Delta.1526

Exactly! The mantra revert is just giving people more options in how to use their skills. If the numbers in the livestream are anything to go by, Mantra of Concentration in particular will be far more powerful. Current effect: 3s of 3 Stability stacks, 2 charges, 30-45s recharge (depending on gamemode) "New" effect: 3s of 3 Stability stacks, 2 charges, 5 second cooldown between charges, 15s cooldown on the Mantra which gives 5s of Aegis and 5 Stability stacks. Apparently it's a problem that Mesmer doesn't have 'sustainable stability'; with more flexible mantras, we absolutely do. Granted, it cannot cover its own cast time so there's counterplay to it, but it could cover the cast time of the other Mantras. Plus, like...in a scenario where you burn all your Concentration charges and die because the mantra got interrupted, you'd be just as dead waiting on that 45s cooldown lmao, this is a straight buff.

I didn't even consider memory crystals actually, that's a good point. Yeah like...it's an achievement panel rather than a dragon hologram to steal elite skills from, definitely not the same, but it does seem like describing those surprisingly haunting collections as her "facets" could have further meaning. The writing's too interesting, surely it can't be totally irrelevant XD

my buddy in christ lmao, yes you can move. This isn't a new change, it's literally just the old system back.

lmao sorry to be that guy, but an echo is basically just a reflection you can hear 🙃 But in all seriousness, Facets do seem to be specifically tied to Kralkatorrik and his descendants. However, Kralk is Soo-Won's scion and she does seem to have a similar, let's say habit, of segmenting magical domains. The most obvious is the Voids of X and Y that you fight in Dragon's End (wow facets are light voids are darkness, look at me i'm doing textual analysis) but the most significant split she made was at the beginning of Tyria, when she birthed the Elder Dragons to help carry her burden. They were 'mindless as Nature' to begin with, too. Sure, children aren't Facets, but they got arbitrary domains all the same. (Sidebar, Kralk was the only other Elder Dragon known to consider his descendants as his family...) Leaving that aside, just having a personality doesn't meaningfully distinguish them from Facets. Aurene's Facet of Things and Stuff collections have about as much dialogue as the Elder Dragon echoes. Voices or visions, maybe; hard to say. I'm not totally sure what Facets are but, there seems to be more to it than being 'mere reflections of magic'.

I'd say the story to-date of Guild Wars has been plenty cohesive, but not thoroughly planned. Like, 'the void' was namedropped in one of the earlier forays into The All, What Scarlet Saw, back in 2013: Scarlet's time at the Thaumanova Reactor (and the aftermath we see in Metrica) also introduced us to the twin concepts of 'too much magic bad', and 'lol dragon magic is chaos magic dummy' that got us where we are today. There's a clear narrative thread that runs through to EoD, for sure -- but I kind of feel like The Dragonvoid as an entity rather than an ephemeral concept of imbalance and magical turmoil was a recent addition because people kept complaining about dragons and we needed a suitable final boss to punch in the teeth and move on. I don't necessarily think it came out of left field. Kralkatorrik's Torment set it up well in advance that magical imbalances are sentient and hate you. Belligerent Ley Line Anomalies have been rocking up since...lmao I guess Thaumanova Fractal chronologically, look at that foreshadowing! It's also entirely fitting that the end of the Dragon Cycle would be the Prismatic Light Dragon vs Angry Shadow Dragon -- heck, if you're a Sylvari, there's a case to be made for the Shadow of the Dragon in your Dream being a slam-dunk allusion to the Dragonvoid. But that's the thing, so many references to 'darkness/shadow/nightfall' can refer to any segment of the story; in Core the Shadow of the Dragon was Zhaitan, then turned out it was Mordremoth...turns out light vs. dark is just a ridiculously common trope and you can read what you like into it.

This has always fascinated me tbh -- it seems like most former gods only go full terrible after they've been deposed because their domain-related goal sucks and the other gods did the total opposite of it. Dhuum was cruel and unjust because uh...he'd prefer the dead stay dead, so Grenth usurped him and legalized rez shrines. Abaddon wanted to give humanity the knowledge of magic in its entirety, it was a bad idea, the other gods took it back and he got pissed (then, y'know, all knowledge about him was forbidden). Balthazar wanted to fight the Elder Dragons head on, everyone else wanted to run away into the Mists. Idk what that means, it's just a cute commonality between them.

