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Harbinger Feedback Thread [Merged]


Fire Attunement.9835

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My uninformed opinions on the changes without playtesting yet: 

 

Much like the initial concept of Harbinger as a whole, while a lot of changes went into the right direction, it seems like for every good change you added a way too big tradeoff/sacrifice. 

 

Removing Dark Disciples healing: While I'm not entirely opposed to it's removal, I think there were far more elegant solutions to the problem it posed - such as defining it's healing as minimum health amount that's missing before it triggers, or giving it a health threshold (like 90% HP) before it triggers. Both of these could have prevented LF constantly draining away for minimal healing you didn't actually need - like outhealing passive boss arena damage ticks, agony ticks, etc., that a healer or other "free" healing such as Tormenting Runes etc. would have healed up half a second later anyway. 

Outright removing it is quite the loss for the spec, especially for competitive. 

 

Blight reduction: Why 1.5%? 37.5% max Health reduction is such an awkward number to track, and it's imo still far too much, especially in combination with the healing removal of Dark Disciple (and movement nerfs) and still 0% passive damage reduction and still no active defenses via Elixirs such as Aegis/Blocks, Stability, Projectile Mitigation, Invuln, Barrier, etc. 

1% reduction per stack is just so much cleaner design to spot and grasp at a glance at the UI - and while 37.5% certainly is better for avoiding oneshots than 50% on a spec with 0% passive damage reduction or much active defenses at all, 25%, imo, is the max it should be anyway - if you want to hold on to this mechanic on top of losing a damage soaking Shroud at all. 

Among that note, while you reduced the punishment of Blight by 25%, you in turn reduced it's benefits if Traited through the Corruption Traits by a whopping 50% - in addition to adding Blight stack consumption to the spec. And they remain two separate Traits. 

So while the spec was way too squishy and did way too much damage before, ~2k extra health for over half the damage modifiers on the spec doesn't look like a good tradeoff on paper at least. 

At that rate you might as well have committed Harbinger to being Hybrid damage with the bottom line and merging the Corruption Traits into one Blight based damage modifier, while adding another non Blight, non Elixir based option to the adept Traits (potentially even adding a healing effect like prev. Dark Disciple back in there as a conscious choice, competing with the damage modifier and elixir support), or committing the whole underperforming top strike damage line to adding some Utility/survivability options to the spec. 

 

The Elixirs: Making them throwable is a great change and added Utility to the spec, but, much like the lacklustre boon combinations they still give, the conditions they now apply are also rather bland. Some minor Cripple, Blind and Weakness are nice, sure - but then you turned around and removed the much superior Slow from them when traited as cost for that addition, in addition to further nerfs like LF gain removal, Vigor removal and, in some cases like the Elite massive, CD increases - all while sharing the boons still takes yet another Trait. 

I'm also slightly worried about the usability of having to constantly aim them at ones own feet, at least in PvE, to maintain Blight. While they are now ranged on paper, much like a lot of other things in the spec like the shotgun skills and passive Auras, it's yet another thing forcing melee play on the squishiest spec in the game - which now lost much of it's sustain on top of that, and yet another thing countered by projectile hate, as Elixirs have been confirmed to be Projectiles now too.

They still just look like more clunky, terrible, Firebrand Mantras with both worse but far more costly Trait investment to me - even if the throwable addition is nice in theory. 

For Ambition especially, 5 seconds of all Boons and all damaging conditions (1 Stack) every 90 seconds is just awful. I still don't see any use for this outside of extremely fringe unhealthy gameplay cases - which is the definition of bad design. 

When you stated that you were able to make Harbinger Utilities extremely potent to compensate for the Shroud and Health loss/Blight, I just expected more than some minor Might, Fury and Weakness, still. 

Would have loved to see proper tools like Reflects, Aegis, Stab, duration Blocks/Invuln etc. on these - at least some parity in tools with far less squishy specs.

 

The movement skills: I don't even really know what to say about this, other than.. why? 

These along the inflated first beta damage numbers are the only things that made the spec appear fun and well working to so many people. 600 range iirc isn't even enough to still finally have access to various skips of other professions in content like Fractals which I celebrated Necro finally getting as well. 

