Build:Chronomancer - Boon Support Healer

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Support and Utility

Designed for: Raids

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on August 29, 2023 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Due to the incredible range of utility and active defense that Chrono can bring, it remains a good choice of tank and boon support in raids.

However, many players will lean so hard into the defensive/utility aspects that they end up dealing no damage. If you find yourself DPS-racing a healmech, you might as well be a healer yourself!

Due to the difficulty providing key defensive boons such as Regeneration and Protection, this build may struggle to be a solo healer on some encounters but is a great choice for secondary healer.

Chronomancer provides EITHER 100% Quickness uptime or 100% Alacrity uptime as well as Fury and 25 Might. Both variants can dedicate multiple slots for utility skills.

Due to the sheer range of options available, there is no "default" build for heal chrono, but rather a framework into which you can slot what you want for each encounter.

Skill Bar

Scepter/Shield

X/X

Utility

Weapon Variants

Sceptre/Shield should be considered mandatory, but the other set can be what you like:

• Greatsword (coupled with the Domination traitline) provides some burst healing and boonrip.
• Staff can provide similar burst healing to Greatsword without the need to trait into Domination. It can also be used to improve personal Regeneration uptime and provide some random extra boons via Chaos Storm. Be aware that you should often NOT use Phase Retreat if tanking as you want the boss to remain still rather than chase you.
• Offhand Focus can be taken if you need Temporal Curtain to pull adds into the boss.

Skill Variants

Healing

• Well of Eternity is a massive group heal that can be boosted even further if using All's Well That Ends Well.
• Mantra of Recovery provides more consistent healing, as well as being able to trigger Mender's Purity frequently. Crucially, as the charges are instant cast it can be used to provide an AoE condi cleanse to counter Fear or Taunt.
• Mirror doesn't provide any group healing, but does offer a short projectile reflect, and if running Chaos with Master of Manipulation it can also be used to provide AoE Aegis.
• Healing Seed (Sylvari only) is the only way you have to reliable provide Regeneration to allies, which will be very helpful if you're the only healer.

Utility

Well of Action provides ~12 average Might to your subgroup. Combined with Tides of Time, this is sufficient to provide over 20 average Might. Mantra of Pain is taken as standard to fill in any gaps, but can be swapped out if you have other sources of Might in the group.

• CC options:
  • Well of Senility does decent CC and also removes boons.
  • Mantra of Distraction is not as strong as Well of Senility but recharges on a much shorter cooldown, which may make it better on encounters that require very frequent CC. When charging the mantra, it also reduces the cooldown on Time Sink.
  • Signet of Domination has a long cooldown, but could be taken along with the above if you really want to go overboard on CC.
• Aegis:
  • Blink if running Chaos with Master of Manipulation - short cooldown and instant cast, but be aware that the Aegis triggers at the location you activate the skill, not where you end up.
  • Well of Precognition can be used less frequently, but the duration of the Aegis is longer, which may be useful if you have concerns about your timing.
  • If running Blurred Inscriptions, any signet will also provide Aegis.
• Feedback provides a long-duration reflect.
• Mantra of Concentration provides Stability to your group.
• Portal Entre if you need a portal.
• Mimic allows you to get a second use out of a key skill if you'll need it more often than the cooldown. Often used together with Portal Entre.

Elite

• Time Warp is not required to maintain quickness, but it provides an easy way to start fights with quickness and can be used to cover up any mistakes in the rotation.
• Gravity Well should be used if an encounter requires heavy CC, and it can also be used to pad Alacrity if running that variant.
• Signet of Humility bigger and faster CC than Gravity Well but on a longer cooldown, which may be more suitable for some encounters.

Template Code

Note: Due to the aforementioned variety, these codes are incomplete. In particular the grandmaster trait in Chronomancer has not been selected.

Chaos variant

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Domination variant

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Specializations

Quickness variant: Use Seize the Moment.

Alacrity variant: Use Stretched Time.

