Lament of a Chronomancer (4 leagues of thoughts/feedback)

I love Chronomancer, otherwise I wouldn't have played it every league so far. Each league I usually get to level 85-95 and am doing pinnacles, and i've made a point to try something different every time. I also usually play at least 1 or 2 other classes each league, usually reaching similar levels.

This to say, I've given a multitude of tries, attempted to min max all 8 abilities, and finally feel comfortable posting some thoughts. I like the flavor, I like some of the ideas, but I do feel like it ultimately lacking especially compared to some of the other super flashy ascendancies.

Now I don't expect much from this post, but I hope if any chronomancer enthusiasts see this (or maybe people who like the idea but its never had enough to convince them to try) that it'll provoke some thought and that people will think about what we actually want from this ascendancy.

Issues?
I think predominantly, the issue with chronomancer is that it often feels like you don't even have an ascendancy. This is especially true while leveling. Many of the passives don't spark joy when I take them, nor do I ever feel "this changes everything" with maybe the exception of Now and Again which requires other commitments to certain skill (usually niche).
I think this boils down to three issues:

1. There is no clear offensive path or gimmick other than “Use cooldowns”. When you pick Inevitability , Sands of Time , or Ultimate Command they don’t really point you toward any directions of play. You can kind of do whatever (but not really, there are quiet limits hidden inside), but the ascendancy doesn’t really help or synergize necessarily. The unleash skill at least pointed you somewhere, and I enjoyed using it a bit more but even it felt lacking.

2. Many of the nodes require significant investment on the tree or items to make worth a anything. The Rapid River being the prime example: you can barely even feel recoup until 30-50% depending on how perceptive you are. Same can sort of be said about Apex of the moment , and to a lesser extent Inevitability and Time Freeze . If I need to invest 10-30+ skill points to make an ascendancy passive feel functional it honestly just feels bad to take it.

3. Especially compared to newer ascendancies, but even a lot of older ones, a lot of Chronomancer abilities have very little visual flare. They are kind of boring. The Rapid River has no visual indicator. You basically need to try walking into and away from enemies to see Apex of The Moment is working. Sands of Time at least has a buff you can watch fluctuate. Now and Again just… happens: I’d love maybe a quiet auditory que when it procs. Footprints in the Sand is the most visually interesting, but also a defensive/mana ability. So a lot of excitement of “look how cool I am” is lost with a lot of these chronomancer passives.

So overall to me, it feels like we need more flare, more expression of flavor, and abilities that actually do something when you take them, and stuff to actually play with and build around offensively (defensively we have cool tools that are fun to min max but they take a lot of investment). So now lets talk about the passives:

Nodes


Inevitability (Inevitable Agony)
The new kid on the block. I do think the buffs to this skill helped quite a bit, but I think this skill suffers the most from actually being boring and having weird limits tied to it. Ultimately this reads: do % extra damage; later. It’s a button you have to press and actually pretty frequently if you want full uptime. It really just doesn’t add to the fantasy. And it doesn’t do anything that changes my gameplay other than maybe specing more into curses. 50% extra damage to mobs is good, but I can’t think of time where I wanted to use it against anything weaker than golds. So in practice it is always less. I think what bothers me the most are the limitations. Last I tried, it doesn’t work with hexblast. It also only counts “hits”, so damage over time doesn’t count (lots of examples why this would be nice, but decaying hex is an interesting one). It doesn’t really synergize with impending doom if you want to go in even more on curses. Overall its boring, it’s a button, it has built in limitations, and it doesn’t lend itself well to any playstyles.
I think at a minimum this needs to work with DoTs, but I actually think it should be scrapped and built into Time Freeze: at the end of the duration enemies in the time freeze take 20-30% of damage dealt to them again. One less button, and gives Time Freeze an extra small payoff. I don’t mind chronomancer having something( even a button) curse related, I just don’t think this is it.

