How to Herald?

I never was very efficient with Herald. Sometimes I used Glint and sometimes I didn't. Glint/Herald has always been Meta though, so I missed out. Just never was fun to me to play. But now I been renegade for a while now and want to do something new to me. I am willing to give Herald a shot. I want to know how to properly play Herald. Not just what builds to use. Because I can easily find Meta herald builds from the meta build site. But I just don't know how to best use it.

Herald is sadly very underperforming in PvE. Renegade condi is doing better there.

I prefer power damage myself and is sticking with Revenant yet, just on low power until third proffession. Surely we get a better powerproffession there that isnt a feeble boon bot like glint.

Delete character and get another class or another game. Rev is stuck in Oblivion until TES6 is released.

Herald and Rev was never a much of a dynamic design to begin with...... ... well it was on paper, but wasn't in practice. Herald is Boon Bot with the Facet flip skills only there to give the player something active work with in PvP. In general PvE you want to actively avoid using your skills herald skills, unless you need to shuffle energy consumption, or if the skill in question can capitalize on an opportunity. For Light you flip it when you're in a bomb and can't get out, as its the only heal skill that can rebound all the way to full health; But the problem being if you're in that situation, you're likely not going to make it out, because......

Herald lacks condition management. This more then anything else is what it'll struggles in areas of Open world.... particularly places where theres more AOEs then you have dodges. Infuse light is pretty much you're only utility/healing defense; which forces you to get condition purging from other legends and traits. For the most part, Power Herald + Invocation uses your Fury pluses to basically give you perma 25 might in combat. Shiro can then be as a mobility tool, both offensive and defensively when Glint isn't being useful enough. Or you can take Jalis to get some condition purge and Hammers for AOE tagging. If you take retribution over devastation you can gain condition reduction on Jalis skills for a lot more sustain in those fights..... but you lose out on some significant Power damage and Life Siphon, which makes up a noticeable chunk of DPS and Healing when by yourself.

But even with all that, the damage isn't that great, and you're mostly restricted to Swd/Swd, Staff or Hammer, depending on what you need. Swd has a lot offensive power and hits faster, procing Devastation traits; but lacks any kind of real defense. Staff has defense but can only burst infrequently; However, due to high utility and extreme breakbar destroying power, I prefer Staff over sword as a main melee weapon. Hammer gets taken because its the only ranged power weapon, but does earn itself respect through both its 2 skill damage and 5 skill CC, as well as decent auto damage despite its slow speed. Shield never gets taken because its too slow, needs Healing power investment to be worth it, and you lose out on much needed burst damage from off-hand sword.

As for Raid/Fractal Meta, Herald isn't really been "meta" ever since its boon support and general damage was nerfed into the ground. The only solid spot it has right now is in WvW. Mostly due to Hammer's max range damage (5-8k) being devastating to the lower HP thresholds of players, coupled with the fact that Kalla's entire kit falls apart in mobile combat (made worse by Summons losing their PvE dmg reduction bonus). But if we're talking strictly PvE....... with Kalla being so much better on overall damage, its kind of hard to want herald outside of some very specific encounter design.

Isnt the main problem of staff that you dont get the 10% bonus damage from having a sword, as well much lower damage?

@LucianDK.8615 said:Isnt the main problem of staff that you dont get the 10% bonus damage from having a sword, as well much lower damage?

I mean, the staff wasnt designed as a damage oriented weapon to begin with. Ppl use it on swap for the utility it brings (block, cleanse/ heal, evade/ cc)

I am aware, but im talking of those above that uses it as a main damage weapon over sword sword

Not to seem like I’m trying to self promote here but I main rev (herald) and I stream it pretty often. I break down all the combos when asked and I describe what I’m doing during fights so others can pick up how to handle situations.

twitch.tv/tubbytwoton

If that’s too much then I can provide some tips here too, I just don’t knkw exactly what you’re struggling with on Herald.

@LucianDK.8615 said:I am aware, but im talking of those above that uses it as a main damage weapon over sword sword

Weirdly enough... I think right now, staff is less bad compared to sword for PvP/WvW damage than it has been for a long time... This is mostly due to the new Impossible Odds rework. I mean, yes it's still a big dps loss, but I guess what I mean is, it's not AS big as it was when you could combo prolonged quickness with Riftslash spam.

