Harbinger? More like BOONBRINGER, amirite?

[The Boz.2038]

I actually kinda like what I see here. Very glassy, very cannony necro style with a lot of open avenues for actual team boon support. Numbers need some juggling, but other than that, seems real nice.

[Telgum.6071]

Is amazing but extremely unrealistic. The harbinger we are going to play in the beta will surely be different from the final product.

[Obtena.7952]

How are people seeing these things? did I miss something?

Edited August 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

1 minute ago, Obtena.7952 said:

How are people seeing these things? did I miss something?

The preview stream just ended about 20 minutes ago.  We know all the skills and traits now.

FYI, two 900 range movement skills in Harbinger shroud, neither require target.

[FalsePromises.6398]

I've never seen an elite spec that simultaneously looks so disconnected from the game and so unfun, I almost don't even wanna touch it (even as an avid necro fan that finds merit in core necro too). Shroud becomes far less menacing... you get two movement skills, neither of which are scary like death's charge or death's path. You have some pewpew, and what appears to be a rather short radius aoe float. Simultaneously, you're giving up your most potent defense (shroud health) AND reducing your healthpool for doing anything with the shroud or elixirs. You also lose your fear in shroud skills that's been present in every spec? There's a difference between glassy and being simultaneously handicapped and neutered, then dolled up and gassed up like it's the coolest thing. Necro didn't need another support, it had its support niche and it did it well with healscourges. Traits also follow that cookie cutter "this row is for power, this row is for support, this row is for condi" style with lots of static things barring the grandmasters... 

 

Blight should've just been a stacking toughness decrease that could've been counterbalanced by death's carapace (which would remove toughness aggro mechanic concerns with that line), and if they got poison accessibility/buff traits it could've shaken up necro condi dps meta in a new and refreshing way by using the poison/power/death novas from death magic instead of crutching on rapid dhuumfire and soul barbs.

 

Only way they could fix this otherwise is if they make your 6-0 skills accessible in shroud to at the very least make up for the fact you no longer replace health with life force, and even then that's not really enough, blight would prolly have to be halved.

[Obtena.7952]

OK found the chat thing ... just making notes as I listen. 

 

OH YAY ... pre-emptive nerfs for Dhuumfire because of Harbringer inc. 🙄

 

Shroud not absorb DPS ... it's all your HP, all the time. Not sure that's giving me a warm feeling with how blight stacks IN shroud and ON elixer use. Also not liking the idea that blight is a percent based hit to HP. 

 

Also, I don't see a fear effect in Har. Shroud. So that's resulting in a pile useless traits from core already. 

Shroud 3 is just more of the same torment/direct DPS that 1 is so that's a wasted opportunity to do something interesting.

Torment application is noticeably large.

 

Not liking Corrupted Talent as a trait. (if you are >85% LF, it does nothing)

Edited August 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[Ravezaar.4951]

First impression, I dont like it. Also saide note hate the Skill icons for the Elixirs, no flavor or variety other then color. Weak

 

[The Boz.2038]

*REALLY* concerned about lack of fear in Shroud. That is a *core* necro identity thing. Float changed into Fear (and cripple), first change, calling it right now.

[Doni.3402]

19 minutes ago, Obtena.7952 said:

OH YAY ... pre-emptive nerfs for Dhuumfire because of Harbringer inc. 🙄

 

Yeah typical ANET nerfing existing skills or traits because it conflicts with their new designed elite instead of designing the new skills so they work with the existing skills and traits.

[Obtena.7952]

Get your Celestial armors made I guess ... hybrid DPS with need for VIT and boon duration. 

 

Overall .. seems like a pretty 1 dimensional class. Very linear trait choices (condi, direct DPS or elixers). Very safe weapon skills, pretty vanilla elixir implementation. 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Obtena.7952

[SkyCake.4216]

20 minutes ago, Ravezaar.4951 said:

First impression, I dont like it. Also saide note hate the Skill icons for the Elixirs, no flavor or variety other then color. Weak

 

This is certainly something I can agree with. It's not a big deal, but hopefully we can get more variation in the skill icons later on. 

[InsaneQR.7412]

The boon support part is the most interesting part of the spec for me tbh.

 

Otherwise it feels really incongruent. The shroud skills kinda look all over the place. 2 ranged, 2 mobility, one PbAoE.

 

Rather would have liked to see either full ranged or full melee. The mobility skills seem ok but why not a disengage for ranged gameplay instead of a gap closer. This also could incorporate the fear the harbinger misses so far.

 

An lastly: I HATE SHOTGUN SKILLS, STOP IT. 

[Tobias.8632]

This is basically everything I wanted. I think a lot of you are not realizing how insane a 25% damage boost is going to be even if the cost and risk is high. Fear sucks, I wouldn't even notice it's gone, worthless amount of breakbar damage and a duration that caps out at like 2 seconds and long kitten cooldowns. How are you guys not frothing at the mouth at the idea of a torment autoattack? The amount of condi dps this class is going to be able to put out is goddamn insane, necro pistol is probably the best 1h weapon in the game bar none. Grieving + runes of tormenting and sigil of demons for capped torment duration is going to be crazy damage

[Shroud.2307]

10 minutes ago, Tobias.8632 said:

This is basically everything I wanted. I think a lot of you are not realizing how insane a 25% damage boost is going to be even if the cost and risk is high. Fear sucks, I wouldn't even notice it's gone, worthless amount of breakbar damage and a duration that caps out at like 2 seconds and long kitten cooldowns. How are you guys not frothing at the mouth at the idea of a torment autoattack? The amount of condi dps this class is going to be able to put out is goddamn insane, necro pistol is probably the best 1h weapon in the game bar none. Grieving + runes of tormenting and sigil of demons for capped torment duration is going to be crazy damage

It's 25% increase if you have max Blight. That means 11k health. Soulbeast gets that for free with "Sic 'Em!"

