Build:Chronomancer - Power Chrono

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Defense

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on April 01, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Power Chronomancer is a powerful solo build with great boon uptime and damage. It has access to plentiful utility, including invulnerability and pulls, making it a great solo build. This build has a high skill floor, which can be off-putting for some, but investing time into learning it can be very rewarding as its potential is some of the highest in the game.

This build revolves around spamming Phantasm skills to both do damage and gain boons. Namely, permanent Fury, Quickness, and 24~ Might, with 0 boon duration, thanks to the Illusions trait line.

Additionally, this build can sacrifice some of its damage to provide its party with permanent Quickness from Seize the Moment or permanent Alacrity from Stretched Time by making little changes.

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Skill Bar

Dagger/Sword

X/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

• If you don't have access to Weaponmaster Training with Secrets of the Obscure, use mainhand sword instead of dagger.

You can replace the focus with other weapons:

• Greatsword - range and tagging potential with about the same damage as focus. But you lose access to the extremely helpful pull of focus' Temporal Curtain.
• Shield - low damage but great CC and allows you to block, twice if you do block at least one attack.
• Pistol - deals its damage faster than focus, but less damage overall. Useful in very short fights. Stun instead of pull.
• Rifle - strong option that requires Weaponmaster.

Skill Variants

Heal skill

Signet of the Ether is an integral part of this build and you should almost never replace it.

• Ether Feast - in extremely rare situations where you'd like to trade damage for extra healing, use Ether Feast.

Utility skill

Phantasmal Disenchanter is a good source of damage and boons. Never replace it.
Blink is a generic stunbreak and movement skill, can be replaced if needed.
Mantra of Pain is a generic damage skill, can be replaced if needed.

• Well of Calamity - good AoE damage.
• Well of Precognition - very strong defensive utility that provides Aegis per pulse and stunbreaks on cast.
• Well of Action - more Might and Fury for yourself and allies, good option for groups.
• Mantra of Resolve - condition cleanse for yourself and nearby allies.
• Feedback - projectile reflection.
• Mantra of Concentration - personal stunbreak and AoE stability.
• Phantasmal Defender - niche defensive option with some CC.

Elite skill

Gravity Well provides good damage and great CC, you will almost never replace it.

• Signet of Humility - slightly less cc than Gravity Well but it happens immediately if you need to break a defiance bar really fast.

Specializations

• Delayed Reactions - extremely minor dps loss (Time Catches Up only affects the first hit of Split Second, so it's actually a 5% increase) and your clones will take longer to reach their target to shatter without Superspeed, but the Slow of Delayed Reactions can help a lot with breaking defiance bars.
• Illusionary Reversion - can be used when soloing for some utility, but it's a minor dps loss to not use Improved Alacrity which you enable thanks to Flow of Time, creating good windows of opportunity. Always use Improved Alacrity when playing in a group giving you alacrity.

Domination

Domination can be taken over Illusions if you are playing in a group providing you permanent Quickness and Might.

• Bountiful Blades - for higher clone generation if using greatsword

Boon support

Click to Expand

When playing in groups, you can drop Chronophantasma and take the trait Seize the Moment to provide yourself and nearby allies with Quickness. If the group already has quickness, you can instead provide Alacrity through Stretched Time.

When doing this, make the following changes.

1. Replace the Illusions traitline with Domination.
2. Use a greatsword. On the other weapon set either use dagger-sword for damage, or dagger-focus for the pull of Temporal Curtain.
3. Change your utility skills to Well of Action, Well of Calamity, and Mantra of Pain.

Feel free to change Mantra of Pain to whatever other skill you might need, like a stun break.

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Dagger/Sword

Greatsword

Utility

• Seize the Moment to provide Quickness.
• Stretched Time to provide Alacrity.
• You can use any of the three adept traits: All's Well That Ends Well for minor healing since you run 3 wells anyway, or Delayed Reactions for a little bit more CC, or Time Catches Up for an extremely minimal damage gain.

Do not play these boon support builds when soloing, the strength of these boon support builds comes from providing your party with either quickness or alacrity. However, when playing solo, you already have permanent self-quickness from the Illusions traitline, and giving only yourself alacrity is never worth losing the extremely strong Chronophantasma.

Equipment

This build uses the same gear as Build:Chronomancer_-_Power_DPS for raids for ease of gearing. Infusions are completely optional.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Assassin

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Ring
Berserker

Dagger
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

• If you don't have access to Weaponmaster Training with the Secrets of the Obscure expansion, use sword instead of dagger.
• This set provides 100% critical chance with Fury and food. Or 96.71% without food.
• As for the boon variants, you don't need any boon duration. With 0% boon duration, you provide about 140% uptime of quickness/alacrity. Just use greatsword on your second weapon set.
• Other relics include Relic of the Adventurer, Relic of Cerus, or Relic of the Cavalier.
• For defense, equip the highest tier Jade Core you can afford. Use defensive food, traits, or skills if required. If necessary, use Knight trinkets.

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Continuum Split

Continuum Split is the profession mechanic of the chronomancer specialization that allows them to "rewind" time. Specifically, it tracks the chronomancer's position, health, endurance, and skill recharges, and returns the chronomancer to that point at the end of the split. As this is a Shatter, it will consume active clones, with the duration of the split increasing with each clone shattered.

This extremely powerful skill is used to spam your Phantasms four times in a row.

1. Generate 2 or 3 clones.
2. Cast your phantasm skills while entering Continuum Split.
3. Reset your Phantasm skills with Signet of the Ether.
4. Cast your Phantasm skills again.
5. Continuum Split ends.
6. Cast your Phantasm skills.
7. Reset your Phantasm skills with Signet of the Ether
8. Cast your Phantasm skills again.

