tim.4596

> @"pfc.9430" said:

> I've noticed a few other classes being treated the same way and it's seriously affecting lfg fill times. There may be 3+ CM groups waiting for the same specific class (hb/bs/alacren) and all 3 groups will stubbornly stay in lfg for half an hour instead of merging (one group requires 100 ess, other group 150ess for example) or accepting a different class because a non-meta group might take 2min longer to clear. The worst is when 200ess groups are waiting on a healer for half an hour instead of just taking another dps and clearing faster. If you have 200 ess, you should know mechanics well enough to not _need_ a healer especially considering that higher dps leads to even less mechanics.

Sorry, what do you mean? Don't you need the firebrand for quickness at least ?

I understand your point, but unfortunately with the current meta Chrono/Druid has very low supportive buffs compared to FB/Renegade. Since the Druid's spirit rework you can't pulse stability anymore, and if the chrono swaps one of its well for a supportive trait, you'll be close enough to running a double healing comp.

So in short, it doesn't really matter which comp you run, but you might run into situation that requires stability, and you'd have no other choice to either sacrifice personal dps or have a DH to provide stability for you, or get your dps to run some defensive utility traits, which very few does.

> @"Firebeard.1746" said:

> > @"tim.4596" said:

> > Those topic are starting to feel old, and it's already been said more than a 1,000 times: raids aren't too difficult , and if you do T4 fractals, you should have no issue getting into raids. So to be honest, I am not too sure if people are simply trolling at this point or if they are complaining that they can't get directly from open world to raids...

> >

> > If this is the case, that'd be trying to take a shortcut without proper knowledge of gw2 combat instanced, as it is very different from open world which doesn't require you to manage boons, or a workable teamcomp/builds. Then the result as expected should be ultimate failure. Since raids are meant to be 1 level above fractals.

> >

> > It's like starting a new game on the most difficult level of difficulty without having played easy or normal mode first, and asking why you're failing, and that the hard mode should be nerfed.... Are you serious?

>

> But other games throw people at raiding fairly quickly. The dungeon only phase in wow is pretty short if you're a dedicated raider, your ilvl should be high enough from the previous tier to go straight into the next. As i'm pushing further into this game, i'm starting to understand this from the perspective of the high barriers on the appropriate gear that takes a while to collect forqq raid purposes. In fact games like WoW have lfr and low level training raids each tier too. It's expected that you can jump into raids pretty quick in other games and i think that's where a lot of disconnect comes from when vets from GW2 talk to newer players coming from other games.

I'm not sure if comparing World of Warcraft to GW2 is relevant, just because one has vertical progression with high content release, and the other one is horizontal progression with slow content release.

I might be talking from my own experience here, but in GW2 playera are aiming at "speed-clearing" boss fights and have mastered them over and over, while in WoW most guilds etc... Are aimed at defeating the content and progressing together towards the next level of difficulty. Hence why I don't think an easier difficulty is required.

I personally don't like the idea of LFR, it barely has any difficulty and completing the raid doesn't really give any idea of the me mechanics at play there, since the low level difficulty pretty much allows you to not care about any of the mechanics. You can experience the same thing with 24-25 fractals compared to 99 and 100. Being able to do lvl 24 and 25 does not give you much clue about doing 99 and 100 and even less 99CM and 100CM.

If let's say Anet was to create an easy mode for Vale Guardian, from which they halven green explosion damage and halven the distance to which a blue can teleport you. The boss will be rendered ridiculously easy. And players won't associate mechanics to damage.

The main reason why groups wipe at Vale Guardian is 1. Player getting teleported, 2. The tank getting downed, 3 seekers damaging the group. As you can imagine, it all pretty much revolve around the not tank not getting down, since having to Rez the tank will increase your chances of getting teleported by the blue, and dying to blue + green damage. The easy will only give the wrong idea to tank, and make the encounter probably even harder for inexperienced groups.

> @"ixora.3569" said:

> By any chance will there be ascended armor/weapons added to dungeons? It would bring life back to them and you can make them expensive so its not so easy to obtain. maybe 1k a piece? more for weapons? just throwing ideas out there. I just want a reason to do dungeons again. Also maybe add some new dungeons for the living stories in the future?

Monk runes, used in almost every single healing build are hard gated behind AC dungeon.

