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Chrono Tradeoff. Is it good?


Me Games Ma.8426

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Hey everyone, I know that this topic is mesmer related and should have been posted on the mesmer sub forums. I'm not doing that because I'd like to hear everyones opinion and not just the opinion of mesmer mains.

I know I can not force you but would like you to explain your answer below.

EDIT: To be able to see the votes I had to vote myself but accidentally hit the wrong answer on my phone. :confused:My answer would be "No, the tradeoffs are bad."

EDIT 2: Why move this into the Mesmer forums? I even explained why I intentionally posted it in general profession sub. Now only mesmers will see it. Thanks moderator...

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I know I can not force you but would like you to explain your answer below.did the OP want to explain their answer?


I feel the same way about this that I do to every patch designed to destabilize the status quo: I need time to get used to the new mechanics before I think I can offer an informed opinion. Of course it's harder to use than before; that seems to have been the intent. I don't have high hopes, but then again, remember that when Chronomancer was first in BETA testing, no one expected it would become the go-to choice for raid tanking. And now we can't imagine life without it (with good reason, though).

tl;dr too soon to tell

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The trade-off for distortion hits a bit hard as it is. But taking away IP on top of it makes chrono unplayable in pvp / WvW / solo pve.It's still fine in groups like fractals / pve metas / raids. But it's tedious without self-shatter f1 to tag mobs when skills are on cooldown since the precast for greatsword is a bit delayed and sword mainhand has a delay. It's very difficult to get a hit in on trash mobs before everybody else annihilated them.For pvp: no more 1-shot bursting. They could have tuned this down to prevent the high burst but nope. Chrono is definitely not a pvp spec any more. Period.WvW it was only good for its gravity well and stacking wells on siege. It still is an option for that alongside with SOI but it's not good with combat vs other people. Pretty useless here..

It's very annoying and clunky to solo with now too. It's do-able but it's such a headache that picking core Mesmer is a MUCH better choice for soloing. Mirage is an excellent choice too, but your trade-off (as well as every other "Elite") is giving up one of the core traitline specs. And for mesmer: I can think of 4 really good core traitlines that are much better options over Chrono now and one of those which I'd rather have over Mirage. Unless in PvP seeing as Mirage has numerous skills to break enemy targeting making it a very formidable foe to any one.Chrono's still only usable in Raids as a tank. Sadly because of the SoI + Lesser SoI nerfs and nerfs to ToT.. This profession seriously lost its role for support in my eyes back in December. And now it lost its QoL for soloing.The dps in groups feels reduced too because of the self shatter. Of course if the enemy has Slow: it's all good. But having to use F3 (wasting a CC as well) in order to inflict Slow on the enemy. Then having to generate 3 more clones in order to F1 shatter to get the 33% bonus.I understand the idea behind this because it'll also synergize with Danger Time but wow, this is executed very poorly because using Chronophantasma causes phantasms to attack twice and we cannot shatter phantasms. Some of the time they even die, so no clone there.Really the best way to get clones now is wasting dodges with the trait in Dueling. So this is yet ANOTHER trade-off away from using Danger Time. Yes. This makes us have to waste yet another 2 trait slots to balance out for the clone on dodge.

In my opinion here:Open world PvE: either Core Mesmer or MirageT4 Fractals: Core Mesmer or MirageWvW: maybe get away with Chrono for buffing siege, but seriously stick with Mirage!PvP: Mirage hands down!Raids: Chrono as a janky tank. Mirage as Condi. Possibly get away with Chrono as power but don't expect great results. There other much better power profession options!

My recommendations: Firebrand is great for support / heal. Weaver is great for power. Now sure how Renegade got hit with condi but I liked using that one. Same goes with Soulbeast and Scourge.Reaper is still viable too even after the recent nerf.At this point: I'll play anything except Chrono now. What a waste of 4 years.

Tl; dr: this patch killed chrono in absolutely everything except Raids where it's still barely holding on by a thin thread as a Tank and in WvW where it can be used for a poor-man's siege support.

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No class can provide Quickness and Alacrity + extending boons while tanking and healing, so it kind of feels a lot, but if we took a closer look outside of PvE raids/fractals or outside of what the community is used to, we would find out other crazy options like FirebrandxScourge in WvW, etc.

