Harbinger shouldn't be allowed to wear celestial gear

[The Raven.1320]

2 hours ago, Karagee.6830 said:

I'd say 2k range just to be on the safe side...

3K with a ballista. Take it or leave it. 

[Esufer.8762]

51 minutes ago, Afkbrbgtgftw.7904 said:

3K with a ballista. Take it or leave it. 

Take off and nuke the harb from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[Justine.6351]

5 hours ago, Esufer.8762 said:

Take off and nuke the harb from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

What if the harbringer queen gets on the airship though?

[Sahne.6950]

On 8/23/2022 at 3:24 PM, Twilight Tempest.7584 said:

IME a lot of cele harbinger players are remarkably ignorant they're playing a busted build, and get super offended if you point it out. Kinda like the ones in here.

 

On 8/23/2022 at 6:07 PM, Shroud.2307 said:

......but it's also easier to deal with than people care to learn....
 

this is Harbinger remember, maximum health will be reduced, it doesn't have protective Shroud, and it's not an evasive or very mobile spec.

If you use your cleanse(s) and stunbreaks wisely, the best way to deal with them is to be hyper aggressive.

xDD

Here we go! Let me explain why everything youve said, is a joke at best.

Okey.... first of all....are you atleast aware that since almost 2 months your whole GM trait is not working..... AND YOUR BUILD STILL PERFORMS?

imagine any other build not having their GM-Trait..... just imagine how bad those builds would be...... meanwhile Harbinger mains dont even notice that something is completly not working....THATS HOW BAD THE BALANCING IS!  even without a GM-Trait it still is considered one of, if not, THE best roamingbuild....

"just cleanse smart and be aggressive....."   Yeah.... good luck cleansing when you are hit by a invisible gravity well on a 20 second cooldown... Or good luck reflecting his projectiles... oh wait... YOU CANT.... but atleast you can see when he is in shroud..... right.... right?  YOU CANT EVEN SEE WHEN HES IN SHROUD ANYMORE. The spec is a buggy and overpowered mess......

not evasive or mobilespec... meanwhile voracious arc is hitting you for 6k on a celebuild, while being a movementskill, evadeframe,dealing torment, and dazing.... ON A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN....

oh and the healskill..... name 1 skill that heals 10k (with regen) on a 20 second cooldown... while applying poison, and hitting upwards of 3,5k on a celebuild....  ILL WAIT!

 

Some Harbingermains dont realize that 90% of builds CAN NOT DEAL WITH THIS. They see that they are indeed dying to those 10% (if those 10% play better than them ofc) and think that Harbinger has counters and that other people could do this aswell.... But thats wrong. most build dont have the tools to deal with this. When you win against 90% of people running around simply because of the fact that you decided to play 🍔... there might be something wrong.

You need to understand that 90% of people dont have a chance even when they are doing everything right and applying your "tips". The sheer ammount of pressure and the sustainwall, that Harbinger has, paired with celestial is like a brickwall to most builds. If they are lucky they can run away. But 90% of builds have no chance winning a fair 1 on1 fight. NOT HAPPENING.

Just look at pvp. It has received some massive nerfs there and its on par with otherspecs (remember WIHTOUT a GM-trait still)... but the WvW version dodged all of those nerfs and is still reaking havoc.... now we add celestial ontop and you have a spec that is completly dominating even without a GM-trait...

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Sahne.6950]

21 hours ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

You can get to 25 might with antitoxin runes and strength/energy sigils just by throwing an unload in during the reveal timer between stealth rotations. Aristocracy is great if you don't need much cleanse, but antitoxin is better if you do. 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAorlNwAZdsNGJe0W7NdA-z1IY1okvMysAKNEcfWqSaDA-w Thats what i am running.    (textwall, but it has tldr´s if you lazy. ^_^)

Just a headsup: this build doenst struggle against condis, it struggles against roots. You dont need more cleanse, you need a way to reliably remove roots.

I use Cover of shadow to have permanent protection ontop of all the degenerate sustain. 😄 I can not use Unload as i would not have enough initiative to do the evadedance infinitely. But i dont even have and want to use it, as it solely scales off power, and i do not want to rely on a "power-only" skill to stack my might. I tried what you are probably running now and i thought its WAYYY to overkill on the cleanse, while the might generation is too easily countered via dodges and blocks and it also requires you to burn initiative to even gain the chance at 25 might. And it is too easily shut down by roots. Any good player will bleed you out pretty fast and then finish you with a single root.

Let me explain to you why i run this specifically and why i think its alot stronger, especially against more skilled opponents and people that know how to counter the build.

My build has trickster, shadowsembrace and escapist fortitude. That is 3 cleanse traits.... which is more than enought to cleanse for you even in outnumbered situations. If you pair that with the permaprotection from Cover of Shadows, you become near impossible to kill.

Also when using "Witdraw" and "Roll for initiative" with Trickster trait, you loose your weakness to roots and you gain alot of mobility for sticky situations. If you dont run this, a single root can be a deathsentence, if your "Blindingpowder" or "HIS" and the correlated stealth will not cleanse the root when going in stealth. Roots prevent you from dodging, and therefore they completly disable your 2 cleansetraits "escapist fortitude" and "shadowsembrace"(you can still procc it with HIS and Blindingpowder, but it forces you to heal or use your stunbreaks (blindingpower ; shadowstep) for every root.....). A single root can mean death for this build, as it prevents stealthing and cleansing at the same time.

