Chronomacer support gear

I was wondering if I should go diviners or harrier for full support. I don't do much dps as it is because i focus on 100% boon up-time for quickness and alacrity rather then dps. I currently have diviners with a berserkers neck. I have 100% boon duration. I have some healing traits and i enjoy healing/buffing more then dps-ing. So wouldn't healing power be more useful then ferocity and percision if I can't add decent dps to the group? I pug a lot, mostly fractals. Thank you for your time.

Go for Diviner/berserker mix.

1. Boon duration no longer effect Signet of Inspiration.
2. Due to above, you no longer provide 100% alacrity.
3. You no longer need 100% boon duration as well (around 70% should hit the sweet spot)
4. this build can still provide decent dps with a few adjustment.
5. There is a minstrel/monk variant that provide better healing, and double up as tank, which servers a better purpose as healer.

There are 3 general approaches for a support chrono in a raid environment (and to some extent fractals, though chrono+druid sees a lot less play in challenge modes. Perfectly fine for normal T4 or below).

Approach 1: build as much tank as possible with as much boon duration as needed. Gear of choice would be minstrel.Pros:

• relieve healers and reduce damage taken
• maximum amount of boon duration makes keeping up alacrity and quickness easier
• provides some additional healing to othersCons:
• the innate high toughness makes you the tank. Literally. With all responsibilities which go hand in hand with this role

Approach 2: support chrono. Gear of choice is a berserker and diviner mix until satisfactory boon duration is met.Pros:

• can provide alacrity and quickness to subgroup/squad
• with some minor tweaking for additional toughness, can function as a tank or secondary tank
• will have more damage than minstrel chrono
• does not mess with toughness agro mechanics in raidsCons:
• squishier than full minstrel as tank

Approach 3: damage optimized support chrono. Gear of choice remains berserker and diviner, but with minimum amount of boon duration.Pros:

• decent damage as a supporter
• will still provide dedicated boonsCons:
• harder to play than the other builds
• requires proper stacking of group/squad mates

I'm personally not a fan of the healing chrono because, aside from full minstrel which has other benefits, it is or should not be needed. Any healer should be more than capable of taking care of any regular T4 healing needs without the chrono having to go that defensive. In case of groups where this is not the case, the stacking will be so poor, that the chronos wells will be near useless anyway. On top of which, mesmer/chrono healing is subpar to begin with.

Either go for option 2: support chrono. Or just re-roll to a heal Firebrand and become a dedicated healer/boon giver.

@Cyninja.2954, thank you for the information, it was very helpful, I'll try option 2. But i would like to check out the firebrand support option. on meta i see a few builds for support, is there one build on there you had in mind when you said heal firebrand? Also i saw that firebrand healers aren't as needed as chrono support is that true?

For Fractals, Firebrand is much higher in demand, Healbrand for pugs and cQB/pQB for higher-end groups, rarely see any Chrono nowadays in fractals though it's still way better than having no quickness or alacrity at all, and it still brings good utility, but definitely doesn't carry as hard as a Healbrand, nor does as much DPS as a Quickbrand.

For Raids, most squads run at least 1 Chrono (as tank), Firebrand is still used a lot in raids as offhealer (Healbrand) or quickness support with great dps (cQB), so can't really go wrong with any of them.

I'd also recommend berserker/diviner mix for boon Chrono, giving boons is just using 3-4 skills off cd and there's a lot of free time to do DPS, difference is pretty big between a harrier Chrono not dps'ing vs a bers/div one just autoattacking and using sword phantasm, i usually see boon chronos around 2k~ on Raids when it can reach >10k+ without much effort.Pug VG example, here i'm running 50% BD and Danger Time, though gear is a bit different than SC build, just put together my old fractal armor and random assassin/zerk trinkets and ended up being close to the meta build, phase DPS was around 18k.For Fractals i'd say go for 100% BD or at least 90% if you're playing a support like Fb/Chrono/Ren.

As for Fb support i'd recommend this if you need to hard carry groups, traits marked in red you can swap if you feel it'd be more useful depending on the situation, personally i run Empowering Might and camp axe more and run Seraph trinkets as well, can do pretty decent DPS without really losing anything.

This has less healing but Signet share (216 power for 10s for your group) and more CC, good if your party has no problem staying alive and the pDps can benefit from the extra power.

Recommended weapons for both are Staff + Axe/Shield, i usually run SYG and Cleanse Mantra as default, though it all depends on the Fractal and instabilities, there's no point running SYG on Thaumanova for example, so if you need more healing, swap for Bow of Truth, if you need CC, then Bane Signet/Hammer of Wisdom, etc.

Healing stats are really bad on chrono for two reasons: because we have no modifiers from traits and can only get healing modifiers from upgrades & conumsables, our heal output is pretty low even with high healing power, combined with the fact we have very few skills that heal others in the first place means going from diviner/zerker/assassin mix to healing stats makes you go from a build doing boons, dps (and potentially tanking), to a build that is only doing boons (and potentialy tanking). This especially goes because almost all of your group healing comes from changing your heal skill, and giving up signet of ether gives up your personal survivability (you lose extra distortion, extra aegis for 5, and total recharge of sheild 4 allowing you two more long channeled blocks if you use ether for defense).

