I knew Harbringer will be dumpstered.

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

You really outdone yourselves this time, Anet. Like, I knew Harbringer would get kitten on for having no defense. And yet, I feel like Only like 3% of the people saw the issue like I have. And that's is it's survival. "But Dwellinggamer, They had regen, they have mobility, And even if they don't have that, They don't need defense because they got damage. If you can do 100k dps, then your hp should be at 1, with no chance of survival." Well I'm sorry to say Kiddies, those argument are not gonna save you now. They ripped the regen away from us, They nerfed the mobility to the ground, and they gutted the damage. In a attempt to "Listen, Qoute unqoute." to feedback, They attempted to fix our feedback, masquerading their true intention, which is to nerf harbringer to the ground. No, seriously. Who bitched about the regen? Who complained about it? And if it was a problem, why didn't you give us some sort of skill or trait, to toggle off the regen?! Like kitten dude, this is stupid. It was one of the Few, VERY few saving graces Harbringer had. And you took it away, with no compensation for our survival at all. AT ALL!

But hey! You reduce the max hp the blight system takes from you, from 50% to 37.5. That gotta count for something, right? Let me tell you right now. If you think that reducing that will do ANYTHING at all, you don't understand how this game works. It's like saying instead of losing 50% of a million dollars, I lose 37.5% instead. I am still losing some serious amount, to the point where I go into one shot territory if I don't invest ANYTHING into vitality. And even if I do, I need to invest HEAVILY into Vitality so I can take 1. 1 extra hit before I eat dirt. Yes, I can consume some stacks for extra damage, but then that would be counter intuitive to some of the traits that RELIES ON YOU HAVING A HIGH BLIGHT STACK!

If that wasn't bad enough, in your attempt to make the blight system interact with our skills, You ultimately reduce our damage. Like, why? Why did you do this? No one is going to take Harbringer now, if they planned on taking them before, What do they offer in pvp? Wvw? Pve? Raids? Nothing. In pve, our damage doesn't mean kitten if we can't support the player in a meaningful way. If You think elixirs are the best way to do that, then you're sorely mistaking. Why use elixir, when you can just get a class who can do what you do, but better? And can actually survive? Because lets be honest. Harbringer will be prone to being downed Constantly, because anet's stubbornness to give Necromancer a active defense.

Same thing with pvp. Shroud will be a death sentence in pvp. An absolute death sentence. Again, your damage means jack kitten if you get cced the VERY moment you use shroud. Not in the middle of your shroud, not nearly the end of your shroud, THE INSTANT you use harbringer shroud, at all. YOU WILL DIE! Because you lack any form of cc breaks, purge, healing, mobility, or any other survival skills since shroud won't let you use your utility skills while you're in it. And because harbringer shroud doesn't protect you anymore, Condi and ccs will be your worst nightmare. The ONLY way to access your utility skill to cc break or purge while in shroud is by turning it off. But by then you most likely dead. and even if you do survive, now your shroud is on a cooldown, making going into shroud in the first place a complete waste of time. And if you are fighting anyone who has reflects, or any form of projectile hate? Forget it. you're not going to win, you might as well give up now.

But that's not all, Lets talk about thief yeah? That ironically stole our mechanic. They have shroud, and yet they also have access to invis, invulng, projectile hate, evade, and traits that help improve their defenses, and while their dps won't be the best for pve I imagine, In pvp? In wvw? They're going to be a force to be reckoned with, I guarantee it. You just given them an extra layer of protection on top of other layers. Layers that is STILL REDUCING COOL DOWN WHILE THIEF IS IN THEIR SHROUD! So while you are wasting your time trying to take that shroud down, by the time that you do, the thief already have an escape plan. Cc, or no. The trade off? Losing some initiates. That you can get back by slotting in a single trait. Great balancing act Anet. This is a fair trade off, while we get dumpstered as usual.

The very fact that Thief has shroud should be grossly offensive any self respecting necromancer who sees this class for what it is, A garbage class that offers nothing in exchange for our only Survivability. But don't worry, we will be kings soon. It'll take another expansion to do it though, just like reaper lmao.

