Issues with Harbinger and some solutions to fix them

[Lily.1935]

Harbinger went from an easy to use and understand spec in the first beta to a very difficult to use and impossible for people to understand spec in the second beta. You actually almost need a math degree in order to figure out what's going on with this elite spec. That might be a bit hyperbolic but when I try to explain to people what's actually going on under the hood they don't understand what I'm talking about because it doesn't make intuitive sense. Before, that wasn't an issue because using blight was simple and straightforward, players could use it without needing to understand exactly how the blight mechanic worked. Now if you don't understand exactly how the mechanic works. Which most players are not going to understand how it works and I'm sure some of you will be shocked to learn that it works this way. And this issue honestly all stems from the ability to remove blight. Which sounds crazy, but being able to remove blight actually harms the spec and I'll explain why.

 

Lifeforce, percentages and raw numbers!

• How does lifeforce interact with blight? Well, the lifeforce pool that you have at any given time is a static number which will go up and down by a percentage based on the skills you use that generate it or take it away. Scourge uses static life force costs where as harbinger, reaper and core necromancer use percentages. A necromancer naturally loses 3% life force every second while in shroud. This number however is always 3%, regardless of how large or small the life force pool is. So if You take a Core necromancer with 20k life force and a necromancer with 16k life force they will run out of shroud at the exact same time.
• Harbinger also follows this decay rule though they lose 5%(but that's a bit misleading), however there's a funny little quark with how it works. If you gain blight before entering shroud, which you need to do, you can reduce that your life force pool from 20k to to 12k assuming you gain 25 blight. Okay, that doesn't sound like a big deal. if percentages work like I say, than it shouldn't matter right? Well, here's what happens. When you lose the blight stacks, if you've lost all 25 stacks you go from being at 100% life force to 63%. You can go in and check it in game yourself to confirm I'm correct. Normally, this also wouldn't be an issue because when you're reducing your lifeforce pool the raw number still stays the same so You can mitigate that with the enter trait which grants 15% life force along with the overall reduction in life force pool. Since there is no outside means to deplete lifeforce this is slightly easier to visualize.
• So what happens when you use Devouring Cut and Voracious Arc while in Harbinger shroud? Well, on top of the normal 3% decay rate you actually lose 22 percent of your total life force in that instance. That means you've lost 7 whole seconds of time you could be in Harbinger shroud. Just by using these two skills.

With this simple fact alone, this pushes Harbinger far out of the reach of a lot of players being able to play it and many of them will get frustrated and not understand exactly why the spec feels so terrible to play. But this is a big reason why. And there isn't a clean way to fix this issue. You could add life force generation onto these skills to match the 22% lost when you use them above the threshold, but that's fairly sloppy and this is only one of the many issues the harbinger has.

 

You're fighting with your own traits when removing blight.

Something that is quite strange, You don't gain any benefit for removing blight from your traits and blight itself doesn't offer some damage boost for removing blight. By using the skills you gain more stacks of torment, which aids a third of the spec while does nothing for the other two thirds of the spec. Because there is still no interaction in your traits for removing blight you really shouldn't be able to do. Both Wicked corruption and Septic corruption reward you for building and keeping blight stacks but both Devouring cut and Voracious Arc reward you for removing it. These are conflicting philosophies which shows me that You didn't spend the time needed to really consider this decision. And these two traits are the only interaction with blight through the traits. As for the skills they treat blight as something that needs to be removed as quick as possible. These are two contradictory play styles in which if you're playing a DPS build you're forced to juggle both styles of gameplay.

The support side of this is unaffected either way and doesn't care about building blight stacks because there's no benefit to it for them. You don't get any benefit for being over the blight threshold on a support so if you can avoid it its better for you. You don't care about the toss half of the elixirs because you get those boons either way.

 

So ultimately we're locked between 2 playstyles on Harbinger. Either you're fighting with two conflicting mechanics or the mechanic has no mechanical benefit to you in any way. Which rather than solving the boring issue, it actually has the exact same issue as before with an entirely new issue.

 

So how do we fix these glaring issues?

So there are two possible solutions to this and one of these solutions is far more complicated. The more complicated solution is actually the one much of the community would want even though that solution couldn't fix the underlying complexity of the spec.

• The first solution is the easier solution which is to make blight be an unremovable stacking debuff like it was before. Keep the threshold bonuses and that have been added but don't have it remove blight. Have the elixirs just grant blight on activation regardless and we can up the threshold from 5 to 10 so it doesn't trigger right away. or you could have it scale based on how powerful you want the secondary effect. This solution is the easiest and cleanest solution to the blight issue and would result in the best long term usability of the elite spec.
• The second solution gets very complicated and is much harder to balance around and iterate because it can break a whole lot of things. We start by having Devouring cut and Voracious arc grant life force while above the lifeforce threshold to counteract the inherent unusual behavior of Harbinger's shroud. Second part to that is we change how the blight interacts with traits, going from a stacking buff to a static buff while having blight and a short extra damage buff when you remove blight. So you would end up with a flat % with blight and gain an extra % when you remove blight. This would function better than it does now, giving you incentive to remove blight, at least for the damage side of this spec. There are inherent issues with this solution though. Because as soon as you use your second Elixir or first skill that removes blight in shroud you have full buffs with no effort. It could have its own threshold to this as well to get the first part, however with how it works now it couldn't be lower than 10 stacks of blight, and probably would be best to be 5 to keep this more user friendly.