Trait Variants

• Warden's Feedback can be taken if running Focus and the reflect will be valuable.
• Blurred Inscriptions gives you greater access to Distortion and Aegis, but you lose your main source of healing.
  • If taking this, you can constantly spam Mantra of Pain to trigger Restorative Mantras as your sustained healing instead.
• Delayed Reactions - if not bringing any wells, you can slightly increase your CC with this.

Specialization Variants

Chaos
Chaos offers more personal survivability, higher boon duration, and perhaps most usefully Master of Manipulation.

• You could bring Bountiful Disillusionment to give yourself more Stability.

Domination
With Bountiful Blades Greatsword has the highest illusion generation of any weapon and so can be used to rapidly trigger Illusionary Inspiration for burst healing on demand. You should be able to trigger this trait 11 times in a single weapon swap.

Build-your-own Tower Chrono

With the extreme tankiness of this build, with a few modifications it can easily fulfill the role of solo-capturing towers during Siege the Stronghold. There is a good amount of flexibility in the traits and skills used, but our default recommendation is:

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Weapons

Offhand Focus and Greatsword are mandatory.

Skills

Healing

• Mantra of Recovery is the default pick because it provides an instant-cast heal. This is particularly useful as it can save you from Fear.
• Well of Eternity is a massive heal that can keep you and allies alive on the towers if things go wrong.
• Mirror reflects projectiles during the cast, and if traited also gives you Aegis. This makes it an excellent option for surviving the mushroom cave.

Utility

• Portal Entre - Even the most experienced player is not going to manage all towers all the time, so it is required to take portal as a backup.
• Mimic or Blink - In the event that you need to use a portal twice in quick succession, Mimic ensures that you can do that. Blink can replace it if you are confident, or if you are struggling to survive the mushroom cave.
• Signet of Midnight or Decoy - Access to Stealth on every tower is important, as some enemies can summon minions or blind you so you need to be able to knock them before they aggro. Decoy has the longer duration, but Signet of Midnight can be activated in midair and has a shorter cooldown.

Elite

Nothing can compete with Mass Invisibility for reliably soloing towers.

Traits

Chaos

• Prismatic Understanding or Bountiful Disillusionment - Prismatic Understanding gives you extra time in stealth, which can be very useful if you struggle to activate your skills fast enough. Bountiful Disillusionment allows you to spam shatters on the tower for Stability

Inspiration

• Warden's Feedback or Restorative Illusions - Warden's Feedback can be useful if you want the extra defense or if the ground team is fast enough that you don't reliably have Temporal Curtain off cooldown. Restorative Illusions adds even more utility to your shatter skills.
• Illusionary Inspiration or Blurred Inscriptions - Blurred Inscriptions gives you some distortion if you're using Signet of Midnight, otherwise Illusionary Inspiration will provide some extra sustain if you end up fighting on the tower.

Chronomancer

• Delayed Reactions or All's Well That Ends Well - Delayed Reactions will Slow enemies on the tower after the first pull, making them less able to interrupt the second. All's Well That Ends Well could be worth taking if you're using Well of Eternity if you'd rather have more healing.

Mirage?

If available, Mirage (mid-mid-mid) gives you access to a movement skill on mainhand Sword that will make the mushroom cave much faster and safer. It also allows you to dodge during the cast of other skills to make towers more reliable.

Soloing Towers

Place Temporal Curtain near the start of the mushroom cave to give yourself Swiftness. Run through the cave, avoiding the mushrooms and running through as many of the pools as possible. Be sure to use your heal and Signet of Midnight or Decoy to stay alive.

After the cave, heal yourself up if necessary, then use Mass Invisibility and immediately jump onto the bouncing mushroom. Once on the tower, quickly use Temporal Curtain ⇒ Into the Void near the middle of the tower, then weapon swap and use Illusionary Wave to knock everyone to the edge (you can also use Signet of Midnight or Decoy for extra safety). If successful, this should instantly capture the tower. To deal with the enemies on the tower, you can either jump onto the turret and aim the attacks at them, or hop over the parapet and run along the wall to give yourself some space.

