Harbinger - Power Spear Vampbringer
The community gave this build a rating, making it second-tier: Good
Focused on: Strike damage, Boon removal and Mobility
Designed for: PvP Conquest
Difficulty:
Hard
This build was last updated on September 09, 2024 and is up to date for the August 20, 2024 patch.
Overview
A high damage PvP Power Harbinger build meant to teamfight, but can hold it's own in some duels. This version of Spear harbinger focuses on life steal and mobility to survive and stick to targets better.
Skill Bar
Sword/Sword
Spear
Utility
Skill Variants
Utility
For the optional slot:
- - even better mobility + a stunbreak.
Resistance access which makes it easier to pressure targets that rely on conditions such as
Blind or
Weakness to survive.
- low CD stunbreak with
Protection and CC and with
Fear. Good for kiting or teamfights.
- added AoE
- - works both as a defensive and offensive skill.
- - good AoE damage with Vuln stacking.
Might and
Fury into
Weakness and
Blind, significantly lowering the damage your opponent can do.
- decent AoE damage and more boon corruption. Mostly offensive but also has some defensive value, as it can transform boons like
Template Code
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Specializations
Variants
- trades damage for sustain. Worth considering especially when playing with some utility elixirs too.
Equipment
Sword
Sword
Sigil
Sigil
Spear
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic
Equipment Variants
Relics
Alacrity can help with everything from damage to survival.
- extra
- - better burst damage.
Amulets
- - higher risk/reward option.
Usage
Elite specialization basics
- doesn't replace your health bar! Unlike other Necromancer shrouds, Harbinger Shroud can't be used to soak up damage, which makes this spec more squishy by default.
- You can enter shroud even with no Life Force, but staying inside still drains your LF each interval.
General
- Role: roam the map looking to +1 fights, decap, and occasionally duel. Your AoE damage isn't great in teamfights and you're way too squishy to survive in melee against multiple opponents.
- Entering 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).
- Your elite is both defensive and offensive, dealing decent damage while applying defensive boons.
Damage
- Spear and shroud are your main sources of damage, Sword is more of a utility weapon used for survival.
- Spear has it own unique mechanic: soul shards. (skill #2) spends them, skills 3-5 build them. The cap is 6 soul shards.
- Leaving shroud resets the CD of Spear's , and Isolate's chain skill refreshes the CD of . This will always give you an option to do good followup bursts after leaving shroud, or to chase down targets (shroud already has good mobility, and you can teleport to targets struck by the ranged Isolate).
- is best used in melee range where all of the projectiles hit your main target.
- Follow up with any other shroud skill except for as that one dazes targets and could therefore stunbreak your enemies. It's still good to use near the end of Vital Draw.
is an excellent setup for burst combos as it's quite a long CC.
Quickness and makes for a great filler skill if you're out of CDs or don't want to go into melee.
(shroud auto) can do a lot of damage with
- 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.
Burst combo examples
Shroud combo:
- to get into melee range.
- 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.
- for CC.
- at point-blank range for maximum effectiveness.
- spam.
Spear combo:
- Optional: if you're on Sword, use
Fear and immediately swap weapons. This will make it easier to land the next skill.
for the ranged - from range.
- Cast from a safe distance.
- Teleport in with as Extirpate's cast bar is starting to fill up. Your goal is to hit the target right after using Distress.
- Optional:
Immobilize
for - with max soul shards.
- Optional: if you're on Sword, use
Sustain
- While life steal provides some bonus healing in combat, mobility is your real survival tool. Use sword, shroud and utilities to get out of harm's way. The build is very squishy, you need good awareness and reaction times to know when to get out.
- Important mobility skills:
- Sword: and
- Shroud: and (VA also evades attacks which is especially nice while you're Immobilized and can't dodge)
- Utility: and
- We could also list Spear's (chain of skill #4), but it can't really be used for escaping (long cast time on + requires a secondary target to port to other than the enemy who's chasing you).
- Other than mobility, your main line of defense is
Stability as well as damage reduction + a
Weakness proc on enemies. If you're being focused, entering shroud just for damage reduction/cleansing and to use the 2 mobility skills before dropping out of shroud is a perfectly fine thing to do.
. Both entering and leaving shroud cleanses conditions, and entering it also gives you
- Condi cleansing is mainly limited to shroud and .
- Activate SW ⇒ jump off a cliff while being chased ⇒ when your enemies jump after you.
- Activate SW ⇒ (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!
(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:
- 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 move around the map in general.
Ratings
![4 stars](/wiki/images/b/b1/4-star.png)
It can do ok but it's incredibly squishy, mobility can only do so much for you. I don't think this is viable enough to be competitive given its weaknesses, but it can be playable at an average rating range at least. IMO the damage isn't high enough to justify all the shortcomings of spear, and it offers very little else. It's kinda fun but unless Anet reworks it, this weapon will be forgotten very soon on Necro.
Comments
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