Why no one is playing Harrow?

[Flannoit]

1 minute ago, Kontrollo said:

Trinity does the energy thing better, though. Also the heal thing, even when there are enough enemies. And energy pizzas on a hotkey or 5 / ctrl+space / 5 every 30s are not exactly demanding (if your build in a lower level mission even needs that much energy). Those are not all the energy sources, either.

Harrow shines when there are enemies he can interact with that are also a threat.

Nukers definitely make him worse at that in the situation I outlined, I've played him enough to know that.

 

Tbqh, not sure what your deal here is, but the OP is asking why he isn't seen very often and I gave an answer to that question. Do you see him often in your squads when you're nuking (or otherwise), then?

I never see other Harrows other than the like, two or three clanmates who also has him. I play Harrow in all sorts of content all the time, because he's just universally useful. I went 40 min survival arbies (without frame or weapon bonus) as Harrow with 3 nuker frames, and I had no issues with energy or HP.

[Kontrollo]

4 minutes ago, Flannoit said:

I never see other Harrows other than the like, two or three clanmates who also has him. I play Harrow in all sorts of content all the time, because he's just universally useful. I went 40 min survival arbies (without frame or weapon bonus) as Harrow with 3 nuker frames, and I had no issues with energy or HP.

Ah, so my answer just rubbed you the wrong way, gotcha.

Probably missed what I was leading with in the last sentence of my first post here,

[_Anise_]

 

I feel like if he was a female frame he would probably see more play ...

[Kaiga]

-Neuroptics farm sucks

-Specialized build

-Need to aim

-Usually not needed/no team based frames to buff

-Has to kill the enemies himself in today's meta of AOE guns and speedclearing

Tl;dr, great high skill buffer frame, but not really needed in how most people play (mirage-bramma kaboom rush)

[Leqesai]

13 hours ago, (PSN)Madurai-Prime said:

He's too advanced for inexperienced and casual players. 

This.

Harrow is a pretty active gameplay requirement that most players dont get into.

Same with garuda and grendel and octavia (though octavias dps and cloak are so good she has become very popular)

Harrow is much easier to use with helminth subsumes but still pretty rough for inexperienced players.

[Kahrain]

He's one of my favorite frames and I do play him from time to time. However, I like playing razor's edge/glass cannon for some weird reason, and Harrow is practically invincible. Takes a bit of the fun and challenge out from how I enjoy the game. I do carry similar opinions on some other frames that are underplayed, but are too powerful. (Nyx and Limbo, for example)

[Tiltskillet]

2 hours ago, Flannoit said:

Harrow is quite literally underused solely because he requires the worst, most glitchy mission type in the game with an abysmal drop rate.

That's a big factor of course, but "solely"?  If I had to sum up in two words why I think he's little played, it would be High Effort.  High effort to farm, to mod, and to play.  Definitely high effort to optimize, especially for random squads.

Yeah, I'm sure there are a lot of people put off by Defection who won't even try him until the prime comes out.  But I suspect even if he was a dojo frame his usage would still be low.  What usage there is has got to be propped up by eidolon squads, and I think that part of the game is becoming less important.

Anyway, I can't know for sure, but it'll be interesting to see usage stats for 2022.  My guess is that unless Harrow changes a lot, or the game changes to better suit him, that that the prime will mostly make people who never bothered with the farm try him and drop him.  

If DE keeps releasing annual frame usage data--big "if", IMO--let's reconvene in early 2023 and settle this, shall we? 😉

[Squick]

I play him quite a bit, but his buffs are really overkill for normal star chart, and he doesn't really have the survivability needed for steel path. You can make it work with adaptation and arcane guardian. His playstyle is also very active, though - you're probably going to be casting a buff every 10-15 seconds or spamming #1 to charge #2, etc. He's fun, and very effective, but it's a lot of effort which other frames can achieve much more easily.

