Harbinger - Power Harbinger

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

Focused on: Strike damage and Boon removal

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Difficulty:

Hard

This build was last updated on April 23, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A high damage PvP Harbinger power build meant to teamfight. The build is a glass cannon with very low survivabiltiy, relying mainly on its mobility tools and careful positioning to survive fights.

Skill Bar

Axe/Focus

Staff

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

• Spectral Armor - low CD stun break and great defensive skill in general.

• Elixir of Bliss - better condition cleansing.

• Well of Darkness - can replace Flesh Wurm, generally Well of Darkness is one of the most Meta skills for Necromancer right now. The blindness pulse can really mess up any player.

• Well of Suffering - Great to combo with your elixrs to cause your opponent to have high Vulnerability allowing for intense bursts. You could potentially drop multiple players with this but that's all situational.

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Specializations

Specialization Variants

For more sustain you could try replacing Spite with either Blood Magic or Death Magic:

Equipment

Axe

Focus

Sigil

Sigil

Staff

Sigil

Sigil

Rune

Amulet

Relic

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 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).

Damage

• Staff is more of a utility weapon while Axe/Focus and Shroud skills are for burst damage.

• The 3 skills that benefit from Sigil of Intelligence the most are Spinal Shivers, Devouring Cut and Voracious Arc.

• Dark Barrage is best used in melee range where all of the projectiles hit your main target.

• Vital Draw is an excellent setup for burst combos as it's quite a long CC.
  • Follow up with any other shroud skill except for Voracious Arc as that one dazes targets and could therefore stunbreak your enemies. It's still good to use near the end of Vital Draw.

• Tainted Bolts (shroud auto) can do a lot of damage with Quickness and makes for a great filler skill if you're out of CDs or don't want to go into melee.

• Elixir of Ambition does decent AoE damage too. While this could act as a ranged skill, you need to be inside the landing area if you want to get the boons from it.

• Ghastly Claws is the best burst skill on Axe. Sometimes when you drop out of shroud you'll have a few seconds of Quickness left, which might be enough to cover an entire cast of GC to make it harder to avoid.

Sustain

• Use Spectral Ring to kite enemies or wall yourself off from them. Crossing the ring also gives you Protection.
  • Casting Putrid Mark insdie the ring results in AoE Chaos Armor (but only if an enemy triggers the mark).

• 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.

Related Builds

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