Renegade or Herald

I really want to get both of the elite specialization for my Revenant character, but I don't know which one to choose. Can someone give me Pros and Cons for both specializations?

If you want both then you can get both. You'll just have to do the hero points. As far as the specs go:

Herald Pro:: Good at self buffing and group buffingBest heal skill/invulnerability in the gameLow maintenanceDoes power damageLots of defensive skills.Great CC

Cons: Low overall damageLow AoE damage.

The Herald is good for groups that are extremely n00bish and run around frenetically. The buff range is far, and with it you can ensure that the whole team will have might, fury, and protection. You'll see the herald used a lot in WvW (both power and condi variants) for its group buffs, but also because it is an excellent healer.

Renegade Pro: Very high damagegood might stackingMedium CCInnate Boon removalGood AoE Damage

Cons: Only 900 range.Inconsistent skills

For PVE, the Renegade is one of the best. It does very high damage in a large area, and although the legend and skills are inconsistent, in the right spots they're excellent. The spec has a low ramp up time as far as condition builds are concerned, and the bizarre ranges of each of the skills means you'll melt everything in a large cone in front of you.

Herald+Boon Support and Party Wide boon duration boost (+33%)+One of the better heals on the profession when used right+Shield (specialization Offhand) gives extra sustain+Good synergy with most base Revenant legends+Viable in all competitive game modes and PvE+Not energy intensive-Not very damage heavy. Main source comes from might stacking and Elder's Force for each boon on you during an encounter-Doesn't provide boons as well as other dedicated buffers in Raids

Renegade+Ranged condition weapon+AoE CC (Darkrazor's Daring)+More damage to an already strong condition build+Unique party Support (Bleeding bonus, Lifesteal bonus, Alacrity)+Has some Might stacking w/ Heroic Command/Kalla's Fervor-Energy intensive-Spirits can be CC'd/killed, wasting their effect-Shortbow offers little utility while M/Ax deals better damage-Not currently viable for WvW/PvP

If you WvW, you'll want Herald first... If you raid, you'll want Renegade first.

If all you do is Open World/Dungeon/Fractal, they're both good in their own ways. Renegade kills stuff (especially groups of stuff and Elite and Higher MOBs) way faster, but Herald gives you a lot more survivability/solo'ing strength/lets you make more mistakes. Herald's probably a stronger choice for pugging 5 man content unless you have a metacomp (chrono/ps/druid/dps/dps); then Renegade becomes way, way better. That said, picky groups are more accepting of getting a Renegade than a Herald even if they would actually benefit more from having a Herald, cuz, a'know, people are dumb like that sometimes...

I don't mention sPvP, because you already have them both in there--in fact you should just go play like 5 unranked games as each and see what fits your play style better.

Are you guys 100% sure that condi renegade is really that much better in PvE than the power rev?If I do choose to go condi, I need to change all my equipment and that sounds really costly to me.

condi renegade does a ton of damage even with little skill. Short bow isn't very good but the pof elite makes the original condi build even better.I however will not be using rev anymore. Mainly because it doesn't fufill the role in wvw I want it to.For pve however condi rev is in the top 5 of the dps builds way ahead of power rev.

If your just going to do open world either will do fine.

@MintTea.6713 said:I really want to get both of the elite specialization for my Revenant character, but I don't know which one to choose. Can someone give me Pros and Cons for both specializations?

Other posters mostly covered it. If it is open world or PvE in general, both are fairly good. Renegade though is tied to condi build, where Herald is more flexible. Though for raids and fractals I would recommend Renegade.

Any form of PvP use Herald.

@corwin.3495 said:Are you guys 100% sure that condi renegade is really that much better in PvE than the power rev?If I do choose to go condi, I need to change all my equipment and that sounds really costly to me.

Which PvE parts are you asking about? If you're not talking about raid or high end fractal, I believe power renegade is working fine. I think it actually has much higher damage than power herald. Just pick Lasting Legacy and you'll get 300 ferocity which is a lot.

@godfat.2604 said:

@corwin.3495 said:Are you guys 100% sure that condi renegade is really that much better in PvE than the power rev?If I do choose to go condi, I need to change all my equipment and that sounds really costly to me.

I am talking about high end fractals. Really? Aren't all renegade short bow and elite spec abilities condi based?

