Harbinger - Condi DPS

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

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required:

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 DPS build for Harbinger. Unlike other Necromancer specialisations, its shroud offers no defence, and it uses Elixirs to lower its own maximum health in order to 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 maximum damage from its Shroud abilities 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, so it prefers long-phased, stationary encounters. It provides very high Vulnerability uptime, and Elixirs offer decent self-buffing options too.

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

Skill Bar

Pistol/Dagger

Scepter/Torch

Utility

Weapon Variants

• For maximum DPS you can instead run Pistol/Torch & Scepter/Dagger. This has a slightly different rotation and you have to use Plague Signet to make it work, lowering your versatility.
• Players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure can just ignore the Torch.
  • If extra CC is needed, you can run a Warhorn on the Scepter set for theoretically no DPS loss.

Skill Variants

• Elixir of Anguish can be replaced with Elixir of Bliss or Elixir of Risk, depending on which boons you think you might lack.
• You can swap Epidemic out for other encounter-specific utility such as Spectral Grasp, Corrosive Poison Cloud, or Plague Signet for DPS.
  • If using Corrosive Poison Cloud, you may want to bring Elixir of Bliss to cleanse the self-conditions.
  • If you miss the condition transfer from Plague Sending, you can use Plague Signet in place of Deathly Swarm in the rotation (this is a smaller DPS loss than swapping the trait). This allows you to keep Deathly Swarm as a backup in case extra condi removal is needed.

Template Code

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Specializations

• Plague Sending is a minor DPS loss and will add some additional condi transfer to the build. This can end up being higher DPS if your healers are cleansing condis too fast for you to get the transfer from Deathly Swarm.
• For a ~5% DPS loss, you could bring Twisted Medicine to provide some extra boon uptime to your subgroup (depending on which elixirs you pick). Including ~10% of each boon from Elixir of Ambition:
  • ~35% Quickness and ~60% Swiftness from Elixir of Anguish
  • ~5 stacks of Might and ~60% Fury from Elixir of Risk

Equipment

Head
Viper

Shoulders
Viper

Chest
Viper

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
x2

Infusion
x16

Relic

Equipment Variants

• The above setup deals practically identical damage to one using and a Sigil of Superior Sigil of Malice instead of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Demons.
  • In this setup, it is optimal to use 12 Malign and 6 Spiteful infusions.
• If using Twisted Medicine, make the following changes:
  • Rune of Superior Rune of Tormenting
  • Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting instead of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Demons
  • 9 Malign and 9 Spiteful infusions
• For players that don't own Secrets of the Obscure, the best relic is Relic of the Aristocracy, along with the following changes:
  • Sigil of Superior Sigil of Bursting instead of Sigil of Superior Sigil of Demons
  • 18 Malign infusions
• If you're using Twisted Medicine AND don't have access to Secrets of the Obscure, just run the default setup with Relic of the Aristocracy.
  • In this setup, it is optimal to use 9 Malign and 9 Spiteful infusions.

Consumables

Food

• , or ascended versions

Utility

Usage

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

Rotation

Opener

1. Throw Elixir of Promise and Elixir of Anguish at your feet to quickly build Blight stacks.
2. Blood Is Power
3. Devouring Darkness
4. Blood Is Power
5. Weapon Swap
6. Deathly Swarm
7. Elixir of Ambition
8. Vile Blast
9. Weeping Shots
10. 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. Elixir of Promise and Elixir of Anguish - try to hit both yourself and your target so you deal damage as well as gaining Blight
3. Vile Blast, Enfeebling Blood and Blood Is Power, if available - if you used Blood Is Power, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with Deathly Swarm
4. Weeping Shots
5. Weapon Swap
6. Harrowing Wave
7. Devouring Darkness and Grasping Dead
8. Harbinger Shroud
9. 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
5. Weeping Shots
6. Elixir of Promise and Elixir of Anguish - try to hit both yourself and your target so you deal damage as well as gaining Blight
7. Vile Blast, Enfeebling Blood and Blood Is Power, if available - if you used either of the last two skills, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with Deathly Swarm
8. Weeping Shots
9. Harbinger Shroud
10. Repeat the Shroud Loop, then when you exit proceed to the Pistol-to-Scepter Loop

Video example

Video example (using Plague Signet and different weapons setup)

Video example (using Twisted Medicine)

Video example (using Plague Sending)

Utility

CC

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

General Tips

• If you find yourself running out of life force you can adjust in the following ways:
  • Swapping Epidemic out for an extra source of life force.
  • The extra vitality from higher tiers of Jade Bot Power Cores make you take a lot longer to run out.
• If using Corrosive Poison Cloud, make sure to use it after transfering the conditions from Blood Is Power so that you transfer the right conditions.
• 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.
• 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.