Chronos thoughts

[Almindor]

I just played a few games with chronos and want to share some thoughts. Note that my current PSR is abysmal and I also have bad death/kill ratio (and yes I'm still a noob). Also, this hero will usually not get kills since he has no nukes so expect more assists than kills.

I concentrate on offense first with him, so build goes:

1. Time leap (escape mechanism and slow to boot)
2. Time freeze
3. Time freeze
4. Rewind
5. Time freeze
6. Chronofield
7. Time freeze
8. Rewind (I want to check if going time leap here might not be better)
9. Rewind
10. Rewind
11. Chronofield
12. Time leap
13. Time leap
14. Time leap
15. stats
16. Chronofield
...

I'm not saying this is best, but it works for me, the rational for time freeze is that you need to farm better and it also is great to get this maxed midgame against heroes, since it's also a defensive offense :D

Itembuild concentrates on attack speed and damage mainly, IMHO enhanced marchers are THE power item here, will explain.

The way I play this guy is to be an annoyance with the right timing and a lot of luring (juking) and disturbing. I noticed that people consider you squishy, but with some armor/heal items you can be quite the "go-back" guy. The goal is to disrupt enemies by making them target you and lose focus when you blink away, heal and get back to action ASAP. The timer on time leap is quite low so you can escape/harass quickly enough in big fights. When you get your ulti it gets all about good timing and placement.

Power marchers are important for this to get you that nick of speed and a nice attack speed bonus to boot. With the time freeze maxed, and a good attack speed you'll get some nice annoyance hits too. Yes I know, there's a 1.5s timeout, but Chronos has NO nuke, so getting a lot of DPS out is a good thing. Endgame the guy can hit quite nicely and keep up with stronger tanks because half of the time they get disabled. And if things don't go ok, just blink out and repeat (mana is no problem here).

Another thing to keep in mind is to never open with chronofield unless you know your team can get a kill fast enough. If it's too close, wait for the better moment, you might save the day.

I find Chronos not too hard to play (just two active skills) and quite a bundle of fun with also some nice DUH moments (like freezing more of your team :D).

[Evil_Andrex]

Rewind is probably one of the best skills for Chronos and probably should be maxed first

[Almindor]

Rewind is probably one of the best skills for Chronos and probably should be maxed first

Possibly, I'd give it a try, but with this build I managed to farm fast enough to get to 6 and get nice income. Also early on, I don't think you need it that much, since heroes don't bite so badly (at least games I played, people start to gank 6+)

[TreeHorse]

Possibly, I'd give it a try, but with this build I managed to farm fast enough to get to 6 and get nice income. Also early on, I don't think you need it that much, since heroes don't bite so badly (at least games I played, people start to gank 6+)

I have an idea for you:

1- time walk
2- rewind
3- rewind
4- bash
5- rewind
6- bash/time walk
7- rewind
8- bash/time walk
9- bash/time walk
10- chronosphere
11- time walk/bash
12- time walk/bash
13- time walk/bash
14- chronosphere
15- stats
16- chronosphere

Can mix in time walk instead of bash (past level 1) if you have strong stun team. The increased range & slow will benefit your ganking/escape utility more than 5% bash chance.

Laning necessities:
-Iron Shield (this combined with rewind will make you VERY resistant to early ranged/melee harass plus help when tanking creeps if you go for a kill. Build or complete it out in the lane since you can buy all the necessary items at side shop)
-Chopping axe gotta get those last hits & denies.
-Mana Battery there will never be an item that saves your life more as Chronos than a Power Supply. And the mana battery is the starting point, combined with your two totems.

If you start the game with 2x +3agi slippers, 2 totems, 1x runes, 1x health pot you should be able to sit in the lane and farm until you have enhanced marchers in the base as well as the other misc items listed above. Finish Iron Shield first then pick up the chopping axe.

Once you've got those, pick up the punchdagger while you're in the lane to help even more with farming. Build at least one soulscream to give some HP/mana and additional agi. Finally, build a Power Supply.

Bottom line it won't benefit you to run around trying to beat heroes' asses early in the game (level 5-11) because you'll end up with no gear when it counts.


A lot of people like the Elder Parasite for Chronos...I am not a big fan. I've never played a game with him and wished I'd bought that instead of building a Slash or equivalent item. I will say that it has its place (if you have strong support and their team has minimal stun/disable).

