Build:Chronomancer - Power Chrono

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: Strike damage and Defense

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on November 27, 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, blocks and teleports, 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 25~ 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.

Template Code

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Skill Bar

Dagger/Sword

Spear

Utility

Weapon Variants

• If you don't have access to dagger from End of Dragon's virtuoso with Weaponmaster Training from Secrets of the Obscure, use mainhand sword instead.
• If you don't have access to land spear with Janthir Wilds, use focus or greatsword.

Alternative weapons:

• Greatsword - range and tagging potential with about the same damage as focus.
• Focus - extremely helpful pull with Temporal Curtain and the phantasm blocks projectiles.
• Shield - low damage but great CC and allows you to block, twice if you do block at least one attack.
• Rifle - good damage and vulnerability for starting fights, but terrible sustained damage.

Skill Variants

Heal skill

Signet of the Ether is an integral part of this build and you shouldn't replace it.

• Ether Feast - in extremely rare situations where you'd like to trade damage for extra healing or condition cleanse, 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.
Well of Calamity good AoE damage, can be replaced if needed.

• Mantra of Pain - extra damage with no cast time.
• Well of Precognition - very strong defensive utility that provides Aegis per pulse, Stability on cast and first 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.
• Portal Entre - utility for teleporting to previous places.

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

Variants

• 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.

Domination

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

• Bountiful Blades - 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. Quickness always takes priority over alacrity.

When doing this, make the following changes.

1. Replace the Illusions traitline with Domination.
2. Use a greatsword or Spear. 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

Spear

Utility

• Bountiful Blades if using greatsword instead of spear.
• 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
Assassin

Legs
Assassin

Feet
Assassin

Backpiece
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Assassin

Ring
Assassin

Ring
Berserker

Dagger
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Spear
Berserker

Sigil

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.
• If you don't have access to land spear with Janthir Wilds, use focus or greatsword.
• 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.
• You can use Relic of Zakiros to trade a minor amount of damage for sustain, Relic of the Cavalier to start combat with boons, or Relic of Durability for a little extra defense.
• 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.

Dagger/Sword

On dagger/sword you want to spam all your skills except Illusionary Riposte which should be saved for blocking.

If using sword instead of dagger, Illusionary Leap deals no damage and should only be used if you're missing a third clone before shattering.

Spear

On spear, try to always hit your target with the outer edge of Mind the Gap to deal more damage, if you hit with both the outer and inner halves it will count as an outer edge hit, so it's easy to always deal empowered damage. Hitting with Mind the Gap gives you "Clarity", which empowers your next spear skill. You want to always cast Phantasmal Lancer empowered by Clarity. Imaginary Inversion should be saved for an extra dodge or to cleanse conditions.

If using greatsword instead of spear, use all skills but save Illusionary Wave for defiance bars.

DPS variant

The majority of your damage comes from casting your phantasms then using Signet of the Ether to reset their cooldowns and cast them again. In open world, it is generally better to reset Phantasmal Lancer for more boons since it spawns 2 phantasms when empowered.

Try to always hit your target with the outer edge of Mind the Gap to deal more damage, and always cast Phantasmal Lancer empowered by Clarity. When you swap to dagger, Phantasmal Swordsman is the first skill you want to cast, and you will cast it a second time before going back to spear. Use Phantasmal Disenchanter off cooldown when every other important skill is on cooldown. 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.

Opener

To get the most out of Continuum Split, try to follow this opening when fighting durable enemies like meta event bosses. You want to enter Continuum Split during the aftercast of Mental Collapse, before it goes on cooldown but has already reset Mind the Gap. The timing for this is tight, but it is worth practicing it.

1. Phantasmal Disenchanter
2. Phantasmal Swordsman
3. Bladecall
4. Unstable Bladestorm
5. weapon swap
6. Mind the Gap
7. Mental Collapse and Continuum Split during the aftercast.
8. Mind the Gap
9. Phantasmal Lancer
10. Signet of the Ether
11. Phantasmal Lancer
12. Well of Calamity
13. Phantasmal Disenchanter and Continuum Shift.
14. Mind the Gap
15. Phantasmal Lancer
16. Mental Collapse
17. Signet of the Ether
18. Phantasmal Lancer
19. weapon swap

• Try to always hit your target with the outer edge of Mind the Gap to deal more damage.
• The idea is to use Phantasmal Lancer three times in the spear loop.
• Each sword loop starts and ends with Phantasmal Swordsman.
• Bladecall and Unstable Bladestorm should be cast off cooldown.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter has the lowest priority and is used in both sets once.
• You will generate so many phantasms that you can fit a 3-clone Rewinder during the spear loop while spamming 3-clone Split Second off cooldown.
• Mastery of this skill priority will provide you with permanent Quickness, permanent Fury, an average of 25 stacks of Might, and about 45% of Alacrity uptime (alacrity comes from Flow of Time).

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.

1. Phantasmal Disenchanter
2. Phantasmal Swordsman
3. Bladecall
4. Unstable Bladestorm
5. weapon swap
6. Mind the Gap
7. Mental Collapse and Continuum Split during the aftercast.
8. Mind the Gap
9. Phantasmal Lancer
10. Well of Action
11. Well of Calamity
12. Phantasmal Disenchanter and Continuum Shift.
13. Mind the Gap
14. Phantasmal Lancer
15. Mental Collapse
16. Signet of the Ether
17. Phantasmal Lancer
18. weapon swap
19. Phantasmal Swordsman
20. Well of Action
21. Well of Calamity

• Try to always hit your target with the outer edge of Mind the Gap to deal more damage.
• The idea is to use Phantasmal Lancer three times in the spear loop.
• Each sword loop starts and ends with Phantasmal Swordsman.
• Cast your wells off cooldown.
• Bladecall and Unstable Bladestorm should be cast off cooldown.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter has the lowest priority and is used in both sets once.
• You will generate so many phantasms that you can fit a 3-clone Rewinder during the spear loop while spamming 3-clone Split Second off cooldown.

Defense

• Never stop moving, get out of enemy attacks or dodge them.
• Clones and phantasms will tank some hits for you.
• Imaginary Inversion is an extra dodge, heals and cleanses conditions.
• When using sword, Blurred Frenzy dodges incoming attacks for 1 second. Use this to avoid attacks instead of dodging.
• Illusionary Riposte is a block plus evade.
• If you need condition cleanse, slot Mantra of Resolve.
• Distortion makes you immune to damage.

Crowd Control

• Gravity Well - knockdown, float and pull.
• Illusionary Riposte ⇒ Counter Blade - daze.
• Time Sink - daze.
• Mental Collapse - Stun if used with Clarity.
• You can use any of the above in Continuum Split to potentially cast them twice.

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.