How to boost a solo herald's damage ?

[Darab Masood]

I have been playing a shield-bearer/troubadour on normal difficulty, solo. He can regenerate about 5 hp/sec and has good armor. But for the all the defensive focus the damage is very slow. The animated weapons are decent but still slow and so is her revenge. His weapon attack speed is also pretty slow and damage not boosted much. I have been using bardattos luxury and akolas apex ward with magneras chain. His dexterity is also 4. But might perception intellect and resolve are maxed.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Darab Masood

[Boeroer]

Yeah well. It's a Herald.

Edit: briefly forgot it was a solo Herald. 

Here are some things that you can do to improve damage output:

Lose the large shield. Or better: make a weapon setup with a small shield. -8 accuracy is a bad drawback for damage output. I'm sure with your regeneration capabilities you can do with a small shield, too in many situaltions. If you want to stay astanjy as possible all the time you will have to accept that your damage output is less important than your survivability and that you simply have to outlast your enemy.

You can use Brand Enemy, put it on every enemy (auto hit, fast cast, no recovery). The damage bonus of Sworn Enemy also works with everything. It's Zeal well spend imo since the DoT will last until the fight is over. It obviously doesn't work on fire-immune enemies. It even heals fire Naga and Dorudugan. So in that cases don't use it. Besides those situations it's a great smash tool for somebody who needs to outlast enemies (and has low DEX). 

Increase DEX with items and consumables. DEX is the most impactful dps attribute in the long run.

Use Eternal Devotion every once in a while. The +15% lash applies to almost everything (except damage over time ticks), including invocations such as Her Revenge but also Sacred Immolation. 

With more DEX and high INT even Inspired Beacon's +40% dmg can be useful. But I personally would spend the Zeal on External Devotion and Brand Enemy. It's a waste of Zeal if you are solo imo. 

Use Sacred Immolation. With Sacred Immolation usually a Herald's damage output will go through the roof compared to before. With your high RES and some "-x secs/-y% hostile effect duration" items which are great if you are solo you can make it so that the annoying self damage part runs out a whole lot sooner than the fire aura itself. 

Prepare a chant with Come Soft Winds + Dragon Thrashed. As soon as you feel that healing isn't needed as much: switch to that chant without(!) Brisk Recitation. Check if the enemies suffer from both DoT effects after both phrases have passed. If the enemy have both, switch on Brisk Recitation. You will have a lot faster phrase generation, but the hostile effects on the enemies will get refreshed enough every 6 secs that it won't run out. You will deal chant damage as if Brisk Recitation was still off, but you'll have the benefit of faster phrase generation. Come Soft Winds Wil heal you a bit, too.

You can add Blackened Plate (Death in Life) for a little more raw DoT. But I suspect you might be inclined to use the healing enchantment instead.

If you want to add even more DoT damage to your chants and other actions:  pick up the Great Sword Effort and enchant it with "Hemorrhaging". You don't need to skill anything for the great sword, it's just a tool for chanting/casting. Pick up Hylea's Talons (Gloves). The Hemorrhaging attack (hobble/sicken on crot) gets triggered by offensive chants and invocations as well (if they crit). The hobble/sicken attack of Hemorrhaging counts as a weapon attack so it will trigger Hylea's Talons potent DoT on enemies (but on you, too unfortunately). Make sure to out heal the gloves' damage. 

If you combine Dragon Thrashed, Come Soft Winds, Blackened Plate and Effort+Gloves you can already melt foes without actually doing anything. Add Brand Enemy, Her Revenge + Eternal Devotion and later Sacred Immolation and you should be a terrifying damage dealer without even striking much, so the low DEX doesn't matter much. 

The good thing is: you can switch from healing/tanking mode (weapon + shield + healing chants) into damage dealing mode (Effort + Gloves + damaging chants, Sacred Immolation etc.) in an instant. And switch back if needed.

This adds a lot of versatility. And versatility is always good. For example if you can place yourself into a corner or choke point you might be able to switch to the offensive mode. Or if you have Animated Weapons out which should be able to tank for you for a little while. 

Edited December 29, 2024 by Boeroer

[Chaospread]

And if you wanna increase summons damage, you can also try Animancy Cat as pet

[Boeroer]

Have you noticed that the animated weapons each have a lot of uses for special attacks? Pike has Knockdown, Great Sword has Flames of Devotion, Bow has Wounding Shot.

If you don't use them and only use autoattacks with the weapons then you are missing a lot of potential damage output. 

[Chaospread]

Almost any summons have extra attack, some are "auto" effects (i.e. the upgraded Vyverns) and some you must to enable them, such as Ogres and the animated weapon.
By far, the best "extra-attacks" are whose of animated weapon, so better to use them as Boeroer said.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Chaospread
error

[Kaylon]

Your weapon set is good for tanking mega bosses on potd, but for normal difficulty and common enemies you should focus more on offense.

Summons are meat shields, you shouldn't use them for damage - use invocations instead (Her Revenge...).

You should ideally have 3 weapon sets: Sasha's Scimitar + Kitchen Stove / Modwyr + Lethandria's Shield / Dragon's Dowry. 

Two Necklaces of Fireballs (for 8 fireballs available every fight) + Ring of Focused Flame can help a lot (make sure you also pick Scion of Flame passive for increased penetration on fire abilities).

Other nice items to have are Belt of Magran's Chosen, Horns of the Aurochs, Rakhan Field Boots, Abraham pet.

If you cycle through all abilities you can finish fights very fast. Here's an example:

Start at max range from stealth with Dragon's Dowry equipped (and modal activated) and cast Eternal Devotion on the nearest target -> cast Brand Enemy starting with tanky enemies until your zeal is depleted -> switch to Sasha+Kitchen and cast Thunderous Report -> empower and cast Her Revenge... -> use No Quarter (make sure you have Clear Head passive and Powder Burns activated) -> switch to Modwyr and cast again Her Revenge... until you deplete all phrases -> cast Fireballs -> Bottom's Up -> finish enemies left

Make sure you pick also Retribution and Inspired Path (helps casting more Brand Enemy at the start) besides the passives already mentioned. 

Other dps combos you could try:

• Rust's Poignard + Blackblade's Hood
• Aldris Blade of Captain Crow + Fair Favor + Ring of Prosperity's Fortune
• Essence Interrupter + Deltro's Cage Helm (before any fight you can use No Quarter on yourself to obtain the buff)

PS. And always play at max speed when using a herald.  

Edited January 1 by Kaylon

[Constentin Lévine]

Also, to max arcana can be useful and a good source of damage (and heal) ; take care to have some layers of concentration before casting the spell to not loose your scroll by an interrupt..