regular runs, the mesmer was an interesting choice for it's ability to reflect projectiles, grant quickness to the whole group

and

skipping mobs. Generally, a great pick in CM, arah and SE. It was also a good pick in TA and a carry pick in CoF. It wasn't exceptionnal in AC, HotW and CoE. As for fractals, Mesmers were great pick for almost all fractals mainly due to reflect and mob packing (focus).

It wasn't meta as elementalist was but no profession was meta as elementalist was at that time. Before HoT kicked elementalist was god tier and a bit behind you had thief warrior and mesmer on the same tier adding some QoL to the elementalists. Guardian and Engineer could occasionally be taken while Rangers and Necromancers were a "no go!".

I dare say that mesmers were in a pretty good spot in PvE. Not top DPS, but they added enough QoL to the group to make them valuable.

Mesmer was basically carried around as a utility bot. You couldn't deal damage, and it was kinda cute when you tried (outside of reflects). You brought mesmers along because they contained all the utility you needed in a nice little package. They'd stealth you past skippable encounters, portal you past the rest of them, drop time warp to make the real classes dps faster, yank things into corners to help the real classes dps them, drop reflects as needed so that the rest of the party could ignore things, and strip boons in the incredibly rare cases when that was needed.

However, this felt extremely weird. Remember that in the pre-hot world, tanking/pure support builds/heal builds did not exist, it simply wasn't an optimal concept in GW2. The party comps were damage, more damage, additional damage, even more damage, and that one wimpy mesmer you bring along because you didn't want to bother doing mechanics yourself. It was a very strange role that didn't even remotely fit the game, and it didn't feel good.

[Dadnir.5038]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.

Mesmer

wasn't used in PvE, unless you call taking an fgs from elementalist and portaling the real classes to the next fight being "used". Even in very niche situations, phantasm builds were extremely weak until well into HoT when they added a number of phantasm buffing traits.

Pretty sure you're forgeting about a lot of things here... Be it in speed run (where obviously elementalists were dominant) or more regular runs, the mesmer was an interesting choice for it's ability to reflect projectiles, grant quickness to the whole group

and

skipping mobs. Generally, a great pick in CM, arah and SE. It was also a good pick in TA and a carry pick in CoF. It wasn't exceptionnal in AC, HotW and CoE. As for fractals, Mesmers were great pick for almost all fractals mainly due to reflect and mob packing (focus).

It wasn't meta as elementalist was but no profession was meta as elementalist was at that time. Before HoT kicked elementalist was god tier and a bit behind you had thief warrior and mesmer on the same tier adding some QoL to the elementalists. Guardian and Engineer could occasionally be taken while Rangers and Necromancers were a "no go!".

I dare say that mesmers were in a pretty good spot in PvE. Not top DPS, but they added enough QoL to the group to make them valuable.

Mesmer was basically carried around as a utility bot. You couldn't deal damage, and it was kinda cute when you tried (outside of reflects). You brought mesmers along because they contained all the utility you needed in a nice little package. They'd stealth you past skippable encounters, portal you past the rest of them, drop time warp to make the real classes dps faster, yank things into corners to help the real classes dps them, drop reflects as needed so that the rest of the party could ignore things, and strip boons in the incredibly rare cases when that was needed.

Do you even have a clue of how much damage reflect could do? With just the mesmer reflect you could destroy the 3 golem in SE path 1, you could basically kill lupicus in seconds and quite a few other things like that. That was a lot more efficient than dropping a conjured weapon, stacking in a corner and spin to win.

However, this felt extremely weird. Remember that in the pre-hot world, tanking/pure support builds/heal builds did not exist, it simply wasn't an optimal concept in GW2. The party comps were damage, more damage, additional damage, even more damage, and that one wimpy mesmer you bring along because you didn't want to bother doing mechanics yourself. It was a very strange role that didn't even remotely fit the game, and it didn't feel good.

You're litterally dwarfing the mesmer's contribution because "it wasn't the mesmer personnal direct damage". Mesmers were incredible support that could protect effectively their team, buff their team, let their team skip unnecessary fight and some time put the best dps of the game to shame thanks to reflect. You can call that bad, weird or whatever, but at the end of the day it was super effective and valuable. Conjure weapon was the elementalist gimmick, reflect was mesmer's. Their is no reason to dwarf one if you aknowledge the other.

