lombomon.7268

I hope they give Herald some love, if not with EoD release then with the summer balance patch they've mentioned. Losing 10 targets and the addition of another elite spec with DPS and support capabilities, Herald's lack of a niche is only going to get more apparent in PvE.

It's an odd effect, for certain, but I don't really have any ideas for how to improve it aside from this, so if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them. The changes I made to Core Value and Shining Aspects would provide additional effects that would hopefully make it more versatile if people trait into it. Making shield better has always been a tricky discussion. I think the long cooldowns AND high energy costs are part of it though. I edited my original post and reduced the energy cost and cooldown of Crystal Hibernation further as well as the energy cost of Envoy of Exuberance. A lot of people have beef with Crystal Hibernation since it makes you immobile, but I didn't want to remove the intent of the devs so I stuck with an efficacy bump for the current implementation rather than replacing it with something new.

I've been a Revenant main since HoT launch and as such I've always had a fondness for Herald. I've made suggestions for years, but given we're about to get a 3rd set of elite specs, I think now is a good time to tinker with it before most balance attention goes towards tweaking the Vindicator. Herald definitely lacks in a couple areas and some slight changes would make it more fun and useful. All of the changes I'm considering here are for PvE only. Adjustments/skill splitting would likely be warranted for these changes in competitive modes, but I don't detail that here. Some of these changes will also be enhancing the active aspects of the elite spec, as many of its traits and skills are passive and don't encourage active gameplay. F2/Facet of Nature: Facet of Nature - Centaur: Increase healing power scaling and base value by ~10% each. True Nature - Centaur: Increase healing power scaling by 150% (it is currently at 0.1 * healing power) True Nature - Assassin: In addition to its previous effects, this skill will grant the Herald 3 stacks of Battle Scars. True Nature - Dragon: Increase the boon extension from 2 to 3 seconds. Legendary Dragon Stance: Facet of Strength: Increase might duration from 12 to 14. Burst of Strength: Increase damage by ~25%. Chaotic Release: Reduce superspeed duration from 5 to 3. In addition to its previous effects, this skill will now grant allies 1.5 seconds of quickness. Shield: Crystal Hibernation: Reduce energy cost from 20 to 15. Reduce cooldown from 25 to 20. In addition to its previous effects, this skill now grants the Herald and nearby allies 1 second of Resolution at each pulse. Additionally, the healing effect is increased by 5% per boon on the Herald. Envoy of Exuberance: Reduce cooldown from 15 to 12. Reduce energy cost from 8 to 7. Traits: Core Value: Rework this trait. Its new effect is as follows: True Nature now breaks stun. Draconic Fortitude: Rework this to grant vitality rather than a health percentage. The new effect is as follows: +120 vitality; convert 5% of toughness and 5% of healing power to additional vitality. Shining Aspects: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now causes Consume skills to grant 2 energy to the Herald. Shared Empowerment: Reduce ICD from 1 second to 1/2 a second. Increase might duration from 8 to 10 seconds. Forceful Persistence: Rework this to make the damage boost 2.5% per pip of upkeep. This would make it in-line with Rising Momentum and Hardening Persistence and provide a slight damage boost to DPS builds. Elevated Compassion: Increase base healing by 5%. Increase healing power scaling by 25%. These changes would hopefully enhance Herald's performance, re-emphasize its role as a boon-support elite spec, and make some of the skills/traits more interesting to play with. EDIT: Made some additional changes to the shield skills.