[Tobias.8632]

1 hour ago, Shroud.2307 said:

It's 25% increase if you have max Blight. That means 11k health. Soulbeast gets that for free with "Sic 'Em!"

 

If ele's can do it so can I

[SeTect.5918]

4 minutes ago, Tobias.8632 said:

 

If ele's can do it so can I

I main ele helloooo. 

Harbinger is most interesting for me so far. But the sustain is rly bad af.

Weaver has barrier at least. And damage reduction from earth traitline if vipers. 

 

Vipers harbinger will have 11k hp with no barrier, no shroud hp and curses. 

 

Ofc its playable but its extremely easy to get 1hits in fractals or sth. 

Blight is nice, the strength of blight is not.

Its the only thing that annoys me. 

Ofc i didnt play this class yet but its going to be more glass cannon than weaver in fractals. Thats my fear.

My hope is that they decide that they reduce blight health reduction from 2% to 1% per stack. So a max hp loss of 25% instead of 50%.

[Zalavaaris.5329]

Yea it needs to be 25% max for blight. 50% is just too much to not have any defensive at all. 

[susana.7814]

3 hours ago, Tobias.8632 said:

This is basically everything I wanted. I think a lot of you are not realizing how insane a 25% damage boost is going to be even if the cost and risk is high. Fear sucks, I wouldn't even notice it's gone, worthless amount of breakbar damage and a duration that caps out at like 2 seconds and long kitten cooldowns. How are you guys not frothing at the mouth at the idea of a torment autoattack? The amount of condi dps this class is going to be able to put out is goddamn insane, necro pistol is probably the best 1h weapon in the game bar none. Grieving + runes of tormenting and sigil of demons for capped torment duration is going to be crazy damage

Agreed man, sad seeing all the harbinger hate when it's literally giving us everything necro's need to be more viable. Less reliance on shroud, high dps potential for both power and condi, and even really good boon support for the team with perma quickness. 
That's just the pve side.

on pvp we've got effing gapclosers, we've got an evade, we've got an aoe float cc that's 5 billion times better than fear. Fear is and has always been terrible.  we've got a ton of CC options now including a ranged stun on pistol. 

Edited August 14, 2021 by susana.7814

[Nimon.7840]

Obviously we have to wait how the spec plays out.

 

Here's my first impressions:

I think the concept is really interesting.

 

Finally necro gets a pretty good boon support spec for pve. But I don't think this will be played in WvW.

 

The kit overall is pretty interesting. Especially for pve.

 

For pvp/WvW purposes, well I don't know. The damage numbers have to be extremely good in order to make up for two crucial points:

- max health reduction

- no active defenses

 

We are looking at a spec, that reduces it's max health to 11k, so comparable to guardian and ele. But both of these classes have a ton of active damage mitigation (blocks, evades, invulnerability, good active and passive heals) which this spec does not have.

 

The only thing this class has is one evade, locked behind shroud, and this passive life Regeneration from life force.

It was ticking with around 430 if I remember correctly.

What we don't know is, if this value is adjusted in pvp modes or wether it will scale with either healing power or max health.

 

I also think, that it's really sad to see, that this version of the necro has only two sources of fear application: staff and spectral ring.

So there's a lot of traits, that are pretty bad on this spec.

 

But to close up my first impression with a positive point:

 

I think this might be a spec with one of the highest skill ceilings for pvp modes.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Nimon.7840

[Krozo.1328]

I'll need to play it 1st, but atm I'm not a fan.  Looks like I will be playing power reaper for another xpac.

[Aravind.9610]

The elite skill seems kind of OP since it gives all boons for 5 seconds including 25 stacks of might. If people start stacking Harbingers then can maintain those boons easily without need of any other class. This is assuming that Harbingers can do nice dps of course.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Aravind.9610

[DragonFury.6243]

2 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

I think this might be a spec with one of the highest skill ceilings for pvp modes

press X to doubt 

i dont think this espec will see play in pvp because you are risking 50% of your hp poll and a kitten ton of defence for 12.5% dmg increase !

+ most of the skills is projectile bassed skills whick can be destroyed or reflect back to user

[Apokriphos.7042]

I am not excited about this new specialization.

 

As many have previously noted, you do not get enough for all that you sacrifice, it has anti-synergy for both previous fear applications in competitive modes (torment is antisynergistic with fear), it has no boon corrupt besides what is available from other weapons/traits, it has a 900 range easily kited limit, it uses destroyable/reflectable projectiles, all with a lifepool far reduced to its other competition.

 

Anet really needs to improve this. It's not good.

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

11 hours ago, Nimon.7840 said:

The only thing this class has is one evade, locked behind shroud, and this passive life Regeneration from life force.

It was ticking with around 430 if I remember correctly.

What we don't know is, if this value is adjusted in pvp modes or wether it will scale with either healing power or max health.

I re-watched the stream to specifically find this. The amount healed was exactly equal to the life force lost on each tick.

[lodjur.1284]

10 hours ago, DragonFury.6243 said:

press X to doubt 

i dont think this espec will see play in pvp because you are risking 50% of your hp poll and a kitten ton of defence for 12.5% dmg increase !

+ most of the skills is projectile bassed skills whick can be destroyed or reflect back to user

Where are you seeing 12.5% damage increase only? 

 

Stream was 25% but split, could ofc mean pvp/wvw get 25% but nothing I've seen has indicated that, maybe I missed something?