Ultimate Command (Time Freeze)
This is the ability everyone wants to use, at least conceptually. In practice, it is a glorified stun. You sort of want a lot of extra skill effect duration for it, but it is useful without it. Some people actually want it to freeze projectiles: that would be cool for the fantasy but probably isn’t super needed. I think this should be accessible with 2 points instead of 4 (which forces you to take another button). Let us have the fantasy early on, it is not going to hurt anything. And as mentioned above, I think Time Freeze should have a built in inevitable agony to give it more of a payoff and give us something to work to and get excited about. Overall though, I think it’s a good skill, just wish it could be attained with 2 points.

The Rapid River
Man, I do really love The Rapid River with 100% recoup. I did it in 0.1 without the Sacrosanctum, and again in 0.3(first try) and 0.4 (I was playing wolf chronomancer, made sense for being in melee). The problem is this node does nothing on it own. In-fact, I would contend if you don’t have at least 30% recoup (probably more honestly) this node is basically useless. Flavor wise I do like it, and it is something else no other ascendancy really does. So, I think it needs to give you some recoup (at least 10% + 4/5% from the small passive?). But I think better and more interesting is to also give it the sacrosanctum passive (or at least partial). I shouldn’t need to wear a specific unique to make my ascendancy keystone be useful.

Sands of Time
On the surface this is a pendulum and probably bad. In practice its sort of awesome and feels way better than you would expect. No joke, this may be our best passive (especially first). When you take it, you immediately feel the improvement. I am at least sort of excited to take it. How do we make it better? It should be skill speed. Limiting it to casting feel unnecessary and is frankly boring. Chronomancer already has a weak identity as a caster, let us play with our toys however we want (Grenades/bows/ wolf/ etc)

Now and Again
This passive is my power fantasy. I want it to work SO badly. And it did back in 0.1 with hammer of the gods. It is also fun with grenades (you know… the other side of the tree). There are a lot of funny niche builds you can try with this and they can be fun( like wolf, reset lunar blessing and scale AS to get more moonbeams). We really just need a better payoff skill. It doesn’t even need to be a long cooldown, just something with stacks. And maybe some auditory or visual que when it procs.

Unbound Encore (Time Snap)
This skill is awesome, but almost never gets used. Most cooldowns are too short. When you use skills with cooldowns you tend to be playing a piano: you have other things to press while you wait. I like it a lot, but it needs a longer cooldown target. To get both this and time freeze you need to spend all 8 points, which can be fun but often isn’t worth it. If everything has 2-5s cooldown why am I ever pressing this? Maybe it should enhance the next spell like unleash did, idk.

Apex of the Moment
This passive is definitely on flavor. It feels a little odd though, because its really SO minor compared to a temporal chains. And if you take this, decent odds you are doing temporal chains too. You can take this a minor defensive, but 2 ascendancy points feels like a lot for something like that if you aren’t scaling it or stacking slows. This could stay the same, but I think it needs a little something else. Better visual indicator would be nice, but also maybe some extra presence area? As a treat.

Unleash
I liked this skill. It had a cooldown so it would be used with Now and Again. It copied spells fairly cleanly. I used it mostly with Arc in 0.2. If nothing else, it gave me something to try and utilize in my build and kit. “How can I make the best use of this” was fun challenge and I ended up with something decent, and coming from MMOs I don’t mind pressing more buttons. I think there may be a place in a passive or ability that lets chrono repeat spells, but maybe even less limited (let us use it on cooldown spells?)

Footprints in the Sand
Saved this for last because I don’t really know what to say. Its good, and a lot of people like it. It isn’t my personal favorite but I have used it. I don’t like that it is in the way of Time Freeze. I don’t like that its another button I need to manage (even if it is a panic button). Using it to regain mana is really helpful. I feel like I rarely used it to save my own life. It also is definitely the coolest looking chrono ability. But I’m left feeling little desire to take it most of the time. Could we make it automatic somehow? Can we change it up and could it after the recoup node somehow? Or maybe we scrap it in favor of a defensive passive that also can help with mana.

