Chronomancer Suggestions (PvP)

[Vinny.7260]

General Gist:

This is a follow-up on my Mirage post in regards to what I would like to see from Chronomancer. You can read that post as well if you're interested in my views on what Mirage needs adjusted. I wish I could do full revamps but since skills can only be split between gamemodes and not changed entirely... This can be a little tricky.

 

My goal with these suggestions:

My focus with Chronomancer is to solidify its role as a support as an in-between of Scourge for boon control and Scrapper for their Swiss army knife kinda options. These changes will include primarily trait changes/moves to update Chronomancer's potency of the traits to keep up with newer Elite Specializations. I'll also be adjusting the duration of Continuum Split/Shift to better suit the usage of the skill in the current times. Wells also could use a little bit of a touch-up due to the style of how they function has fallen behind with the times.

TL;DR Going to be touching traits, skills, CS, and wells.

 

Traits:

Going to be moving/merging a lot of traits, adjusting numbers on some of these, and changing some traits. Goal is to make some traits less mandatory and change some traits to better suit the goal above.

• Times Catches Up: The Superspeed on shatter portion of this trait is now merged into Time Marches On. This trait now causes phantasms to spawn with Superspeed and deal increased damage to movement impaired enemies.
  • The superspeed to clones has been fundamental to Chronomancer's identity in PvP and leaves the other traits unable to compete regardless of their strength. Figured giving Phantasms superspeed on spawn would save a shatter for giving Phantasms a boost to reach the enemy.
    • Superspeed: 3 seconds
• All's Well That Ends Well: Increased the radius of the healing portion.
  • Increasing the radius of the healing enables Chronomancer to be able to heal allies more without grumbling internal monologues about how the someone barely stepped out of the radius of the Well itself.
    • Radius: 360
• Danger Time: No longer increases critical chance. Now causes the Chronomancer to remove boons from enemies when inflicting Slow.
  • This would give a little more synergy with Delayed Reactions, Well of Action, and Phantasmal Avenger since they all inflict Slow. It would be competing with the ability to keep clones around or faster cooldowns.
    • Boons Removed: 1
• Illusionary Reversion: Reduced the number of clones required to be present.
  • This will open up opportunities to keep clones around more often since Phantasms no longer count towards Shatters.
    • Required Clones (PvP): 2
• Stretched Time: No longer causes Wells to grant Alacrity to allies near them. Now causes Flow of Time to be shared with nearby allies. Tides of Time now grants Quickness instead of Alacrity.
  • Decided to swap boons between Seize the Moment and Stretched Time to allow the Chronomancer to supply both boons since it doesn't have a much more powerful identity aside from doing that. This also allows both traits to be set up the same way and just select the boons you rather supply in bursts rather than with Shield 5.
    • Radius: 360
    • Number of Targets: 5
    • Tides of Time Quickness: 5 seconds
• Seize the Moment: Tides of Time now grants Alacrity instead of Quickness.
  • See Stretched Time.
    • Tides of Time Alacrity: 5 seconds
• Chronophantasma: Reduced the duration of Daze.
  • The daze has been holding back phantasms from doing their job and with the meta constantly getting faster and hitting harder with things like Harbinger. A slight reduction to the daze would allow them to keep up.
    • Daze: 0.75 seconds

Wells: 

Going to be giving Wells an improved effect that changes based on whether or not this was started from CS (Continuum Split). These effects will consider the fact that health is reset from CS, endurance is reset from CS, etc.

• Well of Eternity: Increased the Ending Healing. All the initial healing while in CS is moved to Ending Healing. Conditions Removed is also increased to 2 while in CS.
  • Increasing the Ending Healing improves the reward for somehow staying in the small radius. Moving all the Initial Healing to Ending Healing while in CS rewards saving CS for healing and increasing the cleansing further infers that.
    • Ending Healing: 4,290(0.8)
      • If Started from CS:
        • Ending Healing: 6,389(0.3)
        • Conditions Removed: 2
• Well of Action: Superspeed duration is increased while in CS.
  • Increasing the Superspeed while in CS will reward trying to stand in the radius for allies and yourself as it's difficult to do in a game about moving.
    • If Started from CS:
      • Superspeed: 7 seconds
• Well of Calamity: Final Damage is further increased while in CS.
  • Makes an already potentially lethal skill even more lethal from standing in it on the final pulse.
    • If Started from CS:
      • Final Damage: 798(4.5)
• Well of Precognition: Now grants Vigor in addition to granting Endurance when cast from CS.. Reduced the cooldown slightly. Aegis duration has been reduced.
  • Rewards standing in the radius even more. Reducing the cooldown to give this utility more potential as a stunbreak for Chronomancer.
    • Cooldown: 35 seconds
    • Aegis: 1 second
    • If Started from CS:
      • Vigor: 5 seconds
• Well of Senility: Boons are converted in addition to removing when cast from CS.
  • Punishes enemies for standing in the radius for the full duration further if they cast it from CS.
    • If Started from CS:
      • Additional Boons Converted: 2
• Gravity Well: Now inflicts Slow on the Final Pulse if cast from CS.
  • Rewards casting this from CS and punishes enemies for standing in all three pulses by inflicting Slow to set up further interrupts potentially.
    • If Started from CS:
      • Slow: 3 seconds

Chronomancer Shatters:

I'm planning to update these shatters to improve the Shatter-centric aspect of Chronomancer if wanted. Definitely don't want to push it too far into obnoxious territory. These shatters now gain bonus effects if cast while in CS.

