Some feedback on the Rifle updates

[Passerbye.6291]

4 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

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.

 

If after being told about the numbers and then being spoonfed information, you are still clueless, I'll spare you yet another wall of text, then again you are someone incapable of doing basic math, so whatever.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 hour ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

If after being told about the numbers and then being spoonfed information, you are still clueless, I'll spare you yet another wall of text, then again you are someone incapable of doing basic math, so whatever.

Good luck surviving with that garbage on any competitive mode.

[Passerbye.6291]

2 hours ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Good luck surviving with that garbage on any competitive mode.

Yes, because a healing weapon is responsible for tanking or mobility as well, oh wait, it isn't. One group complains because a healing weapon doesn't do enough damage, the other group complains it isn't a getaway car *shocked pikachu*. Btw, mesmer is a class that can weapon swap, and you have scepter and shield to make you way tankier or alternately staff for short disengages, rifle isn't supposed to be a one-size-fits-all solution for every issue mesmer can encounter. It is a healing weapon that we knew was going to be a healing weapon, and it does healing. It really isn't that complicated.

Btw, not every weapon needs to be equally good in every game mode, then again, rifle is the single best healing weapon for chrono, if it doesn't get used in competitive modes, it would entirely be because they recently nerfed chrono itself. At some point you'll need to realize how overloaded the rifle 1 healing is for sustained healing, but by then you'll start pretending this thread never happened.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

10 hours ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

Yes, because a healing weapon is responsible for tanking or mobility as well, oh wait, it isn't. One group complains because a healing weapon doesn't do enough damage, the other group complains it isn't a getaway car *shocked pikachu*. Btw, mesmer is a class that can weapon swap, and you have scepter and shield to make you way tankier or alternately staff for short disengages, rifle isn't supposed to be a one-size-fits-all solution for every issue mesmer can encounter. It is a healing weapon that we knew was going to be a healing weapon, and it does healing. It really isn't that complicated.

Btw, not every weapon needs to be equally good in every game mode, then again, rifle is the single best healing weapon for chrono, if it doesn't get used in competitive modes, it would entirely be because they recently nerfed chrono itself. At some point you'll need to realize how overloaded the rifle 1 healing is for sustained healing, but by then you'll start pretending this thread never happened.

Oh sorry I forgot about the game's rule that says you can't be a target if you're playing healer.

Edited March 3 by Lincolnbeard.1735

[Mell.4873]

6 minutes ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Oh sorry I forgot about the game's rule that says you can't be a target if you're playing healer.

I don't think many people bring him healing weapons to PvP unless you plan on healing a WvW Zerg. 

[Nepster.4275]

23 hours ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

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.

First of all, I think in the previous comments they were discussing PvP uses for the weapon, and not PvE ones for the main part, in which I need to agree that rifle is rather on the useless side compared to other weapons of other classes, again in a PvP scenario, in order for you to heal you need clones which are hard to come by if the only way to generate them on rifle is a long cast time, long cooldown only one clone from riffle 4, riffle 5 is close to useless since people are not taking portals in PvP and the resistance uptime on it is laughable, the AA is well, not much less useful than other weapon's AAs, and skill 2/4 are useful tho they are still not anything to write home about, which leaves us with 3 skills, and is believe it or not is the same as if we would have got a mainhand weapon

The other thing is, that in order to fulfill the role of the healer you are completely locked into two traitlines, which again does not provide any help with the core mechanic of clone generation, aside from the mantra clones, while other classes have the benefit of going into other traitlines too if they want, since their support capabilities are not locked behind taken traits: Gua shouts give boons/heal without any trait -- Ele is able to blast fields in a way that other's also benefit from it without taking any traits and so on

Now as for PvE and it's endgame content, yes, you are right that Mesmer is good there, BUT again I need to point out that being locked behind 2 complete traitlines gives little to no flexibility to the class, a good example is that you can go with a celestial firebrand and do damage while healing and sharing boons, for mesmer you would need to take atleast Illusions to do some torment damage on shatters, which would either take away Chaos or Inspiration

