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  • June 20, 2024
  • 10.44 min to read
  • drauskam
Overview
Up-to-date

updated for the 4/16/2024 patch

Template Code
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Boons
Conditions
Role
  • Power Damage
Synergy high
DPS high
Independence high
Acquiring basicsaverage
Achieving masterydifficult
The Power Alac Chronomancer is currently the strongest boon build for Mesmer in fractals.
Despite having longer ramp-up times compared to Power Alac Renegade, it is strong for PuGs and gets suboptimal the faster groups gonna get, especially at Arstariiv due to the lack of Resistance.
To succeed as a Power Alac Chronomancer in higher-end groups you'll need to be able to adapt your rotation and push the limits of your class.
You'll provide boon removal through a various range of options, especially by utilising
and
.
The Mesmer provides an optimal skipping toolset for T4 fractals, which should be taken advantage of.
If necessary the build can bring its own Quickness and Might making it rather self-sufficient.
This build profits from sigils like
as well as slaying potions such as
.
Equipment
instead of
will increase your personal target damage, but eventually trade of cleave damage on Skorvald/Arkk/MAMA.
For PuGs we recommend to stick with
due to overall longer phase times.
Use the Gear Optimizer to customize your gear.
Make sure to run
in fractals in order to exploit Exposed. On some encounters,
(Sunqua Peak),
(Siax, Ensolyss) and
(Eparch) can provide even better damage boosts. On top of that,
,
or
can situationally be used as damage increase.
  • Berserker
  • Assassin
  • Assassin
  • Assassin
  • Assassin
  • Assassin
  • Assassin

  • Assassin
  • Assassin

Any item with the same stats may be used!

