Draconic Echo

[Kuma.1503]

The current design encourages spamming every herald upkeep off cooldown. This gameplay pattern discourages players from using their buttons skillfully, it discourages players from developing situational awareness. It forces you to use situational skills at sup-optimal timings. 

I suggest changing it to the following:

Draconic Echo: Grant quickness when using a consume skill --> Pulse X seconds of quickness per upkeep. 

 

Benefits of this change:

• Rewards players for proper upkeep management. 
• Allows herald to dip into other legends without sacrificing quickness uptime
• Encourages players to legend swap on CD to gain maximum value out of this trait (rewarded for playing properly)
• No longer forced to burn situational skills on CD. 
• Punishes spammy gameplay instead of rewarding it. 

The amount of quickness granted should be tuned high enough that the herald can afford to spend energy on weapon skills. The amount shouldn't be so low that a herald can only auto attack while sitting on upkeeps. The goal is to maintain 100% quickness while performing a normal rotation. 

 

This would be a better way of handling quickness on herald without falling into the same trap as other spammy supports. 

 

 

 

Edited May 16, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Batalix.2873]

In a more perfect world, I would think quickness should be removed from Herald and put on Vindicator instead. Vindicator flavorfully wants speedy boons, while Herald definitely feels more of an aegis/stability kind of class. Sucks that we don't have a third alac/quick-ish boon to create more support niches.

 

But all that said, tying Herald's role boon--doesn't matter if it's quickness or something else--to upkeep just makes a lot of sense to me.

[Katary.7096]

Changes to quickness Herald are probably coming with the June 27th update.

"As for the balance update, here’s what we’re looking to address:

Improving the feeling of moment-to-moment gameplay for many boon support builds. We want these builds to have more flexibility in their utility skill choice, and not be required to press a particular utility type on cooldown to provide quickness or alacrity."

Source: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/studio-update-spring-2023/

Quickness Herald certainly fits the description, though at this point the devs might have settled on a new functionality for quickness Herald already, meaning that it would be too late for suggestions to make it into that patch.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

The difference between the dps rotation for Herald and the support rotation for Herald is minimal. It's always focused on using Glint utilities in a specific order. This hasn't changed and was never considered to be a problem until Herald received quickness. I personally don't think it's an issue.

It's also easy enough to trade a small amount of DPS to give yourself more flexibility with the utilities if that's something that you want out of the class. The only "rigid" rotation needed is if you're trying to maximize every ounce of damage and also provide quickness. Otherwise, a small dps cut can be made to make the build far more flexible by taking slightly more boon duration, thus not needing to "spam the utilities." Even with the full quick dps rotation there is more flexibility than your post lets on.

[Kuma.1503]

13 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

The difference between the dps rotation for Herald and the support rotation for Herald is minimal. It's always focused on using Glint utilities in a specific order. This hasn't changed and was never considered to be a problem until Herald received quickness. I personally don't think it's an issue.

It's also easy enough to trade a small amount of DPS to give yourself more flexibility with the utilities if that's something that you want out of the class. The only "rigid" rotation needed is if you're trying to maximize every ounce of damage and also provide quickness. Otherwise, a small dps cut can be made to make the build far more flexible by taking slightly more boon duration, thus not needing to "spam the utilities." Even with the full quick dps rotation there is more flexibility than your post lets on.

Fair points, but I think you misunderstand the criticism here. The problem with herald is with how it's designed at it's core. It's one of many boon supports in which the player presses their situational utility on cooldown to maintain boons. 

Raising your boon duration lessens this issue, because the player will be put in these situations less often, but it does not address the core problem with the spec's design.

Even with high boon duration you can still expect one or more of these four scenarios to happen:

1. You pop infuse light for even though you're full hp and not taking damage. 
2. You pop gaze of darkness even though you don't need a stunbreak. (less of a waste if running Devastation.)
3. You pop Chaotic Release even though you'd rather hold the CC for a breakbar or add control. 
4. You pop true nature in Glint even though one of the other true nature skills would be beneficial for that fight. 

 

Moreover, if a player becomes comfortable with their rotation and decides to drop some boon duration to improve their DPS, this forces them into these scenarios more often. Min-maxing your boon duration should not result in gameplay that is less reactive and more spammy. 

Mech, Firebrand, and Renegade get this right. Dropping boon duration does not force them to burn more of their situational skills for boon upkeep. Instead, it makes their gameplay more punishing, and rewards them with more damage for their effort.

This is how it should be for Herald and other boon supports. 

 

 

 

Edited May 18, 2023 by Kuma.1503

[Nephalem.8921]

On 5/17/2023 at 12:11 AM, Batalix.2873 said:

In a more perfect world, I would think quickness should be removed from Herald and put on Vindicator instead. Vindicator flavorfully wants speedy boons, while Herald definitely feels more of an aegis/stability kind of class. Sucks that we don't have a third alac/quick-ish boon to create more support niches.

 

But all that said, tying Herald's role boon--doesn't matter if it's quickness or something else--to upkeep just makes a lot of sense to me.

That would make herald useless in pve. Ren is already alac. There is no need for vindicator to be revs 3rd support spec even if the dev tried with that alliance trash. It is ok to have something on rev dps oriented. Even shiro has just 1 dps utility.

The problem with quick per upkeep is that it is very hard to balance properly and the only kinda situational skills on glint are elite for cc and heal. Strength gives a dmg buff so you want to use that twice per loop. The new rota would not really be less spamy than the new one. You would still want to activate 2 immediately when swapping and at end and you would want to activate heal, fury and maybe prot for some time. It would be 1-2 less button presses per glint loop. a tiny bit better i guess.

• You use elite because it does tons of damage
• You pop true nature because it extends all boons by 3sec. Your change would result in true nature being an always on never use skill like it was in the beginning. was not great.

You already want to legend swap on cd btw. it would be on cd if facet of strength wouldnt be bugged.

It does not take a lot to beat jalis hammers but alliance had to be buffed multiple times to achieve that. There is no need for that heal side to begin with.

Edited May 18, 2023 by Nephalem.8921