Chromie Build Guide “Your time's up!”
Welcome to our guide for Chromie, a Ranged Assassin in Heroes of the Storm. Within these pages, you will find everything required to understand how best to play this hero, in both different map styles and team compositions.
Chromie's Overview
Chromie is a Ranged Assassin with outstanding burst damage and poke potential. Her strong burst Abilities allow her to inflict heavy damage onto her targets, while both of her Heroic Abilities provide her with decent crowd control during team fights. When playing Chromie, it is of utmost importance to anticipate your target's movement path, since both Sand Blast and Dragon's Breath come with a short delay. Ultimately, Chromie is a Hero that requires good game sense and quick reflexes in order to shine, however, if played well, she is one of the most dangerous Ranged Assassins in the game.
Chromie's Strengths and Weaknesses
- Outstanding poke
- Extremely long range
- Both Slowing Sands and Temporal Loop are viable Heroic Abilities
- High burst damage output
- Susceptible to crowd control
- Low health pool
- High learning curve
- Below average mobility
- Requires good positioning
Chromie's Talent Build Cheatsheet
Sand Blast Build
RecommendedThis is a well-rounded way to build Chromie. Timewalker's Pursuit at Level 1 gives Chromie a nice early-game damage bonus, and the reveal helps with scouting enemy hero ganks or camps. At level 14, the talent Shifting Sands combined with Piercing Sands marks a significant late game power spike for Chromie, allowing her to nuke down the enemy backline through their frontline.
Dragon's Breath Build
SituationalThe Dragon's Breath build focuses on enhancing Chromie's Dragon's Breath ability. Through Deep Breathing, Chromie can significantly increase the damage output. The build heavily relies on hitting enemy heroes in the center of your Dragon's Breath, therefore, having CC on your team and waiting for them to use their abilities will greatly improve your own damage output. Thanks to the slow from Mobius Loop, hitting an enemy hero with the first wave can increase the chance of them getting hit by all three.
ARAM Build
ARAMChromie's ARAM build is similar to the Sand Blast Build, and due to Chromie's passive ability, you unlock her power spike quite early in ARAM games. Piercing Sands allows you to poke enemies hiding behind any structure.
Chromie's Synergies and Counters
One of Chromie's favorite Healers has to be Malfurion. His Innervate Trait provides her with precious Mana regeneration and cooldown reduction, while his Regrowth allows Chromie to stay in battle for a long period of time. Another Healer that works wonders with Chromie is Ana, whose Nano Boost greatly empowers Chromie's damage for a short period of time.
Chromie's Maps
Chromie performs decent on most maps. Her current best maps are Volskaya Foundry and Braxis Holdout. This is due to the nature of the maps allowing her to poke into the objective zone. Chromie does not really have any weak maps as her poke is a threat on any map where there is an objective area both teams need to be on.
Chromie's Tips and Tricks
- Time Trap can sometimes be manually activated to prevent damage on allied Heroes as well.
- Slowing Sands is most efficient on narrow choke points, especially near Map Objectives.
- Do not be afraid to miss Sand Blast. It is better to cast this ability too often rather than to wait too long.
Chromie's Role in the Current Meta
Chromie requires decent positioning to make up for her lack of innate mobility. Ideally, she is put in a team with a strong frontline, usually consisting of one Tank and one Bruiser with high survivability and preferably crowd control. This will guarantee her enough protection to unleash her damaging Abilities, notably Sand Blast and Dragon's Breath from a safe distance.
During team fights, good Chromie players always keep an eye on their target's movement path and aim their Abilities accordingly. Both of her Heroic Abilities, Slowing Sands and Temporal Loop provide crucial ccrowd control effects to assist her in that regard. Chromie should keep a healthy distance between herself and the enemy team at all times, since her low Health pool and limited mobility make her a priority target for enemy hard engage.
Changelog
- 26 Sep. 2023 (this page): ARAM Build added.
- 16 Apr. 2022 (talents page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 16 Apr. 2022 (this page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 28 Oct. 2020 (talents page): Updated talents and builds.
- 28 Oct. 2020 (this page): Updated talents and builds.
- 15 Sep. 2020 (talents page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 15 Sep. 2020 (this page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 23 Aug. 2020 (talents page): Updated talents and builds.
- 23 Aug. 2020 (this page): Updated talents and builds.
- 08 Aug. 2020 (talents page): Builds updated
- 08 Aug. 2020 (this page): Builds updated
- 19 Jul. 2020 (this page): Dragon's Breath build has been added.
- 02 Jul. 2020 (talents page): Changed wording on Bronze Talons.
- 02 Jul. 2020 (abilities page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 02 Jul. 2020 (this page): Guide has been reviewed and no changes are needed.
- 05 Dec. 2019 (this page): Added a note regarding this seasons Anomaly.
- 04 Sep. 2019 (talents page): Guide has been reviewed for latest patch and no changes are needed.
- 04 Sep. 2019 (this page): Guide has been reviewed for latest patch and no changes are needed.
- 19 Jul. 2019 (talents page): Updated talent choices.
- 19 Jul. 2019 (abilities page): Updated Chromie's standard build.
- 29 Mar. 2019 (talents page): Overhauled and updated Chromie's talents and talent builds in accordance with the latest rework. All hail the Blessing of the Bronze!
- 29 Mar. 2019 (abilities page): Updated Chromie's abilities in accordance with the latest rework.
- 01 Mar. 2019 (talents page): Updated Chromie's talents and builds.
- 13 Aug. 2018 (abilities page): Updated Chromie's abilities in accordance with her rework in the Whitemane release patch.
- 13 Aug. 2018 (this page): Updated Chromie's abilities, talents, and recommended builds in accordance with her rework in the Whitemane release patch.
- 12 Aug. 2018 (talents page): Updated Chromie's talents in accordance with her rework in the Whitemane release patch.
- 21 Sep. 2017 (abilities page): Updated Sandblast's description in accordance with the latest balance update.
- 17 Sep. 2017 (talents page): Here and There was mistakenly marked (recommended, instead of not recommended).
- 16 Sep. 2017 (talents page): Updated Chromie's talents in accordance with the Kel'Thuzad update.
- 15 Sep. 2017 (abilities page): Updated Chromie's abilities in accordance with the Kel'thuzad update.
- 17 Dec. 2016 (this page): Updated guide for Ragnaros patch and moved it to the new format.
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Outofmilk is an avid Heroes of the Storm player, and has been playing this game since the first wave of Alpha invites. He currently plays around the Grandmaster / high Master area and is now here to share his knowledge with you.
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