Herald changes in PvE. Boon Support and Conditions - Suggestions

[SeTect.5918]

Hello everyone,

My last Herald suggestions got good feedback and some wrote some other opinions as for boon support and Heal.
Here i want to make some better and fairer suggestions to the current bad elite specialization compared to Renegade.

First i want to make something clear. In my opinion Core Revenant traits and weapon skills get nerfed more and more and in change of that, Renegade gets buffed.
A good example are the patch notes of the 11th May and 25th May:

Lets start with the update notes from the 11th May:
Torment does 50% more damage to not moving enemies not instead to moving enemies. - This is a damage increase in PvE for both Condi Herald and Condi Renegade.
Kalla's Fervor: This effect no longer increases ferocity. It now increases all damage dealt by 2% per stack in PvE. This increases to 3% per stack with Lasting Legacy. - This buffs Condition Renegade damage with trailblazers equipment and maybe also with Vipers equipment.
Soulcleave's Summit: Life stealing can now trigger a maximum of once per second for each affected target. - This is obviously a general sustain loss for Renegade but it is still a good skill which can increase the health fast enough to get some good amount of hp.
Mace:
Echoing Eruption: Reduced torment duration from 8 seconds to 7 seconds in PvE only. - This is a decrease of both Renegade damage and Condi Herald damage.
Axe:

• Temporal Rift: Reduced torment duration from 12 seconds to 10 seconds in PvE only. - This is a decrease of both Renegade damage and Condi Herald damage.
  
  At this point a small comment: Renegade can still swap to Shortbow and Condi Herald is stuck with Mace&Axe. So Condi Herald gets affected more than Renegade from The Mace and Axe nerfs.
  
  The Update notes of 25th May:
  Battle scars: The healing from Battle scars is reduced by one third in PvE only. - This is a decrease of sustain for both Renegade and Condi Herald and i am fine with that because both has extreme sustain, but then comes this:
  Soulcleave's Summit: Increased healing by 50% in all game modes. - So core Revenant loses heal and in change of that Renegade gets a heal buff. The elite skill of Renegade does 600 heal each second now, for each enemy.
  
  At this point I should mention that Renegade is better in almost everything that Herald does:
  Healing and Sustain: Due to the high amout of vulnerability on Icerazors Ire (40 stacks) it grants an incredible amount of battle scars. Also the elite skill heals around 580 each second, per enemy. Not to mention this also affects teammates. Also the heal skill reduces incoming condi dmg by 50% and heals each second by around 360 for 10 seconds. This also affects teammates. It is obvious that Renegade is better than Herald in case of sustain.
  Strike and Condition Damage: I guess i dont need to say anything to this because this is more than obvious which elite spec is better. - Renegade.
  Boon Support and group healing: Herald grants more might, fury and regeneration to allies than Renegade, due to its utility skills. - Even if the might is really low for a boon support. Renegade offers permanent alacrity, protection (due to "All for One") and the elite skill and heal skill of Renegade gives teammates more health than the regeneration and traits that Herald can offer.
  Herald was meant to be a boon support class and not Renegade. Also the damage of Herald is...poor, for both power and Condition.
  Heralds theme is dragon, there is exact 1 skill of Herald that supports condition damage. - Elemental blast.
  
  I also think that Herald and Druid should get more love. They totally got ignored in the patch note text of 11th may. Not even mentioned once:
   

  "Renegade condition builds will be positively impacted by the general change to torment in this patch. While they will be finding that they maintain and even improve their already strong performance, we are preemptively making slight decreases to the duration of applied torment from several skills, as condition Renegade builds were already one of the most potent condition damage builds. We'd like to improve other possible variations to the current favorite Invocation build, and as such, we're allowing specific traits in both Retribution and Devastation to increase all damage dealt instead of strike damage only. Alongside these changes, we're updating the Retribution specialization to match the removal of the Retaliation boon (and its replacement with Resolution).

  We're improving the strike damage of the Renegade's Kalla's Fervor effect by changing it from a ferocity bonus to a bonus to all damage dealt. This change will allow Renegade power builds to be more viable for general play in open-world and mission contexts, although it is unlikely to create a Renegade power build for high-end PvE content."
  