The Untamed should be the Ranger elite spec that plays the most with pets, but the Unleashed state hardly affects the pet at all, only granting access to the three new skills. I think an overhaul of the traits could really help out with this. My thoughts (from a mostly PvE perspective): General/Mechanical Changes: The skills the pet acquires in the "Unleash Pet" state will be categorized as Beast skills. (I'll be removing their associated traits, as you can read below, as they will now interact with traits that enhance Beast skills) Trait Changes: Debilitating Blows: This trait has been reworked. Knockdowns you apply last 33% longer. Cleansing Unleash: This trait now also cleanses a condition from the pet when Unleashing. Blinding Outburst: This trait has been renamed Blinding Cantrips. This trait now causes enemies in a 240 radius to be blinded when the player uses a cantrip Natural Fortitude: In addition to granting the Untamed vitality it will also grant the pet +240 vitality. Enhancing Impact: This trait has been reworked. This trait now causes skills that disable a foe to grant the player and pet a stacking ferocity bonus (+40 per stack to the player, +120 per stack to the pet; 5 maximum stacks; stacks have an initial duration of 10 seconds) Bolstering Unleash: This trait has been changed. It now grants boons to both the player and the pet when Unleashing, with the boons each receives depending on who is Unleashed. The one who is Unleashing will gain 3 seconds of quickness while the one is not Unleashed will gain 4 seconds of protection. (e.g. if the pet unleashes, it gains the quickness and the player gains the protection; if the player unleashes, the player gains the quickness and the pet gains the protection.) Corrupting Vines: This trait has been renamed Corrupting Wilds. This trait now causes Beast skills to corrupt a boon on enemies. (5 second ICD in PvP/WvW) Vow of the Untamed: Instead of granting different damage modifiers to the player based on Unleashed state, it will now grant increased outgoing and incoming damage equal to the current values to the player while they are unleashed and the following modifiers to pets while they are unleashed: Outgoing damage increased by 20% and incoming damage increased by 10%. Restorative Strikes: You and your pet now siphon life (~80 damage/healing, scales with stats) with each strike. This life siphon's damage and healing effects are doubled for the one in the Unleashed state.

I'll try and sum up my (PvE only) thoughts here. I'll be taking into account that big sweeping overhauls at this stage of development are less likely and instead I'll suggest a couple number tweaks that would hopefully be easier to implement and keep the vision of the devs intact. Profession Mechanic: Energy Meld: In addition to its previous effects, grant the Vindicator 2.5 seconds of Vigor. Traits: Leviathan Strength: This trait is good but is crippled by the fact that it doubles the cooldown of F2. I suggest making the cooldown increase 10 seconds instead of 20. Forerunner of Death: The DPS dodge feels a little odd since it has a requirement of 100 more endurance than the heal dodge, for example. Granted, it is a very powerful attack and also grants a 15 second damage bonus, so it having a long charge time makes sense, but a slight tweak may be helpful in making it more accessible since dodging is a very core part of the flow of combat in GW2. Reduce the extra endurance required for this dodge from 50 to 40. Legendary Alliance Stance: Urn of Saint Viktor: This skill just feels clunky to me. However, I respect the devs trying to go for a very unique take on a support skill. I think it could do with some improvements to help players take advantage of the health threshold bonuses from dropping the urn and for it to not restrict the player's choices as much. Increase movement speed from 50% to 66%. Reduce upkeep from 10 to 8. Add pulsing barrier (~400 + 0.08 * healing power) each interval to the player (this does NOT affect allies, only the Vindicator). The continuous damage taken will bypass barrier and apply directly to health. Drop Urn of Saint Viktor: Hopefully my suggested changes to the Urn's upkeep skill will make the drop skill easier to use. However, reducing the activation time will also help reduce the clunky feeling as well as make cycling back to the Spear of Archemorous easier for DPS builds. Reduce activation time from 1 second to 3/4 of a second.

Also, some shield changes that I think could enhance the weapon: -Envoy of Exuberance: In addition to its previous effects, this skill now cleanses 1 condition. (taking Hardening Persistence will cleanse an additional condition)-Crystal Hibernation: Reduce cooldown from 25s to 20s. Reduce energy cost from 20 to 17. In addition to its previous effects, this skill's healing effect is now boosted by 3% per condition on the Herald.

thats one of the points im waiting for a long time right now, even though it deserves a bit more than just 10% bonus to compete with the other 2 options. Kind of feels like these options don't exactly compete with each other in the same areas though? I agree! Forceful Persistence enhances DPS, Draconic Echo enhances boon support, and Elevated Compassion enhances heals. Elevated Compassion might need a bit more than what I suggested, but the point of this thread was to put forth small, simple changes that would enhance QoL and support capabilities, so I just did a slight tweak.

It's true, elite specializations are meant to fill different roles rather than being better/worse than their counterparts. However, Herald is VERY clearly designed to be a support spec. All of the Facets pump out boons, the traits focus mostly on defense or furthering healing/boon support. Renegade, however, outclasses Herald in heals and boons. All I want is for Herald to be in a place where it can fill the mechanical niche it was clearly designed to fill, support.

