Grand Attuner/Summoner Class - Time Mage/Chronomancer Spec T8 & T9 Build Guide by Knightsky (Dec 2022)

Introduction

Let me start by saying you first acquire your first class in this class line from a NPC quest from the NPC Horus. Finish the quest by acquiring a common quality Attuner Hood, Robe, and Shoes. Upon completion of the quest you gain access to the T7 Attuner class. Next to get for 6 mil orns is Grand Attuner at lvl 175 and then unlocking your Summoner class at lvl 200 for a hefty 11 mil orns. Grand Summoner is unlocked at lvl 225 and can be purchased for a heftier still 16 mil orns. This guide mainly focuses on Summoner/Chronomancer build but some of this also applies to Grand Attuner/Time Mage build as well. 

Main Strengths- high burst damage from summons
Lacuna/Lacuna 2//Lacunas/Lacunas 2- stasis status affliction. Targets one enemy//Targets all enemies in battle.
"Stasis Loop" (to be explained)
World farming, raid farming
Soloing raid bosses
PvP beast 60% of the time every time. 

Main Weaknesses- low character stats- very low hp, low defences, survivability is a gamble, very gear and spell dependent. 

*Includes example videos at the bottom of the written guide!*

Summoner Playstyle

​The main focus of Grand Attuner/Summoner combined with the Time Mage/Chronomancer spec is high ward, fast summons and stasis lock or "stasis loop". The best part of this build is the ability to solo raid bosses in one battle with minimal use of pots using only 3 or 4 spells. Really helpful boosting your lvl quickly from 200 to 225. Early on as an Attuner/Time Mage when you are not guaranteed an auto cast of your first equipped summons be prepared to be one shot in a lot of battles. When you do enter battle with your first summons auto casted your survivability chance is greatly increased but still not a guarantee. Any mobs that require more then one hit from your summons to kill requires you to use ward to avoid being one shot or being afflicted with an annoying status condition that prevents you from being able to cast spells or attack like stun, frozen, blight, asleep, petrification, etc. Your first goal is to keep your ward up and get your summons out as early as possible. As a Grand Attuner/Summoner your first equipped summons is auto casted and Summoner has a chance the second equipped summons will also be auto casted but you are playing a very squishy character with low stats and no real defenses. So gear selection is extremely important when considering using this build.

Ward of Mythril is your friend, Grants 5 turns of ward and 75% damage absorption. 
Attuner's best friend is the hydra, it is your most powerful summons as an Attuner and your hydra plays the roll of your tank and with an abundance of hp and a fairly high attack. My advice is to avoid switching to this class until lvl 175 when you unlock the hydra, prior to having the hydra this class is super tough to play. 

Another spell worthy of mention is Very Scary Skeleton, if you were lucky enough to find it in a spell shop out on the world map during the Halloween event. With it you have a huge advantage and a summon spell you will be using until T10 Grand Summoner. Skelly has the chance to proc double def down and double res down when attacking enemies offering a hood chance to deal out some heavy hits. They also do 4-10k damage per hit. Skellies can and will be one shot by many tier 9 bosses and mobs but will be your best source of damage even going into tier 10 Grand Summoner Class. Two battle turns to Summon. 

Gear

​Gear selection- okay here is the real trade off to focus on your summons stats and not your own because the idea is to make your summons as powerful as possible and focus mainly on gear that boost your summon stats like attuner gear set or Summoner gear set (hood, robe, shoes) you are also looking for gear with high ward. The best gear set for t8 and t9 Summoner/Grand Attuner IMO is going to be the Old Olympia Headdress, Mantle, Leg Wraps, and Ophion Banner. All the pieces of armor have +10% boost to summon stats each for a total of +30% combine with the +20% boost to summon stats from Ophion Banner making a total of +50%. This increases their maximum hp and damage making them much stronger and much more likely to take the hits for you. All of the old Olympia gear has + to ward and summoning stats Ophion Banner is 2 handed taking away your off hand but adding a total of +105% ward (legendary quality, lvl 10). It also has the ability Ophion's Stance giving you the possibility to pass your status afflictions on to your summons instead of becoming afflicted. 

All of this gear drops from Ophion of Olympia who spawns from celestial moon drops, dropped by celestial moon chasers in dungeons, lots of farming is necessary to aquire the moon drops and endless mode is the way to go to see celestial moon chasers (side note that these mobs and world raid bosses were only available during the Of Giants and Titans event). The celestial moon drops spawn 3 different titans Ophion being your target. Just a heads up be prepared to farm him alot before getting decent quality drops from him and the right pieces of the set to drop. Any quality common or above Ophion Banner is a good start, it has the highest Stat boosts and ward out of the entire set. This weapon can be mixed with the attuner/summoner gear you get from pvp or mob drops quite effectively without needing the entire set but the entire set is the real key to achieving super high ward and much more powerful summons and higher survivability chance. 