For the second tower, once the leyline appears, jump inside and use stealth gliding to keep yourself safe. As you exit the leyline, use Signet of Midnight or Decoy to Stealth yourself, and repeat the knocking as before. Depending on your group's speed, you may have Mass Invisibility available for consecutive towers. Be aware that timing is important with Signet of Midnight - you cannot stealth immediately after gliding, so pressing it too soon can waste the skill.

If at any point you fail to instantly capture the tower, drop a Portal Entre then jump off the tower and glide back to your team. Make sure there isn't a warg about to eat Glenna, then use Mimic ⇒ Portal Exeunt.

Unless your team is very fast, you should have Signet of Midnight or Decoy available for every tower - remember to use shatters while waiting to give yourself Alacrity. You may find it useful to peek at the tower ahead before you take the leyline. In particular you want to look for Cultists and Battle Mages, as the former can summon minions that make it hard to hit all the White Mantle with your CC, and the latter can Blind you. If you're feeling less confident about a tower, you can also use Mass Invisibility before jumping into the leyline.

Equipment

Any combination of Minstrel stats or Harrier stats (or even Giver stats) will provide more than enough concentration to maintain boons. The setup below is merely a suggestion.

Head
Minstrel

Shoulders
Harrier

Chest
Harrier

Hands
Harrier

Legs
Minstrel

Feet
Harrier

Backpiece
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Accessory
Minstrel

Amulet
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Ring
Minstrel

Scepter
Harrier

Shield
Harrier

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• This setup will hit ~100% boon duration with Chaos and +100 Concentration food, but neither of these is necessary.
• You could consider Relic of the Flock if using Mantra of Recovery or Mirror.

Consumables

Food

• or any Healing Power/Concentration ascended food with the 10% outgoing healing effect.

Utility

Usage

As a healer, you don't really have a fixed rotation beyond using certain skills off cooldown, but consider the following guidelines.

Boons

Quickness/Alacrity provision comes from Seize the Moment/Stretched Time so frequent clone generation and shattering is key. Open with your offset phantasm, then Echo of Memory for some opening clones for Continuum Split. Within CS spam shatters and use Well of Action, Tides of Time and/or Time Warp to give yourself a large buffer of boons.

Outside of CS, autoattack on sceptre to generate clones and use Split Second and Rewinder as soon as you have three clones.

Use Well of Action and Tides of Time off cooldown for Might.

If you have Time Warp, you can use it should you notice Quickness dropping.

Greatsword Burst

If using a Greatsword and Domination, you can spam illusions to trigger Illusionary Inspiration using a rotation very similar to the DPS one:

1. Weapon Swap
2. Phantasmal Berserker
3. Mirror Blade
4. Autoattack and use Mirror Blade when it comes off cooldown
5. Phantasmal Berserker
6. Mirror Blade
7. Weapon Swap

Healing

You have two options for sustained healing:

• Illusionary Inspiration heals in an AoE every time an illusion is generated. Phantasms will trigger this trait twice (once when they appear, and again then they become clones).
• Restorative Mantras provides a moderate AoE heal every time you charge a mantra. Mantra of Pain has practically no cooldown after its charges are expended so you can spam it constantly for healing.

Both of these options provide roughly equivalent healing per second, and due to the downtime on Mantra of Pain from having to expend charges, you can get in a full auto chain on sceptre. However, having to constantly activate Mantra of Pain will be quite awkward and the Quickness build needs consistent clone generation, so relying on sceptre autos is better in practise, leaving Mantra of Pain uncharged in case extra healing or Might is required.

If playing with All's Well That Ends Well, you will have regular healing from your wells. You can save Well of Eternity for an emergency as it has an inherent heal on the final pulse as well as triggering the trait.

