Chronomancer - Utility Boon Support

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

Focused on: Boon support, Utility and Direct damage

Designed for: Raids

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on January 19, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

This version of Support Chrono is a boon support that provides 100% Quickness and Alacrity uptime for its party. This massively increases the group's damage and healing output due to faster cast times and lower cooldowns. In addition, it can increase group wide boon uptime through Signet of Inspiration, and cheese certain raid mechanics using Feedback, Blink, and Portal Entre.

This iteration of Support Chrono has been largely superseded by other sources of Alacrity. A higher-DPS version that provides only Quickness is now the common choice, which can be found here: Build:Chronomancer_-_Power_Boon_Support.

This build is more pug-friendly as it doesn't require your group to stack within 240 units of you for Seize the Moment, and it assists players outside your subgroup with 10-target Signet of Inspiration. Chronophantasma also means that you generate twice as much Protection for your subgroup with Echo of Memory.

Skill Bar

Sword/Shield

Sword/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

Sword/Shield is mandatory but Focus can be replaced if there's nothing to pull with Temporal Curtain

• Sword provides higher damage and a personal block.
• Pistol provides 200 extra breakbar damage from Magic Bullet (260 with Sigil of Superior Sigil of Paralyzation). This is useful if you have really bad CC or if you need to CC a lot (e.g. Samarog).

Skill Variants

Healing

• Well of Eternity sacrifices a small amount of personal DPS to provide group healing and condition cleanse. In high pressure fights Well of Eternity can maintain Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar uptime for your DPS which makes it easily better than Signet of the Ether.

Utility If you need a utility skill you can swap out Well of Recall:

• Mimic gives you more Quickness by letting you use Well of Action twice. You could use this to run lower boon duration or just for safety.
• Feedback helps with reflects.
• Well of Precognition provides Aegis to your subgroup, useful for fights like Deimos CM.
• Phantasmal Disenchanter is a selfish DPS option.

You will be unable to maintain permanent Alacrity without Well of Recall, so only remove it if you have another source in the group.

Elite

• Gravity Well should be used if an encounter requires heavy CC.
• Time Warp should be used when the CC from 24px Gravity Well is not required, or if you're running a build without the Inspiration traitline.

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

• Warden's Feedback if you're using a focus offhand.
• Medic's Feedback if you're anticipating lots of reviving, and the reflects won't be an issue.
• All's Well That Ends Well if your group needs some extra minor healing.
• Time Catches Up in case Slow uptime is already permanent.

Equipment

There are many variations of gear for Chronomancer and some of them can be difficult to acquire, however they all share a common goal in their stat choices which is to reach enough boon duration to maintain sufficient boons for their group. The required boon duration will depend on the skill of you and your group, as well as whether you're running with builds such as Build:Firebrand_-_Quickness_Support_Power_DPS and Build:Renegade_-_Boon_Support_Power_DPS.

Remember to get a sword, focus, and shield offhand.

Standard Variant

The suggested gear here provides you with enough boon duration (65%) to comfortable sustain boons on your group, without trading off too much damage.

The following gear assumes you're not able to use any Infusions to gain extra concentration. If you can use infusions, you can use dT's gear optimizer to decide what combination of gear will be best for you to use.

Head
Diviner

Shoulders
Diviner

Chest
Diviner

Hands
Diviner

Legs
Diviner

Feet
Diviner

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Sword
Diviner

Shield
Diviner

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Diviner

Focus
Diviner

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x16

Infusion
x2

Max Boon Duration Variant

If you're running with a group from LFG where you can't be sure of player skill, or with a generally inexperienced group you may want to run 100% boon duration to ensure boons stay up even with things being less than ideal. In those suggestions, the following gear setup is suggested:

Head
Assassin

Shoulders
Assassin

Chest
Diviner

Hands
Assassin

Legs
Diviner

Feet
Assassin

Backpiece
Diviner

Accessory
Diviner

Accessory
Diviner

Amulet
Diviner

Ring
Assassin

Ring
Diviner

Sword
Diviner

Shield
Diviner

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Diviner

Focus
Diviner

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Tanking and Toughness

If you're the tank in an encounter with toughness-based aggro, you will need to add toughness so that you have the highest toughness in your squad. Do a toughness check before pulling the boss and adjust your gear accordingly.

Here are some important toughness thresholds that you may need to take into account when gearing:

• 1000: the baseline toughness of all builds
• 1150: Soulbeasts with Pack Alpha

If you only need a small amount of toughness, you can add one toughness infusion, replace one ring with Knight's stats, or use /. If someone has an absurd amount of toughness consider running Build:Chronomancer - Minstrels Tank or similar.