If you run tricks you can then go for aristocracy and can reach your 25 might this way, while gaining permanent protection and loosing your weakness to roots. Having +92% mightduration from Aristocracy rune helps A TON. While antitoxin is overkill if you are choosing the right traits.

If we compare ups and downs:

Antitoxin:  will have better constant cleansing when doing your boundingdodger combos, But it still doesnt deal with your only weakness which is roots.  But you can run bountiful theft, which means you steal 2 boons with steal. (the vigor doesnt matter that much, as energysigils and Nourishment will keep you at 3 dodges constantly if played right.) And you have the option to use Unload for a better burst. You have 50% might duration less. that means a unload will give you 8 might for 8 seconds(when all bullets hit). battle will give 5 might for ~16 seconds. That means that sigil of battle cant even sustain 10 might on you. (9 seconds for weaponswitch -> for constant 10 might you need atleast 18 seconds duration). That means to reliably go to 25 might, you need to first be in combat for atleast 9 seconds to procc your battlesigil twice, from here on you have a 7 second window where you have to ATLEAST hit 2 unloads with 15 of those bullets landing or with atleast 12 bullets landing followed by steal, to even have a chance to reach 25 might... If you miss the 7 second window where your sigil of battle will only give 10 might, you need a third Unload....AND IF you manage to hit 25 might... you will have those for a whooping ~5 seconds AT BEST.....but only if all the stars align and your enemy is not dodging any bullets from Unload(keep in mind you use 12-18 initiative to reach this might... and its not even certain, that the required 15(or more) bullets connect! So this is a HUUGE gamble!)

tldr: the might needs ALOT of investment and is not even guaranteed; holding  permanent 25 might is highly unrealistic. And you have no protection at all which is a flat +30% strikedamage that this build will receive compared to mine.

 

aristocracy: 92% might duration, means you get 5 might for 21 seconds just from swapping weapons... just swapping weapons will have you sitting at 10 stacks for 5 seconds and then 15 stacks for 4 second, never dipping lower than that. Pairing that with your weakness on dodge you sit at GUARANTEED permanent 25 might after your second opener, and you dont have to use unload or any initiative on it, AND IT CAN NOT BE DODGED, so its guarantueed!  For example: If you open with "smokescreen" you can then immediately use unload, because you saved initiative thanks to not using pistol 5 for smokefield and then do your standard rotation, you will have: aristo[5] sigil of battle[5] steal [3] Unload [8] = 21 Might. That is a jump to 21 might within the first second of battle, just with your initial opener... after your second opener you will be sitting on 25 might permanently and you wont ever drop below that. You have only used a total of 6 initiative for this! Furthermore this arrange of traits and Utilityskills manages to "work around" this builds biggest weakness, which is root. The build has 3 cleanse traits which is more than enough to cleanse for you even in outnumbered situations, even without antitoxin.  +you gain Permanent protection which is just flat -30% strikedamage.

tldr: you will be sitting at 25 might permanently, even without investing any initiative into it. It just happens passively via your diffrent trait and rune interactions and sigil of battle giving 21 seconds of might. Cleanse is more than enough with 3 cleanse traits. You are not weak against roots anymore. You have permanent protection. Your Healskill has 20 second CD instead of 30 which results in alot more sustain and mobility thanks to 2 rollbacks and extra cleanses. Even without antitoxin, this build can dish out comparable ammout of cleanses, just with smart trait and utilityskill choices.

 

Choice is yours... but in my books the aristocracy build is WAYYYY better, simply because the might is more reliable / cant be dodged and requires no intiative investment. Because you no longer need the initiative to gain your might, you can trade the spare initiative for protection via choosing the protection trait, which is something you will for sure benefit from. It takes the "gambling" out of the build. it trades "mayyybe might" for a guaranteed flat -30% strikedamage. The build will all around perform more reliable, be tankier and it covers its glaring weaknesses, being lack of mobility and roots.

Another tip i can give you when you still struggle with condis is, to run shadowsrejuvenation and then switch smokescreen to sigil of agility. This way you have another panick button against conditions and specifically roots, but loose the permaprotection and projectiledenial....  You should not struggle against condis with the build i linked tho, because LITERALLY every utilityskill is a cleanse. When you dodge a skill during Withdraw and roll for initiative they even cleanse 2 extra conditions t ontop of removing roots thanks to the interaction with escapist fortitude and trickster, that is 3+ potention conditions lost. Your evades cleanse and your stealth cleanses yet again 2 conditions.... you HAVE to run aristocracy tho, as the interaction between the trait "weakening strikes" and aristocracy rune, paired with 92% +mightduration produces insane ammounts of might and therefore damage.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[captrowdy.9561]

13 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

xDD

Here we go! Let me explain why everything youve said, is a joke at best.

Okey.... first of all....are you atleast aware that since almost 2 months your whole GM trait is not working..... AND YOUR BUILD STILL PERFORMS?

imagine any other build not having their GM-Trait..... just imagine how bad those builds would be...... meanwhile Harbinger mains dont even notice that something is completly not working....THATS HOW BAD THE BALANCING IS!  even without a GM-Trait it still is considered one of, if not, THE best roamingbuild....