 

The Problem with the second solution is its far more of a balancing nightmare than you might think. There are a lot more moving pieces to it and its neither simple or clean to implement. So with so much that could go wrong with it you can guarantee that all of those issues will go wrong.

 

How do we make blight more interesting?

 

Well to start to answer this question we need to look at where it could interact and where it doesn't. Traits are a big part of this since only 2 traits interact with blight and not in the way that blight is now designed to do. I have other options as well, but we'll offer those as a minor suggestion.

Trait Improvements/fixes:

1. Remove Septic and Wicked corruption and fuse them into Corrupted Talent: With either solution I mentioned above these two traits should be one trait and baseline to the spec. This should just increase all damage, regardless of the type so that would include strike, condition and life steal damage respectively. This frees up the minor traits to be more interesting.

2. Replace Wicked Corruption with a new trait: My idea is Wicked Transfusion: When you leave Harbinger shroud your next 5 hits steal life if you are above the blight threshold. Tainted Bolts transform into Transfusion Bolts: Each strike steals life instead of inflicting torment. This gives the harbinger some sustain without making it an auto pick over the other option for condi since you lose out on torment but gain life steal for it. This change would both have synergy with the new Corrupted Talent and offer players a reason to build up blight before leaving shroud.

3. Replace Septic Corruption with a new trait: Oxidized Corruption: Torment and Poison last 10% longer. While above the blight threshold these conditions last an additional 10%. Shroud 2 skill also inflicts poison. Giving duration to important conditions like torment and poison frees up some options for us and allows for further methods to play with blight stacks. If we go with the second solution the 10% bonus can be on a timer that decays only after you've dropped below the blight threshold but quickly gets reapplied. Keeping the poison application I felt was important as well as that part was actually pretty interesting and fun.

4. Vile Vials: Added a buff that while above the blight threshold Elixirs grant allies a buff that lasts half a second. The buff is Vile Transfusion: When this ends, steal health from foes around you. In my opinion this is probably the coolest way to improve this trait and make it work well with Corrupted talent's base buff as well as well. Granting your allies a sudden aoe burst of life stealing is just gravy and such a necromancer way of healing them. Granted, you as the player wont be able to see the healing you're giving them but that's a small price to pay. Aside from that this does actually help the support side of this spec which is currently lacking. This on with what's there now wont be enough to really push the Harbinger into a favorable position as a support, but it is a good start.

5. Implacable Foe: Add vigor on Exiting shroud when above the blight threshold. This spec really needs more active defensive utility and this is a good place to start. This seems to be a mixed defensive and offensive trait and I'm playing into that theme with Wicked transfusion so I'm continuing it here. Vigor is a much needed boon for this spec and it wont be the last time I mention it.

6. Twisted Medicine: Add that it also grants the secondary effects of it to allies. Such as the condition conversion of Elixir of Bliss or the stunbreak of Elixir of Ignorance. I think elixirs need a bit more going for them to really push them as really good, but this would be a nice start. their secondary effects could be reduced a bit for balance reasons but having more than just boons would be nice.

7. Deathly Haste: Fix the radius of this trait. Its actually smaller than its aoe circle which is an issue. It Would be a good radius if it was accurate to the aoe ring. Another thing I'd like to see is another boon with it, perhaps might or fury.

8. Replace both Cascading Corruption and Doom Approaches with something more interesting: These two traits are not interesting to use or run. And they're not that good either. I'd like to see something replace them both to really push two distinct play styles like one that continues the theme I've established with the Power traits as well as something different with the condi trait to make them not just mirror images of each other. These designs are not inspired. Both Scourge and Reaper's Grandmaster traits were extremely interesting and each of them demanded something very different from one another. Although not all of them have been useful over the years they all have been interesting enough that people only wanted them buffed not replaced. These, these need to just go. I don't have anything specific for these that isn't a bit on the complex side so I'll only suggest the one I had in my mind.

9. Fun Suggestion for a Grandmaster Trait Magnum Opus: While Above the blight threshold Shroud begins to Glow A red color. While in shroud it pulses Torment and weakness. When you leave shroud your weapon Skill 2 changes into an empowered version of itself. Each weapon skill is different. One complaint I hear a lot is how Pistol is boring. And I strongly disagree, however what I Do see is that there could be a unique opportunity here to really push players to use and think about different weapons they otherwise wouldn't have. Such as Dagger. I also wanted this trait to be usable by both power and condition builds to really push some more diverse choices and just buffing one weapon wouldn't do that. So this is the improved Doom Approaches. I'd also not necessarily include the Damage boost from the base trait, but that could be work shopped either way. I think that between the buffs I've already included in this it probably isn't needed.

 

That was a lot, but we're still not done because we have the elixirs to look at next.

 

Elixirs Improvements:

1. Elixir of Promise: Add Vigor back on to this skill along with Regeneration. It honestly shouldn't have been removed. The fact that it was is pretty bad.

