Chronos Strategy Guide

Item and skill icons taken from HoN wiki. In game images are my own work.

Playing Chronos is an exercise in tedium because Chronos is more or less the definition of 'hard carry'. Unfortunately, this hard carry in particular has no real farming ability and has to autoattack to victory, meaning you're going to spend at minimum 30 minutes farming while hoping that nobody notices you and tries to gank you (even if their gank fails, it delays your farm and mangles your gold/xp/min). He is, however, the hardest carry of them all and once he has his items he will maul everything and everyone.

Chrono's strengths are his built in evasion which can evade any damage at random (even 1250 damage pyro ult shots) and game breaking ult which can turn team battles (and allow him to 1v5 at ease once he has his items).

Chrono's weaknesses are fragility, complete inability to farm, zero lane control, and near total reliance on items to be at all useful in any context.

Stats

Str: 23/+1.4
AGI: 21/+2.65
Int: 15/+1.5
Base Armor: 3.94
Base MS: 300

Nothing special here.

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Skills

TIME LEAP: 120 mana on 13sec cd. Time Leap allows Chronos to leap to your destination point up to 700/900/1100/1300 distance away, and upon landing slow the movement speed of all enemies within 300 units by 10/20/30/40% for 3 seconds. There is a travel time associated with the leap of roughly a half second. This is your pursue and escape skill, and is invaluable at chasing down fleeing enemies and running away from team fights. As with all blink type skills, always attempt to blink in front of the fleeing hero to land a few additional hits.

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REWIND: Passive. Any individual packet of damage Chronos receives has a 10/15/20/25% chance of being completely negated. There is no cooldown on the ability itself but there is a 2 second cooldown on the visual effect. Let me repeat: THERE IS NO COOLDOWN ON THIS ABILITY. This ability does not have the 'evasion' property and stacks with the 30% physical evasion on Wingbow. This ability also (as far as I can tell) is true negation, not the 'instant heal on damage' mechanic on void in dota - taking more damage than you have hp will not kill you if Rewind triggers.

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TIME FREEZE: Passive, two second cooldown. Chronos has a 10/15/20/25% chance on hit to stun his target for 1 second and do 40/50/60/70 additional physical damage. The two second cooldown on this ability is why Chronos compares unfavorably to DotA's Faceless Void, as a Void who stacked IAS early could permabash enemies without a sweat. The 2 second cooldown makes his bash far less useful, but still integral to 1v1s against opposing agility carries and stopping runners.

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CHRONOFIELD: 150/170/200 mana on a 120/110/100sec cd. Trademark skill that breaks games, this skill freezes all non-gadget units other than Chronos in an 800 AoE for 4/5/6 seconds. Frozen units cannot be controlled and are completely incapable of action, but Chronos and units outside the AoE can affect units within the AoE at will. This is one of the best team initiate skills in the game and sets up teamfights in your favor if placed properly; this is a team grief tool and ruins games if it's placed poorly, as it freezes teammates as well. Nearing the end game this skill lets you kill heroes with complete impunity once you have your items.

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Skillbuild

1. Time Leap
2. Rewind
3. Time Leap
4. Time Freeze
5. Time Leap
6. Chronofield
7. Time Leap
8. Rewind
9. Rewind
10. Rewind
11. Chronofield
12. Time Freeze
13. Time Freeze
14. Time Freeze
15. Stats
16. Chronofield
17. Stats to 25

Justification: Despite Chronos having survivability problems, all of his skills are superior to picking up stats early. One level in bash is taken for luck, rewind is maxed early for additional survivability.

The first level in Rewind immediately adds a +10% EHP boost that scales as your own hp and armor improve, with each level afterwards contributing another 5. Bash is not maxed early because you won't be locking anyone down with your base attack speed - it's only when you have eldar parasite that you have sufficient IAS to keep someone locked down, and at that point you're between level 12 and 14 and have sufficient levels in bash to keep someone locked.

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Items

If you're feeling lucky, start with:

Gloves of the Swiftx1 - 500g

3 Runes of the Blightx1 - 90g

No early stats paints a big red target on you for ganks but the earlier you get your Alchemist's Bones, the better. Otherwise, the standard +6 stat loadout applies, so start with:

Pretender's Crownx2 - 370g

Minor Totemx2 - 106g

3 Runes of the Blightx1 - 90g

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Build into:

Alchemist's Bones - (500g) + 1400g
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Fortified Braceletx2 - (185g x2) + 150g x2 + 175g x2 = 650g

Power Supply - 235g+(53g x2)+203g= 544g

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Enhanced Marchers - 500g + 500g + 500g = 1500g
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Eldar Parasite - 900g + 1000g = 1900g

Pick up the alch as soon as you can before anything else, as the earlier you get it the more money it will yield over the course of the game. Collect the rest of the items as soon as you can get them. This is your core loadout, and you'll have 135% total IAS in chronofield with eldar parasite up.

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Keep building:

1x Dancing Dagger + 1x Steamstaff + Recipe => Wingbow, 6000g
Wingbow is the standard carry item and the evasion stacks with Rewind, allowing a total of 47.5% evasion on physical damage.

1x Broadsword + 1x Punchdagger + Recipex4 => Riftshards, 5500g
Crits are always a good thing and the Flayer is excellent damage.

2x Halberd + 1x Slayer => Savage Mace, 5400g
15% IAS, fat damage boost, and more importantly TrueStrike in order to bypass evasions.

The standard carry damage trifecta. At this point you should have zero problems annihilating other agi carries and int heroes in the Chronofield. The trick of course is getting this far in the game and ever actually fielding these items.

Other items


Shieldbreaker - While Wingbow is the better first damage item, a deso augments your all physical damage nicely. Consider picking this up if you can't finish the Wingbow on a timely basis, or after above damage items.

Shrunken Head - This is a great item on all carries, but if you place your Chronofield properly it should be unnecessary. Your goal in team fights is to find their initiators and int control heroes, freeze them, then beat the int control into the ground. Frozen heroes cant sheep you, and bkb delays damage output. This of course changes in higher level comp when enemies are likely to spread out in expectation of your chronofield.


Restoration Orb - Should be taken after everything else, but seals the game if deployed. 12 seconds of uninhibited attacking = 3 or 4 heroes dead.


Daemonic Breastplate - Should be taken over Savage Mace if you have survivability problems in endgame, the 55% IAS and -5 armor provide similar improvements in net damage output.

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Playstyle

Don't die early. Do not die early. Early deaths cripple your alch rush and it is vital you deploy alchemist's bones before the 15 minute mark. Do your best to last hit and deny but if you're up against heroes with superior lane control, play conservatively and tower hug/pull creeps. Preferably lane with a babysitter like Demented Shaman, who can expedite your farming and prevent early game harass.

Shift to neutrals once you have your alchemist's bones, keep alching the most valuable creeps in the 3rd tier camps. It's wise to ward the forest to watch for incoming ganks, as again, early deaths are something you can not afford. Neutral till you have your wingbow, if you have the time.

Once your items are fielded, you become an active carry. Timewalk onto lone enemies, activate the parasite, and autoattack away. There's not much to it. In team fights, maintain distance until you have a good sense of where opposing stunners and disablers are, then immediately walk+chrono that location and execute their disablers. Do your best to synergize with your team and allow them to cast/attack at range on the enemies you have locked down. Rinse and repeat.


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