Guild Wars 2

I’m trying to learn how to Herald. I’ve not unlocked all the Facets yet, but i have Light, Might and Elements, so i’m trying to plan a build in advance. As somebody who’s come from a pretty straight forward power Reaper build that involves tonnes of AoE and power/defense buffs when running in headfirst and attacking groups, plus having a whole second health bar, i’m finding Herald super hard to get to grips with. Fecking pocket raptors are kicking my butt! What’s a good stepping stone build for me that’s useful?

At the moment i like the shield and reeaaally want to unlock Glints Bastion because it lookd dope! I see a lot of people say to take staff as the second set because of skill 5, but the weapon seems so incredibly boring and surely you can decimate breakbars with other skills? I noticed Jalis’ Forced Engagement took off half of the vampire broodmother HP in Verdant Brink (or w/e the monster was called). I find i’m extremely squishy right now and i tend to just stay out of fights, but the hammer’s pretty kitten boring and i want to get in there and stab things in the face without dying! I was running S/A before unlocking the shield and i do really miss the axe 4 for gap closing, but i feel like hammer makes more sense for a second set so i have range.

I really enjoyed Mallyx when levelling because while i don’t like going full condi i do like having things ticking away on enemies for a bit of “insurance”. Plus Unyielding Anguish and the elite were great, though i think the elite may not be as great as i thought. “Condition effect ignored” – Well i ran into wyvern fire with it active and it still killed me, so i think it must not be all conditions. Considering the obvious traitlines to take are Dev, Invok and Herald there’s not much point in Mallyx…or is there? Shiro i want to love but it just kills your energy unless you’re just using it for dodges…Jalis seems to pair up best overall i think, probably beause the hammers give me that little bit of sustain that serves my need to run into groups like an idiot.

Hearld is a Support Spec, which only really does boon share….. thats pretty much it. As for Staff 5…. nope… the only skill stronger against break bars is the Signet of Humility.

As for “flourish”, all they really have is the sword skills. The rest are pretty straight forward.

On the tool tip it shows you which condition is ignored. It is only Blind.

So rev was my last profession to get to 80 and is now prolly my second most played character. I kinda just made my own build for commanding DS and roaming around. I started using herald before it was complete and used perma swiftness to do some map complete and then finished off the line. The elite facet is a good bar breaker + protection. Small thing I’ve picked up is if you don’t wanna use your facet skills but are low on energy load them all up til yur energy drains and they turn off with a shorter cooldown at which point you can reactivate them, this includes the elite facet if the breakbar gets broken before activating it, which also gives a few extra seconds of protection. I don’t like wasting one of the few bar breakers I have.

I recommend hopping on an hp train or just perma swiftness run around Tyria doing hps to finish it off, it’s worth it and doesn’t take too long, hp trains are faster.

I originally used sword/axe and hammer, switched to sword/shield and really liked it. Like I said I kinda made a sorta funky build to suit my needs as I have plenty of other characters for raids and such. I use glint and ventarri, full commanders armor, zerk weapons. I have a staff I use from time to time but I like hammer for range, plus hammer 5 breaks bars and 3 and 5 are blast finishers and 3 is also an evade. Switch back and forth between legends when needed or when energy is low or you need some extra healing, protection, etc. ventarri bubble is nice for picking up downed allies, good for quick condi cleanse as well with healing and alacrity as a bonus.

This is my experience with herald in a nutshell, I pretty much built it to command DS but I do plenty of other things with it. This is just a personal wants pve build, I’d never expect it to be a raid meta build but I really enjoy it. With a few tweaks and practice I’m sure you can do raids, I know some people that use their revs in raids successfully.

Overall I think you should finish herald, I like ventarri but just choose a second legend you like or I’m sure there’s more experienced revs that can give you input. I think sword/shield for more defensive play and sword/axe for more offensive. I like hammer since it’s our only true ranged weapon and isn’t bad for a lot of pve. Staff is nice as well but I hardly use it I wouldn’t call it a necessity.

