HARBINGER FEEDBACK

[Ruzuke]

I believe the change to the black blade was a little to harsh. If the duration is to be changed for two turns then could the time to cast it be changed for two minutes? Or perhaps it remains out for six turns with a time of four minutes. This would allow time for the epic ability to be available.

With the removal of skills points I would also request the class is given some of the skills which would allow it to enter into the cross class specialties and the feats which allow harbinger to cross class work towards some of the other classes..

In my case I would love to make a Harbinger / Shadow Dancer however even before the skill point change with an 18 int it is a struggle to have the skill points needed. With it I would need to move to a secondary class to take the build. Perhaps the Lurker feat could behave like the Shadow Mage path and allow choosing the PRC without hide and move silently with the cost it does not grant the sneak attack.

Could we also get spellcraft? This is the only class with spells without it.

I am enjoying the class even with the changes. I personally build for flavor with the class helping telling the character's story. I am not a power builder. No spreadsheets and I have no idea if the above feedback and thoughts would allow a power builder to crush and slay everyone.

[Quidix]

On the Class Synergy, currently it only adds to the Harbinger's own CL - has it been considered to add the CL to the unlocking class too? Specifically, to give Warlock CL when taking Eldritch Patronage and Ranger CL when taking Eternal Hunter?

[Whosdis]

Dipped my toes finally: I fell in love with the initial design, favoring the greater amount of skill points and achievable damage even if you went a non-strength build: The way I went it felt like a more modular Bladesinger, with skills, dips, and Rumours of War letting you rival or even surpass in versatility whilst being a strong frontliner. I was surprised to hear that allegedly most Harbingers are full 30's, which I imagine is the reason for balancing changes: I envision a grand majority are going divine patronage for divine shield and might (with dark blessing being a bonus atop), and Cursed Armaments for access to heavy armor.
 
Not a big fan of the skill points reduction: The increase in skill points combined with the reduced HD made it a touch closer to melee Warlock and provided a bit of flexibility. Losing that puts them right back into the skill-starved rank Hexblades were at, which yet retain the higher damage hit dice and larger damage immunities compared to Mortality Undone.

Maybe some of the ala Seeker Cleric some of the paths and/or Rumours of War might provide bonus skill points?

Improved Weapon Hex feels like a middle-ground between whether or not you went Curse of Sacrifice: Now it's less health and nominally less damage, although the other provided bonuses are decent. Your enhancement bonus is also going to end up 1 point lower than Hexblade's equivalent whether you dip or not.

It's still a strong class and unlike prior iterations of Spellsword I feel it can mesh very well with dipping into other classes, which is a big draw for me. I would like to say that I immensely approve of the modular design of the class and hence the work Amnesy et al. have done and are doing for it.

[Skeletor]

Love the class so far.

One comment: Dark Seraph's dark claim damage that accumulated and hits on curse expiration seems to be a design flaw. Once you dark-claim someone you're also trying to hit them until they fall, and if they die without dark-claim expiring then the damage is wasted. At higher levels it lasts about 1 turn and the entire combat is over by then, not just 1 mob.

Possible alternatives:
-Have the accumulated damage affect the nearest enemy in a small radius upon claimed target death if they fall before the curse expires.
-Make Atrocity abilities always detonate the accumulated damage when hitting the target, instead of having to wait for expiration.
-Make reusing dark claim on the claimed target detonate the damage immediately.

Clarification edit: I'm talking about this effect

Code: Select all

Dark Claim: Dark Seraph: Bleak Prophecy

Dark Claim bestows onto the target 10% vulnerability to Entropy damage. This penalty increases to 20% at the 21st level. When Dark Claim ends it will apply damage to the Claimed Target 2d4 per 1 round of duration. Max Duration: 1 turn. This damage is maximized if the target is below 20% HP. 

[/i]

[Waldo52]

I think the synergy feats are a lot of fun. The ability to take more than three levels in another class without obliterating your caster level is a great gimmick and I've experimented with a 17 harbinger/13 rogue.

I didn't actually reach 30 on the live servers but I took one of these to 16 and played around extensively at 30 on the PGCC.