@corwin.3495 said:

@godfat.2604 said:

@corwin.3495 said:Are you guys 100% sure that condi renegade is really that much better in PvE than the power rev?If I do choose to go condi, I need to change all my equipment and that sounds really costly to me.

Shortbow can be used for power damage, utilizing the ease of getting crits through Renegade trait that raises crit by 33% when at full endurance, the +300 ferocity from kalla's ferver, and the high number of hits shortbow can get + life leeching elite/traits.

We are extremely sure that condi renegade beats out power rev nearly everywhere in PVE. The power herald has two advantages: It is better at group buffing, and it can run staff to do great CC without doing silly low damage. Meanwhile, condi renegade does an immense amount of damage in a very wide area. I'm talking about doing 40% more damage with very little ramp up in an extremely flexible rotation. Group fury means very little when whole battalions of foes melt away at your feet.

If you are unsure, you can wait for the upcoming balance patch and see how much the spec gets nerfed. But from the sound of things, viper is the new berserker.

@Redfeather.6401 said:

@corwin.3495 said:

@godfat.2604 said:

@corwin.3495 said:Are you guys 100% sure that condi renegade is really that much better in PvE than the power rev?If I do choose to go condi, I need to change all my equipment and that sounds really costly to me.

This is like saying a Power Necro can use a scepter for its power damage. You can, but why would you when there are better options? Even when specialized as a Renegade, you can still use the good ol' Hammer with way better base damage and power scaling.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:We are extremely sure that condi renegade beats out power rev nearly everywhere in PVE. The power herald has two advantages: It is better at group buffing, and it can run staff to do great CC without doing silly low damage. Meanwhile, condi renegade does an immense amount of damage in a very wide area. I'm talking about doing 40% more damage with very little ramp up in an extremely flexible rotation. Group fury means very little when whole battalions of foes melt away at your feet.

If you are unsure, you can wait for the upcoming balance patch and see how much the spec gets nerfed. But from the sound of things, viper is the new berserker.

Hm... any idea when is this balance patch? And where do they publish these balance changes? So far I have never seen any of the patches.I would like to try it, but as I mentioned, it sounds pretty costly, so I'm am not sure if it's worth the risk.

@corwin.3495 said:

@"Blood Red Arachnid.2493" said:We are extremely sure that condi renegade beats out power rev nearly everywhere in PVE. The power herald has two advantages: It is better at group buffing, and it can run staff to do great CC without doing silly low damage. Meanwhile, condi renegade does an immense amount of damage in a very wide area. I'm talking about doing 40% more damage with very little ramp up in an extremely flexible rotation. Group fury means very little when whole battalions of foes melt away at your feet.

If you are unsure, you can wait for the upcoming balance patch and see how much the spec gets nerfed. But from the sound of things, viper is the new berserker.

Balance patches come every three or so months. You might not see any of them in these forums because the previous pre-PoF balance patch (August 8) was posted in the old forums.

If you're concerned about Power vs Condition Damage, according to the last Developer AMA, ArenaNet has conceded that for long fights, Condition Damage will always win out. The main concern they have been looking into is more towards the burst potential of Condition Damage.

@corwin.3495 said:

Hm... any idea when is this balance patch? And where do they publish these balance changes? So far I have never seen any of the patches.I would like to try it, but as I mentioned, it sounds pretty costly, so I'm am not sure if it's worth the risk.

They post the patches in the front page news and in the forums, but also you can read it in Dulfy.net.

Usually there's a new balance patch every 4 months, between the end of a PvP season and the start of the next. The current PvP season ends in two days and the next should start in 4 weeks at most, so in the follow 3 weeks we will have a new balance patch.

Tnx guys :) Then I will wait for the next balance patch and then I'll decide what to do with my rev :)

Hi Corwin. I use rampager on my renegade just fine. Eventually I'm going to upgrade to grieving, but that will require doing all the funerary armour collections and waiting for grieving inscription to become available so I can stat change my weapon. Hybrid renegade is really fun and more bursty, so it's better for non-boss fights.

@Redfeather.6401 said:Hi Corwin. I use rampager on my renegade just fine. Eventually I'm going to upgrade to grieving, but that will require doing all the funerary armour collections and waiting for grieving inscription to become available so I can stat change my weapon. Hybrid renegade is really fun and more bursty, so it's better for non-boss fights.

