Chrono Ark: Team Composition and Character Analysis

I have over 30 hours in Chrono Ark and won several times on Expert difficulty.
This guide aims to help players struggling to get their first win in Normal or Expert difficulty.Hopefully this will also help to provide feedback to the creators of this amazing game and spur some discussion on the balance and viability of every character. Feel free to experiment and give feedback if you found success with other setups.

The general team composition that I find the most success with is: 1 DPS Carry, 2 Support, 1 Flex.
Your DPS should be around Lv 5 – 7 and Lv 2 – 4 for your other roles.
You should start with either 1 DPS Carry and 1 Support or 1 DPS carry and 1 FlexNote that the DPS does not strictly need to be an ‘Attack’ role character.
Likewise the supports do not need to be from the ‘Support’ role.
Some characters can work outside of their designated roles which I will elaborate in the character sections.

The new categories I created in this guide are based on my own opinion.

These are some example team compositions that I have used to beat the game on Expert Difficulty:

Start: Azur and Joey
1st Recruit: Pressel
2nd Recruit: Hein
Basic Strategy: Use Chemical Weapon on Azar and spam Hollowed Blades and finish with Restless Blades.

Start: Miss Chain and Sizz
1st Recruit: Charon
2nd Recruit: Silverstein

Basic Strategy: Use Engine Burner repeatedly until the enemy dies and don’t die before that.

Role: Defense
Don’t let her role deceive you, Miss Chain is a more than capable DPS which also doubles as a self sustaining tank.
Her passive Burnnn! protects her health gauge while adding additional effects to her skills.

Great Skills

Engine Burner
– Absurd single target damage that is also swift and taunts

I’ll Take That!
– Cheap skill that procs Burnnn! and also taunts
– Decent damage with counter

Zoom!
– Cheap skill that procs Burnnn!
– Allows Miss Chain to easily self sustain

Reload the Engine!
– Great way to proc Burnnn! while buffing your DPS

Into Pieces!
– Alright AoE with a useful debuff on enemies

Bazzuuum!
– Too costly even when the cost is reduced by one since Zoom! exists

Pursuit
– Damages Miss Chain and paying to draw another 1 energy skill is not great

Reload the Engine!
– For regular mobs and early game (under 4 mana)

Engine Burner
– For bossing

Role: Attack
Azar is an excellent DPS that can ignore taunt.
His passive creates a 0 mana swift attack that can ignore taunt and works well with buffs.

Hollowed Sword: First Scroll
– Combos with Calling of Hollowed Swords and has decent DPS while ignoring taunt

Calling of Hollowed Swords
– Bread and Butter of Azar’s kit

Restless Blades
– Excellent finisher, usually free

Ascending Slice
– Decent attack but Azar can do better

Blade Starfall
– Casting
– Decent AoE but overshadowed by the rest of Azar’s kit

Kenmag
– Too costly
– Low Impact

Fantasy
– Support Azar….

Calling of Hollowed Swords
– Early game (low level Azar – Lv4 and below)

Restless Blades
– When you generate enough Hollowed Swords to cast it for free

Role: Support
Joey is an excellent basic support that can fit into any team composition as the main healer.
His passive allows you to take advantage of your full potion arsenal as you normally will not be able to identify more than 2-3 potions.

Chemical Weapon
– Works very well with low cost attacks (Azar btw)

Healing Potion
– Solid single target heal skill.

Healing Vapor
– Heal good, many heal better

Chemical Substance No. 12
– Good against certain enemy types and cheap

Paralyzing Dart
– Your standard stun skill

Protecting Gas
– Too costly
– Most debuffs aren’t very threatening

Weakening Smog
– Too costly
– Unnecessary as most debuffs skills have high accuracy

Chemical Weapon
– With Azar

Basic Heal
– Everyone else

Role: Support
Sizz is an amazing support that can be built as a hybrid dps or pure support.
Her passive is an excellent boost to any DPS especially DPS with low cost attacks (Azar btw).
Note that her passive works on all single target ally spells.

Help, Eve
– Swift skill that provides a hefty shield to an ally that can be used multiple times
– Refreshes Eve (Chain this in between your low cost attacks)

Incise
– Cheap attack that also increases Eve’s damage

Regenerate Wound
– Free heal and refreshes eve (the target is often your DPS)

Healing Wave
– Decent party heal and debuffer

Guard Eve
– Too costly for the amount it heals

Sacrifice
– Casting requirement
– Disables Eve

Incise (as Hybrid DPS)

Basic Heal (as Pure Support)

Role: Support
Pressel is an excellent basic support that can fit into any team composition as the main healer.
Her passive Prophecy allows you to manipulate your card draw, allowing to select the card that best fits your situation.

