Build: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 damage, Support and Utility

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

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, Fury, Swiftness (optional), Regeneration (optional), near-permanent Protection, and around 22 Might to its subgroup. It also provides Facet of Nature 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 or damage reduction.

Skill Bar

Sword/Sword

Staff

Utility

Utility

Variants

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

Your second weapon set matters little for damage output. Staff is taken for Surge of the Mists, which provides massive CC. When additional CC is not required, Staff can be swapped out for any of the following:

• You can provide 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.

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Specializations

• Thrill of Combat / Dance of Death - 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.
• Rune of Superior Rune of the Scholar is a tiny DPS loss.
• The Dragon stats piece is entirely optional and could be replaced with Berserker stats.

Equipment Variants

Sigil Variants

Sigil of Superior Sigil of Air is taken because it deals more damage than Sigil of Superior Sigil of Impact 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 or Exposed (such as strikes, fractals, or Keep Construct) then you should use a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Impact instead.

Rune Variants

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

Consumables

Food

• ,

Utility

Usage

Quickness

You apply Quickness through the trait Elevated Compassion. This pulses healing and Quickness whenever you are using upkeep energy of six or above. Fortunately, all of your non-Legendary Dragon Stance 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 Facet of Chaos and Facet of Nature combined are six energy, so these two are maintained together.

Swiftness

By default, the rotations below only generate ~35% Swiftness uptime. To provide more, you need to skip the first use of Elemental Blast and maintain Facet of Elements while on Legendary Dragon Stance (you should still use Elemental Blast before swapping legend). You may need to toggle off Facet of Darkness early to ensure you have enough energy for weapon skills.

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

• Legendary Dragon Stance - absolutely key to the build, this is your source of almost all your non- Quickness boons. It's Facet of Nature—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.

• Legendary Assassin Stance provides the highest personal DPS through Impossible Odds. It also offers personal mobility through Phase Traversal, and CC through Jade Winds.

• Legendary Dwarf Stance is a personal DPS loss of about ~1k. You can provide Stability through Inspiring Reinforcement, CC through Forced Engagement, and reduce personal incoming strike and condition damage by 20% with Vengeful Hammers. If needed, it can also reduce incoming strike damage to your subgroup by 50% with Rite of the Great Dwarf.

• Legendary Centaur Stance is an extremely niche option. It is a massive DPS loss that should only be taken if your group desperately needs projectile block through Protective Solace. It also offers condition cleanse through Purifying Essence, CC through Energy Expulsion, and a very weak heal through Facet of Nature—Centaur.

• Legendary Demon Stance should never be played in bosses, but it offers a pull with Call to Anguish 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

• Start on Glint with Facet of Nature, Facet of Elements and Facet of Darkness active:

1. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
2. Elemental Blast
3. Facet of Chaos to get to 6 upkeep
4. Eternity's Requiem
5. Chaotic Release
6. True Nature (Dragon) - we slightly delay using this to be sure that Quickness has pulsed at least once
7. Legendary Assassin Stance
8. Impossible Odds

Legendary Assassin Stance

When on Legendary Assassin Stance, immediately activate Impossible Odds and use Mist Unleashed, Phantom's Onslaught and Eternity's Requiem off cooldown. The rest of the time is spent autoattacking (make sure to finish your auto chains). Swap back to Legendary Dragon Stance as soon as possible.

Legendary Dragon Stance

You activate and consume Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements at the start and end of the Legendary Dragon Stance section, filling the remaining time with sword skills and activating Facet of Chaos and Facet of Nature when they are available.

1. Facet of Darkness
2. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
3. Facet of Elements ⇒ Elemental Blast
4. Auto-attack and use Mist Unleashed, Phantom's Onslaught and Eternity's Requiem off cooldown. Make sure to finish your auto chains.
5. Facet of Nature and Facet of Chaos when they comes off cooldown - be careful not to tap them twice and immediately consume
6. Just before Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements come off cooldown, activate Chaotic Release and True Nature (Dragon)
7. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
8. Facet of Elements ⇒ Elemental Blast
9. Legendary Assassin Stance

Video example

Sword Rotation

Opener

• Start on Glint with Facet of Nature, Facet of Elements and Facet of Darkness active:

1. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
2. Elemental Blast
3. Facet of Chaos to get to 6 upkeep
4. Chilling Isolation
5. Shackling Wave
6. True Nature (Dragon) - we slightly delay using this to be sure that Quickness has pulsed at least once
7. Legendary Assassin Stance
8. Impossible Odds
9. Deathstrike

Legendary Assassin Stance

When on Legendary Assassin Stance, immediately activate Impossible Odds and use Chilling Isolation, Shackling Wave and Deathstrike off cooldown. The rest of the time is spent autoattacking (make sure to finish your auto chains). Swap back to Legendary Dragon Stance as soon as possible.

Legendary Dragon Stance

You activate and consume Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements at the start and end of the Legendary Dragon Stance section, filling the remaining time with sword skills and activating Facet of Chaos and Facet of Nature when they are available.

1. Facet of Darkness
2. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
3. Facet of Elements ⇒ Elemental Blast
4. Auto-attack and use Chilling Isolation, Shackling Wave and Deathstrike off cooldown. Make sure to finish your auto chains.
5. Facet of Nature and Facet of Chaos when they comes off cooldown - be careful not to tap them twice and immediately consume
6. Just before Facet of Strength and Facet of Elements come off cooldown, activate Chaotic Release and True Nature (Dragon)
7. Facet of Strength ⇒ Burst of Strength
8. Facet of Elements ⇒ Elemental Blast
9. Legendary Assassin Stance

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:

• On Legendary Assassin Stance, Jade Winds - this is a very expensive skill and you will usually need to plan ahead if you want the energy to use it.
• On Legendary Dragon Stance, Chaotic Release.
• On Legendary Dwarf Stance, Forced Engagement.

Staff
By default, this build uses Staff as your second weapon set. This doesn't provide any damage, but gives you access to Surge of the Mists, 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 Surge of the Mists 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 Coalescence of Ruin off cooldown. When all Hammer are off cooldown and you have at least 35 energy, the following burst combo can be used:

1. Drop the Hammer
2. Coalescence of Ruin
3. Field of the Mists - Drop the Hammer should land during the use of this skill, resetting the cooldown of Coalescence of Ruin
4. Coalescence of Ruin

• This combo only works while you have Quickness and are not Slowed.
• Drop the Hammer has to hit a target to reset the cooldown of Coalescence of Ruin.