As far as accessories to carry around I use bag of treats and band of gods because the full Old Olypmia gear set and the fact that you aren't trying to boost your own stats offer the opportunity to focus your accessories on boosting things like luck, xp, gold, and orns. You could also focus on immunities to stun effects like blight, stun, paralyzed, petrified, frozen. You could also focus on more ward, view distance or any other boosts you would normally not want to sacrifice Stat boosts for.
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Amities is another story as far as Summon path us concerned we have no amities made specifically for Summoner class and I would recommend anything useful that boosts orns or gold or luck or some type of farming based boosts until amities are created specifically for Summoner path. I personally use "Hybrid and Unearthing" because it further compliments using mimics mischief (double up att and mag) and helps add damage to my Lacuna 2 spell. 

Skills

-As mentioned earlier Hydra is your best friend, your beefy tank, and your high damage. (for Grand Attuner) This should be your first equipped summons so that you always have the chance to have a hydra out at the beginning of battle. It's nice to have hydra out to get smacked giving you the opportunity to bring out more summons. 

-Your other best friend if you were lucky enough to grab the spell during the Halloween event is Very Scary Skeleton. Very high damage, 2 turns of battle to summon, has the chance to summon more then one at a time (I have had 4 pop with one cast). 
-Ward of Mythril- Grants 5 turns of ward and 75% damage absorption. Needless to say this is what will keep you alive while you bring your summons into battle and for solo raid fights while you try to proc the "stasis loop". 

-Lacuna/Lacuna 2 for mobs, bosses, and raid bosses- decent amount of damage and has the chance to inflict "stasis" status effect. Trapping the enemy in time, they are unable to make any action in combat, please note this doesn't effect the enemy follower or summons and has a much lower chance to proc on a player making this ineffective in pvp.

-If you don't have skelly then Warg or Garm will be a sufficient replacement but their role in the battle is different then skelly. They are single turn summons (quick pop up meat shield) and give your enemies something to hit while you cast hydra (3 turns in battle so have 3 meat shields out before attempting to summon hydra if it wasn't auto casted at the beginning of battle).
-Any debuffs that DoT or stun in some way (stun, blight, frozen, paralyzed, petrify, bleed, poison, toxic, rot, cursed) as well as anything that will decrease enemy stats like def, res, attk, mag, dex. Spells like Miasma 2, stun dart, smoke bomb, sleep dart, poison. This helps break the monotony of ward, Lacuna, ward, Lacuna etc... 

-Fortify 3 Grants 7 turns of ward, very helpful building up your ward turns quickly in battle. 
Summon Guivre- when you unlock the Summoner class (11mil orns, lvl 200) totally replaces the hydra's place as first equipped summons even though the hp is about half the hydra's hp Guivre does significantly more damage and crits for massive damage. 2 turn cast (1 less then hydra) and should be a Summoners first equipped summons. Here is where the skelly as the second equipped summons makes t8 mobs and most t8 bosses one round battles and t9 bosses and mobs 2 or 3 round battles and has a very high survival probability. You start to become pretty tanky at this point and fights become much more simple as you get used to the battle mechanics and preforming the "stasis loop."

-Lacunas (Time Mage spec)/Lacunas 2 unlocked at lvl 220 (Chronomancer spec) is extremely helpful on Horde mode in dungeons because it targets all enemies in battle with the chance to proc stasis on all of them at once. You can freeze the whole lot in time while your summons wipe them out. 
Another great 1st and 2nd equipped summons is Kellie and Guivre as you can see below… Kelpie is super tanky and puts out serious damage as does your Guivre summons. When both of these pop the only world mob or boss mob that can survive more then one round is northren type and immortal type. They are hard to hit and do super high damage and warding round one is highly recommended when facing any immortal mob or immortal lord. 

Knightsky's Grand Attuner and Summoner Chronomancer skills

Battle Strategy

This depends on the enemy/battle type but all are very similar that you ward, summon, maintain. 

World Mobs/low health/one round battles
-Ward and watch. Cast Ward of Mythril and let your summons kill the enemy. Simple and quick battles.

PvP arena battle- depends on the class and pet of a player enemy but basically there are only 1 real play here with situational variations of the same strategy. 
1st Cast Ward of Mythril and next cast Very Scary Skelleton 2 times, then recast Ward of Mythril, if the player isn't dead by your second cast of Ward of Mythril then cast Lacuna/Lacuna 2 and try to proc stasis but beware it is not as effective against players and procs much less in PvP battles. It's a gamble every battle and Summoner vrs Summoner can have any outcome all depends on your summon's ability to strike the other player. If you don't have Very Scary Skeleton then your first and second Summons should be 1 Guivre and 2 Hydra. Hydra is great for pvp tank against Nyx and Realmshifters and Guivre can hit them at low health when their stats are highest. Stasis status afliction is not effective in PvP it has a much lower chance to proc on a player then it does a mob or boss and is not recommended to use in PvP as a reliable strategy. I wouldn't recommend using Lacuna or Lacuna 2 in PvP as it doesn't proc stasis often enough to rely on, though when battling another Summoner Lacunas/Lacunas 2 is very helpful targeting all enemies in battle sort of cheating your way around the other summoner's summons protecting them from the attack and a chance to proc stasis on all of them. 