  "The ranger is a potent damage dealer. We've seen that Soulbeast has extreme burst damage potential, and unfortunately in this case, this has helped create some very homogenous group compositions. In this patch, we're weakening "Sic 'Em!" when used by a Soulbeast by lowering the damage bonus to 25%, matching the current balancing for this skill in PvP and WvW. We're also increasing the cooldown of One Wolf Pack. However, while we do want to slightly lower the extreme burst damage moments from Soulbeast, we don't want to significantly lower its overall damage per second on longer encounters. To this end, we're also increasing the damage bonus granted by Furious Strength, providing an overall increase to sustained damage per second."
  
  Well here we go with my personal suggestions for Herald damage increases based on my 18-19k dps in the fractal Molten Boss in fractals T4 with an alac and hfb. I also dont want to let Herald boon support come too short:
  
  Traits:
  Reinforced Potency: This trait currently increases concentration by 120 and the strike damage by 1% per boon. - I would suggest that this trait now also increases condition damage and Life siphon damage by the same amount.
  Shining Aspects: This trait currently heals you by 444 with a multiplier of 0.0915 when using a consume skill. - I would suggest that this trait now also heals allies. And the multiplier has to be increased to reach better healing results. Maybe from 0.0915 to 0.2.

  Elevated Compassion: This trait currently heals nearby allies by 389 with a multiplier of 0.175 and a cooldown of 3 seconds when you grant a boon to them. - I suggest to increase the multiplier from 0.175 to 0.25 and the cooldown from 3 to 1 second.
• Song of the Mists: This trait currently does a special Attack based on the legend. Based on a comment below i would suggest to increase the torment stacks of demon from 2 to 4 and the burn stacks of dragon from 2 to 4 too. Also the burn duration should be increased from 3 to 5 seconds. Everything in PvE only.
• 
  Before i start with the rest, i want to mention that if you swap from Legendary demon to Legendary dragon, you will lose a lot of damage, to avoid this i suggest to put some conditions to 1 of the utility skills and to the elite skill. This avoids the damage loss when swapping to Legendary dragon a bit:
  
  Utility skill:
  Burst of Strength: The consume skill of this currently hits 2x and increases outgoing damage by 25% for 5 seconds. - This skill has the animation of 2 claw hits which would fit with bleeding stacks. I would suggest to give this skill 3 bleed stacks for each hit (so 6 in total) for a duration of 10 seconds in PvE only. Because i am afraid of Herald to overperform in WvW and PvP even if torment got a nerf in PvP and WvW. I would give this just 1 bleed stack with a duration of 1 or 2 seconds in WvW and PvP per hit.
• (Based on the idea of someone below in the comments, this would be an even better workover: This skill grants boons or conditions based on the secondary legend: For example with dwarf you grant barrier to nearly allies, with centaur you heal allies, with demon you inflict bleeding and deal increased condition damage for a time, with assassin you inflict vulnerability and deal increased strike damage for a time.)
  
  Elite skill:
  Chaotic Release: The consume skill currently knocks back enemies, does strike damage and grants superspeed for 5 seconds. - I would suggest to give this skill more than 1 condition to fit the name "Chaotic Release". I suggest to give this skill 2 stacks poison for 14 seconds, 2 stacks bleeding for 10 seconds, 2 stacks burning for 5 seconds, 3 stacks torment for 8 seconds and 1 stack confusion for 5 seconds (since Yearning Empowerment also affects confusion duration and Revenant has no skill with confusion) in PvE only. This skill is easy to dodge in PvP and WvW due to its slow and easy to see animation, anyway i would reduce each of this conditions to 1 second in WvW and PvP. So it does the same conditions but all for just 1 second.
  
