The positives after July 2019 balance patch

[Wahlao.1069]

I know mostly everyone is sad after the changes to Chrono...but these are the positives I noted:

1) Longer alacrity duration when shattering with clones.2) F2 skill cooldown is 7-8s now, if you shatter with 3 clones. -> I find I couldn't generate clones fast enough, so had to change to scepter for faster clone generation, plus switched to Illusionary Reversion trait.3) Longer quickness duration (if traited)

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

1 and 3 are not that true. If you have 3 clones out you win 0.5sec of alacrity and quickness, with 1 clone you lose 0.5, with 2 is the same as before.

[BuungBuung.2168]

always nerf

[Ojimaru.8970]

I think Lost Time is being overlooked right now. It has no ICD, so will trigger off the first 3 pulses of Gravity Well, and each clone with Time Sink (with itself applies Slow).

I can see it being part of the lock-down build in PvP or WvW, and maybe a new staple for support chronos in PvE. I'm unsure about its efficacy for Power DPS in PvE, even with the bonus crit damage.

Edit:Funnily enough, you can maintain 100% Slow on a target with Viper condi DPS setup.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Ojimaru.8970 said:I think Lost Time is being overlooked right now. It has no ICD, so will trigger off the first 3 pulses of Gravity Well, and each clone with Time Sink (with itself applies Slow).

I can see it being part of the lock-down build in PvP or WvW, and maybe a new staple for support chronos in PvE. I'm unsure about its efficacy for Power DPS in PvE, even with the bonus crit damage.

Edit:Funnily enough, you can maintain 100% Slow on a target with Viper condi DPS setup.

Lost time has worked like that for quite some time...but now you're wasting all your clones on a shatter that does nothing but a trait with crappy damage and a long cooldown on the shatter, congratulations.

[Wahlao.1069]

Interestingly, I can reach 5s cooldown on the F2 shatter skill.Basically I go for illusions line, and shatter on 3 clones.With the 15% shatter skill cooldown reduction, -15s recharge from shattering 3 clones, and personal alacrity -> 5s F2 cooldown.Problem is trying to generate 3 clones every 5s! :#

[Ojimaru.8970]

@Wahlao.1069 said:Interestingly, I can reach 5s cooldown on the F2 shatter skill.Basically I go for illusions line, and shatter on 3 clones.With the 15% shatter skill cooldown reduction, -15s recharge from shattering 3 clones, and personal alacrity -> 5s F2 cooldown.Problem is trying to generate 3 clones every 5s! :#

You generate 3 clones every 5s just by auto-attacking with a scepter (with either quickness or Malicious Sorcery).

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@Ojimaru.8970 said:

@Wahlao.1069 said:Interestingly, I can reach 5s cooldown on the F2 shatter skill.Basically I go for illusions line, and shatter on 3 clones.With the 15% shatter skill cooldown reduction, -15s recharge from shattering 3 clones, and personal alacrity -> 5s F2 cooldown.Problem is trying to generate 3 clones every 5s! :#

You generate 3 clones every 5s just by auto-attacking with a scepter (with either quickness or Malicious Sorcery).

Not quite. You generate 2.7 clones every 5s while auto-attacking if you have quickness, but you have to be at melee range and doing literally nothing else.

[Firebeard.1746]

I tried it, without clutch healing/cleansing from shattering everything in a pinch, and buffs to clone survivablility, this is still going to feel like a nerf. I definitely feel the extra alacrity and it's interesting that it lets you use weapon skills more often with the extra recharge. But I still can't say I'm happy. I'll tinker to see if I can work out a good solo/fractal build. The thing is I don't like spending time hunting hero points and looking for people to help me. It was a huge deal that I finally unlocked this mayish and these changes just feel bad. I still don't have mirage and don't want to have to use it in order to feel viable. Like the dedicated class team should be making sure that every talent and ability has its niche in a build that's good at something. Not making stuff unusable in normal gameplay. It's really not that hard to lose your clones in just normal gamplay. This change would actually mean something if they buffed clone survivability and provided alternatives to getting out of a pinch. I can jsut remember too many times in HoT areas or fractals when I felt compelled to shatter everything to survive.

[Matt H.6142]

The new chrono shatter visual effects are nice and Rewinder has revived a condi chrono build I used to run since before Mistrust was removed from the game.
The synergy between split second and time sink will be interesting.
It had me look at and use Illusionary Reversion since maybe it was released.I can see some real utility in Dune Cloak now. The 20% condi duration was nice, but was basically a guarantee in any PVE content.