NB.: Another important point is that elementalists can't wield 2 conjure weapon at the same time, thus a character like mesmer wielding a conjure weapon in fight that last seconds wasn't a "bad" thing.

[Trepidation Lost.3469]

There aren’t any ?????

[viquing.8254]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@"viquing.8254" said:If it's a first step to something no shatter based it can only be good.

They seems to change this point of view recently, like with mirage clones ambush.

I exceeded the hope stage yeah but again, it seems to me that they start changing their mind concerning the shatter or nothing aspect.

And I already stated that the rework isn't finished yet because yes there is some problems.

We will see but when I look at the master of manipulation change, first I think : "omg we can't reflect anymore (particulary thief ulti.)". Then I see that it solves the best core weakness so I don"t know, I hope the balance team has changed since 2015 because all recent change aren't that bad.

Just kinda cherry-picking the relevant quotes here. I partially spoke to this in my other reply, but I think this bears repeating. You are operating under the assumption that this patch represents some kind of drastic change of heart within the Anet balance team regarding their intentions for mesmer gameplay, and I think that's both naive and incredibly incorrect. This "rework"

is

finished. They didn't say "oh this is the first step of a longer rework to balance chrono". They said "we've done a thing to chrono". Just like I mentioned in the other post, mirage has been changed several times to make sure that shatters are required for good gameplay. This change doesn't reduce the chrono reliance on shatters, it just makes it harder to use. Chrono shatters are still absolutely vital for producing self-alacrity, dealing damage, and proccing any number of other shatter-related traits.

Like it or not, they're done with chrono until the next time they decide to completely rework it again, and they have no intention of moving us away from a shatter-centric playstyle. This is

exactly

the same balance team that they had in 2015, and they haven't learned a single kitten thing since then.

How can you say the rework is finished with chrono unplayable in PvE and WvW (and probably in PvP after I finished all my tests.) ?I mean we all agree that there is something to be done, for me it's not IP back, for other it is, but for the moment I didn't read a post who say ok guys, all is fine now.

About the orientation change, I'm convinced that they start getting out of shatter monogameplay since PoF release. The futur will tell who is right.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@viquing.8254 said:

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@viquing.8254 said:If it's a first step to something no shatter based it can only be good.

They seems to change this point of view recently, like with mirage clones ambush.

I exceeded the hope stage yeah but again, it seems to me that they start changing their mind concerning the shatter or nothing aspect.

And I already stated that the rework isn't finished yet because yes there is some problems.

We will see but when I look at the master of manipulation change, first I think : "omg we can't reflect anymore (particulary thief ulti.)". Then I see that it solves the best core weakness so I don"t know, I hope the balance team has changed since 2015 because all recent change aren't that bad.

Just kinda cherry-picking the relevant quotes here. I partially spoke to this in my other reply, but I think this bears repeating. You are operating under the assumption that this patch represents some kind of drastic change of heart within the Anet balance team regarding their intentions for mesmer gameplay, and I think that's both naive and incredibly incorrect. This "rework"

is

finished. They didn't say "oh this is the first step of a longer rework to balance chrono". They said "we've done a thing to chrono". Just like I mentioned in the other post, mirage has been changed several times to make sure that shatters are required for good gameplay. This change doesn't reduce the chrono reliance on shatters, it just makes it harder to use. Chrono shatters are still absolutely vital for producing self-alacrity, dealing damage, and proccing any number of other shatter-related traits.

Like it or not, they're done with chrono until the next time they decide to completely rework it again, and they have no intention of moving us away from a shatter-centric playstyle. This is

exactly

the same balance team that they had in 2015, and they haven't learned a single kitten thing since then.

How can you say the rework is finished with chrono unplayable in PvE and WvW (and probably in PvP after I finished all my tests.) ?I mean we all agree that there is something to be done, for me it's not IP back, for other it is, but for the moment I didn't read a post who say ok guys, all is fine now.

About the orientation change, I'm convinced that they start getting out of shatter monogameplay since PoF release. The futur will tell who is right.

The bulk of changes to the mesmer class throughout the history of the game have made it less playable in a variety of game modes, why would they start caring now? Obviously I could be wrong, they could have some grand plan to actually fix the problems they just created, but I really doubt it. That's not the balance team I know.

[Terrorhuz.4695]

@viquing.8254

my first question is : Where were you when it was the time do defend gameplay diversity ?

I wasn't playing gw2

---

You can always play shatter burst like usual on core.

