Chromie guide!
These are my thoughts and advice for Chromie as a madman who’s currently level 464 as Chromie.
But first of all, a little warning: Massive wall of text incoming.
A second warning: This build can be considered to be a build meant for better Chromies.
Alternatively you can go for this build and aim for the stars, believing in yourself that you will get this down and then wreck your enemies asunder with sand.
Why play Chromie?
Some might ask themselves (or others): Why should I play Chromie? Why not just play Jaina or KT, who are mages with strong burst with more waveclear?My answer to that is that Chromie is a teamplay MONSTER. Chromie’s Time Traps are very useful for yourself but also allies in regards to both defense and offense. Chromie excels even more with a strong team that knows what they’re doing.
Chromie’s Time Traps, especially once you’re level 18, is a very powerful backline defense tool for both you and the other backline such as the Support. It allows for more aggressive positioning and they can use them to bait in enemies for you or just in general.
Chromie is also a Burst mage as well as a sustained damage mage. Long, extended teamfights is very beneficial for Chromie once she has her level 14 Shifting Sands talent to stack up damage which gives her stronger and stronger sustained damage with Sand Blasts which can in one instant turn into dreadful burst damage with a Time Trap activation or by using Temporal Loop.
The longer a teamfight lasts, the more likely you are to get Time Trap combos off and the more you can get to stack Shifting Sands. Most other mages don’t benefit from extended Teamfights the way that Chromie does.
I go completely full time traps. All the talents for time traps that there are.
Level 1 talent: Mounting Sand OR if an invisible opponent, Timewalker's Pursuit.
Or if the enemy team consists of an Abathur + mobile/teleporting/steal th heroes such as Li Ming, Tracer or Zeratul can make it excrusiatingly difficulty to accumulate consecutive hits in a game without healers or tanks, in this situation it might preferable to get Timewalker’s Pursuit.
I choose this talent because the primary source of damage a Chromie unleashes is through Sand Blast, and the 50% additional damage on Sand Copy’s Sand Blasts is a strong bonus for a skill that you should preferably be casting every 3~~ seconds in a teamfight.
Your primary focus in the early parts of the game should be to complete the Q quest. To that effect, standing at max range or standing behind vision-blocking terrain or inside bushes makes it a lot easier to hit your Q’s, as they can’t see it coming and therefore cannot dodge. Remember to place a Time Trap for self defense purposes as well as surprise combo on them in case they have a mobility hero that is likely to try and jump you at some, such as Yrel, Muradin, Genji and so on. Furthermore using both Q and W in one combo attack is something you should only do for ult / time trap combos / when the enemy is CC’ede or being chased by your team since W is incredibly easy to dodge if there’s nothing else going on, and throwing the W will just reveal where the Q is likely to land. Alternatively, throw the W, then throw Q towards the side, “guiding” them towards your Q. If there isn’t any particularly CC going out during a fight, then throwing Q --> W --> Q makes it so your opponent has to dodge 3 different spells in a short amount of time.
A way to attempt to get more Sand Blast hits in is to aim in the “general direction” of enemy heroes rather than a specific target, as in focus primary on just hitting something than someone specific. Once a hero has been lowered enough you can start focusing on sniping them. The starting team battle that often occurs at a start of a match is a very good chance to get lots of hits in, by throwing your sand blasts at an angle where most enemy heroes are. In a team battle they have even less time to focus on dodging your hits.
Furthermore there is a mistake a lot of Chromies do (imho), which is using combo as a surprise gank on people laning. Using Dragon’s Breath reveals chromie for 1-2 seconds if there are enemies nearby which allows them to see the combo incoming(They might also hear the sound, can’t remember), to which most dodge if they’re paying even slight attention. If you use Sand blast first, it’s almost a guaranteed hit on some guy chilling on the lanes or generally not moving much. Following up immediately with a W has, in my experience, been much more succesful at hitting both spells in this manner.
This method of controlling their movements with Q and W’s not thrown at the same time can be very strong when trying to finish enemies rushing to their own gate. They will often dodge away from the gate, giving more time for your team to attack them, but since you aren’t throwing both damaging skills at the same time so will they have to either wait more outside gate while being smashed by your team or rush in and eat the attack.
Level 2 talent: Timely Surprise
This talent allows every single Time trap detonation to be a potential combo bomb. It helps with both the Sand Blast and Dragon’s Breath, since being even 0.5 seconds late on a sandblast can result in a miss / dodged.
A tip for landing time trap combos is to pretty much throw the combo the instant you see it detonate. Time trap freezes for 2 seconds, so the most ideal time to throw a combo on it is after 0.7 seconds (0.2 seconds later on Sand Blast due to the reduced cast time on Q). Throw sand blast sliiiiiighty later if you’re standing in melee range.
But just the general trap-reset isn’t the only reason to go for it. With this talent, you can kill nearly any DPS / healer solo using Temporal Loophole. The only ones who can escape are the disjointing/UNSTOPPABLE types like Tracer, Genji, Alex, Garrosh etc (both Alex’s flying ulti and dragonform disjoints Temporal Loophole).
By using the Time Trap on top of Temporal Loop together with the talent resetting CDs, if timed correctly, allows for two combos on one person in a very short time frame. I’ve killed a Tychus in Odin form (+25% armor if I recall) from full health to zero while an Ana using Eye of Horos couldnt heal him because he died too quick. (This was during infinity quest. Can’t remember how many stacks.)
When done correctly, the person who is targeted by this is killed, technically, within 0.2 seconds~~, if you discount the time he is in stasis.
I’d imagine that Practice mode / try mode with no CDs enabled would be a great way to get the timings down.