[Levetty.1279]

@Wahlao.1069 said:I know mostly everyone is sad after the changes to Chrono...but these are the positives I noted:

1) Longer alacrity duration when shattering with clones.2) F2 skill cooldown is 7-8s now, if you shatter with 3 clones. -> I find I couldn't generate clones fast enough, so had to change to scepter for faster clone generation, plus switched to Illusionary Reversion trait.3) Longer quickness duration (if traited)

1 and 3 are blatantly false. Its the same duration with a 3 clone shatters or less for anything else.2 might be good for PvP until its nerfed but in PvE confusion is still shit in most situations and you might as well take Mirage for the situations its not due to axe.

[Xenic.1387]

So scepter / torch condi chrono may be a thing now? Could be interesting because of condi damage plus the burst from the shatter.

I found that power chrono with S/S and a signet build (vs well build) was on the right track, but I wasn't doing any real rotation or anything. Just messing around.

[Noodle Ant.1605]

The change to F2 also seems to be some sort of compensation for the F1 nerf to PvE no-slow power chronos, who can now trait Illusory Reversion and 3 clone shatter both F1 and F2 back to back, generating more self alacrity than before to render Improved Alacrity worthless in alacrity-lacking environments. Even when 100% alacrity is supplied, the extra clone generation and dmg from F2 seems to closely match w/e dmg increase from the shorter cooldowns that Improved Alacrity provides.

It’s amusing seeing something that was seen as a ‘condi revival’ having more of a use for a dying power build.

[viquing.8254]

Answering to multipost (this one + https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82250/the-positives-after-july-2019-balance-patch + https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/82158/rip-chrono.) .

@Ansau.7326 , @YtseJam.9784 , @Lyndina.7984, @DancingMad.8504 , @Hackuuna.4085 , @Largo Cifer.3495 , @DancingMad.8504 , @Trepidation Lost.3469 , @Regon Phoenix.8215 , @Menaka.5092 , @Daccura.4769 , @Terrorhuz.4695 , @Lyndina.7984 , @Vague Memory.2817 , @CharJC.8365 , @Lincolnbeard.1735 , @Ruufio.1496 , @yusayu.3629 , @VDAC.2137 , @Justine.6351 , @Aaralyna.3104 , @Kylden Ar.3724 , @Yasai.3549 , @Strages.2950 , @Requiem.9648 , @Mikkel.8427, @BuungBuung.2168 , @DivineBuddha.1589 , @sephire.7296 and @all other who came post chrono death while not even testing change during 1 week :

Brief history

First a brief history : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides (copy the url because link didn't work on forum actually.).So before IP became baseline, IP was used by :

• Few PvP players (few because shatter IP builds were eaten alive by thieves.).
• Few WvW duellists in duellist spot. (because there were way more usefull builds for roam, bus, zerg, scout.)
• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.
• I haven't the real data but realisticly, from what I saw and we can check on old vids, around 20% of globals mesmers players really used IP builds.

What happened :

• One day, a dev get farmed by a blackwater builds (who wasn't even a true clonespammer build btw.).
• On this forum mesmers section, there were a mafia for whom the only "skilled" way to play mesmer is to use shatter IP builds.
• In parallel some whine about blackwater came from WvW and PvP forums.

So instead of removing the bad synergy combo with PU + 2 death traits + Deceiptive evasion, what they did is : cut a third of mesmer gameplay and force them to play monogameplay shatter. (what we have until mirage came.)Then my first question is : Where were you when it was the time do defend gameplay diversity ?

Because with this chrono cut, the gameplay still exist in core spec contrary to what they did on june 2015 patch with builds like pyro immortal destruction, glamour, clone death...And don't start saying it was cheesy please, I can give you the exact same arguments for IP. Not even comparing to other effects/clics.I mean if I left the game each time they kill my build, I should have left at least 6 times.

Content

That's the main point, even with chrono actually cut, there is no gameplay desctruction because chrono was just an "improved core". You can always play shatter burst like usual on core.

