Draconic Echo Benefits

Your facet passives affect additional targets and you retain them for a duration after using your consume abilities.

So, tell me if I'm missing something: If I use a consume skill, I have to pass through the facet and get the benefit anyways ... So other than the target increase, does it just add duration to the boon after I Consume the Facet? Seems ... underwhelming as a GM trait.

Something like that, although it's not just adding boon duration - it gives you the Facet effect for 6 seconds after you use the consume skill. This means Facet effects will stays for 6 seconds, meaning they will pulse twice and give the boon each pulse, not only to yourself but to allies as well.

This can help if your boons get stripped before the second pulse, or help maintain your party's boon uptime (aside from improve yourself's boon uptime too). It's not that great of a trait but I find it helpful to maintain boons, especially after the recent nerfs to boon duration (Leadership boon duration nerf and Herald trait nerf). Of course boon stripping before the second pulse seems like a rare case, and if you're playing solo then the target number increase and retaining facet effect doesn't sound that interesting.

You can compare them to Written in stone, while you dont maintain the passive effect forever, Facets are more powerful than signets. The CD reduction is comparable to the additional targets affected.

Personally I think this is one of the best traits to be introduced to Herald and I couldn't be happier with it. Doubling the target cap is huge if you are running in big groups, and although some of the boons may have less impact than others, an extra 6+ seconds is significant, and like @idolin.2831 said, helps bridge the gap that was created when boon duration was nerfed. This trait allows me to run a hypothetical 11k hps when in Glint just from Facet of Light alone, as well as significant protection uptime. With my boon duration, I can also maintain near perma-swiftness just by popping Elemental Blast off cooldown, meaning no energy investment if I am after just the swiftness. Don't forget that it affects Facet of Nature too, which is great if you actively use it. The trait is amazing and of high value.

With that said, I swear I still don't get my boons sometimes after swapping from Glint while my Draconic Echoed facets are up.

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

With that said, I swear I still don't get my boons sometimes after swapping from Glint while my Draconic Echoed facets are up.

That's because Draconic Echo helps retain facets only after their respective consume skills are used, not when they're turned off by swapping legends.

From the wiki:

Your facet passives affect additional targets and you retain them for a duration after using your consume abilities.Increased Target Number: 5Duration: 6s

@idolin.2831 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

With that said, I swear I still don't get my boons sometimes after swapping from Glint while my Draconic Echoed facets are up.

Your facet passives affect additional targets and you retain them for a duration

after using your consume abilities

.Increased Target Number: 5Duration: 6s

Yes, hence the "Drachonic Echoed" part. I am just saying that the bug still is present for me, which makes the trait significantly less appealing.

@idolin.2831 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

With that said, I swear I still don't get my boons sometimes after swapping from Glint while my Draconic Echoed facets are up.

Your facet passives affect additional targets and you retain them for a duration

after using your consume abilities

.Increased Target Number: 5Duration: 6s

Yeah, that's kind of the dig ... you have to consume all the facets you are using and THEN swap to get that extra long duration on non-glint legends; it's sort of a faceroll kind of deal. Personally, if I'm swapping from glint, it's only for the total ICD of legend swapping to get access to the non-glint skill bar. I suppose that with Draconic Echo ... I could retain perma boons through my non-glint phase. Frankly, I think it's a weird trait ... it's a GM glint trait that is useful only outside of using glint. Thanks for the clarification.

@Obtena.7952 said:

@idolin.2831 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:

With that said, I swear I still don't get my boons sometimes after swapping from Glint while my Draconic Echoed facets are up.

Your facet passives affect additional targets and you retain them for a duration

after using your consume abilities

.Increased Target Number: 5Duration: 6s

Well it is still very useful, but perhaps maybe not in the situations that you are thinking of.

Examples:-My group is pushing into an enemy group. I use Chaotic Release to for the knockback/superspeed, but also profit from granting 6+ seconds of protection to 10 allies.-I am in Glint, my energy is low, and I'm about to swap facets. Rather than immediately swap, I consume all my active facets. I not only gain the benefits of the consume skills, but also keep rolling boons while I am in another legend.*-I am in Ventari and am trying to apply sustained healing to my allies. However, we get condition bombed and I have no choice but to use the consume. The sustained healing continues for 6 seconds (2 additional ticks).

**The bug, at least in my experience, prevents DE from reapplying boons if you swap legends after using your consume skill. I haven't tested it extensively but I was just quickly testing it 30 mins ago and this was the case.

This may seem a bit weak on paper but in WvW both zerging and roaming it's very good. It does however need to keep applying boons if one swaps legends after consuming.

For zerging, you can pump out over twice the boons to allies that you would without the trait (4 other allies vs 9). It also helps with boon uptime especially if you play actively and don't have that much boon duration as many zerging backline heralds will have.

For roaming, herald already has very high damage. As soon as the herald rework happened last year and the meta PvP build ran the new Forceful Persistence, most experienced WvW rev players tried DE instead. After the bugs were mostly fixed, it has become by far the best option for solo sustain with boons like regen and prot. Even the might uptime is much better in conjunction with extra ticks of Facet of Darkness/Strength. The way the trait seems to work is that upon consume, you are immediately granted another instance of the boon, and that will continue to pulse for another couple ticks. This helps herald's self sustain massively and, if you know how to land damage, you won't miss Forceful Persistence.

In pvp, the added prot and regen uptime from glint facets really boosts your survivability and sustain. It may not be perma of those boons but having perma would be OP so this is a balanced tradeoff. The added fury and might pulses are also really nice if you're swapping into shiro because your burst would have some added fury and might just to maximize your damage.