Tanking

You have many options to deal with incoming damage. Aside from your inherent healing you have the following:

• Illusionary Counter - a two second channeled that blocks an attack and causes you to evade afterwards. Also generates two clones so you are immediately healed via Illusionary Inspiration. The cooldown is very short so you can use it liberally even if you're not tanking.
• Echo of Memory - A lengthy channeled block that will provide AoE Protection after use, as well as triggering Illusionary Inspiration twice from the phantasm. If you block an attack, it flips to Deja Vu for 10 seconds, allowing you to repeat the skill.
• Distortion - Up to four seconds of invulnerability with three clones, allowing you to completely ignore the majority of attacks. Activating it also provides Aegis in an AoE.
• Well of Precognition - three pulses of Aegis in an AoE and personal Stability, which is enough to prevent a lot of incoming damage.

Continuum Split

Aside from providing an opening buffer of boons, you can use Continuum Split to get extra uses out of skills, either for the utility or for healing.

Crowd Control

Always have:

• Time Sink - Daze. Even on the Quickness build you shouldn't need to use this for boons, and so can save it for CC.
• Tides of Time - Stun

On off-set:

• Temporal Curtain ⇒ Into the Void - Pull (focus only)
• Illusionary Wave - Knockback (greatsword only)
• Chaos Storm - Daze (staff only)

Optional utility:

• Well of Senility
• Mantra of Distraction
• Signet of Domination
• Gravity Well
• Signet of Humility

Encounter Specific Tips

Spirit Vale

Vale Guardian

• Bring Gravity Well for the breakbars.
• You could bring a Greatsword to provide boonrip during the split phase.
• You could bring a Focus and Temporal Curtain to help with seeker control.
• Use Illusionary Counter or Echo of Memory to block/evade through blue AOEs without having to move.
• Cast Well of Eternity just before the Green hits to quickly recover your subgroup's health.
• Save Distortion to negate the damage of a Green.
  • You can bring Signet of Illusions to immediately refresh your Distortion after a green, allowing you to use it twice per phase.

For more information, see our Vale Guardian Guide.

Ghost events

• With Mimic, Blink and Portal Entre you can quickly move your group through these events.
• Drop Portal Entre at your group's location. When you see a rift appear, Mimic ⇒ Blink and open Portal Exeunt at the rift location. Then Blink to the closest Adrenal Mushroom, and return to your group to repeat for the next rift.
• During the Spirit Run event, you can drop a Portal Entre at the rift immediately after the glide section and Mimic ⇒ Blink ⇒ Blink to the spirit wall. If your group has enough DPS, you can destroy the wall and finish the event before the final two rifts explode.

For more information, see our Spirit Woods Guide.

Gorseval the Multifarious

• Bring Gravity Well for the breakbars.
• You can either use a manipulation such as Blink along with the Chaos variant, or Mantra of Concentration, to provide Aegis or Stability for the slams.
• You can bring a Focus to use Temporal Curtain to pull the adds. The pull works best if you place the curtain just behind his hitbox.

For more information, see our Gorseval Guide.

Sabetha the Saboteur

• Bring Time Warp as there is only one breakbar which your teammates can easily cover.
• Use Focus and Temporal Curtain to pull the bandit adds for easier cleaving. You can do this when Sabetha starts her flamewall.
• Be careful of teleporting into flamewalls with Continuum Shift. You might have to abort CS early or delay it to avoid this.
• You might need to abort Continuum Split if you have to throw a bomb.

For more information, see our Sabetha Guide.

Salvation Pass

Slothasor

• Bring Gravity Well for the breakbars.
• Use Temporal Curtain to pull some slublings but always make sure you don't pull your friendly slubling.
• You can use Temporal Curtain without the pull (or delay the pull) to provide more projectile defense.
• If you are using Feedback keep in mind where your group will stand in the next few seconds. When you're about to move don't place it on your current position.
• Distortion can be used to destroy the projectiles from the unblockable shake attack by jumping inside the boss when it shakes like a wet dog.