[Zakariel]

With Chronos, I max Bash and Time Leap, and then Rewind. Maybe if I'm vsing a pyro I'll chuck a couple points into rewind, but not a whole lot.

And not getting kills with Chronos? You have a stun and an aoe stun, and if your hitting fast you can easily get someone to 1/3 of hp and if they get away, ulti. With a warpcleft by lvl 15, you should be able to kill someone in the 2-3 seconds it gives.

By mid-game, Chronos can be a beast. By lategame, Chronos is almost permastunning with Brutalizer and his own bash. With insane speeds, lifesteal and his two stuns, very few heroes want to face a good Chronos, especially since he cuts off escape mechanisms and channeling.

[TreeHorse]

Edited: Please do not feed the trolls.


By mid-game, Chronos can be a beast. By lategame, Chronos is almost permastunning with Brutalizer and his own bash. With insane speeds, lifesteal and his two stuns, very few heroes want to face a good Chronos, especially since he cuts off escape mechanisms and channeling.

Brutalizer does not stack with Chronos' bash, they share a cooldown.

You are right though, he is a very capable late game carry and mid-game gank/teamfight initiator and finisher.

[Almindor]

Edited: Please do not feed the trolls.



Brutalizer does not stack with Chronos' bash, they share a cooldown.

You are right though, he is a very capable late game carry and mid-game gank/teamfight initiator and finisher.

Yes I noticed this. There's a certain threshold of items and after you get the good stuff it's fun time. Even if you don't get kills you will make a nice difference. I also like the fact that some players tend to underestimate Chronos since he has no nukes.

Another thing is survivability. With my usual build I don't get an ubertank out of him, but strong enough to survive some pounding and with his blink and low mana requirements you can get back and hurt them when they expect your team to run (especially if ulti ticks in). IMHO Chronos is a great overextend abuser (e.g: if the other team overextends a push and your team is falling back and you ulti a good hit it's fun time).

[King_Fear]

I wouldn't recommend maxing Rewind early. It does improve your survivability but it holds your offensive power back, making you even more of a useless ricefarmer until late game. Better build would be to max Time Lock and Time Leap first and only getting Rewind after those.

You still have Time Leap (and your ultimate in a tight spot) for improved survivability and you can actually gank people early on.

[TreeHorse]

Yes I noticed this. There's a certain threshold of items and after you get the good stuff it's fun time. Even if you don't get kills you will make a nice difference. I also like the fact that some players tend to underestimate Chronos since he has no nukes.

Another thing is survivability. With my usual build I don't get an ubertank out of him, but strong enough to survive some pounding and with his blink and low mana requirements you can get back and hurt them when they expect your team to run (especially if ulti ticks in). IMHO Chronos is a great overextend abuser (e.g: if the other team overextends a push and your team is falling back and you ulti a good hit it's fun time).

Good points - that is definitely one of his strengths.


I wouldn't recommend maxing Rewind early. It does improve your survivability but it holds your offensive power back, making you even more of a useless ricefarmer until late game. Better build would be to max Time Lock and Time Leap first and only getting Rewind after those.

You still have Time Leap (and your ultimate in a tight spot) for improved survivability and you can actually gank people early on.

I feel that it depends who you're facing :)

Against a team with heavy burst in each lane (most games), I would absolutely max rewind first. Against a team with mainly static damage and roaming burst, you can probably get away with just an iron shield to stave off harassment.

[dune]

I wouldn't recommend maxing Rewind early. It does improve your survivability but it holds your offensive power back, making you even more of a useless ricefarmer until late game. Better build would be to max Time Lock and Time Leap first and only getting Rewind after those.

You still have Time Leap (and your ultimate in a tight spot) for improved survivability and you can actually gank people early on.

Rewind is an absolute must against a competent team. Not only is Chronos a heavily item-dependent hero, but he is also one with a rather sub-par strength gain and is a melee hero on top of that!

All of the above scream 'HARASS ME PLEASE!!!'

Thus, Rewind is an absolute Godsend.

If you are against people who don't realise the above, then you can take Time Lock instead. Time Leap is best left at level one until you can get your other abilities up.