I mean...they are connected, the Flame Legion worshipped Destroyers as gods in the past. Your Eternal Flame idea ain't bad.

I mean, that ain't a secret, Kasmeer's been planning Jennah and Ihn's meeting for almost a year now. Maybe we'll have some good old Krytan Intrigue before popping off to the shiny new Cantha map; the Extra Life storyline seemed to implicate Anise in shenanigans so I would not be surprised if we had Krytan story instances during the upcoming plot.

So let me get this straight: these changes are basically just reverting Mantras back to 2017, bringing back half of Temporal Enchanter, slapping extra Might and CC on Chrono's kittenest skills and giving them a kiss on the forehead with some bare minimum QoL? I love it. Best Mesmer patch in years. I get that channelling a Mantra for 2 seconds feels like a long time but, it's literally quicker to just burn your charges and get the channel off cooldown than it is to wait for the flip to recharge. Plus you get a little treat when you do it. There's more gameplay in having that as an option, and if 2 seconds is too long for you to not be pressing other buttons then just pretend it's any other skill and don't spend that last charge. Don't worry PvE Mantra of Pain enjoyers, your 5% DPS is safe. Temporal Enchanter is pretty niche, but it's more generally useful than Protected Phantasms which I'm pretty sure only has any purpose if you pair it with Persistence of Memory? Which is a very funny build, don't get me wrong, but I'm like 95% sure nobody plays it. (If you do, you have my respect and I'm sorry for your loss.) We've got a bunch of dead traits which feel like they should've been buried when the Phantasm rework happened, so hopefully Persistence of Memory follows, and Phantasmal Fury gets made baseline so DPS gamers can escape Duelling jail. (Or at least try out that cool sounding Pistol trait maybe, Duelling jail isn't so bad.) Temporal Enchanter seems like a cute part of the WvW toolkit for the most part, dropping a Feedback or Null Field and bravely running away would go alright. I'm unironically excited for Might and Fury on Well of Action, as it was the most obvious thing missing from any sort of Alacrity Chrono and after the last Well 'rework' my expectations are rock bottom. Not that it solves all of Alac Chrono's problems, but it's a step in the right direction -- pretty sure as things stand re. Chrono's ability to Might stack, best we can do is like 10 stacks, maaaybe 15 if we're in full Harriers and CS just right. ToT going up to 8 stacks would push that to 16-24, and with any luck Well of Action will get us over the 'minimum requirement for dedicated boon support' line. Of course, it's on the final pulse of the well, so Chrono will remain the most masochistic way to try and support your party, but it works in theory! Well of Senility's still uh, not great, but at least it has a plan now; slow them down for a few seconds then CC them. Nice! No notes on the QoL for Shield, it rocks. Being able to click a button and get a phantasm sounds awesome, can't wait. Feels weird to be genuinely pleased by what is more like a balance un-date than update, but that's where we're at. I'd love to see the team support from Well of Action and All's Well That Ends Well shifted from the payoff of the skill to the pulsing effect for reliability's sake, but I don't actually have any complaints about what we're getting, it's a massive improvement.

i mean, didn't Aurene's magic kinda body Soo-Won in the Yong Reactor?

Yeah, I agree. Nerfing Bladesworn wouldn't suddenly make Healbreaker more viable, it'd be in the exact same place it was before. I do think that number tuning could work to bring Bladesworn's survivability in line, it gets a huge amount of Barrier from casting the final ammo charge ie. when it's run out of that resource. Also it gets personally healed from shouts more effectively. These little things really do add up to quite a lot in competitive, but losing ammo synergy is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. A Defense rework would be cool if done alongside buffs to the other elite specs.