Good luck going against EVERYTHING with vanilla mesmer in PvP.

---

Obviously if you try to play the new chrono like before (with the same gameplay), it shouldn't work and feel weak. (Yeah the stealthy burst didn't work anymore for example.)

There is no way this mess could ever possibly work. It is just garbage.

---

One of the main problem with this patch is that anet conditionned every mesmers to use/play shatter with IP since 2015 and nearly every main traits are about this.

As a mesmers to deal damage I can either use shatters, phantasms or condition.

• Shatters don't work anymore
• phantasms die once they attack (still salty about that because I liked phantasms back then, but changing them made sense). Also they are super fragile and FFS I CAN'T POSSIBLY DEAL DAMAGE WITH 2 SKILLS.
• condition builds exist but mirager and scourge are superior in every aspect of that build.What tf am I even supposed to do?

---

Even if this patch chrono isn't viable, on the long run, it's good to not give IP back because it has the potential to provide other type of gameplay than just an "improved core".

IT HAD an other type of gameplay. Removing IP turns it into a downgraded version of the vanilla mesmer.

---

As for everything else, I'm glad you like the new system.As for me, though, I'm not gonna be a sommelier of garbage; this patch is a mess and I'm not going to play this stuff. I was thinking of buying PoF, but I'm not gonna be forced to pay just because they poured shit on my main character.That's just a game, after all: if it ever gets boring I go play something else."MAYBE IF YOU PLAY IT LONG ENOUGH YOU WILL ENJOY IT"; I don't owe ANet a damn thing. I'm here to have a good time and the devs are no relative of mine. You don't get an award for being a faithful player; you are, if anything, a dumb customer for playing a game you don't enjoy out of sheer sense of duty because "you have to endure". No you don't.

I didn't even want to get into an argument, I came to this forum just to post my (angry) opinion about this ugly mess they call an update and forget this whole thing until they give me IP back.And I'm not even the kind of player which complains after every patch; there HAVE been ugly updates in the past, but they overall made some sense, each one of them, and it was something you could cope with. They were, I repeat, ugly, but ugly is an opinion, and garbage is a fact. This is not a patch, it's a massacre of a class which was already being overwhelmed by everything to begin with.

TLDR: GLHF I don't have to deal with this crap, gonna play something else until the devs can come up with anything resembling common sense.

[Michram.6853]

Don't give Anet more reasons to nerf it!

[Mikkel.8427]

Actual Positives-

1) Chono's new shatter effects are gorgeous.2) I no longer need to purchase a Equinox Shield skin to match my Mesmer's new outfit because there is no reason for me to use Chrono specialization in its current state.

[Xstein.2187]

@viquing.8254In addition to what has been said already, look at it this way.As a result of this patch, what else was also indirectly nerfed?

Rending Shatter: NerfedShattered Concentration: NerfedRestorative Illusions: NerfedMaim the Disillusioned: Nerfed

All of these traits are balanced based on shattering with clones and Illusionary Persona. Therefore, anyone currently playing chrono is going to get less use out of those traits than if they were playing other trait lines. You can balance these traits based on using Illusionary Persona and you can balance these traits based on NOT using Illusionary Persona. However, you can't do both at the same time. Consequently, this is largely the same problem I see a lot of people make when they try to design their own elite specs with new F1 skills. Either they make the traits mentioned above OP or they make it so they are vastly less useful than they are intentionally balanced for. The idea would be to balance new elite specs so that they use the F1 skills at roughly the same timing as current shatters. However, consequently, in the case of chrono with no IP, cutting the use of these traits by 25% or more (since the chances of you shattering with 3 clones isn't the same as shattering with 1 clone), causes some other major nerfs and disequilibrium in other sectors as well. I get it that alacrity can decrease shatter recharge rate to push these discrepancies towards chrono a little bit. However, alacrity (@ 25%) can't reliably be on you 100% of the time in a PvP match and alacrity can't make sure you always have a clone up 100% of the time to reliably use your F1 skills. These are the things alacrity can't do.

The devs could have created novel F1 skills without getting rid of Illusionary Persona that would have negated the 'burst' problem they had with chrono.However, they just didn't. Why? No one knows. However, a lot of their changes don't make perfect sense, so there you go.