So 4 points :

• Obviously if you try to play the new chrono like before (with the same gameplay), it shouldn't work and feel weak. (Yeah the stealthy burst didn't work anymore for example.)
• One of the main problem with this patch is that anet conditionned every mesmers to use/play shatter with IP since 2015 and nearly every main traits are about this.
• Even if this patch chrono isn't viable, on the long run, it's good to not give IP back because it has the potential to provide other type of gameplay than just an "improved core".
• Let people 1 week to test it intensivly because maybe with other gameplay something will work.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one so think like this (@"Delofasht.4231" .)With this patch they resolve the 2 main issues that make Chronomancer a "super core" spec :F5 tool by making it counterpart with F4.Chronophantasma by removing IP.

Of course it's not perfect and I hope to see more traits ajustments next patch but I really think it's a step in the right direction for gameplay diversity.

[Lincolnbeard.1735]

@viquing.8254 most of those builds were meh at best. IP was used since the release in all power shatter builds, the only exception might be PU power shatter.Like I said in some other thread condi can get way without IP, power on the other hand can't. It becomes more predictable, slower and clunkier.F4 and F5 merge is idiotic and nerfs a already weak spec in the sustain aspect.But the worst is that what chrono received with the trade is even worse than the core shatters. It makes 0 sense. Oh and it changes nothing, the gameplay is still the same except its, like I said above slower and clunkier. Instead of gs2 F3 f1 you will pop out a clone before, so you can actually use the combo. On condi you'll be spamming F2 with 3 clones and do nothing more.

[Lyndina.7984]

Positiv things after the Update? I reactivated my Wow Account and have fun again. Sure it may have it flaws,but at least the developers won't patch classes unplayable.

[viquing.8254]

@Lincolnbeard.1735 said:@viquing.8254 most of those builds were meh at best. IP was used since the release in all power shatter builds, the only exception might be PU power shatter.Like I said in some other thread condi can get way without IP, power on the other hand can't. It becomes more predictable, slower and clunkier.F4 and F5 merge is idiotic and nerfs a already weak spec in the sustain aspect.But the worst is that what chrono received with the trade is even worse than the core shatters. It makes 0 sense. Oh and it changes nothing, the gameplay is still the same except its, like I said above slower and clunkier. Instead of gs2 F3 f1 you will pop out a clone before, so you can actually use the combo. On condi you'll be spamming F2 with 3 clones and do nothing more.

F2 on a 8 sec CD mean perma vigor with BD for example who can have use not only on condi build.I'm not saying there will be some viable build this patch but it's obviously a gameplay change, the fact that you are saying you can't anymore gs2 f3 f1 is the prove that chrono was just a super core.

[Ansau.7326]

@viquing.8254 it's shocking that you're naive enough to believe that our complains are unwarranted based on drama without testing.My initial reaction was after doing light open world, and my opinion has done nothing but to strength once I've done dps comparisons in pve and tried to play it in pvp. DPS wise, i lose about 50% by just swapping mirage to chrono (and that's with gear more beneficial to chrono than mirage). PvE wise, rotation become quite more tedious to achieve the same goal. PvP/WvW wise, survivability is severely reduced, pressure becomes harder and focus of gameplay is now on clone generation if you plan to keep up with the rest of powercreep.

If the purpose of this change was build diversity, they failed miserably. First because you don't increase build diversity by killing an entire elite specialization. And second, because now chrono screams clone generation all over the place, which means DE is a must, and you are forced to choose specific weapons, utilities runes and sigils.

Also, this thing about chrono now playing different is a fallacy. Core mechanic of mesmer is what they changed, while everything unique about chrono remains the same. You cannot play chrono in a different way because CS does the same thing, wells haven't changed, neither shield or purpose of chrono traits. Chrono is still about alacrity, quickness and CS.

The saddest thing is that by being positive to this patch, you are doing nothing but reinforcing Anet position about keeping this crazy untested way to balance. Being positive to chrono, scrapper changes is telling anet to do the same with mirage and other elites.If your goal is to have a game where nothing feels rewarding because professions are frustrated by annoying mechanics, then be positive and live in anet's fairytail. But be aware you're being a contributor in the destruction of this game.

PD: Btw, I'm still wondering what is the connection between IP and chronophantasma...

[Pyroatheist.9031]

@"viquing.8254" said:

Brief history

First a brief history : https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides (copy the url because link didn't work on forum actually.).So before IP became baseline, IP was used by :

• Few PvP players (few because shatter IP builds were eaten alive by thieves.).

Ok, let's clear this up a little bit. First of all, mesmer was extraordinarily weak in PvP for the majority of pre-hot GW2. However, for the brief times that it was generally viable, it was viable using shatter builds with IP. Every single mesmer player in every single major tournament used IP.