Yeah, I'm aware Shouts are ammo skills. I've been memeing on a First Aidsworn in PvE since EoD launched because Lush Forest and Tactical Reload meant Bladesworn was the only elite spec that at all fed into a Heal Warrior build. It wasn't good, but it was the best it possibly could be. Then the banner changes happened...and uh, well, it got way, way worse...but then a couple more patches happened and it became legitimately viable as a Heal Quick option. It's nowhere near the best in slot, but it works and has a niche as a highly reactive healer in a wide range. Power Bladesworn has also recently entered the PvE meta as the best potential Power damage when played optimally; it's not problematic for diversity in DPS picks at all because the rotation is demanding and it's far less stressful if you just accept the 3k DPS loss of playing Power Mech and slam your palm on your keyboard. By 'current meta', I assume you're talking about PvP, and I agree that Healsworn is problematic there. It jams 3 heals on the bar and takes Runes of the Soldier for the condi cleanse, then runs all the incidental healing it can, resulting in an annoyingly resilient dork on point with up to 9 heal packets and up to 3 stunbreaks...but it can also murder you with Dragon Slash. The thing is, this build is currently boosted by a few bugs; DS Boost does weird things to the Dragon Trigger cooldown, and all 3 slashes have Daring Dragon's reset on Dragonscale Defenses, meaning everyone just runs the one that adds a 2.5s stun and ignores blinds and blocks as counterplay options. Talents working with Explosions rather than Ammo, and Tactical Reload boosts all CDs rather than giving ammo charges, would absolutely not improve build diversity in PvP. Explosions are mostly baked into the Bladesworn kit -- this change would take a concept that has interesting synergy with Warrior's weapons and utilities, and replace it with a parasitic mechanic that has nothing to do with the rest of Warrior unless they're on Longbow for some reason. Changing Tactical Reload from an ammunition charge to a generic cooldown reduction on your skills would be even worse, you'd run the same good stuff other warriors do, except because of your generic 'get your skills back' button you'd run it better. Congratulations, you've made the Warrior version of Chronomancer. Not only would it most likely kill build diversity for warrior in PvP by making Bladesworn the most reliable at having the skills it needs at any point, it'd blow up the weirdly healthy place Bladesworn is at in PvE. Quick Shoutsworn loses its ability to consistently panic heal in a pinch, benefits less from Lush Forest, and in exchange gets to overcap Quickness with the halved Banner CD. DPS Bladesworn doesn't really need Tactical Reload for bringing an ammo skill off cooldown and is already throwing out Explosions so there's very little downside, and the cooldown reduction on Dragonspike Mine would give it more Dragon Trigger resets -- so this would likely just be a straight up buff to what is already one of the highest benchmarks. IMO, if we're aiming the nerf gun at PvP Bladesworn, the first step is to fix the stuff that's literally bugged so it Dragon Slashes less and doesn't always have the Stability. Step 2, look at Unyielding Dragon and change the PvP version to allow more counterplay. If needed, adjust the PvP build more; nerf the heal boost of River's Flow, the sustain of Unshakeable Mountain and tweak Tactical Reload's to give a fixed reduction to ammo skills. As an absolute last resort, give Rune of the Soldier a mild ICD that would make them choose between burst heal or heavy duty condi cleanse (or force them to burn Shake It Off). The build is a problem in PvP, so nerf it there. Balancing the flavor of the month PvP spec by removing any interesting synergy with the core class is a hilariously bad take. EDIT: Oh, and changing TR to only work on explosion skills is the worst take of them all. Oh boy, I'm so glad there's an elite skill that'll let me cheat the cooldown of literally just Dragonspike Mine and some of my mediocre Gunblade skills...

Why would that help? Its entire master trait selection is about using ammo.

Oh, I meant put crit chance in Domination instead of Duelling, I think Virt's fury is fine as it is. Duelling is actually very similar to Arms in that is a mashup of crit, condi and power buffs. Difference is, Duelling is absolutely mandatory for Power builds due to Phantasmal Fury but cVirt can go with either Duelling or Chaos along with Illusions for comparable DPS, which is nice. Putting the crit chance in Domination would be the way to give it specifically to power builds and not upset the delicate balance between Duelling and Chaos for condi. *shrug*