[(XBOX)DragonKnight812]

17 hours ago, (PSN)max141064 said:

it may be because:

 

1- it's harder to get for new players

2- it's not a full fledge dps frame, and we all know how people LOVE to use only dps frames to feel powerful.

3- it wasn't a very popular frame to begin with

I use wukong and I replaced his iron pole with valkyrie's Hysteria I don't use power damage abilities and I don't know very many other players that do unless they're doing a defense mission most players are seeing Warframe or other killing with the melee weapons or one of the millions of overpowered weapons the hero mission is riddled with bugs and for the drop chance for the one piece that players need if they don't want to buy a plat isn't worth doing the grind you have to do eight consecutive runs just to make sure you get a hero since it drops in the sea reward pool

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

3 hours ago, Leqesai said:

This.

Harrow is a pretty active gameplay requirement that most players dont get into.

Same with garuda and grendel and octavia (though octavias dps and cloak are so good she has become very popular)

Harrow is much easier to use with helminth subsumes but still pretty rough for inexperienced players.

Um, Octavia is often compared to Inaros in terms of how mindless her gameplay is...

[(PSN)Vexx757]

The answer is pretty simple, the damage meta, he just doesn't fit in the meta and ever since it change to that we have been getting nerfs left and right. What DE needs to do is start making mission/game-modes that evolves around the warframe an not always be about damage.

Example:

Spoiler

A mission where you only play as the operator only but the operator can receive buffs from certain frames.

Warframes:

Rhino`s 3

Oberon`s 3

Volt`s 2 & 3

Wisp`s 1

As to why I haven played Harrow is coz I`m waiting for Harrow prime, when I know which frame is going to be primed I don`t play it until the prime version comes up. I love harrow, he is one of the most unique warframes in the game the way his abilities synergise together I can`t wait for Harrow prime.

[TastyTaro]

В 28.07.2021 в 16:22, Vaml77 сказал:

nyx, octavia, nyx

well octavia... i do understand that she is op and all, but i don't like her anyway.

Nyx? Right now, with Helminth and SoP weapons? She is especially op, i mean that frame was op before but now? man.

Today i did SP survival with Nekros playing with left toe, tomorrow i will do SP survival with Nyx playing with my right toe.

As for Harrow, i'm waiting for Prime version. I have weapons and arcanes ready. For a group oriented waframe he kinda suck which defeats his initial purpose, but for solo play? oh yes. (and let us be honest it's just easier to do stuff solo in this game, with very few exceptions)

[AnatharsWrath]

Harrow is one of my favs and i eagerly await his Prime. I actually intend his Prime to be the mastery to pop my Rank 30 bubble. Favorite frame to hit that just seems right.

As for gameplay, he definitely isn't well suited for typical quick mission play. He is either too slow to get to any enemies to use some of his abilities or they get blocked by other frame abilities (frost freeze would prevent his 1 from landing on anything ect). He also needs all 4 of the power mods in some capacity limiting his defensive build options (in my case, due to my ability based build i have zero room for rush or similar mods)

The abilities themselves are awkward as well. his 1 travels slowly enough that allies can plow through the enemies with melee or such before it hits anything. 2's animation is slow and leaves you vulnerable without cast speed, 3 blocks ability to fight back and limits movement (and can take awhile to get a decent energy regain rate depending on ability modifiers), his 4 at least makes you invuln while doing the long cast animation but its slightly hurt by the fact you cant recast while crit effect is still active so if duration is too high may get downed before ablility to cast again.

BUT, for me i love the feel of weapons like the Kuva Quartakk going absolute mega DAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKADAKA when his 2 is active while healing myself and others nearby when i have something to shoot. Watching weapons like the Twin Grakatas deplete all their rounds in the blink of an eye into a boss is satisfying. to put it bluntly...his abilities make me feel happy when i can utilize them and I feel sad when I get left behind due to poor speed and left nothing to shoot. He used to be my go to solo frame for simpler content until Wisp came along and basically does what he does faster and with passive buffs via motes for the most part (no reload bonus speed for wisp haste). Design wise he is beautiful and i hope his prime is not dissapointing.

