Is Power Herald viable now? Let's take a look.

Power Herald lost Equillibrium(free 15k damage every 18 seconds), but in the process gained more dps in the forms of forceful persistence, sword offhand changes, and charged mists. According to the last qT benchmark with power revenant, it did 26.5k dps, so with equillibrium removed, it currently does about 26k dps. Now if we add in forceful persistence, during jalis you are getting about 28k dps. During glint, you are getting about 29k dps if pulsing boon duration and protection(standard herald boons). So with forceful persistence alone, you're getting a standard 28.5k dps across the board.

Now onto the new sword skills. Compared to sword 2(the main damage dealer in the old rotation), sword 4 does about 29% less damage, sword 5 does about 38% less damage. Compared to an auto attack, sword offhand skills 4 and 5 do about 50% more damage with the same exact cast time. So with the new sword offhand skills, you're effectively getting off an additional 1.5 sword 2 abilities per legend(only with alacrity). This alone could easily raise the dps to 30k.

Now I bet you're saying, "But anet made the skills cost so much! Do they hate Revenant?" That is why for the grandmaster traitline in Invocation, you'll be taking Charged Mists, which gives 25 additional energy when swapping at 10 energy or below. With Jalis, the 25 energy lets you spam 1 2 4 5 with hammers while still having 5-8 energy leftover at the end, so there's not much room to mess up your energy conservation. In order to perfectly get below 10 energy on herald, you actually only need to use boon duration and protection while spamming 1 2 4 5, so the rotation is the same with offhand sword added. So the question now becomes, is 30-31k dps, permanent protection and permanent 33% extra boon duration worth a slot in a party?

Edit: I actually messed up and it's only 4% extra damage while using boon duration + protection, but it still is 8% extra dps for the same energy if you use all the facets except the heal and elite. I also forgot about the GoTL nerf, that makes the dps around 26k, feels bad.

Viable in PvE? What isn't viable in PvE?? Why does this game EVER get balanced around PvE???

@BeepBoopBop.5403 said:Viable in PvE? What isn't viable in PvE?? Why does this game EVER get balanced around PvE???

Bad builds that don't meet support/dps checks for instanced group content. Not all PvE is open world. Just because PvP balance is ass doesn't mean that PvE shouldn't be improved either.

@Cuon Alpinus.7645 said:

@BeepBoopBop.5403 said:Viable in PvE? What isn't viable in PvE?? Why does this game EVER get balanced around PvE???

If only there was a way to, idk, split them up but the technology just doesn't exist.

@Hooglese.4860 said:

@Cuon Alpinus.7645 said:

@BeepBoopBop.5403 said:Viable in PvE? What isn't viable in PvE?? Why does this game EVER get balanced around PvE???

It is truly an elusive technology. I doubt the likes of us mere mortals will ever experience it in our lifetimes.

So I tested power herald with realist buffs (no food/utilities because I'm cheap) on both large and small targets (4,000,000 hp). I also did Roiling Mists vs Charge Mists and here's what I got:

Small Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4 included in rotation: 22,597Charge Mists w/sword 4 & 5 (because I had the extra energy): 21,151

Large Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4: 22,322Charged Mists w/ sword 4 & 5: 21,030

Now you could easily clean these numbers up with a better rotation and obs food and utilities, but here are the BIG things I noticed: you can't use sword 5 with RM because it eats up too much energy and is a dps loss (I did some testing earlier but I don't quite remember the difference). Also, don't bother using sword 4 on Jalis as it eats up too much energy and didn't seem worth it to keep (Precision strike only on Jalis and both skills while in Glint). Charged Mists requires you to use more upkeep skills on Glint to get down to >10 energy to give you +25 for Jalis. This makes you lose a little bit of dps since you have to wait a bit longer than 10s to swap to Jalis. You can use all three sword skills in rotation but it didn't help dps. Overall, RM is still better than CM in PvE (I would love someone to prove me wrong though).

@Aninika.6819 said:So I tested power herald with realist buffs (no food/utilities because I'm cheap) on both large and small targets (4,000,000 hp). I also did Roiling Mists vs Charge Mists and here's what I got:

Small Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4 included in rotation: 22,597Charge Mists w/sword 4 & 5 (because I had the extra energy): 21,151

Large Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4: 22,322Charged Mists w/ sword 4 & 5: 21,030

Now you could easily clean these numbers up with a better rotation and obs food and utilities, but here are the BIG things I noticed: you can't use sword 5 with RM because it eats up too much energy and is a dps loss (I did some testing earlier but I don't quite remember the difference). Also, don't bother using sword 4 on Jalis as it eats up too much energy and didn't seem worth it to keep (Precision strike only on Jalis and both skills while in Glint). Charged Mists requires you to use more upkeep skills on Glint to get down to >10 energy to give you +25 for Jalis. This makes you lose a little bit of dps since you have to wait a bit longer than 10s to swap to Jalis. You can use all three sword skills in rotation but it didn't help dps. Overall, RM is still better than CM in PvE (I would love someone to prove me wrong though).

