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Harbinger - Power Spear Vampbringer

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

Focused on: Strike damageBoon removal and Mobility

Designed for: PvP Conquest

Expansions required: End of Dragons buildsSecrets of the Obscure buildsJanthir Wilds builds

Difficulty:
Normal
This build was last updated on March 20, 2025 and is up to date for the March 11, 2025 patch.

Overview

A versatile PvP Power Harbinger build that has enough sustain to take some 1v1s and plenty of damage to be relevant in teamfights. This version of Spear Harbinger focuses on life stealing and mobility to survive and stick to targets better.


Skill Bar

Sword/Sword
Spear
Utility


Skill Variants

Utility

For the optional slot:

  • - decent AoE damage and more boon corruption. Mostly offensive but also has some defensive value, as it can transform boons like Might Might and Fury Fury into Weakness Weakness and Blind Blind, significantly lowering the damage your opponent can do.


Template Code

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Specializations

Variants

  • can be considered if you want more damage, but it's a significant drop in sustain especially if you're playing with several utility elixirs which otherwise would grant Protection Protection from .


Equipment

Sword
Sword
Sigil
Sigil
Spear
Sigil
Sigil
Rune
Amulet
Relic


Equipment Variants

Relics


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.
  • is an excellent setup for burst combos as it's quite a long CC.
    • 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.
  • (shroud auto) can do a lot of damage with Quickness Quickness and makes for a great filler skill if you're out of CDs or don't want to go into melee.
  • 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. to get into melee range.
  2. 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. for CC.
  4. at point-blank range for maximum effectiveness.
  5. spam.

Spear combo:

  1. Optional: if you're on Sword, use for the ranged Fear Fear and immediately swap weapons. This will make it easier to land the next skill.
  2. from range.
  3. Cast from a safe distance.
  4. Teleport in with as Extirpate's cast bar is starting to fill up. Your goal is to hit the target right after using Distress.
  5. Optional: for Immobilize Immobilize
  6. 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: and . Note: when you're using these out of combat, swap weapons just before Gorge ends. This prevents Gorge from putting you in combat with the health sacrifice and slowing you down.
    • 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 . Entering shroud cleanses conditions while giving you Stability Stability as well as damage reduction + a Weakness 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.
  • (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 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!
  • 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.


Related Builds


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 2 votes.
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4 stars
Traiges gave this build 4 stars • December 2024
The base idea behind the Spear implementation for necromancer was really interesting. Despite this the weapon feeling very clunky & needing a mini rework. However this does not hinder it from shining in PvP or WvW's isolated combat scenarios. The build can be adjusted in terms Curses or (if you have a death wish) Blood Magic Path in favor of Death Magic. Carapace synergizes exceptionally well with Harbingers Blight Mechanic and will add another layer of protection against damage. If you want to run Death magic instead of Curses you will have to look out for a few things like changing your amulet and traits like "lesser signet of vampirism" because there is no other bleeding sources in the build. So all in all it is a potent & flexible build for player vs player combat, despite Spear being kind of a let down as a weapon itself
5 stars
Hanz gave this build 5 stars • December 2024
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. edit: made some adjustments based on suggestions, I think I'll bump this up a tier, very decent ranked build.

Comments

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