Harbinger is unusable aside from open world, Change my Mind!

[jpsssss.7530]

This content is subject to change as balance/overhaul patches exist.

My stance and thoughts on each part of Harbinger based on info sourced from the official wiki.

This is a dps Elite Spec with limited support capabilities that are far overshadowed by Scourge and thus I will not mention WvW blobbing, and any WvW mentioned will be small scale roaming.

Baseline

- Blight: While blight is an interesting mechanic that deserves to be explored, the current iteration is too heavy handed.

1. With the current iteration, even accounting for the bonus 3600 health baseline, the blight can and will take you to slightly less health than an elementalist with no vitality investment. It wouldn't be too bad, but this also reduces our life force pool, and using this elite spec the Harbinger will not have a shroud to fall back on.
2. Additionally, this elite spec provides only 1 block through aegis on a 60s (48s if traited) cool down, 1 evade on a 10 second CD tied to shroud, and no invulnerability. Reducing your health to 11k from 22k while not having even half of the tools the classes in the bottom base health-pool have to make up for something so crippling
3. 25s is a very long time. For reference a Holosmith with 100 heat maximum can overheat twice in that duration
4. In WvW/PvP, you need some health as condi builds will simply shred you. This

TL;DR: I overall think blight in its current iteration is too crippling of a mechanic, and is the biggest thing making this elite spec unusable.

- Pistol: Alright-ish

1. Another condi main hand weapon is nice, I will admit that necro needed one.
2. Dealing torment is alright, it gives access to an alternate means of healing through the rune, but with the recent torment nerfs I'm counting it as a net negative (i've felt its impact on my rev as well 😞 )

TL;DR: It'd be a great weapon and see all kinds of play if torment didn't do half damage in PvP/WvW...

- Elixirs: kind of boring, but they'd be decent if they didn't have blight

1. Elixirs are done well on the Engineer who gets toss and a chug, but with only the chug they feel like meh shouts.
2. they give you blight when you use them (y tho?)
3. Why would I take these over cor necro skills?

TL;DR: I think they're just kinda there. The fact that they give blight makes them boring and a feels bad

-Harbinger Shroud

1. It gives blight. Blight really bad. Dead horse is a pulp by now.
2. Tainted bolts: Looks like a solid AA, synergizes well with blood magic on the 2 hits. just a slightly better Axe AA, but that's pretty good. solid 8/10.
3. Dark Barrage: Looks like a decent cone skill. don't know enough about the hit boxes to give a rating
4. Devouring Cut: 5s CD dash. None of the other text matters. I may be biased as a Necro player, but a dash on a 5s CD is 12/10.
5. Voracious Arc: Leap, Evade, Daze. 10s CD. This Skill's brand of Ice cream would be Poggen Dasz.
6. Vital Draw: Multi-hit life force drain with a 3s float on all targets. solid like 9/10.
7. While the skills themselves are good, arguably better than any other's skill, are the strings attached worth it. you're giving up a second health bard that's a beeg oh snap button (or barrier with scourge) and a constantly lowering health bar.

TL;DR: The individual skills are great, but don't make up for all of the string attached

- Traits: by tier because individually will be a while

1. Adept Tier: the 2 that give bonus damage to strike or condi are great. The elixir one is interesting, not as much power as the other 2 but still respectable. 8/10
2. Master Tier: They're all good. The middle one seems to be the weakest, but I want to see a radius before I confirm that
3. Grandmaster Tier: They're all good, but I'd like radius numbers for confirmation.

Closing Thoughts on the Current State of Harbinger

While it has a great set of shroud skills and some *cheff's kiss* traits, I don't think they make up for drawbacks of losing the shroud health or barrier, and the stacking max health loss to 50% health. If we got a suite of skills that gave necro about half of the tools that ele, thief and guardian have to get around the low health, I'd say this elite spec is pretty decent. Unfortunately, this elite spec does not possess those required tools to make up for its shortcomings. A very skilled player MIGHT be able to pull this off in fractals or raids, but most will not. This Elite spec will likely struggle in PvP and WvW roaming, as it is just too squishy to use effectively.

