Chronomancer - Chronobunker

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Focused on: Direct damage, Bunkering and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

TBD

Overview

A PvP Chronobunker build made to stall smaller skirmishes or set up kills in team fights through CC chains.

Archival note: fell out of use after verious nerfs

Skill Bar

Scepter/Pistol

Sword/Torch

Utility

Equipment

Scepter

Shield

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Usage

General

• Spend most of your time in duels and smaller skirmishes. Stall fights and set up kills for your team with CCs and boon removal.

• Shatters heal, remove conditions, grant Stability, Alacrity, plus one other boon depending on the shatter used (see Bountiful Disillusionment for more details). In this build, shatters mainly serve defensive purposes although Mind Wrack can do decent damage and Diversion is a great instant CC.

• Blink is the only stun breaker in the build by default, you'll rely on maintaining Stability or avoiding attacks through blocks, evasion, and Distortion. If you get CC'd bail out with Phase Retreat or Distortion. Chaos Armor's Protection and Weakness can also help mitigate the pressure.

• Use Phase Retreat to make travel easier between points, and not just vertically. We recommend that you set up a bind for about face (Options ⇒ Control Options ⇒ Movement). With it you can make the skill teleport you "forward" (assuming you're not targeting an enemy player) by using about face ⇒ Phase Retreat ⇒ about face. The quicker you do it, the better.
  • Make sure you don't have a target selected whilst doing this.

• Mind Wrack should be used on CD for its Alacrity while out of combat, preferably after you've used Phase Retreat for movement. Alacrity will make your skills recharge faster, making the travel time with PR a bit shorter while recovering other CDs as well.

• The role of Signet of Inspiration is twofold. First, it's great for extending the duration of important boons especially those with very short durations - always use a shatter skill before this sigent to obtain high value boons such as Stability and Alacrity. Second, it's a relatively low-CD source of Distortion thanks to Blurred Inscriptions which means it's a really strong addition to your already great defensive arsenal.
  • This is best used after Continuum Split. Not only will CS give you Resistance, Stability and even Alacrity, but also refreshes the CD of the signet when it ends. The most optimal time to use this signet would be right after its passive proc, while still in CS and the boons from a shatter are still active.

Phantasms

• The general playstyle of the build revolves around 2 things - spamming Phantasms on CD, and not dying.

• Signet of the Ether reduces the recharge of all Phantasms skills by 50% of their base CD - for example a skill with 30s recharge will always receive a 15s CD reduction. Try to use it when most of your Phantasms are on CD if you want to keep the target pressured, or defensively for early access to shield blocks and to heal up in general.

• Chronophantasma makes your Phantasms respawn after their initial attack.

• Sympathetic Visage will be your primary source of cleansing, transferring one condition to a Phantasm upon being summoned. Using Phantasmal Warlock cleanses 2 conditions at once as it summons 2 Phantasms.
  • Note: Blindness cannot be transferred this way, instead the Phantasm summoning skill will go on full CD without doing anything. To avoid that, either use a non-essential shatter skill like Cry of Frustration to get rid of this condition, or stow your weapon while casting the skill in order to cancel it.

• Couple of things about Echo of Memory worth mentioning:
  • Always try to get hit by something, else you won't be able to use its chain skills (Deja Vu, which is basically a copy of it).
  • It can be dodged. If the target evades at the last moment of the block, the Phantasm won't be summoned at all (same goes for Deja Vu). This is especially important in mirror matches, the Chronomancer who dodges these more tends to win.
  • Make sure to have Stability from shatters while channeling shield blocks against targets with unblockable CCs (like Spellbreakers), don't take chances!

• Phantasmal Warlock's Vulnerability stacking can be quite useful before unloading scepter bursts.

Damage

• Scepter is the main source of damage in the build, almost everything else is centered around survival and CC.

• Illusionary Counter followed by Mind Wrack the moment the clones spawn from the block is great for instant burst damage.

• Confusing Images - although severely nerfed - remains the main burst skill in the build, so do everything you can to land it:
  • Should be the first skill you use after swapping to scepter in order to benefit from Sigil of Agility's Quickness.
  • Try to CC targets first with Tides of Time or Gravity Well.
  • Rip their defensive boons beforehand wth Phantasmal Disenchanter.
  • Use a shatter for Stability.

Continuum Split (CS)

• Continuum Split allows you to use your skills twice. This skill also grants a few seconds of Resistance, you can consider using CS for that in some extreme cases where you really need to survive and there's no other way around it.

• It's best used for double elite activation. Activate CS just before Gravity Well finishes casting, then unload as many shatters/Phantasms and skills in general as you possibly can while CS is active.

• Important: CS prevents capture point contribution, same as Distortion. If you're the only one holding a point, try to keep the time spent in CS to the bare minimum.

• Phantasms, Wells, and applied boons will still persist after CS has ended.