chronomancer fragility

[Hecatoncheirs.4760]

I main a shatter-based greatsword/sword shield chronomancer, and love their skillset. Is anyone else having issues surviving high damage effects? I use all zerk armour with soldier's accessories/trinkets/etc and inspiration, but still come up short on self healing and survivability. Any suggestions?

[Cyninja.2954]

Shield 4, Sword 2, Sword 4, F4, distortion on Signet use, Continuum Split for twice the skill use and reset of health, SoI on phantasm summon, etc.

 

Chrono is among the tankiest classes skillset wise ingame.

 

Which game mode are you talking about?

 

The main issue chronos have a problem with is dealing damage as power and might run into problems againdt some of the new more pvp centric elite specialisations.

 

PvE wise nothing should be an issue.

[Ithilwen.1529]

Berserker armor with soldier's gear is a contradiction in intent. Soldier is about toughness and Berserker is about toughness at the cost of being fragile. *To combine those will make something mediocre between.* I recommend you look at other armor with toughness and/or vitality.

 

It took me a while to "get" that this game rewards setups that are all one way or the other. Hybrids? Not so much.

[Hecatoncheirs.4760]

I wasn't aware that hybridisation diluted the overall abilities like that. So it's wise to use one single armour type? I already picked soldier's on my Mawdrey, did I make a mistake?

 

and I usually do pve but I like the idea of being able to do pvp too.

[NICENIKESHOE.7128]

meh you can hybridise and I generally recommend that for new players before diving into zerk meta. Not everyone is the same and I know plenty of people who don't use keybinds etc.

 

People go for full zerk because after you learn active defenses/how enemy works etc you can evade/block majority of the hard hitting skills, and chrono has plenty of skills filling that active defense role. Also the faster you kill enemy the less likely they find the chance to hit you. You might be finding trouble because PoF is a new experience with mobs having different animations/effects.

[Hecatoncheirs.4760]

That sounds fair. I had full zerk before, but dropped too often. This change seems to help a lot.

I'm also running full chronomancer sigils, but I believe they're glitched? The sixth doesn't seem to work.

[Myhr.9108]

Really depends what game mode you're playing, but in Open world PvE, Signets give you some well-rounded-utilities, especially wih the trait that gives Distorsion.

[Pyroatheist.9031]

Hybridizing is fine, but soldier's gear is rarely a good choice on mesmer. Usually you'll want to beef up with knight's, cav's, or valk's stats to maintain some offensive capability.

 

Chronomancer runes are absolute garbage and should never be used. If you want quickness, use leadership or firebrand runes for the boon/quickness duration. If you want some tankiness at the same time, use durability runes. If you want offense, use pack runes or scholar runes.

[Cyninja.2954]

Here is my opinion backed by what I have run and how I felt about running the gear:

 

First off Pyro is right, GW2 is setup to give benefits to going "all in" (in whatever direction, not only damage). The way how damage is calculated, the cooldowns on defensive skills, the coefficients on skills, the way weapon sets are often either or (either power or condition damage) etc.

 

Mesmer is in a unique spot among the 3 light armor classes and rather similar with thief as far as survival. Unlike necromancer, we lack the healthpool or class mechanic (shroud) to tank stuff away, unlike elementalist we lack the high damage to burst things down or aoe cleave our way through pve (that's a bit oversimplifying the differences, but let's keep this short).

 

From my own experience, mesmer does not work well with toughness (except for raid tanking). I'm running (ever since creating my mesmer way back at launch) with berserkers (now occasionally commanders for boon duration) gear. It allows for some survivability (mostly from skills and mechanics because taking hits to the face will hurt) while providing enough damage to deal with open world enemies sufficiently fast.

 

I've run my 2nd mesmer on full minstrel gear, and boy was it tougher to play her in open world. The damage loss we suffer (added to our already low power damage) makes this very anoying. Mostly because enemies don't die fast enough before our skills reset.

 

Bascially as far as power goes, go glass canon and get used to using your skills to survive. Greatsword for taging and ranged combat, Sword+Shield for aoe stuns, very good block to buy time and get phantasms out for shatters (this should always be on your bar in pve as chrono), Sword+focus for pulling enemys together and cleaving them down, Sword+Sword for single target damage. Most other weapons don't make a lot of sense (staff is gimmicky with its phantasms working off of power and can replace GW but it tags way slower).

