User:Masel/Builds/Harbinger

Pistol + Torch Condition Harbinger

Build Rating (Subjective)

Criterion	Rating
Burst Damage	3/5
Sustained Damage	5/5
Utility Options	5/5
Survivability	5/5
Difficulty	2/5

Condition  Harbinger is a very strong choice for instanced content, especially with a simplified rotation. It's also a great pick for solo gameplay, as it can provide itself with good amounts of many essential boons ( Quickness,  Protection,  Fury and  Might) and substantial amounts of self-healing. Through   Elixir of Ambition,  Deathly Haste and  Twisted Medicine, it can also be adjusted to provide  Quickness and a partial uptime on all(!) other boons easily, without larger adjustments to gear.

Link to the Build on the Editor

Playstyle & Skills

Skill Type	Skills
Shroud Skills
Pistol + Torch Skills
Utility Skills

  Harbinger Shroud

• Akin to all Necromancers,  Harbinger gains Life force from nearby deaths or by using skills that directly grant it.
• The shroud mechanic on  Harbinger differs from   Reaper's Shroud and   Death Shroud, as it does not shield your health bar while it is active. You will still drain Life force every second.
• Instead,  Alchemic Vigor heals you every second for every stack of   Blight.
•   Blight is a stacking effect that reduces your health per stack by 3%, but it also grants increased  Condition Damage.
• You stack   Blight up by staying in shroud and by casting Elixirs on yourself. In turn, you can consume stacks of   Blight with shroud skills to empower them(e.g.   Voracious Arc applies  Torment only when used with at least 5 stacks of   Blight).

Rotation Concept and Video Showcase

You can find my most recent rotation showcase here.

•  Harbinger is largely ranged by default (aside from   Voracious Arc,   Devouring Cut and   Vital Draw), making it very convenient for all kinds of gameplay, as you can freely position yourself and still maintain a high damage output. Simply skip the skills listed above when you cannot be in melee and execute the rotation as usual.
• The rotation is very simple, as it involves using almost all of your weapon and utility skills on cooldown. With Pistol on the main hand, you do not even have to keep track of an auto attack chain. If you lack access to Torch, using a Dagger instead is worse, but just fine for starters.
• In order to understand the rotation design, it's important to know that   Blood Is Power applies  Bleeding and  Torment to yourself. For maximum damage output, you want to transfer these conditions to enemies as soon as they are applied to you.
• Always pair   Plague Signet and   Blood Is Power:   Plague Signet immediately transfers the self- Bleeding and  Torment. Try to time it right when the conditions apply to you, as they might get cleansed otherwise.
• The rotation will slowly drain you Life force pool against a single enemy. As soon as something around you dies occasionally, you should not have any Life force issues in the long run. We're using   Vital Draw to make the 1-weapon rotation more sustainable, as it is no dps loss anyway. The only disadvantage is that you might not be able to keep it for Defiance bar damage.

Opener

• Start with precasting   Elixir of Promise and   Elixir of Anguish for initial   Blight stacks.
• After the opener, the rotaion consists of two sections:   Harbinger Shroud and Pistol & Torch.

Section 1:   Harbinger Shroud

• In shroud, you want so use the following skills:

1.   Dark Barrage x3
2.   Devouring Cut x2
3.   Voracious Arc x2
4.   Vital Draw x1

• Start with   Dark Barrage and   Voracious Arc, as they define the duration of the   Harbinger Shroud loop.
• Leave shroud after the third cast of   Dark Barrage.

Section 2: Pistol + Torch

• With the exception of the combo of   Blood Is Power and   Plague Signet, you want to use all skills on cooldown.
• Try to stay in melee range for the Elixirs to apply   Blight to yourself. Otherwise, you might lack stacks for the skills that consume it.
• Since you use all skills except for   Weeping Shots only once pre loop, start with that and squeeze the second cast in at any time later in this section.

CC Skills for breakbar damage:

•   Vile Blast
•   Voracious Arc
•   Oppressive Collapse
•   Vital Draw
• All CC skills will apply  Torment via  Insidious Disruption.
• Since we're not using a second off-hand weapon, you can put on any weapon that brings additional CC, like a Warhorn with   Wail of Doom.

Gear

Important Stats in Hero Panel (descending in Importance):

1. ~75% Condition Duration in the hero panel:  Sand Sage and  Barbed Precision together with Superior Sigil of Demons give the remaining 20% for  Bleeding and  Torment.
2. Maximize Condition damage
3. Maximize Critical chance to trigger  Barbed Precision reliably.

