A survivable Harrow

[Imniscor]

Disclaimer : This is nothing new, most of you know all this and I don't claim to be innovative at all. This is just to show what I'm doing to survive end game with Harrow.

If you like to play anything harder than Mot (Void), such as Sorties, you might be very disappointed with Harrow's survivability on those maps.

Yes, Harrow is not meant for tanking and I think he is not meant for support as well! Bear with me.

How am I able to do tougher maps?

This aura plus the eximus drift, will make sure that you recover your shields instantly after using Penance[2].
It will also make your team more survivable a bit by recharging their shields when they use skills as well.

Along with it I also use, what you obviously would have guessed :

But you will say : They will never get into your health for Rage to be useful.
Then I say : Believe me, they will! 4k shields is nothing when some mob can one shot your whole shield! Then Rage will make sure you have energy to bail you out of death.

Yes, I also use :

All these mods combined, create a HUGE BUFFER of Shield + Health + Energy, that gives me room for 8% chance to refill all my Shields with Arcane Barrier.

Everything I do gives me shield. Taking damage gives me shield, using skills give me shield, Condemn[1] gives me even more, Taxon gives me some more....
If I need health or energy, look further down on the post.

Other useful or not so useful mods are efficiency mods such as :

Because Streamline will decrease the Shield you get from Brief Respite.
Higher energy cost = more shield from Brief Respite
Lesser energy cost = less damage taken to energy (Quick Thinking), makes you live longer with 0 shields and 2 health.
You have to balance which is better for your build. I actually prefer to use Streamline, because Harrow is energy hungry and because we are not using energy aura.

What else can help with tanking, energy and health?
Penance[2] will give you 5% life drain, healing you substantially if you do damage to enemies. Couple it with the following weapons and mods and you will have 10% or even 15%!

Sancti Magister is an awesome weapon for Harrow. Not only it fits well his theme, its chage attacks will AOE heal according to its damage.
This weapon also reduces incoming status proc damage by half, which means poison, bleed, burning and other status damage will deal less damage to you.
The AOE heal can be increased by damage mods, and you can also use Life Strike to heal even more on channeled charging attacks or to heal on normal channeled attacks.
Sancti Magister has good damage, crit and status statistics.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Total 10% life drain from enemies. (Plus AOE heal on charged attacks)

.

As with Sancti Magister, not only it fits well his theme, it has great stats the only down being its speed.
This weapon will reduce 90% damage when blocking, plus it will refill 25% of player health and deal 1000 AOE gas damage to enemies when you fill the Arbiter of Hexis meter - you can use it even if you are enemy to that syndicate!
Pair it up with Life Strike and you will refill your health bar with the press of a button.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Total 10% life drain from enemies. (Plus Truth proc 25% heal on syndicate meter fill)

Hirudo gives you native 5% health drain. Couple it with Blood Rush and you can make even the low crit weapons increase to Red Crits very fast!
It has very high critical damage so Organ Shatter is mandatory. I prefer to use Grim Fury stance instead of Brutal Tide, because of Grim Fury's more in your face moves.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Hirudo's native 5% life drain from enemies
Total 15% life drain from enemies.

Prisma Obex is a cool weapon that does not interferes (not a lot) with the visual theme of the frame.
It is a very fast weapon but with low damages that can't be raised by a lot unfortunately. So you will have to deal damage by Parkouring or with Mod Mechanics such as Entropy Detonation.
One pro of Prisma Obex is that it will proc Entropy when you fill the syndicate meter, refilling 25% of your energy and dealing 1000 magnetic damage in AOE to enemies.
Use Prisma Obex with Blast damage or Brutal Tide to make enemies fall or simply slam the ground and enemies will fall. While they are on the ground aim on them for a Ground Finisher, and if they die (most will), they will AOE blast for 1000 damage plus 20% of their health into that damage.
You CAN channel melee during a finisher, recovering your health fully because ground finisher damage is multiplied by 400%! Because of this, Life Strike is very important.
Life Strike life drain from enemies 5%.
Draining from Ground Finishers 5% * 400%.

Now, why Harrow is NOT a good support frame :

1. Headshot mechanic was created specially for Scourge + Knell, where after you throw Scourge it will increase the Headshot target area of your enemies making it easier to actually do a Headshot. Knell is a sniping secondary that benefits from Headshots and Harrow skills such as Thurible[3] and Covenant[4] also benefit.
Believe me, this is not sinergy, this is a handicap because you either use Scourge AND Knell or you will be severely handicapped.