[Dadnir.5038]

Some people made videos that showed how to "cheese" the game by just relying on the LF to Health thing and basically not using any other mechanism of the Harbinger or necromancer for all it's worth. If you look at it objectively, the mechanism was poorly implemented and made possible a passive gameplay that was rewarding more for doing less.

The true issue that the Harbinger face now is that he got more LF than he will ever need. I'm guessing that the devs forgot a line on the patch note that say something like:

"Harbinger is now shielded by LF while in shroud like core and Reaper."

Because that would be the only thing that could justify trying to actively build LF (and necromancer is all about building LF while out of shroud. And harbinger have it's share of LF building shenanigan as well).

[Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Some people made videos that showed how to "cheese" the game by just relying on the LF to Health thing and basically not using any other mechanism of the Harbinger or necromancer for all it's worth. If you look at it objectively, the mechanism was poorly implemented and made possible a passive gameplay that was rewarding more for doing less.

That's because harbinger is poorly designed from the get go. Of course people are gonna camp outside of shroud, there was no incentive to go into shroud other than using your shroud skill, and maintaining your blight stacks. But that's it though. If you use harbinger shroud, especially for pvp, you are going to be melted down to oblivion. of course back then, you had mobility that was worth a kitten. Removing the health regen isn't gonna make people wanna go into shroud more often. A risk isn't something you should be giving to something like Necromancer, especially this harsh, without some kind of safety net to fall back on.

[Maultrace.5761]

I tried harb for some time... and i just don't understand what's the good part about it? Range condi dps? We have 2 of those, and they are better.

Mobile glass cannon? Then where's the mobility? If you mean that weak jump in shroud, than it's just laughable.

Instead of putting all that vitality into spec, i'd rather see something like 1-2 sec of dodge when entering shroud, THAT would made it an absolute game changer, as it is now? It's trash, any other necro spec including core is better than harb, before it was raw, now it's pointless... i only hope it would be something playable next time we see it.

[Dadnir.5038]

10 minutes ago, Thevaultdwellinggamer.4267 said:

That's because harbinger is poorly designed from the get go. Of course people are gonna camp outside of shroud, there was no incentive to go into shroud other than using your shroud skill, and maintaining your blight stacks. But that's it though. If you use harbinger shroud, especially for pvp, you are going to be melted down to oblivion. of course back then, you had mobility that was worth a kitten. Removing the health regen isn't gonna make people wanna go into shroud more often. A risk isn't something you should be giving to something like Necromancer, especially this harsh, without some kind of safety net to fall back on.

Most of the traits of the spec are design around the harbinger accumulating blight and shroud is your best tool at doing so. It's not a matter of "But I'm going to die fast in PvP if I stack blight", it's a matter of the intent of the spec design being "You have to build blight for this spec to work well!". Thus, if a mechanism reward you for not building blight then it goes against the intent of the spec and need to be "removed". 

Sometime you need to try to go beyond your biases as a players and try to understand the intent of the developpers behind things. The developpers wanted to create something that felt like you were sacrificing health for more power without the need to involve healing to recover this health. To do that they chose the "blight" mechanism and tied the more power part to the major traits. Is the mechanism perfect? Absolutely not. Is the mechanism well implemented/integrated? Nope. Is the intent there? Yes it is.

Beside, you are wrong in thinking that removing LF to health won't push players to go into shroud. The necromancer by design is crap out of shroud (not only defensively but also offensively). The GM give you more damage source/support source while going into shroud, Your very damage are buffed up while in shroud. Now that you got no reason to not go in shroud your only option is to grit your teeth and go in shroud even at the cost of plaguing yourself with blight.

It's the same strategy that my country's government had/have to push people to get the anti covid injection. "The vaccin is free, you have the right to not take it but, if you don't, everytime you'll need to go out you'll need to make a test that prove that you are covid free. The test will be valid 24h and will cost 25 Euro." Believe whatever you want, as arguable as that strategy can be, such strategy produce results (Oh! There are side effects as it kitten off peoples but it work nonetheless).