• Few WvW duellists in duellist spot. (because there were way more usefull builds for roam, bus, zerg, scout.)

Any WvW roaming build that was a shatter build used IP. However, shatter builds were pretty weak, so most people used either phantasm setups or condition-based non-shatter setups.

• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.

Mesmer wasn't used in PvE, unless you call taking an fgs from elementalist and portaling the real classes to the next fight being "used". Even in very niche situations, phantasm builds were extremely weak until well into HoT when they added a number of phantasm buffing traits.

• I haven't the real data but realisticly, from what I saw and we can check on old vids, around 20% of globals mesmers players really used IP builds.

That's a pretty poor sample. You shouldn't be sampling the broad variety of build usage from every random person with unregistered hypercam 2. Look instead towards the builds that skilled and successful players used. You'll find that they were either IP based shatter...or non-shatter builds.

What happened :

• One day, a dev get farmed by a blackwater builds (who wasn't even a true clonespammer build btw.).
• On this forum mesmers section, there were a mafia for whom the only "skilled" way to play mesmer is to use shatter IP builds.
• In parallel some whine about blackwater came from WvW and PvP forums.

So instead of removing the bad synergy combo with PU + 2 death traits + Deceiptive evasion, what they did is : cut a third of mesmer gameplay and force them to play monogameplay shatter. (what we have until mirage came.)

This is extraordinarily disingenuous. I personally put an enormous amount of time into playing clone death builds, using them both for roaming in WvW and soloing my way to top 50 on both the solo queue and team queue leaderboards playing nothing but clone death. The builds were fun to play, powerful, and completely broken on a fundamental level.

The very concept of the clone death builds was that opponents had no counterplay outside of refusing to engage the mesmer. This was un-fun in every way and needed to be removed. There was no possible way to keep clone death traits in the game without them being either uselessly weak or fundamentally broken.

Then my first question is : Where were you when it was the time do defend gameplay diversity ?

Where was I? I was right here, arguing both on these forums and in much less public but much more direct avenues against restrictive and unnecessary changes to the class, for all the good it did. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the last remaining vet in a forum of fresh meat. Half the people you pinged were around here fighting back then too, and some of us actually made these builds that you mention as being removed.

Because with this chrono cut, the gameplay still exist in core spec contrary to what they did on june 2015 patch with builds like pyro immortal destruction, glamour, clone death...

What does it matter that gameplay still exists in the core spec? Sure, they didn't kill IP as thoroughly as they killed my builds in the past, but that doesn't make this change any less bad.

I mean if I left the game each time they kill my build, I should have left at least 6 times.

Every time Anet has taken a dump on mesmer, people have left this class. Some have probably left the game too, but the more obvious effect you see is class-wise. Each time this happens less and less people stick around to keep playing mesmer, myself included. I used to play mesmer in every part of the game, all the time. Then I stopped playing PvP. Then I couldn't keep using mesmer in WvW. Lastly I couldn't keep using mesmer to lead my PvE raid group. Now I have a hard time even justifying using mesmer to play the open world content we get with living story releases.

I have many thousands of hours in this game, and until fairly recently I had spent over 95% of it playing my one mesmer. This is no longer the case, and I rarely play her anymore.

That's the main point, even with chrono actually cut, there is no gameplay desctruction because chrono was just an "improved core". You can always play shatter burst like usual on core.

Can you really? People didn't play core mesmer shatter burst pre-patch for a good reason: it's not strong enough to compete in this post-expansion game. This patch changed nothing about that, it's still far too weak.

• Obviously if you try to play the new chrono like before (with the same gameplay), it shouldn't work and feel weak. (Yeah the stealthy burst didn't work anymore for example.)
• One of the main problem with this patch is that anet conditionned every mesmers to use/play shatter with IP since 2015 and nearly every main traits are about this.

Again, this is incredibly disingenuous. Anet didn't just "condition" mesmers to use shatter. Anet has clearly and explicitly stated on multiple occasions that their vision for mesmer is that every mesmer build variant should be based around shattering. They have made repeated changes to this class to enforce this vision, removing alternative methods of playing and supporting the shatter playstyle.

This is not some kind of fleeting impression that we'll get over if we just open our eyes to the possibilities that exist; this is a clear and unambiguous directive from Anet that all mesmers must shatter and any builds that avoid doing so will be removed or changed.

• Even if this patch chrono isn't viable, on the long run, it's good to not give IP back because it has the potential to provide other type of gameplay than just an "improved core".