 

Some ideas to think about

1. Necromancer has always been a class with limited mobility, no blocks, and no invulnerability because it has always had shroud or barrier spam to make up for what other classes have for defensive skills.
2. Taking away the shroud over health, while reducing max health to 50%, while neglecting to supplement that lake of survivability with proper defensive skills is crippling. Imagine if we simply removed thief's stealth and mobility but increased it's damage. It might drop someone quickly, but if it get's hit with some block or invulnerability it just dies. To have this hyper feast/hyper famine gameplay exist in the current state of GW2 and be playable is pretty much impossible.
3. Reworking the blight mechanic to be more like heat on holosmith might be a way to makeit not so crippling. Or removing blight and having the bonuses scale with current % life force might be good. We already lost the extra health or shielding from it.
4. While passive healing to replace shroud health is neat, poison is an easy condition to have access to thus making it a lot worse in practice.

Edited August 17, 2021 by jpsssss.7530

[jpsssss.7530]

Forgot to post this in the main post, but I invite you to an open and civil conversation about the topic of the Harbinger.

[Asum.4960]

 I agree that Blight seems simply too much for anything Harbinger could possibly do. 

Just losing Shroud (and it's 50% damage reduction) or Barrier spam + Blood as Sand's 15% damage reduction would already be a fairly massive tradeoff for the spec to justify the (presumably) increased damage, mobility and sustain Harbinger gets. 

 

Adding another 50% HP reduction (aka around 80% less effective Health than Reaper) via Blight seems just way too much for what Harbinger adds, considering that's pretty much all Necro has in terms of defensive mechanics - health, even if it does look like a blast to play otherwise.

 

Going from 46.000 effective Health on Reaper to 11.000 effective Health on Harbinger is nuts, I don't want this spec to do enough damage to make that worthwhile - peak DPS of the current game balance is already way too high with DPS skipping mechanics.

 

7 hours ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

 

1. Master Tier: They're all good. The middle one seems to be the weakest, but I want to see a radius before I confirm that

Radius is 240. Source Tooltip hover after Trait selection displaying radius, although it was missing from the Trait fact. So exactly between small and big Shade.

 

The Elixiers, frankly, I wouldn't mind at all being completely redone, from effect to animation to art. 

 

Is it unplayable in it's current state though? I don't think so - it's just not worth it outside of maybe hardcore speedruns, if it indeed provides unprecedented DPS. I'll most likely play it, but wouldn't recommend it to pretty much anyone in this state. 

For PvP, I can see a Blight avoidance sustain heavy hit and run/kiting build working, as for how worthwhile that will be considering alternatives, we will have to see. 

 

For OW and Story.. well, it's OW, anything build decently is a semi immortal god there, so will be Harbinger - and by the looks of it, a really fun to play god at that.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Asum.4960

[DragonFury.6243]

i dont see this espec being great in open world i think the casual necros will hate it and they will be dying left and right when the new expansion will drop .

i think this espec will be the most hated elite specailiztion ever due to it being lacking thematically and will be squish as hell and the casual player will get oneshoted alot .

this espec is targeted for raid only as a hight dps glass canon (dps may be over 40K) people ask why elixir has blight on them i think because the devs want the player to have access to blight outside of shroud to maintain hight blight stack for dmg modifier .

another use will be a quickness share calss for fractals .

i dont think it will see play in pvp or wvw .

a change to blight from 2% to 1% hp reducion and a buff to elixir will solve alot of problems

[Dadnir.5038]

To change your mind is basically to make you like the blight mechanism. I'm pretty sure nothing will convince you apart from playing the spec itself.

 

That said, there is a few things to add to your list:

- The amount of CC the spec offer. The necromancer have always been limited to 1 CC on shroud and 2 max for 2 weapon kits. This spec offer 2 CC on shroud and 1 on pistol which is a main hand. It push the CC you can have without utility from 3 to 5.

- The spec give access to Slow one of the most annoying conditions in the game.

- You got some juicy weakness on Pistol#3, again an annoying condition to fight against.

- The 10s CD on shroud#4 which can trigger transfusion for a large aoe heal every 10s.

