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:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on February 09, 2024 and is up to date for the March 19, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition boon support build for Harbinger that provides permanent Quickness and optionally some Might and 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, so it prefers long-phased, stationary encounters. It provides very high 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 and ~13 stacks of Might, but it could be swapped out for other skills if different utility is needed.

• Signet of Spite offers the highest DPS.

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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 getting 5 ticks of Deathly Haste per shroud loop.
• You can run full 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
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
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
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.