Talk:Heroic Refrain

All attributes?

Can this increase the primary attribute of the second profession? Does it affect allegiance ranks? - - Ruine Eternelle 22:15, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, and no. Titles are not attributes, and thus unaffected. [ Tyloric ] [ Talk ] 23:15, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I think you are right but things aren't always clear, like for instance with Signet of Illusions. Also what if you use arcane mimicey/larceny and get a new skill of a third profession, would its attribute be increased? --Ruine Eternelle 23:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

If it works the same way deity shrines work in Nightfall, then yes, stats can be increased even if you're not representing that class in any way. The game limits you from doing it yourself, but not from outside sources, like skills and buffs. [ Tyloric ] [ Talk ] 23:57, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

New Imbagon?

Dwarven Stability, Serpent's Quickness, Heroic Refrain, There's Nothing to Fear, They're on Fire,

maybe Glowing Signet, and some heros with Searing Flames?

Drop Dwarven Stability and Serpent's Quickness, keep "Save Yourselves!" why do you even need Serpent's? Those skills are all maintainable already. 213.249.223.66 08:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

To cast Heroic Refrain on more allies faster at the start, and to maintain There's Nothing to Fear for armor-ignoring damage-reduction--211.76.246.84 13:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Numbers : 12s duration for tntf at 16 leadership, with 13s recharge under serpent's quickness. However 14s duration for tntf at leadership 20, so you need to wait a second because I think the shout doesn't properly end. Or invest less in leadership but then Heroic refrain is weaker... Maybe you should put +4 headgear, cast heroic refrain on yourself, remove the headgear, then do tntf ? --Ruine Eternelle 14:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd just wait a second for it to end and renew Heroic Refrain. Previously TNTF was hard to maintain, and now it can be done with ease.--203.64.247.31 14:51, 23 April 2020 (UTC) -edit: after some test runs, I agree with keeping Save Yourselves, the whole Serpent's Quickness thing was not better.

Oh Lord...angelic protection at rank 20 would negate all damage above 50/sec rofl 😆 Justice (talk) 12:06, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Ignoring the fact that it's one ally 1/3 of the time, that's pretty strong. - - Ruine Eternelle 12:20, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Skill icon

Looks to be a red bearded dude. I can't recognize the helm. It is reminiscent of the Templar Armor helm/ Heritage helm, Guild Wars' logo, but it is different. It's not gimli's as well. Nor Thanos'... Anyone knows where it may come from? - - Ruine Eternelle 12:36, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

When I first saw that icon I though: Thanos. Definitely. But then it doesnt make too much sense, since Thanos doesn't really boost anyone. But still, I think the icon looks like him. Steve1 (talk) 13:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Similar to Thanos: Tiny nose, big mouth and chin, helmet is similar shape, has even those chin wrinkles that Thanos has, expression is similar. I'm not sure Thanos boosts his allies in any kind, he most probably does. Zullu (talk)

I scavenged the GW2W for the skill icon (where it's clearly from), but it doesn't appear to be a released skill there. So now I am looking through gw2:Category:Unimplemented_content instead. Bear with. - Infinite - talk 12:42, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

You're welcome. - Infinite - talk 13:30, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Imbagon + 7 Flesh Golem Necro Heroes

Easiest meme of my life 100.35.201.93 04:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Interesting. Do you put heroic Refrain on the golems to increase their damage too? - - Ruine Eternelle 06:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Absurdly, laughably underpowered

(Testing bed used for this skill includes 16 leadership and multiple elite areas including the DoA, WoC HM, Urgoz, FoW, UW, Slavers Exile, the Deep, and flat dps trials at the master of damage using standard meta hero setups.)

-the main criticisms:

A maximum of +4 attributes is superbly anemic and terribly ineffective at increasing your parties own dps and utility. The paragon must be considered an essential trade-off over high performing classes that could otherwise be brought into proper team/the attribute bonus brought by this skill doesn't outweigh the drawbacks of using other meta compositions.

