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Herald - Power Shiro

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

Focused on: Strike damageMobility and Utility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required: Heart of Thorns builds

Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on July 03, 2024 and is up to date for the August 20, 2024 patch.

Overview

A high skill cap PvP Power Revenant burst build, created primarily to roam between capture points looking to +1 fights and teamfight. The build's a pure glass cannon with high damage and very low survivability - while the build has several tools for avoiding damage, it can do very little to correct mistakes which makes this rather unforgiving to play.


Skill Bar

Sword/Sword
Staff
Utility
Utility


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • Swift Termination trades sustain/armor ignoring procs for higher burst damage, makes you better at finishing off low HP targets.

Variants

  • Roiling Mists gives up a powerful proc for better crit chance.


Equipment

Sword
Sword
Sigil
Sigil
Staff
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic


Equipment Variants

Sigils

  • If you want more defense against conditions replace one of the Sword sigils with Sigil of Cleansing and replace Cleansing on Staff with Sigil of Escape.

Relics

  • Relic of Leadership - adds a new source of condition removal to the build, cleansing several conditions whenever you use an elite skill (once every 30 seconds). Works well with Glint's elite because Facet of Chaos has no cast time.
  • Relic of Isgarren - higher burst potential.
  • Relic of the Sunless - this might seem like a condi relic at first, but it scales quite well with Power. Jade Winds is the perfect setup for this relic, spawning the pool under a stunned target.


Usage

General

  • Invoking a legend resets energy to 50, removes 1 condition and could even proc the sigils of your current weapon if they're not on CD. 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.
  • 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 Darkness
    • 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 without spending energy/CDs.
  • 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 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 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 Swiftness just as strong as Superspeed. During combat however Impossible Odds can be used for boosting your mobility, which is also useful for disengaging.


Dealing Damage

  • Herald no longer has the sustain it once had, and staying in melee range without active blocks or evasion could quickly overwhelm it. Although generally perceived as a melee build, there are quite a few ranged skills that will play an important part. The build's geared towards massive burst damage and utilizes hit-and-run tactics.
  • Song of the Mists delivers an attack whenever you swap legends. Swapping to Shiro is an easy way of instantly getting Quickness Quickness, setting the stage for burst combos or helping you cleave downed targets with autoattack spam.
  • Use skills like Elemental Blast, Chilling Isolation, Shiro's True Nature (Assassin) or Shackling Wave to poke from a safe distance if going into melee would be too dangerous (bunch of hostile AoEs on point for example).
  • Create openings where you can pressure targets uninterrupted by utilizing your CC skills such as Surge of the Mists or Chaotic Release. Make every moment count by capitalizing on the setup with tools like Quickness Quickness, Enchanted Daggers and Impossible Odds to further increase the damage of your followup burst.
  • Shackling Wave and Deathstrike will serve as the primary burst skills in the build.
  • Unrelenting Assault works best in 1v1s, where the damage isn't split. In teamfights it's mainly used for the evasion.
    • Note: If you're facing an opponent with access to Stealth Stealth land Facet of Darkness chain skill on them to apply Revealed Revealed, as stealth cancels Unrelenting Assault.
  • Glint's Burst of Strength and Elemental Blast and Shiro's True Nature (Assassin) are cheap and excellent sources of AoE burst damage.
  • Phase Traversal is great for initiating fights from range and immediately starting off with Quickness Quickness coupled with unblockable attacks. Quickness can be used to do burst damage or cleave downed targets better through auto attacking, while the unblockable attacks could seal the fate of enemies relying on blocking as their last resource option for sustain. Either follow up with hard hitting attacks or a Surge of the Mists if you wish to interrupt them (and to cancel their blocking skill).
    • This skill is quite expensive though, you might want to blow your remaining energy on a few weapon skills while upkeeping Impossible Odds for a few seconds before swapping to Glint to replenish your energy.
  • Jade Winds won't be used much because it blows pretty much your entire energy pool, leaving you defenseless and with barely anything to capitalize on the CC. That's not to say this skill is useless, it's quite a strong CC but you need to know when to use it. Some examples:
    • Setting up kills for your teammates, in which case it doesn't matter if you run out of energy because they can finish off the stunned enemies for you.
    • Joining a fight that's already in progress. Here you could use Jade Winds as an opening move trying to tip the scales in your team's favor and then simply swap legends for an energy refill.
    • Interrupting very important channels like a rez or a stomp.
  • You should interrupt Jade Winds with a weapon stow if you feel like the skill's going to miss, for example if you got Blinded Blinded. It's too expensive to be wasted.