Suggestions
I think I made most of my suggestions above but I’ll summarize:
1. Replace inevitability with something else. Maybe put a version of it on Time Freeze. A different curse it okay, but it should enable builds not just be extra damage. If it sticks around, make it work with all damage not just hits (DoTs please!)

2. Time Freeze should be attainable with 2 points, not 4. Maybe give it more of a payoff

3. The Rapid River needs to have some inherent recoup on it so you don’t need to invest as much on tree to make it work. Maybe add a (partial) Sacrosanctum passive to it.

4. Sand of Time should give skill speed. Otherwise this one is good

5. Now and Again/ Unbound Encore just need good/better targets.

6. Apex of the Moment could use a small secondary effect and better visual indicator (extra presence area?)

7. Footprints in the Sand is probably fine, but I think it could use some reworking to not require a button or be a passive.

As for new possible directions/passive a few ideas I think would be fun:
1. I think we should bring back the second recoup nodes but make it do something cool (possibly a replacement for Footprints in the Sand). Maybe something like taking 20% of damage and costs(mana/life) over time (4s) instead of immediately. Delaying effects sounds like something a chronomancer would do and synergizes with recoup well

2. A different curse. The idea that stuck with me would have to do with statuses: Increase the duration of non-damaging debuffs and ailments by times 1.X. Increase the rate at which damaging debuffs and ailments proc/tick by times 1.X.
If inevitable agony works on DoTs this would synergize, and perhaps it could even come after time freeze and the small passives give skill effect duration. This would let us run ED/C or Ignite or go real crazy and try bleed or poison while still helping non damaging statuses if you don’t want to do any of that. I think it would be a neat options niche to play with. “Agonizing Stasis”

3. I think unleash as possibly on the right track, so I’d love something that allows for us to get repeats on spells somehow. Maybe unleash wasn’t quite right, but I think there is definitely space here.

Conclusion
Anyway… those are my thoughts form 4 leagues of playing chronomancer. I like the ascendancy, and want the best for it. I will probably continue to play at least one chronomancer per league for the foreseeable future. But I wanted to share some opinions and ideas for what I would love to see from the ascendancy. And maybe you disagree with some or even all my points and ideas, but hopefully this made you think of things YOU might want to see from it.

+1 Chronomancer needs a rework

I feel like a tactician with pin is a better chronomancer than the chronomancer itself

Chronomancer needs some tuning but i disagree with time freeze being available after 2 points. its WAY too strong. if you add skill effect duration to th emix its getting utterly busted because you can do a line like FREEZE regualrly do a lot of dmg and then time freeze the boss on top. you can lock an enemy easily 30-40 sec. What i would love to see is Snds of time not only applying to spells buut to attacks as well. and inevitable agony and time freeze being castable while shape shifted.

i tried doing a chronomancer werewolf and the only reason the build didnt work is because i wasnt able to cast agony and time freeze while shapeshifted. ironically going back in time was castable in wolf.

Imagine using lunar blessing > agony > freeze/time freeze > burst the living sh1t out of the boss with shred and cross slash and then have agony trigger all the hit dmg you did as wolf AGAIN.

but sadly my idea died cause i need lunar blessing agony and time freeze on weapon set 2 for max amount of skill effect duration and lunar blessing cant be used without talisman and the other 2 skills cant be use with talisman.

My primary this season was a very effective Chronomancer Twister build. I leaned heavily into +skill duration which synergized very nicely with long last twisters and long duration time Freeze. Also used Crown of Eyes and Rathpith Globe with a max + mana investment and was wiping everything. Every pinnacle boss was dead or on to the second phase before it unlocked from the first Freeze, and then it would be dead by the second since you can support gems to get a 2nd charge. It trivialized basically everything and got a bit boring.

However, I think this would likely have worked even better with multiple other ascendancies anyway. The only thing keeping me tied to it was the convenience of Time Freezing bosses at the start of every fight.

