Harbinger Feedback Thread [Merged]

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

47 minutes ago, Tobias.8632 said:

Power harbinger sucks, if you want to do good damage you basically have to run full vipers condi build.

 

So, what we end up with here, is a full vipers condi dps spec, with just a little bit of mobility, that is quite tanky, offers some light passive support with the option to trait into more, that deals high damage with an outstandingly braindead simple rotation that anyone can pick up and play using a 900 range hitscan condition weapon.

 

That entire paragraph applies as much to scourge as is does to harbinger. It feels like the exact same spec in a different wrapper.

 

I will have to challenge that statement on grounds of transfusion. On scourge it's a match made in unholy hell. You get healed, get all 9 pulses off in aoe real easy game does not care if you're shrouded or not.

On Harbringer you gotta be shrouded for it to work (pulses at same slow time 1tick/s) but that amasses nasty blight stacks. Imagine trying to ress someone while your max health gets constantly kitten in the process. You're simply offering yourself on a silver platter as a bonus kill for the enemy.

So scourge is a ress machine, while Harbringer that tries to use this trait is basically free kill...

[Acyk.9671]

deleted

Edited April 3, 2022 by Acyk.9671

[Eddie.8657]

Honestly Harbinger is a huge dissapointment for me.

The pistol skills : Honestly just feels like Engineer pistol skills. And they're quite boring.

However my personal opinion is that the Slot skills don't fit the class one bit. Nor are they exciting. You literally just drink a flask.. that's all they do.. I expected some fun skills with sick animations.
They do work fine though. Might be a bit strong once people figure out proper builds.

The Shroud could use a nerf as it's been mentioned its quite strong. And honestly i am sick and tired of seeing so many Necromancers in the game and i think Harbinger might even boost that count...

Necro Wars 2 needs to end. other classes must shine ! I'm tired of seeing so many Necro's, Guardians and Revenants.

[Modliszka.5027]

To sum up: (PvP/WvW perspective)

Observations (ideas later on)

1. Pistol - interesting, but viable only as condi

2. Elixirs - need rework, they are terrible

3. Harbringer Shroud - good idea, but needs tweak

4. Traits - need some mechanics, now they only give [boon] and add +200 [attribute] 

5. No fear at all?!? 🤨

6. Synergy with core specs are marginal 

 

Ideas:

1. Pistol could have follow-up skills - like thief sb2

2. Elixirs - why not assign utility elixirs (no heal no elite) to f2-f5 - as scourge have, they could be usable in shroud as well. They could be just minor versions of elixir skills (injections) - and available regardless if the elixir was taken or not.

3. Harbringer shroud option 1 (no-shroud necro) - why not combine lifeforce and health in one big pool ? Drained in shroud, regenerated with lifeforce generation. Blight reducing this pool.

4. Harbringer shroud option 2 (waever necro) - why not making lifeforce bouncing faster - faster drained in shroud, but doubled life force generation, or some passive/conditional lf generation. Shroud skills more powerfull or insta/quick cast or no cooldown - or everthing 🙄 

[frareanselm.1925]

Can somebody explain me how life force management works in harbinger?

I was losing life force when I wasnt in Deathshroud, I was just attacking with pistol and losing life force when logically I should be accumulating more. It felt so counter-intuitive.

[hobotnicax.7918]

This espec is basically cannon fodder in WvW unless it goes condi bunker. It's only half decent in 1v1s when it can kite/spam condies from 900 range. In zergs it's meh as well.

Dueled some people playing it vs my soulbeast, and yes I know, they probably don't know yet how to really play it, and it was trully ez mode vs anything other than condi bunker.

All in all I don't see a real point to this class, it adds nothing new besides self HP nerf. All it is, is another pointless class spreading condi in WvW. 

Slow clap.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

After reading some of the other feedback I want to add some more:

 

The strike and condition damage boost should be baseline on Blight. The traits should grant some other benefit dependent on Blight.

 

I'll reiterate that I think the Hybrid nature of the spec is fine, but there is some feast/famine situations in it that need to be normalized. There is enough quickness from two of the elixirs that along with certain sigils and boon duration make the need for the pulsing quickness trait less important, but I can guarantee that most people will take that trait because it is potent in its own right.

Edited August 18, 2021 by Lan Deathrider.5910
typo

[Brunnsteinangel.2568]

PvE perspective here.

 

I do love the HB. And I do like the new skill tree (same for the other two classes) as it is rather simple. 

The same for most abilities on the HB: Simple, easy to understand. This means a lot of ppl can get into the elite spec.

Mastering it however is something completly different due to the blight mechanic and this is how (IMO) good class desgin should be. Easy to learn, hard to master.