  Weapon skill:
  Envoy of Exuberance: This is the skill "4" of shield on herald and grants protection for 4 seconds and heals by 1,620 with a multiplier of 0.5. - Protection is already given a lot by the elite skill of Legendary Dragon, but if you dont play Dragon, the protection is actually useless, even if i think that protection isnt enough for that skill. Because Herald could use some more offensive boon support I would suggest to give this skill also 2 seconds of quickness, 2 stacks of might for 8 seconds and Aegis for 10 seconds.
  
  More than that i would like it if Herald could get a top tier boon like quickness or alac on the traits. Here i have an alternitive change of Shared Empowerment:
  Shared Empowerment: This trait currently applies might to allies for 8 seconds when you grant them a boon with a cooldown of 1 second. - I would suggest to give it a cooldown of 5 seconds instead of 1 but the might stacks get increased from 1 to 3 and the might duration from 8 to 15. It also applies quickness for 1.5 seconds and alac for 1 second. This is a big increase of the bad boon support of Herald and makes it more relevant. The alac is not perm like the alac of Renegade but in change of that it also does quickness that Renegade cant give.
  
  All of the boon increases of Herald are not making the damage higher in fractals and so on because you have already boon supports that give you perma boons. But now Herald has the chance to be the boon support itself with healing and concentration equipment!
  Due to the Boon changes of Shared Empowerment, Both Condi and Power Herald will deal more damage in PvE solo gameplay what it also really needed since Renegade has more damage AND sustain.
  
  Based on my calculations the damage will be increased in Group play (going from 18k because of the before mentioned molten boss result) from 18,000 to around 21,000.
  This still comes not to the damage that Renegade can reach but it gives an idea about how it should be.
  
  Everything i wrote are just suggestions and can be changed obviously. They are here to give some specific idea what Herald should move to, to not keep it as bad as it is at the moment.
  
  (Edit:
  Sorry but here i will sound a bit annoyed.
  Every patch you keep nerfing core revenant and then buff the already strongest revenant specialization Renegade. This kicks every Herald and Core Revenant hard.
  You seem to just be fine with players playing Renegade instead of Herald. Everything i can see in all last patchnotes is: Nerf of Core Revenant, buff of Renegade.
  Why you keep doing this? I dont get it. And if you would now buff Core Revenant again, this would not help Herald, this would just push Renegade even more far away from Herald. Thats why i made all Suggestions fully Herald based.)
  
  (Edit 2:
  I edited and created new suggestions as with "Shared Empowerment". I also took made a suggestion with "Envoy of Exuberance" to give more boons.
  All that opens a better role as boon support. The quickness and alac i suggested are not perm, even with 100% boon duration not, because i dont want it to be firebrand 2.0.)
  
  What is your opinion about Herald? What would you like to see?

Edited June 1, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

I would like to see Song of the Mists supported further as well. It’s underwhelming compared to the other two grandmasters in PvE. Glint and Mallyx’s Songs could easily be buffed without affecting either the devastation cRen or the Invo cRen as neither would take it over Their alternatives. 
 

i would suggest an increase of burning stacks for Glint in PvE from 2 to 4. For Mallyx an increase of torment stacks from the trait from 2 to 4 would also be fine. 

[SeTect.5918]

2 hours ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

i would suggest an increase of burning stacks for Glint in PvE from 2 to 4. For Mallyx an increase of torment stacks from the trait from 2 to 4 would also be fine. 

I like the idea but instead of giving mallyx 4 torment stacks, i would give it just 3. Then i would give Glint 4 burn stacks as you said and also an increased duration from 3 to 5 seconds. So basically the same but less damage increase for Renegade and the more damage increase to Herald.
 

If you agree i would change it in my basic suggestion list as an alternitive, because your idea is basically pretty nice.

[UncreativeGreen.2019]

I just wish alacrity wasn’t on renegade. Should’ve been on herald in some form or another. Maybe as glints f2 at a higher cost or a GM where if you’re draining -6 energy + you also grant alacrity in an aoe. Herald, the boon espec, would finally have the group support spot its pretending to be in its current iteration. I’d say at that point herald would focus on boons and heals, Renegade focuses on condition, and our new Espec focuses on power (since they already seem to be hinting at that through the balance notes)

[Za Shaloc.3908]

I think your points are fair (though I don't particularly like the idea on Chaotic Release; personally I think it is fine as is).  I don't think there is any harm in buffing condi Herald's performance in PvE and it's something that I personally would like to see. I agree that heal Herald needs some loving too as it is not really desired in any game mode.