Once again, you slapped some questionable benefit on them with the Blight removal for Torment on these movement skills, but then slashed their primary function by 1/3 with significant gameplay ramifications such as skip access. Imo just a terrible change. 

So rather than limited but great movement skills, Harbinger now has limited and mediocre movement skills with far less Utility, that are also damage skills, but only kind of, because while doing damage, they also strip your Blight, which through Traits is also your damage modifier..? 

They'll probably be worth using in damage rotations at the end of Shroud, to then regain Blight with Elixirs immediately after, but the tradeoff in movement and skip Utility isn't worth that interaction, even if it makes rotations more interesting and skillful. 

I just don't see any reason for this nerf, at the very least Voracious Arc should remain 800-900 range.

 

 

So yea, while some changes like the throwable Elixirs and reduction of the Blight punishment are in the right direction, they are imo both too little and once again come at far too great costs. We will see next week how this plays out though.

Edited by Asum.4960
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Removal of Dark Disciple Heal: I can see why this feature was removed though I believe its removal also removes some significant capability to play it passively and as a sustain spec. That is a real negative hit to the spec IMO. 

Elixir Changes: mostly thumbs up. It's nice to have that upside to having Blight stacks, if not absolutely necessary based on the focus the spec now has on offensive side.

Overall ... slightly negative towards the changes. The Beta 1 approach was a simple and straightforward approach with a wide range of playstyle options for the class that was missing. Now that's gone.

TLDR: Harbringer is now Just Another Complex DPS Spec. 

 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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While i find think the changes you made with the blight mechanic really appealing and going in the right direction the removal of the passive heal leaves Harbringer simply as a deadbeat specc. In PVE you are better on paper but taking everything into account like group support or survivability no one will play the harbringer. With your current design Scourge is simply better in every aspect except mobility. BTW for the Support build there is still no use for the blight mechanic except you dont use the elixier trait.

 

For PVP this is a huge hit leaving the Harbringer with a nearly unplayable set. Your Sustain gets swept away. Your mobility gets nerfed and all you get for the loss of a 2nd health bar and a stacking debuff is the reduction of said debuff by 25%. Well i will test it out but 4 real this change killed harbringer in pvp. The sustain wasnt great design but it kept the harbringer alive. In a teamfight you will be focus target number one with no way to counter (no aegis/immunity/invis on new skills). Also every meta like thief / ranger / ingi / rev class can catch and stun you cause you also lack stability. So all of this together leaves you with zero advantages over Scourge / Core Necro or Reaper in PVP.


PS: With the increased CD on Movement Skills and reduced range Reaper is nearly as mobile as Harbringer your "Mobile necro glasscannon". 

 

PPS: Why give Specter every movement ability in the world, damage absorbing shroud witch generation not bound to a target hit but on spending your main ressource, support from hell and this crazy tankiness. While leaving Harbringer like this.

 

Im not really excitet about EoD. Leaving my favorite class in the dirt like this is really a let down. Please dev team try some pvp with this "new" harbringer and tell me how it went.

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Thinking more about this Beta 4 version of Harbringer.

I think Anet has actually given players a reason to AVOID using shroud because you don't need Shroud for the best DPS buffs and the health reduction drawback from camping Shroud is no longer offset by passive healing. I suspect that we are going to end up with another 'Scrapper Wells for Quickness" situation where people will simply maintain the Blight they need using Elixirs to constantly get double DPS and have almost no reason to use Shroud except to break bars. 

feels bad

Here is my non-shroud using build:

 

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PSFBo2t3lhyUZrsQWLOKL1RfA-zRJYmRPfZURJ0RG49s4nZE-e

Edited by Obtena.7952
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7 hours ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

they still going with the garbage power stuff?

Yup.  Only changes to traits they're making is cutting the damage bonuses from Blight in half and removing the Slow from Vile Vials.  Only nerfs to the Adept traits.  No other changes.

 

That said, they DID up the Power coefficients for a number of skills.  HS1, for example, hits for 1.3/cast.  It's going to do a lot more damage than Life Blast (1.4 coefficient) due to the much faster attack speed.

Edited by Drarnor Kunoram.5180
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52 minutes ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

so I watched tpot's stream with cmc and they are not even aware there is an issue with power harb...

