printf doesn't improve going up and down the call stacks in the debugger to analyze their chain (you'd have to spam debug printfs all around you expect this chain to happen to replace the debugger which would waste time). debugger is really powerful if you use it more than superficially.
It's not wasting time, it's narrowing in on the things you know you need to look for and hiding everything else. With a debugger you have to do this step mentally every time you look at the debugger output.
If you only care about some specific spot, then sure - printf is enough, but you also need to recompile things every time you add a new one or change debug related details, while debugger can do it re-running things without recompilation. So if anything, printf method can take more time.
Also, in debugger you can reproduce printf using REPL.