Gear

Armor	Prefix	Rune
Head	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Shoulders	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Chest	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Gloves	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Legs	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Boots	Viper's	Superior Rune of the Trapper
Trinket	Prefix
Amulet	Viper's
Ring 1	Viper's
Ring 2	Viper's
Accessory 1	Viper's
Accessory 2	Viper's
Backpack	Viper's
Weapon	Prefix	Sigil
Pistol (Main Hand)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Torment
Torch (Off Hand)	Viper's	Superior Sigil of Demons
Purpose	Item Type	Source
Damage	Ascended Food	Cilantro and Cured Meat Flatbread
Damage	Non-Ascended Food	Plate of Beef Rendang
Survivability	Ascended Food	Peppered Cured Meat Flatbread
Survivability	Non-Ascended Food	Oysters Gnashblade
Damage	Utility	Toxic Focusing Crystal
Survivability	Utility	Potion Of Karka Toughness
Damage	Relic	Relic of the Fractal

• For a budget variant, simply replace all ascended armor pieces and trinkets of Viper's with rare/exotic Ritualist's and Abomination Weapons .

Traits

Curses
Soul Reaping
Harbinger

 Curses

• Bread and butter traitline for Condition Necromancers, as it includes traits that increase  Bleeding output, duration and general Condition damage.
•  Barbed Precision applies  Bleeding with a 33% chance on critical hits, which is why we want to have a decent amount of Critical chance on Condition Necromancers

 Soul Reaping

• The most relevant traits here are  Soul Barbs and  Dhuumfire.
•  Soul Barbs increases damage by 10% for 15 seconds after entering or exiting Shroud. On  Scourge, that's easy to reach by casting   Desert Shroud on cooldown.
•  Dhuumfire empowers your Shades to apply additional  Burning.

 Harbinger

• Harbinger will empower your  Condition Damage and  Torment application via  Doom Approaches and  Septic Corruption, respectively.
• Due to  Dark Gunslinger, you will

Sharing  Quickness

• If you want to share  Quickness, you just need to take  Twisted Medicine and  Deathly Haste and execute the rotation as usual.
• Make sure to cast   Elixir of Ambition and   Elixir of Anguish after combat starts to not have the boons stripped from your subgroup.
•  Twisted Medicine makes you share a partial uptime on all(!) boons with a single button press, which is something only harbinger can do.
• For safer boon sharing, you can replace any piece of Viper's with Ritualist's at a small damage loss. This will become relevant in the open world build.

Open World Build

You can find my most recent open world build showcase here.

Link to the Build on the Editor

For OW, it can make sense to make a build more forgiving, so that you can sustain on your own.

Increasing General Survivability

• The first step for increased survivability is to use  Parasitic Contagion,  Twisted Medicine,  Deathly Haste and as many pieces of Ritualist's as you can afford. Rare Armor and Exotic Trinkets are cheap to buy.
• The  Vitality from Ritualist's makes your   Harbinger Shroud much stronger, so you can benefit from more persistent Blight stacks and higher damage under pressure.
• You can also replace  Soul Reaping with  Death Magic. Usually this isn't required, but it helps against very tough enemies. This is a noticeable damage loss, as it does not fully cover  Vulnerability. Whenever  Vulnerability is provided, the damage gap becomes much smaller.
• So essentially, we're playing  Quickness  Harbinger with  Death Magic.
• That way, you obtain massive amounts of Toughness, permanent coverage of  Protection and passive healing at a fairly small damage loss:

Death Magic

•  Putrid Defense &  Corrupter's Fervor stack up Death's Carapace very fast and thus provide pulsing  Protection when you have more than 25 stacks. Each stack of  Poisoned you apply grants 2 stacks! Starting combat with   Weeping Shots and   Vile Blast will stack up 30 stacks within ~2 seconds of starting combat.
• You will heal passively via  Alchemic Vigor and  Parasitic Contagion.
• I like to use   Well of Power for pulsing  Might, condition cleanses and Stun break in one skill.

Boon Coverage

This build is great at covering boons on itself and allies:

1. The coverage of  Protection was explained already.
2.   Blood Is Power and   Oppressive Collapse provide  Might, also in an area around you.
3.  Furious Demise covers a partial uptime on  Fury.
4.  Elixir of Anguish,  Deathly Haste and  Twisted Medicine apply a full uptime on  Quickness and a partial uptime on all boons in an area. The  Concentration from Ritualist's extends the duration on all of them!
5. If you can, make use of jade protocols!   Jade Tech Offensive Overcharge and   Jade Tech Defensive Overcharge give 150 additional Toughness, Vitality, Condition Damage and Power as well as all boons aside from  Stability,  Resistance and  Resolution on entering combat every 30 seconds.

Dealing with Conditions and Control effects (CC)

•   Well of Power cleanses conditions every second (in an area!) and is a Stun break in one skill.
• You can use  Plague Sending for another cleanse every time you go into shroud.