Talk:Time Ward

Is there the same bug as the ele skill?--Ruine Eternelle 23:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Uh yep, it's making every skill recharge at 15-20% it's normal recharge time. Just hit 350 dps on the Master of Damage with only two players spamming Evas. Soldier198 (talk) 00:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Perfectly balanced. - - Ruine Eternelle 00:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I am legitimately struggling to see how single player Mesmer mains shouldn't all be running this Elite. The sheer increase in rotation and damage from your party is probably worth not running ESurge or secondary-dependent builds. - Infinite - talk 09:50, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Honestly I feel the same way. People have been saying that this is one of the weaker anniversary elites, but I feel like I'll be using it quite a lot as well. Especially for defensive heroes (e.g. spirit spammers) with long recharge times, this skill can make a big difference. -arnosluismans (talk) 11:23, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Considering the elite-ness and the heavy reliance of spells in meta hero setups, is this really much better than ebsow? Loggy (talk) 13:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Ebsow is 60% chance of half recharge, so average 30% reduced recharge. But you should run both for an average 38%--Ruine Eternelle 14:24, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Notes on maintaining it

Notes on maintaining buffs like shadow form, stoneflesh, etc make sense because those are effects that can move with the player/team. Beyond a simple note about maintaining it at 17 and maybe a note about being maintainable at 14 if something else recharges it or gives you another copy, I see zero reason to have all of the extra cruft here.

• At rank 17 Fast Casting, Time Ward can be maintained constantly without the need for external recharge time modifiers.
  • At rank 14 Fast Casting, Time Ward is self sustaining provided the casting is affected by a reduced recharge time modifier of 15% or more.

Concise and clear. All that could reasonably be added on top of that is to extend note two to include something about HSR or echoing it at first. Realistically, who actually cares? Seriously. It's a ward. You can't move it. You can walk forward a few steps before putting down the new one while still being under the old one's effects. So what? What theoretical scenario does that matter for? 76.127.242.82 01:06, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Either you're a troll or you haven't got sufficient experience playing endgame content as / with caster or warder roles to understand how wards are used. The notes objectively state how to keep the ward permanently active, which given the skill's effects is a key part of it's functionality.

Outside of that, there's no tangents into theory crafting or excessive deliberation etc. Just a short 40 second read of pertinent information which fully informs the reader of the skill's functionality based upon the skill's “signature gimmick” (something of greatly increased relevance given that the skill is both new content and an elite skill with PvE only restrictions). --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.205.196.218 (talk).

dude quit editing the wiki no one likes you here and all your edits are garbage anyway. go on now and make that revert bot you said you were gonna make, you angry little boy 172.58.227.161 20:21, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Just to remind you that there is a NPA policy on this wiki. If several people find that a note is due, and others don't, please use the talk page to discuss why it needs to be and why it does not. - - Ruine Eternelle 22:55, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Ruine it's been discussed why the note is due, mainly in the summary sections of the history page.

Also please refrain from being a petulant child 172.58.227.161

Coming from a person who purposefully browsed a user's talk page to attack them on a totally separate discussion thread, being told I'm “an angry kid” is the height of ironic hilarity. If you could find a way to criticise my conduct with more validity than saying “all your edits are garbage anyway”, that would be much appreciated... This discussion thread is to discuss the respective page's skill, not to throw around mentally stunted insults. It's not about whether I'm upsetting the apple cart or annoying people, if nobody likes me but people leave the wiki more informed from my edits then I'm fine with that. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.205.196.218 (talk).

You are both right in that the ward can be maintained during fights but no solution is practical. Anon1 is correct to mention Arcane Echo as it is the most reliable and less engaging solution to maintain, as Glyph of Swiftness, Serpent's Quickness and other things need a specific secondary while Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom is random and also takes a PvE skill. Anon 2 is correct in that the ward can't be moved so you cannot always benefit from its effect to recharge it and will have to repeat the kickstart step on the next group (unless you are in a defending position where the party does not move, which is rare). With Fast Casting 14-16 the upkeep is almost 100% so bringing a skill cutting your energy by 25 in the early fight and disabling one skill slot for 40s for 1 or 2 more seconds of 20% recharge may not be worth it. The effect is also not as crucial to maintain as shadow form or stoneflesh aura, where you die if you can't maintain it. - Ruine Eternelle 07:09, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

You only need to kickstart the ward's self sustaining loop once per fight / mobility on the battlefield isn't an issue as you can reposition yourself anywhere inside the ward's area for subsequent casts i.e. you can move the ward around the battlefield once every 14 or so seconds. Imagine something with a similar visual shape to a venn diagram, in terms of how you can propagate the ward during a fight.

Heroes will leave the ward or be flagged in positions outside the ward's area that's true, but your caster midline (mainly damage and crowd control) is usually set to the multi flag rather than the first three independent flags so the element of your party which would benefit the most will almost always be in the ward's area. You, as the player, can stay inside or leave the ward to your heart's content... as long as your next ward cast is within the ward's bounds.

It's also 1 or 2 more seconds of any spell cast inside the ward recharging 20% faster, once the skill is cast inside the ward it recharges at the faster rate regardless of if you leave the ward. 1 to 2 seconds of that advantage being absent could cause certain very crucial casts to be missed, especially with other party members who use fast rotations like Mesmers and Necro-Rit healers / it also helps maintain or spam elite hexes depending on if the ward's cast is in phase with said skill's cast.

The way to look at the skill is that 20% reduced recharge and casting time over 4-7 other party members exceeds the total utility of you having an elite skill yourself, so it's comparing apples to oranges mentioning builds which use upkeep for crucial self support rather than highly advantageous party support. Viewing it as “wasting” two skill slots is missing the point, when from just those two slots, your party as a whole may exceed the performance of having you performing independently making your other 6 skills a happy bonus.