I do not intend to tell players how to play/claim that specific professions are useless my only intention is to factually "discuss" how factually underpowered this skill is in spite of some players claiming that this skill is a godsend. The developers through a decade of game balance failed to objectively balance each professions role/performance in end game PvE and shamefully plugging in thoughtless elite skills is a disgraceful and disgusting attempt to rectify unsuccessfully a long standing issue due solely to their incompetence as developers. 172.58.230.183 14:52, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Giving the ally an attribute boost alone is somewhat lacking when you compare it to the other PvE elites, however it is a boost maintainable on your entire party. I also feel it's underwhelming to take over the other potential elite skill but since I don't really have a good idea what you would add to buff this skill. To you want to add a damage reduction? a damage increase? an IAS or IMS? a skill activation time or recharge time reduction? adrenaline or energy management? What would you want this skill to do then. If you have a problem with what it is and want it to see improved then adding feedback on how to make it better would be much more construcive and helpful then throwing insults towards the ones who you're asking to fix it. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 17:35, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Note that attribute increase affects the damage from minions. Maybe pets as well? - - Ruine Eternelle 18:08, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

Making breakpoints for certain skills might open up some wacky skill choices. Justice (talk) 19:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Either this header is a massive troll or your party builds are so hysterically sub par that no amount of attribute boosting could benefit them. A +4 boost to your attributes allows you to hit so many breakpoints for certain skill functions that you can massively increase your party's dps output, healing capabilities and defensive reliability with the right configuration. The original +6 boost was insane and truly broke the game, so the balancing trade off they introduced (reduced effectiveness for easy maintainability) was a very potent and reasonable change.

The sheer amount of builds I've made that use this skill as a keystone to enable certain party configurations number in the dozens. Having 20 leadership is essentially infinite energy for Paragons and this skill allows some heroes to surpass Mesmers in terms of functionality i.e. Mesmers are already operating at near peak efficiency with the standard amount of attribute points and runes, but other heroes who were previously kneecapped by a shortage of attribute points can now have their full potential realised. Multiple Paragon heroes in an adrenaline based party with this new +4 boost thoroughly destroy Necro-Rit healers and Mesmers for healing and debuff removal in the elite areas you mentioned, so I fail to see how you've come up with these conclusions unless you purely stick to PvX builds rather than devising your own. Flat dps testing on the Master of Damage is also a complete fluke unless you're doing 1 to 1 single build comparisons e.g. skills that use minion flooding for AoE damage such as Holy Spear, Putrid Bile and Death Nova simply don't function on a single enemy basis.

As for player builds, I can't begin to summarise how much this skill breathes life into a plethora of new options / "if" you genuinely don't see a way to take advantage of this skill, I mean no offence here but you're undeniably terrible at build synthesis and testing. Using PvX standard meta setups which are already heavily optimised for auto pilot play don't benefit from this skill anywhere near as much as new builds do, so the only way to exploit said +4 boost is to make new builds which requires a bit of thinking power.

The devs who worked on these skills aren't the same devs who used to work on Guild Wars initially, so they have no idea as to what the current state of the game is or how player builds function within the game. They're too busy trying to work on their WoW clone and it's unrealistic to expect more of them given how little income this game now generates / even back when the original dev team was still employed, they were focusing their efforts on beginning Guild Wars 2 and made a business call that changed the planned Eutopia campaign into Eye of the North. The only way to balance the game is to piece together a team of volunteer players who have game development experience, but the likelihood of that given all the security risks and effort associated with such an approach is minuscule at best. - Dj3nt M4ch1n3 (talk) 19:43, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Seems fine to me. It's niche, but no more so than plenty other elite skills horrible | contribs 20:01, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Oh I totally misread that. Regardless, the time it takes to get this maintained on all the members of a party is enough to make it annoying - same problem as most single-target echos. horrible | contribs 20:02, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

It only takes a minute and a half to fully cast on both yourself and all other party members, so in most cases you can propagate it's effects during the travel to your first fight. In areas like FoW or UW where you can jump straight into combat, spending a minute and a half to potentially shave off 10 minutes from the clear time is well worth it. I know in speedruns it might be useless seeing as your party usually splits up and 99% of speedrun builds don't use shouts, but I personally find speedruns a repetitive bore in a game where skins are the only advancement / doing the same hyper optimised thing over and over, just so that when you find rare loot... you can rinse and repeat at the same speed with a different aesthetic. - Dj3nt M4ch1n3 (talk) 21:41, 15 June 2020 (UTC)

Surprised to see this post resurrected. Not worth it though if you ask me. It's unlikely to be constructive. - - Ruine Eternelle 00:07, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Arguably nothing posted is constructive anymore because of how unlikely it is that the game will reach enough concurrent players to warrant any new content. Discussing things is a means to an already achieved end i.e. the game is thoroughly understood and it's hardest content has been made trivial by years of player experimentation. It's at a point now where people are just giving their two cents from a place of interest rather than productivity / the current meta won't change even if newer, more efficient methods are found because as Todd Howard says "it just works".