"just cleanse smart and be aggressive....."   Yeah.... good luck cleansing when you are hit by a invisible gravity well on a 20 second cooldown... Or good luck reflecting his projectiles... oh wait... YOU CANT.... but atleast you can see when he is in shroud..... right.... right?  YOU CANT EVEN SEE WHEN HES IN SHROUD ANYMORE. The spec is a buggy and overpowered mess......

not evasive or mobilespec... meanwhile voracious arc is hitting you for 6k on a celebuild, while being a movementskill, evadeframe,dealing torment, and dazing.... ON A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN....

oh and the healskill..... name 1 skill that heals 10k (with regen) on a 20 second cooldown... while applying poison, and hitting upwards of 3,5k on a celebuild....  ILL WAIT!

 

Some Harbingermains dont realize that 90% of builds CAN NOT DEAL WITH THIS. They see that they are indeed dying to those 10% (if those 10% play better than them ofc) and think that Harbinger has counters and that other people could do this aswell.... But thats wrong. most build dont have the tools to deal with this. When you win against 90% of people running around simply because of the fact that you decided to play 🍔... there might be something wrong.

You need to understand that 90% of people dont have a chance even when they are doing everything right and applying your "tips". The sheer ammount of pressure and the sustainwall, that Harbinger has, paired with celestial is like a brickwall to most builds. If they are lucky they can run away. But 90% of builds have no chance winning a fair 1 on1 fight. NOT HAPPENING.

Just look at pvp. It has received some massive nerfs there and its on par with otherspecs (remember WIHTOUT a GM-trait still)... but the WvW version dodged all of those nerfs and is still reaking havoc.... now we add celestial ontop and you have a spec that is completly dominating even without a GM-trait...

 

How much time have you spent playing harb in wvw? I struggled with them so I made a cele one and tried it. They are actually pretty easy to go against. Would rather deal with that then a ele or ranger. Harb is actually a lot of fun and I play it a lot now. Yes the elite is ridiculous. How someone put this in the game and thought it was on is mind boggling. 

[Shroud.2307]

14 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

xDD

Here we go! Let me explain why everything youve said, is a joke at best.

Okey.... first of all....are you atleast aware that since almost 2 months your whole GM trait is not working..... AND YOUR BUILD STILL PERFORMS?

imagine any other build not having their GM-Trait..... just imagine how bad those builds would be...... meanwhile Harbinger mains dont even notice that something is completly not working....THATS HOW BAD THE BALANCING IS!  even without a GM-Trait it still is considered one of, if not, THE best roamingbuild....

"just cleanse smart and be aggressive....."   Yeah.... good luck cleansing when you are hit by a invisible gravity well on a 20 second cooldown... Or good luck reflecting his projectiles... oh wait... YOU CANT.... but atleast you can see when he is in shroud..... right.... right?  YOU CANT EVEN SEE WHEN HES IN SHROUD ANYMORE. The spec is a buggy and overpowered mess......

not evasive or mobilespec... meanwhile voracious arc is hitting you for 6k on a celebuild, while being a movementskill, evadeframe,dealing torment, and dazing.... ON A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN....

oh and the healskill..... name 1 skill that heals 10k (with regen) on a 20 second cooldown... while applying poison, and hitting upwards of 3,5k on a celebuild....  ILL WAIT!

 

Some Harbingermains dont realize that 90% of builds CAN NOT DEAL WITH THIS. They see that they are indeed dying to those 10% (if those 10% play better than them ofc) and think that Harbinger has counters and that other people could do this aswell.... But thats wrong. most build dont have the tools to deal with this. When you win against 90% of people running around simply because of the fact that you decided to play 🍔... there might be something wrong.

You need to understand that 90% of people dont have a chance even when they are doing everything right and applying your "tips". The sheer ammount of pressure and the sustainwall, that Harbinger has, paired with celestial is like a brickwall to most builds. If they are lucky they can run away. But 90% of builds have no chance winning a fair 1 on1 fight. NOT HAPPENING.

Just look at pvp. It has received some massive nerfs there and its on par with otherspecs (remember WIHTOUT a GM-trait still)... but the WvW version dodged all of those nerfs and is still reaking havoc.... now we add celestial ontop and you have a spec that is completly dominating even without a GM-trait...

 

I want to start by saying that I'm not a Harbinger main, I'm a Necro main. Most of my time is on core Power. Sometimes core Condi, sometimes Power or hybrid Reaper. Never liked Scourge and didn't play a lot of Harbinger, but enough to know what it could do.

I started by agreeing that it's busted, so I don't know why you've gone on this spiel like I'd said it's perfectly balanced. I'm only making the point that everything has weaknesses and Harbinger is no different.

The only reason 

Quote

90% of builds CAN NOT DEAL WITH THIS.

is because 90% of players are built like they're in open world PvE.

I've never been a very good player, but capable enough to handle myself while roaming with extremely shoddy builds. I never had issues fighting Cele Harbs with core Power Engi (which had literally a single cleanse from Cleansing Sigil), and core Power Necro literally 3 shot most of the ones I fought. 
It's not unkillable, it just has very high pressure at range. Don't let it ramp up damage and it's a lot easier to deal with is all I'm saying. Not that it isn't busted.

The real issue here is that so many players react like yourself. Never willing to take responsibility for your decisions or to listen to advice. You just want to point fingers and call it a day because it's easier than admitting you're not as good as you think you are.

