Cold Chronomancer Megathread (WIP). CoF nerfed. Very slow gameplay now.

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Table of Contents:

1. Introduction.
- Pros and cons
2. Theorycrafting. Mechanics. WTF and how to play it?
3. League start (WIP).
4. Gear progression (WIP).
5. Crafting (WIP).
6. Videos (WIP).

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Update log:

Important: For the most relevant info please follow the thread. Some ideas made by other decent exiles and me ain't in the guide yet bc I'm busy playing the game and testing things out. Most of this post was written before the game release, and some parts can be outdated.

Nerfed. I will do a revision of this guide with the most relevant info on 13.12.2024.
CoF-Comet is dead, so clearspeed is nonexistent. Bossing is still good. We are trying to find solutions now.



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Sup. Monik is here again, so it's time to make another off-meta build.

It's obvious, that Chronomancers are out of attention after the ascendancy reveal, many people immediately put them off their radar, and not many big content creators are going to play them at all.
I found only Substractem having a very similar idea to me (going Cold Chronomancer).

Personally, I genuinely believe that all classes and ascendancies in PoE 2 are strong, and Chronomancer is not an exception here.

So, this megathread is about Making Chrono Great Again during the early access.

I will share everything I make, discover, and find about this class.
Feel free to share your ideas here too. It is important.

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Before I start theorycrafting, let me mention pros and cons I expect:

- A lot of buttons to press. It needs to be this way.
- Not straightforward to play. A bit tricky.
- Weak to one-shots. Probably.

+ Should be fun af. Really.
+ Definitely strong burst dps.
+ Probably, quite safe to play despite being squishy. Several defensive mechanics here.

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I'll make a properly sorted guide later. Here are some of my ideas of how I intend to build and play this sweety.

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Ascendancy choice (pre-alfa version 0.00001):

Important: multiple reports of Apex of the Moment not working atm.



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Passive tree:
Endgame passive tree made by Casia -

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WTF:

The general idea of the build is to freeze things and hit them hard.

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1. To start with, we are going with Cold spells mostly by default. It is an all-rounded element that gives both offense and defense (chill and freeze).
I think it is the best choice for Chronomancer since we won't have much defense anyway.

I think about having a secondary weapon + passives set of either lightning or fire skills. Depends on what I need. Or can go meme with Hammer of God (probably not xD).

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2. Once again, I intend to use Hourglass support as much as possible, bc Chronomancer is the only class that can utilize it to its full potential. I will test shit here and there to decide which skills would be the best with it.
Atm I think about the Frost Bomb, Comet, Cold Snap (in some variations), and Flameblast/Firestorm. Or Hammer of God, kekw.

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3. Here is the list of the decent interactions between skills:

I. Frostbolt and Ice Nova are our main skills without CD, and we will be using them in 1-2(-3) punch:



II. Frost Wall - killer spell. Defense, offense, and cc - all in one.


III. Frost Bomb. Bread and butter of the Cold builds, we have to use it anyway, so let's see what we can do.



IV. Flameblast.

V. About lightning element.

Not sure. I don't think it's needed on Chronomancer unless Cold Element is damn bad overall.
And we can't fully utilize its potential without the archmage anyway, so screw it.

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4. Skill gems, WIP.

Obviously, I can't tell what is good or bad for now. Everything needs to be tested.

Today I learned that there is only 1 support gem per character, so I remove yesterday thoughts.

However, I'm thinking about giving Frost Bolt and Ice Nova more supporting roles to chill and freeze things efficiently, and using Cold Snap and Comet as the main damage dealers.

So:



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Act 1:

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Act 2:


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Act 3:

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Act 2 Cruel (lvl 56):

Acts finished (lvl 66):



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WIP

Good weapon for Acts:


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WIP


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1. Early Act 2 gameplay footage with area boss - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64zdZgogH-Y

2. Some Act 3 gameplay with Zicoatl bossfight - https://youtu.be/-LX1avpybRE

3. Act 1 Cruel Executor deletion by hiddennames - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZ3ZBzlEEFI

4. Act 1 Cruel Geonor fight: https://youtu.be/EVKfdaavsc0

5. Act 2 Cruel gameplay and twin bossfight: https://youtu.be/_Dvsxqwq5_M

6. 1st map after the Acts: https://youtu.be/Hp3jP8qSG5M

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This is it for now, have fun y'all.
Let's see what's up here later.
Feel free to share your thoughts.

Reserved

This is what I'm looking for!

"

monik390#5560 wrote:

- Now and Again + Undbound Encore are key nodes here, since I intend to utilize several skills with Hourglass Support (it is one of the strongest support gems atm):

I'm not sure if you are aware that each support skill can only be used with one single skill across all your skills, so you won't be able to 'utilize several skills' with it. That being said, it is obviously still an incredibly good support gem to use with this ascendancy – it's just a question of which skill is best supported by it.

"

Tekkar#0132 wrote:

"

monik390#5560 wrote:

- Now and Again + Undbound Encore are key nodes here, since I intend to utilize several skills with Hourglass Support (it is one of the strongest support gems atm):

I'm not sure if you are aware that each support skill can only be used with one single skill across all your skills, so you won't be able to 'utilize several skills' with it. That being said, it is obviously still an incredibly good support gem to use with this ascendancy – it's just a question of which skill is best supported by it.

