Gearing and Training Up A Fresh Chrono?

Hi guys - returning player who’s been away since before Thorns dropped, trying to get a handle on the new system and gear changes. I mainly do PvE (open world, storyline stuff, dungeons, occasionally stuff like Fractals if my guild is going). Just made a fresh Mez and used the Lvl80 token, so he’s geared (kinda). I’ve played Mez before years ago and liked then play style of Greatsword.

From what I’m reading, the Chrono line sounds really interesting. Given my history, I plan to start GS and Sword/Sword I think. Two quick questions though:

1. The Lvl80 token auto-trained most of my skills, but the Chronomancer line is totally grayed-out, and I have no points available to begin raising it up. How does one level that trait given I’m already 80?

2. I’m seeing lots of comments in forums that Chrono can be ‘cheap to gear up’, but all the build examples I’m running across seem to use 100% Ascended gear. Back when I last played, Ascended was NOT cheap, and involved a serious time effort to grind out stuff to use to purchase Ascended gear. Has this meaningfully changed, so that Ascended is now truly cheap and easy to obtain? Or are there Exotic alternatives that come CLOSE to the Ascended stuff and that’s what folks are talking about re: cheap, but effective, gear?

Thanks a million in advance!

Hero points are obtained from hero challenges in tyria, heart of thorns, and path of fire maps. Tyria maps give 1 per challenge while HoT and PoF maps give 10 per. You use those hero points to unlock the specializations.

All builds all use 100% ascended gear. No build uses exotics. That being said, exotic armor remains extremely close (<5%) to ascended armor in terms of stats. Weapons and trinkets, however, are a big deal and absolutely necessary to get ascended. However, if you want to do high level fractals, you will need the infusion slots on ascended armor to boost your AR eventually. All of that being said, ascended gear has a wide variety of acquisition methods now compared to before. It's much more accessible.

Chrono is primarily used as a support class. It can also be used as a respectable power dps class, but the vast majority of Chrono use is as a pure support. A pure Chrono support build is total ass at soloing anything and is just generally unsuited for open world PvE. I'd recommend taking a closer look at the builds you're planning on to make sure you don't inadvertently build a class for a playstyle you were not expecting.

Thanks for the reply, Pyroatheist!

Re: Chrono in open world/PvE: Does that apply to ALL Chrono builds? Some threads seem to indicate that there are viable builds for PvE, but they do seem to suggest that they’re most useful for group events like Dungeons, Fracs, and big boss battles, where there will very likely be others around who can benefit from the support that line gives. Maybe I’m misreading?

Re: Power DPS - that’s where the Sword/x comes in right?

Re: Exotics vs. Ascended - Getting to within 5% or so of Ascended with Exotics seems close enough for me... That said, can you (or someone) link me to a good guide on the new, diverse ways to obtain Ascended gear? Someone suggested running one of the current Boss Trains to get gear drops, sell for gold then either just straight up but stufff and/or convert to gems for... I’m not sure. I thought Ascended were Soulbound, and so non-transferable, but am probably misremembering.

Thanks again!

As I mentioned, you can build Chrono as a power dps class, and it works very well. That's what you'd want to aim for if you'll be soloing in open world and such. Just make sure you're using a build guide that's aimed at that, not support Chrono. Yeah, support Chrono is good for big boss events and whatnot, but it sucks to have to respec every time you do something different in a map.

Power dps is more than just the weaponset. It's the stats on your gear, runes in your armor, food you use, and trait setup. Just sword/x is used both in Chrono support and power dps.

For trinkets, there are vendors from raids, fractals, PvP, laurels, guild commendations, and WvW. For weapons and armor, the choices are more limited. The simplest way is from raids, as you can get drops from the bosses and simply buy the gear from the raid vendor. PvP and WvW both will get you marks that you craft into ascended gear. I think fractals might work that way too.

Actualy I use my raid chrono in open world and it is way better (for me) then anything else. Dps is very high compared to other options because you stack all boons fir yourself and It is very safe because of many blocks and evades