I did tests with charged mists 4 and 5 and got 25-26k dps. i did another test with roiling and got around 2k dps less. also for glint you can pop swiftness facet too if you're struggling with energy loss, it gives 2% more dps too, but honestly as it stands, power herald is still dead since giving 33% extra boon duration probably isnt good enough(which is ironic in a boon meta).

@haventr.1630 said:

@Aninika.6819 said:So I tested power herald with realist buffs (no food/utilities because I'm cheap) on both large and small targets (4,000,000 hp). I also did Roiling Mists vs Charge Mists and here's what I got:

Small Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4 included in rotation: 22,597Charge Mists w/sword 4 & 5 (because I had the extra energy): 21,151

Large Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4: 22,322Charged Mists w/ sword 4 & 5: 21,030

Now you could easily clean these numbers up with a better rotation and obs food and utilities, but here are the BIG things I noticed: you can't use sword 5 with RM because it eats up too much energy and is a dps loss (I did some testing earlier but I don't quite remember the difference). Also, don't bother using sword 4 on Jalis as it eats up too much energy and didn't seem worth it to keep (Precision strike only on Jalis and both skills while in Glint). Charged Mists requires you to use more upkeep skills on Glint to get down to >10 energy to give you +25 for Jalis. This makes you lose a little bit of dps since you have to wait a bit longer than 10s to swap to Jalis. You can use all three sword skills in rotation but it didn't help dps. Overall, RM is still better than CM in PvE (I would love someone to prove me wrong though).

I redid testing and am still struggling to get anywhere near your results; I still have RM at a much higher dps than CM. And yes, power herald is still dead for meta raid content.

@Aninika.6819 said:

@haventr.1630 said:

@Aninika.6819 said:So I tested power herald with realist buffs (no food/utilities because I'm cheap) on both large and small targets (4,000,000 hp). I also did Roiling Mists vs Charge Mists and here's what I got:

Small Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4 included in rotation: 22,597Charge Mists w/sword 4 & 5 (because I had the extra energy): 21,151

Large Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4: 22,322Charged Mists w/ sword 4 & 5: 21,030

Now you could easily clean these numbers up with a better rotation and obs food and utilities, but here are the BIG things I noticed: you can't use sword 5 with RM because it eats up too much energy and is a dps loss (I did some testing earlier but I don't quite remember the difference). Also, don't bother using sword 4 on Jalis as it eats up too much energy and didn't seem worth it to keep (Precision strike only on Jalis and both skills while in Glint). Charged Mists requires you to use more upkeep skills on Glint to get down to >10 energy to give you +25 for Jalis. This makes you lose a little bit of dps since you have to wait a bit longer than 10s to swap to Jalis. You can use all three sword skills in rotation but it didn't help dps. Overall, RM is still better than CM in PvE (I would love someone to prove me wrong though).

for rotation you do Jalis: Hammers, 1 and 2 spam with your boon duration facet, legend swap, protection 1 2 4 5 spam then use your swiftness facet aoe when all 3 are on cooldown. When low on energy, swap back and hammer, 1 2 4 5 spam. rinse and repeat

@haventr.1630 said:

@Aninika.6819 said:

@haventr.1630 said:

@Aninika.6819 said:So I tested power herald with realist buffs (no food/utilities because I'm cheap) on both large and small targets (4,000,000 hp). I also did Roiling Mists vs Charge Mists and here's what I got:

Small Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4 included in rotation: 22,597Charge Mists w/sword 4 & 5 (because I had the extra energy): 21,151

Large Hitbox:Roiling Mists w/ sword 4: 22,322Charged Mists w/ sword 4 & 5: 21,030

Now you could easily clean these numbers up with a better rotation and obs food and utilities, but here are the BIG things I noticed: you can't use sword 5 with RM because it eats up too much energy and is a dps loss (I did some testing earlier but I don't quite remember the difference). Also, don't bother using sword 4 on Jalis as it eats up too much energy and didn't seem worth it to keep (Precision strike only on Jalis and both skills while in Glint). Charged Mists requires you to use more upkeep skills on Glint to get down to >10 energy to give you +25 for Jalis. This makes you lose a little bit of dps since you have to wait a bit longer than 10s to swap to Jalis. You can use all three sword skills in rotation but it didn't help dps. Overall, RM is still better than CM in PvE (I would love someone to prove me wrong though).

same results as previous. shrug oh well.

I am curious with these changes if dropping herald for renegade with power build could result in a dps gain. You would not need roiling mists, since you can get 100٪؜ critic chance without it. In addition you get 250 ferocity.

Though you lose all support aside from soul cleave.

@otto.5684 said:I am curious with these changes if dropping herald for renegade with power build could result in a dps gain. You would not need roiling mists, since you can get 100٪؜ critic chance without it. In addition you get 250 ferocity.

Though you lose all support aside from soul cleave.

I tried it and it's a decent 2-3k dps loss. you lose out on the elder's force or w.e it's called the 20% extra damage trait and you lose a lot of damage from upkeep and getting below 10 energy is harder with renegade than with herald.