I also like how the shroud wants you to move and change distance to your target. Beeing away while you autoattack, then charge in and cast the 2, then moving back out. It is a very active and engaging combat!

 

I played a lot of condi and you do have quit some sustain - as long as you have an enemy you can shred to pieces.

But there are a couple of things I'd change if I could:

 

Adept condi trait:
Getting the dmg increase is awesome, but the poison is rather meh. You are focused on torment, and hence I'd like to see somthing like "increases base torment duration by 1 second". Reason is less to buff the shroud, but using this trait to give the pistol a much clearer condi aspect, while helping you out of shroud to keep the Dps up a bit.

 

The power line:

As HB yu want vitality. Preferablit Vita main, power/precision off and gain your ferocity via conferting vita (at least IMO).

But the traits do not a lot to support this. The Gradmaster is ok, but no where near os good as the other two, the Master one is "only" the convertion - here you could/should add a second conversion maybe vita to precision - while the Adept one is just "blight = damage". here could be a small "blight give 0.5% crit chance" or something.

 

Exliers:

An "evil version" of the elixers while in shroud would be awesome, some how retaining the elixers that than give negative effect to enemies and yourself or soemthing along the line.

[Nebilim.5127]

Playing harbinger right now feels like i'm playing core necro with scepter and all the boring signets. Same ranged weapon, same boring utility, except my HP is cut in half and i don't get a 2nd bar while I'm in shroud. Is the shroud skills really worth all this? Maybe in pvp, but i really don't see the appeal of this class at all.

When i saw the potion spec i thought we were going to get some self inflict condis/transfer style similar to mallyx. Or maybe we drink our shroud to make us powerful somehow, but turns out to be the most uninspired spec i ever played, and i can't even think of anything worse including core classes.

 

Both blight and the potions needs to be reworked somehow. I echo the sentiment someone here said about all the damage buffs from blight being auto included, but this is such a core issue with the class for me right now, it is hard to say what can be done. Having no shroud is already a detriment to necro and unlike scourge,you are barely getting anything good from it. You lose HALF your hp and then have to manage what's basically a second resource(blight) for some meager damage buff. Even the healing outside shroud is a detriment because it is constantly draining your main resource shroud.

[GlowingMoth.1063]

PVP POV from a rev main:

Im not usually a nec player- but mechanic wise its very balanced. Good necs will snowball hard bad necros will feed. Played around with it for around 4 hours. Used same traits as current meta reaper, but with healing elixir. And blind well. Worked extremly well in damage. Got hard punished when I made a mistake (unlike when I played the other necro builds.) So all in all I say its quite balanced.  U need to know what u dodge to survive, and u need to kite. Kiting was very crucial on the build i made. Didnt try the condi version as im not into condi play generally. 

I think its the first time I might pick up necro in pvp cause it has high potential into being a teamfights snowball machine. From the duels I played, revenant still supresses (at least the power build) necro. (Yes I duelled highly mechanical people and not random who has no clue what dodge is.)

 

Ur taking necro into the right direktion, with this elite spec. Please don't over nerf it cause it's very balanced.

 

On a sidenote, one feature that should be considered reworked or removed in PVP is boonsharing, cause you can boosnshare it with ur minions, promoting more unskillfull AI gameplay.

Edited August 18, 2021 by La belladone.6579

[De Bourgogne.9642]

Speaking for PvP:

Best necro spec in terms of fun, great specialisation mechanic. 

 

Issue I have is mainly shroud 5 animation is non existent for a skill that floats for 3 seconds in AoE. Pistol animations are also poorly distinguished between eachother pistol 3 looking too much like other pistol skills. 

 

I think it is fine if elixirs aren't good in PvP since necro already has plenty of good utilities so its not an issue. 

 

Power damage in PvP on pistol and shroud could be higher since this spec doesn't seem good as condi with torment (that was nerfed recently) being its main condition, since eternal life is too good to give up for doomfire. So pushing this build into power would be beneficial. The 4 seconds of weakness on pistol 3 is too long 2 seconds would be fine. 

[Astaira.4385]

I know this isn't related to gameplay, but what deterrs me personally from liking Harbringer is that it lacks identity. We're a Harbringer of blight (since that's our core mechanic), but we can't infect enemies with it, while we can grant boons to our allies. We get a pistol and shroud skills that require to go melee range. Just doesn't feel coherent or interesting to me.

So here's my general idea of how HB could have more identity as both harbringer of plague and an alchemist trying to alter it.

