Harbinger - Condi DPS

Part of the current metagame

Our curator decided this build is in the current metagame regardless of rating. The community gave this build a rating, making it top-tier: Great

Focused on: Condition damage

Designed for: Raids and Fractals

Expansions required: End of Dragons builds

Difficulty:
TBD
This build was last updated on August 10, 2022 and is up to date for the February 27, 2024 patch.

Overview

A condition DPS build for Harbinger. Unlike other Necromancer specialisations, its shroud offers no defence, and it uses Elixirs to lower its own maximum health in order to 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 maximum damage from its Shroud abilities 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 Torment, so it prefers long-phased, stationary encounters. It provides very high Vulnerability Vulnerability uptime, and Elixirs offer decent self-buffing options too.

As a Necromancer, it has a lot of valuable utility options, though it must trade damage to bring them.


Skill Bar

Pistol/Dagger
Scepter/Dagger
Utility


Weapon Variants

  • If extra CC is needed, you can run a Warhorn on the Scepter set for theoretically no DPS loss.


Skill Variants

  • can be replaced with any of the 25s-cooldown elixirs, depending on which boons you think you might lack.
  • can be replaced by if the minion might die, or there are long periods where there's nothing to hit for life force.
  • If you have an excess of life force, you can swap out for another elixir. This would enable you to use and/or in and then quickly regain the lost blight.
  • You can also swap out for encounter-specific utility such as or .


Template Code

[&DQgnNjI1QD/nGuca7BrsGoAAgABwAXABkgCSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA=]
Copy Template Code


Specializations


Equipment

Head
Viper
Shoulders
Viper
Chest
Viper
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
Sigil
Rune
x6
Infusion
x18
  • This assumes no power core from the jade bot. As you get higher tiers of power core, you can swap Spiteful infusions for Malign ones.


Equipment Variants

  • The above setup deals practically identical damage to one using , (or ascended alternatives), and full Malign infusions.


Consumables

Food


Utility


Usage

Rotation

The rotation assumes use of and , but either could be replaced with if it is deemed more valuable. See the General Tips section if you are not running 3 elixirs.

Opener

  1. Throw , and at your feet to quickly build Blight stacks.
  2. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  3. - We cast this just before shroud so that the self-conditions are immediately transferred via

Note: This opener should leave you with one stack of Poison Poison. However, if you do not have the buff from , you will instead be left with Bleeding Bleeding, because reasons. This is a fairly notable DPS loss as you want to transfer it to your target. As such, if you are playing without a warrior you may wish to use immediately after in the opener.


Shroud Loop

  1. until is off cooldown
  2. until is off cooldown


Pistol-to-Scepter Loop

  1. , and , if available - if you used either of the last two skills, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with
  2. , and - try to hit both yourself and your target so you deal damage as well as gaining Blight
  3. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  4. and
  5. Repeat the Shroud Loop, then when you exit proceed to the Scepter-to-Pistol Loop below


Scepter-to-Pistol Loop

  1. and
  2. Weapon Swap Weapon Swap
  3. , and , if available - if you used either of the last two skills, immediately transfer your conditions to your target with
  4. , and - try to hit both yourself and your target so you deal damage as well as gaining Blight
  5. Repeat the Shroud Loop, then when you exit proceed to the Pistol-to-Scepter Loop


Rotation Example


Utility

CC

  • - if running Warhorn


General Tips

  • When running three elixirs, the rotation above is not sustainable (you use more life force than you gain each loop). Many encounters have extra sources of life force gain, or are short enough that you don't run out of life force, but if you need to you can adjust in the following ways:
    • Using during step 4 or 6 of the shroud loop gains you the equivalent of ~2 more seconds in shroud, and so is a DPS increase if you would otherwise be forced out.
    • Swapping one of your elixirs out for an extra source of life force (or utility) will make the rotation much easier. However, as you won't have the Blight stacks needed to consume for extra damage, you will need to skip one use of in the Shroud Loop.
    • Though the rotation will still be unsustainable, the extra vitality from higher tiers of Jade Bot Power Cores make you take a lot longer to run out.
  • Both and have aftercasts that can be easily cancelled by using any other skill. If you are following the rotation, the aftercast of should always be cancelled by , but you should manually use or after rather than wait for autoattacks to take over.
  • Try to finish the second attack of before using another skill.
  • and 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 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 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.
    • 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 and Scepter skills.
    • If is not available at the expected point in the rotation, but comes off cooldown before entering shroud, you can use it alongside at step 8.
  • Performed correctly, you should never need to autoattack on Scepter, and only occasionally on Pistol while waiting for cooldowns.
  • There is a bug with Elixirs whereby they will not provide you with Blight stacks (and in fact can even remove them) if you are stood within your target's hitbox and aim the elixir directly at your feet. As such, either stand back from the boss slightly or throw them a little further away.
  • If you have downtime during an encounter where is not needed, you can repeatedly enter and immediately exit it to build up life force via .


Ratings

This build has a rating of 5 stars based on 2 votes.
Log in or register to rate this build.
4 stars
OfficerAndyGentleman gave this build 4 stars • July 2023
Strong ranged damage and a decent amount of CC. Elixirs add a little bit of self-buffing and the majority of damage can be performed at range, which makes it relatively good at handling mechanics. If needed it can also bring some of necro's excellent utility skills.
5 stars
Appo gave this build 5 stars • July 2022
better with tourment cause more damage minion is not usefull

Comments

Get MetaBattle Premium
Enjoy an ad-free experience & support the website, for less than $1 per month! Upgrade to Premium