Other Variants

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Paralyzation can be put on your shield for significantly better CC from Tides of Time (as long as you stay on your shield while the projectile is active). It should also be put on your pistol if you're running one.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar can be used if your group doesn't need the fury from Pack Runes. Note that if you're running scholar runes you'll likely want to pick up extra boon duration from your gear as you lose 15% swapping from Pack to Scholar.

Consumables

Food:

• if you don't need extra boon duration.

Utility:

• if you don't need extra boon duration.

Usage

Rotation

The main role of Support Chronomancer is to provide permanent Quickness and Alacrity to your group. You can provide these boons directly with the following skills:

• Tides of Time
• Well of Action
• Time Warp
• Well of Recall

The final part of Chronomancer's boon-sharing arsenal is Signet of Inspiration, which extends the duration of boons that have been previously applied to whomever it hits (it will not apply boons that the player didn't already have). This is used to bridge the gap between boon applications from your other skills, and if you're using Blurred Inscriptions it will affect all 10 players in your squad. In some cases you may need Mimic to copy Signet of Inspiration for extra boons.

When all your boon sharing skills are on cooldown, just deal DPS with Blurred Frenzy, phantasms, and autoattack chains until your skills are available again.

Example Rotation Videos

• High Boon Duration Example
• Minimal Boon Duration Example

General Tips

• Coordinate with other boon support classes in your group (most likely another chrono or a renegade/firebrand pair) to ensure there aren't any gaps in boon coverage - remember that if traited your Signet of Inspiration will affect everyone in the squad!
• Remember to press Split Second to proc Flow of Time, as well as for the extra free damage.
• Proper well placement is crucial for boon uptime. Make sure you throw your wells where your teammates will be standing, not under your own feet. As a general rule of thumb, you should throw wells at the back of the boss, as this is where the DPS are usually stacking in melee range.
• Well of Action and Well of Recall only provide boons when they expire, 3 seconds after the initial cast. Make sure to keep this in mind if your squad is moving around during the fight.
  • This is especially important to keep in mind when starting a fight or a new phase after boons have expired - don't waste your Signet of Inspiration before boons have been applied to people!
• When possible you should use Continuum Split to increase your boon uptime. See "Continuum Split" below.
• You can delay Signet of Inspiration if you need to Aegis a specific mechanic. This may cause you to briefly drop boons, but it's better than wiping because you didn't do your job.

Continuum Split

• Continuum Split is a very powerful skill for boon uptime. While in Continuum Split, you can cast any of your boon-sharing skills "for free" without expending a cooldown. Use Continuum Split to double up on boonsharing whenever possible.
  • It's worth delaying skills by a few seconds if Continuum Split is coming off cooldown.
  • You should save your clones if you're going to Continuum Split soon so that you can get a longer Continuum Split. Illusionary Leap is helpful for generating clones here.
  • Remember that Continuum Split also makes you teleport to your original location when it ends. Be wary of your positioning when using it. Abort it if it's going to kill you on the return teleport (e.g. teleporting you into spikes on Mursaat Overseer).
• Another use of Continuum Split is to get a shorter cooldown on Time Warp and Signet of Humility. Because these skills have a longer cooldown than Continuum Split, you should only cast these skills inside Continuum Split if possible. This effectively reduces their cooldown to the cooldown of Continuum Split.
  • On fights where CC is important, like Samarog, you should always save Continuum Split to cast Gravity Well rather than boon-sharing.
• Always activate Continuum Split as late as possible in the cast animation of whatever skill you want to Continuum Split. This is because skills only go on cooldown when their cast animation ends, allowing you to fit more skills inside your Continuum Split.
• If you use Tides of Time as your final skill then immediately cast it again upon exiting Continuum Split, you can catch both walls as they return and reduce the cooldown by 20 seconds instead of 10.

Other Tips

• Unless you will be entering Continuum Split soon you can shatter your clones with Split Second for extra damage. Illusionary Leap is worth using to generate a clone for shattering if you don't have 3 already.
• If possible, use Blurred Frenzy to mitigate damage instead of dodging.
• Illusionary Leap -> Swap can be used on mechanics such as Gorseval's Charged Souls or Deimos' Prides to immobilize them in emergencies.
• Use Into the Void to pull up to 5 enemies and allow your team to cleave them down at the same time.
• You have boon strip on the third skill of your AA chain Mind Spike. You can increase your boon stripping abilities by maintaining sword clones rather than shattering them, which use the sword AA including the boonstrip.
• If you don't need healing make sure to use Signet of the Ether to cast extra phantasms for more damage.

Breakbar

• Easily accessible CCs:
  • Tides of Time (1-2 hits)
  • Time Sink (1-4 hits)
• Other CCs:
  • Into the Void is a weak CC and is better used for pulling mobs into the boss.
  • Counter Blade is a very weak CC, but available if needed.
  • Magic Bullet if running pistol.
  • Gravity Well or Signet of Humility