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 August 02, 2024 and is up to date for the February 11, 2025 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
  Koi Cake
  (or alternatives) as your food.
• Superior Sigil of Geomancy
  requires you to be in melee range to hit, so may be unreliable.
  Superior Sigil of Earth
  or
  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:

• Superior Rune of the Trapper
  instead of
  Superior Rune of Tormenting
• Superior Sigil of Demons
  instead of
  Superior Sigil of Bursting
• You don't have access to Torch so leave that slot empty, or bring a Warhorn.

Consumables

Food:

• Plate of Beef Rendang
  or ascended versions

Utility:

• Toxic Tuning Crystal
  • Master Tuning Crystal
    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
  .