[TastyTaro]

3 часа назад, AnatharsWrath сказал:

BUT, for me

But for me it's his 4 and to be more specific headshot multiplayer. I mean my Mag with deadhead arcane deals ~1m+ headshot damage, what Harrow would be able to do i just can't imagine. I mean, it's not like such damage is need, i fight level 216 tops and it equals 1h of SP survival. But still it should be fun.

[(PSN)GingyGreen]

Imagine timing 3 of his abilities perfectly in order to use him at his best and intended.....................................and then one of the dikc heads in your team insta-wipes everything in your screen with a single Plasmor or Peacemaker

[Tesseract7777]

Harrow gets played, he has his niches, like he is still popular for Eidolons. Can invuln during the magnetic phase, can boost crit damage really strong.

But overall, Harrow is never going to be meta or super highly played.

He is one of those frames where there really aren't a lot of "alternate playstyles". You either play him pretty much THE way, or you don't use him. He has good synergy, but he requires a lot of micro management of his abilities if you want to use him properly. If you are going to use him well, he requires a lot more thought, and if you are playing with randoms in a group, you have to keep in mind a lot of his abilities require him to get the kills too, to be effective. A lot of people are not going to take him to shorter missions, because his thurible is only useful in longer missions where the team is struggling for energy, and most stuff requires too much setup to be a good frame for any mission that isn't of endless typing. 

His design makes him niche literally by design, and that isn't going to change. He will always have his place and some people like him, but you are never going to see a lot of him unless you do eidolons. 

And that's okay. 

I have a seven forma'd Harrow who is aura forma'd that I rarely use, because outside Eidolons, I don't feel like dealing with all the micro-management of his abilities, and he isn't usually a great choice for non endless runs. 

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

Well, outside of the many reasons listed above, it's also because Harrow is really good at a playstyle not many people like. Like Trinity, Harrow is pretty much pure Support, and while that's amazing for group play and Solo at times it does mean he's going to be stuck playing the cheerleader role instead of the football player role. 

For some changes I would like to see that should make him easier to use;

Harrow's Passive should really just have one additional function; When Harrow loses all of his Shields, he gains a 100% Dodge buff for two seconds. So, Harrow would be able to effectively use his 2 at even higher levels without immediately killing himself, and gain the ability to avoid most sources of damage for a reasonable amount of time. Of course that does mean AoE will still totally kill you if you're not careful, but that's why you have the Shield Gate Invulnerability to (hopefully) keep you alive outside of that. Give that function like a ten second cooldown and I'm sure Harrow would be fine at higher levels. 

(Also as a side thing, his Passive should make it so enemies Harrow hits in some way with his weapon that don't die from him, but die instead from a teammate, should really just count as his kill. Harrow really struggles with killing enemies on his own when he has Warframes with DoT or straight-up AoE nuking entire rooms, so the least DE can do to help him is to make it so he gets the kill as long as he's actively participating. It won't help him with his buffs at lower levels, but as most people have already said it's not like they're needed for lower levels anyways. Hopefully this kind of change wouldn't break Harrow or his Augments but make it so playing in a Squad with Harrow actually makes sense instead of relying on him to get the kills completely on his own.)

Condemn: Honestly the ability just needs to crawl along the floor faster. There's no way to increase the abilities travel speed, and while having the ability activate faster is nice, that isn't really what the problem is. Typically when I die with Harrow I find that's because my casting animations are too long for most cases, and thankfully we have Natural Talent for that, but Condemn either needs to have Natural Talent affect the traversal speed or have it so the traversal speed is faster from the get-go. CCing enemies faster would also be a big help for Harrow, as honestly one of the other reasons he dies so easily is because the wave doesn't hit the entire group when you cast it.