Furthermore there are unintended strong benefits of using the double combo ultitrap. For example, let’s say you use Loop on Cassia. A nearby Alezstrasa would naturally use Abundance on top of Loop ulti. But rather than healing him, the Abundance will go through during the stasis, thus awarding no heal. The same can happen for heroes such as Lucio
A proper explanation of how to do this double combo ultitrap I speak of:
Temporal Loop takes 3 seconds to teleport a person back there. Most novice Chromies know to use their combo the second the clock passes the half point, in other words, 1.5 seconds in. (And a tiny bit later on sandblast in case very close range). The ideal time to place the time trap is 1.25 seconds in(or 5:30 on the clock visual), slightly before you blast off your combo. This makes it so that Time Trap is armed .25 seconds after Loop teleports the poor victim.
With the cast time reduction on Sand Blast the time to throw your combo has changed slightly. Therefore, throw W when the clock reaches halfway point, then wait 0.2 seconds and throw Q.
Using the double combo ultitrap when you have 2 consecutive hits on Sand Blast is a good way to secure 6+ on the quest as well.
Time trap double combo does have the glaring weakness that the range of Time trap is significantly shorter than the damage spells (improved by 33% by the Timely Surprise talent), which means you’ll need to get closer than preferable to use it.
When using Loop at max range so is the range perfect; The loop max range cast is exactly in range for you to run in and place time trap at a perfect timing. However the tiniest of slows or weird pathing and you wont make it in time.
Use it at a time when the enemy is either plenty occupied or in a situation where they can’t rush into you, or exclusively as a ganking tool on anyone who roams about. It is a very powerful punishing tool against roamers who are overextending thinking that “you cannot kill them from 100% to 0% alone.”
Level 5 talent: Chrono Sickness
This talent is very important. The cooldown reduction, the mana reduction and the slow are all powerful assets that you need. The mana part is really useful as well, especially when you have 3 time traps at level 18+.
Even the slow is incredibly powerful. 35% slow for 4 seconds. When an enemy pops a trap, it gives your team 2 seconds to close in and prepare to murder the unlucky victim AND is slowed by 35% as well.
The slow makes it much easier to hit a second Sand Blast on him as well.
I often see people choose Time Trap talents for level 2 and not pick this one, the level 5 one and then also pick the level 18 time trap talent.
I spoke with one who was under the impression it was a crutch talent – Similar to Kel’Thuzad’s level 13 talents where he has two choices for Chains, one being “Slowed by 60% after chaining” or “Reduce CD on Chains when you succesful chain someone to iceblock or another hero”. Here you can figure out that the slow is nice if you’re learning Kel’Thuzad as it helps ensuring a proper combo, but is something you don’t need once you have mastered Kel’Thuzad to some extent and can reliably get the combo off without the slow, making the reduced CD a much more ideal talent.
Chrono Sickness is not like that, however. Chrono Sickness’ Slow, cooldown reduction and reduced mana cost are all really useful. As a Chromie, particularly a Time Trap Chromie, so is your Time Trap a very strong defensive or offensive utility. If you do not pick the talent, you can easily end up without a Time Trap for 18 seconds in case it gets hit by coincidental AE the moment you place it or if the enemy heroes AA it down. And being without a Time Trap makes you vulnerable.
The low cooldown is also a very useful when a TF moves back and fourth in an area – you could end up placing a Time Trap defensively against their Zera or so, only for the fight to move away from that area, leaving you without a time trap for 10 seconds~~ until it is ready again.
You could also end up in a situation where you have an ideal chance to use Temporal Loop, but because of Time Trap is still on cooldown, you don’t have a chance to use the double combo ultitrap.
The slow addition to the Trap also really helps allies finish off targets or escape from targets. Or for yourself to escape a target that has been Time Trapped.
There is also the synergy between this talent and the level 18 Andorhol Anomaly. There is a BIG difference between having 3 Time Traps on a 9 or 18 second cooldown.
Level 8 talent: Temporal Loop.
For previously mentioned reasons.
If the enemy has something along the lines of a Medivh+Healer with cleanse, Slowing Sands could be a good alternative for once.
Level 11 talent: Here and There.
Naturally this talent isn’t something to take if you aren’t close to completing the main quest.
But once you get a hang of Chromie then you’ll be completing the quest at level 7-8, atleast in normal healer/tank games. QM games without tanks and healers will make it much more difficult to get sand blasts hits in since all the fights are going to be rather short and the mid-laning fight will quickly become a cautious poke battle where they have to retreat if you get a few hits in. Add in Abathurs and stealthers and you’ll have a hard time getting hits on Q at all.
Alternatives
In case I’m not done with the quest so do I usually always go for Bye Bye!, as a late game roaming Chromie with 3 time traps that can escape in 1.25 seconds is quite dreadful. Although this usually only happens in QM healer/tank-less games. And is also only a preferable talent to go for in healerless/tankless games as you abandon the fight when you use Bye Bye.
Although on Towers of Doom so do I at times go Bye-bye in case the enemy doesn’t have much stun/interrupt as you can return to the battle rather quick with the tunnel 12~ minutes into the game.
But in the case of stealth enemies (except samuro) so do I go for the Time Out as a Nova, Zeratul or Valeera can sneak up on you even if you’re staying way behind, surrounded by traps, and drop you quickly. At the same time so is it a risk for them because if they trigger a trap while trying to flank you, then they will be extremely exposed for an easy turn for your team. If you notice patterns in how the enemy stealth moves, for instance a Nova who primarily engages by running around so he can get really behind you, then place traps in the outlying paths. In some places where it’s tight so can you place a trap so they must activate trap in order to close in, and if they do activate trap, it’s their death. I’ve had a great number of stealthers die because they ran into a time trap while roaming, and the 2 second stasis and the slow gives ample time for teammates to catch and maim the person.