[Telgum.6071]

Absolutely destroyed a Reaper from a known EU K-train guild this night, so the guy decided to come back on his condition set with Harbinger and suddenly a guy who was less skilled destroyed me... seems like double cleanse sigil and 5s of projectile hate is no longer an option. Funny how when Anet decides to remove condi Core/Scourge from the roaming/pvp scene is exactly at the same time Harbinger is introduced to the game.

Not OP at all, as some people of this subforum would say, Marauder stats are the same than Celestial and Trailblazer.

Edited August 25, 2022 by Telgum.6071
Typo

[SleepyBat.9034]

On 8/24/2022 at 3:56 AM, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

The cele dual pistol daredevil build that's floating around actually has a good matchup into cele harbinger, because it stays at range and applies constant bleed while passively cleansing everything the harbinger does. Bound + antitoxin runes + new shadow arts = up to 6 condis cleansed per stealth rotation, make sure to stand in the black powder as you sneak attack for even more blind spam. That said, that build is also utter cheese so probably isn't the best measure of things haha. 

That does sound like a cheese build haha. I just remembered that stealth thieves are the most annoying class to fight on Harbinger because most of your skills can't hit them in stealth. I run Pistol/Dagger, Axe/Focus.

[ZTeamG.4603]

The problem isn't really harbinger, but celestial. Harbinger has no good answer for projectile denial (a half decent tempest invalidates the spec) and struggles to stay alive in any stats other than celestial/trailblazer. Plenty of other classes in cele gear will dominate non-celes. 

Harb elite and Harb Shroud 5 could use nerfs, but a run of the mill celeharb isn't more oppressive than, say, a cele specter or celemech.

Plus, harb has a lot less mobility than most others.  

  

What Anet really ought to do is just decrease celestial equipment stats by 10 to 20% in WvW. That would bring most of the overtuned roaming specs in line.

[SleepyBat.9034]

On 8/24/2022 at 1:52 AM, Sahne.6950 said:

HAHA!

You mean: "When it gets to the point where it's normal to win a 1v2, Without even running a-GM trait, you know somethings needs to change haha.

That trait is only half broken haha.

[SleepyBat.9034]

17 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

 

xDD

Here we go! Let me explain why everything youve said, is a joke at best.

Okey.... first of all....are you atleast aware that since almost 2 months your whole GM trait is not working..... AND YOUR BUILD STILL PERFORMS?

imagine any other build not having their GM-Trait..... just imagine how bad those builds would be...... meanwhile Harbinger mains dont even notice that something is completly not working....THATS HOW BAD THE BALANCING IS!  even without a GM-Trait it still is considered one of, if not, THE best roamingbuild....

"just cleanse smart and be aggressive....."   Yeah.... good luck cleansing when you are hit by a invisible gravity well on a 20 second cooldown... Or good luck reflecting his projectiles... oh wait... YOU CANT.... but atleast you can see when he is in shroud..... right.... right?  YOU CANT EVEN SEE WHEN HES IN SHROUD ANYMORE. The spec is a buggy and overpowered mess......

not evasive or mobilespec... meanwhile voracious arc is hitting you for 6k on a celebuild, while being a movementskill, evadeframe,dealing torment, and dazing.... ON A 10 SECOND COOLDOWN....

oh and the healskill..... name 1 skill that heals 10k (with regen) on a 20 second cooldown... while applying poison, and hitting upwards of 3,5k on a celebuild....  ILL WAIT!

 

Some Harbingermains dont realize that 90% of builds CAN NOT DEAL WITH THIS. They see that they are indeed dying to those 10% (if those 10% play better than them ofc) and think that Harbinger has counters and that other people could do this aswell.... But thats wrong. most build dont have the tools to deal with this. When you win against 90% of people running around simply because of the fact that you decided to play 🍔... there might be something wrong.

You need to understand that 90% of people dont have a chance even when they are doing everything right and applying your "tips". The sheer ammount of pressure and the sustainwall, that Harbinger has, paired with celestial is like a brickwall to most builds. If they are lucky they can run away. But 90% of builds have no chance winning a fair 1 on1 fight. NOT HAPPENING.

Just look at pvp. It has received some massive nerfs there and its on par with otherspecs (remember WIHTOUT a GM-trait still)... but the WvW version dodged all of those nerfs and is still reaking havoc.... now we add celestial ontop and you have a spec that is completly dominating even without a GM-trait...

 

I feel like I should point out that even if the gm trait did work fully it wouldn't actually make that much difference because the part that didn't work was mostly overkill already.

[SleepyBat.9034]

11 minutes ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

What Anet really ought to do is just decrease celestial equipment stats by 10 to 20% in WvW. That would bring most of the overtuned roaming specs in line.

I really hate to say it because it's fun playing cele builds but I agree, I just hope they don't overdo it.

[captrowdy.9561]

2 hours ago, ZTeamG.4603 said:

The problem isn't really harbinger, but celestial. Harbinger has no good answer for projectile denial (a half decent tempest invalidates the spec) and struggles to stay alive in any stats other than celestial/trailblazer. Plenty of other classes in cele gear will dominate non-celes. 

Harb elite and Harb Shroud 5 could use nerfs, but a run of the mill celeharb isn't more oppressive than, say, a cele specter or celemech.

Plus, harb has a lot less mobility than most others.  

