Feedback on solving Chronomancer role-compression

[Eekasqueak.7850]

> @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > I think more classes could be given alacrity as well.

>

> Noooo... WHYYY.... What then would be the **flavor** of the Chronomancer be? If every other class can do time-manipulation, then why the kitty-kat even call our specialization CHRONOmancer

 

You do realize that revenant has alacrity too right?

[Zoe.8310]

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > I think more classes could be given alacrity as well.

> >

> > Noooo... WHYYY.... What then would be the **flavor** of the Chronomancer be? If every other class can do time-manipulation, then why the kitty-kat even call our specialization CHRONOmancer

>

> You do realize that revenant has alacrity too right?

 

Yes... and I also realize that Alacrity wasn't really a main thing about Revenant when it first launched, but has increasingly gotten it over the years.

[Bramymond.7689]

> @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > I think more classes could be given alacrity as well.

> >

> > Noooo... WHYYY.... What then would be the **flavor** of the Chronomancer be? If every other class can do time-manipulation, then why the kitty-kat even call our specialization CHRONOmancer

>

> You do realize that revenant has alacrity too right?

 

AND it actually fits the theme aswell. The mist are basically everything, past, present and future. Having alacrity on it for the mistwalker makes sense somewhat.

Alacrity in my language also means something like "the drive to take action", for lack of better explanation. So to me it personally makes sense on Ventari and Kala respectively. It didnt for some time, when GotL was still a unique buff, because i thought that fit ventari better than alacrity. But we since moved on from the unique dmg-modifier, so w/e.

It´s by no means a boon that should be handed out like candy to any class tho, just because it´s pretty strong and this one special thing that isnt really present much in the core game and heavily comes with e-specs (base rev being an exception, as it is x-pac only aswell).

[Eekasqueak.7850]

> @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > > > @"Eekasqueak.7850" said:

> > > > I think more classes could be given alacrity as well.

> > >

> > > Noooo... WHYYY.... What then would be the **flavor** of the Chronomancer be? If every other class can do time-manipulation, then why the kitty-kat even call our specialization CHRONOmancer

> >

> > You do realize that revenant has alacrity too right?

>

> Yes... and I also realize that Alacrity wasn't really a main thing about Revenant when it first launched, but has increasingly gotten it over the years.

 

Boons being unique to only a few classes is poor design to me regardless, chrono's theme isn't tied to alacrity it's tied to their unique mechanic continuum split which no other class has.

[Zoe.8310]

> @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> I´d like to believe Anet actually saw feedback here and got inspired by the suggestions of the community that were already floating about chronomancer balance among the playerbase. Nothing said here probably was anything new to an informed/invested player or developer, but it summed up many possible solutions to severe balance issues created by compression to much power into the chronomancer specialization.

 

Your thread was pretty anemic in terms of number of people getting behind your ideas, so I'm not convinced many wanted this.

 

> @"Dammerung.6419" said:

> Maybe you need to read the room. People are understandable not happy, and in you swoop, cheering on the neutering of our class.

 

Exactly my point.

 

> @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> I do play chronomancer myself. I agree with you tho, it isn't entirely unjustified to be unhappy about the nerfs it received.

 

When it's a cascade of nerfs across many traits, many skills, an many game modes, without any counterbalance, it is devastating. They are making the class less fun to play and far less interesting. And it's not just this patch -- it's patch after patch after patch after patch -- For months we've been tossed around without any solid vision on the class because they can't seem to figure out what the kitty-kat-krap to do with this class. It's sloppy how much they have been yo-yo'ing.

 

> @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> Chronomancer fits a theme were it combines the 2 time related boons into one class, which is still its own unique thing, nobody else has this.

 

Nooooope... We're really not unique anymore. Other classes have Alacrity now. Other classes have Quickness. The theme of "Time" that the Chrono had is shared by many. At this rate, just throw all the classes in a blender and make them the same. Give warriors animal pets.... give engineers a shroud.... give guardians kits....