[Fueki.4753]

The least they should have done is remove the Blight mechanic together the Life Force healing. Without that healing there is no real option to counter the Blight build up and it max HP loss, unless one completely ignores the utilities and Shroud. But then one could simply play Scourge and be more effective.

All they have done is make Harmbinger worse.

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Fueki.4753

[Dadnir.5038]

33 minutes ago, Maultrace.5761 said:

I tried harb for some time... and i just don't understand what's the good part about it? Range condi dps? We have 2 of those, and they are better.

Mobile glass cannon? Then where's the mobility? If you mean that weak jump in shroud, than it's just laughable.

Instead of putting all that vitality into spec, i'd rather see something like 1-2 sec of dodge when entering shroud, THAT would made it an absolute game changer, as it is now? It's trash, any other necro spec including core is better than harb, before it was raw, now it's pointless... i only hope it would be something playable next time we see it.

Boon sharing. It's a role in which the necromancer is very weak and Harbinger is the cure to this "weakness".

[Kaijantoo.5796]

OK I'll start by saying: This patch is the first one where I test harbinger. And I'm not a super serious competitive player.

PvP:

Damage is good, pistol feels good and the shroud FEELS fun. Sustain is pretty tricky right now though. I'll have to test several builds but there's not much heal ATM.

 

[Infusion.7149]

I'm not sure how anyone can say harbinger doesn't have a use , I think the judgement is kneejerk just because harbinger had some nerfs from the former 45K DPS in PvE. It is ranged (both pistol and scepter) and harbinger shroud has more cleave than core necro shroud. Sure it probably won't be amazing in PVP/WVW due to the projectile nature and torment being weaker there.

It has boon support in terms of quickness and also after the blight change the penalty is lower imeaning risk/reward is more skewed toward reward. Blight stacks dropping is blight management, it is more relevant for PVP/WVW as I believe having the damage modifiers in PVE is going to be more beneficial.

The complaints about survivability also baffle me since harbinger already has a vitality bonus ; as torment makes up a large part of the damage even if you don't run Parasitic Contagion (which is present in Arenanet's default build), Blood Magic, or other sustain traits you can run tormenting rune. If you still have issues you can even go with plaguedoctor since there's a vitality to expertise conversion on Dark Gunslinger.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Krysard.1364]

9 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

 Sure it probably won't be amazing in PVP/WVW due to the projectile nature and torment being weaker there.
 

 It will actually be close to unplayable with the current direction of the spec

 

10 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The complaints about survivability also baffle me

This makes me think you never seriously played necro in PvP. Pretty much everything you said already exists for current necro. Harb doesnt bring anything new (other than some extra vitality that gets removed anyways due to blight) and instead removes your single best defensive mechanic, shroud. Shroud is the one reason necro doesnt have extra dodges, blocks, immunities, mobility... all the good stuff. This is why necros have been trained in PvP matches since release. It was supposed to be a sponge, with arguably the worst defensive skills/traits of any class and only sustainable thanks to shroud. RN harbinger is like core necro but you dont get to press F1. Scourge had plenty of barriers to make up for it. What does harb have? You cant even use ur utilities while in shorud despite it not serving its initial purpose (if any). Life force is literally a dead mechanic. Im not even joking. You could disable the bar UI in pvp matches so you cant track it and it would make no difference. Maybe its relevant in pve so you can stand there and aa mobs for longer but in PvP you just sit with full LF while you get farmed. It actually scares me how Anet thought this would be fine.

[Infusion.7149]

12 minutes ago, Krysard.1364 said:

 It will actually be close to unplayable with the current direction of the spec

 

This makes me think you never seriously played necro in PvP. Pretty much everything you said already exists for current necro. Harb doesnt bring anything new (other than some extra vitality that gets removed anyways due to blight) and instead removes your single best defensive mechanic, shroud. Shroud is the one reason necro doesnt have extra dodges, blocks, immunities, mobility... all the good stuff. This is why necros have been trained in PvP matches since release. It was supposed to be a sponge, with arguably the worst defensive skills/traits of any class and only sustainable thanks to shroud. RN harbinger is like core necro but you dont get to press F1. Scourge had plenty of barriers to make up for it. What does harb have? You cant even use ur utilities while in shorud despite it not serving its initial purpose (if any). Life force is literally a dead mechanic. Im not even joking. You could disable the bar UI in pvp matches so you cant track it and it would make no difference. Maybe its relevant in pve so you can stand there and aa mobs for longer but in PvP you just sit with full LF while you get farmed. It actually scares me how Anet thought this would be fine.