While it would be a good starting point, sadly I'm not sure this would be enough to bring back life to dungeon.

Dungeons nowadays imo are mostly played by either people starting the game to get exotic gear, or speedrunners. The vast majority of player still run them too but very unfrequently. Despite a few people attempts to make dungeons competitive, they remain unattractive to the vast majority of players.

I was about to post a link to the gw2wiki as they generally keep track of such changes, but it hasn't been updated.

However, the change was implemented when W6 came out. W5 was previously awarding legendary insight, to help people finish out their legendary armour, but when W6 got released they changed the reward system and added extra legendary insight in W1 and W3. Here is the patch note.

https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/55238/game-update-notes-september-18-2018

And up to my knowledge there hasn't been any other change reverting that. So yes, Spirit wood should be awarding you legendary insight.

Fractals

-Anything

Raids

-Anything

If you're starting raid/fractals, chances are that you won't be running specific class on each boss for at least 1 or 3 months. So play what you enjoy. No point playing something you don't like just because it's presumably good this early on in the game.

You'd generally want to run either lb or gs + sword/axe for optimal damage. Longbow is one of the strongest power weapon on ranger, precasting lb5 alongside lb4 + 2 provides great CC/ burst dps. However you only see it in high end record video and is not widely used otherwise. Since after the use of its burst the damage ramp down pretty fast.

For getting into fractals, i'd recommend crafting sword/axe as your base weapons and then you can choose to either use GS or LB.

A clever use of your skills which pretty much comes down to CCed enemy take +50% increased damage is what will most likely make the difference of whether you're doing good damage or not. So as you can imagine you want to use your highest damage pririoty skills when the boss is CCed.

With that said, it means that sometimes adding extra auto attacks to throw in axe 4 + 5 when the unit is CCed will result in higher damage. So whether Longbow is viable or not will pretty much result in how many breakbear you have before the boss phases and on your team ability to fast CC.

To give you an example. You start skorvald (100CM boss 1) the CC bar is available straight away, you pop all your cooldowns, precast lb 5 (fight starts) now comes the CC bar, you use lb 4 into lb 2 into axe 5 to get the most out of the CC bar. Now if when you do lb 4, the boss is still not CCed by then what you would want to do is pretty much fill in auto attacks before using your high dps skills. Generally with beginner groups, breakbear are not broken instantly and GS will results in more damage overall since GS aa (auto attacks) are greater than lb aa at short range.

Lady kitty has a lot of builds using various weapons on ranger, you can check out the DPS report and more specifically the graph damage to have a better understanding of how each weapon deals damage. As well as just watch the video to see how the build is used I guess.

Those topic are starting to feel old, and it's already been said more than a 1,000 times: raids aren't too difficult , and if you do T4 fractals, you should have no issue getting into raids. So to be honest, I am not too sure if people are simply trolling at this point or if they are complaining that they can't get directly from open world to raids...

If this is the case, that'd be trying to take a shortcut without proper knowledge of gw2 combat instanced, as it is very different from open world which doesn't require you to manage boons, or a workable teamcomp/builds. Then the result as expected should be ultimate failure. Since raids are meant to be 1 level above fractals.

It's like starting a new game on the most difficult level of difficulty without having played easy or normal mode first, and asking why you're failing, and that the hard mode should be nerfed.... Are you serious?

> @"Blocki.4931" said:

> It would be cool to have some instanced content in the open world that isn't just essentially a boss fight or story mission, but explorable and with multiple encounters and events. I just miss the feeling of that. Having people stand at the entrance and all.

>

> But Fractals exist and they do essentially that already so it won't happen.

I don't agree, Fractals and dungeons are very different. Just the way you explore them is different.

If you take Citadel of Flames for instance, it has a story mode and 3 explorable paths. I know that some fractals are very similar and could be packed with each other, but they don't have all the lore and reward that a dungeon have.

I would be careful not to confuse single class and team comp, what you see on Snow Crows website are the strongest teamcomp to defeat bosses, and all there is to it really is to reduce boon duration so that you can play a full dps comp. However those are not the classes doing the most dps on those bosses with the exception of Guardian/DH/FB who would actually really need a nerf as it's completely overpowered atm. I'm fine with firebrigade memes, but when the Firebrand is able to pull out more than 25k target dps on some specific bosses that's way too high, there is no way that boon chrono is able to do that almost except on short fights.