[Requiem.9648]

Funny i read a lot of post of people try justify Anet and say it was their intention about mesmer/chrono/mirage using shatter skills for all type build. All right then sure. But before changing mechanic of F1-2-3-4-51.You guys SHOULD revise all the shatter effect traitline cause many of them become useless or near useless.2.You guys SHOULD also give a bit more allies buff base on those traitline. SOI as been nerf for month there his no reason to not buff allies other way around like chaos line.3.F-1-2-3-4 seem very similar to what it was they pretty much just change icons and name. At least it should give also extra allies buff cause why a Firebrand (Quickbrand) varian and a Renegade(Alacrigade) are better those give boon how WAS exclusive to chrono buff easyer on those class to share it on allies even up to 10 mans alacrity on a Renegade and both give a way higher string of buff.

Chronomancer should be master of (time) buff but in fact you only share that using wells how on a dynamic fight that useless.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

I'm getting a very similar "What the hell am I supposed to do?" feeling from mesmers as I do from engineers. Personally, I don't know much about mesmers. After trying unsuccessfully for several hours to replicate the benchmarks everyone else gets (and a particularly grueling session where I tried to mirror the opening burst for hours), I relegated my mesmer to the role of fractal boon bot. However, while doing boss rush on said boon bot, I spent a lot of time trying to conceptualize how mesmer will play in various game modes. Sometimes switching between my diviner and berserker setup, just to see how the different builds play. The short of it is that chrono now plays like it has been chained down.

I can't figure how out chrono is supposed to work in PVP and WvW anymore. Instead of using CS to burst with phantasms, you have to use the phantasms to get the clones to burst with... nothing left. They no longer have distortion for a quick defense, and Diversion (now Time Sink) can't be used to quickly interrupt a combo chain. So... both offense and defense gutted. Clones don't stay alive long enough in a zerg, so chronos are effectively cut off from their shatters. No more quick Double-Gravity Wells or Blinks to stay alive.

Another thing I noticed is that the DPS traits in the chronomancer line don't cooperate with one another. At the adept tier we have Time Catches Up, which only gives a minor boost to shatters. This works well in PVE because there, enemies don't cleanse their conditions. But in WvW, everyone is built for it, so this trait is nearly meaningless there. Hell, it's nearly meaningless in PVE, too, since it is just a 10% bonus, but there's nothing else to take. At the master tier we have Danger Time. It does additional critical damage against slowed enemies. Where does this slow come from? I don't know. Maybe you're expected to always fight under Time Warp. Maybe, after you use all of your phantasms to spawn clones, you'll get rid of your clones for Time Sink, and then from those 6 seconds of slow you generate 3 more clones, and then shatter those with Split Second (formerly Mind Wrack). The trait does little in PVE, and I don't imagine it doing much more in PvP/WvW. The final tier has Chronophantasma, a trait so strong that it kept getting nerfed, but thankfully it requires nothing else to cooperate.

This puts any sort of DPS build into a strange dilemma. To get Danger Time to work, you have to take Delayed Reactions (interrupt causes slow) and Lost Time (interrupt causes slow... but with DAMAGE)... thus forgoing the other DPS traits in the line. This anti-synergy is seen in the new Scrapper traits for the Engineer, where the DPS traits only work if you don't take the other DPS traits. But, if you do take Time Catches Up and Chronophantasma, you have no way to make use of Danger Time. This comes with all the caveats of using the interrupt traits, like how you get locked out of diversion, and how you have to slot mantra of distraction over blink/portal/veil/decoy/mirror images/Feedback/Power Cleanse/ any other of the enumerable skills that you'd want to take on mesmer in PVP/WvW. I don't know what the current chrono PVP/WvW build is, but looking at the traits it looks like all chronos are stuck taking Delayed Reactions, Illusionary Reversion, and Chronophantasma. Not because they're good traits (well, chronophantasma is), but because they're the least bad traits.

The thing that gets me about it is that, for most of these balance changes, Anet has some concept in mind for how they want the spec to play. Holosmiths aren't supposed to blow up no matter what their traits say, scrappers are supposed to be aggressive in-your-face fighters, condi revs were supposed to stick and commit in melee distance, and so on. But for Chronos, I have no idea what Anet was thinking. Well, beyond "nerf Chronomancer." How did Anet expect this class to get played in WvW? Or in PVP? What internal testing did Anet do before deciding that removing both Illusory Persona and Distortion alongside of nerfing Mind Wrack was a good idea?

[aetemes.2603]

Yeah...I really like f3 applying slow now. I'll be mad if they change that xD.