Actually I have played necro (core, reaper, scourge) in PVP and even have the title for it. Also that's quite insulting considering what I wrote which you selectively cut out. Damage has been nerfed across the board since 2020 which made necro stronger than before indirectly. The thread didn't specify it was for PVP specifically which is the least played game mode, otherwise projectiles are a severe drawback not just the blight and lack of shroud (which scourge also has as a drawback).

Last beta patch people were running harbinger even with the blight drawback because it is more mobile. You wouldn't play harbinger as a core necro obviously and you still have flesh wurm , spectral skills for stunbreak/teleport. Blight is going to remain a problem if you are CC locked in harbinger shroud but less of an issue since blight was reduced in health loss and there is blight management within shroud if you aren't hit with CC.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Dadnir.5038]

1 hour ago, Infusion.7149 said:

It has boon support in terms of quickness and also after the blight change the penalty is lower imeaning risk/reward is more skewed toward reward. Blight stacks dropping is blight management, it is more relevant for PVP/WVW as I believe having the damage modifiers in PVE is going to be more beneficial.

Well... In PvE, the reward is halved while the penality is reduced by quarter so I'd say that the risk reward lean toward the risk more than the reward compared to before. Also, the skills that introduce blight management are also skills on which they put the damage they removed from the "reward". Which effectively make you trade damage for damage for a net loss of damage compared to Beta1.

[Infusion.7149]

15 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Well... In PvE, the reward is halved while the penality is reduced by quarter so I'd say that the risk reward lean toward the risk more than the reward compared to before. Also, the skills that introduce blight management are also skills on which they put the damage they removed from the "reward". Which effectively make you trade damage for damage for a net loss of damage compared to Beta1.

If you mean PVE in the prior benchmarks people weren't using most of the shroud skills. The addition of torment based off blight for Voracious Arc means it might actually get used besides for CC. Every single one of the elixirs also had a blight interaction added and the elite elixir may be competitive with Plaguelands now so you would probably see triple elixir PVE condi Harbinger.

The bug was fixed with Soulreaping as well on Dark Gunslinger which impacts full DPS builds: Fixed a bug causing Vitality from the Soul Reaping trait, Vital Persistence, to not be used for this trait's conversion to Expertise.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Bale.3851]

@Infusion.7149 sorry to break it to you but harbringer in its current iteration wont be played in pvp/wvw. Sure u can try it but core/reaper/ Scourge are simply better. Why? Cause the sustain is simply missing. Anet just cut it away so you can use ur mobility to kite but u cant regenerate. So where is the point in using harbringer. Fleshworm and Spectralwalk arent harbringer specific. So listing this as harbringer mobility is kind of meme. No means to insult just asking where is the point in taking harbringer.

 

In beta 1 the path was clear. As harbringer you are the new roamer. And now ? Harbringer is just a let down pvp wise. Better than i thought after playing it for some hours but still not worth chosing above core/reaper/scourge.

 

So my suggestion would be either return the lf to health heal via trait (and cut the power crap its just not worth) or just add a damage absorbing shroud. Both ways anet could keep the blight mechanic they seem to love so much (even though the baseline iteration is still lacking) and we would have a new roamer build finally worth picking.

 

 

 

[Infusion.7149]

22 minutes ago, Bale.3851 said:

@Infusion.7149 sorry to break it to you but harbringer in its current iteration wont be played in pvp/wvw. Sure u can try it but core/reaper/ Scourge are simply better. Why? Cause the sustain is simply missing. Anet just cut it away so you can use ur mobility to kite but u cant regenerate. So where is the point in using harbringer. Fleshworm and Spectralwalk arent harbringer specific. So listing this as harbringer mobility is kind of meme. No means to insult just asking where is the point in taking harbringer.