The problem is the lack of others to fill in the same role a Chrono can, so the point was to allow others to participate and share what a Chrono can do. The idea from the first nerf patch was good, the execution wasn't, especially last patch. The problem would probably lie in the lack of different mechanics with which different tanks are needed. For example, if an encounter was a boon boss; SpB and Scourge, maybe Mesmy would see high play in such encounter, with Condi and Power phases/mobs related to mechanics that would make both SpB and Scourge a must. This barely exists; it's a boss standing in the middle facing the tank with circles around that need dodging... Nothing like a direct hit from the boss so that you would need a good SpB to rotate through all their shenanigans and avoid as much damage.

Since it's mostly the same for every boss, Chrono seems to do the job better and with the ability to provide and extend crucial boons, it will only see nerfs, but that's not the solution imo. The community won't swap out a Chrono with any other tank because the encounters don't ask for an other tank.

Druid faced the same thing; it had heals, boons and buffs. No matter how hard it's nerfed, all benchmarks are based on Druid and Warrior, so you're only enhancing secondary healers as none of them can beat Druid's buffs even if it hit like a noodle and gave boss boons.

Finally, PvE raids don't shape the entire meta. Distortion on CS is terrible in PvP/WvW, let alone that a clone needs to be up, even Mirage's clones as of the current situation are AoE'able with how many they are. Even if the patch shaved some of Chrono's reign, it killed it many other places, not like it was able to do much or contested on the meta within these areas.

Will I play Chrono or think about that in the future as to try something else... with the current situation, I think not.

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@"Illconceived Was Na.9781" said:

I know I can not force you but would like you to explain your answer below.did the OP want to explain their answer?

As mentioned in the "edit" of my original post I hit the wrong button on my phone I am acutally for "No, the Chronomancer tradeoffs are bad"

Yes, I will explain my personal opinion.In my opinion the desing of tradeoffs should be more simple thsn what they did with the chrono.Imo a good example on tradeoff is the reaper. Reapers lose range and a bit of their DS sustain and trade it off for more damage and cleave.

Dragonhunter works similar: Trade off instant speed for better effects.

Now what they did to chrono is something else. Chrono now has weaker (3 illusions instead of 4) shatters that are less accessible because of the requirement to have at least one clone.If we look at the pros and cons for each of the shatters compared to core mesmer.All:

  • Less trait interaction via: Shattered Concentration, Rending Shatters, Restoeative Illusions
  • Less access
  • more reliant on clones (which are AI and super squishy in both PvP game modes)
  • Better Icons

Mind Wrack

  • deals less damage than before. (Numbers can be found in Pyroatheist's thread in the mesmer Forum)
  • Requirement for slow to deal similar damage core mesmer does.

Cry of Frustration

  • Reduced damage and confusion applycation.
  • becomes spamable under ideal circumstances

Diversion

  • loses 1 bracket of hard CC
  • gains minor slow (soft CC)

Distortion/CS

  • less survivalability
  • more cooldown (55s more)
  • ability to recast spells

In addition to the already mentiones drawbacks chrono has to deal with, Signet of Illusions can no longer reset 4 skills if you're a chronomancer.

All in all the tradeoff to be able to cast things twice is extremely high in both power and gameplay flow. I do not believe that an elite specialization should decrease the classes effectiveness but make it different. Take power grant power on a similar level should be the way to go.Mesmers speccing into Chrono get less power out of it.

In all this post I know that in PvE not a lot will changs except that chrono will become less and less wanted over the time and less players will be willing to play it as the fun of chrono decreased a lot now.

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The problem is that while other professions were improvements at core, which means that there is space to some tradeoffs, mesmer elites are bandaids to the core design so there isn't any space left to tradeoffs.Chrono is already squishy, take out F4 and it becomes worse.Take out IP and it becomes unplayable, clunky, slow and predictable.Tbh I don't know any legit tradeoffs that could be done to chrono.To add to this what you win now as a chrono isn't even worth it.And they are slowly doing the same with mirage.Bias is real.

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@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:The problem is that while other professions were improvements at core, which means that there is space to some tradeoffs, mesmer elites are bandaids to the core design so there isn't any space left to tradeoffs.Chrono is already squishy, take out F4 and it becomes worse.Take out IP and it becomes unplayable, clunky, slow and predictable.Tbh I don't know any legit tradeoffs that could be done to chrono.To add to this what you win now as a chrono isn't even worth it.And they are slowly doing the same with mirage.Bias is real.

