Build:Herald - Power Herald

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage

Designed for: Open World and Open World General

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Easy

This build was last updated on May 03, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A power Herald build for open world. Herald shines as a boon dps, providing their allies and themselves with permanent boons, most notably permanent 25 Might and permanent Fury and Quickness. It deals decent damage and has some innate sustain, but it lacks condition removal and requires the player to be constantly swapping legends to regenerate energy.

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Skill Bar

Greatsword

Staff

Utility

Utility

Weapon Variants

• If you don't have access to Weaponmaster Training with Secrets of the Obscure you will not be able to wield a Greatsword, use mainhand and offhand swords instead.
• Staff is taken mainly for the breakbar of Surge of the Mists.
• Hammer - ranged AoE; use this in place of Staff if you require ranged damage.
• Shield - defense, pair with Sword mainhand.

Skill Variants

• Legendary Dwarf Stance - replaces Shiro, trading a bit of damage for defense.

Specializations

Variants

• Cleansing Channel - condition cleanse.
• Dance of Death - sustain.
• Forceful Persistence - when playing in groups and someone else is already providing permanent Quickness.

Equipment

Ascended gear and stat infusions are not required; you can use exotic gear with the same stats. The pure DPS and Boon DPS options for Power Herald use identical gear.

Head
Berserker

Shoulders
Berserker

Chest
Berserker

Hands
Berserker

Legs
Berserker

Feet
Berserker

Backpiece
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Accessory
Berserker

Amulet
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Ring
Berserker

Greatsword
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Staff
Berserker

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Relic

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Dragonhunter and Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar are interchangeable.
• Other relics include Relic of the Defender, Relic of the Adventurer, Relic of Cerus or Relic of the Cavalier.
• For defense, equip the highest tier Jade Core you can afford. Use defensive food, traits, or skills if required. If necessary, use Knight trinkets.

Consumables

Budget consumables are acceptable for use in open world.

DPS

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• /

Farming

• Prioritize Steak Ascended food.
• /
• (and variants)

Usage

Facet of Nature

Facet of Nature is the profession mechanic of the herald. Activate it to consume 2 energy pips to pulse an effect depending on your channelled legend to yourself and nearby allies. On Glint, this provides +20% boon duration. On Shiro, it provides a small amount of life stealing. On Jalis, it reduces damage taken by 10%.

The facet can be consumed for an additional effect. On Glint, it increases the duration of existing boons on yourself and nearby allies by 2 seconds. On Shiro, it removes 2 boons from nearby enemies. On Jalis, it provides Stability.

Damage

The key to this build is to maintain permanent Quickness from Elevated Compassion by having an upkeep cost of 6 or higher. This is easily accomplished by using Impossible Odds (or Vengeful Hammers when using Jalis instead of Shiro). When channelling Glint, you should use Facet of Nature, Facet of Darkness, and Facet of Strength, but any combination of facets that maintains a minimum of -6 upkeep is valid.

• Maintain Facet of Nature for its passive bonuses.
• This build maintains permanent 25 Might, Fury, and Quickness on itself and nearby allies.
• In Legendary Assassin Stance, simply use Impossible Odds
• In Legendary Dragon Stance, maintain any number of facets to hit -6 upkeep, though prioritize maintaining Facet of Darkness as this is both our stunbreak and our primary Fury source. Consume Facet of Elements off cooldown.
• If using Legendary Dwarf Stance, ensure you are maintaining Vengeful Hammers.
• Our main damaging weapon is Greatsword. Follow a loose priority of Eternity's Requiem, Mist Unleashed, and Phantom's Onslaught. It is very important to not interrupt auto-attack chains.
• It's important to watch energy in Legendary Assassin Stance. Sometimes, it's better to not use Phantom's Onslaught and just auto-attack instead.

Defense

• Infuse Light is one of the strongest heal skills in the game.
• Facet of Chaos provides nearly permanent Protection uptime.
• Both Greatsword and Staff have very powerful channeled blocks.
• Dance of Death is a relatively small DPS loss but a massive boost to personal sustain.
• Cleansing Channel helps cover one of the build's main weaknesses, condi cleanse.
• Legendary Dwarf Stance has many powerful defensive tools. If you want a more comfortable playstyle, it may be better to use this over Legendary Assassin Stance, though you must still upkeep Vengeful Hammers to maintain Elevated Compassion.
  • Vengeful Hammers provides passive damage reduction.
  • Inspiring Reinforcement provides Stability for yourself and allies.
  • Forced Engagement provides heavy CC
  • Soothing Stone is a fantastic heal that cleanses conditions
  • Rite of the Great Dwarf breaks stun and provides significant damage reduction.
• In rare circumstances, it may be beneficial to use Legendary Centaur Stance for Protective Solace as a powerful projectile block. This shouldn't be common, as even very powerful projectile-based attacks can often simply be dodged.

Crowd Control

We lose a lot of damage by swapping to Staff for Surge of the Mists, so it should be a last resort if we absolutely need to break a bar. On encounters with a very early breakbar, opening on Staff with Legendary Assassin Stance and using Surge of the Mists into Jade Winds can be beneficial.

• Facet of Chaos ⇒ Chaotic Release
• Jade Winds - emergencies only
• Surge of the Mists