Again, I agree that mesmer has problems outside of rifle, but the fact that mesmer can only be used in ONE type of content as a healer is rather underwhelming since that content is only Raids, and maybe some strikes that do not require the stability sharing capabilities of FB/Rev, and believe me, as a former mesmer main I tried all kinds of builds/utilities in all kinds of content, and I think I have enough playtime on mesmer from the old times to be able to pull off mesmer correctly, and aside from low tier/low KP fractal runs mesmer is just incapable of upkeeping a decent uptime on boons aside from bosses due to the lack of clone generation, in harder strikes the limited capability for stability hurt the group, and in PvP playing mesmer with riffle is a pain 

Edited March 3 by Nepster.4275

[Passerbye.6291]

1 hour ago, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

Oh sorry I forgot about the game's rule that says you can't be a target if you're playing healer.

Oh, sorry I forgot PvP is 1v1 in this game and you have no allies to peel for you, oh wait, you do. Not every healer needs to be a self sufficient bunker, if your teammates are letting enemies zerg you as the healer, it means one of two things, 1: you are out of position, 2: your teammates are useless, either way it will result in a loss regardless of what tools you have available to you. 
 

14 minutes ago, Nepster.4275 said:

First of all, I think in the previous comments they were discussing PvP uses for the weapon, and not PvE ones for the main part, in which I need to agree that rifle is rather on the useless side compared to other weapons of other classes, again in a PvP scenario, in order for you to heal you need clones which are hard to come by if the only way to generate them on rifle is a long cast time, long cooldown only one clone from riffle 4, riffle 5 is close to useless since people are not taking portals in PvP and the resistance uptime on it is laughable, the AA is well, not much less useful than other weapon's AAs, and skill 2/4 are useful tho they are still not anything to write home about, which leaves us with 3 skills, and is believe it or not is the same as if we would have got a mainhand weapon

The other thing is, that in order to fulfill the role of the healer you are completely locked into two traitlines, which again does not provide any help with the core mechanic of clone generation, aside from the mantra clones, while other classes have the benefit of going into other traitlines too if they way, since their support capabilities are not locked behind taken traits: Gua shouts give boons/heal without any trait -- Ele is able to blast fields in a way that other's also benefit from it without taking any traits and so on

Now as for PvE and it's endgame content, yes, you are right that Mesmer is good there, BUT again I need to point out that being locked behind 2 complete traitlines gives little to no flexibility to the class, a good example is that you can go with a celestial firebrand and do damage while healing and sharing boons, for mesmer you would need to take atleast Illusions to do some torment damage on shatters, which would either take away Chaos or Inspiration

Again, I agree that mesmer has problems outside of rifle, but the fact that mesmer can only be used in ONE type of content as a healer is rather underwhelming since that content is only Raids, and maybe some strikes that do not require the stability sharing capabilities of FB/Rev, and believe me, as a former mesmer main I tried all kinds of builds/utilities in all kinds of content, and I think I have enough playtime on mesmer from the old times to be able to pull off mesmer correctly, and aside from low tier/low KP fractal runs mesmer is just incapable of upkeeping a decent uptime on boons aside from bosses due to the lack of clone generation, in harder strikes the limited capability for stability hurt the group, and in PvP playing mesmer with riffle is a pain 

I disagree on rifle being a subpar weapon mostly because it provides chrono with exactly the kind of healing and boon support that it required. The problem is, chrono lacks certain tools now due to multiple balance changes over the course of time, I already acknowledged this multiple times across this very thread. What I point out as the problem is that people expected rifle to be the one-size-fits-all solution to these problems for mesmer, which it clearly isn't, but also doesn't have to be. Heal scourge weapons are utter garbage for healing, they literally do nothing for the most part, and yet heal scourge was a force to be reckoned with until multiple resurrection nerfs and the ridiculous cooldown attached to F4 now. Not every problem needs to find its solution through a weapon. Rifle is a strong healing weapon, but it isn't a fully-fledged versatile kit for PvP or WvW, but it was never promised to be. 