Stacking Damage Sources

  • Most Sword skills deliver multiple strikes per use, making this set ideal for stacking damage procs. Proper use of these effects contribute a lot to the burst damage of the build. A skill like Unrelenting Assault might not be a major threat on its own but when every attack also delivers 2-3 other attacks it's suddenly quite formidable.
  • Enchanted Daggers is a skill with life steal, which means the damage it deals bypasses any damage mitigation including Protection Protection or even Endure Pain. That being said it still can't go through evasion or invulnerabilities such as Distortion. It's more of a burst CD than a healing skill in many cases and it's quite cheap.
  • Consuming Shiro's True Nature (Assassin) (F2) causes the passive life steal effect to persist for several seconds thanks to Draconic Echo.
  • Impossible Odds can augment any skill and increases your damage output significantly while active. It's quite expensive though, so don't maintain it for more than a few seconds at a time, use it only for bursts. Note that it's only single target damage, doesn't cleave.
    • Always stop maintaining this skill if you're about to hit 0 energy - turning it off sends it on a 1 second CD while running out of energy results in a 4 second CD.
  • While Burst of Strength doesn't add another source of damage, it does provide a bonus damage modifier and Draconic Echo further increases this bonus by keeping Facet of Strength's passive Might Might stacking going for a few seconds after use.


Burst Combo Examples

These are merely supposed to give you some ideas for doing burst damage, you don't have to follow them all the time

Ranged combo

  1. Enchanted Daggers then wait a bit for your energy to bounce back
  2. Phase Traversal
  3. Impossible Odds
  4. Chilling Isolation or Shackling Wave
  5. Any of your other skills on the weapon set, or swap to staff for a CC (skill 5). If you don't have the energy for followup skills just swap legends for a refill. Alternatively you could cut Impossible Odds from the rotation if you're energy-starved.


Melee Combo

  1. Surge of the Mists
  2. Activate Impossible Odds when SotM starts moving forward. Note: if you started this chain on Glint then legend swapping to Shiro for this step would also grant you Quickness Quickness from Song of the Mists and could even proc the sigils of Staff. The Quickness however is wasted on SotM so in this scenario you might want to consider swapping legends near the end of the cast and only activate Impossible Odds when you use Shackling Wave.
  3. Weapon swap
  4. Shackling Wave
  5. Deathstrike
  6. Chilling Isolation


Glint AoE Combo

  1. Chaotic Release
  2. Elemental Blast
  3. Cast Burst of Strength but immediately swap legends, the skill won't be interrupted
  4. Activate Impossible Odds while still casting BoS
  5. Chilling Isolation


Damage Stacking Combo (works best against single target)

  1. Enchanted Daggers
  2. True Nature (Assassin) (Shiro) - use the chain skill immediately, the passive effect will linger for a few seconds
  3. Impossible Odds
  4. Unrelenting Assault


Self Sustain & Conditions

  • 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.
  • Revenant doesn't have any mass cleanses, instead it's the proper chaining of smaller removals that's going to do the trick:
    • The highest possible number of conditions that can be removed in one combo is 8 (9 if we count Blindness Blindness, which you should attempt to remove before starting the chain).
    • Ideally start with Riposting Shadows to get rid of all snares and hard-CC such as Fear and Taunt. This skill alone could remove 4 different non-damaging conditions thus increasing the chance of cleansing the more important, damaging ones with other skills. The evade frame of the skills also ensures that you won't be inflicted with new conditions.
    • Swapping to staff removes a condition thanks to Sigil of Cleansing (if taken) and swapping legends can remove another one via the trait Cleansing Channel, bringing the total count to 6. If you were already on Staff it's still possible to proc the Cleansing sigil with a legend swap, as explained earlier.
    • Finish the chain with Renewing Wave.
    • After this you should be safe, but you've also exhausted your kit so play defensively for a while in order to avoid getting hit with new conditions by chaining blocks/evasions, or just staying at a safe distance for a couple of seconds.
  • True Nature (Dragon) cleanses 3 conditions when used on Glint. Against condition specs you should hold onto this skill for longer in case you need to use it defensively.
  • The combination of Staff and Shiro gives the revenant amazing tools for disengaging/stalling. Riposting Shadows gives 15 endurance whilst also evading and removing every hard-CC / snare from the player. In addition to that Staff has a short CD block/evasion in form of Warding Rift and Surge of the Mists.
  • Safest way to benefit from Enchanted Daggers when you need it for the healing is to use skills with evasion/blocking that also deal damage, such as Warding Rift, Surge of the Mists, or Unrelenting Assault.