 

Finally, mesmer (as well as mirage and chrono) works exceptionally well as a condition damage build for open world stuff. Get some Dire/Rabid gear, slap it on and give it a try. The class plays completely different. I've killed things as condi chrono or mirage which I would not dare approach as power build (I do own legi armor and can switch gear to my liking). If you only want a solid open world, dungeon and low level fractals build, go condi.

[Lanhelin.3480]

If you want to stick to a power build and have picked the phantasmal force trait, I suggest to try a set of Superior Rune of the Privateer (Tailor 400). The fourth bonus helps to generate might because it also affects nearby illusions. No character will yell "Yarr" as the bonus states but always say the normal might-related lines. The Bird is your 4th companion and does direct damage of around 1k (to 2k if it crits) per hit. It is as strong as a Ranger pet of the same level and attacks about every 1,5 to 2 seconds. It appears about every 2nd taken hit, stays for 1 min with a 1 min cd that starts to tick the second it appears (so if it doesn't get killed it basically is active in every fight), it can be healed and buffed too. It automatically attacks mobs who attack you, but you also can direct it if you attack another one. Because of this, especially in downed state the bird is pretty useful against a mob with low hp and because iRogue always will be on cd when entering this state. I never encountered the bug mentioned in the wiki related to this rune, so it probably got fixed in the past but the wiki never was updated.

[takatsu.9416]

Never had survivability issues on glass power based Chrono. Sword sword sword shield offers you 9 second cd sword 2, sword 4 block and your handy shield double block and stun aoe. That's a lot of block and evade upkeep already and plus well of precognition and gravity well to cc and buy time. Distortion shatter is panic button and if really necessary a decoy can buy some time. But its burst damage output is so high most things are dead even without the use of continuum split which I never used except for direct pvp and wvw fight tricks. Most of the time I don't even need to swap weapons and stay sword sword. Remember Sword sword isn't just a single target weapon if you're running shatter spec. The sword Phantasm hits hard but right after you can shatter and it'll summon and hit a second time. I ran an inspirations trait line if I needed help bc the shatter heals and condition cleanse synergizes with shatter build playstyle and I also use the idefender on evade or block which are plenty so it offers more free shatter fodder and phantasm resummon

[Hecatoncheirs.4760]

I think I mistime a lot of my block useage. You guys are right, this class has some of the best total blocking/evasion time of anyone.

My utility skills are blink / mimic / well of calamity and elite is gravity well, and I usually use m f5 to mimic/calam/grav/calam. I'd probably fare better with more defensive skill useage.

As far as runes go, I'm leaning away from durability/leadership/firebrand since these all boost stats that I don't use as much. Going pure power seems ideal. Is privateer that good when compared to the scholar?

[Coulter.2315]

Since you're having a bit of a struggle staying alive I wouldn't recommend Scholar right now. I would choose Rune of the Pack (good all rounder), Rune of Rage (if you take dueling), Rune of Strength (if you generate might) or Rune of the Spellbreaker (probably the highest, almost always on, damage modifier for PvE) for general power mesmer use in open world or in reasonably casual group content, until you get more confident and can stay above 90% health.

[Faction.4013]

To echo takatsu, I've never really had much of an issue with survivability. I run a full Well utility set except for the Heal, which is Ether Signet. Focus & Shield are my off-hands and I'm full Assassins with Berserker trinkets & Jewelry. I use Runes of the Spellbreaker actually, allowing me to do 7% more damage to boonless foes.

 

Also, **Deceptive Evasion** is SUCH a clutch trait in Open-World that I pretty much base my entire playstyle around it outside of group content. When running Fractals, I use Inspiration (1 - 2 - 2) over Dueling & switch out a couple trinkets with Commanders stats and Well of Recall with Signet of Inspiration.

 

My build is here: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vhAQRAse8dnsICtfi9fCmfCEgiFcjCNIaieruVv1ctMASgfB-jxBBQBGS/woU/Jm7PEgnAwZUCiFlfA4kAAA-e

 

I use **Master of Fragmentation** over the more popular **Phantasmal Force** simply because of the F3 Stun - can stun 5 mobs rather than just 1. Which is PRICELESS when you're surrounded or ambushed by a Forged Raiding Party.