[WvW] A Herald hybrid build I made and really love

Acolyte of Malice

I know, it looks a little weird. Mace/Sword, what the heck?I share a lot of builds on the forum here and they're always a little strange so, I'm going to add my usual disclaimer that I'm not saying this build is omega strong or anything like that, just something I made, enjoy, and want to share.

Still, it does what it does well, which is rapid damage application and making people panic. It has a nice balance between Power and Condition pressure and takes advantage of Deathstrike and Phase Traversal to bypass the low mobility of a full Condi Herald, while still having very high in combat Condition damage.

Axe is the favored offhand to pair with mainhand Mace because it has more Condition application, and with a hybrid build Frigid Blitz does quite a lot of damage. But it also suffers from needing a target to take advantage of that Shadowstep which Deathstrike does not need, and Shackling Wave is a very good way to lock people in to your Mace skills and Elemental Blast.

Personally, this is my favorite Herald build. I have a lot of fun with it, it's versatile, and since I've never seen anyone using anything like it before it tends to benefit from confusing your enemy(s), lol.

Note: I've left some traits unselected because all/most things in that tier are of relatively equal value, so you can use what you prefer. If you think you can better optimize the stats but like how the build looks, go ahead and see what works for you. I find Elementalist and Adventure runes to be the best for this build because both add a significant amount of Power and Condition Damage, but otherwise stats can be tweaked to better suit your needs.

Let me know what you think!

Mace Sword is actually a very strong combo.It allows yu to Immob an enemy with Sword 4 so they eat all the damage tick and stacks of Burning from a follow up Mace 2.

Charged Mists with Glint? How does that work out for you?

@Clownmug.8357 said:Charged Mists with Glint? How does that work out for you?

I assume they use it with all Upkeeps running and spamming Mace skills over and over.

But honestly they should just run Song instead for burst on swapping.

I Run sth similar but with swap sigils (Hydro, Geo, Doom or what the poison sigil was called) and with sword/shield Mace/axe. Id say go for song of the mists and dont use maro but rather full grieving or Cele grieving mix. Main Burst would be mace 2 into legendswap+ weapon swap and sword 2 for extra burn stacks. Mace on a more power oriented setup like yours feels a bit lackluster with only Mace 3 being worth the extra power dmg from maro