Some feedback on the Rifle updates

[Alva.4590]

11 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Yeah you're right why would you want more mobility on a profession who has no access to swiftness/superspeed and has one port especially on a ranged weapon with no means to keep enimies at bay.

But mesmer has access to swiftness and superspeed? Swiftness via shield 5 or focus 4, superspeed via time warp and well of action. Sure superspeed won't be as high as on scrapper but where would you even need perma superspeed uptime except for some fractal mob skips? 
Also mesmer can blink twice with mimic or even double portal if you again utilize mimic. There is no need for a weapon to port as well except for an emergency scenario (e.g. porting an ally back to the stack after they went to cleanse themself at Matthias). 
Seriously guys, before making such wild statements just learn the class, read tooltips, try out what skills actually do what. 

Edited March 1 by Alva.4590

[Passerbye.6291]

This is all from a PvE standpoint so read them as such:
Rifle 1 cast time isn't too long for what it does and it gets pretty much evenly gets reduced to half a second with quickness up, making you hit twice a second with it. It does close to 1k heal per hit with full harrier/giver, so it would even go above 1k on minstrel gear. Generating almost 2k heal per second from your ranged auto attacks that can target allies is in no way a bad thing. Not every rifle auto needs to feel like an assault rifle like the pre-nerf engineer rifle.

Rifle 2 is over 3.4k heal a pop, you can get 33% cooldown reduction on chrono and quickness is a 33% reduction to your cast time, so the actual cooldown on rifle can be brought down to 3.6 seconds, the heal from clone generation is pretty close to your auto attack heal so it is essentially a net gain to your healing to cast it over auto attacking, factor in the fact that it also provides regen and you are looking at over 3k healing per second from using rifle 1 and 2 alone. 

Rifle 4 delay would be a problem if there were breakbars that require breaking within 1 second in the game. As of right now, there are very few breakbars that require quick CCing. There are almost always the interrupt type breakbars, the type that only shows up during a special attack and disappears, things like the cone attack of the first bandit trio boss. Of this type of breakbars, there is only one, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, that actually requires you to interrupt the breakbar, and that is qadim1 minibosses in order to prevent them from casting meteors. Considering this is the sole example where the phantasm delay would be deciding factor, let's go over that encounter. Both of the minibosses have a preset number of attacks before each breakbar, so there is nothing stopping you from precasting the phantasm (which you usually do with any CC with delay to their cast time), so I don't see it as a big problem.

Rifle 5 does above 4.5k barrier and 8 seconds of resistance on a 20-second cooldown which can be brought down to a 14-second cooldown on chrono even after factoring the cast time, I'm not sure how getting that significant amount a barrier from 1 skill with 50% uptime on resistance which can be of key importance in some encounters is supposed to be bad but I grew tired of arguing about this with people.

Heal chrono does have issues, but whenever one of these threads about rifle pop up, people treat it like a rifle issue and not a mesmer issue. Heal chrono feels bad to use in fractals, is this because of rifle, or is it because:
- You are tied to well of action for 8 stacks of your might generation, which takes 3 seconds to land on an only 240 radius aoe,
- Your mantras have really long recharge time between charges and only 2 charges, HEAVILY INCENTIVIZING using up all charges and manually charging them back up instead of using a charge as needed. Said mantras being the best options for many things, the healing mantra offering condi cleanse, heal and clone generation on use, your condi cleanse mantra being the single best way for your class to cleanse conditions in bulk, stab mantra being the best way to provide stab in fights that require more often than what you have available through F4.
- The generation of your alac/quick and protection being tied to clones and your clones disappearing whenever the targed they are fixated on dies.
- Your alac/quick being tied to phantasms and phantasms not even getting created without a target or when targeting an invulnerable enemy, forcing you to dump F3-F4 at the start of a fight to make sure people can do their alpha strike with quickness/alacrity, or doing so by using CS with no clones or 1 clone and quickly dumping all shatters.
- Mesmer being a class clearly intended to perform well on single targets, but after multiple nerfs to the class and confusion, becoming either worse than or in line with alternative options on single targets, while being strictly inferior in any form of situation with trash mobs involved.