2. Elixir of Risk: Add Confusion to the Toss threshold. These elixirs need a bit more reason to run them on builds so having a few damaging conditions would be nice to have. How much confusion? not sure. but its thematically fitting since it makes attacking risky for your foes.

3. Elixir of Anguish: Add Torment (And perhaps fear?) on the toss threshold. Again, just a fitting condition for an elixir called Anguish.

4. Elixir of Ignorance: Add Aegis to the boon application. More active defenses are needed.

5. Elixir of Ambition: Reduce the cooldown in PvE and increase the number of stacks of each of the conditions it applies. its not nearly as strong in pve as you might think and even with my suggested change it is unlikely to compete with Plaguelands but perhaps it will at least be good for the support spec.

 

There is one last major change I'd like to see along with this and its a major one.

 

Harbinger Shroud Should allow you to have access to your Utility skills, heal and elite while it is active.

Harbinger Shroud is not a second Health pool like it is with Reaper and Core necromancer. Similar to Scourge's Desert shroud, Harbinger shroud doesn't block access to healing or or outside damage really. Although Desert shroud has barrier and doesn't last as long Harbinger shroud doesn't have barrier. So there's even less of a reason why it should be locked out of their utility skills. Opening up utility skills does actually do some fun things with it. Like a Signets Harbinger suddenly sounds like a fun idea even if its not great.

 

And that's it for my Massive post for now. I want the Harbinger to be a great alternative to Scourge and Reaper. At the moment it is not, but with some work to it we can get it into a place that can really make it a delight to play for multiple different play styles.

Edited December 1, 2021 by Lily.1935
Language improvement.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

Now that I have read out your thoughts in more detail, I agree with everything you say here.  Like you, I don't think pistol really needs any big changes (though in PvP, it could do with a longer poison duration than 1 second which is covered by a stun anyway in order to make it a great tool for disrupting rezzes).

 

The one thing I would say is that perhaps there should be one way to remove Blight.  I think that Elixir of Promise having that ability would be fitting as it turns the skill into an option that you take in case things go sideways.  Yes, you reduce your power, but you gain survivability and hopefully avoid the much larger effectiveness drop of downed state.  Blight thresholds overall are good, but I agree that Shroud skills removing it is not.

[Obtena.7952]

Well, I'm not one to complain about things that aren't too likely to change so. How to fix it is a pretty open question. How to DEAL with it is to embrace the strengths of the spec.

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PS1EYSNsMUmKblxyaxR25NqC-zxIY1om/MqQFkuUwjzifmRA-e

Edited December 2, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Lexan.5930]

i get where your coming from with the LF for harbinger and the match xsince LF is based on health and blight reduces health and thus LF. but honestly for harbinger it doesn't matter.

 

you get 15% for free just for hitting f1. you never need to care about LF unless your planning on being in harbinger shroud for more than 10 seconds.

 

the new consume to do more damage is cool. I would prefer if there were better options. double damage or blindness for 6 seconds is kind of useless when most people attack 20 times in 6 seconds. the interaction is a nice idea i just wish there was more payoff.

[Dadnir.5038]

I'm not sure the whole LF management is an issue. As far as I know you just need 50% LF to play "optimally" which, if you were succesful with any other necromancer spec, you'll get whether you remove Blight or not.

I like suggestion 1 and 2 on traits. All other suggestions are to much "add this and that" to things that are already overloaded.

Elixirs don't need to do "more", seriously they are already overloaded with effects and it's unhealthy. Elite spec's utilities don't need to be "must pick", elixirs were already "good" enough before beta 4.

And yes, Harbinger shroud should have less drawbacks and allow the necromancer to at least have access to it's utilities while in shroud.

Traits that I'd like to see on harbinger:

- Hungering rush: Cast Lesser devouring cut upon entering shroud. Reduce drastically the damage, mainly just keep the movement.

- I'd like leap finishers, if not on skill, at least give us a trait that put leap finishers on devouring cut and voracious arc. It's so frustrating to have all those dark fields and no diversity on finishers to exploit them.

- And why not traits that promote auras on harbinger (gain dark aura when entering shroud/extended aura duration/Get LF when stuck while under the effect of an aura... etc.)

[Asum.4960]

2 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Elixirs don't need to do "more", seriously they are already overloaded with effects and it's unhealthy. Elite spec's utilities don't need to be "must pick", elixirs were already "good" enough before beta 4.

I really don't understand what you see in the Harbinger Elixirs. 

 

Just compare something like Elixir of Ignorance with Stand your Ground.

Both are 30 sec CD Stunbreaks.

Stand your Ground: 5 Stacks of Stability + Resolution to 10 people in a 600 Range radius default, + 20% CD reduction and AoE 1 condi converted to boon if Traited.

Elixir of Ignorance: Resolution self only, needs two Traits to get 20% CD reduction and sharing that 5 second Resolution with 5 allies in a 240 Range radius where it's thrown. 

 

Or Elixir of Anguish with Elixir U:

Elixir U: 6s Quickness, 2 stacks of 6s Stability and 6s of Vigor and is a Stunbreak + AoE Superspeed and another, second AoE Stunbreak with the added toolbelt skill, which on top of that adds 2 stacks of Might for 15 seconds, reduces recharge by 20% and increases durations by 20% when traited.

Elixir of Anguish: 5s of Quickness, 10 Seconds of Swiftness.