> @"Bron.9647" said:

> I've noticed noone seems to ever want to do the Aetherblade path of Twilight Arbor, myself included, because it's just insanely difficult. I feel sorry for anyone who wants to get Dungeon Master title, because good luck finding anyone to do it with you, and if you do manage to get a team together, it's likely noone will actually know how to do it and that you will all die excessively. If it were to be nerfed a bit, I think people would actually do it.

Very few people pug it specifically because it's mechanic heavy and there is generally a few explanation to do for the ooze room. However a lot of group still run it. It's also the only dungeon that awards you a unique skin at the end of it for completing it.

I was very hyped to start playing the whole Icebrood saga, and since I have not done epilogue yet, I wanted to start from the epilogue, instead of getting straight into chapter 1. But I cannot board the choper from Black Citadel :( I tried to restart the episode multiple time but it's not working.

Edit: actually there seem to be a lot of other people in the same situation as me, we're waiting in front of the choper.

I tried to make the new Greatsword "Salvation" from the mystic forge, but it didn't work. The game selected my items, and let me know that this was a possible combination, but didn't return anything back to me :(

https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Salvation_(weapon)

Servers keep crashing and rolling back, maybe it's time to make a Massive roll-back and make build templates free.

Why are we the veteran players getting the most impacted from build templates?

After playing a little with build/gear templates, I quickly came up to the conclusion that my most impacted characters were all my main characters and especially those with legendary armor. The templates are fantastic for all my other characters, I have more Fashion Wars capabilities and it even clear up my inventory, however on my main i used to have 10-12+ builds, and it just isn't convenient (and even if I had the possibility to pay for 12+ builds, I'm not sure I'd want to do so) I'm guessing this dlema is probably known by Anet. I'm no wizzard, but shouldn't a company rewards its Veteran players instead of punishing them ?

I understand that Anet is a comany that needs to make money, but I'd rather see a convenient system being free and I think haveing to pay for it is just making the whole thing inconvenient and especially impacting veteran players.

I don't really want to say the following thing, but the situation seems critical so: Please do the following test, get 5 characters on an account: 2 of them with the legendary armor and all the possible legendary weapons/trinkets available for that character and try to play with build/gear templates, and just explore how many combination of items as a player you'd want to try, and please think wide WvW, Open World, Fractals, Dungeon, Raids, jumping puzzles, guild missions etc... and please compare with multiple persons, as I'm sure not everyone will want to play in the same way,.

> @"maddoctor.2738" said:

> The issue with difficulty in Guild Wars 2 is that we either get Raids or we get Strike Missions, either exciting, or completely brain dead content. There is very little in between.

> When we get comments about players struggling on the joke Mission, I mean Strike Mission, it's not a surprise that we get posts about the difficulty of Raids. Of course those same players would struggle everywhere else in the game too, so all the talk about the difficulty of Raids alone is indeed getting tiring at this point.

Well, struggling with strike missions is another thing altogether. I mean I can understand people struggling with raids, but for strike missions you can literally 3 or 4man (no healer). So I'm guessing to struggle with strike missions everything about your character must be wrong, build, gear, stats etc... And they probably went 5man instead of 10. I know that the strike missions recommend 5-10 people however, I'm not sure whether or not the boss scale in difficulty depending on how many players are in the instance.

> Beat Balthazar, Mordremoth, Caudecus without dead rushing, beat all the living world story without death rushing, beat a couple of T4 Fractals, unlock your next elite spec while fighting hero challenges solo (at least beat the veterans), beat Giganticus Lupicus once. Do all this and then complain about the "difficulty of Raids". I've been to Raid training runs and I've seen loads of players who haven't done anything in this game without someone holding their hand, yet complain about the difficulty of Raids. Play the game properly first and then Raids will no longer be hard.

