Mesmer Support Chronomancer (PvE, Raids)

[Nag 36]

This is a look at the Mesmer’s rule as Support DPS, offering arguably the best team support in the game except Might stacking and healing. Chronomancers also make excellent tanks, providing just as much or more support from the tank role while having a lot of tools to ensure survival. This build requires the Heart of Thorns expansion to use.

Some of you may worry that the recent Alacrity nerf hurt Chronomancers too hard, but don't fear – this build is still amazing for group support, and is always in high demand.

Your personal DPS will be quite low compared to other people, but your presence will increase group DPS so much that you're basically worth two people in a group. So if you like the idea of offensively supporting your teammates, this is the build for you.

This build is great for raids and fractals, but also works very well in any group PvE content where buffing your teammates is good, e.g. world bosses and dungeons.

 

Equipment

Full Berserker's gear (Power/Precision/Ferocity), ascended stat combination name is [Zojja's.]

Berserker's accessories, rings, neck and backpiece. Getting two Assassin's earrings is good, but don't stress it. (Side note: The old "Full Assassin's gear" was for when we were spamming reflects and using Rune of the Scholar, which didn't have Precision. Berserker's is better now. You can still mix in pieces of Zerker's and Assassin's as you feel like, but try not to go much over ~2150 base Precision)

Berserker's Sword for mainhand, Berserker's Shield/Focus/Sword/Pistol for offhand (in rough order of priority).

If you are tanking, it's recommended to get some Knight's gear (Toughness/Power/Precision); all you need is a few Ascended Trinkets, so you don't have to craft a second armor/weapon set. Berserker's armor and weapons still works fine. A good setup is [Amulet of the Skies], [Ettinband] and [Ossa Family Signet Ring], giving you 1409 Toughness, but any combination that gets you above 1400 Toughness is fine.

In particular, I do not recommend Commander's gear as it makes you have to craft a second armor set, which is super expensive. However, if you already have this, it generally does the job.

 

Runes / Sigils

Armor: [Superior Rune of the Chronomancer]x6.

Mainhand Sword: [Superior Sigil of Force] or [Superior Sigil of Concentration]. Offhand weapons: [Superior Sigil of Air].

 

Traits

1st - Domination 2/2/2

2nd - Illusions 1/2/2

3rd - Chronomancer 3/3/3

 

Utility Skills

Healing Skill (6): Signet of the Ether, Utility Skills (7,8,9): Signet of Inspiration, Well of Recall, Well of Action.

Situationally you might want to use Feedback (for reflects), Mantra of Concentration (for Stability), Mantra of Resolve (for condition cleansing) or Blink (for mobility). If you feel that you are not taking much damage, you can switch Signet of the Ether for Well of Eternity for another Well -> More Alacrity and Quickness. In any case, if you need to swap utilities it is recommended to switch either Signet of Inspiration or Well of Action, as Well of Recall is very powerful and should always be kept.

Elite Skill: Time Warp is just invaluable because it is the best single support ability in the game. Mass Invisibility can be used for when you need to skip something. Moa signet just for hilarity  (although it's actually one of the strongest CC's in the game).

 

Practice

Doing DPS as a Chronomancer is easy in the sense that most of the time you'll just be auto-attacking or creating Phantasms. What you may need to practice is your buff rotation – you want to provide your party with as much Quickness and Alacrity as possible.

 

The standard buff rotation is a bit complex, so it's good to practice with some practice dummies/golems.

1. Start by making three illusions (clones or phantasms) as fast as you can. You can use Signet of the Ether (heal skill) to do this faster. Illusionary Leap (Sword 3) can be used to make a Clone for this.
2. Have your non-shield weapon ready.
3. Use Continuum Split (F5).
4. Switch to your Shield to trigger Superior Sigil of Concentration.
5. Use Time Warp.
6. Use Well of Recall.
7. Use Well of Action.
8. Use Tides of Time (Shield skill 5).
9. Use Signet of Inspiration. Make sure the cast finishes properly since the cast is a bit longer than it looks.
10. Activate Continuum Shift (F5) to refund all your cooldowns.
11. Use Tides of Time (Shield skill 5) before the wave from your last Tides of Time returns to you. That way you can catch both waves, and each wave reduces the cooldown of Tides of Time by ten seconds -> 20 seconds cooldown reduction on Tides of Time.
12. Use Well of Recall.
13. Use Well of Action.
14. Weapon swap as soon as possible to trigger Superior Sigil of Concentration again. Don't use Signet of Inspiration before you have weapon-swapped.
15. Use Signet of Inspiration.
16. Do not use Time Warp again unless the boss is almost dead. It is better to keep Time Warp off cooldown so you can use it again the next time Continuum Split (F5) is ready.
17. You can use Tides of Time, Well of Action, Well of Recall and Signet of Inspiration again when they come off cooldown, but make sure they're off cooldown by the time Continuum Split (F5) is ready again. Typically you'll not be able to use Well of Recall again without delaying your next Continuum Split (F5), but that may be worthwhile depending on the situation.
18. When Continuum Split (F5) is off cooldown, go to 1.