- Shroud#2 hiting 5 target and being on 4s CD (Let's remember that scourge's skill that did the same ended up being hard nerfed)

 

Blight:

Having a low health pool have an advantage which is that every heal grant you a higher %age of health pool than it would on a high health pool. If you have no blight and you heal for 5k, it's equivalent to 25% of your health pool worth of heal. If you're at full blight and you heal for 50% it's equivalent to half of your health pool worth of heal.

 

You also see the "loss" of LF %age when you lose your blight as an issue, but, at the same time, gaining blight out of shroud will similarly give you the feeling that you "gain" life force because your raw amount of LF won't bulge. Not that LF matter much since you'll gain 15% automatically when entering shroud which is sufficient to quickly use any of the shroud skills (to get away from a fight for example).

[LucianDK.8615]

Youd still need to take blood in order to benefit from transfusion, which is a no go for a dps outside overworld.

[Wintermute.5408]

42 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

- The amount of CC the spec offer. The necromancer have always been limited to 1 CC on shroud and 2 max for 2 weapon kits. This spec offer 2 CC on shroud and 1 on pistol which is a main hand.

So exactly the same as Reaper?

 

41 minutes ago, Dadnir.5038 said:

Having a low health pool have an advantage which is that every heal grant you a higher %age of health pool than it would on a high health pool. If you have no blight and you heal for 5k, it's equivalent to 25% of your health pool worth of heal. If you're at full blight and you heal for 50% it's equivalent to half of your health pool worth of heal.

That's not how math works. You still get exactly as much value from heal.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Wintermute.5408

[KrHome.1920]

Harbinger has access to two 900 range leaps and one is even an evade on the 10s shroud cooldown. Since it generates 15% life force on entering shroud, it can always enter shroud, even at 0 life force.

 

The spec itself is 900 range and has an aoe 3s float if targets come close. While targets are cc'd the two 900 range leaps at ridicoulusly low cooldowns ensure that harbinger can maintain distance with ease.

 

People have no clue how strong this spec is in competent hands.

 

This is not a shroudcamp or barrier spam spec for dummies. Get good at the game and you will do great with harbinger.

[Anchoku.8142]

First of all, we have not tried it, yet, so I withold my opinion on performance and tuning.

 

Second, the explanation and preview last week made it clear 'Binger was designed to be a peaky dps specialization where damage output is tied directly to risk.

 

Third, the elixers are boon factories Harbinger is meant to abuse where other Necro specializations had minor access to. Load up on Protect and Concentration, then see how it goes.

 

Fourth, 'Binger is totally open to incoming heals. Use allies like Ele or Druid combined with a Scourge for sustain. That is the feeling I got on Friday, 13 August. (Also, dodge.)

 

Fifth, 'Binger seems to have been developed for group PvE and maybe PvP rather than solo Open World and that is perfectly fine. Use core Necro Minionmancer to AFK farm or Reaper to wipe trash mobs while blasting through Open World PvE. The group insurance and dps Scourge brings to PvE and WvW is great, too. Harbinger could be a challenge mode spec' for both boon-spamming and dps and I welcome the idea.

[Wintermute.5408]

10 minutes ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

First of all, we have not tried it, yet, so I withold my opinion on performance and tuning.

What's there to try though? Scourge benches 36k DPS. Which is quite respectable. How much more should condi HB deal to compensate for its utter state of glass? 40k+? That's an unhealthy territory, and clearly something Anet doesn't endorse. 37-38k? That's a pathetic increase considering the survivability tradeoff.

 

How much should power HB bench over Reaper? There's a bit more space here to maneuver with damage numbers, but HB doesn't look like it's an amazing power spec. Especially considering ranged/melee balance, which, theoretically, should also be a thing.

 

I definitely see a boon support build in HB, which was long overdue. But I'm afraid that it's going to be its only application. I just don't see that "amazing DPS" happening.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Wintermute.5408

[Anchoku.8142]

26 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

What's there to try though?

