DPS/Support Build?

Want to play a bit more mesmer in PVE (Fractals and OW). I have zerk ascended gear but no boon duration runes/sigils. Can i still support a party if they don't have a dedicated boon chrono or should i just use the classic dps chrono then?

Honestly...as a chrono main before the 12/11 destruction, I recommend something else.

I’m aware there may be other players who might have better input but here’s mine:

Though you can attempt to copy what a sup chrono is meant to do, the reality is that you’re not going to be doing as well as a proper one will. The most impactful support skill you could possibly take (without another boon chrono) is time warp, which is a fire-and-forget 12 (~14 with pot mastery?) seconds of quickness, but at the cost of hard cc. You could consider taking signet of inspiration, and or well of action/recall, but those important boons are going to expire so fast it will seem pretty insignificant, especially when it may come at the cost of your own damage.

That being said, the best route with your current state of gear would indeed be taking ‘the classic dps chrono’, but be aware: pchrono doesn’t use all zerkers (unless you’re playing the broken danger time build and have got a friend/s to supply your slow uptime) - it has to reach the preferred ~63(?)% crit chance (using the precision stat ONLY) to not be screwed over by rng (which at that amount still assumes the use of fury, food, banners and spotter to reach 100%). Luckily, the offensive pot with the mastery will cover ~10% of crit chance, but only in fractals. Going down this route, I’ll assume you’ll learn the unique intricacies of the pchrono rotation in time, but I can’t determine how long this may actually take because according to a number of people, it’s apparently ‘difficult and fast-paced’, and being one myself, you’ll need to find the distinct dis/advantages compared to other (meta) professions.

In conclusion, unless you’ve got a static with a condi rev or sup chrono, you’re kind of stuck in lose-lose situation where you’ll need to stat swap some of your gear to stay effective in either situation, and even then there’s no guarantee that you’ll see success very quickly. I would say to pick one route and just stick with it, you have ascended gear which can be stat swapped given effort and time, even if you discover your initial choice doesn’t work out, you can just stat swap to the other.

Edit: The best option IMO is to wait until the next major patch since it will introduce a new and possibly better stat combo for sup chrono, and we don’t exactly know what’s anet’s going to do with pchrono for the time being.

One can still get some fairly sufficient boon duration even without the full ascended set. Superior Rune of the Traveler is a nice replacement as it adds 36 pts to all main stats and is very inexpensive while providing 15% boon duration on a 5-piece set. Its pretty inexpensive at like 1-2G. The Signet of Concentration adds another free 10% and is fairly inexpensive. Finally, you can add armor upgrades to attach to trinkets and get about 30% boon duration. If one runs Inspiration/Chaos you can even up the number to 50% if you run that as your play style for early on.

Its not the best, but you honestly do not even need 100% boon duration anyway. You only need 66% to really get a SoI, WoR, and ToT rotation to provide theoretically maximum up time without even using Continuum Shift. Using the Zerk Ascended is fine. There are foods if you really want to push the boon duration high by converting power into concentration.

I would wait to see what the next LS episode brings. If the Diviner gear mentioned in the trailer is a PVE version of the PVP Diviner set, then it will have Conc as a primary stat along with decent support DPS stats. Could be a game changer for boon support builds. So hold onto your gold and let's see what happens with the Jan 8 patch.

I am curious what stat combination could potentially be better for Chrono than Commander's overall. With what's in place now its not like stats will become more powerful (unless there become 5-stat prefixes).

As a DPS/support build for Chrono the only reliable support you can provide while doing damage that matters is applying alarcity/quickness. That's really the only support you can do as all it requires is 3 utility skills and concentration investment. No trait line changes necessary. Trying to do other stuff like healing cuts into your DPS a lot.

As a whole this demands precision, concentration, and power as your primary stats. The only advantage a 3-stat has over a 4-stat is not putting points into something you don't need since 4-stat actually provides more stats overall than 3-stat. The question just really comes down to of do you need toughness at all. In which case I could see stat combinations being good like Power, Precision, Concentration, and Ferocity in either 3-stat or 4-stat combinations to be able to remove the investment into toughness to further boost your damage output.

However, if you are taking dueling/illusions to maximize damage output as well your only means to avoid damage are shield 4 (x2), dodge (x2), blurred frenzy (x1), F4 shatter (distortion), and sword 4. Your only healing is skill 6 with no way to remove conditions. Its you fairly well require a dedicated healer for the team and condition removal.

So, I dunno. Having the toughness I would say is good to have over trying to squeeze out more DPS by a few points after already meeting crit 100% and high power. You can't do it if your dead.

Diviner is Power + Concentration primary, Precision + Ferocity secondary. With Leadership runes, a full set of Diviner can break 100% boon duration, while still giving you plenty of Power and crit ability from Precision and Ferocity. That's the difference between Diviner and Commander: you get both more Concentration, and more damage output. So unless you want Toughness for some reason (like WvW or tanking) I would expect Diviner gear to make Commander obsolete in the hybrid DPS-boon role.

@Jimbru.6014 said:Diviner is Power + Concentration primary, Precision + Ferocity secondary. With Leadership runes, a full set of Diviner can break 100% boon duration, while still giving you plenty of Power and crit ability from Precision and Ferocity. That's the difference between Diviner and Commander: you get both more Concentration, and more damage output. So unless you want Toughness for some reason (like WvW or tanking) I would expect Diviner gear to make Commander obsolete in the hybrid DPS-boon role.

Looking at some numbers you are quite right. thief rune, accuracy sigil, and full diviner with that gets 78% boon duration, 51% crit, and 42% more crit dmg. Full commander's with leadership rune, and concentration sigil nets you 58% crit and 77% boon duration. Though that rune of the thief adds an extra 10% of dmg for hitting the flanks and rear of an enemy. Which overall is a nice ~50% damage increase overall for the same boon duration if you can max out critical in both cases. Though that is sort of the tough one I suppose. You cannot reach 100% crit chance on your own without fury boon and other boosting methods.

Trying to max out boon duration on Diviner set with Leadership runes means your crit chance is completely shot.

True that 100% crit chance may not be achievable without some sacrifice, but crit chance isn't why you're in this situation. Boons are. Sure, you want as much DPS as you can reasonably get. But you don't want to self-nerf your boons to achieve that.

Hey thx for all the replies:)i think i'll just w8 for the next living world upgrade to get some diviner gear. if it has the same stat's as in pvp, it will probably be the best all-around build for chrono