That said, the only times I really use staff is PvP can broadly be summed up as:

• In the very beginning of engaging (especially as a +1 into a fight with another allied dps class).
• When it's time to save myself/stall a fight.
• Super important interrupts.
• If I know I'm going to be chaining active Glint facet releases.
• To anticipate attacks and eat dead time in 1v1's (like when a thief just stealthed on me or when a chrono pops continuum split offensively).

It's also really strong to use in one v one situations where the person you're fighting has a lot less healing and iframe potential than you do--but I sort of file this under stalling a fight... And those situations are a lot more rare in PoF than they used to be.

I take its still trash tier for dps in pve? staff that be

@LucianDK.8615 said:I take its still trash tier for dps in pve? staff that be

Yep it’s mainly used for the condi removal, immunity and CC-bar killer that is 5. Wish anet gave us way more skills to make any weapon anything you want just like gw1.

Not in this life sadly.

@"LucianDK.8615" said:I take its still trash tier for dps in pve? staff that be

Ya, literally no reason to swap to it in PvE at all really... Just super emergency condi removal or cc--but like only worth doing if your group is going to absolutely wipe if you don't break that bar like NAOW cuz the loss is too great.

Maybe one day there will be some sort of "staff mastery" trait put in to really amp up its dps potential... Something like +20% damage and causing the orbs to do damage to enemies they pass through. But even then, I doubt it would be enough.

I am going to assume that TC is mostly asking about Power Herald.

In PvE, Power Herald is a dps/fury boon bot. DPS rotations are simple, and revolve mostly around auto-attacking while using upkeep utilities such as Impossible Odds in Shiro stance and Fury/Might/Boon duration while in Glint. In open world, Power Rev's sword/sword and hammer hits pretty hard making randoms mobs easy to beat.Staff is for utility such as blocks, small condi cleanse, and to cc break bars.

In PvP, Power Herald is similar-ish to thief. I've tried running tankier builds, but I always end up returning to the sword/sword staff glass mara build with 100% dps traits when possible. Hammer is fun to use in PvP and helps against Scourge, but loses effectiveness to people that know to dodge your slow hammer skills (bad thieves can get downed extremely fast to rev hammer, but if they know how to dodge then hammer is basically pointless) . Lowering your damage/changing traits means you can't burst people down nearly as fast as you need to and will then often die to conditions or get trained. You need to burst/pressure people constantly as a Rev while at the same time avoiding enemy bursts with sword 3, glint heal, shiro's riposting shadows, and staff skills.The problem with this Power Rev build (and rev in general) is that you have little condi cleanse and stab unless you sacrifice a significant amount of damage, along with being almost completely melee focused. You either get really good at timing when to burst people down and when to dodge attacks, or you get destroyed.

"Weak to condi" ends once you embrace mallyx. There's tons of resistance in there. Also Jalis has nice condi (and regular) damage reductions.Now how to play herald? Your own way, that's how!

He will definitely survive more then renegade. Herald's defenses are rock-solid.Don't underestimate the "buff bot" part - you can get 49% boon duration for 2 energy cost upkeep and then span those boons on allies. Protection for party be it wvw or PvE is no joke, and you don't have to use up glint elite to end it, costing you huge cooldown. Just swap legend and after 10s you'll be able to share it again.

One thing I can say as a Bad herald - weapon skills are dirt cheap in energy costs, utilities aren't (unless we're talking glint). Keep that in mind when planning your offense and defense.

Unlike other professions successfully defending against enemy burst is not just losing your defensive skill, it's losing your energy. Even if you did excellent job of mitigating/blocking enemy burst you may find you just blew your energy bank and lack steam to proceed to counter-burst, at least without swapping a legend.

This guy is very deep and complex to play, give him time and love, he'll grow on you. He did on me.

@"LucianDK.8615" said:Herald is sadly very underperforming in PvE. Renegade condi is doing better there.

I prefer power damage myself and is sticking with Revenant yet, just on low power until third proffession. Surely we get a better powerproffession there that isnt a feeble boon bot like glint.

I'm hoping for that too, but there is a chance we get something to couple with our healing legend, just to try to "spread the wealth" as far as meta support classes goes. Although, to be fair, if they go that route, there will end up being so many classes getting something similar. I can think of guardian and warrior who both got power and condi specs. I would imagine a support spec for rev would be appreciated, since so many people are wanting scepter for the next new weapon. I'm personally hoping for a new manpower spec and GS.