How to Enable Support Harbinger

[frazazel.7501]

If support Harbinger is ever going to be a thing, it will have to compete with Scourge, which can provide a staggering amount of barrier and remove conditions, all without having to go into a dps-focused shroud. Harbinger needs more than a support weapon; that will help Scourge more than it will help Harbinger. Harbinger needs a trait rework.

Most of Harbinger's traits are actually used in PvE builds. It has 3 power dps traits, 3 condi dps traits, and 3 boon traits. Only the last 2 boon traits are actually used by quick dps Harbingers, so we can change the 1st boon trait without changing the balance of boon dps or pure dps Harbingers.

I propose the following: Change Bolstering Brew to "Gain increased healing based on your blight stacks. Heal nearby allies whenever you gain lifeforce, based on the amount gained.", and move elixirs granting protection into the master trait Twisted Medicine (slightly buffing quick dps Harbinger).

This would encourage you to play with weapons/skills/traits that provide life force, and it would encourage you to go into shroud frequently to drain your lifeforce so that you can gain it again (which you already want to be doing to upkeep quickness). You control your lifeforce gain to a significant degree, and lifeforce is a core necro feature that will continue to see support going forward as new stuff for our builds continues to come out.

This could allow for a few different builds. Blood and Soul Reaping would be obvious choices for their direct healing and lifeforce abilities. Death Magic could also be viable in some cases where burst healing is preferred over sustained healing (since you can gain lifeforce based on Carapace stacks when entering shroud). Weapons and utilities can be chosen for their effects, but also for their lifeforce gain.

What do you guys think? Does this sound good, or would it create a healer that is too passive in its healing?

[borisslav.9026]

I would go with an even simpler solution here. Bolstering Brew is pretty useless right now -- you'd go with Wicked Corruption if you're playing power or power quick, and Septic Corruption if you're playing condi or condi quick; there's no reason to go for Bolstering Brew whatsoever. Why not change it from 'Elixir skills grant protection' to 'Elixir skills grant protection and heal allies in the impact zone of the elixir. Gain increased healing power for each stack of blight you have' and you get your heal quick necromancer spec ready. You still have to play around your blight and manage your stacks, you trade off some utility for more healing, you'll be dipping in and out of shroud to build up blight and potentially trigger your Life From Death. It would feel very different to Scourge in terms of play. 

[XECOR.2814]

Harbinger heal support is a meme as it should be. There is no place for it.

[frazazel.7501]

15 hours ago, borisslav.9026 said:

I would go with an even simpler solution here. Bolstering Brew is pretty useless right now -- you'd go with Wicked Corruption if you're playing power or power quick, and Septic Corruption if you're playing condi or condi quick; there's no reason to go for Bolstering Brew whatsoever. Why not change it from 'Elixir skills grant protection' to 'Elixir skills grant protection and heal allies in the impact zone of the elixir. Gain increased healing power for each stack of blight you have' and you get your heal quick necromancer spec ready. You still have to play around your blight and manage your stacks, you trade off some utility for more healing, you'll be dipping in and out of shroud to build up blight and potentially trigger your Life From Death. It would feel very different to Scourge in terms of play. 

Yeah, putting the healing on elixirs could work, but it means that your only healing while in shroud is transfusion (on your voracious arc's 10s cd), and you need a lot of shroud uptime to keep quickness up. But maybe it would work. You dish out your heals after a big attack, then swap into shroud for as long as possible before the next big attack?

[StraightPath.3972]

How to enable Harb support?
Go back to the drawing board, is what I'm gonna say.

Necro sucks as support by default. A fact Scourge took to heart and  succeeded by being self-aware.
Why did Scourge had such massive ress potential? Because with his terribad stab sharing and non existent stunbreaks for allies
it was clear there were gonna be bodies on the floor.
If you can't prevent kitten from hitting the fan, might as well have a good scrubber and Cleanex handy...

But that's a solution that can be used only one time.
Another necro spec doing the same thing would be redundant.
And if Harb wants to be a support the old traditional way like the rest...
.. that is a very tall mountain to climb.

[mirage.8046]

There'd need to be reworks to harbinger. I don't think that's gonna happen unless anet relooks at traits and shroud. Bolstering Brew could just be merged with Twisted Medicine though. There's no point in making it compete with scourge ngl. Like Scourge, Harbinger has terrible stability output, especially the boon dps variant. At least power harb has stability every 10s when entering shroud! I feel like Harbinger was designed to be an offensive support, well a life-sucking support that drains its health for boons. It's not a reactive defensive elite spec at all that has barriers, stun breaks, or panic buttons. Mass revivals, cleanses, barriers, and a teleport make scourge way more useful than harbinger at preventing damage in the first place.
 

[Purple Effects.2503]

23 hours ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

Necro sucks as support by default. A fact Scourge took to heart and  succeeded by being self-aware

Tbh scourge was a Meta support for quite a period of time, however it took many nerf bats due to how potent it became. 

Which I think is the main issue there

when necromancer becomes a great support, it becomes absolutely dominating. You only rly have to look at wingman statistics during its peak in PoF to see what happens when necromancers become the used support. 

or PvP statistics prior it’s PvP nerfs.

23 hours ago, StraightPath.3972 said:

ut that's a solution that can be used only one time.
Another necro spec doing the same thing would be redundant.
And if Harb wants to be a support the old traditional way like the rest...
.. that is a very tall mountain to climb

In regards to harbinger, I just don’t think it should be a healer realistically. 

turning 2 of 3 elites into a healing support seems weird to me.  Your by design making 1 elite redundant by doing such thing. 1 class doesn’t need 2 healing specs and elites are designed to only cover 2 roles maximum realistically.

scourge is DPS or healer.

Harbinger should be Boon provider or DPS.

and btw, Necromancer during its supporting crown days, wasn’t about its predominant healing, it was because it could output extremely high AoE barrier with emergency high healing periods all while outputting pretty high DPS because of this, you could run more then 1 or even take one to run along side a healer without hampering kill times 

that was scourges niche. To start trying to make Necromancer a full support, sounds like you want a guardian with green aesthetic really, and trying to rework an elite trailine to be competitive in that won’t work.

necromancer would need such a huge rework to make this a realistic option which is proven by the fact the moment our support becomes good, the class becomes in all game modes lol

Edited June 9 by Magmi.6723

[Szatko.8132]

Why would they enable Harbinger to be a viable as a support, if it's never been their intention from the beginning? Harbinger is a dps or qdps spec, that's it. Scourge was the spec for supporting as necro and was designed as such.

[Dadnir.5038]

Harbinger is a "viable" support, just not a "healing support" but a "boon support". Also, being "viable" don't mean being "competitive" (Just like being "viable" and/or "competitive" don't necessarily mean being "fun" to play).

[mirage.8046]

Harbinger is viable, you can make it work as it is. "Support harbinger" does exist anyway if you look at its kit that is geared at damage, boons, and self-sustain.