They are worse with two Traits than untraited FB Mantras, if they only had a single charge rather than three.

 

Sure, they are overloaded with pretty much irrelevant (esp. to Boon support) crap like 2 seconds of Blind or 5 seconds of Cripple and a bit of Vuln if thrown at enemies instead while Traited and hitting certain Blight thresholds, reducing your own Health as downside with Blight, and all that, but it's mental how bad these skills are, especially for the role they are supposed to fill.

 

 

Edited December 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Dadnir.5038]

2 minutes ago, Asum.4960 said:

I really don't understand what you see in the Harbinger Elixirs. 

 

Just compare something like Elixir of Ignorance with Stand your Ground.

Both are 30 sec CD Stunbreaks.

Stand your Ground: 5 Stacks of Stability + Resolution to 10 people in a 600 Range radius default, + 20% CD reduction and AoE 1 condi converted to boon if Traited.

Elixir of Ignorance: Resolution self only, needs two Traits to get 20% CD reduction and sharing that 5 second Resolution with 5 allies in a 240 Range radius where it's thrown. 

 

Or Elixir of Anguish with Elixir U:

Elixir U: 6s Quickness, 2 stacks of 6s Stability and 6s of Vigor and is a Stunbreak + AoE Superspeed and another, second AoE Stunbreak with the added toolbelt skill, which on top of that adds 2 stacks of Might for 15 seconds, reduces recharge by 20% and increases durations by 20% when traited.

Elixir of Anguish: 5s of Quickness, 10 Seconds of Swiftness.

 

Sure, they are overloaded with pretty much irrelevant (esp. to Boon support) crap like 2 seconds of Blind or 5 seconds of Cripple and a bit of Vuln if thrown at enemies instead while Traited and hitting certain Blight thresholds and all that, but it's mental how bad these skills are.

The problem is in your perspective, you want them to be competitive against the very best that some other profession can offer and see it as unfair that they aren't.

Elixir of bliss: Cleanse 5 conditions, grant up to 15% LF, grant resolution and Blight which is potentially more damage on 25s CD. (I'm volontarily using the first beta version to prove my point)

Compare it to elementalist's Cleansing fire and you can only say: "Ah yes, indeed, it's good."

Compare elixir of ignorance to utility google, Instantly it feel lot more "fair".

Point is that the first version was already within range of what the "balanced" utilities were already doing. Trying to catch up with the imba utilities that dominate the game isn't exactly what I'd qualify as a "smart way" to balance things. It's a way to make player look for those skills, sure but it's certainly not smart "balance" as you just reduce the range of skills that the player is willing to use.

[Asum.4960]

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The problem is in your perspective, you want them to be competitive against the very best that some other profession can offer and see it as unfair that they aren't.

Elixir of bliss: Cleanse 5 conditions, grant up to 15% LF, grant resolution and Blight which is potentially more damage on 25s CD. (I'm volontarily using the first beta version to prove my point)

Compare it to elementalist's Cleansing fire and you can only say: "Ah yes, indeed, it's good."

Compare elixir of ignorance to utility google, Instantly it feel lot more "fair".

Point is that the first version was already within range of what the "balanced" utilities were already doing. Trying to catch up with the imba utilities that dominate the game isn't exactly what I'd qualify as a "smart way" to balance things. It's a way to make player look for those skills, sure but it's certainly not smart "balance" as you just reduce the range of skills that the player is willing to use.

Listing the LF gain as extra feature over what other professions get is a bit misleading though, since having to gain LF is an extra limitation to Necro's Profession mechanic that for example Elementalists simply don't have. 

That said, sure, Cleansing Fire isn't great (although even that can be Traited to give Vigor and Regeneration into even more cleanses), but for Bliss you don't even need to go to another class.

Elixir of bliss: Cleanse 5 conditions, gain 3% LF per condition, 5s of Resolution.

Spectral Walk: Cleanse 6 conditions, gain 4% LF per condition, 24s of Swiftness, is also a Stunbreak, and gives you a tether to teleport back to with various uses across the game, from being a vital kiting tool in PvP to safety net in JP's and so on. 

 

Even the fairly lacklustre Utility Goggles also come with a huge 900 radius 6 second reveal Utility Belt skill, on top of the Resolution, Blind removal and Stunbreak + Protection along the CD reduction when Traited. 

 

Quote

The problem is in your perspective, you want them to be competitive against the very best that some other profession can offer and see it as unfair that they aren't.

I don't think that assumption is fair just because I want them to be slightly better than just barely competing (if even) with some of worst, dead and long forgotten, 2012 core design skills, which haven't kept up and barely anyone uses anymore for a reason. 

 

It's not like I'm asking them to be better or even quite as good as Stand your Ground and co., but at least half as good as the current gold standard maybe would be something to aim for, no? 

I simply don't see the point in designing dead on arrival skills (and with that an entire Trait line and aspect of a new Specialisation). How does that increase the range of skills players are willing to use?

Yes, when new skills are added, I'm going to compare them against skills that currently are actually used, not ones that are too bad to be used and need reworks to be viable since years. That doesn't mean I want or need them to be evenly matched or "must pick" - but they imo should play in the same ballpark (or at least some of them) to be considered.