Everyone is free to ask for buffs and changes to the class, but saying rifle is unimpressive is weird to me considering it has immediately become the main healing weapon for chrono, its main intended target btw, and remains the single best range healing option even in PvP and WvW for the class. One can argue it is worse than X or Y class, one can even be right about that, but this doesn't mean rifle is at fault for this. HFB dominates the stab meta for WvW to this day, and its main healing weapon staff is objectively weaker than chrono rifle, and yet people aren't going around saying firebrand staff is a terrible design.

Edit: Forgot to mention being locked behind trait choices. I believe most classes are forced to take either certain traits or skills for good builds, while some can be more restrictive in this regard, chrono feels very versatile to me, seeing how you have 2 free utility slots, 1 free elite slot, and a flex slot for healing depending on your build, you can even free up the very last utility slot in PvE depending on your group composition, many healers don't have this level of freedom. Again, I'd appreciate mesmer having more of everything as it is my main class, but I don't think it is fair to paint it out as the red(purple?)-headed step child.

Edited March 3 by Passerbye.6291

[Nepster.4275]

8 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

Oh, sorry I forgot PvP is 1v1 in this game and you have no allies to peel for you, oh wait, you do. Not every healer needs to be a self sufficient bunker, if your teammates are letting enemies zerg you as the healer, it means one of two things, 1: you are out of position, 2: your teammates are useless, either way it will result in a loss regardless of what tools you have available to you. 
 

I disagree on rifle being a subpar weapon mostly because it provides chrono with exactly the kind of healing and boon support that it required. The problem is, chrono lacks certain tools now due to multiple balance changes over the course of time, I already acknowledged this multiple times across this very thread. What I point out as the problem is that people expected rifle to be the one-size-fits-all solution to these problems for mesmer, which it clearly isn't, but also doesn't have to be. Heal scourge weapons are utter garbage for healing, they literally do nothing for the most part, and yet heal scourge was a force to be reckoned with until multiple resurrection nerfs and the ridiculous cooldown attached to F4 now. Not every problem needs to find its solution through a weapon. Rifle is a strong healing weapon, but it isn't a fully-fledged versatile kit for PvP or WvW, but it was never promised to be. 

Everyone is free to ask for buffs and changes to the class, but saying rifle is unimpressive is weird to me considering it has immediately become the main healing weapon for chrono, its main intended target btw, and remains the single best range healing option even in PvP and WvW for the class. One can argue it is worse than X or Y class, one can even be right about that, but this doesn't mean rifle is at fault for this. HFB dominates the stab meta for WvW to this day, and its main healing weapon staff is objectively weaker than chrono rifle, and yet people aren't going around saying firebrand staff is a terrible design.

They probably are not going around saying staff is a terrible weapon because for firebrand or any other healer centric build on guardian, the staff has a lot to offer, even if we take just the most simple thing of sharing swiftness or completely locking down a certain place with a nicely positioned staff 5 is something I would call a nice thing rather than terrible design, on staff you have everything a healer would need, you can share swiftness/might while also healing in the same time, you have a really good CC(tho this is debatable with the current stab spam in PvP) and you also have a blast finisher(which rifle 2 should be), and you also don't really have any mandatory resources in order to keep healing, like, if FB for example would be forced to generate 3 tome pages by blasting light fields without any other page generation from staff  in that case yes, we could say that since it only has 1 blast finisher it's a poor design just like rifle with one ammo for one clone, but since that's not the case I see no reason to complain about staff

Rifle on the other hand, has that problem since you need to switch to some other weapon just so you get some clones but then you lose most of your healing capabilities and only need to rely on your trait healings which again isn't the case for Guardian since you have mace+shield and the only capable healing weapon on mesmer is rifle(without counting traits because ofc Insp heals with clone generation), with all this said, you could straight up switch out rifle for something else with more clone generation like staff making rifle subpar even in mesmer's own kit, again in a PvP scenario without going into the exact build just taking class mechanics into count

In PvE, yes, rifle is acceptable and all the current problems of rife comes from the class itself, and not the weapon design, I agree with that

As for the necro argument, yes, on necro the weapons do not really matter since you use barriers for the most part as for healing, BUT on necro your weapons are taken in way to help out with resource generation leading to more barriers and this option is not present in mesmer since you are tied to rifle without the resource generation attribute to it, but this is a PvE thing for the most part since in PvP heal necro fallen out a bit due to the lack of resource generation capabilities, tho I still see it's getting a bit of use