Regarding beating the story mode of the game and being able to solo dungeons, I don't know to be honest. Story is fairly easy, and if you were to do it more than once, you'd beat every boss very easily. And you generally only do it once or twice depending on whether or not you wish to repeat the story with another character or if you're going strong for those achievements. Soloing dungeons is just not that appealing, and seems to be a waste of time atm; I'd say it's mostly core GW2 players who feels nostalgic about dungeons and decide to do them solo, as they might have done a lot of them back in vanilla GW2, so I wouldn't really regard those as inexperience whatsoever for raids. However Fractals couldn't be counted in as experience yeah. I've seen that players who've generally cleared fractals CM usually do very good in raids, and can for sure pull out a rotation.

I'm not too sure why those arguments that raids are difficult still preserve at this point. I'm guessing that people maybe enjoy repeating themselves, or that there is nothing else to talk about in this game. Anyway, I'd be really careful with the word "difficult". Raids aren't difficult and this argument has been discussed over and over again, however they do require certain coordination and for each player in the raid to know their class. If you are now insinuating that raids should be facepalm, and that a 0 buff squad (might, quickness, alacrity, etc...), and with extremely low dps should be able to kill a raid boss, then I'm not too sure in which direction the game would be going.

Strike missions looks very promising however I'd recommend not doing them with more than 3 or 4 people otherwise they become too easy.

No, like for real!! It would be really great if we could have an underwater training golem. With Aquatic Ruins rework, it showed that there can actually be some mechanics underwater and it would be really nice to see more of it in the near future. But if we could get an UW golem, to practice rotation a little bit that would be good.

Here are some logs from the ERP3 for reference about power chrono.

https://mightyteapot.tv/logs/2019-08-25/Keep_Construct_success_17_21_44.html

https://mightyteapot.tv/logs/2019-08-25/Slothasor_success_21_28_34.html

https://mightyteapot.tv/logs/2019-08-24/Vale_Guardian_success_16_42_39.html

https://mightyteapot.tv/logs/2019-08-25/Gorseval_the_Multifarious_success_19_25_37.html

https://mightyteapot.tv/logs/2019-08-25/Sabetha_the_Saboteur_success_19_31_49.html

> @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> > @"tim.4596" said:

> > > @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> > > > @"tim.4596" said:

> > > > > @"Hiraga Taichiru.1580" said:

> > > > > in 5 days from now, it will be a full month since the last update which nerfed chrono. Are ANET devs going to fix/rework the chrono E-spec? or not ??

> > > > > they at least should inform their players of their plans.... if they won't fix/rework the class, then it should be easy to leave the game, however don't waste our time whilst you don't plan on doing anything for this class.

> > > > > Really, I should be expecting one of Anet devs to write something here.

> > > > > Thanks

> > > >

> > > > It's really fine to be honest, yes, some open world spec became slightly unplayable, but you can play other spec and it's fine.

> > >

> > > It is not fine in modes other than PvE... that surely indicates a problem with the design. Even in PvE, supportive and many offensive builds are performing even worse than they were, and that is in optimal conditions. Any suboptimal condition is resulting in far worse representation and performance. Further even, in WvW and PvP, Chrono is now performing even worse than before because it has less instant tools to deal with many situations.

> >

> > To which PvE mode are you referring to exactly? Because in raid, condi chrono is not as good as mirage but it is still extremely strong, and the same goes for power chrono, it's currently one of the strongest class to do dps on (for small hitbox that is). In Fractals power chrono isn't performing so well, but it has never really been performing well due to how phantasm work, but you can nonetheless get descent number. I mean please give me an example in context, because after a few adjustment to my builds I'm not seeing that much difference in PvE at least.

> >

> > > Thus the only mode of play left to Chrono is to always be behind or with others, to only perform as well or worse than any of them, while also always performing worse in solo situations. That does not seem fine... now, this is not to say that Chrono and every Mesmer variant could not be improved by adjusting some core functionality inherent to all Mesmer, in fact that would be optimal. In fact, Chrono as it is now may well illustrate exactly what really needs to happen so that all Mesmer can be balanced appropriately.

> > >

> > > In short, the design issue revolves around the core functionality of illusions (clones and phantasms), resulting in variance in performance unlike that of other professions and thus subject to issues that become exacerbated when numeric tuning is employed (really what the most recent changes to Chrono did).

