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The original was posted on /r/guildwars2 by /u/Tipcat on 2025-07-31 16:23:24+00:00.
Hi, I'm a longtime Mesmer theorycrafter known as Tipcat.
In this thread I aim to bring forth several concerns I have regarding giving Alacrity to Troubadour.
In shortform:
1. It encourages unhealthy competition between Chronomancer, Mirage and Troubadour.
2. It can lead to difficulties balancing when we consider that Troubadour has boon extension along with Time Warp.
3. My proposal.
Unhealthy Competition between the elite specialisations
To preface this I'd first go into the history of Alacrity Mirage in PvE.
It was given Alacrity first with Staff in May 2021.
During that time it was the sole giver of Alacrity for Mesmer which meant it always had some playrate because of Mesmer's strong utilities while being able to give Alacrity.
Fast-forward to June 2022 when Chronomancer was once again given access to Alacrity.
This created strong competition between Alacrity Mirage and Chronomancer.
Which was at the time okay because Mirage still had upsides in that it excelled at confusion bosses over Chronomancer but outside of that Alacrity Mirage saw little play besides its more versatile sibling in Chronomancer.
Then comes the Confusion nerf in June 2023, where Mirage lost its one upside over Chronomancer.
From that time onward, despite Mirage being able to give Alacrity and good might.
Chronomancer was picked 99% of the time for its stronger utility and easier gameplay.
Finally, present day, Alacrity Mirage has seen some playrate increase due to being overtuned with the Dune Cloak buffs where it now excels as an Alacrity DPS because of its DPS-level damage (46.2k) as a support build.
However, the community fully expects Dune Cloak to receive further nerfs, which will once again make it so Alacrity Mirage has little upside over Alacrity Chronomancer.
With Visions of Eternity, without adjustments, there will once again be another contender for the Alacrity spot with Troubadour.
We know from statements during the reveal livestream that we will see some nerfs to Support Chronomancer but we cannot fully know what this entails.
Removing Alacrity from Chronomancer does not make much sense among many people since Chronomancer was the spec that introduced that buff.
So this is deeply concerning because Mirage will once again be at the bottom of the ladder come the Dune Cloak nerfs.
My proposal would be to give Quickness to Troubadour instead, this also creates a more even ground when it comes to competition between the boon-giving specialisations in Mesmer.
See this table for a simple illustration of what I mean.
| - | Mirage | Chronomancer | Troubadour |
|
|
|
|
|
| As it stands | Alacrity | Alacrity/Quickness | Alacrity |
| With quickness Troubadour | Alacrity | Alacrity/Quickness | Quickness |
If they change Troubadour to instead provide Quickness there would only be two instances of competition per boon, and we would also have a more equal distribution of boon access.
Troubadour, boon extension and Time Warp
As it currently stands it is a very real scenario that you could do a Troubadour stacking comp where you can take Time Warp along with Hold the Note, while also having the Troubadours provide Alacrity.
The stacking would allow for providing 100% Quickness and Alacrity through the boon extension.
Given that Troubadour can also provide a lot of might, healing and other boons baseline this is a very scary composition, but it could very easily be prevented by just giving Quickness to Troubadour instead of Alacrity.
It might not solve the whole conundrum of Troubadour's boon extension capabilities but it would at least force another build to provide Alacrity for the Troubadour comp and make it less homogeneous.
My proposal, in summary.
Give Troubadour quickness instead.
This would solve the unhealthy competition that's been ongoing for a long time between Alacrity Mirage and Chronomancer already, by not intruding further upon that balance.
It would also allow for easier balancing of the boon extension trait by not easily allowing a full-on Troubadour composition where you provide Quickness with Time Warp and extending that infinitely with Hold the Note.
Short note, that it would feel rather weird to remove Alacrity from Chronomancer since it was the one who introduced the boon in the beginning.
Thanks for reading!