 

1) Blight 

May it grant max hp debuff as it does now, just make it weaker to allow accumulating more blight without dying instantly (ie. 1% up to 30 stacks). While in shroud, make it also pulse damage to enemies around you + a condition of player's choice (customisable with traits). Also make it apply a stackable "Blighted" counter on enemies (will get to it later).

 

2) Traits

Make the traits customise the blight. First tier could allow to choose conditions to be pulsed (maybe among poison/vulnerable/cripple?). Second tier would activate at certain threshold (ie. 15 blight stacks) could allow to choose a boon for the player that would help them survive ongoing lose of health. Third tier would activate at max blight stacks and provide a powerful effect, be it pulse of massive AoE damage or several conditions, or any other effect that would make it feel rewarding to get that full blight.

 

3) "Blighted" counter

The idea is for it to be a stackable counter applied to enemies who stay in proximity of shrouded Harbringer. It's not harmful by itself, serves only to be interacted with by Harbringer's skills and traits, making their effect stronger the more "blighted" an enemy is.

 

4) Potions

Harbringer is supposed to be an alchemist, right? So may his potions be partially beneficial to themselves (like healing one), or harmful to enemies around. May the beneficial effects grow stronger the more blight player has, and harmful ones be stronger as enemies accumulate more "blighted" counters. May the ultimate let Harbringer get rid of his blight stacks while either healing/buffing themselves or dealing further damage conditions on enemies.

 

5) Weapon

Pistol added to set of skills focused on melee feels counterintuitive, but I suspect we might be too far into development to change the weapon. Still I feel a mace or hammer with some skill(s) allowing to swiftly engage (a jump?) or disengage if Harbringer gets overwhelmed would fit better into the concept.

 

So to get it short - make Harbringer a melee spec that's supposed to get in the middle of enemy group to apply AoE damage and DoT. Make his traits and potions modify and  interact with blight on himself and blighted enemies. While getting to max blight stacks should still be risky, it should also grant a satisfying reward for doing so, hence encouraging actually using class mechanics.

 

Thank you to all who got to the end, I'm eager to hear community thoughts on this idea.

[VergilDeZaniah.3295]

A really simple feedback compared to the previous ones, I will simply focus on the design in general. I am mainly a WvW player so I'm talking about my experience in that mode only.

 

Harbing is absolutely... meh.

 

1. Shroud is fun, though I don't really get how the different "themes" are supposed to work together? 1 and 2 look more "magic", 3 and 4 "monk/brawler", and 5 is like "summoner"... I'm not fan of that "lack of continuity".
2. Blight needs a visual indicator on the health bar, just like "Deep Wound" or "Overcast" in GW1.
3. Blight needs to give a bit more advantages and make it a worthy sacrifice.
4. Pistol is underwhelming... As I've read, I agree it's simply Engi's pistol but slightly different. It should stand out more and it could play on the "alchemist" vibe of the spec.
5. Elixirs are what make the spec "meh" to me. I really don't feel like using them, they're just "sacrifice some health and gain a boon someone else could give you for longer". They need a HUGE rework... and, again, stand out as an "alchemist" vibe rather than a perpetually thirsty character. Make them either totally support (not only on self and without "Twisted Medicine") or make them a mix of boons and conditions ("Throw an elixir of ignorance, granting resistance to allies and confusion to enemies"), though Blight would not have much sense with these skills...

All in all, there is a huge potential, though "Blight" and "Elixirs" don't go well together imho: it should be one or the other, as one drags the other down... Both together are actually counterproductive and don't make the spec that attractive. 

[Sutepun.9450]

For Harbinger UI, maybe a visual indicator for blight on the HP bar? You can just do something simple like green wisps pulsing bottom up from the orb with intensity depending on how many stacks you have.

In terms of blight, it has little to no interaction with the elixir skills. You  can probably make the effects of elixirs also dynamically scale with how much blight you have on you.  

For condition rebalancing, probably decrease torment and redirect the application to other ones, like poison. 

[HowlKamui.5120]

Played with it more. 

Surprisingly, Zerker amulet with defensive trait lines worked well with in combination with kiting and bursting with quickness. 

Building shroud is basically impossible. It really is not the same as the shroud we are familiar with, and the last passive on the trait line reinforces this. Shroud is meant to be accessed for a few seconds to make offensive or defensive combo plays. Elixir of Ambition is a pretty good Ult both offensively and defensively, I'm also using the quickness elixir, but other than those two, the elixirs are lackluster. 

I still want the heal elixir to remove blight stacks though. After going full offense with the shroud + ult elixir, you really have to kite for a bit because of the blight stacks. It's a cool playstyle though. Very lethal damage but then very vulnerable after. So flesh wurm and spectral walk are must haves for me.