Time Out is a good talent if your team is slow to assist you or bad at spotting and keeping stealth(mainly Nova) away from you. Although still very useful against a Nova as her full combo with Precision ultimate can easily kill Chromie or bring you down to miniscule health. After Time Out’ing, following immediately up with Timewalker’s Pursuit so you can make sure which is the real Nova and using Loop double combo on her is an effective counter, particularly as the Nova will probably be quite badly positioned since she was sneaking behind your team/flanking and support wont be able to arrive in time to save her.
Personally I’m not a fan of Time Out as it’s very reliant on your team to get you out of your predictament while forcing them to win a 4v5 fight during those 5 seconds or you’re dead. I primarily use it to avoid some crazy burst or against a Pyroblast KT.
Against Zeratul and Valeera; standing on top of a time trap whenever you expect to get attacked by them is a great counter. If a Valeera uses Garrote on you, but you have a time trap behind you, it means you’ll be silenced but she wont be able to do any damage at all during her silence and she will be extremely exposed to your team. If she has smoke bomb, use Loop on her; smoke bomb doesn’t prevent Loop, but will give armor, but assuming you get off your combo so can it be a deathsentence most of the times.
I mainly suggest going Time Out in more unusual cases, such as games where you have to deal with an insane dive always targeted at you, such as getting Tyrael and Illidan charging ulties with a Tracer or other, where you’d get destroyed before you team has a chance to peel or heal. The common strategy against Chromie is to ‘dive her’, but time traps helps destroying those who would dive you, but in the case of bothersome direct and unavoidable dives such as Tyrael and Illidan charge, who will soak time traps and continue to charge, combined with other divers who were just waiting for an oppurtunity, such as a Genji and Tracer, then Time Out can be quite useful. The other alternative is to not use any Sand Blasts with the talent Here and There and wait for them to use their charges so you can disappear and rejoin fight. (Leave sand clone moderately close)
Time out is also useful to disjoint Butcher’s Charge. However, Time Traps are pretty effective against him since you lead him into Time Traps, which not only allows your team more time to come and assist you, but also allows you to get a combo off. Leading a Butcher’s Charge into 3 time trap and combo’ing off each one of them is truly hilarious).
Benefits of Here and There
Mana mana manaHere and There also has the useful function as a way to get full mana(or health), as you can throw a sand blast to leave a clone, hearthstone, teleport to clone and be right back where you were. This isn’t as an important an aspect as it used to be; the changes to Chromie buffed her mana sustain tremendously. Even more so with Timewalker’s Pursuit. I’ve had games where I didn’t have to return to base even once to get mana back. Does depend on the length of teamfights, naturally.
It has A LOT of applications. Baiting a Hero into a Time Trap, then teleporting to a Copy
Surprise!
Here and There can also be used to create powerful ambushes. Place 3 time traps somewhere, leave sand clone and go away. Someone activates a time trap and you can instantly teleport in and drop a bomb on em, and if you have 3 time traps, then if they step into a second one they can be often considered quite dead.
Illidan and Zeratuls out there… be careful!
With Here and There so can you seriously mess with Zeratul and Illidan assuming they go for the correct talents. Leave sand clone in base (with a few time traps), go out, find Zeratul, bait out that singularity spike and teleport instantly and the Zeratul may teleport back with you. If they don’t have Seeker in the Dark talent, which they seldom do these days, sadly, then try to bait out an AA then teleport.
Illidan’s hunt can be used in the same way, although there are some criteria:
if you teleport outside of his range (before level 20 upgrade, if they actually go for that), then Illidan’s hunt will simply cancel. And if you teleport after Illidan’s Hunt has started making him fly, then he will wind up where you were and not where you teleport to.
Video example of Illidan getting bamboozled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUEbjBslPwoNot this time, Garrosh!
Here and There is also useful to instantly get back in case you get Hooked / Garroshed’d, dragon knight punted and so on.
Here and There can be used to escape in both short distances and long distances. Suddenly disappearing even small distances can save you from enemies and confuse them greatly. This can also buy time for your Time Traps to arm, or place new ones, or for healers and tanks to assist you and peel a bit.
If for instance you find yourself in a bad situation where a gank or chase suddenly emerges behind you, or a TF went south, then you can run away from them into enemy territory, making them follow you. If you can buy enough distance, particular if you place a few traps on a path they have to walk, then you can teleport to clone and escape.
There aren’t many people who play Chromie and even fewer who takes Here and There talent so the likelihood of one of the gankers staying around your sand clone “in case he teleports” is very small.
If you always leave a Sand Clone in a safe space, then Chromie can roam around without much danger unless you get completely locked down (ETC ulti, octograb, long silences).
Here and There can also be useful as powerful distraction. Say for instance that Raven Tribute is spawning, then place traps at tribute and a clone and leave. Find enemy team and run in a ‘stupid’ way that would normally put you into a dead end and make them follow you and teleport back to clone when necessary. This can either make them split up in case only 1 chases you and the rest goes for tribute, causing you to suddenly turn the 4v4 fight into 4v5 instead. Or if plenty chases you, free tribute without a loss or turning the fight in 5v3 for your team.
Level 14 talent: Shifting Sands
I can see that Quantum Overdrive is attractive when using double combo ultitrap, considering you can get 25% damage on the double combo. But shifting sands can go up to 40% and with Time trap talents so will you be throwing out a lot more combos. If you get up to 40% damage bonus on the talent, and one of their squishies runs into a trap, then it’s almost certain doom for that person.
The buff lasts 10 seconds and is reapplied upon hitting, which means that as long as you hit 1/3 of your sand blasts then you can keep the power flowing, and in late game team battles so is it easier to keep it rolling.
Furthermore, and thanks to Kelsier’s analyzing and testing of certain mechanics, the buff of Shifting Sands is applied upon hitting a Sandblast, not after. This means that once you have this talent, your Sand Blasts permanently does 8% more damage, and the second shot 16%, third 24%, fourth 32% and fifth has 40% added damage, assuming you hit them within 10 seconds of eachother.