To put it succinctly, making builds with the new skills and getting people to use them is too much effort for too little reward. - Dj3nt M4ch1n3 (talk) 09:33, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

Boosting pets, summoned allies

Has anyone tried this yet? - - Ruine Eternelle 07:10, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Edit : it does not seem to boost pets.--Ruine Eternelle 10:14, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Please change this skill to a 4a shout...

...the amount of effort that goes into maintaining this skill just isn't necessary. It creates lots of anxiety having to stay constantly glued to the key board while trying to keep track of everyone with absolutely no way of knowing who may have lost the buff on a human team. With heroes, you have to constantly keep their templates open while cluttering your screen. Changing it to a 4 adrenaline shout like that of "Go For The Eyes!" or "Watch Yourselves!" would definitely alleviate absolutely all of this. I wish Arenanet cared enough to change it... This post will probably go unread, but here's to a hope and a dream... Oh well... QQ sigh --Ulterion1337 (talk) 12:31, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

It got read but not by Anet. We do have a feedback section here. Drogo Boffin 19:42, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

Heroic Refrain would indeed work much better as a spammable shout, though it would need a name change as well if that change is made due to nomenclature. Da Mystic Reaper (talk) 21:56, 31 August 2020 (UTC)

If, prior to the release of Heroic Refrain into the game, we held a discussion regarding what kinds of mechanics should and should not be introduced into Guild Wars, I would venture to say that the more knowledgeable members of the community would have been opposed to the addition of a skill which can permanently increase the attributes of all party members by +4 while being unremovable and more or less uncounterable (how may you counter something which is activated outside of combat and maintained by instant cast shouts? There are some specific skills that attempt this, but they themselves are infrequent in appearance and vulnerable to their own counters). This argument could also be made for many of the new Elite Skills whose functionalities bear no precedence in prior skills.

Heroic Refrain as it is may possibly be the single most effectual skill for improving the general effectiveness of a team in the entire game, for the attribute increase improves not only your teams damage, but also your teams healing, protection, utility and all other material related to gameplay. So then, when we hold the discussion regarding balance, we must acknowledge the system of cost that Arenanet has so created. Skills have a cost to them that, in a perfect world, is directly correlated to their power.

What does it cost to use Heroic Refrain? It costs five energy, which is rather cheap. It costs one second spent activating the skill, which is quite standard. And it costs ten seconds to use it again, which is also about average. Perhaps the biggest hurdle to this skill is simply the initial ramp up time in which the Paragon must first cast it twice on himself (to achieve the +4 attribute bonus) and then on his remaining party members, which can take upwards of two minutes depending on party size. And once this hurdle has been cleared, the Paragon may never have to use the skill again, relying on the cooperativeness of his team.

It should also be mentioned that, being both an Elite Skill and a PvE only skill, it is organic that Heroic Refrain is stronger than most other skills, to which I agree. And so, there is a certain opportunity cost to taking Heroic Refrain on a players bar, for it uses both an Elite slot and a PvE only slot. Yet this opportunity cost is not merely specific to Heroic Refrain, but inherent to the very core of Guild Wars as a limited skill based game. So when discussing balance, this matter of opportunity cost is less of a conscious design choice by the developers to "balance out" the strengths of Heroic Refrain, but instead a limitation of the very system it is within that is shared across all skills.

The conclusion I am aiming to reach and to persuade you towards is that Heroic Refrain is a very, very strong skill, with nearly no drawbacks aside from the fact that it takes up a slot on your skillbar. From the perspective of balance, it should not, and does not, need to be improved. Something with this much potential, with this much power, ought to have an appropriate cost. And at the moment, it really doesn't. And so, we should leave it alone, relishing in the fact that we have been blessed by the sleeping Gods (read: Arenanet) of this game who felt the tiniest modicum of sympathy for us and handed down on heavenly decree this new toy for their children (read: us poor bastards) to play with.Soldier198 (talk) 14:38, 1 September 2020 (UTC)

Heroic refrain is extremely easy to maintain, one other party member with a shout (usually a X/Pa with Fall Back) will perma upkeep it with no issue and the +4 nature of the echo means melee party members are extremely viable now i.e. full para and full warrior parties with a para player are now possible because you breach so many breakpoints / you can easily slip enough shouts into such a party comp to make maintaining the skill wholly trivial. Dj3nt M4ch1n3 (talk) 17:11, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Use for farming

This looks interesting for farming and soloing stuff. With a second account paragon casting HR on you to give you +4, then you can maintain the refrain on your own.

