am I doing chronomancer wrong or is it just too early?

[Insane_Insomniac4]

I recently unlocked chronomancer, let him build up a 9 hour run while I was off at work, got back and he's all "I compressed 10 years worth of time this run aren't I a good time mage?". basically just spammed for max time distortion + wormhole, with synth entity and a few other spells to maybe help?
then I switch back to prodigy and reckless autocasting KKB is just casually skipping millennia per second...I get it's not quite the same thing, but it makes me feel like I did chrono wrong...

[pac230]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying, because Prodigy doesn't skip time. But I think you mean that your Prodigy is outperforming your Chronomancer in terms of mana output?

This isn't that unusual -- Prodigy is a very solid class. It generally has a dip where Chronomancer becomes stronger than it, but then once Quasi-Incantation becomes viable it gets better again.

On the other hand, there might be some things you can do to improve the performance of your Chronomancer.

It sounds as though you were successful in doing a build-up phase for Chronomancer, skipping time and using Synthetic Entity to collect voids. Note that you can also use Pixie as a pet during this phase to get auto-clicks (most other sources of auto-clicks don't benefit from time-skips, but those from pets do, so you can power-level your Pixie and get the equivalent of 10 years' worth of her auto-clicks towards your XP). Of course, you can also power-level the pet you want to use for production, probably Golem/Anima Construct.

However, to get the best mana production with Chronomancer, you want to stop Wormholing to skip time and set your spells up more conventionally: a void build-up phase with Void Radiance; and a mana production phase running your strongest incantations.

Depending on your items and your optimisation, this may or may not outperform Prodigy, but many players swear by Chronomancer at that stage of the game.

Edit: BTW, expect to have this experience again as you unlock the remaining T1 classes: broadly speaking, they *do* get stronger as you go from left to right, but only if you have the right items, set-up and optimisation. Even then, the difference may not be dramatic, except within certain 'sweet spots' for a class (e.g. when they reach a strong new spell/upgrade): the leftmost T1 classes do continue to be viable too.

[JazzyJ]

I don't see Time Helix mentioned here. This is your biggest profit buildup spell.

Your startup is wormhole, and distort time along with RoP and Synth Entity. Cycle through the pets - Simulacrum to max sources, Pixie for autoclicks, Archivist to max entities.

Then you begin the actual buildup phase. Drop Synth Ent and Distort time for Superposition and Time Helix. If you are running Chrono at very low mysts you may need to change your pet to Geode to spam Time Helix. Try casting it once with Archivist - if the spell disappears from the bar then you need Geode. Once you have enough mysts to not need Geode you should stick with Archivist to max your Evo efficiency to give you more skipped time. The 3 incantations you are building don't benefit from Incant Eff during this phase. This is your longest phase.

Once you have finished with buildup, re-run the startup phase with Pixie and Archivist. Then change to Risen Giant - this will be your burst pet. Distort Time will level him up fast and Wormhole will skip his game time. You want to get his game time to over 14 days.

Next is preburst - drop Wormhole and your accumulated spells and replace them with Void Lure and Void radiance along with Stabilize the Flow. Do NOT case StF yet! This phase should only take about 1-2 minutes.

Once VM has maxed, turn off Distort Time and SB (in that order), immediately cast StF. Then change to the burst spellset - SB, Superposition, Converge Timelines, RoP, GR, StF. Cast everything with SB last. Profit.

All of this is detailed in the build guide on the wiki. With regards to gear, aim for Evo gear for startup and build up. VM and Incant gear for preburst. Change to Incant and time distortion before casting StF.

[Insane_Insomniac4]

yeah, so partly I remember the days from many updates past on Kong where everyone said chronomancer was OP...which I suppose probably isn't true anymore...and partly just the time scaling on the spells, like chronomancer is literally THE time guy, he gets years worth of time compression...over several hours...but then here's bog standard prodigy and his one more or less time related skill KBB is OP in comparison. I got a few more exile's down the road and I'm earning MILLIONS of years worth of mana per cast. sure it doesn't get the spells cast counter up or the xp from pet clicks/whatever, but it gets me e4~e5 jumps in mysts from ~30 min runs. compared to that chronomancer's time skip spell was skipping...a totally pathetic ~2 minutes per cast, sure it'd prob skip more now, but unless I'm missing something big I doubt it's gonna beat out prod any time soon

[Insane_Insomniac4]

and to Jazzy, I didn't have the levels to cast Time Helix even after a 10 hour build up...that's part of the reason I swapped back to Prod

[pac230]

Sounds like you are at a stage of the game where Prodigy can do very strong short runs. Check out Chronomancer again when it slows down.

(But I am still confused as to why you think Black Beam is a time spell. :? I suppose it's because it says 'earns x time units of production'? Most evocations say that, but they're not time spells. What Chronomancer does is quite different.)

[JazzyJ]

Yeah, most classes aren't so great as soon as you unlock them. Best to keep running with what is working until it slows down. Interesting you are getting so much out of Prodigy in short runs. Have you tried Voidmancer?

[Insane_Insomniac4]

I've done some voidmancer runs, they're decent but a bit slower, prod with warg is really strong for me now, it's pushed me through several paragon levels, and got even stronger with evocation boosting gears...I...uh...yes yes, I supported the devs...so I had a fair bit of dust for initial crafting/upgrades