2. If you go for Duration forget your survivability.
Penance[2], while you give yourself and your team 5% Life Drain and reload, it has a low duration even with maxed overshield, so you will have to use Duration mods neglecting your survivability by discarding Vitality, Redirection, Vigor, Quick Thinking, Rage and Coaction Drift.

3. Thurible[3] is the worst of all skills.
It leaves you unable to deal damage while vulnerable to damage.
You are pratically off the game while other frames are actually playing the game.
Your team already killed all enemies by the time you finished channeling, leaving no enemies to reap energy from.
With no enemies after you channeled, Quick Thinking will not save you when Thurible's effect runs off.

4. Covenant[4] duration is so low that even with duration mods it won't make any significant difference.

5. Too much micromanagement to do with durations, throwing scourge, swapping weapons, watchiing shields, health, energy, channeling to recover health, that you often forget to play and enjoy the game, not to mention you don't have room for mistakes unlike other frames that can press [1] and they are good to go. You will die, a lot! I'm talking end game here.
I never died on my Wukong and on Inaros. I almost never die on Nidus or Chroma. I rarely die on Oberon or Nekros.
I never needed to swap weapons. I never had to worry about anything and I could just play the game and be happy with it. This is not the same with Harrow.
Harrow is a paper frame that is more like a job than actual enjoyment.
 

[aligatorno]

I don't know about you, but I did not need such a fancy build to survive all the sorties that I`ve used Harrow for. Your problem might be that you are trying to facetank with him. Don't do that,  he's not supposed to. 

Harrow is an incredible support frame even though he is leaning more towards a solo frame, he can keep the squad alive and can buff them greatly. You don't have to channel Thurible for eternity, charging to 10en/kill especially after the buff is incredibly easy.  that's 40+ energy per headshot. 

Edited July 11, 2017 by aligatorno

[kaliazane]

Personally I gave up on tanking with him till they introduce shield gating.

In the end all this will let you got for lets say 10 more min in survival, then you will get all your shields 1 shot and stay in quick thinking stagger till you're dead.

But nice post.

[tarfeef101]

Yeah... I just use redirection/vitality and the rest of my mods are power-related (mostly duration, think i got even efficiency, 145 range, and some strength too). And I bring him to 2 hour+ survivals all the time. And I might down half a dozen times all mission. This is not necessary. And with all the setup you've used to make this possible (assuming it can perform at least as well as my build tank-wise (hopefully better)) you've made his abilities so much less useful you should just run an actual tank frame so you have more flexibility to use abilities and weapons that can be more effective.

 

As for your complaints about harrow:

1. No, you can use harrow with any weapons. If you can't get headshots that easily, then get better? Although with the build I use it's not even necessary, there is so much time to get your energy back, and the heals are still good w/o headshots. But he is better if you have good aim, and I certainly reap those rewards, and without his weapons.
2. See above
3. What, you can't bullet jump for 2 or 3 seconds every minute to charge an ability? You must HATE mag then (at least crush).
4. I think I'm around 12s of invulnerability and 20 ish of massive crits. Which I can keep up perpetually. That doesn't seem to bad. Especially because harrow isn't made of glass, and can take chip damage well (esp if you're healing as you kill with penance). While you're in the crit stage, you should be wrecking face fast enough to not be shot at very much cause everything is dying.
5. Not that I'm one of those ppl who HAS to be most dmg by any stretch, but many times using harrow in endless missions, even with dmg frames in my group I am always at least 20-30% dmg dealt, and sometimes I'm even beyond that. You just need to get used to knowing when your abilities cycle. Use your chains properly and you only have to cast penance once every 80s or so. Thurible can be cast like once a minute. And how often you want covenant is entirely up to you, although I recommend using it often at lvl 125+. That one I can admit has a long animation for my liking. (All numbers derived from my build).
6. It seems that you are complaining about a support frame not being a tank like inaros, chroma, nidus, etc. Which is a waste of time. That's not his purpose...

Edited July 11, 2017 by tarfeef101
Read the end of your post bashing harrow

[Marine027]

I admit a great work on putting all this down but, what i never will get is people trying to make certian frames into something they are not, especialy beeign tanky solo frame or so, this is still a teambase coop game, if you want to play solo stay with the frames who can do it.

He is Support and does it good in my eyes while stay alive very good himself, his 1st goes trough walls as example so you can build up shields even agian without stay infornt of all, which ironicly alot do and die, what do people seriously expect staying in the middle of a group of like level 150+ enemys.

I had no problems so far in any sorties i tooked him with or certain surval or defense maps. Again, i not lknow what peopel expect, bosot his strength and try to avoid weaknesses,like with every fraem, simple as it is.