Penance: Give the player the option of Hold and Tap. Tapping the ability takes only 50% of your current Shields and required Energy and gives you the amount you'd get accordingly, while Holding the ability completely takes away all of your Shields and the Energy required as normal. This would speed up the casting animation in an alternative way (so instead of smacking himself twice, Harrow just smacks himself once) while still allowing Natural Talent to be of use, and makes it so players can choose to keep their Shields at least partially in order to not trigger their Shield Gate early, further helping Harrow with his squishy nature. Performing the Tap or Hold function will also not halt Harrow's movement anymore, honestly not sure why it still does that.

Thurible: While charging the Thurible, enemies within the radius are Slowed by a flat 50%. It's a nice way to increase his lifespan even further, gives you a reason to keep the spin going for longer, and pairs nicely with his Augment for Thurible while not being a crazy addition. I would love it if Harrow was able to use his Secondary as well while Thurible was active, making the Energy drain/gain slower but allowing him to keep the aura going for longer while also giving him a way to protect himself, but maybe that'd be too much and more Augment territory.

Covenant: While casting, Harrow generates significantly more threat (this does not apply to allies, however) and will generate significantly less threat once the cast is finished. Headshot kills Harrow gets himself will reduce the cooldown of Covenant by 1 second (unmoddable).
 

[_R_o_g_u_e_]

7 hours ago, Tesseract7777 said:

Harrow gets played, he has his niches, like he is still popular for Eidolons. Can invuln during the magnetic phase, can boost crit damage really strong.

But overall, Harrow is never going to be meta or super highly played.

He is one of those frames where there really aren't a lot of "alternate playstyles". You either play him pretty much THE way, or you don't use him. He has good synergy, but he requires a lot of micro management of his abilities if you want to use him properly. If you are going to use him well, he requires a lot more thought, and if you are playing with randoms in a group, you have to keep in mind a lot of his abilities require him to get the kills too, to be effective. A lot of people are not going to take him to shorter missions, because his thurible is only useful in longer missions where the team is struggling for energy, and most stuff requires too much setup to be a good frame for any mission that isn't of endless typing. 

His design makes him niche literally by design, and that isn't going to change. He will always have his place and some people like him, but you are never going to see a lot of him unless you do eidolons. 

And that's okay. 

I have a seven forma'd Harrow who is aura forma'd that I rarely use, because outside Eidolons, I don't feel like dealing with all the micro-management of his abilities, and he isn't usually a great choice for non endless runs. 

Harrow hasnt been part of the Eidolon meta for a very long time. His invulnerability is completely irrelevant thanks to energy pizza, and groups don’t need his ultimate to help with limb damage.

[sunderthefirmament]

2 hours ago, (XBOX)Graysmog said:

(Also as a side thing, his Passive should make it so enemies Harrow hits in some way with his weapon that don't die from him, but die instead from a teammate, should really just count as his kill. Harrow really struggles with killing enemies on his own when he has Warframes with DoT or straight-up AoE nuking entire rooms, so the least DE can do to help him is to make it so he gets the kill as long as he's actively participating. It won't help him with his buffs at lower levels, but as most people have already said it's not like they're needed for lower levels anyways. Hopefully this kind of change wouldn't break Harrow or his Augments but make it so playing in a Squad with Harrow actually makes sense instead of relying on him to get the kills completely on his own.)
 

DE added something like this with that Tribunal augment, but it's too conditional and takes up a mod slot (Harrow needs everything, so it's hard to give up a mod slot).  And like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, Condemn is kind of slow.  It's an underwhelming augment that should have had some of its philosophy/functionality baked into the base ability for Thurible.

[(XBOX)Graysmog]

1 hour ago, sunderthefirmament said:

DE added something like this with that Tribunal augment, but it's too conditional and takes up a mod slot (Harrow needs everything, so it's hard to give up a mod slot).  And like you mentioned elsewhere in your post, Condemn is kind of slow.  It's an underwhelming augment that should have had some of its philosophy/functionality baked into the base ability for Thurible.