[Passerbye.6291]

2 hours ago, Nepster.4275 said:

They probably are not going around saying staff is a terrible weapon because for firebrand or any other healer centric build on guardian, the staff has a lot to offer, even if we take just the most simple thing of sharing swiftness or completely locking down a certain place with a nicely positioned staff 5 is something I would call a nice thing rather than terrible design, on staff you have everything a healer would need, you can share swiftness/might while also healing in the same time, you have a really good CC(tho this is debatable with the current stab spam in PvP) and you also have a blast finisher(which rifle 2 should be), and you also don't really have any mandatory resources in order to keep healing, like, if FB for example would be forced to generate 3 tome pages by blasting light fields without any other page generation from staff  in that case yes, we could say that since it only has 1 blast finisher it's a poor design just like rifle with one ammo for one clone, but since that's not the case I see no reason to complain about staff

Rifle on the other hand, has that problem since you need to switch to some other weapon just so you get some clones but then you lose most of your healing capabilities and only need to rely on your trait healings which again isn't the case for Guardian since you have mace+shield and the only capable healing weapon on mesmer is rifle(without counting traits because ofc Insp heals with clone generation), with all this said, you could straight up switch out rifle for something else with more clone generation like staff making rifle subpar even in mesmer's own kit, again in a PvP scenario without going into the exact build just taking class mechanics into count

In PvE, yes, rifle is acceptable and all the current problems of rife comes from the class itself, and not the weapon design, I agree with that

As for the necro argument, yes, on necro the weapons do not really matter since you use barriers for the most part as for healing, BUT on necro your weapons are taken in way to help out with resource generation leading to more barriers and this option is not present in mesmer since you are tied to rifle without the resource generation attribute to it, but this is a PvE thing for the most part since in PvP heal necro fallen out a bit due to the lack of resource generation capabilities, tho I still see it's getting a bit of use

The problem I have with the issues concerning mesmer rifle is that, people are never happy. First, they argue that there is no synergy, you point out to them that there is, in fact, synergy, then they complain you need to couple it with other things to perform well, pick one. The rifle fills the gaps in mesmer's healing kit, which for both PvE and PvP was range healing. Before rifle, all sources of healing on mesmer other than wells felt convoluted and were centered on the mesmer. I won't argue that rifle's clone generation is low, that is very much a fact, and I did previously mention I wouldn't say no to rifle 2 being a blast finisher, as it very much looks like one and would go very well with rifle 3's short duration ethereal field for more chaos armor generation, which appears to be the direction they wanted to go with mesmer anyway. That being said, I like to use mantra of recovery for clone generation, the combination of mantra of recovery and rifle 1 gives you plenty clone generation to work with. Now ideally (I even made a thread about this) I'd prefer it if clones wouldn't just disappear on target death or not damaging a target for 4 seconds, or in the case of PvP simply getting shreded instantly to render them more reliable, but again, these simply turn into a mesmer problem, rather than a rifle one. 

My point is, and has been for a while, that we shouldn't seek to overload rifle in an attempt to fix what is fundamentally a problem with the class itself. They can obviously tune the rifle to change a few things, but I disagree with the people's idea that somehow rifle is a terrible weapon when it is the single highest healing per second from a weapon in the game, at 1.2k range at that. Not every kit has to be a copy paste of one another. I've seen people unironically argue rifle 1 doesn't do that much more healing than druid 1, not realizing just how much healing rifle does on mesmer.

A good argument on weapon balance would be arguing that sword main hand is strictly inferior to dagger main hand on mesmer for instance, since there is little to no reason for sword main hand currently outside of trying to get around projectile hate since blurred frenzy which was initially meant to work with any trait interacts with distortion but was changed specifically not work that way, then the sword damage just fell behind dagger, ending up a melee weapon that does less damage than a range dps weapon.