 

In beta 1 the path was clear. As harbringer you are the new roamer. And now ? Harbringer is just a let down pvp wise. Better than i thought after playing it for some hours but still not worth chosing above core/reaper/scourge.

 

So my suggestion would be either return the lf to health heal via trait (and cut the power crap its just not worth) or just add a damage absorbing shroud. Both ways anet could keep the blight mechanic they seem to love so much (even though the baseline iteration is still lacking) and we would have a new roamer build finally worth picking.

 

 

 

Mobility is also on harbinger shroud. It was nerfed a bit but it's still mobility whether you like it or not. Unlike core necro/scourge you also have hard CC on shroud and not fear which is countered by resistance.

The whole point of the spec is no shroud lifebar, if they add back shroud health it means you can't be healed by other people while in shroud as well (also parasitic contagion).

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149
add parisitic contagion

[Dadnir.5038]

Just now, Infusion.7149 said:

If you mean PVE in the prior benchmarks people weren't using most of the shroud skills. The addition of torment based off blight for Voracious Arc means it might actually get used besides for CC. Every single one of the elixirs also had a blight interaction added and the elite elixir may be competitive with Plaguelands now so you would probably see triple elixir PVE condi Harbinger.

And people still won't use most of the shroud skill because the cast time, blight requirement and blight removal will drive them awy from those skills. As for elixirs, you can maybe use the elixirs every 16s, the damage you'll get out of that, even with 5 elixirs sloted, won't really make them more attractive than a dedicated core damaging utility skill.

The elite elixir won't be competitive against plagueland as plagueland is dedicated to damage while the elite elixir is "hybrid". This elixir was  nice at 60s CD, it isn't quite there at 90s CD.

[Infusion.7149]

11 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

And people still won't use most of the shroud skill because the cast time, blight requirement and blight removal will drive them awy from those skills. As for elixirs, you can maybe use the elixirs every 16s, the damage you'll get out of that, even with 5 elixirs sloted, won't really make them more attractive than a dedicated core damaging utility skill.

The elite elixir won't be competitive against plagueland as plagueland is dedicated to damage while the elite elixir is "hybrid". This elixir was  nice at 60s CD, it isn't quite there at 90s CD.

Where's the math? If your dark barrage is on cooldown (which is far more likely with the nerf) then you have no other high torment stack options.

• Shroud auto is 1 stack of torment for 3 seconds and 2 times 0.6 coefficient damage = 1.2 total strike damage coefficient. 0.5s cast
• Dark Barrage is 6 stacks of torment for 3s with 6 hits of 0.6 coefficient damage = 3.6 , 0.75s cast. The duration was cut in half for torment ; also it is a fan attack meaning its effectiveness falls off at range.
• Devouring Cut with enough blight is 5 stacks of torment for 5s , 2.0 coefficient, 1s cast
• Voracious Arc with enough blight is 5 stacks of torment for 10s, 2.8 coefficient, 0.75s cast

Even if you remove 10 blight which is equal to 5% condition damage bonus  from Septic Corruption traits you are ahead if you use the Voracious Arc skill ; blight still accumulates over time anyhow.

Prior to this most of the added torment in shroud is coming passively from the trait that ticks torment when you aren't using Dark Barrage (Doom Approaches).
 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Zero.3871]

35 minutes ago, Bale.3851 said:

@Infusion.7149 sorry to break it to you but harbringer in its current iteration wont be played in pvp/wvw. Sure u can try it but core/reaper/ Scourge are simply better. Why? Cause the sustain is simply missing. Anet just cut it away so you can use ur mobility to kite but u cant regenerate. So where is the point in using harbringer. Fleshworm and Spectralwalk arent harbringer specific. So listing this as harbringer mobility is kind of meme. No means to insult just asking where is the point in taking harbringer.

 

In beta 1 the path was clear. As harbringer you are the new roamer. And now ? Harbringer is just a let down pvp wise. Better than i thought after playing it for some hours but still not worth chosing above core/reaper/scourge.