Good tradeoff for chrono? Here's one:Make shatters into new skills that pulse aoe around the chronomancer (and move with him).Loss: burst and range (running clones)gain: area of denial, more control over the skills and possibly more interesting effects. I'll post a defined Idea on the mesmer sub.

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@Me Games Ma.8426 said:

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:The problem is that while other professions were improvements at core, which means that there is space to some tradeoffs, mesmer elites are bandaids to the core design so there isn't any space left to tradeoffs.Chrono is already squishy, take out F4 and it becomes worse.Take out IP and it becomes unplayable, clunky, slow and predictable.Tbh I don't know any legit tradeoffs that could be done to chrono.To add to this what you win now as a chrono isn't even worth it.And they are slowly doing the same with mirage.Bias is real.

Good tradeoff for chrono? Here's one:Make shatters into new skills that pulse aoe around the chronomancer (and move with him).Loss: burst and range (running clones)gain: area of denial, more control over the skills and possibly more interesting effects. I'll post a defined Idea on the mesmer sub.

Which would fit with one of the main things that the chronomancer does: sustained AoE for dealing with groups. Of course, that would benefit from IP, since in circumstances where you have to deal with a large number of relatively weak opponents (pocket raptors, for instance) it can be hard to maintain clones.

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really weird to play the new chrono; only played in PvE, no idea how it performs in PvP as I only play mirage...... i think mirage should be the one that have their shatter taken away...

mirage can keep the mirage cloak with hard CC, but rework mirage cloak to teleports you to the closest clone when 'dodge'the theme of mirage should be constant upkeep of clones that you can escape to when needed... but alter the clones to have higher hp so they dont die in 2 hits

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Chrono itself has a huge identity crisis that is like a proverbial tension - never wishes to be resolved for whatever reason. Making it cumbersome to play isn't "introducing tradeoffs", it's introducing boredom - on top of already limiting chronoslave playstyle (as you all know, you are now not allowed to use anything but 2 wells and SoI - and quite frankly, I can't call these utility choices engaging, as they are just half a step away from Banners at how passive and unengaging they are), inability to shatter at my own whim doesn't force me to "plan my shatters", it forces me to switch class.

New shatters could be a step in the right direction, yet the only truly "new" one is Rewinder - which, again, makes little sense considering that Mirage already exists as condition DPS, can we have a power option/ focus instead? Maybe support, if devs are this adamant on making it stick to a single role?

Even if we are to become full supports, Inspiration is still a very lackluster traitline for supporting allies - traits like Healing Prism offer close to nothing of value, Inspiring Distortion being not that inspiring aegis took away a chunk of flavor for questionable raid balancing while making Inspiration a much weaker option PvP/WvW. Condition removal on shatters is pretty much the saving grace of Inspiration for PvP (aside from mantra trait, but shh - please don't remove what's working, we don't have much left), and baking Blurred Inscriptions into it's grandmaster just so that SoI could hit 10 targets... yeah, signets are still very, very mediocre. Only heal one and Midnight are truly sort of good, but then again, to make them good you have to go Inspiration - and none of the signets actually offer true support capabilities aside from SoI. A very senseless design decision.

To supply for my point of signets being mediocre: Signet of Domination, cooldown - 45. Passive: 180 condition damage (not something you capitalize on as Mesmer who relies on stuns, mind you, so kind of useless), Active: stun for 3 seconds. Removes 5 boons when traited - but to trait it, you go Inspiration, that offers you no attack power either.Compare: Bane Signet, cooldown 30, 24 when traited. Passive: +180 power, more for you AND your allies on use. Active: Still 3 seconds of hard CC. To trait it, you go Radiance that gives you good damage options as well as a great passive of F1 refresh.

Nerfs to Bountiful Disillusionment, rework of Phantasmal Defender, straight-up removal of glamour trait with Resist source (a very rare boon in itself), and what we gain for support playstyle is... Illusionary Inspiration. Which is not only very boring, but also very weak and straight-up not worth building for in any gamemode. In PvP it's even weaker, making it a null choice. All's Well That Ends Well doesn't, in fact, end well, because what little burst healing it aims to offer is just weak compared to any other support ever, maybe competing with Warrior's healing shouts on levels of memery. Boon-wise, we too are limited to those two cursed boons, Alacrity and Quickness. It is probably telling that we have to use Rune of the Pack with it's gimmicky fury/swiftness application to even have access to sharing more than 2 boons, but here we are.

