Harbinger Feedback Thread [Merged]

[Fire Attunement.9835]

Let us know what you think about the harbinger! What do you really like? What needs to be improved or adjusted?

 

Found a bug? Let us know in the bug thread.

[Rym.1469]

Okay, first impression - could Shroud #3 be targeted movement skill like Warrior GS#3 instead of going to target? Gameplay is fast, cancelling target kinda sucks.

[reddie.5861]

way to high base HP..

[Sunshine.4802]

While shroud and pistol skills are great, elixirs just feel incredibly boring and unimpactful

[LucianDK.8615]

15 minutes ago, reddie.5861 said:

way to high base HP..

You do realize the starter gear have vitality on it?

[LucianDK.8615]

6 minutes ago, Sunshine.4802 said:

While shroud and pistol skills are great, elixirs just feel incredibly boring and unimpactful

 

I can echo that. The elixirs needs to go back to the drawing board. Plus they are inferior to engineer elixirs which can be thrown.

[KireiWa.6195]

Need the actual weapon to play the elite specializations.  Opened the gear to find no pistol to use.

 

However, bit of an oversight on my part, could have had one ready to go.  But, don't really use pistol as I main necro.  But, sadly, will not be able to participate without the Spec new weapon.....

[LucianDK.8615]

2 minutes ago, KireiWa.6195 said:

Need the actual weapon to play the elite specializations.  Opened the gear to find no pistol to use.

 

However, bit of an oversight on my part, could have had one ready to go.  But, don't really use pistol as I main necro.  But, sadly, will not be able to participate without the Spec new weapon.....

Um, you get boxes with stuff in your inventory. I got a huge amount of get to look through. Including pistols.

Edited August 17, 2021 by LucianDK.8615

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

4 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

 

I can echo that. The elixirs needs to go back to the drawing board. Plus they are inferior to engineer elixirs which can be thrown.

The thrown part is a part of their profession mechanic. Let them keep that. Instead focus on how Elixirs can be made better.

 

Can it be made better by changing how blight works, or do the elixirs need to have specific effects?

 

Like how some engineer elixirs grant invulnerability or a transformation, which are mechanics and not just boons.

 

Edit:

Grant it though that most Engi elixirs can be reduced to press button get boons, so perhaps it is Blight that needs tweaking and not elixirs. I'll be able to give my own feedback tonight once I get home and play.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Lan Deathrider.5910

[Dhonti.5162]

Life force for harbinger shroud has no synergy with life force traits in other traitlines since harbinger shroud comes from life force from kills. 

[Fayup.8346]

I agree with Elixirs being lackluster.  

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

1 minute ago, Dhonti.5162 said:

Life force for harbinger shroud has no synergy with life force traits in other traitlines since harbinger shroud comes from life force from kills. 

Is that a bug then?

[Dhonti.5162]

They called it differently in the life force bar so it might be intended

[Lex.3986]

 

I feel I'm too open and vulnerable on shroud to do anything, I'll stay a few seconds in shroud and exit as soon as I can to keep myself alive . Feels too rigid, either you one shot everything or depend on a support to keep you up.

Works great as tank/healer, I feel with harbinger I'm gonna be stuck with providing elixirs and quickness to my group, a boon slave. 

Condi damage is cool, but still feel to dependant on a support.

Update:

Maybe some balance on blight and some interaction with it will fix things up, stays up for too long and feels like a burden (prenerf)  after a while. You could juice up some skills after reaching certain threshold, like holo, to make blight more appealing.

Boonshare is great, nice alternative for tanking, I can see a minstrel harb tanking raids. 
Power feels kinda weak, because necro lacks some power at base, that's why we have reaper (?). Harbinger feels much more torment oriented, and could use more specialization on that, other than pulsing traits, that seems kinda boring.

Pistol is fun, I understand it shares some similarities with other classes, but that's balance after all, would have been great to have dual pistols, and dual dagger for mesmer

Could use more variety on elixirs. I hope eod brings some elixir runes.

Update:

After a few hours I'm getting the hang of how to juggle blight, still hits quite hard if not managed correctly.

