Which Chrono Boosts do you put Mastery points into?

5 of the Protoss have a Mastery option for this. I’m wondering how people treat this since I’m guessing we’ll be all over the place! On one hand, I’ve heard that it can be quite a boon if you keep up on your Chrono Boost macro. Especially if you’ve maxed out on Mastery points for it! (+22.5% vs. up to 52.5% boost in build speed. For reference, that reduces Raynor’s BCs build time from 45 to 34.875 and 21.375 respectively!). OTOH, I tend to forget about Chrono Boosts for some games, and at times, much prefer its competing mastery for certain COs.

Interestingly enough, 3 of them Protoss COs… Artanis, Vorazun, and Karax have this same choice to make:

Chrono Boost Efficiency (1% to 30% boost in efficiency) vs. Initial and Maximum Spear of Adun Energy (3 to 90pts)

For Alarak, it’s between Chrono Boost Efficiency vs…

Structure Overcharge Shield and Attack Speed (+2% to +60%)

For Fenix, it’s betwene Chrono Boost Efficiency vs…

Extra Starting Supply (+2 to +60)

.

For Karax, hands down all into SoA. His Orbital Strikes and Solar Lances are always useful (and what defines him)

For Artanis, I have full into SoA, although I could probably stand to divert some pts into Chrono Boost. I’ll need to take note if I’m spamming his Orbital Strikes and Guardian Shell to the point of running out of energy (probably not?

For Vorazun, Deploy Dark Pylon, Black Hole, and Shadow Guard I do use often, so I’m tempted to keep it full into SoA as well

Alarak, I really dig using his Structure Overcharge Top Bar ability, so that gets the full split

Fenix, I currently have it even 15/15 split, but I should consider going more towards Chrono Boost since I’ve noticed I tend to build more Pylons early on anyways.

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I only play Karax, Artanis and Alarak out of the 5 who have this choice. I go full 30 into Chrono Boost Mastery with Artanis and fully ignore it with the other two. If I was to play Fenix I’d probably put about 5 points into the Supply Mastery and the rest into the CB one.

I feel as if Artanis wasn’t really gated by SoA energy, but CD (assuming you don’t really use his first Calldown as it is probably the worst in the game). For Karax it is the opposite, his CB Mastery could use some help to be competitive.

As Artanis I have all 30 points on chrono boost. I mostly have enough energy for shield overcharge whenever I need it. I rarely use orbital, but if I do I can manage with no additional energy.

As Vorazun I have8 points (that’s 24 right?) on Spear of Adun energy and 22 on chrono. With 24 starting energy I can deploy dark pylon almost instantly (definitely before getting capped).

As Karax I have all 30 points on Spear of Adun energy, because he has chrono wave which I control and it allows a quite fast expanding.

As Alarak I also have a 22/8 between structure overcharge and chrono boost. 22 points on overcharge is what needed to destroy all expansion rocks.

As Fenix I also have a split, but I don’t remember the numbers exactly. What I remember is that I added points to starting supply according to have exactly 200 max supply with 2 nexus.

Max Chrono for arty, 22 for vora, 0 for Karax, 24 for alarak, 29 for fenix.

30 on Artanis, 22 Vorazun, 0 Karax, 8 Alarak, 28 on Fenix

28 on Fenix gets the first Pylon out just before you supply cap.

Just to point out that this is wrong math.

All kind of in-game boost is an increase in build speed, not a reduction in build time.

The correct calculation is
BC 45s
22.5% chrono boost 45 : 1.225= 36.74s
52.5% chrono boost 45 : 1.525 = 29.5s

A difference of 7.24s for BCs

And for each commander
_ Artanis all-in for Chrono. This help me boost my eco and allow me to get upgrade and research much faster with only 1 Forge or Robotic bay.
_ Karax, again, all-in for Chrono. If i don’t need it, i can simply put it into my allies whose army is much more powerful than Karax.
_ Vorazun. This one will depend on how you want to play either go all-in for 1 of them or half-half. It depends greatly on how you want to play.
_ Fenix. Almost all missions except DON have expo which means you need 2 Nexus. 2 Nexus give 30 supply so you need to build pylon to fit the rest 170 supply. Each pylon gives 8 so at 21 pylon you get a total 196 supply. Either go 2 points in the extra starting supply or 6 points to not waste the supply. What this extra starting supply do for you is helping you with the supply bottle neck in early game anyway so you don’t need to spend too many point in this mastery, prioritize chrono is the way.
_ Alarak. Since the buff to Structure Overcharge and you don’t need to spend that many points into it to make it useful anymore. Currently i have 20 in Chrono and 10 in Overcharge.

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Artanis 30
Karax 0 (fast enough with chronofield, energy good for clearing)
Vorazun 0 (starting pylons and dt for clear)
Alarak 20-30 (none needed for clearing first rock…want econ boost instead)
Fenix ~20 (enough so that I can delay pylons)

Artanis 30
Vorazun 22 (just energy enough to start with a dark pylon, the rest chrono)
Karax 30 (rather just use it for faster spear upgrading
Alarak 30 (structure overcharge does the job fine)
Fenix 27 (just a little starting supply)

Chrono is insanely powerful, contrary to popular co-op belief.