Before, we were also capable of generating and sharing 25 might, which would've probably made us a more viable support option at least partially - but nope, that gone too due to SoI needing to become... this. SoI is still awful, by the by, for if some of your teammates misstep from your well, you can't actually extend what they didn't get. A massive punishment for a build that already relies on a lot of gimmicks to make itself function. And let's not forget Social Awkwardness in fractals, where playing this or FB becomes cumbersome due to the mechanics - as in, even more cumbersome that it already is.

Now, Power DPS - not only it already was a decision that you make purely because you like playing Chrono (for without Danger Time abuse, you're not actually that great of a DPS), but now it has even more reliance on that. I'm sorry, but balancing a DPS build around people abusing 7 chronos to bounce time warps off each other at Xera is not great in itself. Danger Time needs to go, it shouldn't get literally baked into our DPS shatter. Make it a trait that rewards clever bursting, not a mandatory buff for DPS build's viability. Something like a stacking damage self-buff for certain action, think new Illusionist's Celerity but actually managable and rewarding. That would make it a new, different playstyle. Not mangling mechanical enjoyment of use.

And to round it out, CS is now just... not a very fun mechanic. Before, it was a single button of multitude of possibilities - and yes, I am well aware that it's probably not great, and no skill shall offer this sheer utility and usage, but... come on. You're a mage of time. You should have something awesome for it. And most of those clever uses weren't even combat related - triple blinks, portal duping, extending stealth for skipping purposes, absorbing fall damage, aftercast splitting... Should we feel punished for digging deep into mechanics of each skill to use with our newfound power of time magic? For devoting countless hours of testing, great deal of mechanical skill, for all of that to become... just kind of a dps increase button, or "use soi twice, I guess". It's just so underwhelming and sad that apparently Chronomancer is just not allowed to have any sort of fun anymore. PvE boonslave build is positively Bannerslave levels of boring. DPS build? No idea why play it anymore. There's Berserker that dishes out much more DPS with half as much headache for it. And without relying on Slow. There's DH which is a very simple, but immensely rewarding build. Chrono in PvP is just gimmicky and unfun, not to mention that for any blob/support purposes it's just subpar, dead, buried and forgotten, due to being both weak AND unfun now.

Illusionary Persona was a trait we always picked, no matter the build or cost - because it made Mesmer that much more playable. Chronomancer pulls the biggest time magic trick yet, making me feel like I'm at 2012 again and rerolling. To sum up my already long-winded explanations of what's wrong, this in itself was just that straw that broke camel's back - we endured a lot of questionable decisions and reworks over the years, coupled with immense nerf list that never felt good, and now it's just easier to play something else rather than adapt for 100th time to a change nobody asked for or wanted. And I'm not even exaggerating - there's not a single mesmer player who liked not having Illusionary Persona traited in for pure mechanical enjoyment. People who defend this change generally don't play mesmer themselves, so they make an argument of "oh but it's still fine, same two boons!". Sure. But I also don't want to play it. If they are so inclined, I urge them to play it for themselves.

Thank you for coming to my unwarranted TED talk, but I just feel a huge identity crisis myself because I still want to play my chronomancer, quite unfortunately. But it ends up just making me feel disappointed and nostalgic, rather than enjoying myself.

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@"crepuscular.9047" said:really weird to play the new chrono; only played in PvE, no idea how it performs in PvP as I only play mirage...... i think mirage should be the one that have their shatter taken away...

mirage can keep the mirage cloak with hard CC, but rework mirage cloak to teleports you to the closest clone when 'dodge'the theme of mirage should be constant upkeep of clones that you can escape to when needed... but alter the clones to have higher hp so they dont die in 2 hits

Can people please stop suggesting random things like "mirage should be the one who loses their shatters etc".As for mirage cloak and hard cc for god sake, how many times do I need to say that some classes can't even be cc'd to begin with?

I will tell you what you should be asking for, you should ask them to fix what they mess with chrono, as I said before this lame patch, they will need time to fix chrono things that they messed, regardless of it being strong or weak, and you think they will fix it now? good luck, it takes them 3 months til you have hope for them to fix anything, so if they messed something it stays messed up for years.

