Build:Herald - Hybrid Shiro Roamer

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Focused on: Hybrid damage and Sustain

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Difficulty:

TBD

Overview

A condition damage based take on Herald which cuts out the more traditional Legendary Demon Stance in favor of Legendary Assassin Stance for better mobility, sustain, and utility while retaining the versatility of Glint and adding some healing on top.

Skill Bar

Mace/Shield

Sword/Axe

Utility

Utility

Template Code

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Equipment

Head
Celestial

Shoulders
Celestial

Chest
Celestial

Hands
Celestial

Legs
Celestial

Feet
Celestial

Backpiece
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Accessory
Celestial

Amulet
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Ring
Celestial

Mace
Celestial

Shield
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Celestial

Axe
Celestial

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Consumables

Food

Utility

Usage

General

• Invoking a legend resets energy to 50, breaks stun, removes 1 condition, and could even trigger the sigils of your active weapon set (if they are not on CD) among other things. Swapping legends is basically the main resource management tool in the build - swap whenever you're out of CDs, low on energy, or need to cleanse/break stun.

• Begin on Legendary Dragon Stance (Glint) and immediately activate the following 3 upkeep skills for party buffing:
  • Facet of Elements
  • Facet of Strength
  • Facet of Light
  • Optional: add Facet of Nature to the mix just before leaving from spawn, especially if a teammate wants to stack boons (a ranger using Call of the Wild for example)

• In combat don't try to maintain your Glint upkeeps for too long, in most cases they shouldn't stay up for more than 3 seconds. Activating Facet of Elements and Strength only to immediately follow up with using Elemental Blast and Burst of Strength is a perfectly fine thing to do - these are also some of your best AoE skills.

• Chaotic Release can be used to knock downed opponents away from their teammates who are trying to revive them, or to knock them off of capture points - the latter allows you to take the cap while bleeding them out, delaying their respawn.

• Both elite skills have obvious tells and are easy to dodge, stow weapons to cancel casting if they're about to be evaded/blinded - this will save all the energy cost and only send the skill on a cd of 5 seconds. The same qualities make these skills perfect for fake casting by stowing weapons immediately after beginning the cast, baiting enemy dodges/blocks.

• Facet of Darkness is one of the most versatile and strongest skills in the build:
  • Gaze of Darkness is a cheap stun breaker and one of the few skills in the game that can reveal stealthed targets.
  • The Blind from Gaze can be used to avoid powerful attacks without wasting dodges, and can help you stomp warriors/revenants/engineers/rangers by blinding their downed CC. Even mesmers can be stomped with a little luck because of the AoE reveal.
  • If you're Blinded while channeling Chaotic Release you can use Gaze of Darkness at the last moment before the skill finishes its animation - in this case Gaze of Darkness will miss instead of your elite.

• Movement speed is capped at 33% while out of combat, making Swiftness just as strong as Superspeed. During combat however Impossible Odds can be used for boosting your mobility, which is also useful for disengaging.

• Rune of Superior Rune of the Sunless works great with your Glint elite skill. The rune proc goes off upon activating Facet of Chaos, inflicting AoE Fear long enough to CC targets right into its chain skill Chaotic Release. Being an instant source of unblockable CC makes this synergy formidable enough even without the followup CC.

• Draconic Echo makes your upkeeps retain their passives after the active's been used. In combat Elemental Blast, Burst of Strength, and Shiro's version of True Nature (Assassin) can be used on CD for their actives and passives.

Sustain

• While the build is fairly squishy (low toughness and no defensive procs), there's plenty of healing and active defense to make up for it. Both legends are quite tanky by Revenant standards.

• Steadfast Rejuvenation and Hardening Persistence turn every single upkeep in the build into defensive skills which can be used in any situation, even while CC'd. Impossible Odds is one of the skills which benefit the most from them - the high upkeep cost squeezes more value out of these traits, and this one can be turned on/off at any time.

• Maintain Regeneration from Facet of Light as much as possible.

• Swapping legends is a source of cleansing (and counter pressure) in the build thanks to Pulsating Pestilence. The range of this trait is quite small however, so keep that in mind. Gap closers such as Frigid Blitz and Unrelenting Assault assault may help you get in range.

• Facet of Light's chain effect Infuse Light is your jail free card - makes you immortal for the duration by converting all incoming damage into healing. It's also by far your best tool for dealing with condition spikes. Some players may stop pressuring you once Face of Light's been activated, in this case you should just wait a couple of seconds before using Infuse Light. Make sure you get at least 10k healing out of this skill, try to predict when burst is coming and use Facet of Light in advance - FoL has a cast time thus cannot be used while stunned, but Infuse is instant.

• Avoiding damage altogether is the most important part of your defense. One of the best skills for that is Riposting Shadows which refills 25 endurance (half a dodge roll's worth) whilst evading and removing every hard-CC / snare from the player.

• Both shield skills heal and remove conditions.

Damage

• This build wins fights through a war of attrition.

• While on Mace, use Searing Fissure and Echoing Eruption on CD (preferably in this order to stack Might). If the dome from Planar Protection is active, Echoing Eruption can also be used to combo Blind for some extra sustain.

• Enchanted Daggers is a skill with life steal, which means the damage it deals bypasses any damage mitigation like Protection or even Endure Pain. That being said it still can't go through evasion or invulnerabilities such as Distortion.

• Abyssal Chill causes Chill to apply Torment, boosting the pressure of Precision Strike and other similar skills.

• True Nature is usually best used on Shiro for the AoE boon strip and damage.