Yeah given this fact it's not looking great for the Chronomancer, unless there are some really good skills we havn't seen that inherently have a cooldown.

I'm looking through known info and I see very few long CD skills. Like, there's Cluster Grenade and Hammer of the Gods and that's it?

yeah, this is my thinking to try.

frost wall+fortress. possibly hourglass.

need to test how much it explodes for, and what can trigger it reliably.

3 charges on its CD.
so right off the bat, 3 chances for the 33%.

frost bomb I expect to pair with it, with second wind.
2 CD for 33%+33%=55% chance for cd proc at least once.

time snap, giving 4 casts of the CD. 33%x4. which is an 80% chance for the CD to proc at least once.

"Increase limit" does frost wall, or frost bomb have a limit of 1?


frost walls charges, makes me wonder if traps will use the same mechanic and thus be very good for chronomancer.


secondary scaling is a bit ??? atm. heralds don't really work for this, etc. just frost bombs exposure.


Time stop seems pointless. what is it doing regular freeze isn't doing?

time rift ought to be more useful in poe2. less regen, less leech. a giant get out of jail free card, for anything that does not one shot you, to reset your HP back to full should be solid for bosses.

recoup I'm doubtful for. seems expensive for little.

slow in poe1 is just movement. seems kindof weak.


The passive tree is larger in poe2. about 20%. meaning, in poe1 it takes 9 points to move from witch to templar on the outer ring. its 11 in poe2. inner ring is 11, poe2 13.
everything is like this. CI is further away, MOM is further away.

this will make shrapnel builds not really viable I think. although avatar of fire, resolute tech, and the mace nodes by templar are still in reach, making hammer of the gods/ignite still an ideal option. herald of ash does work for that..

Chronomancer is what inspires me the most. I will certainly be contributing to some theory crafting and mechanics. This class is what brings me back with so much enthusiasm.

Not sure if the info is accurate, but poe2db has Time Snap at a 40 second cooldown. If this is true, this ascendancy is probably not good :( Time Freeze CD is even longer at 65 seconds.

"

aimlessgun#1443 wrote:

"

Tekkar#0132 wrote:

"

monik390#5560 wrote:

- Now and Again + Undbound Encore are key nodes here, since I intend to utilize several skills with Hourglass Support (it is one of the strongest support gems atm):

I'm not sure if you are aware that each support skill can only be used with one single skill across all your skills, so you won't be able to 'utilize several skills' with it. That being said, it is obviously still an incredibly good support gem to use with this ascendancy – it's just a question of which skill is best supported by it.

Yeah given this fact it's not looking great for the Chronomancer, unless there are some really good skills we havn't seen that inherently have a cooldown.

I'm looking through known info and I see very few long CD skills. Like, there's Cluster Grenade and Hammer of the Gods and that's it?

Thank you guys for mentioning it, I wasn't aware of 1 support gem per character thing.

It's true that it messes up with my plans, but while I was writing this thing above, I actually questioned myself where should I put Hourglass support.

So, 3 buttons for frostbolt, ice nova and cold snap, 4 buttons left (w/o ctrl).
Comet, Frost Bomb, Frost Wall, and Time Snap are the other 4 buttons.
Unleash is a must, it goes for the Comet.
Frost Wall and Frost Bomb remain. Depends on which would be stronger.

"

Casia#1093 wrote:

yeah, this is my thinking to try.

frost wall+fortress. possibly hourglass.

need to test how much it explodes for, and what can trigger it reliably.

3 charges on its CD.
so right off the bat, 3 chances for the 33%.

frost bomb I expect to pair with it, with second wind.
2 CD for 33%+33%=55% chance for cd proc at least once.

time snap, giving 4 casts of the CD. 33%x4. which is an 80% chance for the CD to proc at least once.

"Increase limit" does frost wall, or frost bomb have a limit of 1?


frost walls charges, makes me wonder if traps will use the same mechanic and thus be very good for chronomancer.


secondary scaling is a bit ??? atm. heralds don't really work for this, etc. just frost bombs exposure.


Time stop seems pointless. what is it doing regular freeze isn't doing?

time rift ought to be more useful in poe2. less regen, less leech. a giant get out of jail free card, for anything that does not one shot you, to reset your HP back to full should be solid for bosses.

recoup I'm doubtful for. seems expensive for little.

slow in poe1 is just movement. seems kindof weak.


The passive tree is larger in poe2. about 20%. meaning, in poe1 it takes 9 points to move from witch to templar on the outer ring. its 11 in poe2. inner ring is 11, poe2 13.
everything is like this. CI is further away, MOM is further away.

this will make shrapnel builds not really viable I think. although avatar of fire, resolute tech, and the mace nodes by templar are still in reach, making hammer of the gods/ignite still an ideal option. herald of ash does work for that..

I was thinking about Frostfire support on the Flameblast for the heavy ignite, it's the only use of Time Freeze I was considering if Freeze won't win enough time. 50% more cast speed node is a better option here tho.

As it seems, poe 2 is way slower than poe 1, so Slow might be useful. Like for fire/lightning spells or grenades/maces.

"

aimlessgun#1443 wrote:

Not sure if the info is accurate, but poe2db has Time Snap at a 40 second cooldown. If this is true, this ascendancy is probably not good :( Time Freeze CD is even longer at 65 seconds.

Sounds unplayable, but let us log in first. Poe 2 overall is way slower than poe 1 as it seems, so it might feel not that bad.