Raid Boss Fight- Kingdom or WRB
First Ward of Mythril then Very Scary Skeleton (until you have 4 Skellies and 1 Guivre popped) while keeping ward active. (Or Kelpie, Guivre, and 3 skellies)

-Example-
Round One, Ward of Mythril
Round Two, Very Scary Skeleton
Round Three, Very Scary Skeleton
Round Four, Ward of Mythril
Round Five, Lacuna/Lacuna 2 (continue to cast until A. Ward reaches 1 turn left in which case bring ward back up and go back to Lacuna/Lacuna 2) until stasis is inflicted on the raid boss. Remember keeping ward active is priority over stasis affliction because we cannot take big hits we are squishy and need to defend against any one shot deaths (there are many on this path) so if ward is at 1 turn and the boss is not afflicted with stasis you should ward and then try Lacuna/Lacuna 2. 
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Here is where you attempt to lock them in the "stasis loop" I referred to earlier. There is a trick to keeping the boss locked in stasis. As a Time Mage/Chronomancer spec all your attacks and offensive spells have the chance to proc "stasis" and Lacuna/Lacuna 2 also have the chance to proc "stasis". The round following the boss being aflicted with stasis Ward of Myhtril is casted over and over until the stasis afliction wares off in which case you rinse and repeat by casting lacuna/ Lacuna 2 again until the boss is aflicted with stasis again and then back to keeping ward turns up in between. So Ward, Lacuna, ward Lacuna, ward Lacuna etc. Boring but very effective, with Guivre and 4 Skellies it's should only take about 10-15 minutes to wipe 90% of raid bosses you have access to. Just maintain Mana, HP, Ward, and your summons in between the "stasis loop" and you should be able to solo any raid boss you have access to. Keep in mind that interrupting the stasis loop by casting something other then ward (casting a summon spell) when they are in stasis is almost garenteed to take stasis off the boss and you will have a few rounds of casting Lacuna/Lacuna 2 to get them aflicted with stasis again. They can wipe some of your summons at this point in battle and you will have to re summon then go back to putting the boss back under stasis afliction. 

Another good strategy in any battle this applies to (any enemy that can be petrified) is using the Cockatrice (Unlocked at lvl 200 Grand Attuner) because it can petrify your enemies and having 2 Cockatrice out in battle will almost guarantee petrification. Couple stasis with petrified and you are almost guaranteed not to be hit in battle.

I also use mimics mischief to double boost magic and attack followed in the next round by using the item Panacea (it cures the cursed, poison, def and res stats down caused by mimics mischief and refreshes your Mana and HP) while fighting raid bosses to help add damage to my Lacuna/Lacuna 2 spell. Please note that having Ophion of Olympia activated (Ophion's Stance ability) will place the cursed effect and Stat down effects onto your summons so cast it before taking Ophion's Stance unless you want to have to re summon for no reason. 

Endless/Horde Mode Dungeon Master!
Horde mode for any T9 Chaos or Underorld Portal or Battleground is tough, Summoners prevail here and have no issues soloing a T9 dungeon on Horde mode, so long as they survive the first floor! If you survive the initial onslaught of rounds 1, 2 and 3 while you ward and then summon you are in a good spot. Remember Lacunas/Lacunas 2, it targets all enemies in battle with a chance to proc stasis. This can be a life saver when you hit a floor full of berserks and arisen berserks or berserk boss mobs. 3 Arisen King Meliodas and a couple berserk Heimdalls can and will wipe you if you are unprepared or down a summons or two at the first round of combat. It's pretty much a 50/50 chance but worth the risk because the rewards and xp are great. It is a great farming method and a good way to knock out daily quests as well. 
In Endless mode you are going to find you can go from floor to floor until your summons can no longer damage the enemies because their stats are boosted well above your summons ability to cause damage. Easily traversing above floors 100-150 depending on the mobs. Note that mobs like Mighty Mimics above floor 55 you will not be able to damage and are immune to your summons attacks. Immortal Lord's, berserk Immortal mobs, berserk Nothren mobs, berserk Ortanite Golem above floor 50-55 are also all run killers so beware. 

I hope you enjoy the build guide and playing as a Summoner/Chronomancer. T10 Grand Summoner Build coming soon!! Happy Grinding out there... 

-Knightsky-