 

In essence, the Balance Team goes to a frozen yogurt store, puts all the flavors in one cup, then stirs it all together into a brown mess, and then, only then, do they dig in and eat.

[Bramymond.7689]

> @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> > I´d like to believe Anet actually saw feedback here and got inspired by the suggestions of the community that were already floating about chronomancer balance among the playerbase. Nothing said here probably was anything new to an informed/invested player or developer, but it summed up many possible solutions to severe balance issues created by compression to much power into the chronomancer specialization.

>

> Your thread was pretty anemic in terms of number of people getting behind your ideas, so I'm not convinced many wanted this.

 

I can only speak for myself, but I didnt build my opinion on this thread alone. I had my fair share of grieving over some balance decisions. Swapping gear every other patch was just a small part of that. And i really can get behind the frustration that not just a few people might have right now. But in the end, i try to understand that some things just cant get left too overpowered and oppressive indefinitely. Do i wish they could have taken fewer balance passes and solve the issue more painlessly and resolutely/fast? Yes. Do i hate them for doing it _better late than never_ and thinking about the overall power budget of the entire class-roster? No.

 

I wholely agree with you tho, that skill expression should be rewarded, on any class. Anet as of late made many classes a lot easier (not just chrono, tho it´s a bit more noticalbe on it), as to help a larger demografic access them. It´s not an easy feat to make something both accessible and reward skill expression. As a chrono you have to rely on people standing in your wells and not getting downed/caught now a lot more, tho you could also take this the other way around and say that you need to get better at placing them in the first place. Sharing aegis is also still a thing, especially for inspiration builds. You will notice a difference between a chrono using his distortions for aegis wisely or randomly and thats at least something. Reading Anets explanation on why they decided to change chrono the way they did however, really made lots of sense to me. I like to see them make an effort for their players to understand the reasoning behind changes.

[Primal Duolog.9863]

The issue for me is primarily the developer's remark that 'Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity.'

 

Many parts of the game revolve around dynamic game-play with players moving around all the time; players are encouraged to actively use your dodge key, sometimes stack sometimes disperse, but almost never remain stationary. When you tout something as being focused around quickness and alacrity it should translate to actually being able to provide quickness and alacrity, **at least on demand** but not for long periods of time. Other classes like firebrand and renegade can provide while on the move, ironically.

 

With the only outgoing quickness and alacrity being wells with pitiable aoe radius now,

making your intended recipient stay put for almost a 1:1 ratio the duration of the boon you will apply (3/4 second cast time + 3 second pulse) while rewarding them with 5 seconds of a single boon strikes me as legitimately stupid. Yes, it was the vanilla design before this mimic shatter SOI change came out, but it doesn't stop it from being stupid.

The only place in the game, across all game modes where this would even work is in open world boss events where people stack under a boss's foot like Tequalt and auto attack until a boss dies, or perhaps a select few raid bosses. Chronomancers are human beings and not mind readers and people can and will run out of it if they keep moving in a straight line, much less haphazard strafing unless you increase your well cast range to something like 2000 units or increase the AOE. Can you imagine having voice-comms every 15 seconds - 'Hey stay put zerg, I m casting wells on you now'

[LordMorgul.9845]

so this is the 5pp community that ruined a class?

 

[Bramymond.7689]

> @"OpiumRagDoll.1086" said:

> The issue for me is primarily the developer's remark that 'Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity.'

>

> Many parts of the game revolve around dynamic game-play with players moving around all the time; players are encouraged to actively use your dodge key, sometimes stack sometimes disperse, but almost never remain stationary. When you tout something as being focused around quickness and alacrity it should translate to actually being able to provide quickness and alacrity, **at least on demand** but not for long periods of time. Other classes like firebrand and renegade can provide while on the move, ironically.

>

> With the only outgoing quickness and alacrity being wells with pitiable aoe radius now,

> making your intended recipient stay put for almost a 1:1 ratio the duration of the boon you will apply (3/4 second cast time + 3 second pulse) while rewarding them with 5 seconds of a single boon strikes me as legitimately stupid. Yes, it was the vanilla design before this mimic shatter SOI change came out, but it doesn't stop it from being stupid.