Use cover and or friends, healing or energy plates etc., the game gives you alot of options, so could people trying to relay on one thing only like one frame can do everytihng or one weapon killing everything. like Loka and Hexis Procs weapons to heal you in between or AoE weapons if the frame not has much Attacks or AoE on its own to geta balnace instead.

[13QZXXTTX]

I do hope you are right about Shield Gating, and what a good post by the way.

Right now with or without shield gating, I see that just about every single frame need shield and health boost.

That is just my thought on the matters.

[iMalicious]

Read this post and was all confused as hell, was like really you went through all that to survive sorties? I never even needed to get that fancy it was pretty easy to do sorties with Harrow already.

[Kaotyke]

9 minutes ago, iMalicious said:

Read this post and was all confused as hell, was like really you went through all that to survive sorties? I never even needed to get that fancy it was pretty easy to do sorties with Harrow already.

He is trying to make Harrow into something he is not: a facetanker like Inaros, just look at his last paragraph.

His descriptions on his powers are completely out of sense considering he gave up the benefits duration gives for... survivability, thus, ironically: making Harrow less likely to survive.

Look at this:

2 hours ago, Imniscor said:

1. Headshot mechanic was created specially for Scourge + Knell, where after you throw Scourge it will increase the Headshot target area of your enemies making it easier to actually do a Headshot. Knell is a sniping secondary that benefits from Headshots and Harrow skills such as Thurible[3] and Covenant[4] also benefit.
Believe me, this is not sinergy, this is a handicap because you either use Scourge AND Knell or you will be severely handicapped.

Feels like he NEEDS the Scrouge and the Knell to actually land headshots. Any Assault Rifle does that if aim at the general area of the head you WILL get headshots kills if you are not good with it and feels that you need to spray n pray.

2 hours ago, Imniscor said:

3. Thurible[3] is the worst of all skills.
It leaves you unable to deal damage while vulnerable to damage.
You are pratically off the game while other frames are actually playing the game.
Your team already killed all enemies by the time you finished channeling, leaving no enemies to reap energy from.
With no enemies after you channeled, Quick Thinking will not save you when Thurible's effect runs off.

With only P. Continuity I can get this Duration to around 60s, if you are good a killing, keeping it up for 5s and then turning it off gives you 10 energy per kill. He talks as if you HAVE to use all your energy for it.

2 hours ago, Imniscor said:

4. Covenant[4] duration is so low that even with duration mods it won't make any significant difference.

5. Too much micromanagement to do with durations, throwing scourge, swapping weapons, watchiing shields, health, energy, channeling to recover health, that you often forget to play and enjoy the game, not to mention you don't have room for mistakes unlike other frames that can press [1] and they are good to go. You will die, a lot! I'm talking end game here.
I never died on my Wukong and on Inaros. I almost never die on Nidus or Chroma. I rarely die on Oberon or Nekros.
I never needed to swap weapons. I never had to worry about anything and I could just play the game and be happy with it. This is not the same with Harrow.
Harrow is a paper frame that is more like a job than actual enjoyment.

He compares a Support frame to frames who are meant to be hit and benefit from being hit. Wukong? Inaros? Nidus? CHROMA?!

This image says exactly what the OP knows about Harrow: IN SPANISH!

[xXx_mtv_xXx]

I had fun with harrow until I got oneshotted by a toxic ancient at like wave 10 on akkad. Not really planning to use him again. I prefer tanks or frames with amazing cc. Harrow has neither.

[EmberStar]

For the stuff I've been doing, I've found him fairly survivable with my more or less generic level build.  I think I have the Energy regen aura, because the polarity matched, and Master Thief in the exilus slot because meh, I mostly use it anyway.  About the most exotic mods I have are Primed Continuity and Primed Flow (thank you, Baro.)  Otherwise, Redirection, Vitality (neither quite maxed out, because filling out the last few pips would break about half my other frames, who don't have the mod capacity for the increase) and then Constituition, Intensify, Stretch and Streamline.  I don't have any arcanes, so nothing exotic there.  About the most exotic part of my "build" is polarizing him enough that all of that will fit at the same time.

Basically, I throw chains at anything moving, and then burn it down with Scourge.  I've been bouncing back and forth between Knell and Lex Prime for the sidearm.  Without the ability to stack the timer, Knell is kind of a pain to use, honestly.  Knell is even worse in groups because of all the players who think it's a race to KILL ALL THE THINGS and therefore instantly target any group I've chained down so they can kill them first.  (I only play Public on Rift Defense.  And even then, I ran into an Excaliber who made it really clear he was killing stuff *because* it was obvious I was trying to shoot it.  And then complained that I wasn't healing.)