 

did no one give feedback?

Watched it yesterday as well and was really surprised.

 

If I remember correctly, quite a few people wrote that in the feedback thread.

 

At least for PvE, all those power traits are dead weight.

 

 

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3 hours ago, felincyriac.5981 said:

so I watched tpot's stream with cmc and they are not even aware there is an issue with power harb...

 

did no one give feedback?

Looking through the thread, yes it was mentioned a lot. But not just in Harbinger, but in pretty much EVERY feedback thread. No one seems to like the Condi, Strike, Support they are trying to force into every elite, but they are trying to force it anyways.

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The ways I see Harbinger could work (mind you, not how I necessarily want it to work) are this: 

 

1. Harbinger doesn't lose the damage absorbing Shroud, and Blight is removed as mechanic.

Now this is imo by far the most boring option and basically just another spin on core Necro and Reaper, but ranged, projectile based, slightly more squishy but slightly higher damage (although less than currently) and optional but poor Quickness group support. 

This is what Harbinger is currently designed to support. It does not get any great passive or active damage reduction, no stealth and Thief like mobility, no Weaver or Mirage like evade/invuln spams, no clones, no Blocks, no mass Stability or Prot, no Aegis spam, no superspeed, no mass combo finishers, no auras, no projectile hate, no portals.. just nothing that justifies losing Shroud or having Blight as mechanic. 

It would just basically be a slightly more squishy but ranged Reaper, but at least functional.

 

2. Harbinger doesn't lose it's damage absorbing Shroud, but keeps Blight as HP reducing mechanic. 

Honestly also not my favourite as it just extrapolates something Necro is already suffering from greatly on Reaper especially, in that you got this overwhelming power mode in Shroud which defines your entire profession and gameplay (while lacking customization), and then while out of Shroud you feel like a wet noodle/less than half a class, just waiting to get back in. 

That said, with such an extreme focus on that gameplay, one could actually lean into it with design - buffing Harbinger movement significantly as well as adding some focus break and projectile defense to out of Shroud, allowing Harbinger to dash in to combat, wreak havoc, dash out and escape while being extremely vulnerable to being caught and locked down. 

It's in many ways also more of the same for Necro, but provides potential to make it more interesting by leaning into it.

 

3. Harbinger loses the damage absorbing Shroud, but Blight doesn't reduce maximum HP. 

Here Blight could either just be a damage modifier that stacks up with Elixir and Shroud usage or, more interestingly, could even replace LF as resource altogether - in a way of which every weapon skill, boon corrupt and especially Elixir usage fills a LF like Blight gauge which then fuels the Shroud - or conversely, being in Shroud fills up a Heat like Blight gauge which then kicks you out of Shroud/prevents you from entering when full, while slowly draining out of Shroud, as well as with Elixir usage.

Enables Utility usage in Shroud and could be a Necro spin on Holo.

This would allow for easier balance that doesn't gets thrown by surrounding deaths, add spawns etc., and could therefor get some tighter design. 

This version would need some additions in terms of more Stability, some at least minor Prot uptime, Aegis or Barrier and maybe some Projectile Mitigation via Shroud and Elixirs, but then could be a really fun, way more squishy, more damaging and more active defense and mobility oriented Necro spec, taking a lot of design inspiration from the tool kit of Holosmith.

 

 

4. Harbinger both loses Shroud and Blight remains as HP reducing mechanic.

This (how Harbinger ironically currently is) is something Harbinger as currently designed doesn't support at all - nor do I think it's healthy for the game, regardless of how it's tuned. 

It either has to overperform so much Damage wise that it's broken in terms of PvE DPS and incredibly unfun to play against and get oneshot by in PvP, or it's a complete dead weight, surpassing Ele in the downstate meme and nothing else. 

To make this even remotely work, Harbinger as a whole, and even some of core Necro, would need some major reworks in terms of active and passive damage mitigation and vast Utility additions. 

This thing needs Stealth or Clones, overwhelming Mobility, Blind/Aegis Spam, boon applications like Prot, Vigor and Stab and or superspeed, mechanics like blocks/invulns and reflects, mass additions to Necro in terms of combo finishers - something, anything. 

