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Harbinger - Quickness Support Condi DPS

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage and Support

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required: End of Dragons buildsSecrets of the Obscure builds

Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on August 02, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition boon support build for Harbinger that provides permanent Quickness Quickness and optionally some Might Might and Fury Fury too. Unlike other Necromancer specialisations, its shroud offers no defence, and it uses Elixirs to lower its own maximum health to provide boons and gain higher damage. This makes it very much a glass cannon, and while its weapon skills are all ranged, it needs to be in melee for Deathly Haste so it can feel very squishy. Fortunately, you are not denied healing while in shroud.

It has a slow ramp-up of damage and focuses mostly on Torment Torment, so it prefers long-phased, stationary encounters. It provides very high Vulnerability Vulnerability uptime and a good amount of CC.

As a Necromancer, it has a lot of valuable utility options, though it must trade damage or boons to bring them.


Skill Bar

Pistol/Dagger
Scepter/Torch
Utility


Weapon Variants

  • Players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure can just ignore the Torch.
    • You could bring a Warhorn on your Scepter set for extra CC, life force generation and a tiny bit of healing. If the rotation is performed correctly, this won't be a DPS loss.


Skill Variants

With Elixir of Risk you can maintain permanent Fury Fury and ~13 stacks of Might Might, but it could be swapped out for other skills if different utility is needed.

  • Signet of Spite offers the highest DPS.


Template Code

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Specializations


Equipment

Head
Ritualist
Shoulders
Viper
Chest
Ritualist
Hands
Viper
Legs
Viper
Feet
Viper
Backpiece
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Accessory
Viper
Amulet
Viper
Ring
Viper
Ring
Viper
Pistol
Viper
Dagger
Viper
Sigil
Sigil
Scepter
Viper
Torch
Viper
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x9
Infusion
x9
Relic
  • This setup provides ~19% boon duration (without a Jade Bot) which is enough to maintain Quickness Quickness getting 5 ticks of Deathly Haste per shroud loop.
  • You can run full Viper stats Viper stats pieces if you are confident in your rotation.
  • If you don't have stat infusions, use (or alternatives) as your food.
  • Sigil of Superior Sigil of Geomancy requires you to be in melee range to hit, so may be unreliable. Sigil of Superior Sigil of Earth or Sigil of Superior Sigil of Torment can replace it if preferred.
  • Relic of Akeem and Relic of the Fractal are very similar damage. Akeem is AoE, but requires your CCs to be spaced out - if you deviate too much from the written rotation it may perform notably worse.


Non-SotO Gear

Relic of the Aristocracy is the best relic for players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure. As this adds a lot of condi duration, you should make the following changes to your gear:

  • Rune of Superior Rune of the Trapper instead of Rune of Superior Rune of Tormenting
  • Sigil of Superior Sigil of Demons instead of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting
  • You don't have access to Torch so leave that slot empty, or bring a Warhorn.


Consumables

Food:

  • or ascended versions


Utility:

    • for a cheaper alternative


Usage

Rotation

The rotation assumes use of Elixir of Risk and Elixir of Anguish, but Elixir of Risk could be replaced with Elixir of Bliss if it is deemed more valuable. See the General Tips section if you are not running 3 elixirs.

This rotation also uses Torch. Players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure can just ignore any torch skills.

Opener

  1. Throw Elixir of Promise to build some Blight
  2. Harbinger Shroud
  3. Voracious Arc
  4. Devouring Cut
  5. Dark Barrage
  6. Exit Harbinger Shroud
  7. Elixir of Risk, Elixir of Anguish and Elixir of Ambition on the group for boons and to quickly build Blight stacks - make sure the boon rip has already happened!
  8. Oppressive Collapse
  9. Harrowing Wave
  10. Grasping Dead
  11. Blood Is Power
  12. Devouring Darkness
  13. Blood Is Power
  14. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  15. Deathly Swarm
  16. Vile Blast
  17. Weeping Shots
  18. Harbinger Shroud