I wouldn't say that, it's pretty apparent that literally giving Harrow the ability to proc his stuff from his allies alone is absolutely broken even with the limitation from Condemn. You use your 1 and you've healed over 4000 Health and gained 1000 Energy in not even a second, that's just nuts. 

The idea is more so Harrow can get kills as long as he's dealing damage with his weapons, so that when the enemies finally get tough enough to not just instantly die from his allies' attacks he can still gain some effects from his abilities. It's pretty much how Nidus was done, albeit a bit differently because the Augment shows how nuts a direct transfer of Nidus' Passive buff would work on Harrow. 

With the change I'm suggesting the Augment would still serve its purpose just fine and still function the same, the only difference now is that if Harrow wants to stick close to his allies (as his abilities generally want you to do), you now have an actual reason to because going off and getting kills on your own or spamming your 1 with its Augment isn't the only way to get your buffs anymore.

Though yes, the delay on Condemn makes sense, but not the slow traversal time that gets you killed more often than it saves you. The only reason people have an issue with the Augment and it's usefulness funnily enough comes back to my issue with its traversal time yet again, since it travels at a snails pace, most of the enemies are dead by the time the ability actually hits them. That's why people tend to group enemies up into a ball or just walk right up to them to have the ability activate faster.

[(PSN)lhp_marcos]

I've been playing a bunch with him lately, using the Thermal Thurible build. But thats it, other than helminth, he doenst fit very well with the core of the game, at all.

[Aquapisces]

Harrow is widely used in Eidolon hunting,in my server players look for a fixed team made up with a Volt to deal with the sentient shield,a volt or Chroma or Rhino to destroy Eidolons' joints,a Trinity to collect and protect Eidolon lures and others,and finally a Harrow to prevent teammates from the energy spike,and thus giving the joint sniper a improved crit chance.A well coordinated team can kill up to 18 Eidolons in a night with the teamwork,and the Harrow is a critical part in it.

Also Harrow can be used in Empyrean missions.As a pilot,by using his unique mechanism of skills his energy can recover very fast when killing enemy fighters,while other warframes can only wait for the energy to recover,or extremely rely on Protea's skill to give them the blue ball.

In common missions players only think how to complete the mission as fast as possible,so a warframe without a attacking skill will be not taken into account.

[ReddyDisco]

On 2021-07-29 at 4:30 AM, _Anise_ said:

 

I feel like if he was a female frame he would probably see more play ...

No lobster tails!

[(NSW)Symberzite]

I'm going to reiterate some of the points already made in this thread, but here it goes.

1. He's probably the hardest frame to farm in the game. The blueprint is from the quest, which is straightforward. Systems are essentially low tier drops from void fissures. Neuroptics and Chassis require C rotations of Kuva Fortress spy and Disruption, which is a massive turnoff for even experienced players that can farm them. You can either go that route or platinum.

2. He's squishy and relies on his abilities to stay alive. You have to manage your energy and timers in order to maximize his abilities. Compare that to Inaros's or Rhino's tanking abilities that can easily get you through Steel path. 

3. He's very headshot-focused. In a slower paced game this wouldn't be an issue, but because this is a horde shooter, you have to stop for a second and take aim at an ant in an anthill. He's excellent at taking out single targets, but the meta generally prefers generalists or frames that can take out trash mobs like Octavia or Ember. 

4. He's a support frame in a game where in most modes players prefer to go full Rambo. This wouldn't be an issue if there were more team-based activities besides eidolons (where you're most likely to meet a Harrow player)

5. He's 3 leaves him mostly idle and depending on your build you need 10-15 seconds t get a decent charge. 

6. Nuke frames can ruin his day due to them killing any mobs before he can activate his abilities.