A pretty nice bonus to the talent.
Level 18 talent: Andorhal Anomaly
Congratulations. At this point, all your melee opponents and even Tracers and Genjis will fear you. Position yourself right, remember to always place time traps. With 3 charges and 9 second cooldown so can you keep rolling them out.
Additional advice, tricks and tips:
Quickcast?
Having Quickcast enabled makes it easier to hit Time Trap combos and more importantly, the double combo ultitrap. Not having to click left mouse button when you're doing an R-E-W-Q-W-Q makes a big difference.My quickcast is as such:
Sandblast - On Release
Dragon’s Breath - On
Time Trap - On
Temporal Loop - Off.
It’s not really necessary to have it on Temporal Loop and it’s important to choose the right target so I prefer to not have it on Quickcast.
I have Sandblast ‘On Release’ so you can see the range and change direction before firing it and so you also have the oppurtunity to not cast it, if you quickly realize that casting it makes you too vulnerable at some point in time.
If you’re a complete beginner with Chromie it might be an idea to wait a bit before you add Quickcast so you can get accustomed to the ranges involved.
Zeratul and Mephisto... your time is at an end!
A fun aspect of Temporal Loop regardless of whether you intend to time trap it or not is that it can counter Mephisto or Zeratul, if he goes for level 7 Wormhole, greatly.
When Mephisto or Zeratul uses their Shade of Mephisto/Wormhole respectively, pop Loop on them. Their intent with their spells is to go into what is normally very dangerous place for a short period and then disappear, but if you pop Temporal Loop on them, then they will go right back into the center of where your team is… and they just burned their defensively cooldown.
It’s hilarious every time. It can effectively make it so that a Mephisto can never use his Shade of Mephisto if his team is lacking in Cleanses.
Trap placements
Placing a time trap on top of gates is surprisingly effectively. Once minions are at the gates, place a time trap. You need the minions there so towers don’t focus the trap. People are incredibly bad at noticing a time trap at the gate even if they are right behind it or they trigger it intentionally, thinking it’s not that dangerous. Furthermore it can also be used as a way to block the optimal escape path for enemies who are outside.
Furthermore Time traps can be used to eat tower fire if necessary, similar to normal minions. Once level 18 with 3 time traps so can one potentially tank a keep with nothing but time traps. A single time trap can take 3-4 hits from a keep depending on your current level and with 3 charges on an 8 second cooldown allows you to tank a keep indefinitely, assuming they aren’t destroyed by enemy Heroes.
You can also use the double combo ultitrap on someone who is behind enemy gate with towers up. The Time Trap can survive fort/keep fire and be armed in time. Naturally it’s easier to counter in this situation since the fort/keep helps with killing the Time Trap, but people are really really really bad at focusing the Time Trap when they get Looped. The number of people who have intentionally taken out the Time Trap, whether with spells or AA’s, is probably below 10~.
Just recently I used it on a Raynor who was next to a fort. If he had done a single AA on the Trap, it would have been destroyed, since Fort was attacking Trap, but he didn’t so he ended up very dead.
Placing time traps in the open in front of enemies isn’t necessarily a bad idea, particularly in bigger fights or even just normal laning. Some people are forgetful, stupid, arrogant or didn’t pay attention to it, and depending on team comp so can a time trap be a kill if you’ve got a good stitches or garrosh ready for it, or other heroes ready to land a combo such as Li Ming or Zuljin Guilotine. I’ve even had plenty of kills on melee heroes who go to auto attack the time trap but end up activating it instead.
People will often AA the Time Traps you place allowing for you to get in a Q.
Furthermore having a Garrosh on your team is incredibly powerful as Garrosh can throw enemies directly into your time traps, making your life easier and the enemies life a horrible nightmare. You think getting tossed was bad? Try getting tossed into a time trap allowing Garrosh’ team 2 seconds to get onto him +guaranteed combo from chromie + 35% slow for 4 seconds.
A Stitches’ hooking or gorging an enemy and dropping them on Time Traps is also pretty fun.
In a 1v1 situation against a melee character who is going to attack you, a very strong strategy is ‘face off’ against him, make him rush you, and use time trap right in front of yourself and then immediately throw combo. Assuming this person isn’t very low healthed then he will trade, eating up the combo so he can get at you during your ‘vulnerable moment of throwing a sand blast’, not expecting the time trap. This can turn around situations something fierce against typical melee fighters like Greymane and Thrall.
You can use the trap to control the movement of an enemy at times. Say for example a Thrall goes at you just to be trapped and combo’d — suddenly he is fleeing. At this point you should place a trap in the path that he will take to run back and time it as such that it’ll be armed by the time he reaches that spot – this will force the enemy to steer around it, making a much more predictable movement from the thrall to hit another Q, as well as making the thrall take a longer route to escape (not much, but it can make a difference if you’ve got an ally who’s also going on the thrall).
Save your Shots
When an enemy Hero with an instant-type teleport skill or similar activates a time trap, then it is wise to not throw full combo on it as they’ll dodge it in 99% of the cases. These heroes include Li Ming, Tracer, Genji(deflect) etc. Heroes who are in Stasis can queue up their next skill, I believe. I’ve seen Li Mings and Tracers who get time trapped and a Stukov or Malfurion either Lurky armed / rooted on top of the Time Trap, but the Li Ming/Tracer could teleport/blink out before they were affected by the root/silence. I suggest using Sand Blast for the time trap and a Dragon’s Breath following right after. This’ll make it much more likely that you’ll hit the Dragon’s Breath, as it becomes considerably easier to hit on someone who’s just used his teleport and is 35% slowed.