Chronomancer
Heal
Utilities
Elite
Assassin
Assassin
Berserker
Assassin
Berserker
Berserker
Food
Utility
Relic
Build
Weapons Choices
Always use Greatsword in combat.
Off-hand
While Sword off=hand is your highest damage weapon choice, both Shield and Focus can be used situationally. It is recommended to run focus in trash heavy T4s as standard.
Shield:
  • and its flip skill
    can be used for blocks.
  • can provide an additional 8 group Might
Focus:
  • is a 5 target pull
  • mitigates projectiles
  • Dueling
  • Domination
  • Chronomancer
Situational Traits
  • Illusions
You can go play Illusions over Domination when you're facing Quickness uptime issues to be more self-sufficient in bad groups, if you're also lacking Might and Fury consider going
as well.
can be taken for an additional group sustain.
Traits for Skips
While we don't recommend leaving your party during boss fights, when dealing with sections of trash mobs, Mesmer has fantastic utility to speed these sections up, often allowing your party to ignore sectrions of some fractals entirely, using Blinks, Stealth, and Superspeed. Some traits you will find useful for this are:
  • - This will let you provide Superspeed to yourself and your party.
  • - This will increase the duration of Stealth gained from skills such as
    and
    .
  • Utilize Mirage for skips when moving across large distances or you need leaps!
    ,
    and
    along with the typical Mesmer toolset makes it really good for mobility and skips.
  • Mirage
Defiance Bar Damage
600 damage
100-550 damage
300 damage
100-400 damage
200 damage
150 damage
100-200 damage
250 damage
150 damage
300 damage
150 damage per cast
Slow50 damage per second
Situational Skills
Deals 300 break bar damage, your first choice if you require extra CC
Boon removal used to strip Mistlock Instability: No Pain, No Gain.
Can be taken for extra CC with a short cooldown, mainly useful on MAMA.
Your most damaging Elite Skill option, however isn't as strong as
for CC, dealing less breakbar damage and taking 3 seconds to finish.
Can be used as a source of group Stability and Aegis.
Your final utility skill choice if no other utility is required.
Group condi cleanse.
Can be used on fights such as Artsariiv to reflect Taw Shot, or Dark Ai to reflect Focused Wrath. Also useful to handle projectile spam in some T4 fractals.
For precasting
at bosses and double casting
during skips.
Skips
For skipping sections of the fractal for your party.
1200 range blink, use it for skips!
For stealthing your party for skips, can be combined with
and
for 18 seconds of stealth.
600 range leap, can be cancelled mid-air for slightly more range.
450 range blink, 3 charges.
1200-2400(1500 activation) range targeted teleport. This skill is tricky because of its random nature but allows for some skips.
Details
Skill priority
To play Power Alacrity Chronomancer in fractals you need to adapt on the go, as Phantasms/Wells are our main damage source, but also slower than most skills of other classes.
If you lose yourself in the rotation follow this priority list:
  1. On Greatsword,
    is your strongest skill and should be used of cooldown to be able to get three usages before swapping (utilising
    ).
  2. On Sword,
    follows the same principle.
  3. You want to use your utility skills in the following priority:
    1. (when no CC is required)
    2. /
      if taken and not required for their utility!
  4. You should use a charge of
    off cooldown and, the final charge should be used at the end of phases in fights with periods of downtime long enough for the skill to recharge.
  5. Ideally,
    can be used three times and
    twice. On Dagger/Sword you basically prioritise the same way
    twice as well and
    three times.
  6. If close to phasing, remember that your direct damage skills hit quicker than Wells and Phantasms, so therefore should be prioritised.
Shatters
Even though casting Phantasms already covers a large portion of the necessary Alacrity uptime, shatters take an important part as well thanks to
.
Most fractal encounters include downtimes in between their phases, which means that you would want to make use of as many Clones as possible, to build up spare uptime.
Make sure to cast
on cooldown and ensure to keep three Clones for this one, since it's your main damage Shatter.
As long as that requirement is matched, you can freely use any spare Clones on
; and
(as long as there is no upcoming defiance break).
Continuum Split
rewinds all your skills back to the status they have been while entering. The duration depends on the numbers of Clones spent, but usually two Clones are the optimal amount.
Your goal should be to cast as many high priority skills during that time window, to be able to cast them twice as often as usual.
Since your Shatters will get rewound as well, you can shatter all of them for additional Alacrity.
Rotation / Skill usage
Information
Golem rotations out of the raid builds are generally suboptimal in fractals due to Exposed and phases being much shorter compared to raids. The raid rotations are optimized for sustained DPS while in fractals a player needs the ability to adapt a rotation to the amount of time a group needs to finish a phase.
It's important to note that Phantasms do not benefit from most modifiers unless it is stated to be the case.
They do, however, benefit from Exposed.
Opener
Example with
:
  • would usually be your dps choice if there is no need for
    or
  • Start on Dagger/Sword
  1. Precast finished
    1. on Mistlock Instability: No Pain, No Gain days without a defiance bar
    2. or
      +
      if the boss has a defiance bar (strips NPNG as well)
  2. -> Weapon Swap
    1. if the boss has a defiance bar
  3. (
    )
    1. (
      )
    2. (
      ) + remaining shatters
    3. ->
      (
      ends)
  4. (
    )
  5. Weapon Swap
  6. remaining stacks of
Precasting
At the Mistlock Singularity
    1. ,
      ,
      and
  1. ,
    ,
    and
  2. Take the Mistlock Singularity
  3. Adjust utility skills for the encounter
At the boss
  • Use
    before your
    timer runs out.
  • As long as you are not already in combat cast
    and swap to your combat set.
  • Depending on the phase length and if CC is required, you can also precast
    or
    .
  • Use
    .
Rotation Adjustments
The opener takes around 15s and
has 70s cooldown with permanent Alacrity.
Now it is up to you to figure out how many usages you can get at a certain fractal encounter and which phases would even be long enough to recommend using it.
Often times you won't even have access to all the skills that got used in the opener above, or maybe you still gonna have cooldown on your Weapon-Swap.
Based on that, another approach could be to by-pass phases with low resources by duplicating the few options you have.
Otherwise double-casting Wells only makes sense at 9s+. Therefore you could also precast them, skipping their cast times during the actual phase, while still taking advantage of most of the pulsing/final damage.
Mesmer Skips
by feint