The wells having delays have always been a reason why people didn't want chronos as support for fractals as it required precise positioning, why bother when same can be achieved in an easier manner? The clone issue has always been yet another reason why mesmers aren't populat in fractals as well, why bring a build that gets adversely affected by the presence of adds, when you can bring a class that benefits from them instead like necro, or a class that has good cleave? Don't get me wrong, in the case of boon chrono and heal chrono, your have more than enough alac/quick generation to do your job even in trash scenarios, but why swim against the current when you can teach your 4-year-old cousin to turn a few facets on and do perfect uptime in a 600 radius, without ever having to worry about stacking or there being a 3 second delay to your might generation?

TLDR: Properly identify what the problem is instead of dumping it all on rifle, rifle made heal chrono strictly better, and it is an amazing healing weapon, chrono however, has issues after years of nerfs to it and powercreep across multiple classes, feeling bad to play in certain scenarios compared to what else is availble.

Edited March 1 by Passerbye.6291

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

@Ark.2694 @Alva.4590

Oh this thread is pve, whatever, in Pve anything works.

On competitive modes any class except maybe ele has more mobility than mesmer.

[Levetty.1279]

OK hear me out. If they are serious about Power Mirage then rifle works a lot better on it then it does Heal Chrono.

Add power/crit chance to Nomad's Endurance, up the power damage of Mirages utilities and give that new Grandmaster you are adding some extra oomph.

Make Rifle ambush give might and fury and traited alacrity, up the damage of various skills and ambushes and fix the Phantasm so it isn't terrible. Then you will have a fairly solid base for an Alacrity DPS mirage there.

[Alva.4590]

54 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

On competitive modes any class except maybe ele has more mobility than mesmer

Even on competitive mode mesmer has a kitten lot of mobility. Are we even talking about the same class? 

[Aeolus.3615]

20 stacks on confusion hurt :) just saying

[Teknomancer.4895]

6 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

But in your testing you didn't fire both of Sharpshooter charges. Notice how the 2nd ammo becomes available immediately after you press the 1st, and if you press both, then Rifle indeed does the most CC amount from a weapon. 1 Sharpshooter charge will do exactly the same amount as Magic Bullet (200) as shown in your vid. 10s is enough time to fire both charges.

And Sharpshooter has a relatively short cooldown, it isn't unreasonable to assume both charges will be available during any CC phases.  

Nonsense. What you suggest would have completely invalidated the test. One keypress activation per skill; that's how the test worked, and making the testing conditions the same across all skills tested was the entire point of the test.

Do you always use both charges of a mantra at the same time, on the same target (if applicable)? Or is it possible to retain a mantra charge for use later, or on a different target?

Also, Magic Bullet beat the Sharpshooter by about 15-20% based on the amount of damage done to the golem's bar. Look closer, or even better, test it yourdamnself.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

9 hours ago, Ark.2694 said:

In what world do you live that MESMER is not mobile?

For my own two cents, when I think "Mobile", swiftness and superspeed are generally not it.

Don't get me wrong. I suppose if you're in, like, WvW and dueling, and they try to run then swiftness while chasing them down is exactly what you need. But when I think mobility I think of Leaps, Retreats, Teleports, Dodges, etc. For example, I describe the mesmer Staff as being HIGHLY mobile. The reason is Phase Retreat. It is an instant teleport away from whatever you're targetting with the added benefit of spawning a clone AND retargetting your enemy. But just the retreat is great for dodging charge attacks, escaping AOEs, all that stuff. MIrage THrust is also a great mobility skill. Once you kill your current target, double tap > 1 to leap to the next one dealing damage and interupting their actions. And we have more. I think that's what most people think of when they think mobility, and some have more or less. Mirages on the whole have less mobility since Mirage Cloak doesn't actually move anywhere, which has gotten me into trouble on many occasions. But the rifle? The rifle has ZERO mobility. The only mobility option it brings is a single use, one way portal that brings someone else to you, and if you want thoughts on that they're not hard to find.

So in the end, you're not wrong. We're highly mobile, and we still can be with the rifle. But it's NOT HELPING. It should have some kind of mobility on it but it doesn't, because it was poorly designed, poorly implemented, and fails at generally every task besides sustained healing.

[apharma.3741]

47 minutes ago, Alva.4590 said:

Even on competitive mode mesmer has a kitten lot of mobility. Are we even talking about the same class? 