Hope this can somewhat help, hope you get some more replies from more experienced revs as well. Good luck and have fun!!

Edit: forgot you mentioned jalis, I really enjoyed those hammers while leveling, jalis would prolly be a good choice if you enjoy it, I ran jalis and shiro before I unlocked herald. I find hammer 2,3 and 5 good aoe, jalis hammers are good aoe, sword 2 and 3 are good multi target attacks too and facet of elements to elemental blast is good aoe. If you like taking on multiple enemies at once these are all good options and if you find yourself in a bind shield 5 is pretty sweet to recover with and hammer 4 is a good reflect. Don’t forget switching legends to regain your energy with a quickness.

Herald is viable for both power and condi builds.
Sword/Axe or Sword/Sword (if you want the block) are both good for power.
The second set is really a matter of preference.
If you have Glint, the elite skill is good for breakbars and you have a pull in both offhand sword and axe.
Hammer too has its CC skill and if you’re using Shiro you have Jade Winds too, so unless you’re in a situation where you really need a lot of CC I’d say staff is not mandatory.

For a power build the best choice of legends is Glint/Jalis.
Jalis can also help you when you’re feeling squishy (good heal and Vengeful Hammers heal + damage reduction)

Always remember to make a good use of your double healing skill, and hammer #4 field to lifesteal with AA.

We also have some damage reduction and lifesteal traits that can help (sometimes they’re not the optimal choice for DPS, though).

@Matt Cole and Temihal, that is extremely helpful information. Thankyou so much! I’m glad staff isn’t manadatory, besides, when running in a group there’s going to be a bunch of people doing CC anyway!

Do you both run the Dev and invok trees too?

Killing pocket raptors:

Kite away from them while casting Unrelenting Assault, instantly follow with Precision Strike to finish off two, then walk backwards from the pack while auto-attacking to cause them to bunch up in front of you. Once you are at 75% life, activate Facet of Light, swap stances to Shiro, and turn on Impossible Odds to finish insta-cleaving them down. (If you took Hardening Persistence as your first Herald trait, IO will also spike your toughness by 400 to help you stand in there and cleave.)

You can also use Facet of Chaos (when you unlock it) or Jade Winds to AoE them down, but it’s not really necessary with the strength of your sword cleave vs AI that bunches.

(Should add that this is Power (Dev/Invo/Herald))
No matter what your build is (condi or power) I would definitely use Invo and Herald for solo play. Invo’s stun break and condition cleanse on stance swap is a must—especially against things that quickly stack bleed (like Draconis Mons Pocket Raptors). And Herald is just too strong not to take (permanent fury, permanently swiftness, might stacking, and heal to full vs AI.)

Dev/Inv/Herald is the standard power build template and it’s the one the works the best.

But as long as you’re in open world you can do what you want.
Maybe taking out Invocation for Retribution can help you with feeling harder to kill when you’re playing without paying too much attention, but I really don’t recomend it outside some fun experimentation because it’s not needed.
Learning to play better will yield the best result and give you more freedom of choice in the long run.
A well timed Glint heal is almost always enough to survive on its own, and you also have Jalis for a backup.

On a side note, at the moment Vengeful hammers is bugged and will only heal you for like 2 hp instead of 56. I haven’t checked the numbers but the damage reduction should be working as expeted.

As for me, I get easily bored so I like to try almost every combination. I also have kitteneless condi staff somewhere :P

But, when I want to be serious Dev/Inv/Herald for power and usually Dev/Cor with Herald or Invocation based on the situation for condi.

Another little thing that you may not know yet: when you don’t want to run with herald, you can use Rapid Flow from the Invocation line to obtain perma swiftness.
You only have to use an upkeep skill and switch it off asap to get 5 secs of switftness.
They have almost no cooldown so you can do it again at the end of the 5 secs to refresh the boon.
It’s a little annoying to do it so often, but it works.