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Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 37 votes.
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5 stars
RemTheRev gave this build 5 stars • May 2024
Vindi is better, I will say that, but I believe it's really underrated lately. Herald mains are the Thief mains of the rev community.. they'll never shut up about being weak if they aren't meta, even if they're one step away from it. It does have some weaknesses but nothing major, Resistance helped a lot with the condi situation and dragon heal has scaled really well with the powercreep. All it needs is a liiiitle bit of Stability and I could see it being a dominant force again. Anet seems to be in favor of buffing it going by their balance streams so consider me an early investor. This will be meta in 6 months!
3 stars
Eddieknj gave this build 3 stars • November 2023
Harder to play than a lot of other classes/specs for lower reward. Loses hard to condis, its forced to trait into very little condi removal through having to take shield, or forces you to give up stability on stun breaks for 1 measly condi removal on legend swap. The damage is also very telegraphed, which is tough in a meta where everything has multiple oh shit buttons. needs baked in condi removal and stability to be competitive.
4 stars
Threather gave this build 4 stars • March 2023
Struggles in this meta as isn't best +1er. All enemy needs to do is force you to swap to staff+shiro by immobilizing, change targets and you will be uselessly shiro dodging around for 10 seconds. Great damage and snowballer tho. Just never fight on point?
4 stars
Goon gave this build 4 stars • February 2023
A very high skill cap build that has unfortunately been power crept by EoD specs. The lack of condi cleanse and stability means that this build is harder to play then builds of a similar role such as devastation vindicator or power willbender. With similar damage to these two builds power herald is no longer your best choice though is still viable against some matchups.
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • August 2022
It was already one of the strongest roamers but yeah, Willbender and Vindicator nerfs helped it get back on top. Insane burst damage, good mobility, even sustain's not bad once you get used to it.
5 stars
Necro master gave this build 5 stars • July 2022
since wb nerf more time i chooise herald more . cause too much dmg and survive still good
3 stars
Kindness gave this build 3 stars • April 2022
All in spec, high damage and easy to put but poor sustain
5 stars
Trîkuna gave this build 5 stars • April 2021
glint heal nerfed, but still a insane heal. shiro port also nerfed, so it's less spammy, basically you can't teleport in and expect to teleport out instantly anymore. damage still the same. still meta as of 2021! don't worry guys, we aren't going anywhere anytime soon. ;)
4 stars
Pottsdie gave this build 4 stars • May 2020
Power shiro is alright but the meta has shifted towards condi rev.
3 stars
Guirssane gave this build 3 stars • February 2020
Power shiro is outshined by condi rev at the moment. Damage at too low and sustain is now pretty meh as you don't have that much condi removal.
3 stars
Shiroshiro gave this build 3 stars • August 2019
Only good for duo queue or if you are lucky enough to run into perfect teamcomp every single time. Everything that makes Power Shiro great is still there, but the lack of superspeed from Impossible Odd has striked hard and made this build less reliability. Don't get me wrong, you can still retk people in 1v1 or even in teamfight, but you would run out of gas really fast without proper support from teamate. Recommended for rev players, but not for newer players. Edit: Take demolisher amulet + hardening persistence for better sustain in sticky situation. You lose out the ability to max out 25 stacks of might, but the trade off is worth it imo.
5 stars
MurkWan gave this build 5 stars • August 2019
I don't see why this isn't listed with the meta. While remaining as one of the most complex builds in the game, it is very rewarding once you learn it well and deploy your skills with good timing. Highly versatile and still crazy good burst damage. Use staff 5 to break through crowds and sword 3 to sap the life out of your enemy. Better than thief for +1s and the gap closers make this build really mobile too. All in all this is the definition of a meta-build.
5 stars
Blogg gave this build 5 stars • March 2019
If you have a support, this build can easily carry entire teams. If you don't, you risk getting farmed all game without putting in any valuable input. Rev is a very high damage, high mobility class. It is technically very survivable, but you can't sustain while doing damage as rev. Whereas rifle holo can put up wall and keep pressuring, rev has to evade and block, which means it can't deal damage while playing defensively. That's why having a support with it is key; supports let rev freecast, just like necro.
5 stars
Meragon gave this build 5 stars • September 2018