I like those core Mes changes; particularly Persistence of Memory, though the Quickness is problematic considering Chrono's been prohibited from providing significant Quick/Alac at once. I hated to see it go but now it's gone, there's space for Chrono to get...whatever the opposite of a Chrono nerf is. I'd love to see a Chrono anti-nerf at some point in my life. I'm a little worried about boonshare -- I miss it, but I'd be worried that getting it back would stop Chrono getting the changes to the elite spec kit that it desperately needs. Or that it'd end up being too good and get nerfed, meaning I'd have to mourn Signet of Inspiration for the fifth time. Would love to see SoI get boon extension for 5 targets baseline again now we've lost Quick/Alac, but I don't want to see it fly too close to the sun again -- the poor thing's already been through so much. Yeah, Chrono can't compete with the Mechanist, Chrono's been trash for years. But like...who CAN? Mechanist gives perma alac, barrier and a sizable chunk of Might to the group while they're alt-tabbed. When they start pressing their weapon and mech skills off cooldown, they add on Protection, Regeneration, Vigor, Fury and the rest of the 25 might stacks. Then, y'know, they've got all their utility slots available for signets and kits. Mechanist can maintain permanent Alac/Fury/Vigor/Regen/Protection and reach 25 might stacks, while stark naked other than white Berserker's weapons. Chrono cannot and should not be able to do everything Mechanist does, because Mechanist shouldn't be able to do it either -- it can do so much for so little investment and effort, both as a Support and a DPS that it's suffocating class diversity. 32% of raiders are Mechanists now -- at the peak of Chrono centralizing the meta, before our fall from grace, we clocked in at a touch over 20%. I'm a Shoutsworn enthusiast and even though it has less raw healing output, it's far more functional than Heal Chrono due to the Barrier and Regeneration it can provide with Banners/Warhorn. The shouts themselves are excellent reactive heals, coming out instantly, stacking Might/Fury, and healing in a generous AoE. It's not Mech, but it doesn't have to be to get the job done. Mesmer does have aspects of its kit which are legitimately better than Mechanist when judged in a vacuum (more Aegis/Stability, better burst CC)...however, the two things Heal Chronos have to make them better than say, Heal Virtuosos, are CS and the support options attached to their wells -- but the fact you can whiff your allied support is awful. I'm on the same page re. why they're bad, but I think making Stretched Time a StM clone is the wrong approach; Quick DPS Chrono is bottom of the barrel in its own niche, and Mesmer already has Alac DPS Mirage. I'd rather see Wells entirely reworked to be actually good for a Heal Alac playstyle -- and that seems like it could be the plan looking at recent changes. Stretched Time was the band-aid slapped on wells after the Alac/Quick split gutted them, but I don't hate what it's doing; Alac on Well of Eternity frees up a utility slot, and you can jam Well of Precognition, the only utility well with any utility. Between these and Shield, you're providing full Alac, regular Aegis, and a modest amount of Might. It would be a solid foundation for a Heal Chronomancer spec, if not for how ancient and clunky wells feel in modern GW2 -- they need a full on mechanical revamp to have the consistency of other supports. This could be done in a bunch of ways, but I have a modest proposal: All's Well That Ends Well: Wells are no longer ground targeted, and remain centred on you for their duration. If you are targeting an ally, your wells will remain centred on that character. Wells apply barrier when cast, and heal allies when they end. I've given it (possibly too much) thought, and this seems like the best way to give Chrono more consistency with applying their well effects. If you're stacked up and hitting enemies, you can move yourself to keep allies in the circle, if you're split up or doing mechanics you can remotely keep up support, and if you're a DPS Chrono or playing WvW you still have your tasty ground targeted Gravity Wells -- which I assume is better than blinking into a zerg carrying a black hole (though that sounds awesome). I like the concept of the well heal but it's not great in practice; you're casting your wells for Alacrity so your targets will be on full health most of the time, and when they do need to be healed you want to be doing it quicker than 3 seconds later. Barrier mitigates both of these factors nicely. Wells actually applying their effects to allies without having to literally see 3 seconds into the future would be a massive bonus to your supportive wells -- Well of Action in particular would go from being a total joke to being situationally kinda useful, in competitive gamemodes. But Well of Calamity and Senility would remain pretty bad; with their powers combined they hit with the force of about 2 Sword autoattack chains, and do nothing for allies. I'd like to see Calamity stack Might -- it fits with the 'DPS well' identity and would patch a hole in Mesmer's kit -- other classes stack might whenever they breathe, but Tides of Time peaks at 20 stacks max, if you try really hard. Well of Senility...god, I don't care what it does, I just want it to do anything else. There's plenty of gaps in Chronomancer's toolkit that it could fill -- Protection, Regeneration, a group stunbreak -- but here we are with 2 stripped boons after 3 seconds, on the class with access to Null Field, Phantasmal Disenchanter, Phantasmal Berserker, Arcane Thievery, the Domination spec and A Sword.