For more information, see our Slothasor Guide.

Bandit Trio

• Bring Gravity Well for add control.
• Use focus to pull mobs together.

For more information, see our Bandit Trio Guide.

Matthias Gabrel

• Bring Gravity Well as failing to CC will result in a squad member's death.
• Be careful with your reflects! You should only use Feedback to break Bloodstone Shield. If you reflect his slam attack Matthias will get a damage buff for each projectile you reflected.
  • Also be careful with Tides of Time as this skill will eat the shards needed to break Bloodstone Shield.

For more information, see our Matthias Guide.

Stronghold of the Faithful

Siege the Stronghold (Escort)

• Bring Gravity Well for add control.
• The most popular strat for this encounter is "all up" or "insta cap", where one chronomancer solos the cave, tanks the tower mobs, and uses Portal Entre to taxi the group up to every tower. This lets you effectively have 9 people on both the main path and the towers. If you are filling this role consider running extra toughness to make it easier to survive the tower mobs on your own. See above for details.
  • If your group is fast you might need to Mimic your Portal Entre, or ask another mesmer to bring Portal Entre and help you port the 4th tower.
  • If your team is okay with you not giving quickness in order to make sure you can reliably solo the skip part, you can bring Blink and Mass Invisibility.
• Use focus to pull mobs together.

For more information, see our Siege the Stronghold Guide.

Keep Construct

• Bring Gravity Well for the breakbars.
• Make sure to have Quickness ready for the burn phase.
• You can either use a manipulation such as Blink along with the Chaos variant, or Mantra of Concentration, to provide Aegis or Stability for the Tower Drop.
• Use Temporal Curtain to help pull the core through the rifts. Coordinate with other players on who is going to pull and when.

For more information, see our Keep Construct Guide.

Xera

• If tanking, consider running extra toughness as there is a lot of random damage on this fight and your healer will have their hands full.
• Bring Gravity Well for the breakbars.
• Well of Eternity can be useful for condition cleanse and Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar uptime.
• Use your Temporal Curtain to pull adds into the boss.
• You can use Temporal Curtain to pull orbs. Make sure to pull the last orb to make sure you're not pulling more than one orb.
• If you're tanking, make sure to keep Xera facing away from your group as her Blurred Frenzy will deal massive damage to your DPS. You can use Illusionary Counter, Echo of Memory or Distortion to protect yourself from the attack while staying in place.

For more information, see our Xera Guide.

Bastion of the Penitent

Cairn the Indomitable

• Bring Time Warp as there are no breakbars here.
• If doing greens, you should delay your Quickness until everyone is back in the center.
• If skipping greens, you can provide Stability with Mantra of Concentration.

For more information, see our Cairn the Indomitable Guide.

Mursaat Overseer

• Bring Time Warp as there are no breakbars here.
• You should take either Claim or Dispel to get Improved Alacrity on the special action key.

For more information, see our Mursaat Overseer Guide.

Samarog

• Bring Gravity Well as Samarog has a huge breakbar and failing to CC will result in a squad member's death.
• Coordinate your CC with your teammates; try not to burn too many big CCs on the same breakbar.
• Use Into the Void to pull Rigom under Samarog during the split phases.

For more information, see our Samarog Guide.

Deimos

• Bring Time Warp as the breakbars are small and easily broken by your teammates.
• You can block the pizza attacks and Mind Crush with Inspiring Distortion or Master of Manipulation.
  • In order to be able to block all of them, you will need to use Master of Manipulation along with Blink.
  • Note that a player standing in two pizza slices at the same time will still get hit.
• You can use any of your blocks or Well of Precognition to block Mind Crush.

For more information, see our Deimos Guide.