Furthermore not throwing the W on the Time Trap on said enemies, particularly against something like Dehaka, is more likely to land as they will either just soak it or they wont see your Q coming if you are out side their vision.
Your nemesis'
The worst enemies for Chromie / Time trap Chromie as a whole is probably Nova, Tassadar, Murky, Li Ming, Anub’arak and Azmodan.
Although Tassadar is only really a problem in a good team. And while his shields are useful, later game they don’t help much. Tassadar is only quite squishy himself and if he ends up in a Trap with his E on CD, he will take A LOT of damage even if he shields himself.
Hanzo can also be a bit troublesome.
Hanzo is quite annoying as he has his Sonic Arrow that will reveal time traps while at the same time he’s a long ranged assassin like Chromie but with baseline escape ability and isn’t immobile while shooting. His weakness is that he’s squishy and has no self defensive against Double Combo Ultitrap. With Tassadar’s vision ability so can he reveal all time traps in a massive radius, allowing them to dodge the traps and get rid of them. Murky can reveal in similar way with Fish Eye egg talent as well as the fact that he can somewhat leisurely walk into traps, since he can activate Time Traps while invulnerable or simply activate it after triggering a Time Trap and can go and soak more Time Traps while invulnerable, since his Invulnerable doesn’t expire while time trapped… Other heroes such as tracer with instant-move abilities make it difficult to land time trap combos, as even 0.1 second late can allow them to teleport out.
Nova will be an annoying lady as always and use decoy on your time traps which will probably trick your teammates and waste your trap CDs. She will also use her Decoys to block your Q shots from others in dangers (particularly when you ult), but if anything you can level your Q quest on her decoys. You can also try to catch her roaming with Timewalker’s Pursuit and drop the double combo ultitrap on her.
In a weird way so is Abathurs Monstrosity also a threat to Chromie, as it does not count as a hero and therefore cannot activate time traps or even be hit by Sand blasts. Abathur’s healing on Monstrosity is also superior to Chromie’s PvE damage. But stay away from the monster, as there isn’t much you can do as a Chromie vs a Monstrosity. Focus on clearing the minions if anything. But be careful; Aba monstrosity walks quicker than an unmounted Hero, so he can easily chase you down and force you to Bye-Bye or Here and There out of there.
Abathur is generally also a pain due to him not being around in most parts of fights(aside from copies that usually just charge in suicidally), making it harder to get Sand Blast hits in.
Cho’gall can also be problematic due to his constant spray of AoE abilities that can unintentionally destroy traps as well as the fact that a Cho’gall means 1 less body to hit with Q’s, and cho’gall has his own reveal drone to detect traps with. He lalso has a Stasis ability at 16 to block Double Combo Ultitrap.
Medivh’s shielding can be pretty troublesome but I can’t find it in my heart to call him a counter to Chromie. At best you’ll just have to make sure that you don’t use ultimate until after Medivh has used his shield on someone else.
Chromie can royally screw up Medivh’s team. Medivh places a portal. Place time trap on portal. Whoever takes it is doomed. While it would seem that ideally Medivh can protect his allies from your time trap bombs with his shield so doesn’t it happen much as his timing has to be superior to yours, which happens less and less the better your timing gets. He can easily protect himself though as he can just queue up his shield on himself while time trapped.
Li Ming can easily set up a combo on you if she plays smart while you wind up a Q and she can always avoid time trap combos with teleport. Her Wave Of Force can interrupt your Bye-Bye’s or Sand Blasts.
She also has her own spell armor talent that will make her take overally less damage, Force Armor.
Azmodan is a real pain as well. He can throw Q’s from far away that will chunk a large portion of your health away and will destroy any time traps they happen to hit in the large area that is his Q. A smart Azmodan will stay away from close combat and just fire Q’s from a distance. It is also difficult to dodge his Q’s if he simply throws them at the same time you’ve started to throw a Sand Blast.
Anub’arak is a troublesome bug; spellshields, a movement ability and Cocoon.
If you have control over the banning in a draft, my suggested bans would be Anub’arak, Li Ming and Azmodan. In my opinion they’re the biggest problem a Chromie can face.
Tracer and Genji & the likes aren’t that troublesome as they are countered by simply staying with your team. A time trap can completely screw them over and force out their long-cooldown defensive abilities which make them vulnerable to Time Trap Double Combo.
A good Zeratul can also be troublesome, but he can be messed up by Time Traps pretty easily and you can really mess him up by Temporal Looping him after he Blinks in using Wormhole, since he just burned his teleport. Against a Zeratul you will have to be cautious of seperating from either your team or your Time Traps.
The strongest allies
As far as what heroes that goes best with Chromie, so is Malfurion or Ana really strong together with her. Ana’s Nano Boost, while a really strong ability can often turn out to bear no fruits. It either requires the Ana to know when to use Nano or for you to have proper communication and you can call out for it. A typical scenario is that the Ana simply Nano’s you randomly when most of the enemy aren’t being CC’ede and they’re all a decent distance away, so the moment they see Nano they simply run away and you wont be able to hit anything.
Malfurion can constantly provide mana to Chromie, allowing her to shoot way more Q’s, getting more hits, as well as Innervate giving a cooldown boost during it’s duration and Malfurion having an easy time rooting enemies that got time trapped. Ana is strong as she can set you up for a combo if she hits her sleep assuming it doesnt get broken by someone else.
Furthermore Chromie is strong with Ana since Chromie and Ana will be at the same range in the backline and Chromie can in turn help Ana, safeguarding her with traps and a sudden ult if some angry pup gets too close. Also since in 95% of cases so will Chromie be the one to be focused, giving the Ana more freedom. And if it’s Ana being focused, then you can assist by barraging the ones chasing and placing a Time Trap to help Ana escape.
