Unlock Herald or Renegade First?

Just leveled my core Revenant to 80. I saved up 220 points so need another 30 for an elite spec.

Would you suggest opening Herald or Renegade first? And would you aim at a condition or power build?

Renegade appears to have a large variety of builds - power, conditions, Alac, healing. Comments here suggest Herald is more tanky and I prefer self sufficient builds over glass cannons. Feeling powerful to me comes more from a full health bar then kill speed. As to the type of content I play. All Open World Pve thus far.

Going forward content selection is largely dependent on getting more Points and making gold. Will likely need to go into PoF for collecting points to fill out the core traits - HoT sounds more difficult. Also need to learn the best way to make gold which I assume I need to buy strong gear/weapons. Currently I have less than 15 gold.

What path would you suggest going forward?Thanks

My advice would be to go with Renegade. The Renegade can fight both at range or mele, using either power or condition stats, staying in short bow 90% of the time, and kill well both single targets and small packs of enemies. The powe Herald is pure mele and albeit very competent at single target damage, loses a lot of efficiency when has to tag multiple foes at the same time. The condition Herald is mele/short range AoE, much better against small packs, but a bit slower vs single targets. To me soloing hero points/bosses with power Herald is faster but more risky, with condi Herald a bit slower but way tankier. Herald has the quality of life of having perma-swiftness (Facet of Elements) without relying in traits or runes, but Renegade has the quality of life of being able to kill everything below champs without even being touched (short bow).

@Buran.3796 said:My advice would be to go with Renegade. The Renegade can fight both at range or mele, using either power or condition stats, staying in short bow 90% of the time, and kill well both single targets and small packs of enemies. The powe Herald is pure mele and albeit very competent at single target damage, loses a lot of efficiency when has to tag multiple foes at the same time. The condition Herald is mele/short range AoE, much better against small packs, but a bit slower vs single targets. To me soloing hero points/bosses with power Herald is faster but more risky, with condi Herald a bit slower but way tankier. Herald has the quality of life of having perma-swiftness (Facet of Elements) without relying in traits or runes, but Renegade has the quality of life of being able to kill everything below champs without even being touched (short bow).

Thanks. Would you suggest power or condi Renegade? Any suggestions for inexpensive starter gear while I build up the gold account?

@Providence.7185 said:

@Buran.3796 said:My advice would be to go with Renegade. The Renegade can fight both at range or mele, using either power or condition stats, staying in short bow 90% of the time, and kill well both single targets and small packs of enemies. The powe Herald is pure mele and albeit very competent at single target damage, loses a lot of efficiency when has to tag multiple foes at the same time. The condition Herald is mele/short range AoE, much better against small packs, but a bit slower vs single targets. To me soloing hero points/bosses with power Herald is faster but more risky, with condi Herald a bit slower but way tankier. Herald has the quality of life of having perma-swiftness (Facet of Elements) without relying in traits or runes, but Renegade has the quality of life of being able to kill everything below champs without even being touched (short bow).

Power gear is far more accessible. You can buy it cheap from the market. Condi on the other hand requires specific farming. Viper requires farming Heart of Thorns maps. I would go the power/herald route first. Herald is so so survivable, that it can take you through most of what you need.

Generally speaking, renegade has more versatility, and much better condi. I would still recommend herald first, but if you can only play one, then renegade.

Renegade unless you are playing WvW.

PvE tankiness mainly comes from dwarf legend + dance of death. The herald only offers you the invuln from infuse light.

@otto.5684 said:Viper requires farming Heart of Thorns maps.

You can buy exotic viper armor/weapons off the TP now.

You can also get the insignia/inscription recipes from WvW if you're at least around rank 55 in WvW.

Renegade because yu gain the most damage and sustain out of it with little gear investment.

Dance of Death + Darkrazor + Icerazor will easily shred through most things yu come across with just gear yu pick off the floor.

The only thing bad about the Renegade is the Short-bow vs having a longbow. It's sad the hammer is your range weapon.

@Game of Bones.8975 said:The only thing bad about the Renegade is the Short-bow vs having a longbow. It's sad the hammer is your range weapon.

I felt the same pain ... but it does raise the question:

Is the hammer better than the SBow, EVEN in a non-condi build? Sure, SBow shorter range, but still has a similar utility that I find most useful that I get from Hammer. Anyone share a similar experience?

@Game of Bones.8975 said:The only thing bad about the Renegade is the Short-bow vs having a longbow. It's sad the hammer is your range weapon.

Pharus is way better looking than C&C (and easier to get) in my opinion, but horse bows > long bows irl.

@Obtena: the short bow is better than the hammer with both power, condi or hybrid stats/builds at anything PvE/PvP related, and at roaming/small scale skirmishes in WvW.

Numerically for PVE:

• Shortbow auto is 0.65 coefficient + 3s base bleeding on ~0.7 second auto chain if you include aftercast and animations --- ~0.93 coefficient per second plus bleed
• Bloodbane path / Shortbow 2 is on 3s cooldown and has 1.2 coefficient + 3 stacks of 8s bleeding --- minor increase in damage if no condition damage improvements as it is 1s cast time
• Sevenshot / Shortbow 3 is on 7 cooldown and has 2.17 coefficient + 7 stacks of 7s torment
• Spiritcrush / Shortbow 4 is on 9 cooldown and has 2.0 coefficient + 4 stacks of 3s burning

Hammer weapon strength is 1100 while shortbow is 1000 with slightly lower variance.

• Hammer auto is 0.95 coefficient on ~1.25 second auto chain --- you can normalize this to 1.045 coefficient on shortbow and it's about ~0.84 coefficient per second
• Coalescence of Ruin / Hammer 2 is on 4 cooldown and has 1.75 coefficient --- you can normalize this to 1.925 coefficient on shortbow , it's a damage increase over autoing due to 0.75s cast
• Phase Smash / Hammer 3 is on 8 cooldown and has 1.75 coefficient --- you can normalize this to 1.925 coefficient on shortbow and also take into account the exceedingly long 1.25s animation due to the evade frame
• Drop the Hammer / Hammer 5 is 15s cooldown and has 1.5 coefficient --- you can normalize this to 1.65 coefficient on shortbow and note you would only use this for CC of 2s knockdown as the animation takes 1.75s

In PVE where cleave or radius damage is more valued than piercing or line attacks or added 300 range it's clear hammer isn't a superior choice on renegades.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@Game of Bones.8975 said:The only thing bad about the Renegade is the Short-bow vs having a longbow. It's sad the hammer is your range weapon.

Hammer will never beat shortbow because of cooldowns and animation.

If yu compare just AAs then Hammer looks stronger.

If yu factor the entire kit and consider cooldowns, Shortbow is way out of Hammer's league.