You can't just take Necro, which lacks all of these tools in favour of a massive HP pool, and pretend they are now a Thief, Ele or Guardian, (without literally any the things that make these professions what they are and what makes them work) just because you took away it's Shroud and HP pool, and then say "but it has damage" or "look at this shiny Quickness". 

Damage is not something you primarily design around, it's volatile and can shift drastically with a single number change on one or two damage modifiers or coefficients. You design around mechanics - and Harbinger has next to non. Neither does a Quickness Aura on it's own make for an interesting or competitive spec.

The fact that the design team thinks you can reduce Necros effective HP by ~90% for one extra 600 range dash, a 0.5 second evade, Quickness and some minor Might, Fury, Swiftness, is insane to me. There are so many intricacies, interactions/synergies and tools missing here to get this to work.

Please don't go down this route if you are not willing to put the major work in that is required to retune Necro, the core design of which is the completely antithesis of what you are trying to do here with a single Elite spec line, weapon and Utility set, in a way to make this work.

Edited by Asum.4960
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  1. Removing passive heal for lf is good.
  2. If you are going to type in you own post that harbinger playstyle is flipping normal necromancer playstyle on its head and then nerfing the only 2 mobility skills available to it is just stupid decision. There is not 1 reason for reducing range on these skills.
    The only reason I can think of is the very shallow way of thinking that "we gave blight removal on shroud 3 and 4 so it needs range reduced". It doesn't work this way, you are breaking the specs only way to alleviate being 1shot by any spec forget about 1v2. While not having any stunbreaks, cleanses, blocks, prot or any kind of damage reduction and having the kit necro has you need to let it have mobility or its not even a sitting duck. You gave it a death sentence with this change even though you wont realize it now. People who play this class day and night for so long can tell just from seeing the numbers on the mobility skills. Don't even need to play it.
  3. Guess they don't really want to give fear on shroud3 and will just rather die than do it and not let people have fear based builds. I think they don't really understand why having a fear in shroud is so imp because they don't play the game that much or that well to understand. Who am I to say anything though, its their game and they are making it for themselves right?
  4. They need to sometimes learn to accept that not all players in community are giving mindless suggestions from their own fantasy. Sometimes there are people who farm matchups all the time and can tell from a look at the skills and numbers what will work and what will not and are invested.
  5. The increased cd's is not flipping the necro gameplay. And will feel very bad. I know you added bunch of mechanics and damaging part to elixirs but being honest the condi from all elixirs(except elite) are useless except for creating cover condis for any condi build. But no one gonna take it anyway cause they will take survival tool and the damage part on elixirs will be the same no pressure tickles like reaper shouts, I can bet on it.
  6. Hugging a healer all the time for sustain is not flipping the necro playstyle on its head, its the same.
  7. Not backing off power build traits is very brave move but something that they would have to do later.
  8. Overall i'm having trouble understanding why are they shying away from giving mobility to this spec when literally it has no sustain of any kind, has necro base kit with 50sec cds and self damaging effects and no resustain(same as every necro spec) and no way to counter pressure while being focused. 
  9. The only reason people think this spec is any good cause in the beta it was released with fast paper willbender and clunk virtuoso.
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So I have two little issues remaining with the traits.

 

* There should not be two Elixir traits. Remove Vile Vials, and move the Elixir cooldown reduction into Twisted Medicine. For the new Major Adept trait, grant AoE Might and healing for each stack of Blight removed or lost.

 

* Wicked Corruption and Septic Corruption are horribly boring non-choices. Combine them both into one at 0.5% increased strike and condition damage per stack of Blight. This frees up yet another Major Adept trait slot. Since this redesign has one trait that encourages maxing Blight and one that encourages getting rid of it, how about a 3rd trait that slows the accumulation of Blight, as well as slowing the rate of Life Force drain in Harbinger Shroud.

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On 11/25/2021 at 6:14 PM, KrHome.1920 said:

End of Dragons Elite Specialization Updates - Professions - Guild Wars 2 Forums

Not the heal out of shroud removal, but the leap nerf to 600 killed the spec for the competitive modes. Harbinger transformed into immobile defenseless trash.

GJ ANet!

That company...

Dude, relax, it's a beta. I still remember Beta Renegade, completely unusable. Now it's one of the strongest classes in every game mode. 

