Chronomancer - Support Chronomancer

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Crowd control, Boon removal and Utility

Designed for: WvW Zerg

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on February 24, 2022 and is up to date for the April 16, 2024 patch.

Overview

Support Chronomancer WvW build focusing on revival, utility and crowd control.

Skill Bar

Sword/Focus

X/Shield

Utility

Heal Variants

• Signet of the Ether if you take Phantasmal Disenchanter
  • Both swaps strongly recommended at smaller numbers.

Utility Variants

• Phantasmal Disenchanter extremely powerful AoE boonrips but inconsistent at range, typically used over Veil
• Mimic Enables an extra use of Illusion of Life or Null Field.
• Mantra of Concentration if in need of Stability and personal stunbreak
  • Your utilities are extremely powerful, only take this if you can't live without it

Template Code

[&DQcKFxgpKB3wEgAAagEAABoBAACEAQAAsxIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]

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Specializations

Variants

• Seize the Moment useful to give self Quickness if landing Illusion of Life is difficult.

Equipment

Head
Minstrel

Shoulders
Minstrel

Chest
Minstrel

Hands
Minstrel

Legs
Minstrel

Feet
Minstrel

Backpiece
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Amulet
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Sword
Minstrel

Focus
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Minstrel

Shield
Minstrel

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Equipment Variants

• Minstrel's can be replaced by Wanderer's or Celestial
  • Your equipment in general has minimal impact on this builds performance, but concentration is helpful for Alacrity uptime
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy to Sigil of Superior Sigil of Nullification for slightly more boon rip at the cost of survivability

Usage

General

Settings

• Under General Options / Combat/Movement turn on Allow Skill Retargetting and set Ground Targetting to Instant Cast, this will make Illusion of Life cast at the location your cursor is at the end of the cast, instead of where you initially targetted
• Under General Options / User Interface check Always show squad health bars and Always show party health bars. These will make it much easier to keep track of who needs your support
• Also under General Options / User Interface turn on Thick party health bars and Thick squad health bars
• Under Squad Options check View as a grid. This will allow you to keep track of your allies' health, enabling better decision-making and skill management

Surviving

• This build has high passive defense
• This build has low mobility skill access, staying very close to your tag and group is critical
  • Target isolated players to reposition with Illusionary Leap/Swap, the clone will die before Swap can be used if it is summoned into damage
    • Be ready to Dodge as soon as you press Swap
• This builds has moderate active defenses
  • Use Echo of Memory/Deja Vu to get through enemy damage
    • Do not to waste Echo of Memory, Deja Vu will not activate if you are not hit during the cast time of Echo of Memory, leaving you defenseless
    • Signet of the Ether will reset the cooldown of Echo of Memory but not if Deja Vu is active

Overall Priorities

High

• Illusion of Life

Moderate

• CC
• Boon rip

Low

• Supporting allies

Specific Priorities

CC skills by priority

• Tides of Time - in melee
• Gravity Well
• Temporal Curtain
• Illusionary Leap

Boon rip skills by priority

• Time Sink - when in range and targets lack Stability, to proc Vicious Expression
• Split Second/Rewinder - when in range
• Phantasmal Disenchanter - if applicable
• Null Field

Detailed Explanations

Illusion of Life

• Focus on reviving allies who are far away with Illusion of Life, don't waste the skill on players that can be hand rezzed.
• Normally Continuum Split should be saved for Gravity Well, but resetting Illusion of Life is also an acceptable use

CC

• Prioritize both boon rip and CC on your allies spikes, watch out for the following skills:
  • Winds - Winds of Disenchantment
  • Wells - Well of Corruption+Well of Suffering
  • Traps - Procession of Blades+Test of Faith
  • Shades - Desert Shroud
• Your CC skills also remove boons with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Absorption and Vicious Expression
• Use Continuum Split when casting Gravity Well to reset the cooldown
  • Use Continuum Split while out of the way of enemy damage and pushes so you aren't brought back in an awkward spot or have your split ended early by damage
  • While inside the split, use as many skills as possible such as Null Field and Shatter skills as the cooldowns reset
  • You can cast Continuum Split as another skill cast is finishing instead of before the cast to give yourself slightly more time in split
• Use Temporal Curtain to pull targets into other CC and spikes, including your own Gravity Well
  • Temporal Curtain is particularly important when revenants range spike with Phase Smash
• Use Illusionary Leap as your group pushes into the enemy or when trying to catch an enemy that is lagging behind
  • Do not put yourself out of position trying to use it

Boon rip

• Your shatters (Split Second, Rewinder and Time Sink) proc Shattered Concentration
  • Since your shatters are melee range, use them when crossing through enemies
    • Don't go out of your way to hit enemies with shatters if it would put you out of position
  • While proccing Vicious Expression with Time Sink is valuable, using it on targets with Stability to proc Shattered Concentration is still ok
• Target enemies on the edges of the group with Phantasmal Disenchanter, the phantasm is fragile
• Land Null Field just before an allies spike when possible. Try to place it so one edge is on the enemy group and the other edge is in the direction they are moving

Supporting allies

• Cast Well of Eternity where your group will be when it finishes ticking
• If possible, hit allies as well as enemies with Null Field, but prioritize enemies