Am I alone in thinking Herald needs buffs?

Am I alone in thinking Herald needs buffs?

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Posted by: Crevox.5806

Crevox.5806

Herald looks like an amazing concept. I’m coming back to the game (old player), trying to decide what class I want to focus on, and Herald looks right up my alley. All of its skills are dedicated to buffing and I actually like the upkeep mechanic, it seems like it has a lot of potential (though I agree with all the energy concerns). I love the lore, the theme, everything about it. I want to play this class.

I understand there is an ongoing campaign at the moment for people to push ArenaNet to improve the energy management of the class; and while that is all entirely true and valid, even ignoring that, I feel like Herald’s support is way lower than it should be.

For an elite specialization entirely focused around buffs, I feel it is lacking. I compare it to options like Warrior, and with one utility skill they almost match the maximum boons granted by Revenant (For Great Justice). On top of that, they have tons of banners that can be used that completely demolish Revenant in support… and that’s just Warrior. Lots of other classes are preferred for support and provide much better options/buffs/support than Herald does, while doing “solid” dps or providing party healing (which Herald can swap to, but stops all boon generation).

Why is Herald’s support so weak? Why has it been kept this way for so long? Not only is it weak, but it comes with so many strings attached. If you want to actually do some damage, you have to stop using the support to use its damage skills… and while that can be considered a worthwhile tradeoff, the support isn’t even good enough. Trying to maintain a decent flow of boons cripples your ability to use your weapon skills; and for what? It’s not strong enough. Other classes can use their support without worry. Herald has to avoid using a lot of its skills just to try to maintain that support, while other classes can just freely do their rotation, or at worst, set a utility skill or two and use them on cooldown. Those classes only get better at support with things like Alacrity, but that doesn’t benefit Herald’s support at all. I would be totally okay with this if Herald’s support was super strong to compensate maintaining all those facets, but it’s abysmal.

I’ve been researching around the forum, looking at polls, and Herald is considered one of the least popular elite specializations. Many forum users seem to consider it as a necessary evil, including it in their Revenant builds because they feel they have to. In the history of patches, it has received only 1-2 minor buffs (and not to support), but has received a fair number of nerfs. It has never been considered “popular” or “strong” outside of Naturalistic Resonance, which just buffs OTHER, BETTER supports to do THEIR job better. This was promptly nerfed and Herald went back down to the depths. Not only was this not a great defining role for Herald, it gutted the only thing they were actually useful for in support, and made Herald even worse at doing their own job.

With Path of Fire around the corner, and Revenant getting ANOTHER support specialization (???), I feel like Herald is going to fall to the wayside. Am I alone in thinking this could use some buffs? I WANT to play this spec and enjoy it, and I definitely know I’m not alone, but I feel like ArenaNet is just not letting it be that way due to the balance.

I make this post out of concern, and hopes that something can change, or I can be proven wrong that Herald is actually a great support. Maybe I’m just missing something, because even after all the years have gone by since the release of Heart of Thorns, nothing has changed… in fact, it’s only gotten worse.

(edited by Crevox.5806)

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Posted by: Hooglese.4860

Hooglese.4860

Herald was nerfed because you can give everyone every buff all the time by doing nothing. It has an incredible good reward/mastery ratio simply because there really isn’t much to master and in raids it was/is preferred to not use skills ever just to maximize the facet uptime which is incredibly boring to play. I won’t deny that it was nerfed too hard and is pretty much useless now and id only ever bring it for the f2 activation or sustain in brings with shield/traits.

Herald is sort of a jack of all trades support, and can do almost every boon (no quickness ever and only one of resistance, stability or alacrity at once) at once to everyone and that strong on its own.

As for Herald falling to the way side for Renegade, I highly doubt it. Renegade is stupidly weak in comparison to Herald in every aspect other than maybe your own damage.

PvP
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Mesmer – hoogelz

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Posted by: Taobella.6597

Taobella.6597

rev is strongest healer in WvW so much so that it cant even make use of the amount of healing it could output if you tried lol.

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Posted by: Euthymias.7984

Euthymias.7984

I wish Herald was more viable for Might sharing so that it would at least be an alternative to PS Warriors when it comes to PvE. Its Offhand (Shield) is also pretty bad after being nerfed without any form of compensation.

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Posted by: Crevox.5806

Crevox.5806

Herald was nerfed because you can give everyone every buff all the time by doing nothing. It has an incredible good reward/mastery ratio simply because there really isn’t much to master and in raids it was/is preferred to not use skills ever just to maximize the facet uptime which is incredibly boring to play. I won’t deny that it was nerfed too hard and is pretty much useless now and id only ever bring it for the f2 activation or sustain in brings with shield/traits.

Herald is sort of a jack of all trades support, and can do almost every boon (no quickness ever and only one of resistance, stability or alacrity at once) at once to everyone and that strong on its own.

