harbinger vs reaper

[NorthernRedStar.3054]

On 12/4/2021 at 7:19 PM, Crikk.3854 said:

I've been maiming a Power, melee Reaper since Hot.  It's so tanky (even with zerk stats) that I find it hard to play other profs!  Damage output is very good to.

Damage output is very good - against open world trash mobs and vets, as well as instance ads. Against any foe that doesn't die to a single shroud rotation, though, you're more than likely to get out-DPS'd by a competent player using same gear and a different class.

Edited January 5, 2022 by NorthernRedStar.3054

[Obtena.7952]

OP, you said you already got the HPs to unlock . What advice are you looking for? Just play what you like. 

 

Edited January 5, 2022 by Obtena.7952

[Aeolus.3615]

On 12/5/2021 at 4:42 AM, SunTzu.4513 said:

If you are in Shroud you can not be healed. So if you drop to low health before you enter Shroud the whole Team around can get healed up but you stay at your low HP. This can lead to the problem, that if you need to dodge in Shroud and use all your rolls you have nearly no defense options if you get out of shroud. So the healer need to focus heal you (And maybe needs to use cooldowns) and pay extra attention to you, he can not dps at this time.

As some one who plays stronly heal ooutput builds 7k every 3-4sec heals if needed, this is really something that makes me cringe a bit worse when that reaper is in coms and i tell him/her to stay put since could cover ull health in 2sec max and that person not only dodge my heals but also shrowds later making itself down when exit shrowd mode due shrowded before with very low health...

i actually soped healing reapers and scourges(reapers is a no heal class not gona spent  energy management on that class caus they are so much carried that they forgot how to team play at least most reaper players do this).

 

IC reapers pushing like 5-7+ players alone thinking they can melt them down in few secs this imo show alot the reaper mentality players have, and how they expect to be carried... a reaper can solo 3-4 players with some work 1-2 or even 3 with some ease deppends the players class,  but more than 5 that its pure ignorance due how they are being carried.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Aeolus.3615

[Shadowmoon.7986]

On 12/4/2021 at 11:07 AM, Lynx.9058 said:

Kinda torn here.  I got my necromancer to 80 and farmed up a bunch of hero points and condi gear in anticipation of going Harbinger, and while I like the pistol and some aspects of the class, overall it feels entirely too squishy and I really hate the way elixirs work.

 

Before the eod betas/ spec reveals I had planned on going reaper, and now it's looking like the more attractive option again.  It's tanky as hell, can run few different builds where Harbinger really feels stuck doing one thing and one thing only, and seems like it could go either power or conditions or even tank well.

 

Any advice?

Depends on what you want to do. Solo content reaper is very strong. Aoe blinds with aoe damage that heals 10% back and strong cc to boot for champs.  Harbringer is suppose to be the team oriented build, sacrificing self survivability and cc for more condi damage. 

I will probably stay reaper for open world, but will switch to harbringer for fractals and raids. Scourge will probably finally be the support spec it always was supposed to be. 

[LucianDK.8615]

Myself I find Scourges to have far more survivability in open world and far more forgiving than Reapers. Maybe I suck at Reapers, its like with zerker that you live on a knife edge. One mistake and you are dead.  Which made me stop playing them out of frustration and going for a tanky trailblazer build with Scourges.

 

But I cannot imagine that Harbingers will be any good solo at all, but fractals/raids or in zergs is were you 'could' shine.  I say 'could', because if you are so fragile that you go down as soon something looks at you, then the spec surely wont be played for long.

 

Yes, necros needs their dps decoupled from shroud, but making them so fragile as the currently known Harbinger without active defenses is way overdoing it.

Edited January 31, 2022 by LucianDK.8615

[KrHome.1920]

On 1/31/2022 at 6:35 PM, LucianDK.8615 said:

Myself I find Scourges to have far more survivability in open world and far more forgiving than Reapers. Maybe I suck at Reapers, its like with zerker that you live on a knife edge. One mistake and you are dead.  Which made me stop playing them out of frustration and going for a tanky trailblazer build with Scourges.

Spectral Armor (8 seconds of damage immunity in shroud) has a 30 second cooldown in PvE (can be used every other shroud uptime). Spectral Walk also has a 30 second cooldown in PvE. CPC (8 seconds of ranged immunity) has a 30 second cooldown as well.

Pick these 3 utilities and you won't die on reaper in open world scenarios. Yes, this isn't dps meta, but still a lot more dps than a trailblazer scourge will do.

And the gameplay is also a lot more interactive and less braindead. You have skills you use at specific moments, unlike scourge that just spams F12345434352325423 off cooldown.

[taara.3217]

On 1/31/2022 at 8:35 PM, LucianDK.8615 said:

Maybe I suck at Reapers ...

No, you are totaly right about Scourge.