Elixirs are practical and get things done, could have some adjustments, like the icons.

Damage is not a trouble, it's good condiwise.

Top trait line needs some polish.

The boons? that's hot. Worth it.

Fun to play, refreshing spec on necro. 
 

*********************
update 12/04/21

*********************

Blight is much better now, more fun to interact with, and the skill buff after blight threshold feels rewarding, great rework of this mechanic.

The elixirs add a lot of diversity and ways to experiment with necro, now they are affected by blight, and that's awesome.

Amazing polish on this specialization, I'm glad you listen to the community feedback. My experience with harbinger went from meh to noice.

Can't wait for EoD release now.

Edited December 4, 2021 by Flexismon.6509
adding more info

[Apokriphos.7042]

This feedback is specifically for WvW. I have 1000s of hours in WvW, command daily and play every class, and often main necro.

 

Harbinger provides no unique niche in this content. It is a subpar duelist, fairs poorly when roaming with equally limited mobility tools to other forms of Necro on long cooldown, has severely limited range, all with significantly reduced survivability. 

 

There is no synergy with the new lifepool reduction mechanic, and the subpar damage boost granted does not justify being one shot to downstate. When playing with a zerg and supports you cannot move close enough to the enemy ro take any advantage lf the new skills or shroud without dying even with supports, and you provide little added utility to the zerg.

 

I tried hard to keep this new prestige class alive. I tried every tool from torment runes to all forms of sustain. You have no fear so no synergy with older sustain traits there. You have no added boon corruption so no benefit there. You have no additional range to beat out the utility weapon of staff (which is a horribly low bar) with pistol.

 

Torment focused class strategy is terrible in WvW with all players moving at nearly all times (50% dps reductionat all times).

 

This class needs a rework to focus its specialization into one aspect or niche that it succeeds at in WvW. Currenrly it is a free bag and a trap for new players looking to explore the mode.

 

Damage: subpar

Survivability: subpar

Added Zerg Utility: quickness on extremely short radius - better provided by more useful classes.

Enjoyment: downstate rotation

 

 

Avoid this prestige class. It needs significant work.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Apokriphos.7042

[MrAmputatoes.6031]

The Elixir of Promise: Is the scaling with healing power in pve supposed to be so low? Full zerkers in PvE is about a 2k heal while full zerkers in PvP is around 4.5k.

[SeTect.5918]

My first opinion: Blight brings too much hp reduction, with full dps equip (Vipers as condi) in fractals u will be really like a 1shot. I predicted tbh.
You have 11k hp, self condis that rip u like 1k before you can transfer them and damage reduction like scourges 5% per sand shade.

In open world this spec will shine due to tormenting rune, high dps and blood magic (if needed). 

This is 1 post of me before the testing phase started:
 

I got 9 likes on it so I can't be totally wrong.

The thing is this:

As i wrote in the post already, the sustain loss compared to reaper or scourge would make harbinger needing to go for 50k+ dps.
Which is obv not healthy. I mean you lose shroud hp, 50% hp by blight and dmg reduction like scourges 5% per sand shade for what? 10-15% more dps...
This e spec is going to be dead in (for example) fractals, where 5-10k hits are normal.
Imo Harbinger also needs more interaction with blight like i also said in a different post:
 

This are obv just ideas just to show how you could make harbinger interact more with blight.



Anyway i love the skills of this spec, especially bc i have my legendary weapon "quip" on it and it also shows the different projectiles on it on shroud skill 2.
I just think the damage could never be enough for this big sustain loss. Imho you should increase the blight interaction and decrease the hp lost by blight by maybe 1%?

This was the Feedback which was all about the low hp of harbinger in pve in vipers in fractals. In open world with tormenting runes and trailblazers this spec will shine. 

 

the dps with condi is really nice. Power does not so well.

 

To me this e spec really does totally different in each content. 

the rotation could be reworked a bit or sth...yk...atm it does like 211111211111211111211111211111....

But it seems really a fun class to me and i love it!