Time freeze is so OP I'm good with it taking 4 points to get to, but it is a shame that Footprints in the Sand: Temporal Rift felt so unusable. The only things I ever died to were one shots or lag. Messed around with it a bit but gave up on it pretty quickly.

Every other Chronomancer ascendency skill seems functionally useless, especially in endagme, in a game where everything dies in one hit or under 5 seconds for bosses. Nothing lives long enough for Inevitable agony to matter, so it's never worth the opportunity cost to set it up.

Now and Again is totally unreliable with only s 33% chance to trigger so you can't plan around or depend on it at all, so it's in fact a negative.

Not sure there's a skill in game that makes Unbound Encore worth having. I didn't need it even for time Freeze since I was only using that on bosses.

Apex of the Moment is arguable ok I guess, but kind of underwhelming in magnitude, and it seems bugged in that it doesnt show as a debuff on mobs, or it isnt applying (this has been reported for well over a year but they haven't bothered to address it, you know because we needed more MTX and runes instead.)

Quicksand hourglass is ok and interesting flavor, but with the random nature its not super reliable or useful. You have to play around the minimum swings. It is kinda fun when you get a massive AoE out of it if you're near the 60%. Would be nice if worked on attack or skill speed.

If you got through all that, my summary is Time Freeze great, apex of the moment and quicksand hourglass decent enough, everything else trash.

I'd say that I'd like to see something that accelerates ailment/DoT damage speed, but what's the point in a game build around instant one hitting? And this game is going to shit, so...maybe listen to people who think there's a better chance that they're going to keep playing than me.

When playing your class as a Time Stop/Aura Bot is not only a legitimate way of playing but efficient and preferable for a chunk of players in an ARPG, something drastic needs to be done. I'm pretty sure Mark made a comment about Chrono players potentially being happy about some changes they've made in 0.5, but they also gave us Inevitable Agony, so yeah.

Chrono had so little of a niche that GGG had to give support gems that gave skills cooldowns; Expanse, Hourglass, Excise, and Execrate (Wtf does that last one even mean?). You can't use these together on one skill gem I'm pretty sure, they can't be used on skills that already have a cooldown(!?!?), and their effect isn't strong enough compared to other supports to justify the cooldown. If they were, then every class would use these as well and make a really bad meta.

So Chrono needs to uniquely interact with that niche, and do it well while leveling in order for people to even give the ascendancy a chance at this point. You can't just tell people that the class really picks up when you start getting esoteric and hard to stack endgame stats that can't be rolled normally. As for Time Snap, it's best use is resetting the cooldown on Time Freeze (lol). Having enough skills on cooldown it to be relevant almost never happens.

Changing Now and Again so that it increases the damage of your skills by a certain percent for each skill currently on cooldown would make it the obvious damage path for the ascendancy.

Making Time Snap empower the skills which had their cooldown reset would further emphasize this.

Changing Apex of the Moment to a 10% or 15% slow and giving the player 10% or 5% movement speed increase would immediately make people want to play the ascendancy alone.

Just delete Inevitable Agony and replace it with a flat cold damage modifier, or make it require 4 points with a cold damage modifier in front of it. Make it a Damage over time amp if it's going to be 4 points.

I also played chronomancer as my main every season since 0.1

I agree with most of what you said but for me in the end it boils down to, imo, the biggest problem with the ascendancy being that the nodes are too specific or niche

Some classes get things like + projectile, + ring slot, now even an entire set free to slot runes which is something very adaptable

Meanwhile Chrono gets freeze and a bunch of other actives that unless you're building around are essentially useless in comparison to something other ascendancies would get

I don't mean every node has to be generic, but when your active node is essentially "do dot damage after a certain time" while the other class can just straight up increase overall DPS across the board passively with a ring slot, including dot, the choice is obvious

It's not that complicated to make the class interesting, honestly

1) The freeze is cool in itself and should be kept as class identity

2) Get rid of most actives

3) Just let me be a time mage

That's it