Inexplicable.4165

I don't know if anyone will read it but here are my thoughts on Harbinger after playing it for a few days: 1) Shroud It's good that life force doesn't drain when you're not in shroud. That felt very clunky and it actually made a huge difference not having to worry about it. However, this comes with its own set of problems. Of course, this means Harbinger has basically no sustain which is terrible in competitive modes but I think what's more important is that the price you pay for higher damage is way too steep. You lose a second health bar and instead you get Blight which by default hasn't got any benefits (it can make Elixirs better now but that's not a big enough pay-off on its own). If you want any other benefits, you'll need to use your traits for it. I think that's simply a bad design. My solution would be to add an F2 for Harbinger. The F2 would either heal you depending on how much health force you use (e.g. 50+ - small amount, 75+ - medium amount, 100% - large amount) or grant you barrier. This is much better than passive life regeneration. Alternatively, what I'd suggest is an F2 that blocks the next few attacks depending on how much life force you spend ( e.g. 50+ - one block, 75+ - two blocks, 100% - three blocks). I think this would really make Harbinger feel distinct There could be another solutions - some other idea I've got is making life force drain faster in Harbinger shroud but also making it so that you get healed for a small amount every few seconds. The last idea I've got is making one ability in shroud heal/grant barrier/block when you use it. What is really important, however, is that we get SOMETHING in return. Without it, I don't see why I'd ever want to use Harbinger in PvP. 2) Elixirs They're far better than they were at the beginning but some of them are still not good enough. I'd make them apply more condis in general because at the moment it makes far more sense to use our old utilities. What I'd also say is that the elite skill should have a more impactful animation. It doesn't need to be extremely flashy but at the moment it looks really boring. 3) Fear Not many people have spoken about this but I still think it's a problem. We lose access to fear in shroud and whilst float is arguably better in some ways, it's not affected by our fear traits. The obvious solution would be to make all our fear traits affect float. Necros don't have access to float anywhere else so it wouldn't break anything. It'd also add more options for our condi build because at the moment I feel like I have hardly any choice when it comes to traits. I think this change would really make a huge difference for me. 4) General feelings Other than what I've mentioned, I think Harbinger is mostly fine. I still feel that the power traits should go as Harbinger is clearly more condi-oriented but the devs seem very reluctant to do it. The traits could definitely be improved but I think that some elite specs like Catalyst need FAR more work so I'm not sure how realistic it is. The only change that I think is absolutely imperative is the change to shroud I mentioned earlier.

My impression: 1) Harbinger shroud and blight The new mechanic is interesting and Harbinger certainly feels different from other specs. That said, I often struggled to build up a substantial amount of life force. Harbinger never properly 'clicked' for me. The other issue I have is that the spec doesn't interact with Blight enough. As others have suggested, perhaps it should affect our shroud skills or elixirs (like Holosmith's heat). Harbinger shroud skills are mostly fun but if I think some of them could definitely be improved. Shroud 2, 3 and 4 feel a bit clunky at times but that's just my impression. 2) Pistol Pistol is a solid weapon and I haven't got many complains apart from the animations. Pistol 3 is a very impactful skill and at the moment the effect is hardly noticeable. It looks unfinished and I really don't like it. Pistol 1 looks fine I think but pistol 2 could be improved as well. 3) Elixirs Now that's by far the biggest offender. As they stand, elixirs are the most boring skills in the entire game and it's not an exaggeration. Pressing a button to get boon is inherently boring but then the icons and animations seem unfinished too. Frankly, if there's one thing I think harbinger absolutely needs is a complete redesign of elixirs. Lots of people have provided a number of interesting solutions so I won't dwell on that but I'd really appreciate if you could make them more fun to use. 4) Traits Personally I think it was a mistake to give us power, condi and support options in one spec. This severely limits our choice and makes a lot of the traits feel boring. Doom Approaches is one of the biggest offenders in my view. It's effective but it feels like such a lazy and uninspired trait. I'd scrap it completely and replace it with something more interesting. 5) Fear This is probably the main reason why I'm writing this. I think it's awful that we lose access to fear in shroud. Not only has this always been part of our identity, but also it means that our choice of traits is severely limited. You might think it's not a big deal but in PvE you'll typically run Curses and Soul Reaping with a condi build and if you don't have a 'fearmancer' option that basically leaves you with one build. I honestly think this is just bad design and I think we should get fear back. You can add it one of the shroud skills, one of the elixirs or perhaps a trait. However, I really hope this will get changed. Overall, I think the spec has a lot of potential but I think we definitely need a few changes. For me personally, elixirs and fear would be the most important changes.