A sleep dart is also a potential double combo trap, assuming it doesn’t get broken prematurely. But this is difficult to pull off as it requires the target to not have sleep getting broken by anything and you need to be in proper range when sleep is applied.
Like previously mentioned, Garrosh. His throws into time traps is priceless, as well as the fact that he’s a strong tank with excellent peel.
Stitches can be fun as he can Gorge an enemy hero and drop them directly on top of a time trap.
Valeera could be another choice. If both Valeera and Chromie are capable and have good teamwork, then Valeera stun timed with Chromie combo will devastate even without time trapping.
Furthermore Valeera is a counter to many of the heroes that are troublesome or annoying to Chromie such as Tracer, Li Ming, Genji and Hanzo, which can make her an ideal choice if they counter you. And Valeera is an excellent finisher for Heroes you bring down to low(er) health over time in a TF.
Li ming can make good use of time traps to land her own skillshots with.
A Butcher can also be ideal. You can easily land a combo on a target that Butcher is charging since there isn’t a stun in the game more telegraphed than that, Chromie can help getting Butcher lots of meat as well with her killing potential and ability to pick off stranglers with a Double Combo Ultitrap.
There are plenty of Heroes who can synergize well with Chromie; You can land a combo or try for a double combo off a target that Maiev has tried to imprison for 10,000 years, or Anub’arak Cocoon.
Alarak can benefit from having easy targets to combo after a Time Trap and can use telekinesis to push them into your Time Traps.
Arthas can also be ideal; his constant slows and roots are both excellent enablers for your spells as well as powerful peeling.
Early Play
When in the earlier parts of the game, the laning phase, so should you always stick to the middle lane (or where ever there are more enemy heroes) as you desperately need to hit your Q’s for the quest and more enemy heroes makes that so much easier, not to mention the fact that Chromie is incredibly bad at laning. Hitting an enemy hero in a 1v1 on the laning phase is very troublesome as the enemy has the time to completely focus on avoiding your Q’s.
In these earlier parts, particularly if you are against strong healers or your team is far from getting kills, then focus on using Dragon’s breath for waveclear or structure damage. Once you start to go low on mana then save it simply for minions.
You will notice it’ll become much easier to land time-trap combos once you get the level 5 talent, adding the slow effect.
Low healthed vs low healthed, what do?
If you are in a situation where you are facing a low health enemy that you can’t finish off because he’s dodging your skills and if you attempt to ulti him, then he would kill you during the windup of a sandblast, then one can simply throw ulti and time trap immediately on it and run to make distance and throw a combo on the time trap. This way he will not be able to retaliate while you wind up or land a stun to interrupt in case he is low enough that a single combo can take him out. Additionally so can you run around dodging stuns and what not. Depending on the situation of “I will not survive in his range a few seconds” --> use ult and trap it immediately. Can prevent danger by using Here and There or Time Out. In the situation of “I can survive in his range, but I have to dodge his stun (or whatever)” --> Throw ult, run around him, place time trap at correct time, use Dragon Breath for Loop and both for time trap.
Maps that Chromie excel at
Chromie is oddly strong at nearly all maps. But her obvious weakness is lack of PvE damage, particularly when it comes to Mercs and Bosses. So if it’s a map with a strong emphasis on Boss/Mercs, drafting heroes who are good at that is ideal, such as Greymane or Hanzo.
Hanzo isn’t bad with Chromie either since he can use his skillshots on Trapped or Looped targets.
For Towers of Doom and Raven’s Curse, so is she really powerful. Time traps in the tight small enclosed places with plenty of places to hide and shoot Q’s from, while being able to poke enemies attempting to capture the objective. On both maps so is Chromie capable of defending some of the objectives from the safety of forts. Getting to the objective early is also a good strategy (particularly when triple time traps) as the enemy are forced to push through your time trapped area if they wish to prevent objective capture.
Garden of Terror goes into the same category now that it’s reworked; good at interfering with objective capturing and plenty of hiding areas/bushes around objective fights.
Dragon’s Knight and Volskaya Foundry and maps are also good for Chromie, as the Objective counts as a hero and can be shot at with Q and trapped with time traps allowing for resets. Particularly as you get 3 traps and Shifting sands. Furthermore Chromie is strong at defending the Shrines on Dragon Knight map as there are bushes leading into them, making it easy to force enemies to walk into traps. When the enemy Dragon Knight/Robot hasn’t gotten past your gates (allowing you to get close), so get close enough to use time trap, then use time trap and immediately throw a Sand Blast (do not throw the W as it’ll reveal you). The sand blast will hit and shortly after time trap will activate allowing for a combo. This is a good way to guarantee atleast two Q hits.
Furthermore the Dragon Knights and the Vol Robot charge ability will be cancelled if it gets time trapped, so you can bait out those skills from them (and secure a time trap combo).
On Volskaya so can one have a bit of fun with time traps as the moving platforms or w/e they’re called can move around time traps… So can one place time traps on the rotating one on the bottom, or place them on the other ones, which can result in 3 time traps stacked on top of eachother, which normally is impossible.
Placing the time traps on the rotating ones isn’t advised, though, as you need to use them to defend yourself, and if you need to go around chasing your own traps, well… you wont have a good time.
Furthermore the objective event to capture for Volskaya is incredibly beneficial for Chromie as the event forces teamfighting for 1-2 minutes if not longer, in a specifically enclosed space with somewhat tight entrances to the capture points allowing you to more or less guarantee time trap hits by placing them in the path they must take to get in or out. Add in the fact that Chromie can deal safe and strong damage to the enemy Robot if they happen to capture it, unlike a melee hero.
Chromie is good on Braxis as well as that map is 2-lane which usually means 4v4 during the earlier laning parts, allowing Chromie a much easier time to get Q hits.
Chromie is very strong at defending the control point on Braxis due to her range and making good use of Time Traps.