 

I think to a certain extent, Herald has suffered the issue of identity/role ever since Renegade was introduced. . To me, Glint needs to do a better job a complementing its secondary legend. While a bit of an elusive statement, I believe this would greatly help make the legend feel more complete, multifaceted, and effective. The change to Facet of Nature was a big step in this direction, but it still leaves the rest of the legend/e-spec falling short. IMO, pHerald is the role that is the closest to being complete or "there", aside from some potential numerical tweaks in PvE. It feels good to play and all the skills make sense to press; they seem like they were designed with this playstyle in mind. The other roles though? Not so much. Heal Herald offers strong heals because of the boosted regen & Ventari, but Glint itself offers very little beyond the ability to cast more weapon skills due to the nature of facets. Condi Herald was a behemoth in smallscale WvW for perhaps the wrong reasons, but the most recent big patch left it underperforming if anything (almost all of the pure condi Revs I see now are easy food; most have now switched to either pure power, celestial Herald/Rene with no Mallyx, or a different class). If you consider a tanky Herald a role, well it is pretty much there but its skills could still better complement that.

 

Personally, this is what I would change:

 

TRAITS

Shining Aspects: I do like your change and think it would be nice to have an additional option for healing allies. Shared Empowerment provides some synergy for that already as it is an easy way of getting out 10-man Elevated Compassion procs outside of Glint, but there would still be good reason to run Shining Aspects

Elevated Compassion: I agree that it could use a boost in strength. Additionally, I am still going to advocate my idea of it also converting Elemental Blast to a supportive skill that pulses healing to allies and removes condis.

Forceful Persistence: I would also like to see this increase condition damage. Draconic Echo adds a *ton* of boon uptime without having to invest any boon duration, so I think it's healthy to put the condition damage modifier at competition with it.

* I do like @LucianTheAngelic.7054's idea of increasing the potency of SotM, but ideally I think it would be kinda cool to make Charged Mists work for a cHerald to encourage actually managing energy in PvE, but it seems like it'd be tricky for PvE and be really restrictive in its facet rotation. 

 

SKILLS

Burst of Strength: Basically what I wrote in another post: I would like for this to really enhance the secondary legend in order to make the build more versatile for different roles.

Shiro: Current effects 

Jalis: Grants barrier to allies per strike and decreases incoming strike damage on self  for X seconds 

Mallyx: Bleeds foes on each strike and increases outgoing condition damage on self for X seconds 

Ventari: Heals allies per strike and increases outgoing healing on self for X seconds

Envoy of Exuberance: This skill is just another example of ANet making Rev skills overly complicated. Make it a conal effect like Chaotic Release and also have it provide boon extension.

 

[SeTect.5918]

12 minutes ago, Za Shaloc.3908 said:

I think your points are fair (though I don't particularly like the idea on Chaotic Release; personally I think it is fine as is).  I don't think there is any harm in buffing condi Herald's performance in PvE and it's something that I personally would like to see. I agree that heal Herald needs some loving too as it is not really desired in any game mode.

 

I think to a certain extent, Herald has suffered the issue of identity/role ever since Renegade was introduced. . To me, Glint needs to do a better job a complementing its secondary legend. While a bit of an elusive statement, I believe this would greatly help make the legend feel more complete, multifaceted, and effective. The change to Facet of Nature was a big step in this direction, but it still leaves the rest of the legend/e-spec falling short. IMO, pHerald is the role that is the closest to being complete or "there", aside from some potential numerical tweaks in PvE. It feels good to play and all the skills make sense to press; they seem like they were designed with this playstyle in mind. The other roles though? Not so much. Heal Herald offers strong heals because of the boosted regen & Ventari, but Glint itself offers very little beyond the ability to cast more weapon skills due to the nature of facets. Condi Herald was a behemoth in smallscale WvW for perhaps the wrong reasons, but the most recent big patch left it underperforming if anything (almost all of the pure condi Revs I see now are easy food; most have now switched to either pure power, celestial Herald/Rene with no Mallyx, or a different class). If you consider a tanky Herald a role, well it is pretty much there but its skills could still better complement that.