You clearly do not play competitive game modes across enough classes. Mesmer isn't particularly fast when you compare it to Thief (all), Ranger (Slb, Drd, Unt), Guardian (DH,WB), Revenant (Shiro, Vindi), Warrior (all), Elementalist (air + x/d or s/x), Engineer (rocket boots, Scr, Holo) and even that notoriously "slow" class Necro (s/x, reaper, harbinger). To reach the same level of mobility you have to run mirage and sword with blink but even that's not enough against WB, Slb, Drd, DrD, Harb, warrior and they have the better sustain to fight you with. On Chrono, Virtuoso and core mesmer you are slow.

We are talking about the same class, the difference is Lincolnbeard and I actually play it in said modes 90% of our time while you only dip your feet in to get dailies/achievements, going off your responses. "So we decided to restructure and focus it more on PvE content" - this is a quote from you. It's fine, it's a good PvE weapon and I agree with that but it's an awful PvP and WvW roaming weapon. It's better for zergs than staff, at least till it gets nerfed because ANet only thinks about zergs and removes chaos armour.

[apharma.3741]

2 minutes ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

For my own two cents, when I think "Mobile", swiftness and superspeed are generally not it.

Don't get me wrong. I suppose if you're in, like, WvW and dueling, and they try to run then swiftness while chasing them down is exactly what you need. But when I think mobility I think of Leaps, Retreats, Teleports, Dodges, etc. For example, I describe the mesmer Staff as being HIGHLY mobile. The reason is Phase Retreat. It is an instant teleport away from whatever you're targetting with the added benefit of spawning a clone AND retargetting your enemy. But just the retreat is great for dodging charge attacks, escaping AOEs, all that stuff. MIrage THrust is also a great mobility skill. Once you kill your current target, double tap > 1 to leap to the next one dealing damage and interupting their actions. And we have more. I think that's what most people think of when they think mobility, and some have more or less. Mirages on the whole have less mobility since Mirage Cloak doesn't actually move anywhere, which has gotten me into trouble on many occasions. But the rifle? The rifle has ZERO mobility. The only mobility option it brings is a single use, one way portal that brings someone else to you, and if you want thoughts on that they're not hard to find.

So in the end, you're not wrong. We're highly mobile, and we still can be with the rifle. But it's NOT HELPING. It should have some kind of mobility on it but it doesn't, because it was poorly designed, poorly implemented, and fails at generally every task besides sustained healing.

Personally I think you can break mobility down to the amount of distance travelled over time and has 2 components with the 2nd having 2 distinct categories.

Movement speed, as defined here which is mostly passive: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_Speed . This determines how fast you are at moving compared to others, this is where mesmer is slowest for investment.

Movement skills, these are skills that travel X distance during their cast and have 2 distinct categories, those that travel on X/Y and those that travel on X/Y/Z, the latter is almost always a teleport (needs path except portal and shadow portal) and is much more valuable. This is also where over time against meta builds mesmer has been losing out, mirage thrust helps a lot but the other mesmer elite specs have seen an erosion of mobility through blink CD increase and other CD increases over the years while other classes had more skills added.

We should also not ignore a classes ability to chill and cripple you or the opportunity cost of it, example being necro sword provided perma chill almost on auto and two 700 unit movement skills on a 10s CD, phase retreat eat your heart out.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

1 hour ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Do you always use both charges of a mantra at the same time, on the same target (if applicable)? Or is it possible to retain a mantra charge for use later, or on a different target?

Yes, if the question to answer is "How much is the total healing of the Mantra in 10s?". 

Similarly, the question here was "How much is the total CC of each weapon in 10s?" since you tried to debunk my claim "Rifle does more CC than any other weapons", and to do that we need to compare the total output of each. You're right to shoot all the weapons on the same constant target, but if the goal is to compare how much CC each weapon does then why do you have to press Rifle only once? What point do you prove if you set up an optimal scenario for everything but intentionally underperform Rifle? 

Going back even further, even if you were right and Rifle 4 somehow was not the strongest CC of any weapons, it's still a strong CC skill and deserves its place in the support kit. The immediate benefit is that it existing allows a support Mesmer to free up the Elite slot instead of being soft-locked to Moa Signet or Gravity Well. 

So yes, it does have a purpose and its uses.  