Infernal Shrines map is the only one where she is “average”, in a manner of speaking. Chromie can oneshot the minions a bit later in the game with Dragon’s Breath, and is particularly useful if you go full Dragon’s Breath talents (more damage lvl 1, bigger radius lvl 2, shorter CD/mana lvl 5). This way you can clear objective mobs on both infernal shrines and mines map every 6 seconds from a long distance if necessarry. If you do go for full W build, go for Slowing Sands ultimate. Placing Slowing Sands on a hero followed immediately by a radius-improved W is normally a guaranteed hit. Although I don’t find this to be true value as I find it more important that I can create nasty chokepoints in the fog areas and keep them away by blasting away 'at em.
The temple map is also not very ideal for Chromie as she’s bad at solo capturing temples, but she is very strong at defending the bottom temple as the only path to it is through bushes, forcing enemies to run through a trap while staying hidden in the area. Placing Time Traps in the bush near the middle one is very effective as well.
The Immortal map is the one map where Chromie is bad since her boss dps is in the pits, which will force your team to be on the offensive as you can’t possibly race them, unless you draft something else with strong PvE damage like Greymane or Artanis. Furthermore I always feel that the Immortal map always ends quicker than on normal maps, so less likely to get to level 18 and enjoy those sweet, sweet triple traps. Losing the event is also more punishing since a Chromie’s immortal damage is quite bad.
Time trap cooldown and Bushes
Whenever a time trap is activated, a short 2-3 second cooldown is put on your Time trap even if it was ready and you have more charges. Furthermore a small cooldown is also added if your time trap is destroyed shortly after being deployed - a problem only when you’ve got 3 charges, but important nonetheless.
The cooldown incurred when a Time Trap is activated can end up unintentionally messing with your Double Combo Ultitrap. It has happened a number of times for me that someone else activated an old Time Trap elsewhere just as I started a Loop, making it impossible to place a Time Trap.
For Chromie so are bushes a very powerful asset. An enemy cannot see you throwing sand blasts from a bush despite being in normal visual range and neither can they see you arming a trap in there for the same reasons. If you find yourself running away from an enemy on your tail and there is a bush ahead, place a time trap in the bush and run through it, so your chaser will walk through it as well – he wont see the trap being armed unlike if you placed it in the open.
Temporal Loop counters
The natural counter to Temporal Loop is of course Cleanse. But Uther has both Cleanse and an Divine shield, and can as such both safeguard himself or alles from your ulti. Brightwing can grant a high amount of spellarmor and Stasis himself. Can also avoid time trap combos with blink heal ulti and has her Phase Shift level 16 talent to disjoint Temporal Loop. I personally take the Loop ulti either way because you can either use it exclusively as a ganking tool or wait for them to use iceblocks and cleanses. You can always just throw it on a person in a hectic fight and hope he either forgets due to being pressured and occupied or he mistimes it, although doing that can leave your team to waste their cooldowns trying to hit them on the loop in case they cleanse properly.
You can also force out Divine Shields from Uther which might be more preferable than them using it on a Dragonblading Genji. Furthermore Divine Shield is 90 second cooldown while Temporal loop is a 70 second cooldown, so if you force out a Divine Shield, then you can potentially get a succesful Temporal Loop in if you use it shortly after it becomes ready again.
An Uther who intends for the Divine Shield to be used on a Genji or similar will sometimes not use Divine Shield to remove Temporal Loop if it is used during battle, so he can use it for offensive purposes (and because he foolishly believes he can survive it if he starts off full hp).
Make sure to remember that nearly everything can be considered a counter to Temporal Loop. Say for instance that you suddenly Loop a Rehgar outside of a teamfight, while having a staring contest with the enemy; The enemy Muradin who wasn’t doing and has cooldowns ready will jump in, stun you and potentially Haymaker you, thus completely preventing you from utilizing your ult. So when you intend to ult, you have to consider whether they are ready to intercept you.
Specific Temporal Loop Counters
Specific heroes that have their own counters to getting looped, in one way or another where you either have to abandon the idea of using it on them or wait for them to use their respective cooldowns:
Genji - Deflect, X-Strike, Swift Strike (not guaranteed escape, but if your timing isnt perfect then he can avoid it just by the quick speed and good reactions)
Tracer - Blink (same case as Swift Strike for Genji), Recall
Alarak - Counter-Strike, level 10. The teleport thing at level 20.
Nazeebo - Iceblock - level 13
Jaina - Iceblock - Whenever she finishes quest (hunt her down good and she wont, harhar)
Sylvanas - Haunting Wave - Unstoppable during the movement. If you use ulti the moment she uses her wave then she wont escape (unless she has double-wave level 13 talent and is quick witted). She also has an alternative easy unstoppable level 16 talent - Will of the Forsaken
Samuro - Creating illusions can disjoint it. Pretty sure teleporting to an illusion will break it as well.
Illidan - Metamorphosis - level 10. If you don’t like Illidans with The Hunt, then make sure you target Illidan at level 8 right away with loop. If you smash him apart with it, so will he most likely go for Meta, unless it worked in reverse and he’s super angry at you and you’re gonna get all the hunts, which isn’t really a problem for Chromie as Chromie can easily smash illidan. The level 5 Chrono Sickness talent that adds slow allows one to very easily escape or avoid illidan.
Rexxar - Feign Death - Level 16
Diablo - Lightning Breath - Level 10.
Murky - Take a guess - All the bloody time.
Zuljin - TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAZDINNNGGOO! albeit doesn’t avoid the Loop, but can survive it. Results may vary.
Lunara - Leaping Strike - Level 10. In a similar sense as Sylvanas, unstoppable during the movement of the ulti. Decent Lunaras can disjoint loop. She also has one of the strongest Spell Shield talents at level 13, 75% spellarmor for 3 seconds.