> >

>

> You just said though, any situation outside of raid has Chrono performing worse in PvE than other professions. It functions, in so much as nothing actually causes the game to stop working completely, but it fails to perform at the same level as other professions. Not much more to say here except that it is the inherent flaw of Mesmer as a whole due to how their resource requires a target existing and then generating enough and living long enough for both the generation and the travel time of clones running in to shatter. There are numerous delays for damage with Mesmer in PvE that cause it to fall behind other professions that get instant gratification of pushing a button and seeing it do damage.

Well, the only real change which are noticeable so far are:

-Ability to cleanse condition

-Ability to use CS without clones

-Ability to Distort yourself with F4

-Instant Damage ramp up with F1+F2

While, the ability to cleanse condition and using CS without clones are probably the biggest and most annoying changes, there are still workarounds which can be found. I don't PvP (Conquest/WvW) much so I don't want to say anything about those gamemods, but in PvE the most noticeable are Chrono skips in FotM, however you can simply swap to Core Mesmer and do the skips easily. CS without clones is a bit more tricky, I agree that in some cases, you simply cannot use it, but GW2 allows you to use consumables notably Feathers and Kit, which replicate the stealth effect more or less and you can still blast stealth, so while it's a change, in a coordinated group, it's not that bad, in raids, you can find workarounds by walking slightly further and generating one clone to be able to do your precast (Qadim 1.0).

I didn't include F4 Distort as to be fair, it's only recently (since the chrono change to phantasm) that chrono started using F4 as a distort, before it would destroy all your phantasms when using it so you'd avoid it at all cost. They also made significant change to SoI it's now on a 20s cool down, which allows you to distort most mechanics simply with that skill in FotM, SoI is also the only skills that is not affected by boon duration, it's a 3s flat boon extension. That means, if you use it 4 or 5x in your rotation instead of 6x by delaying it to distort mechanics it's not that bad. So to be fair there are almost no changes here, the only thing is that the game now ask you to play better.

Instant Damage ramp up, well that is unfortunate, but it's not much of a change, in PvE at least, CS instant burst from power chrono do less damage, but you know make sure to wait 3 clones instead of 0 or 1 to shatter, which if the fight is long enough, overall your damage is pretty much the same, lower ofc but the difference isn't insane.

Also just to say here, the main reason why people stopped playing Power Chrono, was not because of those changes, but because of a bug, which would make your CS activate instantly but only take effects once you clones had runn to your target and shattered, this would basically result in you not being able to cast continuum split at the end of your phantasm summon, but rather at the beginning, which made your whole CS rotation last less time, and in some cases (if your shatter got disabled on the way there) you'd still not be able to get back the skill you used while activating your CS. Anet however quickly fixed that bug, and power chrono is now completely playable.

So to be fair, Chrono changes are not as bad as people think. I'm chrono main and have 2.5k+ hours played on my mesmer, so believe me when I say that it's not that bad. I was extremely pissed at first, but workaround can be found, so right now even though there are some spec which cannot be played anymore as chrono, you can still play different build. For example, I had a very strong Chaos Build for open world/solo dungeons, which I now cannot use, as the whole idea behind that build was to upkeep more than 12 boons almost constantly on myself + alacrity without wells. That's not possible anymore. I've now opted towards a more offensive build, which works well, I just have to be more careful, since I cannot upkeep protection on myself anymore.

I completely understand that everyone is pissed about chrono changes, I still miss the old Chronomancer, but I think it's better at that point to look for work arounds rather than hope that Anet will revert the changes. I think if they had planned to do so, they would have done so already, and Anet is not very well known to come back on changes that they have made. Or at least that's my opinion of it, maybe this time round is different, I don't know.

> @"Delofasht.4231" said:

> > @"tim.4596" said:

> > > @"Hiraga Taichiru.1580" said:

> > > in 5 days from now, it will be a full month since the last update which nerfed chrono. Are ANET devs going to fix/rework the chrono E-spec? or not ??

> > > they at least should inform their players of their plans.... if they won't fix/rework the class, then it should be easy to leave the game, however don't waste our time whilst you don't plan on doing anything for this class.

> > > Really, I should be expecting one of Anet devs to write something here.

> > > Thanks

> >

> > It's really fine to be honest, yes, some open world spec became slightly unplayable, but you can play other spec and it's fine.

>

> It is not fine in modes other than PvE... that surely indicates a problem with the design. Even in PvE, supportive and many offensive builds are performing even worse than they were, and that is in optimal conditions. Any suboptimal condition is resulting in far worse representation and performance. Further even, in WvW and PvP, Chrono is now performing even worse than before because it has less instant tools to deal with many situations.