[taara.3217]

5 minutes ago, KrHome.1920 said:

Pick these 3 utilities and you won't die on reaper in open world scenarios.

With mobs, sure. But Reaper is too squishy in Champ/Bounty solo fighting.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Going to throw my 2 copper in as I play my Necro a fair bit on the side.

Reaper is a lot of fun, and a good reaper can carry a bad PUG in instanced content. Just don't go into shroud when you are at low HP unless you have the traits that will give you healing when in shroud (Unholy Sanctuary, Life Stealing from Blood Magic, Blighter's Boon are all examples).

Harbinger isn't out yet, so we don't know what final touches they are putting on it. You have 25 more days till you even get a chance to play it, so why not go get enough hero points to unlock them both?

You aren't married to the spec you choose forever, so feel free to unlock them all and play them all. Personally I hate scourge and can't wait to play harbinger, but I'll keep playing reaper here and there.

[Knighthonor.4061]

Plan on playing support Harbinger.  

[LucianDK.8615]

4 hours ago, Knighthonor.4061 said:

Plan on playing support Harbinger.  

Been looking at it myself, but I think the viability of it depends on if Firebrands finally gets properly nerfed in the booning department.

[Nimon.7840]

6 hours ago, Knighthonor.4061 said:

Plan on playing support Harbinger.  

 

1 hour ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

Been looking at it myself, but I think the viability of it depends on if Firebrands finally gets properly nerfed in the booning department.

^ this.

 

Harbinger was not good compared to current hybrid or support builds.

 

Hybrid (boons+dmg):

Damage was too low compared to fb.

And it had a lot less utility (aegis, stab...).

 

Full support:

You need around 80% boonduration to get full uptime on your elixir boons (with alac).

there's not many stat combos that will provide this big number (full harrier with monk rune will do the trick) but if you play full support, how do you plan on healing allies?

Just with transfusion? - that doesn't sound like a good build to me.

 

 

[LucianDK.8615]

22 minutes ago, Nimon.7840 said:

 

^ this.

 

Harbinger was not good compared to current hybrid or support builds.

 

Hybrid (boons+dmg):

Damage was too low compared to fb.

And it had a lot less utility (aegis, stab...).

 

Full support:

You need around 80% boonduration to get full uptime on your elixir boons (with alac).

there's not many stat combos that will provide this big number (full harrier with monk rune will do the trick) but if you play full support, how do you plan on healing allies?

Just with transfusion? - that doesn't sound like a good build to me.

 

 

I know there was a rumored condi variant of diviner to come in eod, means a harbinger wont have to be forced into sub par power.

[The Boz.2038]

There were no rumors other than "it'd be cool if".

[KrHome.1920]

I would not invest in any gear or spend any hero points until the expansion is released. Harbinger has been such a mess at the end of beta 4 that ANet might rework it again and nobody knows how this will end. ANet has a tradition of ignoring community ideas, but instead doing something nobody expected.

Even buildcrafting is a waste of time atm - despite not costing anything. 

[LucianDK.8615]

3 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

I would not invest in any gear or spend any hero points until the expansion is released. Harbinger has been such a mess at the end of beta 4 that ANet might rework it again and nobody knows how this will end. ANet has a tradition of ignoring community ideas, but instead doing something nobody expected.

Even buildcrafting is a waste of time atm - despite not costing anything. 

 

Not like there is much to spend hero points on. Ive everything unlocked, and 404 heropoints left over. But I use a trailblazer for solo and viper for groups for scourge. Would merely need to slap tormenting runes on the viper set and Harbinger is good to go.  Though for soloing, I expect that Scourge will be far better by miles.

Edited February 8, 2022 by LucianDK.8615

[Nimon.7840]

21 hours ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

I know there was a rumored condi variant of diviner to come in eod, means a harbinger wont have to be forced into sub par power.

 

20 hours ago, The Boz.2038 said:

There were no rumors other than "it'd be cool if".

 

While I first thought, that it would really benefit harbinger if there was a diviner version of condi gear.

After some thought I think that stat combination would be extremely broken.

Lots of condi specs do 90-95% of their damage as condi dmg.

What would condi diviner gear look like?

Major stats: condi dmg, concentration

Minor stats: expertise + x (either power or precision, but precision would make more sense, because many specs have a "inflict x condition on crit"- trait).

 

That would mean, that you would trade one useless stat for an extremely valuable stat.

Resulting in things like:

35k or higher quickness firebrand

Or 39k 10man alac-condi renegade

 

Which is absolutely absurd, if you look at builds that are not able to support at all but do less damage.

I really do hope, that those stats won't ever find their way into the game, with the current balance.

 

 

 

Edited February 8, 2022 by Nimon.7840

[Bale.3851]

 

Just throwing this out here as an indicator for eod of what we know so far. The ranking is pretty good in my opinion. I think most of the new classes are pretty bad pvp wise with the exception of specter and vindicator but harbinger and virtuoso are a special kind of kitty kit.