This is almost humorously naive for someone that has played this game since pre-hot. Since when has trusting in Anets "long run" balance vision worked out for us? The only thing we get in the long is clumsy, ham-fisted, fumbling changes to our class that never turn out the way they were intended.

• Let people 1 week to test it intensivly because maybe with other gameplay something will work.

This isn't a subtle change that needs extensive testing. The ramifications are immediate and obvious.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one so think like this (@"Delofasht.4231" .)

If you've read most of the things that user has posted recently, you'll note that while they're not entirely against the IP change, they discuss a realistic assessment of the current status where clone mechanics are fundamentally unusable in most areas of the game, and that makes Chrono unusable as well.

With this patch they resolve the 2 main issues that make Chronomancer a "super core" spec :F5 tool by making it counterpart with F4.Chronophantasma by removing IP.

Of course it's not perfect and I hope to see more traits ajustments next patch but I really think it's a step in the right direction for gameplay diversity.

If you think we'll see any changes that make Chrono better within a year, you've learned nothing from the past 7 years of Anet development.

At the end of the day, this change is simply another ridiculous "adjustment" done by the balance team that will do nothing but harm this game. Defending it by saying "oh, well if they also made these 4 changes it would be great" is useless because they didn't and won't make those changes. Having faith in the balance team is a fool's hope, and they deserve no benefit of the doubt. This change is here to stay, the balance team is patting themselves on the backs for this insightful and clever adjustment, and maybe in 6 months we can look forward to them changing some other random fundamental aspect of Chrono because there are still masochists using it in PvE raids.

[viquing.8254]

@Ansau.7326 said:@viquing.8254 it's shocking that you're naive enough to believe that our complains are unwarranted based on drama without testing.My initial reaction was after doing light open world, and my opinion has done nothing but to strength once I've done dps comparisons in pve and tried to play it in pvp. DPS wise, i lose about 50% by just swapping mirage to chrono (and that's with gear more beneficial to chrono than mirage). PvE wise, rotation become quite more tedious to achieve the same goal. PvP/WvW wise, survivability is severely reduced, pressure becomes harder and focus of gameplay is now on clone generation if you plan to keep up with the rest of powercreep.

If the purpose of this change was build diversity, they failed miserably. First because you don't increase build diversity by killing an entire elite specialization. And second, because now chrono screams clone generation all over the place, which means DE is a must, and you are forced to choose specific weapons, utilities runes and sigils.

Also, this thing about chrono now playing different is a fallacy. Core mechanic of mesmer is what they changed, while everything unique about chrono remains the same. You cannot play chrono in a different way because CS does the same thing, wells haven't changed, neither shield or purpose of chrono traits. Chrono is still about alacrity, quickness and CS.

The saddest thing is that by being positive to this patch, you are doing nothing but reinforcing Anet position about keeping this crazy untested way to balance. Being positive to chrono, scrapper changes is telling anet to do the same with mirage and other elites.If your goal is to have a game where nothing feels rewarding because professions are frustrated by annoying mechanics, then be positive and live in anet's fairytail. But be aware you're being a contributor in the destruction of this game.

PD: Btw, I'm still wondering what is the connection between IP and chronophantasma...

Posting the day of the patch mean testing are limited.I'm ok with PvE though because it's just bout raw number but it's different in PvP.Professions are actually frustrating since they kill every build diversity so it's not about being positive or not but about being pragmatic, if next patch they put some counter part while not putting back IP It should be fine.

The game was already desctructed the day we were only 3 to post against june 2015 patch.

Edit : the connexion between IP and chronophantasma for me is about the number of illusion on proc triggers effects vs shatter on proc effects who can be the tradeoff but I can be wrong, can be good if anet explain their long term vision.

[SlimChance.6593]

-Make "Time Catches Up" baseline... create new major adept trait in it place EDITED: bring back "Harmonious Mantras" to Chrono, since Continuum Split doesn't work on mantras skills. :)-revert nerf's to "Illusionary Revision", so only 2 clone shatters will generate a clone-On Shield.. generate phantasm at 1/2 or 3/4 seconds into the "Echo of Memory" channel.. instead of a full 1-1/2 second channel for a "so so" phantasm.(or give the phantasm some punch)-lower/remove the reduced duration requirement of "Improved Alacrity"-review some of the nerfs to base Mesmer skills/traits caused by Chrono... (like having quickness no longer affect resurrect/finish speed... give us back our 180 second ELITE>Time Warp ) which was a knee jerk reaction to the famous season 1 Chronobunker...

just some ideas on how to improve the new Chrono gameplay....