To which PvE mode are you referring to exactly? Because in raid, condi chrono is not as good as mirage but it is still extremely strong, and the same goes for power chrono, it's currently one of the strongest class to do dps on (for small hitbox that is). In Fractals power chrono isn't performing so well, but it has never really been performing well due to how phantasm work, but you can nonetheless get descent number. I mean please give me an example in context, because after a few adjustment to my builds I'm not seeing that much difference in PvE at least.

> Thus the only mode of play left to Chrono is to always be behind or with others, to only perform as well or worse than any of them, while also always performing worse in solo situations. That does not seem fine... now, this is not to say that Chrono and every Mesmer variant could not be improved by adjusting some core functionality inherent to all Mesmer, in fact that would be optimal. In fact, Chrono as it is now may well illustrate exactly what really needs to happen so that all Mesmer can be balanced appropriately.

>

> In short, the design issue revolves around the core functionality of illusions (clones and phantasms), resulting in variance in performance unlike that of other professions and thus subject to issues that become exacerbated when numeric tuning is employed (really what the most recent changes to Chrono did).

13/09/2019

Hello,

Here is a new spreadsheet which you can use to automatically calculate how much boon duration you need in a 2 chrono setup, it's similar the previous spreadsheet, but it's all compressed into a single tab. It might be easier to use, however you won't get the detail fo what's going on. If you want the detail, check the first spreadsheet (in the main post).

The spreadsheet use "Data validation" (just an excel fancy term to simply say that it uses a drop down menu to give you different selectable prefix), which means that you have to MAKE A COPY in order to use it, otherwise you won't see the drop down menus. I have added a make a copy link inside the spreadsheet, or you can just change the last part of the url /edit to /copy, if you want to do it manually.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1T6AoihYOZLUkdKXbxN-WVuNZj1aGB0PKqEpwFUkxuXw

**Notes:**

-IF "TW" is selected and "1 clone" too, I've added a function to prioritize Time Warp over Well of Action during the continum split, hence it will count 1 less WoA in the rotation

-IF CS (Continum Split) Chrono 1 is < CS Chrono 2; It will automatically deduce 1 ToT + 1 SoI from Chrono 2, and vice-versa. IF CS Chrono 1 > or = CS Chrono 2; chronos will do their given amount of SoI, ToT depending on their spec. (e.g. : Chrono 1 Illusion/Duelling with DT; Chrono 2 Inspiration/Duelling NO DT; CS time are almost the same therefore nothing change. coef is set to 0.9; which should be safe value.

-Each chrono is independant. Meaning that the returning value of quickness and alacrity correspond to what either Chrono 1 or Chrono 2 needs to run as boon duration in order to not drop quickness or alacrity. If you want the lowest boon duration possible to run on both chrono simultaneously for similar builds; check first spreadsheet (main post)

-Overcap is not calculated. Quickness (max: 5 instance) Alacrity (max: 9 instance)

Enjoy

(I'll try to add soon another tab to that spreadsheet for chrono + fb/renegade comp, as it's meta now)

> @"Hiraga Taichiru.1580" said:

> in 5 days from now, it will be a full month since the last update which nerfed chrono. Are ANET devs going to fix/rework the chrono E-spec? or not ??

> they at least should inform their players of their plans.... if they won't fix/rework the class, then it should be easy to leave the game, however don't waste our time whilst you don't plan on doing anything for this class.

> Really, I should be expecting one of Anet devs to write something here.

> Thanks

It's really fine to be honest, yes, some open world spec became slightly unplayable, but you can play other spec and it's fine.

> @"Zhaid Zhem.6508" said:

> You don't play Open World like you play raid.

> Anyway since they nerfed f1-f5, I quite diviner and came back to power chrono or GS mesmer.

I sadly had to do the same. I'll release new build shortly :(

Because of the Chrono changes, it's become almost useless to play Chaos spec

Please fix this bug, everytime my friend add conditions to the Golem I get the condition as well :(


Okay so I did some test apparently one of the signet is bugged. It thinks the golem is an ally and try to steal the condition from him. so I efficiently die every single time Q_Q