1 hour ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

and Blight which is potentially more damage

I still remember CMC introducing these Elixirs as "skills they were able to make extremely powerful since they have Blight as Health reducing negative on them", now the skills being garbage but acting as bland Blight generators (which is a poorly thought out mechanic itself that has been slapped on Harbinger, which the devs now clearly have no idea what to do with) is a selling point of them? 

 

Idk man, these skills and spec is a major mess.

Edited December 2, 2021 by Asum.4960

[Lily.1935]

44 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

The problem is in your perspective, you want them to be competitive against the very best that some other profession can offer and see it as unfair that they aren't.

Elixir of bliss: Cleanse 5 conditions, grant up to 15% LF, grant resolution and Blight which is potentially more damage on 25s CD. (I'm volontarily using the first beta version to prove my point)

Compare it to elementalist's Cleansing fire and you can only say: "Ah yes, indeed, it's good."

Compare elixir of ignorance to utility google, Instantly it feel lot more "fair".

Point is that the first version was already within range of what the "balanced" utilities were already doing. Trying to catch up with the imba utilities that dominate the game isn't exactly what I'd qualify as a "smart way" to balance things. It's a way to make player look for those skills, sure but it's certainly not smart "balance" as you just reduce the range of skills that the player is willing to use.

The problem is they don't compare to core necromancer skills either. You use them to generate blight and that's about it. Other than the elite the elixirs don't offer enough in comparison to even wells, spectral skills, corruptions, signets or even minions. And if you look at them in terms of support they're unimpressive. Sure you could do a permanent quickness build for 5 people but you're not going to be providing max of any other boon, giving any other unique support that can't be done elsewhere but better.

 

Personally, I'd like them to compete with Corruption skills in a way that's not just through blight. I'd like them to compete with wells. And I'd especially like the elite spec to be a viable alternative to scourge and reaper. Which it currently is not.

[vanflyheight.6832]

K im just throwing this out here as a possible way of dealing with the blight mechanic. What if there was another bar that got filled similar to life force with blight. Then a certain percent or amount would boost dmg. and either give a certain amount of barrier or make it into a total siphon mechanic. like if ya have 20 blight stacks or with the blight bar, a certain amount could go by 5% on each split bar similar to the warriors adrenaline works or just have blight stacks and you could regain healing to your hp pool once the blight ends. Lets say if ya had 10 blight stacks and on the bottom of the hp pool was like 5k hp reduced. the user would get that 5k hp back once blight ended, or blight could work the same as the revs siphon. 

[Lily.1935]

59 minutes ago, vanflyheight.6832 said:

K im just throwing this out here as a possible way of dealing with the blight mechanic. What if there was another bar that got filled similar to life force with blight. Then a certain percent or amount would boost dmg. and either give a certain amount of barrier or make it into a total siphon mechanic. like if ya have 20 blight stacks or with the blight bar, a certain amount could go by 5% on each split bar similar to the warriors adrenaline works or just have blight stacks and you could regain healing to your hp pool once the blight ends. Lets say if ya had 10 blight stacks and on the bottom of the hp pool was like 5k hp reduced. the user would get that 5k hp back once blight ended, or blight could work the same as the revs siphon. 

I don't follow you at all. Could you explain it a bit better? Because it sounds convoluted. 

[Axl.8924]

22 hours ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

I'm not sure the whole LF management is an issue. As far as I know you just need 50% LF to play "optimally" which, if you were succesful with any other necromancer spec, you'll get whether you remove Blight or not.

I like suggestion 1 and 2 on traits. All other suggestions are to much "add this and that" to things that are already overloaded.

Elixirs don't need to do "more", seriously they are already overloaded with effects and it's unhealthy. Elite spec's utilities don't need to be "must pick", elixirs were already "good" enough before beta 4.

And yes, Harbinger shroud should have less drawbacks and allow the necromancer to at least have access to it's utilities while in shroud.

Traits that I'd like to see on harbinger:

- Hungering rush: Cast Lesser devouring cut upon entering shroud. Reduce drastically the damage, mainly just keep the movement.

- I'd like leap finishers, if not on skill, at least give us a trait that put leap finishers on devouring cut and voracious arc. It's so frustrating to have all those dark fields and no diversity on finishers to exploit them.

- And why not traits that promote auras on harbinger (gain dark aura when entering shroud/extended aura duration/Get LF when stuck while under the effect of an aura... etc.)

 

A spec needs to compete with others otherwise whats the point?

 

If you want a spec to be desired and not DOA then it needs to have something it can do desireably like scourge for barriers and condi.

 

I personally don't know what the actual dps is but it better be damned amazing to lose all possible sustain and mobility.  or really good support, plus scourge already exists don't need a  spec that fails to compete even with the likes of scourge and that has issues.

Edited December 3, 2021 by Axl.8924

[Lily.1935]

7 minutes ago, Axl.8924 said:

 

A spec needs to compete with others otherwise whats the point?

 

If you want a spec to be desired and not DOA then it needs to have something it can do desireably like scourge for barriers and condi.

 

I personally don't know what the actual dps is but it better be damned amazing to lose all possible sustain and mobility.  or really good support, plus scourge already exists don't need a  spec that fails to compete even with the likes of scourge and that has issues.