• W, /W can use "to the limit!" (at <8 tactics, otherwise two shouts like "I'll survive" and "Shields up!" asynchronously can do the trick),
• P, /P can use "help me!" (there are other shouts, but this one is cheap)
• R can use "together as one!"
• Other professions can use "don't trip!" provided they have a way to reduce its recharge (essence of celerity, serpent's quickness, duo farming)

Benefits ? :

• Ability to reach 17-20 in some attributes
  • SF, Spell Breaker, VoS, Obsidian Flesh last longer, maybe it helps meet maintenance ?
  • Gladiator's Defense, Whirling Defense, Sliver Armor, Khanhei last longer and deal more damage.
• More generous attribute points spread (can meet the req on shields, weapons or insignias for instance)

Just a few ideas, maybe someone will find a working setup. -Ruine Eternelle 18:29, 8 May 2021 (UTC)

Master of Magic

20, 20 everywhere... Not too complicated to maintain, and at 20 fire magic eles can inflict the burning for "they're on fire" quite easily. Elemental Flame looks good, all the interactions between skills promising. Also great for the survivability of eles (paragon defensive shouts, prismatic insignias, can invest in a shield req). --Ruine Eternelle 00:11, 10 May 2021 (UTC)

Heroic Refrain

While a 12 % increase would be welcome if it came for free, buffing the Bone Fiends generally isn't worth the effort in my eyes. Assuming that...

• your MM always controls 12 minions, the maximum amount,

• you buff one random Bone Fiend with HR every 11 seconds while in combat,

• Bone Fiends die and are replenished—or lose HR by it running out—at a rate of one every 20 seconds,

...then the equilibrium for the number of Bone Fiends affected by HR is ≈8. That's at the cost of 1.75 seconds of downtime every 11 seconds.

With the damage increase being around 4 per minion attack, and bone fiends attacking every 1.86 seconds, this works out to a DPS increase of 8*4/1.86 ≈ 17 DPS.

• From this we have to subtract the DPS loss from the paragon using HR instead of autoattacking. Assuming a Brutal Weapon-boosted DPS of 30, this DPS loss is 1.75/11 * 30 ≈ 5 DPS.

• If you're using Bone Fiends, you're also most likely using GftE to increase their damage further (and to have any hope of maintaining HR on them). The 16 % autoattack downtime will decrease your adrenaline generation by about the same. Assuming GftE adds 10 damage per minion, that's 120 damage per activation, every ~5 seconds, so 24 DPS. The autoattack downtime reduces this by 24*0.16 ≈ 4 DPS.

So you're left with a DPS increase of just 17-5-4 = 8 (or 4 %).

I do admit that this DPS increase can be improved (but not above 12 %, of course) by adjusting the equilibrium so that you apply HR to the fiends less often. Furthermore, in the ideal scenario where each fiend stays alive permanently, the free 12 % damage increase can be attained. But it wouldn't happen until, at the earliest, after three minutes of combat (since you have 8+12 targets to buff), and would still only amount to 12 % of at most ≈33 % of your entire team's damage, so max 4 % of the team's damage. I would therefore argue that the DPS increase is definitely on the "quite marginal" side. --Cealdor (talk) 22:16, 4 September 2023 (UTC)

Feel free to edit and amend the topic page. The way the info is presented right now doesn't really suffice imo. Steve1 (talk) 17:53, 5 September 2023 (UTC)

I don't think the note as is is really good. A 13% increase is not marginal. It needs some further explanation or a link to your claculation or something else. Steve1 (talk) 17:03, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

I can see why a link to this talk page helps, but I'm not sure what else to put there. I'm fine with the compromise of using neither of the "... noticeable" nor "... marginal" sentences without additional explanations. For instance, only having "For example, a maxed (+4) Heroic Refrain increases the damage of a Level 20 Bone Fiend by around 13%.", and nothing more. --Cealdor (talk) 11:18, 7 September 2023 (UTC)

I think a relevant add-on is that this might be more significant at lower levels (but i have not tried), because according to weapon damage calculation, after you reach rank 12, the damage increase from higher attributes goes down quite a bit. So maybe it would be more significant if the minion was like level 15? Anyway, another factor to consider for this comment is: How easy is it to maintain HR on many minions? [Easiest way seems to be "Go for the Eyes" which could theoretically be maintained using Signet of Aggression!]. --Gelbrekt (talk) 09:59, 8 September 2023 (UTC)

Minions decay. Aint nobody trying to buff minions with this shit when there are far better ways to do so. Even winnowing would crush this stupidity and nobody does that. The whole relative damage part of the sentence is unnecessary. Justice (talk) 11:37, 9 September 2023 (UTC)