[Alva.4590]

1 hour ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

It should have some kind of mobility on it but it doesn't, because it was poorly designed, poorly implemented, and fails at generally every task besides sustained healing

Other mesmer weapons don't have any mobility either but does that also mean that they are poorly design or are poorly implemented? 

[Alva.4590]

1 hour ago, apharma.3741 said:

"So we decided to restructure and focus it more on PvE content" - this is a quote from you. It's fine, it's a good PvE weapon and I agree with that but it's an awful PvP and WvW roaming weapon. It's better for zergs than staff, at least till it gets nerfed because ANet only thinks about zergs and removes chaos armour.

Correction: this is NOT a quote from me. I haven't said that. 
And I do play PvP and Wvw occassionally but why would you even run a support weapon if you are a) not playing a support class and b) not running in a zerg? 
Again sounds like an issue of not knowing the class and which weapon choice goes well with which build. 

[apharma.3741]

19 minutes ago, Alva.4590 said:

Correction: this is NOT a quote from me. I haven't said that. 
And I do play PvP and Wvw occassionally but why would you even run a support weapon if you are a) not playing a support class and b) not running in a zerg? 
Again sounds like an issue of not knowing the class and which weapon choice goes well with which build. 

hmmm must be a different Alva.4590 recruiting for a guild.

The point is that the weapon cannot be used for anything BUT a healing build, you look at other support weapons (mostly staff) on other classes and you see that while they are healing focused they also provide plenty of options and self defence.
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Staff
The only 2 classes where the "healing" weapon doesn't have any defence is scepter on thief and torch on necro, this is because the support and defence is put into the class mechanic, traits and or utility skills as part of a co-ordinated elite spec focused on support.

 

Edited March 1 by apharma.3741

[Teknomancer.4895]

56 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Yes, if the question to answer is "How much is the total healing of the Mantra in 10s?". 

Nice try at moving the goalposts, but that was never mentioned at any point until just now, by you, and I note that you even edited your original phrasing of this alleged question that literally no one asked.

I posted verifiable, reproducible results with the "one skill activation per test" parameters clearly shown. Of course if you activate a skill more than once it will do more than if activated only once; that wasn't the test.

Just because you don't like the results doesn't mean you get to change them.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

1 hour ago, apharma.3741 said:

Movement skills, these are skills that travel X distance during their cast and have 2 distinct categories, those that travel on X/Y and those that travel on X/Y/Z, the latter is almost always a teleport (needs path except portal and shadow portal) and is much more valuable. This is also where over time against meta builds mesmer has been losing out, mirage thrust helps a lot but the other mesmer elite specs have seen an erosion of mobility through blink CD increase and other CD increases over the years while other classes had more skills added.

We've seen an erosion of Mesmers being Mesmers since Path of Fire. Mirages are fun and all, but Mesmers have really been an attrition class, usually condi but you can power through it if you want. But the idea is that we're hard to catch, hard to kill, and it doesn't matter how long the fight lasts because it always ends the same way: Mesmer wins. But Mirages? They're offensive. They want you to spike and ambush, something we're not suited for but we make it work. Then we have Virt which also wants you to be offensive AND takes away your clones. No more attrition, now it's a straight up fight, which we are NOT here for. It's kinda funny in retrospect. "ThE mEsMeR nEeDs A sUpPoRt WeApOn" after they spent two expansions trying to turn us into a more DPS focused offensive profession. Losses in mobility have just kinda been part of that.

1 hour ago, apharma.3741 said:

We should also not ignore a classes ability to chill and cripple you or the opportunity cost of it, example being necro sword provided perma chill almost on auto and two 700 unit movement skills on a 10s CD, phase retreat eat your heart out.

That's not mobility though. That's Crowd Control. The end result is the same though so I'll give you that but I wouldn't normally argue it. that being said though, since YOU would argue it...

50 minutes ago, Alva.4590 said:

Other mesmer weapons don't have any mobility either but does that also mean that they are poorly design or are poorly implemented? 