If you're curious the current benchmark of scourge is 37k and the current benchmark of Harbinger is 37k.

[Dr Meta.3158]

Yeah I said even in an another thread that harbinger is the highly mobile glass cannon necromancer spec that deals less damage, has less survivability,  offers less utility, and has less mobility than the "support" necromancer spec. Harbinger honestly should be scraped and redesigned from the ground up and I don't know if there is time for that.

 

Harbinger really should be a single target dps for pve and necromancer's roamer/duelist spec for pvp. We don't need another support for a class that thematically doesn't care about support to begin with. We have scourge for that and it is also necromancer's highest dps spec and also necromancer's tankiest spec when focused on condition damage. 

[Lily.1935]

16 minutes ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

Yeah I said even in an another thread that harbinger is the highly mobile glass cannon necromancer spec that deals less damage, has less survivability,  offers less utility, and has less mobility than the "support" necromancer spec. Harbinger honestly should be scraped and redesigned from the ground up and I don't know if there is time for that.

 

Harbinger really should be a single target dps for pve and necromancer's roamer/duelist spec for pvp. We don't need another support for a class that thematically doesn't care about support to begin with. We have scourge for that and it is also necromancer's highest dps spec and also necromancer's tankiest spec when focused on condition damage. 

I think the idea of blight is interesting and the shroud itself is a lot of fun to use. The issues don't outweigh the potential in my opinion. I think it needs work thematically and the traits and skills need some work, but the kit is fun to use.

[Dr Meta.3158]

2 minutes ago, Lily.1935 said:

I think the idea of blight is interesting and the shroud itself is a lot of fun to use. The issues don't outweigh the potential in my opinion. I think it needs work thematically and the traits and skills need some work, but the kit is fun to use.

That's great. I know some people that think Pixels is a great movie. People have their tastes.

[Lily.1935]

1 hour ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

That's great. I know some people that think Pixels is a great movie. People have their tastes.

Isn't the goal of elite specs to fill niches not yet filled? And play styles lacking in the game. And this sort of play style is sorely lacking. 

 

You clearly hate the design. And that's fine. I find warrior to be extremely boring, for example. But warrior is not designed for me like Harbinger is not designed for you. That doesn't make the identity of the spec bad.

[Dr Meta.3158]

3 hours ago, Lily.1935 said:

Isn't the goal of elite specs to fill niches not yet filled? And play styles lacking in the game. And this sort of play style is sorely lacking. 

 

You clearly hate the design. And that's fine. I find warrior to be extremely boring, for example. But warrior is not designed for me like Harbinger is not designed for you. That doesn't make the identity of the spec bad.

The purpose of the spec is dps with support which, perhaps unintentionally, already exists under the necromancer chassis as scourge as I've stated earlier in this thread. It also exists in better forms on other classes such as firebrand and scrapper. 

 

In pvp it initially, kindof, filled the niche of roamer/duelist which necromancer could never fill before because it lacked the speed and durability to handle outnumbered situations. It wasn't particularly great at it since its shroud mechanic worked counter to that role. But, if you ignored shroud, then it could work. It still wasn't on the same level as spellbreaker, soulbeast, herald, weaver, mirage, or even holosmith but the feedback on the pvp end was pushing it on that direction. Then they not only killed that potential but it can't even teamfight which is something every necromancer specialization only does. It can't even do necromancer's only job right.

As I've stated already, the job of dps support is already filled by scourge and harbinger does that but worse. So no, it does not fill a niche already not filled neither for necromancer or any other class in the game. Yes I and many others clearly hate the design of this class. That's why theres so many various threads detailing extremely long posts criticizing and suggesting changes for it accumulating to a complete rework of its entire chassis. I've said nothing about whether I found it fun or not. I acknowledged your liking of the spec and that's good for you.

 

Perhaps they'll keep it this way and it'll go the way of druid and berserker with a tiny segment of the population playing it, including you. But me personally, as well as many others, would rather avoid that situation. If they end up fixing it and actually making a niche that harbinger doesn't fill, then for you I'd suggest playing scourge. It'll be similar to what we have with harbinger now, but a lot better. Or if you just want to play the dps only portion and maybe a power build like many people have tried and failed to make an effective build out of harbinger, then I suggest staff daredevil. It's also like power harbinger, but a lot better. Or maybe you want to play the ranged pistol elixir tossing harbinger, then I suggest condi engineer. It's like condi harbinger, but a lot better.

Edited December 3, 2021 by YaminoNakani.7083

[XECOR.2814]

My personal opinions are:

1. Elixirs rn are pretty neat. Should keep that.

2. Absolutely necessary, revert the range decrease and cd increase on movement skill, this is insane. Anet reducing range on harbinger's only mobility skills is like community asking for not having blight at all. Its that level of stupid. Its the integral part of the design and the most integral part of harbinger's non bunker, agile dps gameplay.  Remove the kitten torment its useless in pvp/wvw anyway. People dont use 3 and 4 skill in pve anyway now since they reduce blight.

Anet does want to give a gameplay that necromancer's never had before. Why should this statement only be true for risk part or getting the negatives of their strengths, what about the weakness it has since day1 of the game. Shouldn't new spec address the weakness of the class too? like giving it stab, low cds on stunbreaks and skills, mobility, resustain etc?