  

What Anet really ought to do is just decrease celestial equipment stats by 10 to 20% in WvW. That would bring most of the overtuned roaming specs in line.

I don’t get the cele hate. It has one use and that’s roaming wvw.  Maybe open world pve. I don’t mind fighting cele builds on my power warrior,rev,reaper but I enjoy the set on a lot of classes. Roaming is already hard enough now and cele helps.  

[Jugglemonkey.8741]

18 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PagAorlNwAZdsNGJe0W7NdA-z1IY1okvMysAKNEcfWqSaDA-w Thats what i am running.    (textwall, but it has tldr´s if you lazy. ^_^)

Just a headsup: this build doenst struggle against condis, it struggles against roots. You dont need more cleanse, you need a way to reliably remove roots.

I use Cover of shadow to have permanent protection ontop of all the degenerate sustain. 😄 I can not use Unload as i would not have enough initiative to do the evadedance infinitely. But i dont even have and want to use it, as it solely scales off power, and i do not want to rely on a "power-only" skill to stack my might. I tried what you are probably running now and i thought its WAYYY to overkill on the cleanse, while the might generation is too easily countered via dodges and blocks and it also requires you to burn initiative to even gain the chance at 25 might. And it is too easily shut down by roots. Any good player will bleed you out pretty fast and then finish you with a single root.

Let me explain to you why i run this specifically and why i think its alot stronger, especially against more skilled opponents and people that know how to counter the build.

My build has trickster, shadowsembrace and escapist fortitude. That is 3 cleanse traits.... which is more than enought to cleanse for you even in outnumbered situations. If you pair that with the permaprotection from Cover of Shadows, you become near impossible to kill.

Also when using "Witdraw" and "Roll for initiative" with Trickster trait, you loose your weakness to roots and you gain alot of mobility for sticky situations. If you dont run this, a single root can be a deathsentence, if your "Blindingpowder" or "HIS" and the correlated stealth will not cleanse the root when going in stealth. Roots prevent you from dodging, and therefore they completly disable your 2 cleansetraits "escapist fortitude" and "shadowsembrace"(you can still procc it with HIS and Blindingpowder, but it forces you to heal or use your stunbreaks (blindingpower ; shadowstep) for every root.....). A single root can mean death for this build, as it prevents stealthing and cleansing at the same time.

If you run tricks you can then go for aristocracy and can reach your 25 might this way, while gaining permanent protection and loosing your weakness to roots. Having +92% mightduration from Aristocracy rune helps A TON. While antitoxin is overkill if you are choosing the right traits.

If we compare ups and downs:

Antitoxin:  will have better constant cleansing when doing your boundingdodger combos, But it still doesnt deal with your only weakness which is roots.  But you can run bountiful theft, which means you steal 2 boons with steal. (the vigor doesnt matter that much, as energysigils and Nourishment will keep you at 3 dodges constantly if played right.) And you have the option to use Unload for a better burst. You have 50% might duration less. that means a unload will give you 8 might for 8 seconds(when all bullets hit). battle will give 5 might for ~16 seconds. That means that sigil of battle cant even sustain 10 might on you. (9 seconds for weaponswitch -> for constant 10 might you need atleast 18 seconds duration). That means to reliably go to 25 might, you need to first be in combat for atleast 9 seconds to procc your battlesigil twice, from here on you have a 7 second window where you have to ATLEAST hit 2 unloads with 15 of those bullets landing or with atleast 12 bullets landing followed by steal, to even have a chance to reach 25 might... If you miss the 7 second window where your sigil of battle will only give 10 might, you need a third Unload....AND IF you manage to hit 25 might... you will have those for a whooping ~5 seconds AT BEST.....but only if all the stars align and your enemy is not dodging any bullets from Unload(keep in mind you use 12-18 initiative to reach this might... and its not even certain, that the required 15(or more) bullets connect! So this is a HUUGE gamble!)

tldr: the might needs ALOT of investment and is not even guaranteed; holding  permanent 25 might is highly unrealistic. And you have no protection at all which is a flat +30% strikedamage that this build will receive compared to mine.

 

aristocracy: 92% might duration, means you get 5 might for 21 seconds just from swapping weapons... just swapping weapons will have you sitting at 10 stacks for 5 seconds and then 15 stacks for 4 second, never dipping lower than that. Pairing that with your weakness on dodge you sit at GUARANTEED permanent 25 might after your second opener, and you dont have to use unload or any initiative on it, AND IT CAN NOT BE DODGED, so its guarantueed!  For example: If you open with "smokescreen" you can then immediately use unload, because you saved initiative thanks to not using pistol 5 for smokefield and then do your standard rotation, you will have: aristo[5] sigil of battle[5] steal [3] Unload [8] = 21 Might. That is a jump to 21 might within the first second of battle, just with your initial opener... after your second opener you will be sitting on 25 might permanently and you wont ever drop below that. You have only used a total of 6 initiative for this! Furthermore this arrange of traits and Utilityskills manages to "work around" this builds biggest weakness, which is root. The build has 3 cleanse traits which is more than enough to cleanse for you even in outnumbered situations, even without antitoxin.  +you gain Permanent protection which is just flat -30% strikedamage.

tldr: you will be sitting at 25 might permanently, even without investing any initiative into it. It just happens passively via your diffrent trait and rune interactions and sigil of battle giving 21 seconds of might. Cleanse is more than enough with 3 cleanse traits. You are not weak against roots anymore. You have permanent protection. Your Healskill has 20 second CD instead of 30 which results in alot more sustain and mobility thanks to 2 rollbacks and extra cleanses. Even without antitoxin, this build can dish out comparable ammout of cleanses, just with smart trait and utilityskill choices.