Anyway, im enjoying it far more than I was yesterday!

[DeathStorm.8423]

19 hours ago, reddie.5861 said:

u do realise i dont do PvE? so gear has 0 effect

That moment when your initial post didn't say that, so you make your self look like male genitalia

[DeathStorm.8423]

I enjoy the spec a lot. The blight mechanic needs a bit of work by either decreasing loss of life or increasing damage output if you're wanting to keep it at 50% life loss. In its current state, the risk far outweighs the reward. Regarding boonmancer support, if you're wanting harbinger to have a support aspect, you'll need to either have us throw elixirs or increase its radius, or change elixirs all together to something else. In game modes like fractal, it's difficult for everyone in the party to be stacked on necro to get every boon when many mechanics punish you for that. Normally, you're not within 240 radius of each other. There are other classes which gives great boons and you don't need that accommodation. As of now, they're a better choice in the boon department only because of the 240 radius. The amount of time the boons last, in plague doctor is 7s which is fine thanks to the 60 second cooldown.

[DeathStorm.8423]

31 minutes ago, Sutepun.9450 said:

For Harbinger UI, maybe a visual indicator for blight on the HP bar? You can just do something simple like green wisps pulsing bottom up from the orb with intensity depending on how many stacks you have.

This is already in play. You have that intense green aura which degrades towards your feet over time. That's the visual blight indicator. If you want a better understanding to what I mean, drink 2 potions with like 3 seconds in-between each other and watch your character

[Dadnir.5038]

2 hours ago, frareanselm.1925 said:

Can somebody explain me how life force management works in harbinger?

I was losing life force when I wasnt in Deathshroud, I was just attacking with pistol and losing life force when logically I should be accumulating more. It felt so counter-intuitive.

 

Let's explain life force:

Life force is a "fuel" that the necromancer get from nearby death and through some specific skills and traits. This fuel fill the "LF pool" which have a capacity of 69% of the necromancer's Health pool.

 

Harbinger case:

The Harbinger have a max health pool that varie from 100% to 50%. It affect the the maximum capacity of the necromancer's LF pool but does not affect the raw amount of life force that this pool already have when you recover from blight while there can be "loss" of LF when you gain blight.

 

Thus, recovering from blight make it look like you "lose" LF while in fact it's just that you have 7590 LF point (100% LF at full blight - 11k HP) and this number of 7590 stay still if you don't build more LF when your LF pool grow due to blight being cleansed (it gradually go down to 50% LF because you still have 7590 while the LF pool capacity have grown to 15180 LF).

 

 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Dadnir.5038

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

20 minutes ago, mikdepadua.8376 said:

Played with it more. 

Surprisingly, Zerker amulet with defensive trait lines worked well with in combination with kiting and bursting with quickness. 

That was my experience with it but with Diviner gear. 

20 minutes ago, mikdepadua.8376 said:

Building shroud is basically impossible. It really is not the same as the shroud we are familiar with, and the last passive on the trait line reinforces this. Shroud is meant to be accessed for a few seconds to make offensive or defensive combo plays. Elixir of Ambition is a pretty good Ult both offensively and defensively, I'm also using the quickness elixir, but other than those two, the elixirs are lackluster. 

The fury and might elixir is pretty great with boon duration as it is perma fury and perma 10 stacks of might. That is pretty awesome as a utility speaking as a warrior main. But I agree that this is a thirsty spec. 

 

I think on the elixir trait they should add in that Elixirs grant additional Life Force. Since I think that each elixir should grant different amount of Blight stacks, like the elite should give 25 stacks, I think the Elixir trait should grant 1% Life Force per stack of Blight taken by Elixirs.

20 minutes ago, mikdepadua.8376 said:

I still want the heal elixir to remove blight stacks though. After going full offense with the shroud + ult elixir, you really have to kite for a bit because of the blight stacks. It's a cool playstyle though. Very lethal damage but then very vulnerable after. So flesh wurm and spectral walk are must haves for me.

I agree with the heal removing Blight stacks. I found the weakness from pistol and the shroud HP regen helped me survive pretty well.  A Blood Magic Harbinger should survive very easily.

20 minutes ago, mikdepadua.8376 said:

Anyway, im enjoying it far more than I was yesterday!

I really enjoyed the small amount of time I got to play with it yesterday as well.

[HowlKamui.5120]

5 minutes ago, Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

I agree with the heal removing Blight stacks. I found the weakness from pistol and the shroud HP regen helped me survive pretty well.  A Blood Magic Harbinger should survive very easily.

 

I really enjoyed the small amount of time I got to play with it yesterday as well.