As for Herald falling to the way side for Renegade, I highly doubt it. Renegade is stupidly weak in comparison to Herald in every aspect other than maybe your own damage.

You say it does “almost every boon”, but what really? Ideally you’d only be maintaining Fury, Might, and Resonance; you don’t have the upkeep to do anything else. The Protection facet is pretty good, I’ll admit, but you simply don’t have the upkeep. You cripple your ability to do anything else by using it, and it doesn’t help against conditions. You could probably come up with some neato rotation to maintain Fury, Protection, Swiftness, and Regeneration, but either way your Might stacks are gonna be crippled. Regeneration seems almost pointless unless you have the healing power to back it up; maybe I’m wrong in that regard. Swiftness is a minor convenience in most fights and provided by tons of professions.

It provides no unique buffs like banners/other auras, and the amount of Might stacks is just way too low. If it at least provided a lot of hard CC or vulnerability it could have that going for it, but it doesn’t. No quickness, a poor generation of alacrity at high cost (rip all other boons and hard to maintain)… and a huge heavy ball and chain to do the little things that class DOES do.

(edited by Crevox.5806)

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Posted by: Hooglese.4860

Hooglese.4860

Herald was nerfed because you can give everyone every buff all the time by doing nothing. It has an incredible good reward/mastery ratio simply because there really isn’t much to master and in raids it was/is preferred to not use skills ever just to maximize the facet uptime which is incredibly boring to play. I won’t deny that it was nerfed too hard and is pretty much useless now and id only ever bring it for the f2 activation or sustain in brings with shield/traits.

Herald is sort of a jack of all trades support, and can do almost every boon (no quickness ever and only one of resistance, stability or alacrity at once) at once to everyone and that strong on its own.

As for Herald falling to the way side for Renegade, I highly doubt it. Renegade is stupidly weak in comparison to Herald in every aspect other than maybe your own damage.

You say it does “almost every boon”, but what really? Ideally you’d only be maintaining Fury, Might, and Resonance; you don’t have the upkeep to do anything else. The Protection facet is pretty good, I’ll admit, but you simply don’t have the upkeep. You cripple your ability to do anything else by using it, and it doesn’t help against conditions. You could probably come up with some neato rotation to maintain Fury, Protection, Swiftness, and Regeneration, but either way your Might stacks are gonna be crippled. Regeneration seems almost pointless unless you have the healing power to back it up; maybe I’m wrong in that regard. Swiftness is a minor convenience in most fights and provided by tons of professions.

It provides no unique buffs like banners/other auras, and the amount of Might stacks is just way too low. If it at least provided a lot of hard CC or vulnerability it could have that going for it, but it doesn’t. No quickness, a poor generation of alacrity at high cost (rip all other boons and hard to maintain)… and a huge heavy ball and chain to do the little things that class DOES do.

What I mean by every boon at once is that you have access you every boon in the game at any time and can share, which again, no one else has. The might stacks are “low” as a result of this, and since every other profession can share might it doesn’t need to be a big thing. It isn’t going to get an effect like a banner because banners already exist and having two classes do the exact same thing is asinine. Self stacking might is pretty easy on rev if you trait for it even without herald (charged mists).

As for Herald not having a lot of hard cc or vulnerability… What? The devestation line gives at least 15 stacks of vulnerability and Burst of Strength gives 20. The staff may be the hardest cc in the game, hammer has a hefty knockdown, axe has an aoe pull and sword OH has a bad but existent pull. That’s weapons alone, almost every legend brings a hard cc skill, and the one that doesn’t makes up for it with the unending resistance you get from it.

The alacrity may deny you access to your other boons (if you don’t think to use f2 when you’re in ventari) but you’re also healing the area which is really strong in WvW.

PvP
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Mesmer – hoogelz

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Posted by: Caeledh.5437

Caeledh.5437

I would make two changes to Herald.

1) Separate the active abilities and passive boons and take the cooldowns off the actives. Give us the option to play as a dragon magic wielder minus those kitten ed cooldowns and more people would play it.

Lose natural resonance and make that F skill instead toggle between utilities being boons and those active abilities.

Rename the boons accordingly so they make sense.

2) Make boon’ing more interesting. The simplest alternative I can think of is to have boons interact.

Eg. you could maintain swiftness for 1 energy or fury for 2 energy. But with both active you also get 1s (per 3s pulse) of quickness. Baseline. So you could bring that up to 2s with enough boon duration bonus.

Other combinations might give things like aegis, retaliation, stability, vigor.

That way instead of passively maintaining boons and auto-attacking, Heralds might alter their active facets to provide the most useful boons to their allies as needed.