 

Choice is yours... but in my books the aristocracy build is WAYYYY better, simply because the might is more reliable / cant be dodged and requires no intiative investment. Because you no longer need the initiative to gain your might, you can trade the spare initiative for protection via choosing the protection trait, which is something you will for sure benefit from. It takes the "gambling" out of the build. it trades "mayyybe might" for a guaranteed flat -30% strikedamage. The build will all around perform more reliable, be tankier and it covers its glaring weaknesses, being lack of mobility and roots.

Another tip i can give you when you still struggle with condis is, to run shadowsrejuvenation and then switch smokescreen to sigil of agility. This way you have another panick button against conditions and specifically roots, but loose the permaprotection and projectiledenial....  You should not struggle against condis with the build i linked tho, because LITERALLY every utilityskill is a cleanse. When you dodge a skill during Withdraw and roll for initiative they even cleanse 2 extra conditions t ontop of removing roots thanks to the interaction with escapist fortitude and trickster, that is 3+ potention conditions lost. Your evades cleanse and your stealth cleanses yet again 2 conditions.... you HAVE to run aristocracy tho, as the interaction between the trait "weakening strikes" and aristocracy rune, paired with 92% +mightduration produces insane ammounts of might and therefore damage.

Well, what you're saying is correct if I was running the build you think I am, but by the sounds of it I'm not. I'm running this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAoqVlNwEZbsOGJecX3NbA-z1IY1o7/YaTBEoEITRQvChsFUS+AEufLVpsBA-w

I'm already running withdraw and roll for initiative over smokescreen as I think smokescreen is a bad choice for this build, so the roots comparison between the two builds is incorrect. I actually have the same amount of root cleanse as you do because roll for ini and withdraw both remove root regardless of trickster and blinding powder along with antitoxin runes will also cleanse roots if you are fast enough. You are correct that roots counter the build in general though, which is why this build struggles more with a well played core necro specced into fear than it does with harbinger. 

I say that smokescreen is a bad choice for the build because all it does is compensate for the loss of initiative caused by not taking the shadow rejuvenation GM trait by allowing you to stealth without casting black powder. The problem is that because you're running P/P & P/P you don't have any way to capitalise on the extra smoke field except for using more dodges, which I already have an advantage over you in since you lack the vigor from bountiful theft. If you ran shortbow offhand then smoke screen would make far more sense, although I'd still argue that blinding powder is a better choice. 

I don't run P/P & P/P, I run P/P & shortbow as the long stealth from black powder > cluster bomb x2 > bound x2 allows for permastealth outside of combat and a full disengage inside combat, which largely deals with the build's lack of mobility when roaming solo. This along with your choice of smokescreen over blinding powder means I have both a stealth (and therefore cleanse) and an initiative advantage over your build, which is why I normally kill thief players running aristocracy runes with few issues. 

Because of my weapon choice I run strength and air sigils on my pistols instead of battle. Strength sigil can maintain 10 stacks of might comfortably as long as you keep attacking so I get the benefits of battle without needing the extra might duration or to swap weapons. Those 10 stacks plus the 3 from thrill of the crime plus 1-2 stacks from dodging means I'm going to be hovering around 10-15 stacks of might during a fight as long as I keep attacking, so a couple of unloads using the extra initiative means my build has just as much might as yours, especially considering that the synergy between aristocracy runes and weakening strikes still requires you to hit the target. 

I find initiative on stealth far and away more useful than protection on any build because of the flexibility it offers. Your build would lose to my build primarily because the extra initiative would allow me to precast bolas shot before every sneak attack to root you and force you to eat the burst, which puts a lot more pressure on you than the protection access would alleviate. 

Lastly, you're overestimating the value of the might stacks considering the strength of the build isn't burst, it's the fact it can keep 5-8 bleeds on a target constantly which overpowers an opponent's cleanses over time. Anything that builds into the sustain of the build is therefore going to be of more value than building into burst, which again is why I favour antitoxin over aristocracy. That extra cleanse is also really helpful vs harbinger which is why I mentioned the build in the first place. 

[Guirssane.7082]

7 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

I want to start by saying that I'm not a Harbinger main, I'm a Necro main. Most of my time is on core Power. Sometimes core Condi, sometimes Power or hybrid Reaper. Never liked Scourge and didn't play a lot of Harbinger, but enough to know what it could do.

I started by agreeing that it's busted, so I don't know why you've gone on this spiel like I'd said it's perfectly balanced. I'm only making the point that everything has weaknesses and Harbinger is no different.

The only reason 

is because 90% of players are built like they're in open world PvE.

I've never been a very good player, but capable enough to handle myself while roaming with extremely shoddy builds. I never had issues fighting Cele Harbs with core Power Engi (which had literally a single cleanse from Cleansing Sigil), and core Power Necro literally 3 shot most of the ones I fought. 
It's not unkillable, it just has very high pressure at range. Don't let it ramp up damage and it's a lot easier to deal with is all I'm saying. Not that it isn't busted.