Thanks for the correction!

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The only Protoss commanders that I use Chrono with are Fenix, Artanis, and a split in Vorazun.
Alarak’s Structure Overcharge is too good to not dump all of the points into, Zeratul doesn’t even get it, and Karax makes more use of the Spear of Adun abilities with the starting/max boost than anyone else.
Vorazun… I think is a 50/50 for me. I don’t recall what I split it up as.

Artanis - 30. He just doesn’t need that energy.
Vorazun - 0. Her top panel is insanely good, but costs a lot of energy.
Karax - 0. Fast expand and no big need to chronoboost cause always starve gas for upgrades + there is chronowave when I need something asap.
Alarak - 0. I guess after buffing default overcharge you don’t need full overcharge mastery for fast expand, but I kept it because same as for Karax case I always starve gas early for upgrades and in latergame its no big deal, while fully upgraded overcharge on war prism really helping Alarak in early game when I invest all resources into upgrades and tech and in later game 3 overcharges can deflect relatively big waves so I don’t have to come back for defending the base.
Fenix - 25. 5 for start supply to avoid supply blocks while quickly producing probes on the start and saving a little bit of minerals on pylon to expand/tech up quicker.

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For the Protoss CO’s I play:

Artanis: 25/5 25 into Chronoboost. Since Artanis doesn’t have to worry about supply at all, Chronboost efficiency at the beginning of his ramp up is super helpful. Probably more so than other CO’s. I put 5 points in Shield of Auir just for some added peace of mind for early waves and to help blast apart the rocks at the natural expansion.

Vorazun 15/15 both masteries for her are very helpful, equally so IMO.

Karax 0/30 All points into SoA. Why he even has a Chronboost option is beyond me.

Fenix 20/10 20 points into Chronboost Unlike Artanis, Fenix doesn’t start with infinite supply, so the extra chronboost isn’t as strong. 20 extra supply really helps his early game.

I am never limited by how quickly I can build something, but by resources. So I never put any points in it as any commander.

It does make a reasonable increase to your resources due to making workers faster.

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I think I will still chose the alternative over a few hundred minerals.

A few hundred minerals, fewer units lost here and there due to earlier upgrades, more of the actually good units you are making like star gate and robo units.

Sounds better than 2 casts of a calldown that will cut your loses by, what, 200 minerals?

Nope, still worse than 3 more black holes.

Artanis 14 into chrono. 16 points into SoA energy is 48 initial energy, for Artanis it allows me to use 2-3 orbitals right from the start on rocks for fast expanding.
Same for Vorazun, you can place 2 dark pylons and then summon Shadow Guard on CD to clear expansion.
Karax 10 into chrono. 60 extra starting energy is enough for me.
Alarak 8 into chrono. 22 for fast expand and also useful for defense and offense (with war prisms).
Fenix I don’t remember exact numbers, i get around 20 extra supply, so at least 15 points into chrono.

I go max chrono with Karax.
It’s a slower expand with cannons, but the chrono gives saturation quite fast so I don’t think the cost is that significant.
I just enjoy having the fast chrono, which pays dividends throughout the rest of the game for both research and unit production, whether I’m boosting myself or my ally.
Any Nova ally will love you if you chrono their Starport… at least if they are sensible enough to build Ravens.
Also pretty great for a H&H player

I tend to either go full chrono with the other commanders also, or a split that favors chrono like the typical Vorazun 22/8 and a 25/5 with Fenix. With Alarak it depends on whether I’m going Ascendants or not, if Ascendants mostly Overcharge, otherwise chrono for faster 3/3

Generally, Chrono boost mastery is the jack of all trade that except for Zeratul, every single commander benefit greatly from that and Karax with full Chrono is a god of support.

Even when Nova lost her entire army, Chrono boost her Barrack allow her to have a lot of spare charges to call for reinforcement.

Tychus can save even more resource to limit engineering bay to only 1

Zerg commanders enjoy a boost in larva spawn rate (it appears to me they nerfed the chrono mastery and the eggs no longer hatch faster with chrono of any kind)

Terran commander from Raynor to Mengsk will really appreciate a +50% build speed for their building.

In general case, Chrono mastery beat out any other mastery.

I used to have max on Overcharge for Alarak but lately Chrono help his army way more than a makeshift offense and defense.

Vorazun is a rare case because her army lack resource to build up more than they lack build speed.

Artanis is essentially stronger with faster eco. The SoA mastery is pale in comparison because let’s be frank, his top bar that require solarite aren’t that op.

Karax is a clear choice for Chrono. If you have already fast why not go even faster? 90 point of solarite is nothing if you can research solarite up to lvl 3 faster with eco boost.

In general, if you choose any mastery beside Chrono boost, you will have to make good use out of those mastery otherwise, it’s better to just stick with Chrono boost. Even when you don’t benefit much from Chrono boost, your allies will.