I'm more of a PvE Andy, so I'll give my example from that, chrono currently has a lack of proper swiftness access. In fact, for years, mesmer has weirdly had very few ways to sustain swiftness on itself or the group, the game made you jump through hoops for one of the simplest buffs in the game. I hated this very fact for the longest time, or having to combine multiple skills across multiple weapons to have decent uptime, like focus 4 and shield 5. Now, every heal chrono heal build with rifle should run mantra of recovery and the relic of febe, this ensures ample clone generation, so much so that you can literally provide 100% alac or quick uptime without ever needing to use a single phantasms if you so desire, and easily overcap swiftness thanks to febe. The build already does over 3k healing per second with just rifle 1 and 2 and everything else you do adds on to it instead of eating into your healing output due to most things you do providing equal to or more healing than your auto attacks, like channeling the healing mantra or casting a well. And yet, a lot of the time, people will go onto a build website, copy paste the build and then wonder why it doesn't do swiftness, because the build in question will use monk rune and healing well. People cried rifle was a terrible weapon, and not just in PvP btw, as soon as it was in beta, and in beta it was doing close to 4k healing per second with 2 buttons, there is just no pleasing people.

Edited March 3 by Passerbye.6291

[Levetty.1279]

The fact that Heal Chronos are still camping Scepter/Shield and some are even still bringing a Staff tells you how "good" Rifle is.

[Salt Mode.3780]

51 minutes ago, Levetty.1279 said:

The fact that Heal Chronos are still camping Scepter/Shield and some are even still bringing a Staff tells you how "good" Rifle is.

Staff is pretty much going to be the staple of chrono heal as it SYNCRONIZES with chaos traitline too much not to be used. It is the weapon swap that can be changed atm dagger/sword, scepter/shield, and now rifle. The reason why I said staff is too important is because of chaos armor on demand as well as combo field into chaos armor. 

[Micah.3789]

2 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

The fact that Heal Chronos are still camping Scepter/Shield and some are even still bringing a Staff tells you how "good" Rifle is.

No it doesn't. Players in GW2 have always been abysmally slow to adapt to  change, especially when they aren't forced to. Scepter/shield was and still is perfectly viable, and a lot of people don't like the rifle healer fantasy (this is a RPG after all).

Besides that, chrono has effectively two different build approaches now, depending on which weapon you choose. Scepter/shield lacks direct healing and so requires the relevant traits in Inspiration to accommodate (the pre-rifle build). Whereas rifle has significant direct healing that allows for more flexibility in trait choice if desired. That means one could avoid mantra healing entirely and still produce decent healing, while gaining the benefits of say, Medic's Feedback. 

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

7 hours ago, Salt Mode.3780 said:

Staff is pretty much going to be the staple of chrono heal as it SYNCRONIZES with chaos traitline too much not to be used. It is the weapon swap that can be changed atm dagger/sword, scepter/shield, and now rifle. The reason why I said staff is too important is because of chaos armor on demand as well as combo field into chaos armor. 

Assuming this is PvE, the only reason you want Chaos Aura is for the Regen share anyway. Which the Rifle can already give via 2, and Rifle itself can also already provide group-wide Chaos Aura on demand via 3 (You don't even need to take the Chaos trait to share it with your group unlike Staff). Of course the Aura uptime will not be near permanent as Staff, but it doesn't have to be and I don't think Chaos Aura matters that much in PvE encounters. Other than that, Staff actually interacts very little with everything else in the Chaos line. 

What Staff has over Rifle is the instant double Phantasms, which makes a Chrono's boon application become a lot easier in trash mob situations. And I admit I do switch to Staff when doing Fractals for this sheer convenience. But for boss fights and for Strikes then Rifle is simply better than Staff. 

 

[Salt Mode.3780]

52 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Assuming this is PvE, the only reason you want Chaos Aura is for the Regen share anyway. Which the Rifle can already give via 2, and Rifle itself can also already provide group-wide Chaos Aura on demand via 3 (You don't even need to take the Chaos trait to share it with your group unlike Staff). Of course the Aura uptime will not be near permanent as Staff, but it doesn't have to be and I don't think Chaos Aura matters that much in PvE encounters. Other than that, Staff actually interacts very little with everything else in the Chaos line. 

What Staff has over Rifle is the instant double Phantasms, which makes a Chrono's boon application become a lot easier in trash mob situations. And I admit I do switch to Staff when doing Fractals for this sheer convenience. But for boss fights and for Strikes then Rifle is simply better than Staff. 