Super high direct damage, great cleave, one of the best mobility, good duelist, best +1 imo. Usefull if well played, but I do not recommend it for new players, it's in my opinion one of the hardest class to master in gw2. DO NOT USE JADE WINDS
5 stars
Screaming gave this build 5 stars • August 2018
Revenant in general has quite the reputation, which causes people to severely underestimate what this can be capable of. This puts out an insane - massively unbalanced I'd dare say - amount of burst damage, with really oppressive mobility between Phase Traversal and Deathstrike to boot. Fortunately it's weak to heavy pressure, but even with Infuse Light that can often not be a problem at all. And depending on the upcoming changes, this build is either going to be gutted or even more broken...
5 stars
ShaoAZ gave this build 5 stars • May 2018
Underrated, this build has the potential to deal with any types of build if played right. The only problem with this template is that it features a terrible choice of rune, Rune of Lyssa is waaaaaaaaaaaaay better as it compliments everything about the Rev, condition duration for a majority of the skills including Sword 5, the condition cleanse after recovering health with infuse light from facet of chaos which shares the exact same cooldown as the rune after being fully used and making your critical chance up to 100%, also the passive boon on heal skill is really useful, even if you don't fully use the facet, you still gain the boon which is often Aegis, protection or retaliation and those last for quite a while. If you die using this build in 1v1's you most likely made a mistake while fighting, the only very weakness of this build comes from the thief ability to either spam boon rip unblockable S/D, condi spam evade steal or headshot spam from D/P. Yet they aren't impossible to kill if you are clever enough, since the rev damage spike is massive.
5 stars
Utrex gave this build 5 stars • April 2018
It's mobile, very strong, and most importantly fun to play. Unlike Scourge, this build has a hard time eating up heals because of how often you need to be moving around, so practicing self-sustain is key. I agree that the treatment of Rev by ANet isn't really making sense.
5 stars
Nemesis1860 gave this build 5 stars • February 2018
Nice and Funny build.
5 stars
Derpster gave this build 5 stars • February 2018
The nerfs to certain condi builds and boon removal have made this slightly more viable, but you still need to know what you are doing. This build is good, but Revenant as a class remains not recommended for beginners as it is very punishing for mistakes.
5 stars
Tusk gave this build 5 stars • January 2018
I like the power damage it can do, it is a bit glassy, especially against Necros/Deadeyes but which class isn't. Otherwise it can withheld 4 enemy easily until reinforcements arrive or just obliterate other 1v1.
5 stars
Bob0 gave this build 5 stars • December 2017
Extremely brutal. Delete enemy firebrand, faceroll, win. The incredible burst power damage is perfect to counter anti condi support builds.
5 stars
Forgotmypasswordlulz gave this build 5 stars • December 2017
Can't make it work? Then stop crying on every media you find and start getting good instead. Herald always had its weaknesses and is a generally hard build to play well no shit don't expect to faceroll it as if you were a scourge. Some builds weren't made for monkeys, if that's a problem then find something else.
5 stars
Nathanel gave this build 5 stars • December 2017
yeah the following ratings are clear exagerations, sorry but this is nonsensical. Revenants are definately not top dog now, but to call it bad is nothing more then nonsense. Power shiro always suffered weak condi cleanse, And always was used by veteran(not even pro players btw) players who had a tad bit of understanding of the game. I will admit tought that A-net constantly nerfing a class that is broken in the most litteral sense of the word is infuriating even with the latest patch but we gotta be real. It's bassically like berserker now. U can still with skill win a fair amount of matchups, it's really the condis that are going to be a bummer to deal with, But druid,scrapper, holosmith,core war,weaver,core fresh air are all possible matchsup to be won. the build is still quite mobile and still does a poor mans thief job at picking up targets. Bieng weak against one aspect of the game doesn't make it a terrible build. it makes one of those builds not to be picked up by newer players.
5 stars
Issei Kun gave this build 5 stars • March 2017
Fun and super active build with steep learning curve. High risk medium reward in this meta. Also, I suggest adding twitch.tv/xkratosz to the list of streamer list. As Kratos and RarNark are the only two good active revs left. Phantaram and Toker already quit the game so linking their channel is kinda irrelevant.
5 stars
Mithblue91 gave this build 5 stars • March 2017
I've been playing this build for a couple of weeks now and I have no doubt I'm playing it wrong but I can't help but feel insanely squishy. I get popped by other classes using bursty builds. Fighting thieves and Necros is a total nightmare too.
5 stars