Shroud Loop

  1. Devouring Cut
  2. Dark Barrage
  3. Tainted Bolts until Devouring Cut is nearly off cooldown
  4. Voracious Arc
  5. Devouring Cut
  6. Dark Barrage
  7. Vital Draw - You can this at any point in the shroud loop as long as it doesn't make you delay skills
  8. Tainted Bolts until Dark Barrage is off cooldown
  9. Dark Barrage
  10. Devouring Cut
  11. Voracious Arc
  12. Exit Harbinger Shroud


Pistol-to-Scepter Loop

  1. Weeping Shots
  2. Vile Blast
  3. Enfeebling Blood, Elixir of Ambition and Blood Is Power, if available - if you used Blood Is Power, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with Deathly Swarm
  4. Elixir of Promise, Elixir of Risk and Elixir of Anguish - make sure to aim them at your allies
  5. Weeping Shots
  6. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  7. Harrowing Wave
  8. Devouring Darkness and Grasping Dead
  9. Harbinger Shroud
  10. Repeat the Shroud Loop, then when you exit proceed to the Scepter-to-Pistol Loop below


Scepter-to-Pistol Loop

  1. Oppressive Collapse
  2. Harrowing Wave
  3. Devouring Darkness and Grasping Dead
  4. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  5. Weeping Shots
  6. Vile Blast
  7. Enfeebling Blood, Elixir of Ambition and Blood Is Power, if available - if you used Blood Is Power, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with Deathly Swarm
  8. Elixir of Promise, Elixir of Risk and Elixir of Anguish - make sure to aim them at your allies
  9. Weeping Shots
  10. Harbinger Shroud
  11. Repeat the Shroud Loop, then when you exit proceed to the Pistol-to-Scepter Loop


Rotation Example


Utility

CC

  • Voracious Arc
  • Vital Draw
  • Vile Blast
  • Wail of Doom - if running Warhorn


General Tips

  • Both Voracious Arc and Devouring Cut have aftercasts that can be easily cancelled by using any other skill. If you are following the rotation, the aftercast of Voracious Arc should always be cancelled by Devouring Cut, but you should manually use Tainted Bolts or Dark Barrage after Devouring Cut rather than wait for autoattacks to take over.
  • Try to finish the second attack of Tainted Bolts before using another skill.
  • Voracious Arc and Devouring Cut are only worth using if you are above the Blight threshold for each skill (10 and 5 respectively). If for some reason you are not at high enough Blight, skip these skills.
  • Leaving Harbinger Shroud during the cast of Dark Barrage can cancel some of the hits, so be careful not to leave too early.
  • Most of your weapon skill cooldowns are longer than your loop, meaning that you can pretty much cast them in any order, with a few exceptions:
    • You want to cast Weeping Shots twice each time you end up on Pistol. Delaying the first use will therefore delay your entire rotation so it should always be used first.
    • Enfeebling Blood is a fairly low priority skill, and this means that its effective cooldown is slightly longer than your loop, causing it to drift backwards in the rotation. This shouldn't be a problem if you're good at pressing it off cooldown, but if you're a little slow it can end up delaying your rotation (or need to be skipped). You can offset this by prioritising it over Vile Blast and Scepter skills.
  • Performed correctly, you should never need to autoattack on Scepter, and only occasionally on Pistol while waiting for cooldowns.
  • If you have downtime during an encounter where Harbinger Shroud is not needed, you can repeatedly enter and immediately exit it to build up life force via Corrupted Talent.


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 3 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
5 stars
FatMat gave this build 5 stars • August 2024
Super easy to maintain boon uptimes with great burst and sustained ranged damage. It has a fluid and fast paced rotation without feeling spammy, and using Relic of Zakiros when lacking a healer or going solo solves most of the survivability problems. I cannot recommend this build enough.
5 stars
OfficerAndyGentleman gave this build 5 stars • April 2024
Impressive damage for a boon support, and provides more might than most options too - which opens up the alacrity slot for more variety. Really shines in condi fractals.
5 stars
Böjömö gave this build 5 stars • August 2022
Current meta for Harbinger. Permanent Quickness, high damage. The butterfly rotation requires some time to get used to, but the build is top tier.

Comments

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