 

Sorry I do mean PvE but what people don't see is also the fact that chaos armor also gives protection which you would be surprised how rare that is in PvE instances. With illusionary defense and chaos armor tho it is RNG between 33% of 3 boons that chaos armor gives the protection uptime is pretty kitten high. Protection is a very undervalued boon in PvE and very much needed in competitive play. Another thing is in competitive play staff brings phase retreat which is a means of mobility and escape as well as chaos storm giving both resolution and aegis both which can come handy in PvE instances. 

Staff provides so much utility is why it is pretty much staple in almost all content in terms of support wise. 

 

[Mell.4873]

10 hours ago, Levetty.1279 said:

The fact that Heal Chronos are still camping Scepter/Shield and some are even still bringing a Staff tells you how "good" Rifle is.

Are they even healing then? Sounds like a Boon Support.

[Mell.4873]

7 hours ago, Micah.3789 said:

No it doesn't. Players in GW2 have always been abysmally slow to adapt to  change, especially when they aren't forced to. Scepter/shield was and still is perfectly viable, and a lot of people don't like the rifle healer fantasy (this is a RPG after all).

Besides that, chrono has effectively two different build approaches now, depending on which weapon you choose. Scepter/shield lacks direct healing and so requires the relevant traits in Inspiration to accommodate (the pre-rifle build). Whereas rifle has significant direct healing that allows for more flexibility in trait choice if desired. That means one could avoid mantra healing entirely and still produce decent healing, while gaining the benefits of say, Medic's Feedback. 

Medic's Feedback is an amazing trait especially on DPS builds like Virtuoso. Great way to supplement bad supports or hard content. 

Anyway on my Chronomancer especially for fractals it is my go to support skill. You don't even need to have skill on your bar for it to be useful. 

[Micah.3789]

2 hours ago, Mell.4873 said:

Are they even healing then? Sounds like a Boon Support.

Yes, scepter is (indirectly) a healing weapon. Mesmer gets a very significant amount of healing through traits that proc on illusion summons and shatters. The values are so high that scepter's 3rd auto (which summons a clone) is comparable to other healing weapon autos. The clones do double duty, serving as fuels for shatters which heal, cleanse conditions, and provide boons. Though, there is a limit to how much you can actually shatter, at which point rifle's direct healing brings more overall potency. In other words, rifle has better output on paper, but scepter may be more comfortable for maintenance. 

To give you an idea of just how powerful mesmer's Inspiration line is, I regularly heal BS pugs on a mirage in all celestial gear and 2x staff. All the healing is just trait procs: illusions, shatters, and mantras. We're talking 7-9k hps with only 639 healing power and no "healing weapon."

*Edit: I found a log for an example in case anyone thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm 'player 7'. 
https://dps.report/apRe-20240221-230643_bone

Edited March 4 by Micah.3789

[Mell.4873]

1 hour ago, Micah.3789 said:

Yes, scepter is (indirectly) a healing weapon. Mesmer gets a very significant amount of healing through traits that proc on illusion summons and shatters. The values are so high that scepter's 3rd auto (which summons a clone) is comparable to other healing weapon autos. The clones do double duty, serving as fuels for shatters which heal, cleanse conditions, and provide boons. Though, there is a limit to how much you can actually shatter, at which point rifle's direct healing brings more overall potency. In other words, rifle has better output on paper, but scepter may be more comfortable for maintenance. 

To give you an idea of just how powerful mesmer's Inspiration line is, I regularly heal BS pugs on a mirage in all celestial gear and 2x staff. All the healing is just trait procs: illusions, shatters, and mantras. We're talking 7-9k hps with only 639 healing power and no "healing weapon."

*Edit: I found a log for an example in case anyone thinks I'm exaggerating. I'm 'player 7'. 
https://dps.report/apRe-20240221-230643_bone

Isn't that staff Mirage, I think I did mention that was the closest to healer we had before Rifle.

Also, I am not really saying you could not heal before Rifle, but it requires an incredibly hard build and rotation that there wasn't much point. Unless you main Mesmer like I do.

