khawki.4205

I'm not saying that Heal Herald has to be meta, all I want is a viable option to play in endgame content. My reasoning for change isn't "herald isn't played in every group like druid is" but rather "herald is rarely used in endgame pve overall"

Important overlook! I started topic thinking that Herald may have issues providing 25 stacks of might. Turns out it is possible and not even that hard. There was one way presented earlier, with giving might on crits, but there is one better as Mace has fire field on 2 and blast finisher on 3. As you also usually have staff you can also blast it with staff 4. This way, with Minstrell gear/monk runes it is possible to grant 22-25 stacks of might to 5 people and 12-15 to the rest of squad. This needs more testing for sure, which I'll do after xmas.

While Herald has pretty balanced toolkit it doesn't offer anything that can't be achieved much easier with meta setups (as I started topic, main healers can just get to 20-25 stacks of might with ease and they provide either spirits, quickness or some other unique things) Topic didn't start as "buff dps" yet people see problem here since it's easier to notice (just look at benches) I want buffed might generation, I admit that. But for dps I want careful rework, changing traits so it is possible to achieve higher dps, but to also eliminate 29k afk build.

No point getting mad over it, as it won't fix anything. If Anet says you should report it as a bug then do so and just wait. Or maybe write to someone from Anet staff you can find on forums, however, be polite. Accept that this may not be thier priority. Accept that it may be not easy fix, not everything is fixed with 3 button clicks. Maybe they even tried to fix it and faced new, worse bugs as result of it. And if it's something that makes game for you not fun - change class or game completly. And may I remind you that you're not forced to pay anything, you can play core game for free or just pay for expansion once and enjoy vast amount of content.

So, we get another problem of conflict between low dps and beeing able to deal quite disturbing dps by almost afking. Thus I see simple solution of changing Forceful Persistence trait which is responsible of afk Herald builds. As for now it gives 13% dmg increase in every legend other than Glint when you have any upkeep skill active while also giving 4% per upkeep skill on Glint (so may go up to 20%). The problem I see with it that for Glint, you get 4% with skill that costs 1 upkeep and 4% with Elite, it doesn't matter. Same with other legends, you may have no energy drain (or 1 upkeep drain) and get 13% from that. But what if we change it to give dmg boost per draining upkeep (meaning you have to be actively loosing energy to gain from it, no staying at 50 energy all the time) and make no difference between Glint and other legends (since only Glint can get to all 5 draining upkeeps so higher dmg there). I am aware that Jalis-Shiro build would still be a thing here, but with Glint being better option people will gravitate towards it for bigger numbers.

That gives Herald more healing, which is already huge, lost in overhealing and takes away might generation which is already his problem... not to mention you have same trait in next column...

If you say it as "you can play whatever you want" then no, you're limited by what you can bring to group, if you bring substantially less than other builds, you get kicked out. Fair point, if Herald were to get might generation on shield instead of facet, that would still be step in right direction. My idea was facet since it's easiest to change and doesn't change playstyle at all, so it would be same as always herald, but slightly buffed.

Moving would be nice, that is for sure, as well as healing there, or change it to pulse heal on 5 targets. However I do not think shield 4 needs more healing, as it's quite strong for it's energy cost, however I would love to see blast finisher on it. Also more healing won't fix might uptime problem, so there's that.

Isn't that an issue if you have limited options like that? I do believe that every class with every elite spec should be playable in PvE (as I said, I don't know about other gamemodes). I'm not trying to force overpowering Herald, just give it small buffs to stay relevant to current state of game.

If we want less passive gameplay for Herald then Facets would need complete rework and that would create completely new elite spec. Facets are by nature quite passive (yet comparing to signets, quite active gameplay I would say). Besides, is it more passive to control your energy, consuming when you want to gain specific effect or delay legend swapping...or is it more passive to double tap skills to receive boons?

One important thing I didn't emphasize enough. I'm talking about this one issue of slow might ramp up and not being able to keep up 20-25 stacks of might (except for way explained by Echo.6310) I know that Herald should get buffed in general, but I don't want to overdo it (we are not Mesmers, remember that!), that's why I'm focusing on small steps. I've seen huge lists of what should be improved in certain class but created with no thought of how combining all of it would make this class literally god. And I do not wish to go this way.

With right build (Forceful Persistence + Notoriety in subs with less than 3 power users including you) you can outmatch spellbreakers or scrappers in dmg while also giving protection, fury and most importantly, swapping between 20% boon duration for whole squad or giving them lifesteal. So I don't think dps is that much of a deal. In my view only problem is being able to only be dps (with small boon support). Herald has whole trait line designed to be a healer, IMO he should be viable option as main heal.

Before we start, I'm talking PvE only, mostly raids/strikes/fractals, I don't play other game modes. So, I've been playing Herald whenever I can, mostly as dps (variation of snowcrows build, but with more personal dps), it's really enjoyable and can pull its weight on raids (not huge dps, but helps squad in some subtle ways, kind of being glue for pugs). Recently however I started trying out tank+heal herald, hoping I can somehow replace druid. As for healing - it's actually enough to keep your squad alive in most fights, easily no downed people on VG greens. Problem is, there is not enough might generation in his kit. With Facet of Strength and Shared Empowerment you can get up to 15 stacks with slightly above 80% Boon Duration. Not to mention very slow ramp up. I would really love some variety in raid compositions, thus I think about small change to PvE herald. Simply, change Facet of Strength to give 2 stacks of might instead of 1. Faster ramp up and being able to keep 25 stack on squad would be enough to make him viable option! And I know some people will mention spotter and spirits. Due to spirits druid always will be better, but I don't see reason why we should consider it as only option and not look towards other builds. As for spotter - you can simply take 100 precision food instead of 100 power one. You lose around 110 power (due to spotter over-capping) but with Herald you get 150 ferocity in return. Not to mention spotter can be given by soulbeast or other ranger build. So, what do you guys think about this small buff? Is it something that Herald should get or am I just being greedy? Edit: through discussion another problem about dps Herald showed up which I adressed in reply that I quote here for more clarity

So I recently started playing with some signets other than Bane on Guardian, and noticed how annyoing is it to use some of them. Signet of Courage especially. It may give nice passive healing, but active effect is 2,5 sec cast time and you can't even move while casting it. So you're defensless for really long time and so is your team (if you were supposed to heal them), just waiting for this "big heal". More than that, when you are moving constantly, then stop to use it, then sometimes you don't stop right away, so skill gets canceled and goes on short cooldown.Looking on some forums I saw people saying "never play this". I see why they say it, but I wanna ask different question. Should it be changed and how?