 

Personally, this is what I would change:

 

TRAITS

Shining Aspects: I do like your change and think it would be nice to have an additional option for healing allies. Shared Empowerment provides some synergy for that already as it is an easy way of getting out 10-man Elevated Compassion procs outside of Glint, but there would still be good reason to run Shining Aspects

Elevated Compassion: I agree that it could use a boost in strength. Additionally, I am still going to advocate my idea of it also converting Elemental Blast to a supportive skill that pulses healing to allies and removes condis.

Forceful Persistence: I would also like to see this increase condition damage. Draconic Echo adds a *ton* of boon uptime without having to invest any boon duration, so I think it's healthy to put the condition damage modifier at competition with it.

* I do like @LucianTheAngelic.7054's idea of increasing the potency of SotM, but ideally I think it would be kinda cool to make Charged Mists work for a cHerald to encourage actually managing energy in PvE, but it seems like it'd be tricky for PvE and be really restrictive in its facet rotation. 

 

SKILLS

Burst of Strength: Basically what I wrote in another post: I would like for this to really enhance the secondary legend in order to make the build more versatile for different roles.

Shiro: Current effects 

Jalis: Grants barrier to allies per strike and decreases incoming strike damage on self  for X seconds 

Mallyx: Bleeds foes on each strike and increases outgoing condition damage on self for X seconds 

Ventari: Heals allies per strike and increases outgoing healing on self for X seconds

Envoy of Exuberance: This skill is just another example of ANet making Rev skills overly complicated. Make it a conal effect like Chaotic Release and also have it provide boon extension.

 

Thanks that you share my opinion.

The Chaotic Release one i made to not lose too much dps when swapping to Legendary dragon. Lets say...so keep the condi damage alive while you are on dragon. Because Burst of Strength wont be enough to keep it alive and the other utility skill would not make sense to give it damaging conditions because it would be free conditions by just klicking it 2x fast.

I like your idea about Burst of Strength and also the one of @LucianTheAngelic.7054and will edit them on my basic ideas of above!
Shield is a thing that should get a rework on Herald because protection is a boon you can already give perm as Herald so its basically useless. Also the base heal or multiplier of shield "4" could get an increase.

[Za Shaloc.3908]

2 hours ago, SeTect.5918 said:

Thanks that you share my opinion.

The Chaotic Release one i made to not lose too much dps when swapping to Legendary dragon. Lets say...so keep the condi damage alive while you are on dragon. Because Burst of Strength wont be enough to keep it alive and the other utility skill would not make sense to give it damaging conditions because it would be free conditions by just klicking it 2x fast.

I like your idea about Burst of Strength and also the one of @LucianTheAngelic.7054and will edit them on my basic ideas of above!
Shield is a thing that should get a rework on Herald because protection is a boon you can already give perm as Herald so its basically useless. Also the base heal or multiplier of shield "4" could get an increase.

 

The prot from shield 4 is still nice because in PvP/WvW they nerfed Facet of Chaos' prot duration to 2s, which significantly lowers Herald's prot uptime. It is also really nice if you just so happen to not run Glint. There is a bit of redundancy, sure, but I think it's a pretty important component to the skill, however lackluster it may appear in PvE.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Give Herald 5 man application of a top tier boon - quickness.

Reasons why:

 

1. Desirability in 5 man group content - being able to reliably apply standard boons to full raid group is not as important here as being able to output a really desired boon to five.

 

2. Renegade "stole" from Herald - 10 man boon application is a Herald thing, it's his identity. In return none of the boons are among top 3 ones (quickness, alacrity, resistance). Yet somehow Renegade who is about 5 man group support breaks the rules and gets 10 man alac. Fair game that Herald receives and counter-compensation to be desirable in smaller groups with a good boon of his own...