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The potions are cool now but one of the main problems still persists: i spend 95% of the time in shroud, and im not even building any life force generation, so whats the point of giving us a new weapon if we just use it for 8 seconds while shroud is in cooldown?


Now that the potions are improved the pistol is a bit lame, not very problematic now, but i'll get bored fast with a pew pew pew damage skill and a single shot stun, pistol could use some mechanics


Speaking of fashion wars, you did it with the untamed, now do it with this one, the blight effects are too much and too green, it will ruin my character's black and white theme, make it more subtle
 

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From preliminary testing, Blight just doesn't seem to be a mechanic anymore now. 

No-Blight Harbinger (spending all Blight for Torment with Devouring Cut/Voracious Arc thresholds) seems to be about the same or higher (fairly low compared to Beta1) DPS as 25 Blight Stack Harbinger with the now much weaker Corruption Modifier. So it's basically just, "do you want a slightly more complicated (or rather honestly just clunky feeling) rotation or lose 37.5% max HP?". 

 

I suppose that's one way to "fix" Harbinger squishyness somewhat by making Blight a redundant mechanic, but it does feel like a whole lot of mechanics stacked (Blight, Blight Damage Modifier Traits, Blight removal, Blight damage Thresholds..) for ultimately nothing. If they all didn't exist, the spec would play and perform pretty much the exact same.

The Elixirs still feel just as lacklustre, just with added clunk of ground targeting and aiming them at ones feet for Blight gain - to then instantly remove again in Shroud to fuel the Blight cleansing Torment thresholds (which you don't have to control over when you actually just want to use them for mobility and not cleanse Blight). Pistol is still boring. It's Boon support is still terrible. The Traits are still just as boring but even more redundant now. Trait and Utility wise it still pretty much the exact same setup as condi Scourge for years now, just with less valid option/fun interactions.

The whole spec still conflicts in it's whole design as mobile squishy ranged caster, with all of it's movement abilities now being jump in melee damage skills, melee range passive auras and shotgun style abilities used in melee for maximum effect. Plus now the Blight stacking damage modifiers being in direct conflict with Blight cleansing damaging abilities.

 

I actually hope this Spec goes back to the drawing board on a fundamental level before EoD, because it's just becoming more and more of a convoluted mess of mechanics that ultimately add nothing or directly contradict each other. 

 

I really don't see a single reason to ever pick this over the other specs in any gamemode (other than desperately needing something new after years). It plays worse, it's more clunky, it doesn't add anything unique to the toolset, it's much more easily countered and in it's current state performs worse on just about any metric. 

With the range nerf to Voracious Arc, it doesn't even enable Necro to do certain skips anymore now. 

I was critical of it in Beta 1 when it at least still had Damage, simplicity and mobility/skips going for it - now I don't see a single redeeming factor and application in the game for the spec.

Edited by Asum.4960
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I certainly was not much impressed by the 'Double' Elixir damage benefit from Blight Threshold. 

Admittedly, the Blight removal with Shroud 3/4 was quite reasonable with the right rotations so it will be OK to manage blight there. At least this is done right, considering the impact of blight in Shroud is the hardest to deal with. 

I did get a laugh with the default gear on the beta characters Power/Vit and Condi ... I guess Anet at least recognize that they are frontloading the spec with DPS to create a situation where you downgrade specs on your gear to mitigate the HP losses.  

So my feedback is simply here:: if you are going to push a DPS spec at us with this Blight mechanic, you need to make the Elixir DPS worth the consideration to make the choice to throw away or use on self more meaningful. In otherwords, the Elixir DPS isn't good enough. I'm also understanding some testers are not finding your current Harb iteration DPS to be very compelling either, so probably need some additional DPS tweaks. 

Edited by Obtena.7952
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I dunno man. For me the point of taking Harbinger over Scourge/Reaper was its sheer damage. Some of the best testers on SC are having a hard time breaking through the 35-36k barrier. Yes, the Elixirs are better now. But, who in their right mind will ever pick Harbinger as a DPS over Scourge or Reaper when Scourge brings more utility and Reaper is much safer? 

I hope the devs don't take this as an opportunity to nerf Scourge and Reaper into the ground. 

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