The real issue here is that so many players react like yourself. Never willing to take responsibility for your decisions or to listen to advice. You just want to point fingers and call it a day because it's easier than admitting you're not as good as you think you are.

Post a vid of you beating a good cele Harb with a power engi, I'm curious. 

[Sahne.6950]

1 hour ago, Jugglemonkey.8741 said:

Well, what you're saying is correct if I was running the build you think I am, but by the sounds of it I'm not. I'm running this:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PawAoqVlNwEZbsOGJecX3NbA-z1IY1o7/YaTBEoEITRQvChsFUS+AEufLVpsBA-w

I'm already running withdraw and roll for initiative over smokescreen as I think smokescreen is a bad choice for this build, so the roots comparison between the two builds is incorrect. I actually have the same amount of root cleanse as you do because roll for ini and withdraw both remove root regardless of trickster and blinding powder along with antitoxin runes will also cleanse roots if you are fast enough. You are correct that roots counter the build in general though, which is why this build struggles more with a well played core necro specced into fear than it does with harbinger. 

I say that smokescreen is a bad choice for the build because all it does is compensate for the loss of initiative caused by not taking the shadow rejuvenation GM trait by allowing you to stealth without casting black powder. The problem is that because you're running P/P & P/P you don't have any way to capitalise on the extra smoke field except for using more dodges, which I already have an advantage over you in since you lack the vigor from bountiful theft. If you ran shortbow offhand then smoke screen would make far more sense, although I'd still argue that blinding powder is a better choice. 

I don't run P/P & P/P, I run P/P & shortbow as the long stealth from black powder > cluster bomb x2 > bound x2 allows for permastealth outside of combat and a full disengage inside combat, which largely deals with the build's lack of mobility when roaming solo. This along with your choice of smokescreen over blinding powder means I have both a stealth (and therefore cleanse) and an initiative advantage over your build, which is why I normally kill thief players running aristocracy runes with few issues. 

Because of my weapon choice I run strength and air sigils on my pistols instead of battle. Strength sigil can maintain 10 stacks of might comfortably as long as you keep attacking so I get the benefits of battle without needing the extra might duration or to swap weapons. Those 10 stacks plus the 3 from thrill of the crime plus 1-2 stacks from dodging means I'm going to be hovering around 10-15 stacks of might during a fight as long as I keep attacking, so a couple of unloads using the extra initiative means my build has just as much might as yours, especially considering that the synergy between aristocracy runes and weakening strikes still requires you to hit the target. 

I find initiative on stealth far and away more useful than protection on any build because of the flexibility it offers. Your build would lose to my build primarily because the extra initiative would allow me to precast bolas shot before every sneak attack to root you and force you to eat the burst, which puts a lot more pressure on you than the protection access would alleviate. 

Lastly, you're overestimating the value of the might stacks considering the strength of the build isn't burst, it's the fact it can keep 5-8 bleeds on a target constantly which overpowers an opponent's cleanses over time. Anything that builds into the sustain of the build is therefore going to be of more value than building into burst, which again is why I favour antitoxin over aristocracy. That extra cleanse is also really helpful vs harbinger which is why I mentioned the build in the first place. 

Good explanation why you use what you use! <3

Yeah shortbow offhand is usefull for the permastealth, but i like the p/p+p/p setup more.

Overall id say its preference ^_^ But your reasoning definitely make sense and i can relate to that.

 

Good luck hunting!

[Sahne.6950]

8 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

I want to start by saying that I'm not a Harbinger main, I'm a Necro main. Most of my time is on core Power. Sometimes core Condi, sometimes Power or hybrid Reaper. Never liked Scourge and didn't play a lot of Harbinger, but enough to know what it could do.

I started by agreeing that it's busted, so I don't know why you've gone on this spiel like I'd said it's perfectly balanced. I'm only making the point that everything has weaknesses and Harbinger is no different.

The only reason 

is because 90% of players are built like they're in open world PvE.

I've never been a very good player, but capable enough to handle myself while roaming with extremely shoddy builds. I never had issues fighting Cele Harbs with core Power Engi (which had literally a single cleanse from Cleansing Sigil), and core Power Necro literally 3 shot most of the ones I fought. 
It's not unkillable, it just has very high pressure at range. Don't let it ramp up damage and it's a lot easier to deal with is all I'm saying. Not that it isn't busted.

The real issue here is that so many players react like yourself. Never willing to take responsibility for your decisions or to listen to advice. You just want to point fingers and call it a day because it's easier than admitting you're not as good as you think you are.

Hey im sorry, didnt want to make it sound like that you dont agree with it being busted...

 

but you keep saying that you think its busted.... and then you say things like this:

8 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

I've never been a very good player, but.......

......I never had issues fighting Cele Harbs with core Power Engi

You can beat celeharbinger with core engi.... Guess we have to nerf Core engie if you a so called "never been a very good player" can beat celeharbinger without problems with core engie....  You 100% have to show footage of this xD cuz i dont believe you.

The real issues here is not that i dont take responsibility for my own mistakes.... i am literally playing Tempest which shreds harbinger thanks to +100% projectilehate uptime....

The real issue here is that Harbinger is shamelessly overtuned and some peopel act like its a piece of cake killing them... even with CORE ENGIE.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[Sahne.6950]

9 hours ago, captrowdy.9561 said:

How much time have you spent playing harb in wvw? I struggled with them so I made a cele one and tried it. They are actually pretty easy to go against. Would rather deal with that then a ele or ranger. Harb is actually a lot of fun and I play it a lot now. Yes the elite is ridiculous. How someone put this in the game and thought it was on is mind boggling. 