ItsJake gave this build 5 stars • June 2016
Unmatched power dps. Great sustain, pretty hard to play perfectly. Obviously weak to conditions (Personaly i like to swap sigil of blood for generosity for a little bit more condi resistance. As said, the best defence against condis is just not to get hit. Staff and shield offer a lot of blocks and overall great mobility.
5 stars
Wrekonize gave this build 5 stars • April 2016
Very good Duelist or DPS depending on how you play, Staff really boosts the utility and sustain. Suggest always running Invocation with Leadership with the amount of Necros and Mesmers playing in ranked. Never has it not been in a Pro Team Composition.
5 stars
Wedreth gave this build 5 stars • March 2016
Not usefull against condi team
5 stars
Unii gave this build 5 stars • March 2016
Good mobility, sustain, damage, CC and team support via boons. I personally prefer the invocation-marauder combo with a hoelbrak rune. The only downside I can think of the build in general is that the current meta is loaded with unblockable stuff that can make the shield a bit weak but even that is remedied by timing it well. A staple build of the current sPvP experience.
5 stars
Billaboong gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
Great sustain, great damage, only struggles with condition. The best DPS build in this meta
5 stars
Thor gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
good CC, good sustain, good dmg.. what are even the bad things of this build? I like playing it from time to time and it is really strong especially when played properly.
5 stars
Soob gave this build 5 stars • February 2016
IMO Soothing Bastion in Herald isn't worth taking due to the nerf. It also gets you in trouble a lot of times when you are about to cast say an evade or a teleport and then you automatically shield. Also classes like necros will mark you when you shield, which is a death trap when it triggers. IMO the stability is a good choice to run instead if you run retribution. But Elder's Force is awesome since you are rocking a paladin amulet and you have 5-6 boons on you constantly. Running sigil of force on your sword is also a decent alternative. Because sword autos are used alot in conjunction with quickness, the damage racks up pretty rapidly and is great for cleaving. I personally run the Invocation variant, the Paladin gives you all the tankiness you need, but Retribution is also very good. Invocation gives you a lot more damage through fury and damage modifiers, and also the stun break and the removal of a condition isn't too bad although by far that isn't the crux of running Invocation.
5 stars
Sunnypsyop gave this build 5 stars • January 2016
Absolutely incredible sustain for the damage output — though as some other posters have mentioned, Revenant skill bugs will occasionally bring you down on this build. Unrelenting Assault, Phase Traversal, and Riposting Shadows all have glitches associated with them. That being said, if you learn to juggle your damage mitigation, set up your bursts intelligently, and make use of quickness stomps you can easily come out on top in many 1vX situations with this build. I'm running Devastation + Retribution + Herald on the Durability Runes variant. The only other change I made was taking Hardening Persistence over Radiant Revival for more casual (AKA selfish) play.
5 stars
Steroids gave this build 5 stars • December 2015
Using this build running Rune of Durability and Hammer instead of staff provides great ranged burst.
5 stars
Arstus gave this build 5 stars • November 2015
Possibly the best stratagem and build for use in PVP with the Revenant. Even with the addition of a cooldown on Shiro's shadowstep skill, the build remains solid and reliable. Though the skill cap for the class is extremely high, in the right hands, this build can be a top competitor.
5 stars
TwitchtvKamientv gave this build 5 stars • October 2015
Only 100% working build so far, require great skills as a player to be able to handle and score well but it works ( Alots of glitch ruins you're DPS during 3 on sword skill and phase traversal ). Everything else tried on Revenant doesn't have any place in high level plays.. can't wait for Anet to actually provide us alternatives worth playing.
5 stars
Girafales gave this build 5 stars • October 2015
I played 20 matchs on PvP with this build since the HoT launch and it's a solid build. I won most of 1v1 situations and go range when medium fights to avoid high damage. Played with marauder and berserker amulet, marauder helped me to stay alive longer on medium fights with 3+ enemys. IMO the marauder amulet works better. I'm missing heal skills on Assassin Stance. The Enchanted Daggers didn't work for me, but the Assassin's utilitys compensates for the loss. Just need to be more cautios and precise on Assassin Stance. The Herald heal is amazing, so on this stance we can take some risks. The sigils are great, maybe change the Sigil of Battle, but this work too. Everything is working weel for me with this build: the weapons, traits, stances. My vote: Great!

Comments

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