One problem I run into is skill starvation. Maybe the harbinger was never never intended to have an identity of "skilly class" but the sheer lack of skill points is frustrating when synergies are designed with classes like ranger and rogue that desperately rely on having skills. I'm finding that even as a human with 16 intelligence there's no room for Search, UMD and other fairly vital skills.

Another problem I run into is the scaling with regards to weapon hex. Weather you look at my build or something else synergy dependent you start to notice that your weapon can easily end up capping out at +3. No, we're not all entitled to +5 weapons. But the class lacks UMD, and its general skill starvation likely blocks you from taking UMD even if you have access to a UMD class. I honestly think this is one of the biggest stumbling blocks for the synergy feats. I don't think your other class should scale 100% and net you a +5 weapon in the end, but I think an easier path to +4 would make some of these more exotic multicasting options more useable.

The rogue synergy feat also doesn't seem very powerful. When I read "30% concealment" I thought it sounded awesome. And don't get me wrong, this is an incredible ability to have if you're caught with your pants down. But improved invisibility which is one of the standard buffs for PvP and PVE content already exists as a harbinger spell and in scroll form. This grants 50% concealment and kind of strips the synergy feat of its use. The skill bonuses associated with the feat are nice to have, but with the harbinger's skill and feat economy I'm still wondering why I didn't just make a rogue who can afford to actually take ranks in all those skills and epic skill focus in two or three of them.

TL;DR

-With regards to synergy feats and builds, I'm finding that our delayed progression for weapon enchantment is a problem.

-The base class does not have the skill ranks necessary to accommodate some of these skillier classes that it's intended to work with beyond a several level dips (Dirgesinger, ranger and rogue all need more skill ranks to thrive)

-The rogue synergy feat in particular is very underwhelming. Heftier skill bonuses equivalent to actual skill focus feats, improved sneak attack dice, a bonus to trap DCs or something else would really be a big improvement.

The Positive

I'm genuinely having fun playing something new. Harbingers have a fun and unique toolkit. The class feels highly malleable in the sense that you can play pretty much any battlefield role (besides full on dedicated spellcaster or ranged damage dealer). Harbingers that take a lot of levels in another class can at least function to a degree, even if they could be a little better.

[AstralUniverse]

I got some feedback.

I played harbinger 26 dirgesinger 4, Crimson count, to lvl 30, and then further.

Lets go chronologically.

Dark Claim: No where it says it resets on a kill the way old hex used to, but it does, and whether or not it's a bug or a feature remains mystery. In case it's a feature, it's a bit wonky as mobs with corpses who wont despawn will occupy the dark claim until the full cd is over because it only resets if the corpse despawns. In case it's a bug - oops.

Atrocity strike: A lot like dark harvest, and especially for crimson count, you need to use the strike to execute, and while it's nice and interesting and also has bonus damage * missing health%, it's still incredibly hard to use optimally and extremely punishing to mistime it. It is not the fun part of the class, for sure.

Atrocity whisper and invocations: completely garbage. Not ever worth using. They behave like a potion use, in that they proc attack of opportunity, and they also behave similarly to a wand in how they fire-off when you use them (meaning you need to finish your round before it fires and then your next action is only 3 seconds later and I dont think haste affects this as far as I can tell).

The crimson count on-kill bonus: Questionably good. The heal is not that hot but the DR is absolutely fantastic (in endgame dungeons you get the 11/+6 very often) and I question whether or not it's fine that it doesnt have any scaling with harbinger lvl, and even a 8 harbi 7 wm 16 cot, for example, can utilize it to about the same value. It's currently the most fun part of the kit, for me, if we ignore the annoying execute mechanic it relays on. I also slapped Mortality Undone and some DI% gear where I could so it really felt like a good middle ground between high ac and decent drain-tanking over all.

I am not going to comment on other paths much because I feel like they facilitate completely different things (like a DC focused pure harbi with acedia, woe drinker, 18+ cha and the path with the bonus DCs on curses etc) which I havent tested or played live yet. But I see the potential, at least in theory. It sounds like it can get really mean DCs, especially in this twilight zone meta between dwaemo systems. I'd keep an eye on those builds.

