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 January 12, 2025 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 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:

• Mainhand sword - for players without access to dagger. It deals slightly less damage and is melee, but it has a helpful evade.
• Greatsword - good ranged damage and tagging potential, but it requires
  Bountiful Blades
  to truly shine, and this build does not run that traitline by default.
• Focus - good damage, extremely helpful pull with
  Temporal Curtain
  and the phantasm blocks projectiles.
• Shield - very low damage but great CC and allows you to block, twice if you do block at least one attack.
• Rifle - good burst damage and vulnerability application for starting fights, but terrible sustained damage.

Skill Variants

Heal skill

We default to

Signet of the Ether

for its ability to reset the recharge of phantasm skills, making it an integral part of this build. In extremely rare situations, another option can be considered:

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

Utility skill

We default to:

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 and soft cc, can be replaced if needed.
If you want or need to run other skills, here are some suggestions:

• 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

We default to

Gravity Well

as it provides good damage and great CC. If required, it can be replaced by:

• 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.
• Plate of Spicy Moa Wings
  /
  Bowl of Sweet and Spicy Butternut Squash Soup
• Superior Sharpening Stone
  /
  Tin of Fruitcake

Defense

• Bowl of Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew
• Fried Oyster Sandwich
• Bowl of Lemongrass Mussel Pasta

Farming

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• Birthday Blaster
  /
  Feast of Delectable Birthday Cake
• Peppermint Omnomberry Bar
• Sharpening Skull
  (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.