Phantasms and Clones

You have a few skills that summon phantasms:

• if you choose to play with a focus

Phantasms carry out an attack and then will transform into clones. The attack can be completed or interrupted, either will cause the phantasm to become a clone.

Phantasms cannot be shattered and do not count towards your three clone cap.

You have a few skills that summon clones:

• if attacked while channeling

Clones will stay around for six seconds without a target, with a target they will persist until they are shattered or until their target is defeated, or until they take too much damage.

, a trait in the Chronomancer Trait Line, will cause your phantasms to be resummoned when they would become a clone. They will be Dazed for 1.5 seconds before they resume their attack pattern.

Shatter Skills

Shatters are unique to Mesmers. They enable you to destroy your clones with a variety of effects.

When you equip the Chronomancer Trait Line, your shatters become unique to only Chronomancer.

Chronomancer Shatters

Chronomancers have an upgraded form of Shatters and an additional shatter skill.

1. Focuses on dealing power damage.
2. Focuses on dealing condition damage.
3. Focuses on crowd control.
4. Focuses on defense.
5. A unique skill that allows you to anchor yourself in time. When the skill times out of when a Chronomancers manually ends it with , the Chronomancer'sCooldowns, Endurance and health will be reverted back to what they were before using .

You have a few traits with this build that influence your shatter skills:

• causes your shatters to deal more damage.
• grants you Alacrity whenever you shatter. The duration of Alacrity increases for each clone that you shatter.

Wells

Wells aid your allies or maim your foes in a designated area. The Chronomancer's wells are:

1. Cleanse conditions and heal allies in an area.
2. Damage and slow foes, than grant superspeed to allies.
3. Damage and weaken foes in an area.
4. You stunbreak and gain stability while giving aegis to your allies, than grant your allies endurance.
5. Damage and chill foes, than rip their boons.
6. Knock-down, float and than pull foes that are caught in this devastating well.

This build uses and to deal high damage.

What is Continuum Split?

Ok so, where do we begin? is a unique mechanic that is associated with the Chronomancer. Any skills that are used inside the time frame of will be recharged when you leave via , this does not include ! The same applies to your health, endurance and physical location.

lasts longer as you use more clones for it. A single clone will grant you three seconds, two clones will grant four and a half seconds and three clones will grant six seconds of .

You can use during the aftercast of skills. For example, has a nasty aftercast. You can use just as the skill channel is about to end.

This also applies for when skills will count as used within the time frame of . The aftercast of the skill must have finished before you leave via for said skill to be recharged.

One final note, you can manually end early by simply using .

How to use Continuum Split Properly

Don't waste your if a boss is about to phase as this will completely waste your burst. The same applies for , don't waste it if you know that a Breakbar is coming up.

In an ideal world, you would be able to start every boss phase with . Sadly, that is not the reality and there will be times where this is not the case.

In such situations, you have to determine whether it makes sense to use as soon as it comes off or delay it until the next phase. From the second you enter it, takes about 16 seconds to deal the majority of its damage.

Rule of thumb: If you aren’t sure whether is going to give you two additional sets of phantasms in that phase, it is usually better to delay it and open the next phase with it instead. If you decided to not use in a phase, simply start on the opposite weapon set you would usually start on and find your way back in the rotation from there.

General Chronomancer Tips

From a damage perspective, you always want to shatter with three clones and use spare clones for . However, if there are Breakbars present during the fight you definitely want to prioritize .

Towards the end of a boss phase and during split phases, you always have to consider if it makes sense to spawn a phantasm over performing other actions. After being summoned, every phantasm requires a different amount of time to deal their full damage.

The list below shows the amount of time each phantasm takes to deal their full damage, including :

• ~ 12 seconds.
• ~ 6 seconds.
• ~ 5,5 seconds.
• ~ 4 seconds.
• ~ 3 seconds.
• ~ 8,5 seconds.

Speeding up split phases is objectively as important as dealing damage to the boss, but there is no use in putting a phantasm on Cooldown if the target will die before it deals its damage. You want to manage your skills in a way that doesn't leave you with nothing after a split phase is over. The same logic applies if the boss is about to phase or become Invulnerable.

Weapon Skills

is the first part of your auto-attack chain, it is also the fastest of the three, feel free to use this as a filler to better line up before weapon swapping.

Be disciplined and only use these as fillers when you really need them, this will take some getting used to but it should be apparent where you might need these once you start stowing attacks.

is the last and by far the strongest part of your auto-attack chain. It removes a boon and deals more damage against foes without boons. You generally want to finish every auto-attack chain you start, unless that means delaying your other abilities further than you usually would.

is a multi-hitting ability that allows you to Evade attacks. Because of that, it cancels any currently casting ability which can be used to cancel aftercasts. This skill can be stowed for a ~ 250ms reduction in cast time, which is a decent DPS increase.

summons a clone. You can re-cast this ability to positions with said clone and the target. You will primarily use this to generate additional clones or for short-ranged teleports.

blocks the next incoming attack, makes you Evade afterwards and summon a clone. Its damage is equal to the last part of your auto-attack chain, meaning that it can be a DPS increase if timed well. As long as no attack has been blocked, you can re-cast it to Daze up to five targets in a line.

leaps at your target first and then performs a . You gain Might when the first attack hits. It is important to note that you can cancel slightly earlier if need be, this is because it is both a physical strike from the mesmer and a summon, with Quickness the summon part occurs around 680 ms while the strike is occurs around 750 ms. It also is a leap finisher.

Your greatsword auto-attack. You channel a bream at your foe that deals more damage. This deals more damage the further away you are from your target - however in practicality it is usually not possible to utilize.

You throw a blade to create a clone. Then, the blade bounces between enemies and allies. When a blade hits an ally it grants Might and when it hits a foe it deals damage and inflicts Vulnerability.

Deals damage and inflicts Cripple on up to 5 targets in an area. This skill has higher priority then your other weapon and utility skills and you must be careful as to not cancel other skills with it.

Throw your greatsword at an enemy dealing high damage and removing boons. You also spawn a phantasm, or two identical phantasm if you are using the trait , the phantasm(s) will cast a skill called "Imagined Burden" that deals damage Cripple and causes a whirl finisher.

Knockback up to 5 targets in-front of your character.

You might wish to play with a focus for it's utility. Do note, this is a DPS loss. creates a wall that applies Cripple to foes who touch it and Swiftness to allies that pass it. It can be re-cast to Pull up to five foes within a 600 radius.

creates a bubble that absorbs projectiles and throws axes at nearby targets, which apply Vulnerability. It doesn’t focus your target but everything in range that is targetable.

Breakbar Skills

and deal 100 breakbar damage for each clone, including the player, the breakbar damage from those skills can be from 100 up to 400.

can hit a second time for an additional 100 breakbar damage.

Deals 550 breakbar damage assuming the enemy got breakbar damage from all three pulses of the well.