 

The passive heal from Signet of the Ether is very strong, so don't activate the Signet unless you really have to. You can use it at the start of the fight to set up Phantasms faster, though.

 

Notes

Boon duration is your most valuable stat, as Quickness is a boon, so getting to +100% boon duration will double your Quickness uptime and make your party very, very quick, which is amazing for group DPS. There are two main ways of getting +100% boon duration:

 

My preferred method: Chocolate Omnomberry Cream food (+20%), Sigil of Concentration (+33%), having a Revenant teammate with Naturalistic Resonance (+50%) = 103%.

 

The alternative: Chocolate Omnomberry Cream food (+20%), Full Ascended Commander's armor and weapons (except boots, which should be Berserker's) (+20.2%), Bountiful Sharpening Stone (+10%), having a Revenant teammate with Naturalistic Resonance (+50%) = 100.2%.

 

The insane: Please don't do this at home. gw2skills doesn't have Sigil of Concentration, but you need that too (on your Sword) for 100%. The upside is that this lets you have 100% boon duration without a Revenant, and you can even "upgrade" the set if you ever get Ascended Commander's trinkets from the raid. The downside is that this is batflip insane and you should not make this build, as well as forcing you to have a Toughness of 1555 which means you'll always be the tank, no matter what. Expensive, too.

 

I really prefer the first method because you don't have to craft an entire Ascended Commander's set, and you don't have to keep using the very expensive Bountiful Sharpening Stones. However, it is true that the Sigil of Concentration is quite expensive as well. As long as you eat food and have a Revenant teammate you will have +70%, which is usually enough, so don't feel that you need to have +100% boon duration to be a good Mesmer. It's worth investing in if you play Mesmer a lot, though.

I cannot stress the value of the Chocolate Omnomberry Cream enough. DO NOT SKIP IT. It is very cheap, just 5-6 silver at the Trading Post (less if you craft it yourself), and the +20% boon duration it provides is crucial. As a bonus it also gives +40% magic find, so if you use it in fractals and such it basically pays for itself.

 

Other options for food are Spring Rolls, Fried Golden Dumplings (if you're not getting Might from your friends) and Bowl of Nopalitos Sautee (decent for tanking).

 

Lately I've been a huge fan of the Fried Golden Dumplings, since you get a lot of Might which you can multiply to your friends with Signet of Inspiration you basically work as a source of both Might, Alacrity and Quickness - Team Support for the Win! \o/

 

About Sigils: For Mesmers, Sigil of Air is actually stronger than Sigil of Force. This is because +% damage boosts like Sigil of Force do not apply to your Phantasms, who are your main damage source. Phantasms don't trigger Sigil of Air either, but your autoattacks will trigger Sigil of Air very reliably, so you'll get a lot of damage from it.

 

 

For the tanking variant, I'd change to this trait setup:

1st - Inspiration - 3/2/1

2nd - Illusions - 2/2/2

3rd - Chronomancer - 3/3/3

 

Everything else is the same. Berserker's gear is still the best choice, as long as you have enough Toughness to ensure that you hold aggro - usually anything above 1400 is good. The only real difference is that as a tank you can Shatter a lot, since you have many traits that benefit from shattering, unlike the DPS variant which doesn't really want to shatter except for Continuum Split (F5).

 

If you have any thoughts or questions, feel free to either post here or contact me in-game on Nagisa Che or Christars.8645!

 

Special thanks to Susimusta for using a very easy-to-copy template and to Fatal for being a good sport.

 

Video of buff rotation coming soon (tm?). You can probably find a good video if you search YouTube, though.

Edited March 11, 2016 by Nag

[Susimusta 48]

Really nice and thorough Guide! I agree on the importance of Boon Duration, however in most content nowadays (yet, we'll see what the new Raid wing brings), maxing it to +100% isn't a total necessity, but obviously nice nevertheless. 

Cheers for also adding the Tankin' variable! I might actually want look into that a bit myself. :3

Edit: Bf also thinks the guide is really awesome, and disagrees with my lack of perfectionism on the boon duration.  

[Nag 36]

I'll agree that having +70% (boon duration food and a Revenant) is plenty for most occasions. Hitting 100% is more of a "Yes, I am that cool" thing

That's why I think it's perfectly viable to just go Sigil of Force instead of Sigil of Concentration, use full Berserker's and be content with +70%. You'll still be loved.

Edited March 5, 2016 by Nag

[AoiHex 7]

Damn, beat me to it. I was going to post one but it's almost exactly the same as yours :'D

 

Great guide!  Covers everything crucial. QUICKNESS FOR EVERYONE <3

 

/Mesmerlove

Edited February 12, 2016 by AoiHex

[Mipfel 5]

I just run around and press buttons 

Why must you make this so complicated >_<

[Nag 36]

It's not complicated at all! You just step into an alternate timeline, do a truckload of things in a very short timeframe, collapse back into the original timeline and repeat the truckload with subtle yet essential variations while managing random moving walls of space-time and looking dang cool while doing it.

So yes, I basically just run around and press buttons too. Glorious! \o/

[Mipfel 5]

you make this sound so easy.... ;_;