> The only place in the game, across all game modes where this would even work is in open world boss events where people stack under a boss's foot like Tequalt and auto attack until a boss dies, or perhaps a select few raid bosses. Chronomancers are human beings and not mind readers and people can and will run out of it if they keep moving in a straight line, much less haphazard strafing unless you increase your well cast range to something like 2000 units or increase the AOE. Can you imagine having voice-comms every 15 seconds - 'Hey stay put zerg, I m casting wells on you now'

 

The rotation has a pretty slow start now until people get their quickness/alacrity, yeah. They might need to look onto how wells apply their boons now probably. Well of precognition comes to mind, as it applies it´s boons on cast, while having its secondary effect at the end, unlike the others. Or "flow of time" and "seize the moment" could apply their boons to the party aswell, with an added ICD?

Tides of time does apply alacrity at least right from the start. And while timewarp isnt really as great as bringing Moa or Gravity Well in most cases, this can also get used to kickstart quickness on fights where cc isnt needed too desperately.

[Xstein.2187]

> @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> > @"Zoe.8310" said:

> > > @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> > > I´d like to believe Anet actually saw feedback here and got inspired by the suggestions of the community that were already floating about chronomancer balance among the playerbase. Nothing said here probably was anything new to an informed/invested player or developer, but it summed up many possible solutions to severe balance issues created by compression to much power into the chronomancer specialization.

> >

> > Your thread was pretty anemic in terms of number of people getting behind your ideas, so I'm not convinced many wanted this.

>

> I can only speak for myself, but I didnt build my opinion on this thread alone. I had my fair share of grieving over some balance decisions. Swapping gear every other patch was just a small part of that. And i really can get behind the frustration that not just a few people might have right now. But in the end, i try to understand that some things just cant get left too overpowered and oppressive indefinitely. Do i wish they could have taken fewer balance passes and solve the issue more painlessly and resolutely/fast? Yes. Do i hate them for doing it _better late than never_ and thinking about the overall power budget of the entire class-roster? No.

>

> I wholely agree with you tho, that skill expression should be rewarded, on any class. Anet as of late made many classes a lot easier (not just chrono, tho it´s a bit more noticalbe on it), as to help a larger demografic access them. It´s not an easy feat to make something both accessible and reward skill expression. As a chrono you have to rely on people standing in your wells and not getting downed/caught now a lot more, tho you could also take this the other way around and say that you need to get better at placing them in the first place. Sharing aegis is also still a thing, especially for inspiration builds. You will notice a difference between a chrono using his distortions for aegis wisely or randomly and thats at least something. Reading Anets explanation on why they decided to change chrono the way they did however, really made lots of sense to me. I like to see them make an effort for their players to understand the reasoning behind changes.

 

Faceslap. I hate to tell you this, but throwing a class under the bus isn't considered 'solving the issue'.

Lets go through the notes together.

 

_"In this update, we've made changes to Signet of Inspiration and Mimic—two core skills in the current skill rotation for chronomancers in raids. These are fairly significant changes with slightly different purposes, although both have been made to address the issue of stacking power multipliers._

 

_The change to Mimic prevents it from being reset by the chronomancer's Continuum Split skill. This is intended to prevent multiplicative power in the mesmer's kit. We want Mimic to be a skill that allows for unique flexibility in mesmer builds, but its double-casting function created multiplicative power when combined with Continuum Split. This change also gave us the opportunity to give Mimic a scaling recharge time in order make it more versatile for general play."_

 

Yes, I agree with this. However, while I agree with this, the only issue mimic was causing in the game is when it was specifically paired with signet of inspiration. Therefore, I understand why they did it, but consider it an unnecessary change if signet of inspiration was fixed the correct way.

