Thoughts on the Herald spec

[Hysvear.7386]

Doubletap, Quinn, and others who have an interest, here are some of my thoughts on the current Herald Elite specialization.

Herald has been one of, if not my favorite, Elite spec since it's launched, and I don't see it being used much in Open world, and very minorly in WvW especially over the past 7 months.(This makes me a bit sad) I don't PvP as much as I used too, but I imagine it suffers a similar fate there.
I'd love to see this class stand among the others specs again at least be an option among the other elite specs that can be used more in LFG end game content like Fractals, Strikes, and raids. 

So what is the Herald's primary draw? I've always enjoyed the boon pulsing and the Facets (signet like) passives, the consumes were cool too but I liked activating them when I needed to. In the current iteration of Herald with Draconic Echo, It feels as if we get to push through the Dragon legend stance as fast as possible, and then swap to something else. Which makes for an easy rotation but not a lot of depth to the elite, it kind of makes the whole Dragon legend feel more like a support for the core Revenant Legends. I.E Assassin, or Centaur because you only want to pop in quickly to push the quickness boon and swap out to deal more damage or in the case of centaur swap back to provide more healing and the other boons. (I'm sure there are benefits to this, being easier isn't a bad thing)

 

Out of the 3 Major Grandmaster Specs, Right now, Draconic Echo is one of the primary choices, it's hard to want to choose Elevated Compassion due to a support wanting to provide such a stable boon such as Quickness(Even when playing solo or just while sacrificing some healing), and the DPS gain from Forceful Persistence isn't really enough to boost a herald into the "Choose me" over Vindicator or Renegade. So it makes it difficult to want to choose any of the other traits while still wanting to play a Herald.

After trying a few other elites I found an interesting mechanics that sparked an idea, There's the new Necromancer Harbinger specialization that allows for the Lifeforce Threshold to "overcharge" the ability causing the Elixirs to have additional effects and more damage. And I thought, what if Heralds facets could be overcharged or maybe "Resonate" after pulsing X times and provide a better boon, or an additional boon, a condition? or maybe just a bit of extra damage during that Overcharged facet moment.

My favorite example of this would be Facet of Light pulsing Regen three times and on the third pulse it also pulses one second of Vigor.

A few other examples:

Facet of Elements, pulsing a 1-2 second Chill to enemies on the third pulse,
And Facet of Chaos pulsing some amount of Quickness or Alacrity, maybe Resistance? on the 3x pulse.(since it eats up so much energy)
originally I had thought that superspeed on the Facet of Elements would be neat after 3 pulses, but Chaotic Release already does that and unpredictable superspeed can be a bad thing.(I didn't forget about that)

I haven't put a ton of thought into the Facet of Strength or the Facet of Darkness but I imagine similar things could be done to allow for a variety of choice and utility for various situations.

Other Thoughts

This could also encourage timing/skill based activation by using the Consume after the 3rd pulse but before the 4th pulse (during the time it is resonating)causing it do do extra things like extra damage or an extra stack of burning. This would still encourage using the facet for it's consume ability. But might be more work overall.

Since Resonance usually involves multiple objects, it could also have to do with utilizing Facet of Nature with another Facet to trigger the effect resonation effect after 3x(this would further increase the drain of energy and limit how many extra boons would be able to be pulsed). I kind feel like Facet of Nature brings a bit of "Resonance" flavor to the table anyway since it sticks around when you swap to a different legend to provide a unique ability for each legend, and even in the Dragon legend it provides a boost to the duration of your boons. But maybe this would put too much emphasis on the Facet of Nature

There's a lot of theory and fun thoughts, and I realize that in the grand scheme of 9 professions, 27 different Elite specs and a multitude of traits to choose from for each spec,(not to mention the different weapon skills) there's a lot to balance and consider. But i can still hope that this post will encourage some adjustments and changes that will help bring Herald back up to speed alongside the other elite specs.

Cheers!
~Hysvear

[Angesombre.4630]

I think that the attribution of quickness could have been done with the consumption of maintenance like the features "Rising Momentum" and "Hardening Persistence". That would allow to give the quickness with the other legend and not only herald. It would be necessary just to attribute quickness from a certain level or to make 2 levels according to the consumption. This would avoid spamming the skills while giving the other buffs.

[Kydar Schattendolch.6879]

I recently shared an idea regarding this:

 

Herald:
"Draconic Echo" is revamped to the following effect:
You retain your facet passives for a duration after using their consume abilities. Using a upkeep skill grants quickness to allies around you.
Quickness shared with Herald upkeep skills can be stacked.
Quickness: 1s (per Herald upkeep skill in use)
Maximum count for Herald upkeep skills: 3
Quickness: 2s (for other legends upkeep skills in use)
Interval: 3s
Radius: 600
 

 

Would fix so much. 

[Angesombre.4630]

Yes I have already shared your idea that I found good 🙂

[Shao.7236]

Quickness should be given depending on the upkeep used, not per skill, make people play with the Revenant mechanics rather than completely ignore them (Herald hardly plays like a Revenant to begin with). Right now the entire profession has to key mash, it's annoying and in PvP especially it created such a braindead synergy that's extremely unfun to play or play against.

Edited September 6, 2022 by Shao.7236

[Aeolus.3615]

@Shao.7236

It was a "buff " for the raid pve players only since its aabout burn n spam skills to perma boon stacking...

The correct way to buff Rev would put quickness on a selfish way back to IO (impossible odds).

It is just Anet catering once again the spammers boon stackers.

Edited September 7, 2022 by Aeolus.3615

[draxynnic.3719]

On 9/7/2022 at 7:35 PM, Aeolus.3615 said:

@Shao.7236

It was a "buff " for the raid pve players only since its aabout burn n spam skills to perma boon stacking...

The correct way to buff Rev would put quickness on a selfish way back to IO (impossible odds).

It is just Anet catering once again the spammers boon stackers.

Pretty sure that IO was changed in part so that it still provided a benefit when quickness was coming from another source. Did mess hammer up quite a bit, though.