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, Open World General and [[|]]

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

TBD

This build was last updated on April 10, 2022 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

Power Chronomancer is a powerful solo build with good boon uptime and great damage. It has access to plentiful utility, including evades and blocks, 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, including permanent quickness with 0 boon duration, thanks to the Illusions trait line.

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Skill Bar

Sword/Sword

X/Focus

Utility

Weapon Variants

You can replace the focus with other weapons:

• Greatsword - Strongest ranged option
• Shield - allows you to block
• Torch - access to stealth
• Pistol - higher burst but less utility

Skill Variants

Healing skill

• Mirror - projectile hate but massive loss of damage and boons.

Utility skill

• Well of Precognition - very strong defensive utility that provides blocks and a stunbreak.
• Mantra of Resolve - condition cleanse for yourself and nearby allies.
• Feedback - projectile reflection.
• Blink - mobility + stunbreak.
• Mantra of Concentration - personal stunbreak and AoE stability.
• Phantasmal Defender - defensive option with some CC.
• Mantra of Pain - sustained damage when no other utility skill is needed.

Elite skill

• Gravity Well - mob packing and great but delayed cc
• Signet of Humility - slightly less cc than Gravity Well but it happens inmediatly if you need to break a defiance bar really fast.

Specializations

• Seize the Moment - group quickness uptime at a cost of personal DPS.
• Improved Alacrity - strong option in very long fights if you have external Alacrity application.

Domination

Domination can be taken over Illusions to increase your burst damage, but this results in a very large DPS loss in longer fights since you lose your source of boons.

• Bountiful Blades - for higher clone generation if using greatsword

Inspiration

Inspiration provides sustain, but is a massive damage loss. You'll have significant condition cleanse and mild passive healing, especially if combined with Deceptive Evasion. This variant should only be taken in extreme circumstances, as Mantra of Resolve typically provides plenty of cleanse.

Equipment

Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats.

This exact same gear set is the best in slot for open world AND raids/fractals if you do not have Spotter nor Banner of Discipline, making it ideal for PvE content.

This gear set will provide you wit 62.52% crit chance, and you can then use food with precision to reach 65% crit chance. Your sources of Slow (Delayed Reactions, Time Warp, Time Sink, and Well of Action) will allow Danger Time and Fury to provide you 100% crit chance for the highest damage.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Sword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Focus
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Variant Equipment

Gear

• If you have Spotter and Banner of Discipline, you can instead use Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar and Assassin leggings for slightly more damage while still reaching 100% crit chance.
• To sacrifice damage for defense, you can slot some Knight or Marauder.

Sigils

• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Air - budget DPS sigil.
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Fire - Use on a Greatsword to aide in Tagging in zergs.
• Sigil of Superior Sigil of Energy - very strong defensive sigil.
• Do not use Sigil of Superior Sigil of Accuracy because Phantasms and Clones do not gain the extra crit chance.

Consumables

Food

• Any ascended food is superior to any other food you could use. Steak for power, flatbread for conditions. Budget versions of these foods exist and are acceptable.
• - farming
• , - DPS
• - defense

Utility

• (and variants) - farming
• , - dps

Usage

Continuum Split and Time Warp

Continuum Split is the profession mechanic of the chronomancer specialization that allows a player 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 and sourcess of quickness.

1. Generate 3 clones with Illusionary Leap and Mirror Images.
2. Use Time Warp and Shatter Continuum Split near the end of the cast time of Time Warp.
3. Use your phantasm skills.
4. Reset your Phantasm skills with Signet of the Ether.
5. Cast your Phantasm skills again.

Thus, when the split ends, the phantasms you used and Time Warp will be off cooldown. Since Time Warp has a longer cooldown than Continuum Split, and even more so when using Illusions with its minor trait Master of Misdirection, it is recomended to only use Time Warp during Continuum Split.

Damage

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

1. Split Second with 3 clones.
2. Phantasmal Swordsman
3. Phantasmal Disenchanter
4. Phantasmal Warden
5. Blurred Frenzy
6. Well of Action
7. Fill with auto-attacks; try not to interrupt them as the last attack, Mind Spike, deals a lot of damage.

Rotation

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

Opening rotation

Against durable enemies like meta event bosses, try to start the fight with this rotation:

Start on Sword/Focus.

1. Phantasmal Warden
2. Mirror Images
3. Illusionary Leap
4. Weapon swap
5. Phantasmal Swordsman - enter Continuum Split near the end of the cast of this skill.
6. Phantasmal Disenchanter
7. Time Warp
8. Signet of the Ether
9. Phantasmal Swordsman
10. Phantasmal Disenchanter
11. Well of Action
12. Blurred Frenzy - Continuum Split should end during this cast.
13. Phantasmal Swordsman
14. Phantasmal Disenchanter
15. Signet of the Ether
16. Phantasmal Swordsman
17. Phantasmal Disenchanter
18. Well of Action
19. Weapon swap
20. Proceed to Loop rotation

Loop rotation

The loop is very simple and revolves aroud your phantasm skills. Fill the gaps with Blurred Frenzy and auto attacks but never interrupt the chain as the damage is heavily loaded into Mind Spike.

1. Phantasmal Warden
2. Weapon swap - if you have alacrity you can squish a second Blurry Frenzy before weapon swap
3. Phantasmal Swordsman
4. Phantasmal Disenchanter
5. Phantasmal Swordsman
6. Signet of the Ether
7. Phantasmal Swordsman
8. Weapon swap
9. Phantasmal Disenchanter
10. Repeat

• Mastering of this skill priority will provide you with permanent quickness, permanent fury, an average of 20 stacks of might, and about 40% of alacrity uptime.
• If Slow uptime is low, you can use Time Sink inside your Continuum Split.

Defense

• Blurred Frenzy dodges incoming attacks for up to 1 second depending on quickness. Use this to avoid attacks instead of dodging.
• Illusionary Riposte is a block.

Sustain

• If you're going to take a lot of unavoidable damage, you can Continuum Split before taking damage and then Continuum Shift to rewind your health (effectively healing for the entire amount of the damage). Just make sure the rift left by Continuum Split is not destroyed, or you will not revert back in time.
• For more sustain you can trait Inspiration and shatter liberally for heals and condition cleanse.
• If you need even more condition cleanse, slot Mantra of Resolve.

Crowd Control

• Gravity Well
• Time Sink
• Illusionary Leap
• Illusionary Riposte
• 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

Using shield offhand to block the chak's goo spray attack, which otherwise requires 2 dodges to fully evade.

• vs. Coztic Itzel Belongings

Here, Feedback is used to make the Itzel archers shoot themselves to death. Care is taken not to be in melee range of the boss during its deadly dagger combo, and Feedback reflects its bow stealth attack.

• vs. Champion Avatar of Balthazar

Portal is used to teleport away from the arena-wide wipe attack at 50% since the boss' breakbar had bugged. Otherwise, Bouncing Mushrooms can also take us to safety.