[Passerbye.6291]

Here comes another wall of text gents, brace yourselves.
There are multiple ways to heal high amounts of health as chrono, one of  them being scepter auto attacks coupled with frequent shatters, this already does a fair bit of healing, it is in no way bad, though it won't be doing the kind of burst healing druid or herald does and it won't be reaching the amount of healing rifle or mantra spam can has.

Another way is running staff and spamming mantra of pain, due to not having cooldown and only requiring 1 second (0.66 second or 0.80 second with alacrity depending on whether you take improved alacrity) to use up both charges, followed by a charge up time of 2.25 sec (reduced to 1.5 sec with quickness), factoring in player input delay, you get to trigger 2x mantra heal from pantra of pain every 2.5 seconds if you so wish, granted this will be slowed down for each action you'll need to take to provide your boons, but the vast majority of skills you use on chrono to provide buffs also heal, phantasms heal due to eventually turning into clones and then yet again for getting shattered, wells heal due to a deafult pick trait as well, meaning that you don't actually lose out much, if at all, on your healing output when providing boons either. This here is a perfectly viable way to play heal chrono with really good sustain healing.

The mantra spam healing route is a lot less prevalent when you are on scepter shield mainly because doing so eats into your clone generation via scepter auto attacks due to locking you into a perpetual cycle of charging mantra of pain with buff skills etc. thrown in between, making it counterintuitive to use scepter if you are planning to go mantra spam route.

The problem is, these 2 versions have some downsides, namely a distinct lack of ranged healing. Running either of these builds requires you to use the healing well to help people who might be out of position or were away to do a mechanic. 

With rifle, you have ample access to ranged healing, and an additional mitigation tool in the form of barrier on a relatively short cooldown to counter foreseaable burst damage like VG greens, while also possessing essentially all the tools to provide perfect uptime on all the boons you provide. Simply running mantra of recovery and well of action with a rifle ensures 25 stacks of might (12 from rifle 3, 8 from well of action, 5 from F1 shatter), fury (well of action, rifle 3, shatter 3), swiftness (through relic of febe), protection (via shatters), regeneration (through mantra of recovery and rifle 2), vigor (shatter 2), alacrity/quickness (via shatters and 1 charge of phantasm to easily overcap).

With this setup, you are still free to use mantra of pain in two different ways. The first one being the standard way off spamming off of cooldown and charging whenever you aren't doing anything important. This approach lets you squeeze in 2 rifle auto attacks, which is an extra 1.8-1.9k healing between each mantra charge up, which takes place every 2.5 seconds so long as your other skills aren't off of cooldown. This way, you reach some of the highest theoretical healing per second attainable by chronomancer. You still use your buff skills, rifle 2 and 5, mantra of recovery off of cooldown but charge and consume mantra of pain while they are on cooldown. Using the mantra of pain this way has the advantage of permanently providing the group with 16 additional stacks of might and 10-20 stacks of vulnerability on the enemy, but since the might is overcapped, it is often not very relevant, and most groups have no issue sustaining 25 vulnerability in the first place. But if either of these are a requirement, this is a valid approach to take, do keep in mind, however, that this results in a really bothersome gameplay loop.

The alternate way is simply using it whenever you get a 2nd charge or using the charges as needed. Using the 2nd charge off of cooldown results in a net gain of over 300 healing per second with absolutely 0 opportunity cost, meaning that in any circumstance where you have a free utility slot that you don't need any other utility from (stab, projectile hate, aegis, extra cc, condi cleanse, boon strip, overcapping alac/quick generation even more by equipping disenchanter etc.), this is the go to skill to use in that slot. Used this way, it will provide 5 stacks of vulnerability, but it will not give any group might, which shouldn't be required in the first place assuming you use well of action, F1 shatter and rifle 3 properly. A smaller and often disregarded advantage of running rifle is that its auto attacks are 20% projectile finishers, meaning that whenever there are light fields around, you'll cleanse a considerable amount of conditions passively through both your and your clone's auto attacks.

[Alva.4590]

On 3/2/2024 at 6:45 PM, Lincolnbeard.1735 said:

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.