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Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Herald is a class that does well in non-optimal situations. In premades it doesn’t do anything unique, but in PUGs it is really good at ensuring might and fury. I’ve found that I can maintain the standard rotation while keeping up might, fury, and protection, and protection does help inexperienced groups. It has plenty of CC for breaking bars, and if the situation calls for it I can block a lot of projectiles. The vulnerability helps, too.

Herald is much better in WvW and PVP. There is strength in the ability to sustain boons for free, and no other class can do it as well as the Herald. Dropping 8k Coalescence of Ruin on enemy zergs has a meaningful impact. While their escapes are mediocre and their condi cleanse is terrible, Heralds have the ability to chase with the best of them, and quickness means I almost always win the auto attack war. Condi herald can kill whole parties by dropping double Unyielding Anguish on them.

I don’t know much about the healing spec, but I’ve seen it work very well, so I am assuming it is competent. That said, my main lament with the class is the low power DPS. I don’t know the peak, but generally I sit around 26k unrealistic, and that is really low.

EDIT: I suppose another complaint I have with the Herald is the traits themselves. The utilities are good, the weapon is usable, but the traits are really flat and leave us with only one good option to choose from.

Adept Tier

Swift Gale: Superspeed on stun break isn’t that useful. Unlike the scrapper, superspeed doesn’t come with any additional benefits. It just sort of exists. Moving slightly faster for 3 seconds doesn’t contribute to much at all, and I am pained to think of a situation where this trait realistically would mean life or death.

Radiant Revival: Well, it’s a rez skill… though it may seem useful, it rarely is. In WvW the damage that I heal is compensated for by loads of disabling conditions and CC. In PVE it can be useful sometimes to proc invulnerability by going to rez an ally. While other rez skills affect change in the field, this one just sits there.

Hardening Persistance: AKA the best option. At base armor it reduces the damage you take by about 8% when running at cost, and more if you’re running at a deficit. It is very bland, and it can interfere with aggro mechanics, but it does marginally contribute to a fight.

Major Tier

Bolster Fortification: Gives a very small amount of AoE protection when you use a heal. Considering this class can give a small amount of AoE protection on demand whenever it feels like it, the smaller amount that this trait gives isn’t noticeable.

Harmonize Continuity: I don’t like group stunbreaks. In WvW stuns are often stratified and coupled with immobilize, but if you’re getting stunned in large scale combat that means you’re about to be consumed by the swarm. In PVE, any place where stuns are important is going to have players running their own stun breaks. The tempest has a better version of this trait, and that one is barely useful. This is less so.

Shared Empowerment. AKA the best option. It’s simple in what it does, and it does it well enough to notice. The rev’s goal is to spread boons, and spreading more might is better than spreading some might.

Grandmaster Tier

Enhanced Bulwark: Additional stability on stability application would require rare circumstances to be useful. It synergizes with the Retribution trait, letting you get two stacks of stability on evade. But generally the trait is overkill. Everywhere in PVE, one stack is enough. In PVP/WvW, Stone Road refreshes stability faster than any one person can strip it, and the dodge trait is only meaningful if you’re fighting two people. Stability from outside sources already comes in multiple stacks or with a high refresh rate, so this trait is situational at best.

Soothing Bastion: Normally I am a fan of brainless traits that automatically proc when you’re going down. But not this one. There are two problems with this trait. First is that the proc time is at 25% health, which is well within the instant death threshold. Second, Crystal Hibernation roots you in place. When used on command, it can be used in PVP to hold a point. But when Crystal Hibernation starts randomly activating out of your control, then the sudden root will get you killed. This skill is a self stun at the worst of times.

Elders Focus: AKA the best option. 2% per boon is alright. In a PVE setting you’re realistically going to have swiftness, might, fury, regen, then either protection or quickness, so in a group setting the extra 10% damage is good. In PVP you’ll only get 6-8% but it is still noticeable.

I’m reminded of what inspired me to make that old necro traits thread. It was an accident. I accidentally selected the specializations without selecting the traits in them, and I was left playing traitless. It was days before I noticed something was missing. Herald traits suffer from a similar problem. Overall, our best choices are a minor defense boost, a minor might boost, and an average damage buff. Other classes get bonuses like this wrapped up in a single trait, such as the Engineer’s Big Boomer. The minors of the Herald line are good, but the majors are just filler. This is one of those specializations where, if I forgot to select any traits, it would be a week before I would find my mistake.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

(edited by Blood Red Arachnid.2493)

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Posted by: Kidel.2057

Kidel.2057

Herald got nerfed because core Revenant got nerfed for 2 years straight, mainly for PvP reasons. Now that we have pvp-pve split, the nerfs have no reason to exist and should be reverted.

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Posted by: Crevox.5806

Crevox.5806

What I mean by every boon at once is that you have access you every boon in the game at any time and can share, which again, no one else has.