[Infusion.7149]

Given that splits are only numerical to WvW and PvP plus scrapper quickness wasn't split: I don't think making yet another staple WvW profession get AoE quickness is a good idea at all.

Condi renegade is one of the highest DPS classes in benchmark and in practice after May 11. Alac renegade or condi RR is wanted in just about every squad or party , unless staff mirage stacking happens.

edit: as for topic, Elevated Compassion could be made a 1s ICD in PvE instead of 3s or doubled coefficient so it isn't so weak.

I don't feel augmenting condi damage on herald makes sense as you would not have a weaponset or legend to swap to anyway.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[SeTect.5918]

5 hours ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

Give Herald 5 man application of a top tier boon - quickness.

Reasons why:

 

1. Desirability in 5 man group content - being able to reliably apply standard boons to full raid group is not as important here as being able to output a really desired boon to five.

 

2. Renegade "stole" from Herald - 10 man boon application is a Herald thing, it's his identity. In return none of the boons are among top 3 ones (quickness, alacrity, resistance). Yet somehow Renegade who is about 5 man group support breaks the rules and gets 10 man alac. Fair game that Herald receives and counter-compensation to be desirable in smaller groups with a good boon of his own...

Just edited the suggestions for that!
And i think Protection is also one of the big 3, becauce a -33% dmg decrease is insane in pve. But however also that can be given perm by renegade due to "All for One". So yea Herald is a worse boon spec than renegade, a worse dps spec than renegade, a worse healing spec than renegade and all that, Herald is worse in just everything, because Renegade even shares the heal of kalla and the elite skill of kalla with teammates.

[SeTect.5918]

5 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Given that splits are only numerical to WvW and PvP plus scrapper quickness wasn't split: I don't think making yet another staple WvW profession get AoE quickness is a good idea at all.

Condi renegade is one of the highest DPS classes in benchmark and in practice after May 11. Alac renegade or condi RR is wanted in just about every squad or party , unless staff mirage stacking happens.

edit: as for topic, Elevated Compassion could be made a 1s ICD in PvE instead of 3s or doubled coefficient so it isn't so weak.

I don't feel augmenting condi damage on herald makes sense as you would not have a weaponset or legend to swap to anyway.

Also edited your suggestion in my basic ideas, because it is true that the multiplier alone on that skill makes it not worth using.

[LucianTheAngelic.7054]

On 5/31/2021 at 12:21 AM, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

2. Renegade "stole" from Herald - 10 man boon application is a Herald thing, it's his identity. In return none of the boons are among top 3 ones (quickness, alacrity, resistance). Yet somehow Renegade who is about 5 man group support breaks the rules and gets 10 man alac. Fair game that Herald receives and counter-compensation to be desirable in smaller groups with a good boon of his own...

Just a note, Herald didn't have 10 man boons until after Renegade was already introduced with 10 man Alacrity.  Draconic Echo wasn't added until August 28, 2018, almost a year after PoF. 
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Draconic_Echo 

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

2 minutes ago, LucianTheAngelic.7054 said:

Just a note, Herald didn't have 10 man boons until after Renegade was already introduced with 10 man Alacrity.  Draconic Echo wasn't added until August 28, 2018, almost a year after PoF. 
https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Draconic_Echo 

welp kitten...

Now i feel both stupid and pissed, since that means herald was even worse off before than renegade...just what does he get in terms of supporting raid/fractal groups?

[Infusion.7149]

14 minutes ago, ZeftheWicked.3076 said:

welp kitten...

Now i feel both stupid and pissed, since that means herald was even worse off before than renegade...just what does he get in terms of supporting raid/fractal groups?

It's currently "meta" on Samarog for the swiftness , might (not 25), fury, and CC.

 

Quote

Boon Herald is taken to replace a Druid by providing Might, Fury and Protection. It also offers good CC through Surge of the Mists .

 

[Virdo.1540]

40 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It's currently "meta" on Samarog for the swiftness , might (not 25), fury, and CC.

 

 

80% of that "meta" comes from Staff 5 CC