Finally the 25 energy deficit is fleeting as both your BiP Necromancer and Inspiration Magic skills easily counter such shortfalls. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by User:213.205.196.218 (talk).

If the goal is to purely maintain the ward to improve the performance of your party members then the 25 energy cost to maintain it is a negligable argument since you can swap in a high energy set to manage your energy afterwards. It is an often used tactic in PvP as a reserve energy pool and can easily be applied to PvE as well. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 19:03, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Maintaining: Arcane Echo Expanded

Time Ward's benefits are undeniable, you are right. It's indeed not a "waste" of a skill slot at all, but as you say more a tool to turn apples into oranges.

Why not simply use serpent's Quickness since we are not exactly pressured to pick a secondary? It provides more immediate utility than Arcane Echo, and is also instant and cheaper. And why not take Ebsow, since the two skills interact well with each other in a caster team setting ? - - Ruine Eternelle 09:12, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

When I said about comparing apples to oranges, that's a common phrase used to mean two incomparable things i.e. comparing the maintenance of a build focused on party utility vs maintaining self buffs.

Serpent's Quickness is a viable option, but having near instant recharge on all skills for only 15 seconds with 30 seconds downtime is not as useful as being able to echo any skill on your bar which already have super reduced recharge times thanks to Fast Casting + Time Ward (65% reduced at rank 15 Fast Casting inside the ward).

You can also use Arcane Echo to copy an elite skill gained from another Mesmer in your party through Arcane Mimicry... which for 20 seconds could potentially give you two copies of Psychic Instability, Ineptitude or Energy Surge on your bar. Sure if you threw Serpent's Quickness on top of that you'd have three elite skills with near instant recharge at your disposal for a brief period, but even with BiP support you'd eat through your energy way too fast to make it worthwhile / to use those mimicked and echoed elite skills effectively, you'd need to invest in something other than Inspiration Magic thereby shutting off that avenue for energy management when you have over 90% reduced cooldown to spam skills with.

Ebon Battle Standard of Wisdom at 15 Fast Casting would only give a 60% chance to have an effective 17.5% reduced recharge / a total of 10.5% efficiency improvement after factoring in the non guaranteed proc

45% + 20% = 65% then 100-65=35/2=17.5

17.5*0.6=10.5

Now 10.5% reduced cooldown on your Mesmer midline (even more on other casters) might seem attractive, but before that point your build is already becoming fairly energy hungry. Another 10 energy to rotate in a setup with such fast recharge times can mess with your reliability before even considering elite area effects and enemy Mesmer energy denial. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.205.196.218 (talk).

If I get these numbers right :

• Time Ward's reduced recharge stacks additively with fast casting (45%+20%), unlike being applied to the new recharge (45%+20%*55%=45%+11%) like ebsow.
• Time ward stacks with ebsow.

I can't test right now but it looks odd. --Ruine Eternelle 17:38, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Fast Casting provides a reduced recharge % equal to triple the attribute level. Bonuses outside of Fast Casting stack additively (1+1=2 and so on) up to a maximum of 50%, so with 45% from 15 Fast Casting and 50% from spell effects for example... you'd have a total of 95% reduced recharge time.

The key distinction is in the wording, namely “recharge % faster" vs “% reduced recharge”. If a skill recharges faster, it takes your final recharge time after all reduction modifiers and speeds it up by the number specified -

e.g. 70% reduced recharge + recharge 50% faster = 85% total reduced recharge.

This is because the second effect halved the remaining recharge, which in the example above turned the remaining 30% into 15%.

In EBSOW's case however, it only has a 3/5 chance to affect a cast -

e.g. 70% reduced recharge + “effective" recharge 30% faster = 79% total reduced recharge. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.205.196.218 (talk).

Well I didn't know that the wording actually made a difference. I think there is no mention of that distinction on the Recharge time page, and across the wiki I see only the category [1] . If it's true then you taught me something, thanks.

So far only rock candies and essences of celerity give "reduce recharge", while Serpent's Quickness has "recharge reduction by 33%" only in the full description, the concise says "recharge 33% faster". All other skills are of the "recharge x%" type, including Time Ward.

From what you say using red rock candies (25%) and essence of celerity (20%) with fast casting 20, 19 (60 and 57% resp) should lead to an instant recharge. And Time Ward should not add 20% to the 45% of fast casting, but rather 11% (20% of the 100-45=55%), for a total 56% reduction of the initial recharge.

Is that correct or have I misunderstood something ? - - Ruine Eternelle 21:36, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

I haven't used EBSOW for a long time as when I last used it, the skill worked as I demonstrated (or at least appeared to from tests) and obviously gave diminishing returns / made it less useful under that premise. That being said if the wording doesn't differentiate two separate methods of reduction, I apologise and may have been under a misapprehension this whole time / possibly due to a glitch that could have been hotfixed out ages ago or shoddy testing methods.

That being said, assuming you reached the cap you'd be expending a realistic minimum of 5-10 energy per second when +10 energy regen only recovers 3.33 energy per second (net loss of 1.67 to 6.67 energy per second). In short you'd be out of energy after 10 or so seconds at a rough guess. You can use spells such as Guilt although outside of gaining you energy, that skill has little utility aside from one interrupt which can be stripped or avoided / most energy gain skills use Inspiration magic, but as I've already discussed it isn't as good as Domination Magic for utilising a bar containing Arcane Echo (you'd have to whole hog spec into one or the other to make skills worth using). --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 213.205.196.218 (talk).