• Split Second: Both pulses of this shatter now are affected by traits that improve Shatters on hit while in CS. Excludes Restorative Illusions, Bountiful Disillusionment, and other skills that grant positive effects to allies or self.
  • Since the damage is technically lower on this skill, improving the benefits of using traits like Rending Shatter, Shattered Concentration, etc. Would give this skill an extra benefit for using Chronomancer instead.
• Rewinder: Using this Shatter while in CS grants Alacrity.
  • Giving Chronomancer more consistent Alacrity if used while in CS.
    • Alacrity: 0.5 seconds per Clone.
• Time Sink: Using this Shatter while in CS inflicts Chill to enemies affected.
  • Slowing down enemies, slowing their recharge time, and interrupting them from CS isn't too powerful I hope. It rewards setting up for CS.
• Continuum Split: Cooldown has been reduced and duration has been reduced. This skill's cooldown is increased based on the number of skills used while under the effect of this skill. Master of Fragmentation reduces the increase of the cooldown if equipped. Wells and Shatters do not affect the Recharge Increase.
  • Continuum Shift: Now counts as a no-clone Shatter and inflicts Slow to nearby enemies if Master of Fragmentation is equipped.
    • Punishes enemies for being near the rift when it ends.
  • In PvP this skill is normally used to get off a quick combination in succession on an enemy. To prevent this from being too powerful while also enabling players to do it more often is the goal with this change. You could probably halve the Recharge Increase and leave the duration the same in PvE.
    • Recharge Increase (without MoF in PvP): 3 seconds
    • Recharge Increase (with MoF in PvP): 2 seconds
    • Duration per Clone: 1 second
    • Cooldown: 75 seconds (63.75 with Master of Misdirection).

Shield Skills:

Frankly this offhand doesn't need much changing other than a tiny cooldown adjustment and a boon change.

• Echo of Memory: Slightly reduced cooldown.
  • Just to improve uptime on blocks since this is intended to help makeup for the loss of Distortion.
    • Cooldown: 30 seconds
• Tides of Time: No longer grants Swiftness. Now grants Regeneration for the same duration.
  • To give Chronomancer access to Regeneration so it can receive benefits from Chaos traits. Additionally provides a little extra sustain.
    • Regeneration: 5 seconds

[Tseison.4659]

Another great and clean write up. For clarification, when you use Continuum Split, are the Wells enhanced? If so that’s a ✅ from me. 

My only two cents again is when it comes to Wells, they NEED to either have their radius increased (360) or be mobile and go off at the Mesmers location, excluding Gravity Well. Can mention PvE but for mostly PvP/WvW, everyone is always moving and no one is going to sit and stand on the Wells or a lot of players will miss the final pulse, move out of it thinking it’s an enemy Well or again, the Well is positioned in a way that prevents you from being in it without being killed/ran over by a boonball.

Other than that, I like this write up and have also said that clones having superspeed should be baseline, but combining it with Time Marches On is perfect.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Tseison.4659

[Vinny.7260]

7 minutes ago, Tseison.4659 said:

Another great and clean write up. For clarification, when you use Continuum Split, are the Wells enhanced? If so that’s a ✅ from me. 

Consider it a flip-over similar to like Glyphs on Druid/Elementalist.

8 minutes ago, Tseison.4659 said:

My only two cents again is when it comes to Wells, they NEED to either have their radius increased (360) or be mobile and go off at the Mesmers location, excluding Gravity Well. Can mention PvE but for mostly PvP/WvW, everyone is always moving and no one is going to sit and stand on the Wells or a lot of players will miss the final pulse, move out of it thinking it’s an enemy Well or again, the Well is positioned in a way that prevents you from being in it without being killed/ran over by a boonball.

I really like the idea of increasing the radii of Wells but I get concerned when I think of a 360 radius Gravity Well being double cast on Graveyard in Legacy of Foefire or smaller nodes like Waterfall or Mine. I figured letting the healing portion of the All's Well That Ends Well be the bigger radius would justify letting the Wells themselves be more powerful especially while lowering CS's cooldown. Chronomancer's whole identity is a little tricky to balance and it gave me a little insight as to why they struggle giving it a rework without a FULL rework.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

I like these aswell. The idea of bonus while in Cs is a nice touch. 

Only would change well of action all together. 

[Tseison.4659]

3 hours ago, Vinny.7260 said:

Consider it a flip-over similar to like Glyphs on Druid/Elementalist.

I really like the idea of increasing the radii of Wells but I get concerned when I think of a 360 radius Gravity Well being double cast on Graveyard in Legacy of Foefire or smaller nodes like Waterfall or Mine. I figured letting the healing portion of the All's Well That Ends Well be the bigger radius would justify letting the Wells themselves be more powerful especially while lowering CS's cooldown. Chronomancer's whole identity is a little tricky to balance and it gave me a little insight as to why they struggle giving it a rework without a FULL rework.

You have to keep in mind that the wells still only have a 5 target cap and not 10; cuz if they had 10 then that would be a whole different story. I mean, the healing increase for all's well that ends well is nice...in PvE, but like i said in PvP/WvW, no ones gonna be able to receive that, same for the other wells because of high mobility. With the radius increase, again, which anet would do however they want, would help with covering more ground and insuring allies/foes are affected by the Wells.

Chronomancer I feel in identity at this point is just boon/support but can also be good pwr dps via phantasm reset; but because all the utilities and weapon being very melee/mid range, it's giving more support'esc vibes more than dps. Regardless, it doesn't really matter to me but hopefully these two threads of yours gets pinned and others can add to it, so anet can see them because these are more polished than what they gave us in the notes.

Edited July 21, 2022 by Tseison.4659

[agrippastrilemma.8741]

Where are the core mesmer suggestions?