There are many interesting builds in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0, including a lesser-known Chronomancer build that has recently garnered attention due to its creativity.
This build utilizes Chronomancer's Time Snap ability in synergy with Uhtred's Constellation Support Gem, transforming a notoriously cumbersome, high-cooldown skill into a powerful ability capable of clearing entire screens.
If you're interested in this mysterious build, I'll provide a detailed introduction.
Core Mechanics
In POE 2 gear system, some unique items grant characters special weapon-bound abilities. The Unborn Lich is one such example.
The Unborn Lich has an ability called His Foul Emergence, which summons a skull to rise from the ground and bite enemies, dealing physical and chaos damage and leaving a Withering Ground that inflicts a Withered debuff on enemies standing on it.
However, in POE 2 Patch 0.5.0, its long 8-second cooldown and approximately 2-second casting animation made it cumbersome and inefficient in actual combat. This is why the skill was long considered an unpopular choice.
To address the excessively long cooldown, you need to use a Chronomancer Ascendancy skill called Unbound Encore, which grants player a skill called Time Snap, instantly resetting the cooldowns of all other player skills.
Furthermore, this build can further enhance the attack power of His Foul Emergence. Players need to link Uhtred's Constellation Support Gem to this skill - this Gem allows the supported skill to be cast three times consecutively, while increasing the skill's damage.
Although Gem's downside is that skill's cooldown is halved after all three casts, players can still use Time Snap to instantly reset skill's cooldown, thus mitigating this negative effect.
This is core mechanic of this build: using Uhtred's Constellation to transform His Foul Emergence into a powerful three-hit combo, and resetting skill's cooldown with Time Snap, thus achieving a one-click screen clear.
Amplifying Damage
While this build already deals considerable damage, we can further amplify it to potentially one-shot bosses.
This utilizes Chronomancer's two other Ascendancy Skills:
First, Quicksand Hourglass, which provides Sands of Time buff, granting the player a buff that fluctuates between 60% cast speed and 60% area-of-effect damage;
Second, Inevitability, which grants the character an Inevitable Agony skill, a curse skill and the core of further amplifying damage.
In POE 2 Patch 0.5.0, this skill curses all targets in an area. During the curse's duration, a portion of the damage taken by the targets is stored in the curse debuff. When debuff expires, the targets will again suffer this stored damage.
This allows the skill to unleash a second burst of damage in actual combat, dealing extremely high damage to enemies on the screen, and even instantly killing bosses.
Enhancing Defense
When the damage is high enough, we also need to enhance the build's defense to prevent being instantly killed by enemies.
In POE 2 Patch 0.5.0, this build's defense primarily relies on Uniques and utilizes Chronomancer's skills and mechanics. It mainly consists of three layers:
First Layer of Defense
The first layer of defense comes from the combination of two skills: the buff skill Blasphemy and the curse skill Temporal Chains.
Blasphemy turns the curse into an aura surrounding you, automatically affecting all enemies within range, eliminating the need for manual casting.
Temporal Chains curse significantly reduces enemy movement speed, making them very slow and difficult to hit.
Building upon this, Chronomancer also possesses an Ascendancy Skill called Apex of the Moment, which slows enemies within your area of effect by 20%. This slow effect stacks with Temporal Chains.
The combined effect is: you don't need to do anything; enemies approaching you are automatically slowed, essentially creating a safe zone for yourself.
Second Layer of Defense
The second layer of defense comes from unique item Asenath's Gentle Touch. This item has a special effect that prevents the player from being stunned.
In PoE2, when a character is hit by a monster, they may be stunned, causing ongoing skill casting to be forcibly interrupted. In this state, the character is easily attacked by enemies.
For this build, His Foul Emergence has a casting time of approximately 2 seconds. If character is stunned by a monster during the casting process, it means the casting fails, and the character is put in danger.
Therefore, preventing the character from being stunned is equivalent to increasing their defensive capabilities. Of course, you can also exchange Path of Exile 2 Currency for other equipment with stun prevention effects.
Third Layer of Defense
The third layer of defense consists of Chronomancer's two Ascendancy Skills: Phased Form and Temporal Rift.
Phased Form reduces damage taken by 30%, but at the cost of inflicting 30% damage after being hit, followed by a 30% debuff after 4 seconds.
This is where Temporal Rift comes in. Temporal Rift is a skill Chronomancer acquires through Ascendancy Skill Footprints in the Sand. In Patch 0.5.0, this skill rewinds the character to their position a few seconds prior, restoring their previous state.
This eliminates delayed damage penalty of Phased Form, turning it into a pure damage reduction and defensive skill.
This concludes detailed introduction to a less common Chronomancer build in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0.
It's clear that this build has a high barrier to entry, requiring a sufficient number of uniques and currency. If you lack these, you can follow EZG Facebook; we'll not only continue to bring you game news, but we might also be giving away mystery gifts to our followers in the future.
If you have ample game resources, you can try out this interesting build.
