Harbinger - Spear Vampbringer Roamer

The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Strike damage and Mobility

Designed for: WvW Roaming

Expansions required:

Difficulty:

Normal

This build was last updated on November 20, 2024 and is up to date for the October 8, 2024 patch.

Overview

A WvW roaming Harbinger power build with exceptional mobility (by Necromancer standards) that's focusing on rapid attacks with high damage and a decent amount of life steal for extra survivability, built around the recently introduced Necromancer spear.

Skill Bar

Spear

Sword/Sword

Utility

Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot:

• Summon Flesh Wurm - mobility tool + stunbreak.

• Elixir of Ignorance - low CD stunbreak and the Resistance is useful against Blind / Weakness spamming specs like D/P Thief.

• Spectral Ring - area denial skill that could ward off attackers or trap enemies inside.

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Equipment

There are 2 very similar version you could run when it comes to gear. Overall the differences are relatively minor, but the option 1 should give you a bit better consistency on your bursts due to higher crit chance without sacrificing a significant amount of other stats which is why we recommend it.

Option 1 uses a mix of Demolisher/Dragon stats for high crit chance and toughness, but putting this together could be harder especially without access to Legendaries for easy stat swapping.

Head
Demolisher

Shoulders
Demolisher

Chest
Demolisher

Hands
Demolisher

Legs
Demolisher

Feet
Demolisher

Backpiece
Demolisher

Accessory
Demolisher

Accessory
Demolisher

Amulet
Demolisher

Ring
Demolisher

Ring
Demolisher

Spear
Dragon

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Dragon

Sword
Dragon

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Option 2 is the older version which uses more readily available stat combos and produce very similar results, but with slightly higher crit damage/HP in exchange for lower crit chance/toughness:

Head
Marauder

Shoulders
Marauder

Chest
Marauder

Hands
Marauder

Legs
Marauder

Feet
Marauder

Backpiece
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Accessory
Assassin

Amulet
Cavalier

Ring
Cavalier

Ring
Cavalier

Spear
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Sword
Marauder

Sword
Marauder

Sigil

Sigil

Rune
x6

Infusion
x18

Relic

Equipment Variants

Relics

There are several viable options for the relic slot, Atrocity is just one of many. It's worth noting that Atrocity also has synergy with sigils and consumables that steal life, not just skills and traits. Other great picks are:

• Relic of Rivers - the added Alacrity helps your CD recovery. Endurance regen food like is highly recommended with this relic.

• Relic of the Wayfinder - you can essentially sacrifice your relic slot for passive mobility in order to free up your rune slot for something else, like Rune of Superior Rune of Durability for sustain or Rune of Superior Rune of the Deadeye for higher damage.

• Relic of Isgarren - passive damage boost that's easy to maintain.

Consumables

Food

• - passive damage mitigation and great stats.

• or (whichever is cheaper) - armor ignoring damage procs that also heal you with Relic of Atrocity synergy on top.

• - has the lifesteal bonus of Omnomberry Ghost but also increases all stats, this is both a defensive and offensive food.

• - active damage mitigation through better access to dodging.
  • - budget version.

Utility

• or .

Usage

Elite specialization basics

• Harbinger Shroud 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

• 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).

• Your elite is both defensive and offensive, dealing decent damage while applying defensive boons.

• Swapping to Sword/Sword procs Sigil of Superior Sigil of Hydromancy. The purpose of this is twofold - you can either use it as a followp after a spear burst for instant extra damage, or Chill enemies in melee to slow their movements while you run away with Path of Gluttony.

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. Perforate (skill #2) spends them, skills 3-5 build them. The cap is 6 soul shards.

• Leaving shroud resets the CD of Spear's Isolate, and Isolate's chain skill Distress refreshes the CD of Perforate. 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).

• 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.

Burst combo examples

Shroud combo:

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.

Spear combo:

1. Optional: if you're on Sword, use Devouring Visage for the ranged Fear and immediately swap weapons. This will make it easier to land the next skill.
2. Isolate from range.
3. Cast Extirpate from a safe distance.
4. Teleport in with Distress as Extirpate's cast bar is starting to fill up. Your goal is to hit the target right after using Distress.
5. Optional: Addle for Immobilize
6. Perforate with max soul shards.

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: Path of Gluttony and Gorge
  • Shroud: Devouring Cut and Voracious Arc (VA also evades attacks which is especially nice while you're Immobilized and can't dodge)
  • Utility: Spectral Walk and Summon Flesh Wurm
  • We could also list Spear's Distress (chain of skill #4), but it can't really be used for escaping (long cast time on Isolate + requires a secondary target to port to other than the enemy who's chasing you).

• Other than mobility, your main line of defense is Harbinger Shroud. Both entering and leaving shroud cleanses conditions, and entering it also gives you 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.

• The build has several tools for condi cleansing: Elixir of Bliss, Sigil of Superior Sigil of Cleansing and entering shroud.

• 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!

Related Builds

• Harbinger - Power Spear Vampbringer - sPvP version of the build.