Power Harbinger

March 2024

Introduction

Power Harbinger is a powerful DPS build similar to Power Reaper with high damage in a bursty profile. Harbinger focuses more on single-target damage and good Crowd Control. Harbinger Shroud does not protect the Harbinger’s life pool while active, making it easier to manage Life Force and maintain your rotation during encounters.

Build Fundamentals

Enter and exit Harbinger Shroud regularly to increase damage via Soul Barbs. Taking damage in Shroud still affects your HP and will not consume your Life Force.

Precast Elixir of Promise just before entering the fight to instantly get 10 stacks of to increase the damage from the skills you use after.

Use Elixir of Ambition and Elixir of Promise on yourself as soon as they’re off Cooldown to upkeep stacks.

Before entering Harbinger Shroud always place Nightfall, Well of Darkness, and Well of Suffering to maximize burst damage. Never delay entering Harbinger Shroud or using Well skills with this combo. During the opener, use Elixir of Ambition just right after Nightfall.

Your Life Force is generated by using the following skills:

• Death Spiral, Devouring Visage and Grasping Darkness when hitting multiple or single targets. Try to hit multiple targets if they’re in range of the boss.
• When entering Harbinger Shroud you gain some Life Force. Then when you cast Vital Draw you gain Life Force up to 3 times per enemy inside the floating area up to a maximum of 5 targets.
• Dark Pact is a single target skill and generates some Life Force. You can use it as a boonstrip if the fight requires it.

The rotation changes slightly when the enemy is below 50% life: When you exit from Harbinger Shroud and you’re in Greatsword, maintain the same Greatsword rotation and once you Weapon Swap, skip Devouring Visage and use Dark Pact in between Hungering Maelstrom and Gormandize.

Build Specifics

Use the following to upkeep Relic of Fireworks:

• Greatsword: Nightfall and Grasping Darkness
• During Dagger loop: Devouring Visage
• Harbinger Shroud Vital Draw. When using Vital Draw do not cast immediately, since you’ll lose the Relic of Fireworks uptime when you continue the Shroud Loop.

Tainted Bolts shoots two projectiles. Count 6-8 projectiles before using Dark Barrage and/or Devouring Cut again.

Use Devouring Cut and Voracious Arc when your is generally above 20 stacks. Voracious Arc can be delayed or used as an evade skill if a dangerous attack is coming.

Grasping Darkness aftercast can be canceled by using Nightfall right after.

After the first cast of any Sword skill, use another skill while you wait for the second activation. The second activation requires a short amount of time before it’s ready, so use another skill in between to increase DPS.

While in Harbinger Shroud, your life bar decreases for each stack of . At 25 stacks you lose 37.5% of your maximum health (level 80 stats), making you much more vulnerable to dangerous attacks from multiple bosses. Sometimes might not be enough to prevent you from going down, so you might want to consider delaying or adapting the rotation to the fight, using Voracious Arc and Devouring Cut to consume and gain back a portion of your maximum health.

Crowd Control

• Grasping Darkness
• Vital Draw
• Spectral Grasp

Alternatives

Utility skills

Replace Signet of Spite with any other utility skill you need in specific encounters:

• Spectral Grasp for CC and pull.
• Signet of Undeath for better Life Force generation and to instantly revive a downed ally.
• Corrosive Poison Cloud to block projectiles.

Sigils

For night time encounters, you can replace your Superior Sigil of Force with Superior Sigil of the Night for a slight DPS increase.

You can also use Superior Sigil of Cruelty in areas where you can kill multiple mobs that grant stacks. Once you reach 25 stacks, you can stay on Greatsword (for GS only rotation check the LI build variant).

Gear

You can change the stats of Helmet and Leggings to Assassin and the rest of the gear to Berserker. You’ll reach 100% crit chance by just having ascended gear with this selection (no precision infusions), and almost no DPS loss if you decide to go with all Might Infusions.