Healing Coil
– Good single target heal without Prophecy
– Great heal with Prophecy

Blinking Heal
– Good single target heal
– Aggro manipulation can be used to increase aggro on tanks and decrease aggro on low health allies

Holy Light
– Good team heal

Blessings of God
– Amazing when used with prophecy, otherwise discard

Purifying Barrier
– Meh dispel

The Blow to Jesus
– Costs too much, let the DPS handle the damage

Kill the Man!
– ???

Basic Heal

Role: Attack
Silverstein fits the flex role well with a mix of DPS and utility skills.
His passive adds a nice damage boost to your single target spells which aids in finishing off foes.

Freezing Bomb
– Excellent 1 cost stun skill
– 2 turn stun for mobs, 1 turn stun for bosses.

Bear Trap
– Cheap debuff and damage skill that works well against AoE attacks

Closed Quarter
– Decent damage and ignore taunt

Evacuation Set
– Free flexible skill

Grapeshot Blast
– Decent Damage

Snipe
– Too costly

Overcharged Shot
– WAY too costly

Freezing Bomb
– For bossing and when you have more than 1 copy of Freezing Bomb

Basic Heal
– For general uses

Role: Attack
Trisha is a great flex character with the potential to deal high amounts of damage depending your neutral cards.
Her passive Double Team allows you to take advantage of expensive neutral skills or those generated by Shadow Illusion.

Shadow Slash
– Bread and butter attacking swift skill which ignores taunt, helps to snipe low hp targets

Shadow Curtain
– 0 cost skill that allows you to avoid an often run-ending attack completely
– Helps to build Double Team

Apply Bandage
– Free heal that also helps card draw sometimes
– Double Team

Illusion Strike
– A decent attack that delays an enemy’s action which is amazing

Backstab
– Too costly

Shadow Illusion
– Very situational
– Still procs overload

Apply Bandage
– Okay heal that nets you a card

Shadow Curtain
– Could be useful for boss fights

Role: Attack
Charon, contrary to what her role suggests, is actually an excellent support with some damage built-in. Also cute megane.
Her passive Soul Thurible is very useful but often forgotten. Use it often and keep track of your stacks.

Dark Barrier
– Great swift shield that also gives pain resist
– Buffed by both her healing and attack power

Dark Heal
– Low cost heal or damage, best used on dying targets (both enemies and allies)

Healing Vapor
– Heal good, many heal better

Focus Encroach
– Decent filler skill that ignores taunt and helps with AoE damage

Vigil of Darkness
– 0 cost debuff skill that helps to amplify damage

Evil Phantasm
– Free swift skill that usually gives a decent outcome

Spreading Darkness
– ??? (I don’t understand the card text and her other abilities are better)

Dark Pillar
– Too costly for the damage it deals
– Encroach is capped at 3

Basic Heal

Role: Defense
Phoenix, although often regarded a gimmick and a flying deadweight, can actually fill a nice niche in the flex role.
His passive allows him to be a punching bag, soaking in hits and debuffs.
Most of his value comes from being unkillable rather his own skills (as long as you feed him).

Leer
– Lets him do what he does best

Warming Renegeration
– AoE heal with a minor drawback of randomly damaging one of your allies

Scratch
– Filler skill that serves as a decent finisher

Burning Wing
– Decent single target filler that doubles as a AoE attack sometimes

Undying Sanctuary
– Can save your run sometimes, especially in boss fights

Nag to Mortals
– Filler skill with an often favourable outcome

Leer
– If you have enough food to spare

Basic Heal

Role: Defense
Ironheart is a versatile character. Unfortunately, he does not fit well into the usual composition.
I will hold my verdict for now as have yet to test him out fully at Expert difficulty with a barrier composition.His passive Overwhelming Barrier converts overhealing into 1 turn barrier which he can use in most of his skills.

WIP

WIP

WIP

WIP

Role: Attack
Hein is a subpar DPS with low accuracy, who is also unable to fill a support role due to his lack of utility.His best use is being a 4th pick when you already have enough supports.
His passive Madness is only good for clearing general mobs and is unlikely to proc during boss fights.

Tear Away
– Decent damage

Multiple Attacks
– Good finish that will often proc Madness
– Random targeting

Identify Weakness
– An actually decent support skill
– If you really want to force it, helps to prep up the rest of Hein’s attacks
– Still counts for overload

Intimidation
– Okay debuff skill with swiftness

Assault Slash
– Low damage, low accuracy and -10% crit chance

Intimidation
– Too costly
– Unnecessary as most debuffs skills have high accuracy

Endure
– Bad self barrier with a card disadvantage

Rage
– 2 mana, do nothing and dilute your opening hand

Basic Heal
– You won’t use it anyway

Role:
Lian is basically a weaker version of Phoenix, with more emphasis on damage but unfortunately falls off after the first few stages.
Her passive Grand Reflex allows you to cast high cost attacks for free but the damage is too low to make her worth it. I would not put her into any composition in her current state.

Come at Me!
– If you really must pick her