3. There is a very huge consideration of allowing utilities to work in shroud. The elixirs can work in a way that the offensive part can be moved to shroud only and defensive or support part can be moved to outside shroud only. That would be an amazing change.

4.  Pistol is fine in both competitive and pve, numbers now look balanced.

5.  The power and condi mod adept traits need to be merged into 1 and put on bottom line, 1/2%dmg mod on each blight is very underwhelming and passive, it needs to be consolidated. Remove the poison or make it baseline. Balance the damage.

6.  Pulsing grandmaster traits just need to go in the trashcan. 180 range dps and pulsing cripple every 3sec is not gonna save anything or pressure anything, atleast the condi one is ok in pve still extremely passive and bad design. The harm from these skills come from it taking gm spots thus denying the the choices that the build should've had and thus harbinger not being able to be a well rounded class. The power major trait needs stunbreak inbuilt together with 1 stack of stab just cause the fact that there is literally no panic buttons on necro now. It needs stunbreak to use its mobility skills to survive.

7.  Few gripe of mine. There is no melee aoe fear on shroud 3, when the animation begs for it and the only spec with no fear, very bad icons art and increased cd on utility and shroud skills making it seem like normal necro utilities lol.

8. If not healing from lf , they might have to think about some kind of resustain mechanic for this spec. I don't have well thought out suggestions for this so i wont comment.

[Bale.3851]

Cant agree more with @YaminoNakani.7083. Harbinger is already obsolete / DOA. After playing in for 14h in pvp with every possible setting its clear that reaper and even core are better roaming builds than this hot pile of garbinger. Sure the extra mobility is fun but you know whats fun to? Playing specter. If you are looking for a mobile necro specc take specter. Power / condi / support you name it you get it. Harbinger feels not finished in the slightest. Even beta 1 was better than what we have now. A clear backdraw. Maybe im just salty after seeing my favorite class butchered, but why is it that thief gets everything with specter necro was told they cant have cause they have a damage absorbing shroud?? May tell me that...

 

TL;DR Revert the changes on harbinger and start from there or just start from zero idc. The iteration right now is bad in every possible way.

[Lily.1935]

3 hours ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

The purpose of the spec is dps with support which, perhaps unintentionally, already exists under the necromancer chassis as scourge as I've stated earlier in this thread. It also exists in better forms on other classes such as firebrand and scrapper. 

 

You're looking at role not play style. Their two unique play styles. Both are quite different in that respect, so right off the bad you misunderstand that. Perhaps all you care about is which role a spec fills and want no duplicate roles. But that is just a silly position to have.

Even when looking at their DPS and support, the type of support each provides is quite different. And the DPS role has less field coverage and more CC.

And there is the play style of Harbinger which is sorely lacking. The self sacrifice style necromancer was known for in GW1 and in other games such as Diablo III. Its a bit of a different take on sacrificing health for power, but it is still the same concept behind it.

 

3 hours ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

In pvp it initially, kindof, filled the niche of roamer/duelist which necromancer could never fill before because it lacked the speed and durability to handle outnumbered situations. It wasn't particularly great at it since its shroud mechanic worked counter to that role. But, if you ignored shroud, then it could work. It still wasn't on the same level as spellbreaker, soulbeast, herald, weaver, mirage, or even holosmith but the feedback on the pvp end was pushing it on that direction. Then they not only killed that potential but it can't even teamfight which is something every necromancer specialization only does. It can't even do necromancer's only job right.

This is an issue with its current lack of payoff for its sacrificial nature. Not an issue with its general design.

 

3 hours ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

As I've stated already, the job of dps support is already filled by scourge and harbinger does that but worse. So no, it does not fill a niche already not filled neither for necromancer or any other class in the game. Yes I and many others clearly hate the design of this class. That's why theres so many various threads detailing extremely long posts criticizing and suggesting changes for it accumulating to a complete rework of its entire chassis. I've said nothing about whether I found it fun or not. I acknowledged your liking of the spec and that's good for you.

You keep saying that like you know what you're talking about. You clearly don't. There is more than one type of support and there is more than one way to provide damage. And in both cases, Scourge and Harbinger are quite different from each other. They play differently and both demand quite different thought process while using.

 

3 hours ago, YaminoNakani.7083 said:

Perhaps they'll keep it this way and it'll go the way of druid and berserker with a tiny segment of the population playing it, including you. But me personally, as well as many others, would rather avoid that situation. If they end up fixing it and actually making a niche that harbinger doesn't fill, then for you I'd suggest playing scourge. It'll be similar to what we have with harbinger now, but a lot better. Or if you just want to play the dps only portion and maybe a power build like many people have tried and failed to make an effective build out of harbinger, then I suggest staff daredevil. It's also like power harbinger, but a lot better. Or maybe you want to play the ranged pistol elixir tossing harbinger, then I suggest condi engineer. It's like condi harbinger, but a lot better.

Do you know who you're talking to? I'm literally the one who made this Forum post. Did you actually read it? Because you're talking to me like I think the spec is perfect or something, and my opinion of the spec is extremely far from that perspective. But my opinion is also quite nuanced, something you seem to be failing to recognize. I can both enjoy the spec and the play style its going with while also recognizing the issues with it and pointing out where it needs improvements. These positions are not contradictory.