A good question. Let's take a look.
Staff: I already mentioned above. Phase Retreat. Love it. Best ability in the game (arguably)
Greatsword: Doesn't have mobility per se. However, as @apharma.3741 said earlier, if you want to count CC in the mobility category then it has Mind Stab for Cripple and Illusory Wave for the Yeets.
Scepter: None. But it does come with a block, so I wouldn't call it a mobility weapon as much as I would call it a "Stand Your Ground" weapon. You're not supposed to be mobile with it, your'e supposed to block attacks and eat them. Still, not mobile. Point to you.
MH Sword: Illusory Leap. Literally teleport to your enemy. Great mobility. I use it all the time with my sword.
OH Sword: None, but it has a block like the Scepter. So a "Stand Your Ground" weapon. Makes it kinda interesting when you pair them, but point for you.
Focus: No mobility by MY definition. However, Temporal Curtain gives you swiftiness and cripples your enemies, which actually acts like Superspeed if both effects hit together. While I wouldn't really count it, it is used to tremendous effect in WvW, so I'm gonna count it.
Pistol: None at all. Point to you.
Torch: None....but with a caveat. While the torch doesn't have any inherent mobility, The Prestige is a false teleport. You vanish, losing targetting, and you're free to move until you appear somewhere else. Is this mobility? Technically not. But it DOES achieve the same effect. I'm gonna count it for my definition.
Shield: None. But it's a shield. It's firmly in that "Stand Your Ground" category, particularly with its double block. Tides of Time however does grant Swiftness and dazes your enemies. So according to @apharma.3741, mobile.
Axe: Axes of Symmetry. Teleport you AND your clones to your target. Very mobile. Not counted but the Mirage also has a very mobile utility kit.
Dagger: None. At all. And no clones to give you protection either. It does offer some in the way of Cripple which I wouldn't normally count, but again @apharma.3741 would so I'll give it half a point.

So before we look at the rifle, lets look at what we have here. Of all our weapons and generously using all our definitions 8 out of 11 meet some definition of mobility here. Depending on your definitions some are more or less but that's still 3/4 of our arsenal. Then we have the rifle. It doesn't teleport either forward or back. It doesn't grant swiftness or superspeed. The only thing is does is cripple on 2 which I'll give it some credit is very spammable, and Daze on 4 which while I'll give it credit for that it has been constantly complained about for being too slow, too telegraphed, too easy to dodge, block, or interupt, so it's hard to give it any points for that. And it has no blocks either so it's not a "Stand Your Ground" weapon either so it can't even perform on the same level as Scepter, OH Sword, or Shield. The rifle is on par with the Dagger in terms of mobility and then fails in every other category which is what has prompted almost all mesmer players to look at that and ask what the hell they were thinking.

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

1 minute ago, Teknomancer.4895 said:

Nice try at moving the goalposts, but that was never mentioned at any point until just now, by you

Er, nice try ignoring everything else? Cuz it's you who brought the Mantra thing up and my point is yes I would press it twice under such question? 

Quote

and I note that you even edited your original phrasing of this alleged question that literally no one asked.

The part about CC was not related to your Mantra question.

And to that accusation: No, I have not edited anything. What are you even talking about?

Quote

I posted verifiable, reproducible results with the "one skill activation per test" parameters clearly shown. Of course if you activate a skill more than once it will do more than if activated only once; that wasn't the test.

Just because you don't like the results doesn't mean you get to change them.

And I showed you exactly why pressing once doesn't matter? It just looks like you intentionally set up something you know Rifle would fail and when it does, you point to it and call it a failure when it's really not. 

Just because you don't like the Rifle doesn't mean you get to intentionally shaft it.

[Curunen.8729]

I will echo apharma and Lincolnbeard here.

Ignoring MH sword on mirage for a moment, the only thing in a flat footrace may be able to run from is some necro.

Thief, ranger, willbender for sure will catch up or easily run away. Rev, engi, warrior and ele likewise to some extent depending on build.

Everyone's got 25% movement speed at a minimum now (with rune and relic split), if not some high or perma access to swiftness or more than that. Blink and jaunt without alacrity are long cooldown. Phase retreat still great but not in comparison to buffed mobility of many other specs.

Other weapons pretty much do nothing here. Blink should be an bloody F5 given how crutch it is even after the cooldown nerf such that you can never play without it.

Axe 3, IA and mirage advance (who uses this waste of a utility slot anyway) can be used creatively on npcs etc to gain further distance but the reality is to be able to run as mesmer requires creative use of stealth/detarget alongside use of terrain with ports. Otherwise the sustain or raw speed isn't there to outrun directly on open ground.

