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Herald - Quickness Support Power DPS

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Direct damageSupport and Utility

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty:
Easy
This build was last updated on May 09, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A power Herald build that provides permanent Quickness Quickness, Fury Fury, Swiftness Swiftness (optional), Regeneration Regeneration (optional), near-permanent Protection Protection, and around 22 Might Might to its subgroup. It also provides

to its subgroup, increasing boon duration while channelling Glint, and giving life siphon while channelling Shiro.

It can also provide other utilities depending on the second Legend chosen, such as Stability Stability or damage reduction.


Skill Bar

Sword/Sword
Staff
Utility
Utility


Variants

  • Your second Legend defaults to . Read the Legends section below to see other alternatives.

Your second weapon set matters little for damage output. Staff is taken for

, which provides massive CC. When additional CC is not required, Staff can be swapped out for any of the following:

  • You can provide Aegis Aegis by bringing a Shield in your second set.
  • For encounters where melee is not always possible, Hammer can be taken for ranged damage. This also brings a moderate amount of CC.
  • Players that own Secrets of the Obscure can replace Staff with Greatsword for maximum damage, but at a loss of CC.

Alternatively, if both CC and cleave damage is valuable, Greatsword can replace Sword/Sword, which is only a very minor loss in single-target damage.


Template Code

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Specializations

  • / - lower dps in exchange for sustain, might be worth on very few fights with extreme pressure like Boneskinner.


Equipment

Head
Berserker
Shoulders
Berserker
Chest
Berserker
Hands
Berserker
Legs
Berserker
Feet
Berserker
Backpiece
Dragon
Accessory
Berserker
Accessory
Berserker
Amulet
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Ring
Berserker
Sword
Berserker
Sword
Berserker
Sigil
Sigil
Staff
Berserker
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
Relic
  • This setup has ~40% boon duration without the need to invest into any concentration.
  • is a tiny DPS loss.
  • The Dragon stats Dragon stats piece is entirely optional and could be replaced with Berserker stats Berserker stats.


Equipment Variants

Sigil Variants

is taken because it deals more damage than
due to Herald's relatively low damage and abundance of power modifiers, but it can be swapped out in some situations:

  • On encounters where the target can be Stunned Stunned or Exposed Exposed (such as strikes, fractals, or Keep Construct) then you should use a
    instead.


Rune Variants

  • Many of the popular Alacrity Alacrity providers also provide Might Might, but in the event this is not the case, you could use
    to gain an extra ~5 stacks of might generation.


Consumables

Food

  • ,


Utility


Usage

Quickness

You apply Quickness Quickness through the trait

. This pulses healing and Quickness Quickness whenever you are using upkeep energy of six or above. Fortunately, all of your non- legends have a skill that uses exactly six. Thus while in these legends you want to maintain the skill in question for almost the entire time. Glint is a little trickier as all the skills use upkeep, but and combined are six energy, so these two are maintained together.


Swiftness

By default, the rotations below only generate ~35% Swiftness Swiftness uptime. To provide more, you need to skip the first use of

and maintain while on (you should still use before swapping legend). You may need to toggle off early to ensure you have enough energy for weapon skills.

Alternatively, as Swiftness Swiftness is not stripped at the start of encounters, you can make sure to channel

before the fight starts. If you manage to start with 60s, you should be able to maintain it for a further two minutes without compromising your damage, or even longer if there are split phases in which to refresh it.


Legends

  • - absolutely key to the build, this is your source of almost all your non-Quickness Quickness boons. It's —Dragon increases the duration of boons your subgroup provides by 20%. Note this effect does not actually increase Concentration, it increases Boon Duration (and is not shown in the Hero Panel), so a build with this effect and 100% Boon Duration would provide boons lasting 120% longer.
  • is an extremely niche option. It is a massive DPS loss that should only be taken if your group desperately needs projectile block through . It also offers condition cleanse through , CC through , and a very weak heal through —Centaur.
  • should never be played in bosses, but it offers a pull with which may be useful when fighting trash mobs if your group does not have pulls.
    • It can also be used in fractals to remove the boons from No Pain, No Gain if no-one else is able to.


Greatsword Rotation

Opener

  1. to get to 6 upkeep
  2. - we slightly delay using this to be sure that Quickness has pulsed at least once


Legendary Assassin Stance

When on

, immediately activate and use , and off cooldown. The rest of the time is spent autoattacking (make sure to finish your auto chains). Swap back to as soon as possible.


Legendary Dragon Stance

You activate and consume

and at the start and end of the Legendary Dragon Stance section, filling the remaining time with sword skills and activating and when they are available.

  1. Auto-attack and use , and off cooldown. Make sure to finish your auto chains.
  2. and when they comes off cooldown - be careful not to tap them twice and immediately consume
  3. Just before Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements come off cooldown, activate and


Video example


Sword Rotation

Opener

  1. to get to 6 upkeep
  2. - we slightly delay using this to be sure that Quickness has pulsed at least once


Legendary Assassin Stance

When on

, immediately activate and use , and off cooldown. The rest of the time is spent autoattacking (make sure to finish your auto chains). Swap back to as soon as possible.


Legendary Dragon Stance

You activate and consume

and at the start and end of the Legendary Dragon Stance section, filling the remaining time with sword skills and activating and when they are available.

  1. Auto-attack and use , and off cooldown. Make sure to finish your auto chains.
  2. and when they comes off cooldown - be careful not to tap them twice and immediately consume
  3. Just before Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements come off cooldown, activate and


Video example

Video example (sword & greatsword)


Crowd Control

Accessing CC can be difficult on revenants as CC skills cost energy that you should have been spending on damage instead. Nevertheless, each legend has one skill:


Staff
By default, this build uses Staff as your second weapon set. This doesn't provide any damage, but gives you access to

, which is one of the best CC skills in the game. In general, the DPS loss isn't worth swapping to Staff in the middle of a fight but there are some cases where this is mitigated:

  • Many fractal bosses start with an open defiance bar, so you can start on Staff then immediately swap to Sword/Sword after using and continue your rotation as normal.
    • The same logic applies to bosses that end a phase with a defiance bar, such as Keep Construct or Amala.
  • Some bosses will be invulnerable while their breakbars are active. If you pre-emptively swap to Staff after your big DPS skills, you can minimise the DPS downtime.
    • Raid examples: Slothasor, Samarog, Sabir.
  • It will always be worth sacrificing damage if it would prevent a wipe.
  • It will almost always be worth sacrificing damage if it would save another player's life.


Hammer

For fights that have extended periods of time where you can not melee the boss, Hammer can be used to apply damage from range. Just autoattack and use

off cooldown. When all Hammer are off cooldown and you have at least 35 energy, the following burst combo can be used:

  1. - should land during the use of this skill, resetting the cooldown of


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 2 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
OfficerAndyGentleman gave this build 5 stars • May 2023
Great boon coverage, respectable damage and groupwide support from the Nature passive. Really excels when you need access to huge amounts of stability or CC, and experienced groups can use it to run lower boon durations on their other supports.
5 stars
Warming Hearth gave this build 5 stars • May 2023
Even though its damage is not very high, power quickness herald is a great build thanks to all the boons it provides to its subgroup and the unique effects from Facet of Nature. It also has great CC by using staff.

Comments

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