Valeera - Cloak of Shadows - Level 10. Smoke bomb doesn’t avoid it, but will provide her with 25% armor. Another tip: You wont see them even if they activate a time trap during Unrevealable, but they will still be there… so blast away if you remember where you placed it.
Chen - Both of his ulties can disjoint it Wandering Keg & Storm, Earth, Fire - Level 10
Alexstrasza - Both Cleansing Flame as well as entering Dragonqueen form can disjoint ulti. (not sure why the latter as well, possibly because she disappears for half a sec). Either way, many Alezstrasza’s i’ve looped are often late on using dragonform or the other and are too late to disjoint. (So if you are an Alexstrasza facing a Chromie and you get looped, then smash that D hard and quick! Or ult.)
Li Ming - Teleport - Doesn’t disjoint, but without near-perfect timing can be used to dodge. Even if you wait for her to use teleport first so can the level 13 talent of hers reset her teleport so she can avoid the second bomb. Her level 16 Diamond Skin also allows her to negate a decent portion of the damage.
Tassadar - Dimensional Shift - Base skill.
Guldan - Fear / Teleport - Level 10 and 20 respectively. A welltimed teleport can save his green behind from it and if he simply fears you, then you will be unable to land your first combo (but you might land second one if you managed to put down the time trap). Still, making Guldan use his Fear in a defensive move against one person isn’t exactly bad for a future teamfight.
Leoric - Unstoppable ghosts are scary
Tyrael - ´Sanctification. His sword teleportation makes it easy for him to escape.
Medivh - Force of Will, 5 second cooldown. Can disjoint ult if he is allowed to go birdy. Can use his Stasis wave on you to stop you from casting spells, or polymorph.
Zarya - Unstoppable Competitor / Spell Barrier - Level 13
Johannah - Iron Skin trait or Falling Sword ultimate.
Auriel - Crystal Aegis - Level 10.
Kharazim - Both ulties are capable of negating it in their own way as well as “dash to ally gives unstoppable for 1 second” level 16.
Chogall - Molten Block - Level 16.
Varian being just a generally bad choice due to Shield wall. Great target for getting Q hits as he just soaks the hits though. You can use Loop right as he uses Shield wall and it wont be ready in time.
Butcher - Ruthless Onslaught - Base skill. Not immune to time traps though. A charging Butcher can be real fun when you have 3 time traps.
Dehaka - Burrow - Base skill
Garrosh - Indomitable - Level 4. Can also use Into the Fray level 7 talent to throw an ally – it can disjoint Ult. Not sure if it has to be very precisely timed or if it as long as an ally is flying through the air from Into the Fray.
Junkrat - Rocket Ride - Level 10
Blaze - Bunker Drop - level 10. Bunker will disjoint for others as well. New Habits, level 1 quest.
Fenix - Warp, baseline ability.
Maiev - Vault of the Wardens, baseline trait.
Malthael - Inevitable End - Shroud of Wisdom, both level 13 - Can use Wraith Strike as a teleport dodge.
Tychus - Neosteel Plating, level 13. Summon Odin, level 10.
Whitemane - Cleanse level 7 talent. Upgrading Scarlet Aegis at level 20 gives it a 1 second Unstoppable effect.
The Lost Vikings - Jump! Level 13 talent. Invulnerable for 1.5 seconds. Although I can never imagine why anyone would use Loop on a TLV though.
Imperius - Wrath of the Angiris ultimate can disjoint. Level 20 talent “Impervius” grants unstoppable and spellarmor for 2 seconds. He can also try to teleport-dodge with Valorous Pursuit level 20 talent.
Yrel - Level 10 Argent Defender. (Soaks all damage and heals). Level 20 Bubble Hearth (become invulnerable after 1 second and HS out) and Seraphim (activate to become unstoppable for 2 seconds, 10 second CD)
Mal’ganis - Level 10 Carrion Swarm.
Falstad - Gust. If he simply uses Gust when he sees Temporal Loop, then it can prevent you from making use of it completely, as well as stoppping your team from following up on it.
I will continuously update this guide. I frequently end up going “Oh, right… I should add that to my guide” as I play Chromie.
Success Stories/Inspiration
And to end it off, my success stories, so to speak; my Wtf moments/wp and funny moments clip features. They can also serve as a source of inspiration of what a Chromie Time Trappist can do.Ordered from first to last.
First one is the first clip in the video.
3:23 minutes into the video.
2:13 into the video. Enjoy watching a Genji getting smacked.
7:53.
5:41.
3:30.
2:07 AND 4:44. Last one is truly epic.
5:07.
And another one! First clip.
Entire matches videos
If you want to see how I play in actual games, then these will do that for you. I recorded games directly using OBS rather than recording the replay, so you can see how I use the camera and how I move the mouse around and what not.Video 1: Braxis zerg map. Team league 3man queue.
The music is just my random playlist from spotify on random. And I sometimes add rather random music to it.
In this game we end up getting a keep with our first zerg wave due to the combo of having a Chromie and Sylvanas on the same team on this map.
Good use out of the double combo ultitrap in this game.
Video 2: Tomb of the Spider Queen 5man TL queue.
Also this is a team full of our forum/discord guys with Karabars, DrLogan, HelloBG and GuardWizard.
We were using the ingame voice comms so no music and you can hear the others talking (but not me, forgot to make it so it would also record me, so the voice coms overall might seem weird).
In this game the enemy drafted both Rehgar with cleanse and Medivh, so I took Slowing Sands for a change. It’s not something I’m all that used to so I was a bit slow on removing the Slowing Sands once it wasn’t useful in its current position.
![:clap:](https://d3rakab8gpdsa3.cloudfront.net/en/heroes/images/emoji/twitter/clap.png?v=6" ":clap:")