Underwater sure spear 4 and 2 (the old 2 was better tbh without that weird blink at the end now) are good though even now I wouldn't take using water to escape as a given anymore.

The only specific case on land to have any kind of good engage/escape is running MH sword on mirage, together with every other blink and port available, and ideally alacrity staff to get blink and jaunt back faster. But then you lack significant burst to catch stuff escaping without GS. Now that immobilise and other cc conditions totally kitten mirage without cleanse or resistance (ie relic of resistance with traited mirror heal on alacrity), it adds further limitation.

Even with rifle healing, mirage for one can't tank sustain through stuff - better to evade and avoid, and rifle doesnt bring anything else to the table for mirage when compared to other weapons - staff, sword, GS, dagger or even axe despite having its teeth pulled out if not taking the trait.

If it had some more cc or something for offensive survivability then sure I could get behind that, eg a one tick aoe pull on rifle 5. But ideally if rifle 5 was a ranged port that would give a nice additional option to other weapons, and rifle is weak enough that you would sacrifice offensive output for that by taking it.

[Teknomancer.4895]

1 hour ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

And I showed you exactly why pressing once doesn't matter? It just looks like you intentionally set up something you know Rifle would fail and when it does, you point to it and call it a failure when it's really not. 

The test was quite simple. All else being equal, which skill does the most breakbar damage? Nothing more, nothing less.

Special pleading about why the rifle's test procedure should be unequal doesn't really change anything.

I'm done with this, and with you.

[ShadowKatt.6740]

41 minutes ago, Curunen.8729 said:

Underwater sure spear 4 and 2 (the old 2 was better tbh without that weird blink at the end now) are good though even now I wouldn't take using water to escape as a given anymore.

I didn't include underwater since underwater isn't really a thing anymore. It's literally dead content, so I didn't think it was relevant.

[Alva.4590]

7 hours ago, apharma.3741 said:

hmmm must be a different Alva.4590 recruiting for a guild.

then I misunderstood and thought it was in context of the rifle here and in some reply I made here! Sorry, my bad!

[draxynnic.3719]

15 hours ago, ShadowKatt.6740 said:

 it was poorly designed, poorly implemented, and fails at generally every task besides sustained healing.

Oh, nooooo, the weapon specifically designed to enable heal mesmer is best used for the purpose of sustained healing! Such terrible design!

Just because you disagree with the 'bring the player, not the profession' design philosophy does not mean that weapons that serve to enable that philosophy are poorly designed. Rifle has a job. Funnily enough, that job is what it's good at. It's not like mesmer has any shortage of single-target ranged damage options, which is what rifle normally focuses on.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

5 hours ago, draxynnic.3719 said:

Oh, nooooo, the weapon specifically designed to enable heal mesmer is best used for the purpose of sustained healing! Such terrible design!

Just because you disagree with the 'bring the player, not the profession' design philosophy does not mean that weapons that serve to enable that philosophy are poorly designed. Rifle has a job. Funnily enough, that job is what it's good at. It's not like mesmer has any shortage of single-target ranged damage options, which is what rifle normally focuses on.

Check healing weapons on other professions and compare them with rifle. Rifle is indeed poorly designed.
 

Edited March 2 by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Passerbye.6291]

4 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Check healing weapons on other professions and compare them with rifle. Rifle is indeed poorly designed.
 

To keep this from getting extremely long (JC this is way too long already, good luck potential reader, I pity you as I pity my fingers after having typed all this), I'll use the main healing weapons for a few popular builds.

Firebrand Staff:
1-> Does nothing
2-> Heal and blast finisher
3-> Light field + swiftness with a low amount of heal over time from a trait
4-> Heal and 9 stacks of might, 2.5-sec cast time, roots you in place 
5-> Light field, impassible terrain for trash mobs

Scourge Dagger + Torch:
1-> Life force generation, unnecessary, but nice to have
2-> Self heal
3-> Immobilize
4-> Low amount of life force generation
5-> 14 stacks of might and 200 breakbar damage

Herald Scepter + Shield:
1-> 2 stacks of might + barrier per auto cycle
2-> Barrier
3-> High might generation, more barrier at a relatively steep cost
4-> Protection, aegis and heal
5-> Heal and self block