As you are so adamant that rifle is garbage in competitive mode and we are clueless PvE'rs then please elaborate to us why. With numbers, preferably so we can understand the full scope of how bad it is compared to other healers (and please don't come with mobility, you don't need that in a zerg much and going heal as a roamer makes hardly any sense). 
The points Passerbye brought up don't seem to be too different between WvW/PvP and PvE. 

[Alva.4590]

On 3/3/2024 at 2:52 PM, Nepster.4275 said:

Again, I agree that mesmer has problems outside of rifle, but the fact that mesmer can only be used in ONE type of content as a healer is rather underwhelming since that content is only Raids, and maybe some strikes that do not require the stability sharing capabilities of FB/Rev, and believe me, as a former mesmer main I tried all kinds of builds/utilities in all kinds of content, and I think I have enough playtime on mesmer from the old times to be able to pull off mesmer correctly, and aside from low tier/low KP fractal runs mesmer is just incapable of upkeeping a decent uptime on boons aside from bosses due to the lack of clone generation, in harder strikes the limited capability for stability hurt the group, and in PvP playing mesmer with riffle is a pain 

You are entirely wrong about that. Mesmer can bring just as much if not more stability than FB/Rev  and it is perfectly capable of upkeeping a PERFECT uptime on boons even in down phases. If you truly think so then you clearly did not try out every build/utility as you said you did. 
I play mesmer for over 8 years and I have ZERO issues in ANY PvE context to heal, give barrier when needed and upkeep my boons. 

[Passerbye.6291]

Btw, small footnote, mantra of recovery appears to be bugged with the restorative mantras trait and heals twice for the listed amount instead of once (only tested in PvE).

Edit: Nvm, as @ZephidelGRS.9520 pointed out, the prior trait to restorative mantras is a mantra itself, trait works as intended.

Edited March 4 by Passerbye.6291

[ShadowKatt.6740]

35 minutes ago, Alva.4590 said:

You are entirely wrong about that. Mesmer can bring just as much if not more stability than FB/Rev  and it is perfectly capable of upkeeping a PERFECT uptime on boons even in down phases. If you truly think so then you clearly did not try out every build/utility as you said you did. 
I play mesmer for over 8 years and I have ZERO issues in ANY PvE context to heal, give barrier when needed and upkeep my boons. 

Are we really complaining about Stability now?? Should we just reduce the entire mesmer kit down to a bunch of boon buttons to make everyone happy. Press 1 for Vulnerability, press 2 for alacrity. Press 3 for might. press 4 for fury. Press 5 for stability. Press 6 for heal other. Press 7 for regen. Press 8 for vigor. Press 9 for barrier. And press 0 to reset all cooldowns so you can do it again.

I think I just found the IDEAL mesmer. SOMEONE GET ANET ON THE PHONE!

Edited March 4 by ShadowKatt.6740

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

28 minutes ago, Passerbye.6291 said:

Btw, small footnote, mantra of recovery appears to be bugged with the restorative mantras trait and heals twice for the listed amount instead of once (only tested in PvE).

It’s not a bug if it’s what I think it is. 

Basically Mantra of Recovery also activates Mender’s Purity (the minor trait before it). And since the Lesser skill also counts as a Mantra charge skill, it also activates Restorative Mantras.

There’s a chance this was an oversight and an unintended interaction, so we shouldn’t be too public about it 🤣

Edited March 4 by ZephidelGRS.9520

[Passerbye.6291]

8 minutes ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

It’s not a bug if it’s what I think it is. 

Basically Mantra of Recovery also activates Mender’s Purity (the minor trait before it). And since the Lesser skill also counts as a Mantra charge skill, it also activates Restorative Mantras.

There’s a chance this was an oversight and an unintended interaction, so we shouldn’t be too public about it 🤣

Already made a bug report about it as it doesn't state the prior trait to be a mantra, I did check that and the clone generation to confirm. It is up to them now, will probably get fixed in 4 years 😄

Edit: You are very likely correct though, and it got through when they swapped restorative mantras to proc on charge use instead of channel.
Edit 2: You are 100% correct, it is even named after the cleanse mantra, ty for pointing out, I'll edit my post

 

Edited March 4 by Passerbye.6291