Old player asking about chrono state in pve

Hi, i am an old player that used to play chrono. I quit mainly cause my raid group collapsed but also because anet decided to this to chrono in their coding:

Chrono = Chrono - fun ;

basically removing every single aspect that was considerable fun, makin a mess of his signature move (the continuum split) and yet, after all this nerfs and reworks (which some of them made sense since old old chrono was broken) they did not rework the most trash mech of chrono: wells. Basically a guaranteed quit if you don't have other classes you really enjoy playing (and tbh after playing the old chrono no class can come to that level of fun, pve wise).

I would be fine with chrono being close to useless but at least fun to play.

I am making this thread to ask: Is chrono still clunky, unfun and a wellbot ? I am considering returning to the game. I am asking pve side since i rarely played pvp

Chrono is still very powerfull in PVE, but it's utter trash in PvP

Power DPS Chrono is a thing and can be quite strong.

Though, Boon Chrono is still the more favoured build which still revolves around wells. Teeny tiny wells...

Chrono is still somewhat clunky, with how Continuum Split works (Trying to pop everything you need in the duration is kinda bleh...), with generating Clones (Chronophantasma is great for increasing DPS. But the extra delay it puts onto getting your clones from your Phantasm skills is hella clunky) and in general trying to maximize Shatters (The chrono specific F1 shatter, Split Second, requires the target to be Slowed to deal full damage which is not a particularly common condition)

For fractals u can play Dps Chrono and its fine. Boon support chrono has been replaced by healing firebrand and alacrity renegade combo.

Fractals and 5 man content in general:

Up to t4, you can get away with pDPS, and maybe with boonsupport - thought that niche is largely overtaken by FB+Rev wombocombo, so you'd have to convince people to let you play that. In t4 and CMs, pDPS is suboptimal absolutely always. Play a better class. It's design is absolutely not suited for fights that have phases (so everything in fractals), it's DPS works a lot like a condition build - so no bueno in fractals, again, - and it's rotation is needlessly punishing, while fractals and instabs just throw a random wrench into your efforts every now and again, again, making it an overall bad DPS choice for higher level of play. On lower, you can get away with it - but there's little point. It'll never achieve same numbers just because you can't have a good uptime on Slow in 5man or without people literally building into applying Slow for you, which nobody will do. You can somewhat replace a FB by giving up a chunk of DPS with another grandmaster (just pick Seize The Moment over CP), but again, FB is just easier to play, better at it and has more tools readily available to it.

DPS is not that different to play from before since you never dry-shattered on it anyway, but it's rotation is just as punishing as ever and provides less with more investment of skill, and sometimes gets thwarted by ping too. Overall, meh.

Dungeons: Whatever. Roleplaying builds work.

Raids: It's a discontinued mode. However, if you still care, that's the only place DPS chrono shines (because you can stack a bunch of them to get permaslow, lul) on SOME fights, and in others - classical wellbot "goodness" still is considered good, though many allow chronos to exist not because they provide something great or anything - at this point it's just pity to chronos, because anything it can do FB can do better, absolutely strictly speaking. It's better at tanking, at hybrid damage, at direct damage, and at spamming boons - though it wants a Rev buddy, but it's not like alarev is a downside with it's own insane versatility, okay DPS and ridiculous breakbar damage it can dish out.

Overall, I would NOT recommend investing into chrono for PvE purposes now. It's a [Time Sink] that will lead you to a [split Second] regret, in all possible senses. Pick a thing that has good burst damage on DPS builds, has a support build and can live alone for your general purposes - so FB, again. Because while Chrono was wasting time, FB was hitting that book list, apparently.

Thanks for all your answers.

I will keep playing other games then untile anet decides to rework chrono from the sorry state he is in.