I want harbinger to be effective. I wouldn't have made this post if I didn't. I recognize that the role in the party is filled better by other specs including scourge.

But maybe this will help you understand. Scourge is Condi DPS and Defensive Barrier healer. Harbinger is Glasscannon condi/power DPS and Boon support. Which both of those roles necromancer hasn't filled yet.

But before you go making wild accusations again and rather rude comments I'd suggest you actually read my initial post.

[Bale.3851]

I agree with you that one class have different speccs that fill the same role but with different fun gameplay. But sadly the harbinger tries to do everything and fails with everything because the concept is a mess. Its pure contradiction. PVP view: You play a glasscannon with mid range and a stacking debuff so you want to burst and kite. But to burst you have to go in with your movement skills to even reach then burst with shroud 5 into 2. Then try to kite. But oh snap mobility was already used. Your pulsing aura doesnt help you to disengage or kite. You got no sustain or block / invuln / invis -> you are dead. 

 

In PVE you want as much blight as u can get but to maximize damage you have the same problem. You have to go in melee range on a ranged glasscannon specc. How is this coherent fluid gameplay? Sure the specc can feels fun but after dieing 10 times you ask yourself why not play the easier way which is scourge. Same dps more sustain and group support. Fun was killed for efficency.

 

And to stop this from happening people try to show anet these contradictions / design fails. But just clashing dmg numbers on the specc as is wont fix anything.

[Lily.1935]

5 minutes ago, Bale.3851 said:

I agree with you that one class have different speccs that fill the same role but with different fun gameplay. But sadly the harbinger tries to do everything and fails with everything because the concept is a mess. Its pure contradiction. PVP view: You play a glasscannon with mid range and a stacking debuff so you want to burst and kite. But to burst you have to go in with your movement skills to even reach then burst with shroud 5 into 2. Then try to kite. But oh snap mobility was already used. Your pulsing aura doesnt help you to disengage or kite. You got no sustain or block / invuln / invis -> you are dead. 

 

In PVE you want as much blight as u can get but to maximize damage you have the same problem. You have to go in melee range on a ranged glasscannon specc. How is this coherent fluid gameplay? Sure the specc can feels fun but after dieing 10 times you ask yourself why not play the easier way which is scourge. Same dps more sustain and group support. Fun was killed for efficency.

 

And to stop this from happening people try to show anet these contradictions / design fails. But just clashing dmg numbers on the specc as is wont fix anything.

I don't disagree. We need some major buffs. The movement aspect can be alleviated a bit through Wurm and Spectral walk, but it needs to be worth it to do this. Its a real shame that wurm has a limited range on it and that range is fairly short. But The kit itself still needs to be powerful enough to get that burst down before dipping out of there. Which, I agree, it is not there.

[vanflyheight.6832]

21 hours ago, Lily.1935 said:

I don't follow you at all. Could you explain it a bit better? Because it sounds convoluted. 

Yea i was just putting alot of stuff out while still trying to explain it as simply as possible. 1st suggestion: blight could work as a steal health/siphon based on how much blight stacks a user has. it be similar to the revs battle scars. 2nd, or it could work similar to the warriors adrenaline bar where its split into 2-3 sections and have each give a certain amount of dmg which wouldnt remove the 5% dmg from blight already and or along with this could add in a health recovery based on the number of blight stacks. This could suit well for sustain and or dmg. It could also be argued into the mix of a certain amount of barrier based on the blight bar that gets filled or the number of blight stacks one gets. Hope this clears alot of it up.  

[Kronos.2560]

1 hour ago, vanflyheight.6832 said:

Yea i was just putting alot of stuff out while still trying to explain it as simply as possible. 1st suggestion: blight could work as a steal health/siphon based on how much blight stacks a user has. it be similar to the revs battle scars. 2nd, or it could work similar to the warriors adrenaline bar where its split into 2-3 sections and have each give a certain amount of dmg which wouldnt remove the 5% dmg from blight already and or along with this could add in a health recovery based on the number of blight stacks. This could suit well for sustain and or dmg. It could also be argued into the mix of a certain amount of barrier based on the blight bar that gets filled or the number of blight stacks one gets. Hope this clears alot of it up.  

I agree with them removing the old heal based on vitality mechanic but they still need a way to still heal but regulated. I think it's a great idea to do it like war where every third it heals more. Could even make it a master trait you can pick instead of the power one. (As power is and should be garbage on Har)

 

I would also like to see shroud 3 have stability and fear like reaper. If they can't do that or make skills accessible during shroud you will always be at major death risk when any stun happens (even in PvE). With reaper you get a pulsing stabil and a fear + healthbar. With Har you just die with no stunbreak, extra health bar, healing, or mobility (as that was nerfed to reaper levels)

 

Finally for GM traits keep the quickess for some boon sharing potential but scrap the other 2. A ranged glass (or not) spec should never have a 180 melee pulse dmg. That's as funny as forcing a longbow ranger to have all his skills be melee.

 

Finally on shroud 3-4 I don't care if they keep the more dos for higher blight but they shouldn't remove blight. That's counterintuitive to more dps (from other traits).

 

My 2 cents.