 

_"Instead of the mesmer sharing its own active boons with allies, we've changed Signet of Inspiration to extend the duration of boons that are already on allies. This is intended to put more emphasis on the signet as a skill that augments other support skills rather than one that other support skills feed into._

 

Ok, but whyyyyy? Please explain.

 

_"Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity. However, the power these two skills allowed chronomancers made them a one-stop shop for every boon in the game, which was crowding out other potential roles in raid compositions. In order to reinforce this direction, we've also added quickness and alacrity enhancements to wells."_

 

Here we go, now we get to the big one. Reducing chronos ability of being a one-stop shop for every boon in the game sounds great. Thats the exact change that needs to occur in the game. However, unfortunately that is not what happened. They could have reduced signet of inspiration to just quickness and alacrity. However, instead they maintained the chronos ability to be a one-stop shop, just as long as they already have that boon to begin with. When what the devs say don't match up with what they do, that is when I really begin to question what is going on. But let's go on.

 

_"On a separate note, we've also reduced the power of mirages in PvP in order to lower their burst damage. We want mirages to excel in longer combat engagements, but their burst damage was just too high"_

 

llloooolll Whaaat? So you reduce the damage of axes of symmetry by 30% when it is a condi skill?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJsG4wMJBk8&t=1043s

Oh boy, the devs are starting to crack me up, and I don't think thats a good thing.

[SloRules.3560]

> @"Bramymond.7689" said:

> > @"OpiumRagDoll.1086" said:

> > The issue for me is primarily the developer's remark that 'Neither of these changes are intended to alter the chronomancer's identity as a build focused around quickness and alacrity.'

> >

> > Many parts of the game revolve around dynamic game-play with players moving around all the time; players are encouraged to actively use your dodge key, sometimes stack sometimes disperse, but almost never remain stationary. When you tout something as being focused around quickness and alacrity it should translate to actually being able to provide quickness and alacrity, **at least on demand** but not for long periods of time. Other classes like firebrand and renegade can provide while on the move, ironically.

> >

> > With the only outgoing quickness and alacrity being wells with pitiable aoe radius now,

> > making your intended recipient stay put for almost a 1:1 ratio the duration of the boon you will apply (3/4 second cast time + 3 second pulse) while rewarding them with 5 seconds of a single boon strikes me as legitimately stupid. Yes, it was the vanilla design before this mimic shatter SOI change came out, but it doesn't stop it from being stupid.

> > The only place in the game, across all game modes where this would even work is in open world boss events where people stack under a boss's foot like Tequalt and auto attack until a boss dies, or perhaps a select few raid bosses. Chronomancers are human beings and not mind readers and people can and will run out of it if they keep moving in a straight line, much less haphazard strafing unless you increase your well cast range to something like 2000 units or increase the AOE. Can you imagine having voice-comms every 15 seconds - 'Hey stay put zerg, I m casting wells on you now'

>

> The rotation has a pretty slow start now until people get their quickness/alacrity, yeah. They might need to look onto how wells apply their boons now probably. Well of precognition comes to mind, as it applies it´s boons on cast, while having its secondary effect at the end, unlike the others. Or "flow of time" and "seize the moment" could apply their boons to the party aswell, with an added ICD?

> Tides of time does apply alacrity at least right from the start. And while timewarp isnt really as great as bringing Moa or Gravity Well in most cases, this can also get used to kickstart quickness on fights where cc isnt needed too desperately.

 

Than you have WvW, which i believe last sentence was refering to. You just can't use mesmer wells in WvW...

[Bramymond.7689]

Yes, i realized that later today. I´m mainly a PvE player myself and havent put much time into WvW, so i didnt see it at first. Now i unerstand it a bit more why people are so unhappy all over the forums.

[Imperadordf.2687]

> @"Jimbru.6014" said:

> Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

 

BibleThump

[Jimbru.6014]

> @"Imperadordf.2687" said:

> > @"Jimbru.6014" said:

> > Be careful what you wish for. You might get it.

>

> BibleThump

 

More like a Flying Spaghetti splat, but sure. Two months to the day after my warning post, in fact.