Well, to start with, I would like to see how long I can maintain 25 stacks of Blight and what gameplay is like at minimal maximum health.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Anchoku.8142

[Mourningstar.7309]

This topic is touching on my biggest concern with this spec.  In order to make the survivability tradeoff worth it, the damage this spec needs to do is insanely, outrageously high, which is in turn very unhealthy for all game modes.  So either it breaks the game, or no one plays it.  There is no middle ground.

[Jayce.5632]

I believe, and this from my own theory of understanding, this spec is going to be a health regen beast. And, in my opinion, even without blood magic. I only really care about how well the spec will perform against other players, and regeneration appears to be its main defense. I am worried that two dodges and one evade could be problematic when coupled with the loss of the innate damage reduction from shroud, but I also think the spec will easily disrupt enemy defensive cool down rotations early in fights. There is going to be a lot of dead Harbingers, but I still think it could work.

[Cyninja.2954]

Necros over the years:

Shroud is useless. It provides near no additional survivability. Buff necro and give us more damage. Take our shroud and additional vitality if you want.

 

New elite spec doing just that and the gut reaction is:

We are to squishy! Give us back shroud. Blight is far to penalizing and puts us at a healthpoint pool of an elementalist. Please fix.

 

The main issue here is:

After years of whining and eventually becoming THE problem profession in multiple game modes requiring subsequent nerfs of scourge (it's been 4 years bois) the expectations are totally out of whack as far as survivability and performance go (not only on necro).

 

That is not to say some other classes do not deserve a good toning down. Which I am sure will happen once EoD launches as to incentivize the new elites.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[jpsssss.7530]

26 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

Shroud is useless. It provides near no additional survivability. Buff necro and give us more damage. Take our shroud and additional vitality if you want.

This shroud doesn’t give survivability and still drops us BELOW no investment Elementalist health. I didn’t say necro needed more damage, it doesn’t, and never really did. The reason why it is so tanky at core is because its mobility is a joke, it has no blocks, and no evades. This is basically playing a deadeye with no stealth and significantly reduced mobility, with worse range, armor, and health.

 

27 minutes ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

New elite spec doing just that and the gut reaction is:

We are to squishy! Give us back shroud. Blight is far to penalizing and puts us at a healthpoint pool of an elementalist. Please fix.

The first issue is that we get WORSE health than Ele. On top of that we don’t have anywhere near as much mobility, or evades and no invulnerability to help deal with the low health. 

[LucianDK.8615]

Harbinger is useless in open world too, folding against big and tough targets you cant take down before your health is too low.

[Cyninja.2954]

35 minutes ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

This shroud doesn’t give survivability and still drops us BELOW no investment Elementalist health. I didn’t say necro needed more damage, it doesn’t, and never really did. The reason why it is so tanky at core is because its mobility is a joke, it has no blocks, and no evades. This is basically playing a deadeye with no stealth and significantly reduced mobility, with worse range, armor, and health.

No, blight drops you below an elementalist at 25 stacks. No one is forcing you to stay at 25 Blight at all times. You get a choice, the elementalist does not.

 

The complaint that necro was not doing enough damage due to having to much "out the box" sustain with their shroud and large hit point pool was rather common. Every single time necro damage was buffed, it lead to the class dominating content (without even getting into WvW and scourge there) and the forum warrior justification was always that shroud and vitality was not that important.

Quote

 

The first issue is that we get WORSE health than Ele. On top of that we don’t have anywhere near as much mobility, or evades and no invulnerability to help deal with the low health. 

 

Again, you get worse health at max stacks. While not stacked up on blight, you are outperforming an ele by over 2 twice the hit points.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Cyninja.2954

[LucianDK.8615]

A flight of fancy. I wonder if going all out tank stats with a harbinger would make a solid tank in group content, if you could milk the sustain to heal through anything that comes your way. And mostly ignoring shroud save for the movement abilities.

[Wintermute.5408]

5 hours ago, Anchoku.8142 said:

Well, to start with, I would like to see how long I can maintain 25 stacks of Blight and what gameplay is like at minimal maximum health.