[Scodia]

I'd have to agree with dune_ But when i play chronos. i rarely find myself wishing i had rewind early game, laning with a competent jeraziah also helps alot, hehe.

Having a large initiation range helps and last hitting with practice is quite easy. if you find your being harassed the iron sheild REALLY helps (specially) if u don't have a babysitter with u. my standard build for him would be 2x +3agi / 1-2 Health potions and a mana potion (which i use to support jeraziah's mana pool especially when intending to get a early kill using mixture of harass, and leap/heal.

Item wise early/mid,
is finish off 2/3 soulscream rings (possibly iron shield) if u need (taking away one of the rings, Boots > marchers. Farm Elder parasite, and then its a choice of what your team is doing, I find personally that a mixture of laning and ganking works very well for chronos at lvl11-16 during this time i'm building (wingbow) once u have it, items after depends what you need. This is kinda standard for me.

((i dislike typing in quick reply its hard to look at your post :( sorry if it comes off stupid))

[Gorb]

If you are against people who don't realise the above, then you can take Time Lock instead. Time Leap is best left at level one until you can get your other abilities up.Agreed. I get one level in Time Leap just so I've got the escape mechanism in case of a 2 v 1 gank attempt, and then it's stacking the passives to level 2 each before Chronosphere.

Out of interest, has anybody tried building Chronos by leaving Chronosphere til level 11/12 and maxing out the bash passive and Rewind, and then taking two levels in Chronosphere? Only reason I ask is because Chronos doesn't always do that much damage early-game, and Chronosphere isn't that much of a team gank ability because it locks friendly heroes as well.

[Powerpixel]

Chronos is probably one of the strongest lategame carry, though he's quite item-dependent. Maxing rewind seems a bad idea, it wont help you creeping and besides you already have two perfect escaping mechanisms via leap and even sphere if ganked heavily. Just get Eldar Parasite (MoM) and go woods if having probs laning. ;)

[Powerpixel]

Chronosphere isn't that much of a team gank ability because it locks friendly heroes as well.
Fail man. Great mass dis. Just don't lock your teammates. Great ganking with ranged heroes, they will attack foes from outside the sphere. If ganking with melee, cast sphere to get a foe 'halfly-stuck-in', so youre teammate can keep attacking victim too. Yes, it needs practice, but who cares. Get some easy heroes if using sphere seems to be complicated.

[Avathacis]

I wouldn't recommend maxing Rewind early. It does improve your survivability but it holds your offensive power back, making you even more of a useless ricefarmer until late game. Better build would be to max Time Lock and Time Leap first and only getting Rewind after those.

You still have Time Leap (and your ultimate in a tight spot) for improved survivability and you can actually gank people early on.
Chronos is a late game hero a.k.a carry. Getting extra 100 gold while dieing isn't such a great trade-off for a carry. Not to mention you have to be lol-lucky to make the bash proc decently early-game. If the enemies aren't brain dead they're going to feed off of you.

[SUBS]

played quite a few games with chronos.

my favorite build so far preferably lanning with a ranged/disabler

start
2x pretenders crown
2x runes of blight
1x mana potion

take 1 level in leap
level up bash (maybe put 1 point in rewind)

buy Attack speed items, normally take gloves of the swift first and 2 duckboots (+10 agi, +15 attack speed) followed by punch dagger

which u then combine to 2x Soulscream ring's
enhanced marchers

then start working on elder parasite.

followed by wing bow, steam staff first, followed by dancing blade - again attack speed.

next 2 items take in which ever order u feel nessecary, Shrunken Head/Thunder Claw (name?), 70 Attack speed, 24 damage & 20% (+20% on CD) chance to do 200 magic dmg on attack (awesome with elder parasite and chronsphere)

then to finish up, very unlikely u can buy a 6th item - take either True strike mace, if youve got a hard enemy carry with wingbow/evasion, or if not take riftshards, more likely tho this will be taken up by token of life as by the time you've got half a wingbow you've been able to solo him, perma bash

reasoning, assuming your lv25 with the items i said previous you'll be attacking @ 0.5~ without parasite active, and critting over 1k








as far as ive seen this is pretty much the best item build, there are others but they just don't compare to the synergy this setup has.

not well written i know but it's not a full guide.

[Nawzir]

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/6269/shot0019o.jpg

[bartmasta]

alch bones anyone?