[otto.5684]

@Wahlao.1069 said:I know mostly everyone is sad after the changes to Chrono...but these are the positives I noted:

1) Longer alacrity duration when shattering with clones.2) F2 skill cooldown is 7-8s now, if you shatter with 3 clones. -> I find I couldn't generate clones fast enough, so had to change to scepter for faster clone generation, plus switched to Illusionary Reversion trait.3) Longer quickness duration (if traited)

If I am not mistaken, 1 and 3 are the same. Before you counted as the 4th clone, so the increase is to compensate for that.

F2, with illusions CD is about 21 secs. With alacrity, around 4 sec down time. I tried it with scepter. The game play did not work for me. Scepter cannot generate clones that fast (or at least without quickness). And in solo PvE it is very jittery. It is very unlikely to match the power mirage with scepter. In addition, it is heavy confusion, which is beyond unreliable in PvE.

Power builds, no matter how you slice it, they are worse-off.

[Daniel Handler.4816]

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:

@"viquing.8254" said:

Brief history

First a brief history :

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/List-Find-your-Mesmer-Builds-Guides

(copy the url because link didn't work on forum actually.).

So before IP became baseline

, IP was used by :

• Few PvP players (few because shatter IP builds were eaten alive by thieves.).

Ok, let's clear this up a little bit. First of all, mesmer was extraordinarily weak in PvP for the majority of pre-hot GW2. However, for the brief times that it was generally viable, it was viable using shatter builds with IP. Every single mesmer player in every single major tournament used IP.

• Few WvW duellists in duellist spot. (because there were way more usefull builds for roam, bus, zerg, scout.)

Any WvW roaming build that was a shatter build used IP. However, shatter builds were pretty weak, so most people used either phantasm setups or condition-based non-shatter setups.

• IP wasn't used in PVE because phantasms builds.

Mesmer

wasn't used in PvE, unless you call taking an fgs from elementalist and portaling the real classes to the next fight being "used". Even in very niche situations, phantasm builds were extremely weak until well into HoT when they added a number of phantasm buffing traits.

• I haven't the real data but realisticly, from what I saw and we can check on old vids, around 20% of globals mesmers players really used IP builds.

That's a pretty poor sample. You shouldn't be sampling the broad variety of build usage from every random person with unregistered hypercam 2. Look instead towards the builds that skilled and successful players used. You'll find that they were either IP based shatter...or non-shatter builds.

What happened :

• One day, a dev get farmed by a blackwater builds (who wasn't even a true clonespammer build btw.).
• On this forum mesmers section, there were a mafia for whom the only "skilled" way to play mesmer is to use shatter IP builds.
• In parallel some whine about blackwater came from WvW and PvP forums.

So instead of removing the bad synergy combo with PU + 2 death traits + Deceiptive evasion, what they did is : cut a third of mesmer gameplay and force them to play monogameplay shatter. (what we have until mirage came.)

This is extraordinarily disingenuous. I personally put an enormous amount of time into playing clone death builds, using them both for roaming in WvW and soloing my way to top 50 on both the solo queue and team queue leaderboards playing

nothing

but clone death. The builds were fun to play, powerful, and completely broken on a fundamental level.

The very concept of the clone death builds was that opponents had no counterplay outside of refusing to engage the mesmer. This was un-fun in every way and needed to be removed. There was no possible way to keep clone death traits in the game without them being either uselessly weak or fundamentally broken.

Then my first question is :

Where were you when it was the time do defend gameplay diversity ?

Where was I? I was right here, arguing both on these forums and in much less public but much more direct avenues against restrictive and unnecessary changes to the class, for all the good it did. Don't make the mistake of thinking you're the last remaining vet in a forum of fresh meat. Half the people you pinged were around here fighting back then too, and some of us actually

made

these builds that you mention as being removed.

Because with this chrono cut, the gameplay

still exist in core spec

contrary to what they did on june 2015 patch with builds like pyro immortal destruction, glamour, clone death...

What does it matter that gameplay still exists in the core spec? Sure, they didn't kill IP as thoroughly as they killed my builds in the past, but that doesn't make this change any less bad.

I mean if I left the game each time they kill my build, I should have left at least 6 times.

