Harbinger - Pistol Curses

The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good

Focused on: Condition damage and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on January 18, 2025 and is up to date for the April 15, 2025 patch.

Overview

A high condition damage PvP Harbinger build made primarily to teamfight.

Skill Bar

Pistol/Torch

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility:

Always keep Spectral Walk but the other 2 slots are more flexible. Other viable options include:

• Corrupt Boon - unblockable single target boon corruption that's hard to avoid, great for bursting targets without any other setup. It's even good for defensive purposes while under pressure - quickly corrupting Stability and Might into Fear and Weakness for instance could save you.

• Well of Corruption - less bursty than Corrupt Boon but it's AoE.

• Well of Darkness - works both as a defensive and offensive AoE skill.

• Elixir of Ignorance - low CD stunbreak + damage mitigation and defense against soft-CC like Blind spam or Immobilize.

• Spectral Ring - area denial that can save your life or cage in enemies to set up kills.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud - excellent anti-projectile skill which also brings Poison and Weakness spam to the table, further mitigating damage as well as enemy healing.

Weapons

Torch can be replaced by either of the following weapons:

• Offhand Dagger - defensive pick with condition transfer and some damage mitigation via Blind and Weakness.

• Offhand Sword - ranged CC and Weakness.

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

Soul Reaping can replace Death Magic if you want to play a more high risk/reward version of the build:

Variants

• Soul Marks makes your Staff marks unblockable but weakens your shroud auto spam.

Equipment

Pistol

Torch

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

Equipment Variants

Runes and sigils

• With the Soul Reaping variant Rune of Balthazar and Sigil of Smoldering on Pistol/Dagger also become viable options because of Dhuumfire synergy.

Relics

• Relic of Akeem - improves condition variety on your bursts if you can proc it consistently with CC.

• Relic of Antitoxin offers better cleansing at the expense of damage.

• Relic of Vass - might offer you more damage than Demon Queen if you're also using utility elixirs, but losing out on the extra healing reduction of Demon Queen could ultimately make it harder for you to kill high sustain bunker and support builds.

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Harbinger Shroud doesn't replace your health bar! Unlike other Necromancer shrouds, Harbinger Shroud can't be used to soak damage, which makes this spec more squishy by default. Death Magic should offset this a bit.

• You can enter shroud even with no Life Force to use, but staying inside still drains your LF each interval.

General

• Role: follow the teamfight, stay with the support if you have one.

• Don't spam your marks on the ground out of combat - they are easy to spot and a single dodge from the enemy can get rid of them. Skills 4-5 are also valuable defensive cooldowns and you don't want to risk not having them for the next fight. There are exceptions of course, Mark of Blood (because it's not a key skill and has a low CD) or even Chilblains can be used a bit more freely. For example place them at an entrance or under yourself to help your team spot Stealthed enemy movements or force a dodge at the start of the fight. Or if you see an enemy with teleport skills approaching you could place Reaper's Mark right before they jump you to ruin their burst.

• Entering Shroud triggers Weakening Shroud. If you're CC'd and getting focused you can enter shroud for the Weakness and boon rip as a defensive measure and even proc Plague Sending for some cleansing and additional counter-pressure.

• Corrosive Poison Cloud is one of the more versatile skills in the build:
  • The healing and endurance reduction from Poison and Weakness is great for wearing down enemy bunkers/supports.
  • Could be used defensively for AoE projectile denial, helping you and your teams survive pressure, even shutting down elites such as Lich Form.
  • It's unblockable and the Poison does solid damage on its own.

• Entering Harbinger Shroud gives you life force, so start dropping in/out of shroud the moment the game starts (before you'd even leave spawn) and keep doing it even out of combat for the rest of the match for free LF (and mobility from skills 3-4).

Shroud burst combo example:

1. Devouring Cut to get into melee range.
2. Voracious Arc to deliver damage while avoiding incoming attacks and dazing the target, making it harder for them to prevent the next step of the chain. It's also yet another mobility skill in case you were still not in melee range.
3. Vital Draw for CC.
4. Dark Barrage at point-blank range for maximum effectiveness.
5. Tainted Bolts spam.

Pistol burst combo example:

1. Harrowing Wave could serve as an opener as it has a very low cast time and doesn't really require setup, but it could also be used after Vile Blast.
2. Vile Blast to set up Oppressive Collapse (OC), which has a much more visible animation and would be harder to land. Note: OC in general works best against slowed/stunned targets - the AoE ring spawns under your target the moment you press OC, so enemies with Superspeed or mobility skills could even escape the ring before the skill finishes. If they manage to leave the ring in time they'll avoid the CC.
3. Oppressive Collapse
4. Weeping Shots

Sustain

• Both entering and staying in shroud removes conditions thanks to Plague Sending and Shrouded Removal (Death Magic-only).

• When playing with Death Magic removing and applying conditions generates Carapace stacks, reducing strike damage taken. At 25+ stacks Corrupter's Fervor is going to start pulsing Protection for, well, further protection. This boon also reduces condition damage taken thanks to Dark Defiance.
  • Shrouded Removal grants Carapace even if the condition was removed through other means, like Spectral Walk.

• Spectral Walk (SW) is great for preventing condition pressure from ramping up on you. Activating its chain skill which "ends" Spectral Walk does not stop the cleansing. This skill has many uses, for example:
  • Activate SW ⇒ jump off a cliff while being chased ⇒ Spectral Recall when your enemies jump after you.
  • Activate SW ⇒ Necrotic Traversal (Flesh Wurm skill) ⇒ teleport back when they catch up to you. This works for stomping downed enemies as well, the channeling isn't interrupted by either of these teleports!

• Summon Flesh Wurm should be placed well before entering combat, preferably at a spot where your enemies can't reach it easily. Wurm provides you with an escape route and makes it easier to travel around the map in general. Last but not least, teleporting to the wurm with Necrotic Traversal grants 10% life force, which means you could consider using the teleport before even leaving spawn at the start of a game in order to start off with some LF.

• Harbinger has better mobility than the average Necromancer build which could prove useful when it comes to surviving damage. Devouring Cut and Voracious Arc are both great for building (or closing) gaps.

• Skill #4 on both weapon sets is a condition transfer when playing with Dagger offhand: Deathly Swarm and Putrid Mark.

Related Builds

• Harbinger - Celestial Elixir Roamer - WvW version of the build.

Top Streamers

• Twitch: Bel