 

So my suggestion would be either return the lf to health heal via trait (and cut the power crap its just not worth) or just add a damage absorbing shroud. Both ways anet could keep the blight mechanic they seem to love so much (even though the baseline iteration is still lacking) and we would have a new roamer build finally worth picking.

 

 

 

dude, the spec is called harbinger, not harbringer ^^

[Bale.3851]

Quote

Mobility is also on harbinger shroud. It was nerfed a bit but it's still mobility whether you like it or not. Unlike core necro/scourge you also have hard CC on shroud and not fear which is countered by resistance.

The whole point of the spec is no shroud lifebar, if they add back shroud health it means you can't be healed by other people while in shroud as well (also parasitic contagion).

 Yeah i know but in what way is this mobility better than reaper? Reaper has a 600 chrage with pojectile refelct blind and leap finisher on a 6 sec cd. While also having stability fear high burst and a hard cc with combo field. Plus an damage absorbing shroud and no blight.

 

Harbringer has an 600 charge on 8sek cd and and 1/2 sek doge with 600 range plus daze and a hard cc. Plus an stacking debuff with no damage absorbing shroud. 

 

Im just curious why would i pick harbringer over reaper? Where is the benefit?

[Bale.3851]

2 minutes ago, Zero.3871 said:

dude, the spec is called harbinger, not harbringer ^^

Oh thank you. Im german so normally i dont use the english term.

[Infusion.7149]

13 minutes ago, Bale.3851 said:

 Yeah i know but in what way is this mobility better than reaper? Reaper has a 600 chrage with pojectile refelct blind and leap finisher on a 6 sec cd. While also having stability fear high burst and a hard cc with combo field. Plus an damage absorbing shroud and no blight.

 

Harbringer has an 600 charge on 8sek cd and and 1/2 sek doge with 600 range plus daze and a hard cc. Plus an stacking debuff with no damage absorbing shroud. 

 

Im just curious why would i pick harbringer over reaper? Where is the benefit?

Reaper has no pressure at range and all your supports can't heal you in shroud.

You can use the harbinger leaps without a target unlike death shroud on core.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Zalavaaris.5329]

With severely nerfed damage it isn't worth playing. For the trade off you'd need 40+k. At this rate I'll stick to reaper and scourge. 

[Obtena.7952]

So, yes the intent is to trade HP cap for DPS. My problem is two things:

1. There is indications this intent is already a problem. Anet already reduced the DPS AND the HP penalty for a Blight stack. Seems there will be a VERY fine line between insignificant and OP'ed. I don't think they will ever settle on 'good' values for DPS increase and HP penalty; something will always feel off and for the sake of playing it safe, I don't think the spec wil ever get the DPS it deserves.

2. This "HP for DPS" is not inherent to the spec ... you need to take a trait to access it and even then, you have to choose between either direct or condi DPS increase ... feels bad when to optimize your DPS, you are choosing a hybrid DPS setup. 

It was certainly mentioned before but the Direct/Condi trait splitting is was not good ... but it was tolerable. It's worse now that the intention of the spec design is more significantly felt. 

 

Edited December 1, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Krysard.1364]

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Mobility is also on harbinger shroud. It was nerfed a bit but it's still mobility whether you like it or not. Unlike core necro/scourge you also have hard CC on shroud and not fear which is countered by resistance.

The whole point of the spec is no shroud lifebar, if they add back shroud health it means you can't be healed by other people while in shroud as well (also parasitic contagion).

harb shroud has ok mobility but ur still missing a LF mechanic. LF always was a mean to sustain yourself, now it got removed as a mechanic with nothing back. Make it ramp with blight, traits, or w/e but otherwise its a literal downgrade.

 

4 hours ago, Infusion.7149 said:

The whole point of the spec is no shroud lifebar, if they add back shroud health it means you can't be healed by other people while in shroud as well (also parasitic contagion).

this would be better than what we have rn imo

Edited December 2, 2021 by Krysard.1364

[Kaijantoo.5796]

From a PvP standpoint, IMO Blight should do SOMETHING for sustain. If not health, maybe reduce skill cooldowns, recharge energy for dodge rolls, I don't know something atleast 😄