My two cents on the power creep:
I have not pvped on this class yet, but I can say from playing similar classes and character architypes, that the wind up is definitely not the shortest, and even more so if you dip dirge singer to boost your effective stats even more through lvl 20+ curse song, but the stats are definitely on the stronger side of things. It gets really juicy stats when it gets the haste, div might+shield, curse song going. I did not have a real issue with skills because I didnt try to squeeze stealth into it, and I think I like it that way. stealth max would be no brainer if the skill points were more loose than this so I can see the logic here.

Over all, I like this class a lot. It was a lot of fun to level solo and it's capable of easily grinding the 2-3 easier runics we have, without relaying much on consumables, so its very self sufficient, which is definitely right up my ally. Big kudos to Amnesy and and anyone else involved.

[ReverentBlade]

Astral's experience matches my own. Pretty basic Harbinger 27/3 rogue. Using Dark Seraph path. My biggest gripe is the long delay after using Whisper or Invocation. Not being able to follow up on the stuns at all because of the time it takes to start swinging again is rather frustrating.

I hope Dark Claim's reset mechanic is an intentional feature, because it would be pretty painful without it.

[Quizmar]

As a harb24 rogue 4 harb 1 it feels very, very underwhelming.
I can do a little bit of sneaking around, but I can't cast as well as any other caster, hit as hard as any other melee build, or sneak as well as a rogue. I'm sub-par at everything, very sad. Atrocity abilities are pretty much useless at epic levels, they don't scale well, at all. the only thing that helps is the hex of hallucination to increase AB. It feels worse than a bg in almost every way, leaving a lot to be desired. I wouldn't have picked this class if I knew this would have been the case. I don't feel able to engage in PVP because my AB is in the mid 40's, and with IE I can push my AC to 60, but that's only swinging at +35.

I don't like that div patronage/div might and shield are essentially mandatory

This class is mediocre all around

[AstralUniverse]

As a harb24 rogue 4 harb 1 it feels very, very underwhelming.
I can do a little bit of sneaking around, but I can't cast as well as any other caster, hit as hard as any other melee build, or sneak as well as a rogue. I'm sub-par at everything, very sad. Atrocity abilities are pretty much useless at epic levels, they don't scale well, at all. the only thing that helps is the hex of hallucination to increase AB. It feels worse than a bg in almost every way, leaving a lot to be desired. I wouldn't have picked this class if I knew this would have been the case. I don't feel able to engage in PVP because my AB is in the mid 40's, and with IE I can push my AC to 60, but that's only swinging at +35.

I don't like that div patronage/div might and shield are essentially mandatory

This class is mediocre all around

Are you level 30? is your str, con and cha maxed? what armor are you using? are you using a shield?
The stats your describe are incredibly low for this class. I think 48 ab (50 with dark claim running, and -3 ac to the target on top of this) and 62 ac is average for harbinger with rogue dip.

[Arctic]

I do not know if it is intended but Hex of Runebreaker and epic dark claim instant death feature do not reset dark claim as it normally does on a kill.

I get if it's not intended on Hex of the Runebreaker, but if it's not supposed to allow you banish groups of summoned creatures I think the Hex of the Runebreaker feature should be put on a cooldown and dark claim should reset like it normally does on a kill.

[Good Character]

To reiterate a problem mentioned above: skillpoint starvation when it comes to synergizing with classes. I noticed the Dirgesinger synergy is improbable on non-human races because of the almost full investment needed for Perform.

[Kushion]

I've enjoyed the class a lot so far. However, as was mentioned by Astral, the Invocation/Whisper abilities, while they can be fun to use at times, generally feel REALLY sluggish and bad, since it eats up the whole round. Cursed Razor Whisper drags enemies to you, but they're able to actually attack you first or cast a spell, unless you use Atrocity Strike, so the purpose of dragging an enemy nearer to melee them feels weird.

I'm unsure if this can actually be changed, game-wise, but if it can be, it'd make these abilities a lot more worthwhile.