Alternative to Harrier's stats armor?

[pugster.9378]

It seems that Harrier's stats are heavily favored for many of the healing builds but the exotic and ascended armors are expensive.  Is there a alternative?  Is Cleric okay?

[Khisanth.2948]

If the build wants Harrier then it isn't really a "healing build" it is trying to be a DPS/heal/boon support.

If you are going to focus on just healing then cleric/apothecary/magi would be fine.

Helm and shoulders can also be obtained cheaply from the TP.

[Jukhy.2431]

This also depends on the profession and build. For the commonly used ranger, guardian and revenant support healer builds Harrier's is indeed the default set since it gives more boon duration. The primary job is to keep the boons up and secondary role is to heal.
For the raw healing power stat Magi's is preferred by some other classes, for eg see the necromancer and elementalist support healer builds. And ofc you can also mix and match the sets to match your preferences.

[Arnoud.4120]

Just as Jukhy said, it depends on the biuld. But more importantly, it depends on what you want to be doing. Usually the healer class is also used to provide boons. Boons are not just a "cool extra" thing in the game. A player with all boons will be more than twice as strong as a player without boons. Because you only need 1 stat in order to heal (Healing) and the healer builds often have access to boons, most healer builds also provide boons. To effectively apply boons you are going to need some "boon duration", which comes from the concentration stat.

So in order to decide what stats you could replace Harrier's with, you would have to decide what your build will be doing.

If you want to be an all-round support with boons, heals, a bit of damage, and being the general backbone of any group (except for raids because of toughness), you could go for celestial gear for example.

If you only want to provide healing, then magi's is a fine stat, but then you are definitely not getting the most out of your class/build, because you could be doing healing+damage or healing+boons.

If you have access to conditions in your build, then you could replace Harrier's with Seraph or Plaguedoctor's

And if you would want to do healing+(power)damage you could look at Zealot's for example.

The reason behind all this is that you always get more than one stat from your gear, so you can never go for a pure healing build, because you are then wasting at least two of the three stats on your gear!

Hope this helps and if you have questions, feel free to ask!

[Jalibean.3695]

Thank you Arnoud! 

I am just trying to fix up my Druid and your detailed explanation was a huge help ❤️ 

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

Note that Minstrel's is superior to healing than Harrier while still providing boons.

 

Harrier's is taken for some damage output on the healer (6-7k DPS or so), but now that damage has risen greatly across the board the healer is no longer a necessary part of the DPS check and many just don't bother anymore. The current DPS levels are roughly twice as much as at raid release, meaning one subgroup is equal to a full raid squad back then, so it just becomes overkill past a certain point.

 

Also on many builds Celestial now has similar damage numbers (or better) to Harrier's without the drawbacks. The only time Harrier's is superior is in raids that require a tank, where toughness is a no-go.

 

For the most part its considered a dead prefix at this point.

 

---

Btw, I've noticed that no one else mentioned this but you don't buy armors, you farm them in Verdant Brink with stat-select Bladed exotic armor. You also farm the stat-select trinkets from LWS3/4/5 maps. You shouldn't be buying or crafting anything except weapons, and even those you can use bandit weapons for stat-select rares (good enough for most content), or a few exotics like Iron Legion weapons.

 

For ascended items you don't craft expensive sets like Harrier's but some cheaper stat like Rampager's, then stat-change it in the Mystic Forge using an exotic inscription/insignia, which skips all the recipes etc.

Edited November 25, 2022 by Mariyuuna.6508

[Khisanth.2948]

15 hours ago, Mariyuuna.6508 said:

For ascended items you don't craft expensive sets like Harrier's but some cheaper stat like Rampager's, then stat-change it in the Mystic Forge using an exotic inscription/insignia, which skips all the recipes etc.

In the case of weapons this depends on the weapon type you are crafting. For around 1/3rd of the weapon types they are roughly equal assuming you are buying the recipe sheet with buy order and assuming you only ever need 1. If making more than one buying the sheet and crafting directly will be cheaper in the long run.