I think they might have wanted to include centaurs when they knew they were going to the Woodland Cascades in the early planning of the episodes. If I had to guess why we don't see centaurs in the region, it's likely because Drizzlewood became so focused on the meta event that including centaurs would have made the map less cohesive.. Though, who knows, maybe we'll get a bit of centaur action in the next 3 chapters of Champions.

I'm gonna leave my suggestions for tweaks that would make a few Revenant traits a lot more viable and have greater quality of life. In particular, I wanted to increase the potency of support Herald which has traditionally struggled to compete with its cousin, the Renegade, when it comes to filling a support role in most content. InvocationCharged Mists: Increase energy threshold from 10 to 15.Song of the Mists: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now breaks stun on legend swap. SalvationWords of Censure: In addition to its previous effects, this trait now also increases the radius of healing orbs by 50%. HeraldShared Empowerment: Increase might duration from 8s to 12sElevated Compassion: Slightly increase healing (~10%)Forceful Persistence: Change this skill to be in line with Rising Momentum and Hardening Persistence so it increases damage based on each pip of upkeep. Increase damage by 2.5% per point of upkeep. EDIT (1/16/2021): Also, some shield changes that I think could enhance the weapon: -Envoy of Exuberance: In addition to its previous effects, this skill now cleanses 1 condition. (taking Hardening Persistence will cleanse an additional condition)-Crystal Hibernation: Reduce cooldown from 25s to 20s. Reduce energy cost from 20 to 17. In addition to its previous effects, this skill's healing effect is now boosted by 3% per condition on the Herald.

Obviously rewards need to be given a little more love. I think to address that two things need to be done1) Add "exciting" rewards that require lots of Tyrian Defense Seals (expensive crafting mats like amalgamated gemstones or mystic coins, obviously in moderation, OR cosmetics like an infusion). Maybe also consider adding a guaranteed way to get Volcanic Stormcaller weapons for a huge amount of Defense Seals to encourage long-term play of the missions.2) Add "worthwhile" repeatable rewards. The supply boxes we currently have don't get you much bang for your buck. You can either reduce the Seal cost for these a bit or add a new repeatable reward that's a better deal. Then, the gameplay of DRM's could be adjusted to make them a little smoother.1) NPC allies, especially those related to the "ally support" mechanics, should have their vitality and toughness increased and/or auto-revive over time. Currently they die too often to bother keeping alive.2) Once the pre-event is complete, the DRM should progress immediately. Waiting out the timer is easily the slowest part of any DRM.3) Reduce the cost of recruiting an allied faction from Meradh, 10 Seals is too much. Aside from these changes, I think we should wait and see how the next couple masteries we get impact DRM's. If they're particularly powerful, the pacing issues might be alleviated. EDIT: Also reduce the cost of the Bead of Liquid Karma. 10 seals for 500 karma is not great lol.

The biggest problem with Shining Aspects is it has a 3 second CD on a very weak heal. Hardening Persistence is already the trait in the master line that helps Herald's deal with condis, so another trait might be redundant. If the CD was removed on Shining Aspects and the healing was tweaked, it could be a better alternative. I agree that Hardening Persistence should have its defensive boost increased. Either 2% or 1.5% per point of upkeep is good. I think Forceful Persistence is fine with its current functionality. An efficacy boost might be worth looking into, however.

I don't think either of those ideas works for the skill. The first option would make it better for group support but the skill is supposed to be more of a "selfish" defensive option. Envoy of Exuberance is already a support skill for the shield. As for the second option, just lowering the energy is certainly better than nothing, but I think the skill needs more love than that. I'd suggest this: Reduce energy cost to 15 (possibly lower than this, but 15 is a start)Grant self 1 second of regeneration on every pulseGrant self 1 second of stability on every pulseGrant self 1 second of infuse light on every pulseRemove block and healing.With these changes, the skill making the user immobile would be more viable. Stability application might need to be stronger to accommodate for the lost blocking, but hopefully the general idea here comes through.

I do not think the Revenant needs a huge mechanical overhaul. Some traits need to be changed and some weapon/utility skills could use some energy adjustments but a huge redesign is not necessary in my opinion.