 

Just wondering why tea pot is now saying beta one harbinger was nice with sustain to lf and not mentioning it in the interview with cmc. Also i guess he called the nerf well waranted or something like this and is now griefing cause harbinger lacks sustain.

 

tl;dr Harbinger doesnt even come close to Reaper with the massive loss of sustain even tho dmg and mobility is nice(big brain time).

[LucianDK.8615]

On 2/8/2022 at 8:45 AM, Nimon.7840 said:

 

 

While I first thought, that it would really benefit harbinger if there was a diviner version of condi gear.

After some thought I think that stat combination would be extremely broken.

Lots of condi specs do 90-95% of their damage as condi dmg.

What would condi diviner gear look like?

Major stats: condi dmg, concentration

Minor stats: expertise + x (either power or precision, but precision would make more sense, because many specs have a "inflict x condition on crit"- trait).

 

That would mean, that you would trade one useless stat for an extremely valuable stat.

Resulting in things like:

35k or higher quickness firebrand

Or 39k 10man alac-condi renegade

 

Which is absolutely absurd, if you look at builds that are not able to support at all but do less damage.

I really do hope, that those stats won't ever find their way into the game, with the current balance.

 

 

 

So the rumor was true after all

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-strike-missions-balance-and-rewards/

 

New Equipment Attribute Combinations

You’ll have two new equipment attribute combination options in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons:

• Ritualist’s equipment provides a large increase to condition damage and vitality, and a small increase to concentration and expertise.
• Dragon’s equipment provides a large increase to power and ferocity, and a small increase to precision and vitality.

These attribute combinations will be available as an option for all legendary equipment immediately on launch day, and you can earn equipment with these prefixes by playing expansion content.

 

Sure concentration is minor, but Harbingers can take twisted medicine which lets 13% of their vitality give concentration. And elixirbots might take vital persistence for even more concentration from vitality.

 

Edited February 12, 2022 by LucianDK.8615

[Nimon.7840]

On 2/12/2022 at 12:15 AM, LucianDK.8615 said:

So the rumor was true after all

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/guild-wars-2-end-of-dragons-strike-missions-balance-and-rewards/

 

New Equipment Attribute Combinations

You’ll have two new equipment attribute combination options in Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons:

• Ritualist’s equipment provides a large increase to condition damage and vitality, and a small increase to concentration and expertise.
• Dragon’s equipment provides a large increase to power and ferocity, and a small increase to precision and vitality.

These attribute combinations will be available as an option for all legendary equipment immediately on launch day, and you can earn equipment with these prefixes by playing expansion content.

 

Sure concentration is minor, but Harbingers can take twisted medicine which lets 13% of their vitality give concentration. And elixirbots might take vital persistence for even more concentration from vitality.

 

 

If we take those stats in consideration you will reach a boonduration of approximately 50% on harbinger:

633 concentration from ritualist gear = 42,2%

125 concentration from vita to conc trait =8,33

Which would barely be enough to keep up quickness if you have that Permanent alacrity.

But we don't know yet, if anet changed anything for harbinger

Edited February 16, 2022 by Nimon.7840

[LucianDK.8615]

3 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

 

If we take those stats in consideration you will reach a boonduration of approximately 50% on harbinger:

633 concentration from ritualist gear = 42,2%

125 concentration from vita to conc trait =8,33

Which would barely be enough to keep up quickness if you have that Permanent alacrity.

But we don't know yet, if anet changed anything for harbinger

So far youd definitely have to make sacrifices with ritualist to get concentration higher. Food, runes, infusions, etc. But yes, its only speculation till we see the final changes.

[The Boz.2038]

Concentration Sigil says hi.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Not to mention that Runes of the Harbinger will most likely be Vitality and/or Boon Duration. Watch the 6th bonus be like grant quickness in an area when you use an elixir or something like that.

[Dadnir.5038]

2 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

Not to mention that Runes of the Harbinger will most likely be Vitality and/or Boon Duration. Watch the 6th bonus be like grant quickness in an area when you use an elixir or something like that.

That would make engineer's days... They got close to 20 elixir skills, they wouldn't even need to bother themselve with superspeed and scrapper.

Realistically Harbinger will get a "+10% health; +20% torment duration" 6th bonus because throwing hp to counter damage is the necromancer's way and because the devs have an unhealthy obsession for torment.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

15 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

That would make engineer's days... They got close to 20 elixir skills, they wouldn't even need to bother themselve with superspeed and scrapper.

Realistically Harbinger will get a "+10% health; +20% torment duration" 6th bonus because throwing hp to counter damage is the necromancer's way and because the devs have an unhealthy obsession for torment.

Could be, but I still suspect an elixir based effect and a Vitality main stat on the runes.