Exactly as garbage as one would expect. I do hope condi damage is better than power here, because power is a complete joke.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Wintermute.5408

[Warscythes.9307]

26 minutes ago, Wintermute.5408 said:

Exactly as garbage as one would expect. I do hope condi damage is better than power here, because power is a complete joke.

Condi is benching 43k dps, this spec is incredibly strong damage wise.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Warscythes.9307

[Wintermute.5408]

2 minutes ago, Warscythes.9307 said:

Condi is benching 43k dps, this spec is incredible strong damage wise.

Welp. Brace for nerfs.

[DraconusShade.4590]

I tried Plaguedoctor Boonbringer in fractals and I am easily able to maintain 100% quickness. I have 17k health with Max blight but I discovered over the course of 2 hours that all I had to in order to maintain my boons was use my elixirs (quickness, might and elite) and only flash the shroud for 5 seconds, using all the abilities and I'm back in time to catch my quickness elixir cooldown. 

With this "rotation" I was able to maintain only 20 stacks of blight while making sure I spent the maximum amount of time out of shroud (and thus healing constantly). 

During the fractal run with a full group of beta specs I was the last one fighting at every boss and I had to /gg to actually die.

 

It's a delicate dance of using shroud for just what you need and pulling out as fast as possible to not only ensure blight stacks but also maximum time outside shroud with 25 stacks.

 

I'm sure we'll all master it soon enough (also heal skill now heals for 4k)

[jpsssss.7530]

1 hour ago, Cyninja.2954 said:

No, blight drops you below an elementalist at 25 stacks. No one is forcing you to stay at 25 Blight at all times. You get a choice, the elementalist does not.

Blight stacks last 25 seconds there’s no way that the stacks from a previous fight will not carry over to the next fight. And its still worse because blight reduces the stat gains from vitality by the percentage. Its about the same at half stacks on the assumption of a reasonable investment WvW roaming weaver (18-19k health hybrid weaver).

 

But we’re focusing too much on health that’s numerically worse in certain situations, but are completely neglecting  that an elementalist with a focus has access to 2 invulns, just as much cc (more if weaver), and more/better mobility… necro has its first 2 dashes. Ever. Necro needed to have more than 2 dashes ti make up for nit having shroud because the core class skills are balanced around shroud being a thing. Necro has no invulns, no blocks, no evades and the defensive skills we have access to have comparably longer cooldowns because necro has always had a second health bar. Now it doesn’t have the health it was balanced around having. Are we going to get core skills re-balanced?

[InfiniteRetro.9865]

the most boring elite spec i have ever played. At least make the utility and elite skills change your first five weapon skills to abilities that would be super cool. and for gods sake, give us two pistols. this elite spec is begging to have that...thematically it would be incredible.

[Cyninja.2954]

26 minutes ago, jpsssss.7530 said:

Blight stacks last 25 seconds there’s no way that the stacks from a previous fight will not carry over to the next fight. And its still worse because blight reduces the stat gains from vitality by the percentage. Its about the same at half stacks on the assumption of a reasonable investment WvW roaming weaver (18-19k health hybrid weaver).

 

But we’re focusing too much on health that’s numerically worse in certain situations, but are completely neglecting  that an elementalist with a focus has access to 2 invulns, just as much cc (more if weaver), and more/better mobility… necro has its first 2 dashes. Ever. Necro needed to have more than 2 dashes ti make up for nit having shroud because the core class skills are balanced around shroud being a thing. Necro has no invulns, no blocks, no evades and the defensive skills we have access to have comparably longer cooldowns because necro has always had a second health bar. Now it doesn’t have the health it was balanced around having. Are we going to get core skills re-balanced?

 

The comments in the feedback thread do not mirror your complaints. They range from the build being far to tanky all the way to unplayable.

 

Leaving aside the already 43k+ benchmark which needs shaving down. Maybe this is an elite spec which shouldn't be played as full glass canon in competitive modes. At which point the self sustain and near infinite perma healing might become an issue.

 

The only thing most people seem to agree on is the lackluster design of the elixirs, which I am inclined to agree with. At the very least the icons need a serious rework, ideally maybe with some design reworks. As is they are basically just different boons on different elixirs.