I played it a tiny bit, id say something like 15 hours of roaming or something and then i got bored xD As a passionate ele player... i fall asleep playing necro....  

i was using the aristocracy build. But since "weakening shroud" is bugged this build is no longer worth it.

Since then cant stack 25 might anymore... so alot of peopel gravitate towards rune of speed or antitoxin, which is arguably worse, cuz you dont dish out the damage that you used too.

As soon as Weakening shroud is fixed. Harbinger can play aristocracy again, I am specifically talking about the arisotcracy build when i mention harbinger, altho it is not viable currently due to the bug.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Sahne.6950

[kamikharzeeh.8016]

joke thread once again. i checked the arcdps stats many times, whenever there's a harbinger in squad, u can be lucky if he's even above the support classes on their minstrel gear in terms of dps output lul

 

cele gear with the extra stats is annoying for full handkite bunkers who basically focus on running across half of the map

 

but harbinger is worst necro specs existing yet, so idk. and celestial is only for roaming, so w/e, why even wasting a thought on that.

 

there's like 200 roamingbuilds that could/should be nerfed into oblivion, especially condibunkers and other selfish sustain. just anet seems to not react at all towards these kinda builds, they only try to destroy group comps and buff numbers, so random garbo blobs win against zergs even by now in many cases, if u dont manage to split them up and kite them over a 10k distance

 

so ye, balance is quite sh#t atm, gg balance team.

[Rokeb.3815]

It must be overpowered - I'm a noob and I've managed to kill people. (Just made rank 40!)

 

Why just today I had some 'Gold general' message me with salty tears that elixirs are overpowered.  Obviously Cele harbinger with traveler runes being broken is why he died.

 

It couldn't have been that he decided to initiate a 1 v 3 vs roamers and then run down a dead end tunnel.

That couldn't have been it.

Edited August 26, 2022 by Rokeb.3815
Poor grammar.

[captrowdy.9561]

Roaming is basically a bunch of broke builds. We have the unkillable eles,rangers,and mech warriors. 
 

[Shroud.2307]

19 hours ago, Sahne.6950 said:

Hey im sorry, didnt want to make it sound like that you dont agree with it being busted...

 

but you keep saying that you think its busted.... and then you say things like this:

You can beat celeharbinger with core engi.... Guess we have to nerf Core engie if you a so called "never been a very good player" can beat celeharbinger without problems with core engie....  You 100% have to show footage of this xD cuz i dont believe you.

The real issues here is not that i dont take responsibility for my own mistakes.... i am literally playing Tempest which shreds harbinger thanks to +100% projectilehate uptime....

The real issue here is that Harbinger is shamelessly overtuned and some peopel act like its a piece of cake killing them... even with CORE ENGIE.

Wish I could make a vid for you, but I haven't played in 6 months and I'm not able to either.

It's exactly as I'd said though. Be aggressive. My Engi build has a lot of damage ( 1 ) ( 2 ) and several CC's. My CC's are a lot more dangerous than a Cele Harbi's CC's because a nade Barrage or Pry Bar can cut your health clean in half even with a lot of armor. 
Sometimes I'd opt for Supply Crate if I felt the fight might go a little longer, but generally I preferred Elixir X for the versatility of the elite and how often Moa could insta-win a fight if waiting for the right moment.

And you said yourself, you shred Harbi's. So it has it's weaknesses.

Busted/broken, OP, etc. doesn't mean a given build will have 100% success. It just means it's low risk/high reward and most counters will be soft counters. Cele Harbi can still be dunked with the right builds, it's just obnoxious because it snowballs fights way harder than pretty much anything else. Once you're on the backfoot it's really hard to recover from the constant barrage of Torment and cover Condi's. Either flat out disengage if you have the mobility, or hard abuse LOS. Otherwise, the best way to fight it is high damage, aggression, projectile hate, and CC's.

EDIT:
Here's an old unlisted vid if you want to see the damage. Pointless zerging junk, but it gives you an idea of how I might be able to delete a Harbi.

Edited August 27, 2022 by Shroud.2307

[Zyreva.1078]

7 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

And you said yourself, you shred Harbi's. So it has it's weaknesses.

Busted/broken, OP, etc. doesn't mean a given build will have 100% success.

That's more a matter of wvw being full of bad players on bad builds (and uneven fights) than something busted having reasonable "counters".

Any decent harbinger would eat your engi alive, it has all the tools it needs to deal with budget nade scrappers, not so much the other way arround.

Generally sustain (cele) beats glass, so just because you can sometimes catch players off guard and kill them with glass builds doesn't mean they are a counter (and cele harb is actually one of the best at turning arround a fight after getting bursted, it is not more suscectible to surprise burst than anything else).

Edited August 27, 2022 by UmbraNoctis.1907

[Strider Pj.2193]

8 hours ago, Shroud.2307 said:

Wish I could make a vid for you, but I haven't played in 6 months and I'm not able to either.

It's exactly as I'd said though.

Ummm..  What??

 

So..  ‘use my build that hasn’t actually been tested by me against this class.  Because I just know it’ll work.’

 

🙄🤦‍♂️