Use your elite skill Gravity Well inside Continuum Split. Due to its low cooldown, you can use it again after the Split and it will be ready for the next Split, or you can save it for CC.

Damage

The following is a general priority of which skill to use.

1. Mantra of Pain when you have 2 charges of Power Spike. You can use the 2nd charge if the enemy is about to die.
2. Split Second with 3 clones.
3. Phantasmal Swordsman
4. Bladecall
5. Unstable Bladestorm
6. Phantasmal Warden
7. Phantasmal Disenchanter
8. Fill with auto-attacks.

DPS variant

The majority of your damage comes from casting your phantasms then using Signet of the Ether to reset their cooldown and casting them again.

Opening rotation

Against durable enemies like meta event bosses, try to start the fight with this opener: Start on Dagger/Focus.

1. Phantasmal Disenchanter
2. Phantasmal Warden
3. Weapon swap
4. Bladecall (spawns a clone)
5. Auto attack a few times to give Phantasmal Disenchanter time to become a clone.
6. With two clones, use Phantasmal Swordsman and enter Continuum Split near the end of the cast of this skill.
7. Signet of the Ether
8. Phantasmal Swordsman
9. Phantasmal Disenchanter
10. Bladecall
11. Unstable Bladestorm and Continuum Split ends.
12. Phantasmal Swordsman
13. Signet of the Ether and Split Second with 3 clones.
14. Phantasmal Swordsman
15. Weapon swap
16. Bladecall
17. Unstable Bladestorm
18. Phantasmal Warden
19. Phantasmal Disenchanter
20. Rewinder with 3 clones.
21. Bladecall and auto attacks
22. Split Second with 3 clones.
23. Proceed to Loop rotation

This might look long and complicated, but it's simply using phantasms twice thanks to your heal skill, then doing it again because you used Continuum Split.

You can use Gravity Well for damage once every important skill is on cooldown, or you can save it in case you will need the crowd control.

Loop rotation

The loop is very simple and revolves around your phantasm skills. Fill the gaps with Bladecall, Unstable Bladestorm, and auto attacks.

1. Phantasmal Swordsman
2. Dagger skills and Phantasmal Disenchanter until Phantasmal Swordsman is available again.
3. Phantasmal Swordsman
4. Signet of the Ether
5. Phantasmal Swordsman
6. Weapon swap
7. Phantasmal Warden
8. Phantasmal Disenchanter

Repeat.

• The idea is to use Phantasmal Swordsman three times in the sword weapon set.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter is used in both sets once.
• Phantasmal Warden is used once per loop.
• Bladecall and Unstable Bladestorm have higher priority than Phantasmal Warden and Phantasmal Disenchanter.
• Mastery of this skill priority will provide you with permanent Quickness, permanent Fury, an average of 24 stacks of Might, and about 35% of Alacrity uptime.

Boon variant

Click to Expand

Since the boon variant build has to sacrifice Chronophantasma, Phantasms become significantly weaker. For this reason, the opening instead focuses on wells. Fill the gaps with auto attacks.

1. Phantasmal Berserker
2. Mind Stab
3. Mirror Blade
4. weapon swap
5. Phantasmal Swordsman/Phantasmal Warden ⇒ Continuum Split
6. Well of Calamity and Well of Action
7. Bladecall ⇒ Continuum Shift
8. Phantasmal Swordsman/Phantasmal Warden
9. Well of Action and Well of Calamity
10. Bladecall
11. weapon swap
12. Phantasmal Berserker ⇒ Signet of the Ether ⇒ Phantasmal Berserker

From here, use your wells off cooldown. When you swap to greatsword, cast Phantasmal Berserker ⇒ Signet of the Ether ⇒ Phantasmal Berserker, then continue with whatever is off cooldown, and cast a third Phantasmal Berserker before swapping to dagger. On your dagger weapon set, if using dagger-sword you can cast Phantasmal Swordsman twice; but if using dagger-focus you will only be able to cast Phantasmal Warden once.

Defense

• You're a fully ranged build, use that to your advantage. Never stop moving, get out of enemy attacks or dodge them.
• When using sword, Blurred Frenzy dodges incoming attacks for 1 second. Use this to avoid attacks instead of dodging.
• Illusionary Riposte is a block.
• If you need condition cleanse, slot Mantra of Resolve.
• Let your clones and phantasms tank for you when needed.

Crowd Control

• Gravity Well - knockdown, float and pull.
• Illusionary Leap ⇒ Swap - Immobilize.
• Illusionary Riposte ⇒ Counter Blade - daze.
• Temporal Curtain ⇒ Into the Void - pull.
• Time Sink - daze.
• Time Warp - minor CC through Slow and Chill.
• You can use any of the above in Continuum Split to get a free cast of the skill without it going on cooldown.

Video examples

• vs. Egg Clutch hero challenge

Phantasmal Defender is completely unnecessary, I just wanted to do a 6-phantasms-Contiuum-Split. Thanks to our blocks, evades, and Distortion, we should be pretty safe from this boss. Should have saved the second Gravity Well to break the boss' defiance bar instead of using it for dps.

• vs. Coztic Itzel Belongings

Feedback makes the two archers shoot themselves to death, and the boss too. When the boss switches to daggers, I stand back and let my illusions tank his deadly combo. If you get hit, like I did, use Distortion to survive it.

• vs. Champion Avatar of Balthazar

Used an Adrenaline Mushroom to reset my cooldowns. The Avatar hits like a truck so I used Well of Precognition to block some hits. This fight is really a race to see who bursts who first. Breaking his defiance bar close to 50% stops the oneshot attack he tries to do.