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. The weakness on pistol 3 and dagger 5 is vital for duels.
 

Elixirs giving life force might be too strong, but I like that idea. 
On both power and condi builds, spamming shroud 1 with quickness is so good that having too high of shroud uptime *could* be too strong.

This might be my new main. That thief main hand scepter got me interested though.

[Metalhead.5273]

2 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

You are mixing everything and no GW2 is not a pve oriented game, they just make sure you get some value from something you bought with pve content. For the first 3 years the end game was WvW, then we had ESL in pvp and much of the balance was about that. After that, they kinda catered more to PvE, it turned out unhealthy for the game and balance because design weren't refined enough.

WOW having a solid pvp ground? Lmao please.

I said if blight is too strong in pve they can always reduce its impact but that's a number change and you could always take scourge to bypass boss mechanics. Anyway, take some vitality on your gear as it's the main mechanic of the e-spec and you won't die easily. Harbinger is not worse than elem. My point is proven anyway when the 3 e-spec attain close to 40k on dps golem but only harbinger works in their current design in pvp/wvw. Pve need high numbers across the board and not much else when it comes to design.

 

EDIT: to be clear i'm not saying pve doesn't matter, this game promotes 3 game modes but professions' designs and mechanics are not and should not be about PvE foremost. I won't "pollute" this thread further with this kind of debate.

I can not even begin to.....I do not know where to start I even think you are a troll. You'll simply need to see your confused emotes attached to your comment to understand. It's funny. I do not have time for you. I simply wanted anet to see you are wrong and I proved it by emotes on your posts and mine. That's about it. 

Edited August 18, 2021 by Metalhead.5273
Grammar

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

Just now, mikdepadua.8376 said:

Ah yes, I forgot to mention that. The weakness on pistol 3 and dagger 5 is vital for duels.
 

I ran Focus myself. The chills, weakness, and slow all helped survivability a great deal. Like I mentioned above even at like 2k HP due to damage and blight I did not feel pressured. This was as a Death Harbinger. If someone did Death/Blood/Harbinger they'll get very tanky very quickly.

Just now, mikdepadua.8376 said:

Elixirs giving life force might be too strong, but I like that idea. 
On both power and condi builds, spamming shroud 1 with quickness is so good that having too high of shroud uptime *could* be too strong.

My recommendation was also somewhat contingent on altering the amount of blight each elixir gives and giving life force based on those new blight stacks. Even then I think the spec would devour life force quickly.

Just now, mikdepadua.8376 said:

This might be my new main. That thief main hand scepter got me interested though.

Harbinger will certainly be in my roster rotation for when I need a change of pace from warrior. I love reaper, and I'm really liking what I saw in Harbinger.

 

The range of experiences people are having with it survivability wise I think has a lot to do with the versatility the spec offers as it is right now. You can build this spec to be anything from the glassiest cannon ever to a sustain boon monster. I really like this versatility within a single espec. I think it offers a high skill threshold to make it effective, which is something that has been missing from Necro.

 

The only real complaints I have with it are that the pistol power damage needs to be slightly higher in competitive, blight needs to not all be the same stacks on each elixir, the heal needs to clear blight stacks, and there needs to be some more Life Force generation in the kit somewhere.

 

Otherwise I think it is pretty solid.

[Dadnir.5038]

3 minutes ago, Metalhead.5273 said:

I can not begin to.....I do not know where to start I even think you are a troll. You'll simply need to see your confused emotes attached to your comment to understand. It's funny.

Well, he is right that GW2 balance/profession/e-specs are first and foremost meant for sPvP and should be balanced on this basis.

 

There is the classic PvPer delusion that ANet have catered mainly for PvE after they discarded ESL (but well, it's wrong and that can be ignored).

 

WoW not being a model for it's PvP isn't a wrong statement.

 

He is also right in saying that taking vitality on your gear/amulet/runeset is a good move, it give value to the master traits and will increase your survivability.

 

As it stand, Harbinger is pretty strong in small scale fight (sPvP) due to good damage, good sustain and good mobility. It likely won't become "meta" in WvW because zergs don't need what the spec offer. And it's fine in PvE because it got high damage and good offensive support (survivability doesn't matter when you got a healer behind you).

 

NB.: And personally I'm especially pleased by the fact that I have now access to 5 stacks of stab on a relatively short CD to do jumping puzzles in PvE (This alone is enough to make me like the spec).

 

[yann.1946]

I think its a pretty good idea.

The shroud feels a little ganky with blight though. making it so you feel like you are losing shroud while its just your max shroud increasing. What is weird to me is that shroud has a percentage based reduction, theirs not really value in high max shroud numbers.