Where’s my Vigor? Quickness? Aegis? Retaliation? Stability/Resistance I suppose for a very short amount of time if I switch to the other legends and turn everything else off.

If Herald truly had access to “all the boons” at “any time” and could share them all, then yeah, what you’re saying would make some sense. Lower stacks of might in exchange for all that, and lower DPS due to energy to upkeep all of them. However, it just isn’t the case.

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Posted by: Blood Red Arachnid.2493

Blood Red Arachnid.2493

I shudder to think what WvW would be like if a Herald could effortlessly spread Retaliation, Quickness, and Aegis. That would push the Herald into being outright broken. I run a retaliation focused WvW build myself, and every time defense against guard procs I get 20 seconds. The amount of counter damage I put out is insane.

There’s a reason why vigor, quickness, aegis, retaliation, stability, and resistance is rare. It is because if they aren’t reigned in, they become broken really fast. People already think Heralds are OP in WvW because they can give themselves permanent resistance.

I don’t have opinions. I only have facts I can’t adequately prove.

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Posted by: narcx.3570

narcx.3570

You say it does “almost every boon”, but what really? Ideally you’d only be maintaining Fury, Might, and Resonance; you don’t have the upkeep to do anything else. The Protection facet is pretty good, I’ll admit, but you simply don’t have the upkeep. You cripple your ability to do anything else by using it, and it doesn’t help against conditions. You could probably come up with some neato rotation to maintain Fury, Protection, Swiftness, and Regeneration, but either way your Might stacks are gonna be crippled. Regeneration seems almost pointless unless you have the healing power to back it up; maybe I’m wrong in that regard. Swiftness is a minor convenience in most fights and provided by tons of professions.

Technically, when Rev was in the meta for Natural Resonance, you would spin Jalis Hammers, auto attack, and precision strike off cd until out of energy and then swap to Glint until Jalis came back off cooldown… (or Mallyx/Embrace the Darkness if you needed boon stripping like in VG since back then there was only 1 chrono so it was the rev’s job.)

During that time in Glint, you could run Protection/Fury for the entire 10 seconds, and it would stack enough protection to last through your Jalis rotation for 100% Protection uptime without sacrificing NR or any dps. Just, nobody really cares about Protection in raids so it was generally better to save that extra energy in glint for breakbars and the at-the-time-not-nerfed Equilibrium procs.

As for crippling your might stacks, if all you do is upkeep Fury (as we often do in sPvP and WvW), you quickly jump to around 22 stacks of might if you’re running Shared Empowerment and Incensed Response. Although, that only comes to 6 for your teammates, so point taken.

But even if you could hypothetically put out every boon with 100% uptime, the biggest problem with Herald (in PvE) has always been that the only Herald boons that people care about are Might/Fury, and other classes can easily provide those while offering other unique buffs as well (banners, empower allies, spotter, spirits, grace of the land) AND in the case of a CPS or Condi Ele, easily out dps the Herald while doing so.

Now if they gave Herald a unique buff people cared about, it’d be right back in the meta… Something like, I dunno, making Natural Resonance increase Condi Duration as well as Boon Duration. Yeah, they should do that.

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Posted by: Crevox.5806

Crevox.5806

But even if you could hypothetically put out every boon with 100% uptime, the biggest problem with Herald (in PvE) has always been that the only Herald boons that people care about are Might/Fury, and other classes can easily provide those while offering other unique buffs as well (banners, empower allies, spotter, spirits, grace of the land) AND in the case of a CPS or Condi Ele, easily out dps the Herald while doing so.
Now if they gave Herald a unique buff people cared about, it’d be right back in the meta… Something like, I dunno, making Natural Resonance increase Condi Duration as well as Boon Duration. Yeah, they should do that.

Pretty much. I think if it provided more boons than it currently did it would be a nice utility function, but right now it doesn’t provide enough of anything. It could use more might stacks, more boons, less clunkiness, some kind of unique utility… just something. It excels at nothing and does the job it has poorly.

Right now its only good at passively buffing itself or providing a high uptime on Protection. Protection doesn’t work on condition damage and it cripples you really badly to run it due to the cost, and even buffing yourself that much doesn’t make you a better DPS than others (and some other classes can provide themselves just as much Might).

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Posted by: Kidel.2057

Kidel.2057

To me is core Revenant that needs buffs. Do it and both Herald and Renegade will be decent.
Of course, Kalla has A LOT of other problems that should be addressed independently. Mainly energy costs and the healing skill.

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Posted by: Crevox.5806

Crevox.5806

To me is core Revenant that needs buffs. Do it and both Herald and Renegade will be decent.
Of course, Kalla has A LOT of other problems that should be addressed independently. Mainly energy costs and the healing skill.

It feels like to me that Herald will just fall to the wayside now that there is another option. Renegade has issues, but Herald feels like the weakest elite specialization (PVE).