I agree that the traits feel rather lacklustre. I like some of your ideas but really I'd be happy with anything that's less boring than we got. Here's my idea for a GM trait:

True, I forgot about that actually. You could make it 3s by default and see how it goes. There could also be two versions of this trait for PvP and PvE. But I don't think I'll be able to come up with the perfect numbers here. I'd need to test this trait or at the very least calculate how much damage it can deal in different scenarios. But as I said, it's just a general idea, it's possible that I was a bit too conservative with fear and poison.

Of course I will but that doesn't mean I can't provide any feedback now. I personally think that Doom Approaches should be reworked and I don't believe playing the spec will change my mind. It's just a very boring trait that's a lot like Embrace the Darkness on rev. It's my idea and I wanted to discuss it with other people 🙂 Yeah but don't forget that because fear is a condition it'll be affected by things like expertise as well. There are pros and cons. A 6s fear would be pretty insane in sPvP if you couldn't cleanse it... As for other points, you could make the trait much better e.g. 0-10 stacks of Blight - 2 stacks of poison (4 sec), cripple (3 sec) 11-20 stacks - 4 stacks of poison (4 sec), cripple (3 sec) 21-25 stacks - 6 stacks of poison (4 sec), cripple (3 sec) I wouldn't say it 'requires' it but of course it would help. Acting like some traits don't exist because they're not used as much as they could be at the moment isn't a good design policy in my view. If a trait isn't used much, it should be buffed or reworked. However, I think my solution can easily work without Terror, perhaps with a few tweaks.

My focus wasn't really on making it 'better' but rather more interesting. Specifically, I wanted my trait synergise with other trait lines and interact with Blight. Ofc you could adjust the numbers to make it more potent. With Fear of Death and Terror you could inflict 4 seconds of damaging fear every 20 seconds and also up to 3 stacks of poison and cripple. I think overall it's pretty decent. I didn't want to create a trait that's obviously OP. I know Terror is mostly not taken even though it's actually a really fun trait. This is why I'd like to incentivise taking it. Realistically, I think this trait should be improved but that's another matter.

Thanks for your feedback! I'm not saying it'd necessarily be stronger. I think as it stands it could possibly weaker but numbers could be adjusted. If you have a look at my trait again, I'm actually changing shroud so that it inflicts fear instead of float. This is because it interacts with other traits such as Terror or Fear of Death. So you would definitely inflict fear 🙂 That's an interesting observation. But I like the fact that it'd work with Death Magic. Ofc you could change it a bit. Perhaps torment and weakness would be better than poison and cripple but it was just my initial idea. I'm not forgetting about them - I like that interaction but Doom Approaches just seems really boring for all the reasons I mentioned. I think it'd be very effective but also very boring. I think that's what makes me trait more balanced tbh. You can still have float if you're using a power build. I fully understand that, it comes down to what you like. Personally I really like interactions like that.

I don't post much on the official forums but I was hoping that some dev would read this topic and consider my idea. So here it goes. Doom Approaches (new Grandmaster trait) isn't particularly interesting as it stands. It's basically the condi version of Cascading Corruption. It's also very passive which I think isn't particularly fun. Finally, it's extremely similar to Embrace The Darkness (revenant elite skill). I'd replace it with another trait: Venomous Dread Your condition damage is increased. Vital Draw becomes Noxious Doom. Whenever you inflict fear, you also inflict poison and cripple. The number of poison stacks scales with Blight. 0-10 stacks of Blight - 1 stack of poison (2 sec), cripple (2 sec) 11-20 stacks - 2 stacks of poison (2 sec), cripple (2 sec) 21-25 stacks - 3 stacks of poison (2 sec), cripple (2 sec) Noxious Doom Damage 4x Life force 3% Fear 2 seconds Number of targets 5 Radius 240 Why do you think this trait is more interesting? It works well with other necromancer traits e.g. Fear of Death and Terror. It also interacts with Blight and isn't passive like Doom Approaches. Traits that change how some skills work are some of the most interesting ones. Why poison and cripple? I decided to go with poison because torment doesn't work well with fear. Bleed/burn are used on Reaper and scourge respectively. Poison works well with the harbinger spec I think. I added cripple as Harbinger shroud is mostly melee/short range so I wouldn't want mobs/players to run away too far. However, it's just an idea. It's too OP / too weak I tried to make it reasonable but of course it's just a general concept. The names and numbers could be easily adjusted. I hope you enjoyed reading this. Let me know your thoughts, any feedback is appreciated 🙂