(FYI, if your dps is low i suggest looking up a few rotation vids, the biggest increase to your dps as a support chrono IMO is when you're comfortable enough to stop camping shield -> weapon swap -> sword 5 -> signet of ether -> sword 5 -> wait until sword 5 comes off cooldown, use it again and then immediately -> weapon swap back to shield and tides of time comes off of cooldown pretty much as you swap. theres a lot more to dps than that, ofc, but that's one of the biggest things seperating healer teir dps chronos to chronos that do big damage. even at 70% boon duration and the fact i am awful at chrono rotation i can still do over 10k dps on bosses while keeping up boons.)

In terms of usage, in fractals chrono is dead, any variant of quickness providing firebrand does more damage, has more carry capability via it's tome skills (and even more carry capablity as a healer through heals, sheild, and utilities) and has a much easier time keeping up boons. PUGs expect a lot from healbrands though, but if you like support roles it shouldn't be too bad.

In raids most groups want 1 chrono, and that chrono usually tanks (but fb/ren are both capable of tanking most bosses too, its just much easier for a chrono to tank than it is for either of those). Firebrand is better at dps than renegade, and better at carrying the group than renegade, so most groups will put the firebrand on whatever they need more- for pugs, healbrand is VERY common because actually having prot + skills which res downed fast + no delay on range heals enables it to carry harder than heal renegade, but heal renegade is still a very powerful healer (one the highest heal output for 5 amongst all healers) and it now does a lot of damage too (even as a healer) so heal renegade is more popular when not pugging. Most groups will run chrono/rengade/firebrand to cover quick/alac, it's just which between ren and fb heals that changes.

@BRNBRITO.9624 @"Lexi.1398" is alacrity not as a important buff as quickness then? i see a lot of firebrand in fractals would having another hurt the group?would fireband meta support build be the best one to use? I mainly do WvW , fractals and large group events.I do love my chrono, but ill give firebrand a try.for these game types is 70% BD enough or should i get 100%?

http://metabattle.com/wiki/Build:Firebrand_-_Support_Firebrand

@Rave.9732 said:is alacrity not as a important buff as quickness then? i see a lot of firebrand in fractals would having another hurt the group?

Broadly speaking, if you can only have either alacrity OR quickness, quickness is more valuable. Most groups, fractals and raids, have a renegade (multiple in some raid compositions) take care of alacrity- which they can do so completely alone with high boon duration for 10 people, and all they do is press f4 off cooldown to do so.

Two heal firebrands would be useless ya, but on the upside most lfgs i see ask for healbrands. It's kind of a hard call to make if you can only branch out into one other build cus gear, but it would certainly provide more to the group than a chrono would (in fractals, in raids you have both).

@Rave.9732 said:is alacrity not as a important buff as quickness then? i see a lot of firebrand in fractals would having another hurt the group?would fireband meta support build be the best one to use? I mainly do WvW , fractals and large group events.I do love my chrono, but ill give firebrand a try.for these game types is 70% BD enough or should i get 100%?

It's still important and very good, but if you need to choose between quickness and alacrity then quickness is a no-brainer, though only chrono brings both, but it's really common and easy to find alacrity renegades. If you rather play Chrono then you can still LFG for either a Druid or a Healbrand (then you can drop quickness well for disenchanter/mimic or another relevant utility).

For pugging i'd say Healbrand is by far the build with the most carry-capability and utility, i don't really do PvP/WvW so can only say about PvE, and for Fractals you'll definitely want to be as close to 100% as you can, it'll come in handy in many situation, specially high pressure fights or people not stacking properly, and you don't really have to sacrifice anything to reach 100% on it, for Raids you don't need as much since you'll usually have a Chrono extending boons, Druid doing might etc.

And there's no problem having multiple firebrands in the same group, as long as they're not all playing Healbrand (unless the group can't clear with a single healer, but it shouldn't ever be needed).

It can also be extremely useful for large events, though obviously as a healer you won't have a lot of personal DPS, you can cover pretty much every single boon and make things way easier and faster by buffing people, reflecting, pulling mobs, etc.

@BRNBRITO.9624 said:It can also be extremely useful for large events, though obviously as a healer you won't have a lot of personal DPS, you can cover pretty much every single boon and make things way easier and faster by buffing people, reflecting, pulling mobs, etc.

thank you for the information.do healbrands have more boons then druid? do they give might?

@Rave.9732 said:thank you for the information.do healbrands have more boons then druid? do they give might?

The Might only affects 5 people but yes, you have access to every boon in the game but Alacrity, and can sustain >20 Might, 100% Quickness, 100% fury, 100% swiftness, 100% regen, good uptime on Protection with Legendary Lore (on Fractals the Ren covers protection), on-demand Aegis and good Stability uptime, plus a lot of Resistance with Tome 3 #4, pretty important for stuff like Siren's Reef.

@BRNBRITO.9624 for armor type for healbrand do you get full harrier with seraph accessories? (accessories being rings, neck,back,trinkets) thanks again!

@Rave.9732 said:@BRNBRITO.9624 for armor type for healbrand do you get full harrier with seraph accessories? (accessories being rings, neck,back,trinkets) thanks again!It's what i personally use after tweaking my build a lot (actually I share the trinkets with a Hybrid fb build which is full Seraph, rarely need to run full-carry Healbrand), most people will recommend Harrier trinkets though, will get you a bit more boon duration and less precision (as i said, i run Empowering Might) and less condidmg, if you're not worried about min-maxing for a bit of DPS and rather have a bit more heal/boon duration, then go for Harrier.