 

Edited August 19, 2021 by SeTect.5918

[starhunter.6015]

Pistol not included in gear box, but rest of gear good 

[LucianDK.8615]

1 minute ago, starhunter.6015 said:

Pistol not included in gear box, but rest of gear good 

I got 3x pearl hand cannon of force from the box.

[felincyriac.5981]

The traits (esp the gm's) and the elixirs are boring, the power build sucks thanks to no good power main weapon. Shouldn't have made it focus on so many things at once, power, condi and boons. It is a "specialization" after all. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by felincyriac.5981

[misterman.1530]

In WvW, not a lot of Health sustain - first impressions though. Trying different builds to see. Perhaps go full Dolyak and maybe Plaguedoctor. Not sure yet.

[ZeftheWicked.3076]

Good design, but poorly matched parts of it.

1. Base harbringer too powerful. Why worry about blight at all if i can just mass murder anything in seconds with default health? If I can get the job done smoothly with comfy 33k health, why bother with blight?

 

2. Dhuumfire overnerfed - i can grab a reaper with Reaper onslaught and dhummfire with viper or other condi gear and you'll see 3-5k burning on up to 3 mobs. Here i got 1-1.4k burns with quickness grandmaster and dhuumfire. This is most likely one of many victims of above mentioned issue - base harbringer too powerful.

3. Blight suffers many serious issues.
    I. It's counter-intuitive to a necro identity. Necro is profession of attrition. The longer the battle drags on the better for necro. But blight reverses that. Catching blight puts necro in a "you done the hitting now run!" situation.

    II. Bad pacing. Blight lasts too long, while also seems to be applies bit too slowly. I can go and assassinate a target with shroud without gathering much blight and ergo paying the price for the risk (shroud abuse). Meanwhile if i accumulate too much blight i can't shake it for ages - a window of vulnerability is ofc a good thing, but 25s one is bit overkill..

    III. No stack management. You can apply it, but you can't ditch it in any way. No cushion/cleanse mechanics, no traits that let you customize blight application to your needs with appropriate drawbacks or rewards depending on player choices made.

    IV. Poor rewards for risk taken. 25% extra damage isn't that great of a deal for losing 50% of my max health on a profession that even with this spec is very short on god-mode defenses.

4. Healing skill is just bad.  1.9k health + 10% lf on a standard cooldown. Any core necro heal will overperform that easy. If this thing was 15s cd that would be undestandable, but currently it's a major underperformer.

5. Party quickness too easy. Elixir + Grandmaster trait. As a 6 years or so necro main i get my profession isn't about piano play, but there should be some degree of player skill needed to sucessfully output S tier boons to their party. You know so there's still some space between skill floor and ceiling for support Harbringers.

Edited August 17, 2021 by ZeftheWicked.3076

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

In my experience, unless you have others tanking for you, you never build up enough life force to do anything more than jump in and out of Shroud for a couple skills (which is guaranteed by the grandmaster minor).  You basically need minions if you want to do a shroud-focused playstyle, which is required if you want to maximize your damage modifiers.

 

The Grandmaster traits have only one actual option: Quickness.  That's the only one that's useable without shoving your head into your enemy's hands.

 

4/6 of the elixirs just can't be justified on my skill bar.  Only Elixirs of Bliss and Ambition are worth slotting, and I still haven't found a spot with Bliss where it's not better to just slot Spectral Walk instead.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Drarnor Kunoram.5180

[reddie.5861]

29 minutes ago, LucianDK.8615 said:

You do realize the starter gear have vitality on it?

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

[LucianDK.8615]

So far the Espec is a disappointment, way too fragile.

Sure I get the need for toning down the excessive protection the shroud have been for core and reaper to allow us to get higher damage.   But destroying our health pool is overkill.  Harbingers needs active defensive abilities, like blocks or evades to make up for the much lower health and having zero defenses.  All too easy to get 1shot when blighted up in viper gear.

 

TBH Scourge feels like a proper e-spec that really changes how you play. Harbinger feels like kitten core.

 

Edited August 17, 2021 by LucianDK.8615