Just mentioning in case you aren't aware: Viper is a better upgrade to Condi Rev/Renegade than Grieving. Grieving has reasonably better burst, but quite a bit less overall damage in longer (harder) fights.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:We are extremely sure that condi renegade beats out power rev nearly everywhere in PVE. The power herald has two advantages: It is better at group buffing, and it can run staff to do great CC without doing silly low damage. Meanwhile, condi renegade does an immense amount of damage in a very wide area. I'm talking about doing 40% more damage with very little ramp up in an extremely flexible rotation. Group fury means very little when whole battalions of foes melt away at your feet.

If you are unsure, you can wait for the upcoming balance patch and see how much the spec gets nerfed. But from the sound of things, viper is the new berserker.

Technically, I think a Power Herald would lose more DPS than a Condi Renegade swapping to staff for CC. A Renegade can at least still channel Embrace and drop an Unyielding Anguish while stuck on staff (or use Bombardment/Razorclaw if you were in Kalla), whereas a Power Herald is missing out on a pretty large amount of direct damage and Vicious Lacerations. I mean, it's still a loss of dps, but at least there's utility skills they can invest their energy into to keep up some condi-presence...

Conversely, a Renegade can also just use Darkrazor for a ton of cc too and not have to swap to staff. Although 30 energy is pretty costly dps-wise for a cc skill.

I realized this when I was doing that stupid Serpent's Ire meta event and was like, f-it, max cc mode, I'm bringing staff instead of a 2nd axe...

So, after the latest patch is it still worth it to change from power herald to the condi build? PvEwise.I don't mind learning how to play condi if it is really worth it.

@corwin.3495 said:So, after the latest patch is it still worth it to change from power herald to the condi build? PvEwise.I don't mind learning how to play condi if it is really worth it.

Why not both? I unlocked herald after gearing out my condi renegade. I still don't have a power set, but I'll get one eventually...probably. Condi herald kind of works.

PvE wise both are fine. High-end meta content, Renegade is superior. High-end non meta (you will rarely come across this though) and non meta in general content, Herald is superior (because buffs) but Renegade is not a bad choice either. Just depends if you're doing meta or non-meta content.

@Aninika.6819 said:PvE wise both are fine. High-end meta content, Renegade is superior. High-end non meta (you will rarely come across this though) and non meta in general content, Herald is superior (because buffs) but Renegade is not a bad choice either. Just depends if you're doing meta or non-meta content.

If by meta you mean raids, I don't do those. Usually I play only fractals.

@corwin.3495 said:

@Aninika.6819 said:PvE wise both are fine. High-end meta content, Renegade is superior. High-end non meta (you will rarely come across this though) and non meta in general content, Herald is superior (because buffs) but Renegade is not a bad choice either. Just depends if you're doing meta or non-meta content.

More like meta builds and comps (bannerslave, Chrono, druid, dps, dps) Renegade will out perform Herald Everytime, but if you're running with pugs, Herald will do better than Renegade due to buffs and survivability without sacrificing dps. Renegade will have to sacrifice dps for survivability. However, Renegade is least likely to get you kicked from groups in t4 (unless you make your own groups).

Even in non meta groups Renegade pushes out more dps through perma 25 stacks of might and 100% alacrity uptime for the group. What makes Herald shine even in meta groups is the filler boons so you can run specific comps to ignore mechanics in some t4's, 99 and 100cm.

For overall fractal play they are both really strong and bring great utility to the group so I would highly suggest you learn to play both for flexibility.

@corwin.3495 said:So, after the latest patch is it still worth it to change from power herald to the condi build? PvEwise.I don't mind learning how to play condi if it is really worth it.

I run condi herald in 100cm and daily t4's but power is fine there as well.

In upper fractal play Condi Herald and Power Herald do roughly the same dps but condi has much higher cleave dps if things live for awhile (which if you pug a lot they often do). Really depends on the situation and the fractal but both are pretty great.

I personally go condi Herald because the gear works with Renegade as well while a power build on Renegade is terrible. I am too lazy to have multiple sets of armor for a small situational gain.

Honestly at this point condi vs power herald for fractals is straight up preference even for meta 100cm groups. Play what you like.