Druid Staff:
1-> Very low amount of healing, valuable CA generation
2-> Heal
3-> Mobility, heal and blast finisher
4-> Immobilize
5-> Regen and water field, also makes enemy projectiles heal for a small amount, useful for CA generation

I'm sure people will start a witch hunt if I don't include mace for druid as well so here goes

Druid Mace:
1-> Vigor, Nature's Strength
2-> Heal, regen, Nature's Strength
3-> Protection, 250 breakbar damage, blast finisher, Nature's Strength

Mechanist Mace + Shield:
1-> Does nothing, has an explosion
2-> Vigor, regen, barrier, leap finisher
3-> 200 breakbar damage, projectile finisher
4-> 150 breakbar damage, projectile hate, blast finisher
5-> 250 breakbar damage, projectile finisher

Now to move on to chrono,
Chrono Rifle:
1-> Heal, 20% projectile finisher, heal amount is a lot higher than druid's 1, roughly 25% of staff 2 on guardian per auto attack.
2-> Heal, regen, clone generation, heals an additional amount that is very similar to the heal from 1 due to clone generation.
3-> 12 stacks of might, and fury, short ethereal field, can forego the aforementioned boons by using a second time to do a large heal and blast into its own field, granting aoe chaos armor
4-> 200 breabar damage, phantasm and eventually a clone, has 2 charges
5-> Barrier, resistance, can be cast a second time to create a single use portal to the caster's location at the time of taking the portal.

Granted, these by themselves don't mean much but you asked for it so figured I'd help out. For those of you who haven't fallen asleep reading that, let's discuss further:
Chrono rifle 1 heal is the single highest healing auto attack in the game, it isn't even close, it literally does close to 1.9k heal per second with quickness, using harrier/giver gear.
Rifle 2 is the single lowest cooldown heal in the game, it does 3.4k heal per use with the same gear and the cooldown can be further reduced to 3.3 seconds with the improved alacrity trait, the only thing that could make it even more insane would be making it a blast finisher, wouldn't say no to that ^^
Rifle 3's 12 stacks of might and fury combined with well of action and F1 results in perfect uptime on fury and 25 stacks of might, in a pinch it is a really big heal but in reality you'll rarely, if ever, use it as such.
Rifle 4, admittedly the least impressive skill in the toolkit, ensures proper alacrity/quickness uptime, has 2 charges to ensure you'll always have 1 charge available to you to use for extra CC.
Rifle 5, 4.5k barrier and 8 seconds of resistance with the same gear, an amazing on demand barrier and non-damaging condition denial on a relatively low cooldown. For comparison, herald has to use both auto attacks and 2 from scepter to reach roughly the same amount of barrier. The advantage is that herald gets to repeat this multiple times, albeit with a delay each time, making it more of an extra layer of constant safety, whereas mesmer gets it on a 13.3 second cooldown with improved alacrity, but it is near instant in its activation, making it a good reactive tool prior to burst damage.
Keep in mind that none of this matters as comparing weapon skills in a vacuum is the absolute worst way to talk about balance, but I still don't consider chrono rifle a weak weapon or a design failure by any means. Would I want the phantasm to do something more phantastic (huehue, no? fine, tough crowd today 😞)? sure, but I'm happy with it performance and design-wise.


TLDR: Chrono rifle is perfectly fine, chrono itself has some issues, namely on fractals compared to what some better alternatives have access to, don't dump the responsibility on the weapon for no reason. Also please stop asking to compare weapons in a vacuum in an attempt to extrapolate information pertaining to balance, this type of comparison has never, and will never be relevant to balance without factoring in all the other things a class has going for it. HFB has been the absolute meta for healing, and still remains super strong in fractals, exactly 0% of this is because staff is a strong healing weapon, if anything, HFB staff does little beyond enabling good condi cleanses through light field generation (which all guardian weapons do tbh), generating some might via empower or fire field blasting and doing some mediocre healing, what made HFB OP for such a long time was all the other things it got going for it. With the same way of assessment, heal scourge would be the absolute worst healer in the game, and yet the fact remains that it is an incredibly potent healer, borderline OP in quite a few fights.

Edited March 2 by Passerbye.6291

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

If after posting other healing weapons you still think rifle is good theres nothing I can do to help, so I'll spare you a wall of text.
But then again since you mention fractals I guess you're a pver, so whatever.