I am sorry if I might sound aggressive, but we have lost many mesmers already, no need to lose more over random suggestions.

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So, I put some thought into it, and voted... No.

I really do think that they've overcompensated here. Taken in a vacuum, one could consider that it's balanced to take away Distortion and Illusory Persona in exchange for wells and continuum split, but that's not the way it actually operates - you're also giving up a third core traitline, and core mesmer traitlines are actually in a pretty good state where you could easily take three core traitlines and be getting something good out of all of them. It feels like whoever planned out this set of changes might have forgotten that the opportunity for another core traitline was already a tradeoff for taking an elite specialisation. At the moment, unless you really, specifically need what chronomancer brings to the table, I don't think it's worth giving up Distortion, Illusionary Persona, and the Chaos or Illusions line to be a chronomancer.

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It doesn't really feel like a trade off. Outside of F4 and removing baseline Illusionary Persona, the shatters just feel too much the same ... The only thing that really feels different is tempo. That is cool and totally fits the Chronomancer theme, but still feels like it comes up short-handed compared to something a little more dramatic or interesting.

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First, there are no trade-offs. Core is not viable for.. anything.

Second, it is just straight out nerf to sustain.

Third, it makes the flow of damage dealing not PvP viable. You are not fighting automatons who will let you setup your clones, CC, slow and shatter without retaliation. And since this is more cumbersome to perform, it does not work in PvP.

Btw, devs seriously need to stop making balance based on fighting automatons.

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its not a trade off its a kill for most parts. no matter that you can make (mostly boring) working builds with it. its clunky and unfun to play and doesnt feel like a mesmer anymore. anet forgot that back then when we had at least a trait for ip we had phantasms we could shatter immediately (we could shatter all kind of illusions). with the phantasm rework we now have a big delay on clone generation via phantasms. if you trait chronophantasm trait it gets even worse. just like mirage with em (only class cant dodge during daze without punishment) now chrono is the only other spec can pick traits to handicap himself. also why is mirage the only spec with a dodge movement can be affected by cripple effects? for power shatter based builds ip trait was mandatory to pick (even with phantasms you could shatter immediately after spawning) before it became baseline. after all changes it needed to be baseline. taking it away now is an overkill. combine cs and distortion in one shatter is just as senseless and overkilling. Change shatters to make parts of it more chrono specific, ok fine (like the new chrono f1, its ok like that) but everyhting else need to be reverted as fast as possible.

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Its not a trade off, its more of a downgrade from core(i use core & mirage from time to time as well). Yeah chronotank on raid is something even though they made it pretty much harder to use it now, but should it die on other game modes as well? The clones instantly die on wvw to make use of the shatters. Mirage is better on pvp either on power or condi you name it. On fractals maybe skipping with portal for people but core and mirage can do it as well. DPS is not that good, phantasm takes a while to cast even with the quickness trait making them miss some of the time. Wells takes a while to actually activate making them miss allies/enemies not to mention theyre pretty lackluster as well(except well of eternity and gravity well) w/o using CS. Alacrity and quickness can be gain without chrono anymore, well its easier to apply both boons with rev/fb anyways and not needing to wait for the wells to activate. The one that should be "balance" is the mirage not the chrono.

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@Vincenzo.3145 said:Just playing Mesmer feels like a trade-off now. I main support roles because I enjoy them. I stopped logging in as soon as the changes were revealed. I considered going Firebrand, but then figured they'll probably do the same thing to that and eventually with every other class.

Kinda sick of this tbh.

I too considered going FB but that meant being ok with Anet nerfing Chrono and eventually they'll have a change of heart and they will nerf FB so hard, the strength of it will make the rotation of the Earth go really fast.

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@Alek Seven.2374 said:

@Vincenzo.3145 said:Just playing Mesmer feels like a trade-off now. I main support roles because I enjoy them. I stopped logging in as soon as the changes were revealed. I considered going Firebrand, but then figured they'll probably do the same thing to that and eventually with every other class.

Kinda sick of this tbh.

I too considered going FB but that meant being ok with Anet nerfing Chrono and eventually they'll have a change of heart and they will nerf FB so hard, the strength of it will make the rotation of the Earth go really fast.

I think that's their goal: nerf all elites over the next 3 years so they're all equally as horrible with eachother. So horrible, in fact, that it drives everybody back to playing core builds only and forgetting about the elites all together. I can see it now

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