Hall of Chains

Soulless Horror

• If tanking, consider taking extra toughness as the boss's autoattacks hit fairly hard.
• Soulless Horror attacks very frequently, so it's easy to get the clones from Illusionary Counter.
• Bring Signet of Humility as failing to CC will wipe the group and Gravity Well is risky with the Tormented Dead around.
• Take care when using Tides of Time as it will freeze Tormented Dead in place and interrupt knockbacks.
• You can block the AoE attacks for your team with Master of Manipulation.
• If you're tanking, coordinate the aggro swap with the other tank. Aim to swap aggro as soon as your current stacks expire.
• If you're tanking, move the boss near the wurms at the start so your DPS can cleave them down (with Epidemic or otherwise).
• Make sure to stand behind Soulless Horror if possible. If you're the tank, keep her facing in the same direction as her attacks deal massive damage to anyone who isn't the tank.

For more information, see our Soulless Horror Guide.

Dhuum

• It could be useful to bring Greatsword and Phantasmal Disenchanter to quickly strip boons from Dhuum.
• Blink can allow you to minimise your time away from the group if doing greens.
• Blink can also be useful if you bait the shackle mechanic by standing as close to Dhuum as you can, then immediately blinking away to break them (this assumes you are not tanking).

For more information, see our Dhuum Guide.

Mythwright Gambit

Conjured Amalgamate

• Focus is very helpful for pulling in Swords.
• Focus and Tides of Time can be used to ensure the players collecting orbs have Swiftness.
• Gravity Well can CC multiple Shields if placed carefully.
• You can either use a manipulation such as Blink along with the Chaos variant, or Mantra of Concentration, to provide Aegis or Stability for the slams.
• If you really doubt your group, you can use Feedback and Medic's Feedback - drop it just before Thunderclap hits to start reviving people that get downed.

For more information, see our Conjured Amalgamate Guide.

Largos Assassins

• Both bosses attack very frequently, so it's easy to get the clones from Illusionary Counter - practically every mechanic can be blocked here.
• If going to Kenut's side, Mantra of Concentration might save people from the shockwave attack.
  • It can also be used as a stunbreak if you get CC'd.
• Greatsword might be useful to have boonrip available in case Kenut steals boons.
• You have a lot of condition cleanses, so be sure to use them frequently.
• If your group is very slow with CC, then Feedback or Temporal Curtain can keep people safe from the projectiles during the breakbar attack.

For more information, see our Largos Assassins Guide.

Qadim

• Portal is incredibly useful here for quickly moving your group around the arena and even skipping the entire jumping puzzle at the end! See our guide for more details.
• Focus is also very useful as it can pull the Magma Elementals into the group for easier cleaving.
• Mantra of Concentration may be useful to protect agains the Magma Elemental's knock attacks.
• Bring Gravity Well to ensure you can break the legendary creatures before they finish their attacks.

For more information, see our Qadim Guide.

The Key of Ahdashim

Cardinal Sabir

• Bring Gravity Well to break Sabir's breakbars as quickly as possible.
• Portal Entre can be used to save some distance in the split phases
• Timed correctly, Distortion can be used to ignore the shockwave.

For more information, see our Cardinal Sabir Guide.

Cardinal Adina

• Many groups will stick together in the split phases. By dropping a Portal Entre near the north-west hand as you run around to avoid the sand beam, you can portal your group after killing the south hands and avoid the dangerous run.
• If tanking, make sure to keep a block or Distortion for the cone attack.
• Greatsword can be useful for boon removal if no-one else is doing it.
• Focus can be nice for providing Swiftness during the split phase.

For more information, see our Cardinal Adina Guide.

Qadim the Peerless

• Greatsword is useful for frequent boonrip during the final phase.
• You can either use a manipulation such as Blink along with the Chaos variant, or Mantra of Concentration, to provide Aegis or Stability for the knockbacks.
• You can destroy the Caustic Chaos shockwaves by standing in front of them with Distortion.
• You can help break Distortions with long-range CC such as Mantra of Distraction or Signet of Domination.
  • If you can afford the lower healing, Delayed Reactions in combination with one of the above will be sufficient to break them.

For more information, see our Qadim the Peerless Guide.