Every time Anet has taken a dump on mesmer, people have left this

class

. Some have probably left the game too, but the more obvious effect you see is class-wise. Each time this happens less and less people stick around to keep playing mesmer, myself included. I used to play mesmer in every part of the game, all the time. Then I stopped playing PvP. Then I couldn't keep using mesmer in WvW. Lastly I couldn't keep using mesmer to lead my PvE raid group. Now I have a hard time even justifying using mesmer to play the open world content we get with living story releases.

I have many thousands of hours in this game, and until fairly recently I had spent over 95% of it playing my one mesmer. This is no longer the case, and I rarely play her anymore.

That's the main point, even with chrono actually cut, there is no gameplay desctruction because chrono was just an "improved core". You can always play shatter burst like usual on core.

Can you really? People didn't play core mesmer shatter burst pre-patch for a good reason: it's not strong enough to compete in this post-expansion game. This patch changed nothing about that, it's still far too weak.

• Obviously if you try to play the new chrono like before (with the same gameplay), it shouldn't work and feel weak. (Yeah the stealthy burst didn't work anymore for example.)
• One of the main problem with this patch is that anet conditionned every mesmers to use/play shatter with IP since 2015 and nearly every main traits are about this.

Again, this is incredibly disingenuous. Anet didn't just "condition" mesmers to use shatter. Anet has

clearly and explicitly

stated on multiple occasions that their vision for mesmer is that every mesmer build variant should be based around shattering. They have made repeated changes to this class to enforce this vision, removing alternative methods of playing and supporting the shatter playstyle.

This is not some kind of fleeting impression that we'll get over if we just open our eyes to the possibilities that exist; this is a clear and unambiguous directive from Anet that all mesmers must shatter and any builds that avoid doing so will be removed or changed.

• Even if this patch chrono isn't viable, on the long run, it's good to not give IP back because it has the potential to provide other type of gameplay than just an "improved core".

This is almost humorously naive for someone that has played this game since pre-hot. Since when has trusting in Anets "long run" balance vision worked out for us? The only thing we get in the long is clumsy, ham-fisted, fumbling changes to our class that never turn out the way they were intended.

• Let people 1 week to test it intensivly because maybe with other gameplay something will work.

This isn't a subtle change that needs extensive testing. The ramifications are immediate and obvious.

Glad to see that I'm not the only one so think like this (@"Delofasht.4231" .)

If you've read most of the things that user has posted recently, you'll note that while they're not entirely against the IP change, they discuss a realistic assessment of the current status where clone mechanics are fundamentally unusable in most areas of the game, and that makes Chrono unusable as well.

With this patch they resolve the 2 main issues that make Chronomancer a "super core" spec :F5 tool by making it counterpart with F4.Chronophantasma by removing IP.

Of course it's not perfect and I hope to see more traits ajustments next patch but I really think it's a step in the right direction for gameplay diversity.

If you think we'll see any changes that make Chrono better within a year, you've learned nothing from the past 7 years of Anet development.

At the end of the day, this change is simply another ridiculous "adjustment" done by the balance team that will do nothing but harm this game. Defending it by saying "oh, well if they also made these 4 changes it would be great" is useless because they

didn't

and

won't

make those changes. Having faith in the balance team is a fool's hope, and they deserve no benefit of the doubt. This change is here to stay, the balance team is patting themselves on the backs for this insightful and clever adjustment, and maybe in 6 months we can look forward to them changing some other random fundamental aspect of Chrono because there are still masochists using it in PvE raids.

It's just sad all around. Sad to play the spec and sad to see long-time community members switch classes or even quit the game.

[Blood Red Arachnid.2493]

The only thing that I'm glad about is that my PVE builds weren't hit too much. I'm sure this is of no comfort to PVP and WvW, but at least I can still maintain quickness/alacrity and phantasm spam. I haven't seen the benchmarks or the all the specs yet, but so far it doesn't feel that much worse off than before.

[Delofasht.4231]

@viquing.8254 That is an excellent summary, I played before IP was baseline, so I knew what the game was like, and honestly loved the build diversity that existed at the time.

These changes to Chrono have resolved some issues, they have changed the gameplay enough to allow for a different style of play between Chrono and Core, at least in the tempo of the skills. The issue with our clones still needs to be resolved, a destroyable resource and even ways to stop damage from even reaching the target by simply running away feels wrong, no other profession has nearly as many drawbacks to their consistency (Ranger has it somewhat rough with their pet though).