I do think Thurible could use some more tweaks though.  On a Defense map, you can at least use it in between waves.  The fact that it only generates energy for the casting Harrow's kills, and only shares it at close range means that even then it's pretty situational.  Mostly if I can get it to work, all that happens is it recharges the kill-frames faster so they can keep me from recharging them anymore by wiping everything out before I can shoot it.

Covenant could be useful in certain boss fights, especially if you've built for duration, but you'd need really good timing.  Activate it just as something like the Raptor launches one of its "Kill All the Things!" attacks, and if anyone eats the attack they hopefully not only *don't* instantly die, but also charge it up for some retaliation damage.  Or it could work like that, if so many bosses didn't spend most of the time totally immune to all damage.

Harrow is still way easier to find a use for than Hydroid.  Poor ol' squidhead.  His signature move is still that he turns into a puddle.  A puddle you can't even trick enemies into running into, because they "see" the ones who fell in and won't try to go through past them.  They just mill around and wait for you to get bored and stop wasting everyone's time.  Then they shoot you in the face tentacles.

[Rakosta_Kai]

3 hours ago, EmberStar said:

I do think Thurible could use some more tweaks though.  On a Defense map, you can at least use it in between waves.  The fact that it only generates energy for the casting Harrow's kills, and only shares it at close range means that even then it's pretty situational.  Mostly if I can get it to work, all that happens is it recharges the kill-frames faster so they can keep me from recharging them anymore by wiping everything out before I can shoot it.

Not the biggest fan of Thurible either...It could stand a defensive component imo...Whether it be blindness, deflection, or incapacitation.

He needs something that will give him room to breath when rooms full of mobs go to crap and Harrows is #1 on their kill list.

3 hours ago, EmberStar said:

Harrow is still way easier to find a use for than Hydroid.  Poor ol' squidhead.  His signature move is still that he turns into a puddle.  A puddle you can't even trick enemies into running into, because they "see" the ones who fell in and won't try to go through past them.  They just mill around and wait for you to get bored and stop wasting everyone's time.  Then they shoot you in the face tentacles.

Hydroid...is an odd duck. I'm not certain what steps will get taken to tune him, but hope they do Excal quality work this time around.  

[SilencerMuto]

with harrow you need BFG. so you can kill fast and replenish your energy & hp. slow killing weapon wont do it.  my way is 4+3,1,2,1 & rampage mode parkour. his 1st skill even a bit of elevation (not jumping i mean platform) no enemy got chained. his 3rd skill i hope the make him invisible with all that smoke or make enemy "high" with that weed smoke. where's shield gating harrow really needs it. 

oh yea dont use harrow in nightmare mode "no shield" ever... 

[DatDarkOne]

21 minutes ago, SilencerMuto said:

with harrow you need BFG. so you can kill fast and replenish your energy & hp. slow killing weapon wont do it.  my way is 4+3,1,2,1 & rampage mode parkour. his 1st skill even a bit of elevation (not jumping i mean platform) no enemy got chained. his 3rd skill i hope the make him invisible with all that smoke or make enemy "high" with that weed smoke. where's shield gating harrow really needs it. 

oh yea dont use harrow in nightmare mode "no shield" ever... 

I completely agree.  I was using him with the Supra Vandal to great effect.  Was constantly gaining energy and health.  I just kept his 2 active most of the time and used his 3 during breaks in enemies.  

I think he's pretty solid support frame.  Even better when used with high fire rate weapons.  

[GreyEnneract]

Wait for shield gating.

[Chewarette]

The Aura seems useless. Never tried it but "While Overshields are inactive", when is that a thing with Harrow exactly ?

Quick Thinking / Rage / Vitality / whatever counting on your HP to survive ? Wut ?

The only moment Harrow has survival issue is after casting Penance. But it has 3 times the duration of his 4, just use it during the invincibility period, maybe ?

I've used Harrow in Sorties with only Redirection as defensive mod. And he's goddamn fine, I only die when I'm being too confident and use Penance in a pack of mobs.

I even took him in the Melee only sortie. He's awesome but if you consider using 74 defensive mods, you'll be borderline useless and you should pick Valkyr or whatever tanky frame then.

[Wrum]

head shots are unnessisary if you using tigres an zenistar

[Yagamilight123]

On 11/7/2017 at 3:51 PM, Imniscor said:

Disclaimer : This is nothing new, most of you know all this and I don't claim to be innovative at all. This is just to show what I'm doing to survive end game with Harrow.

If you like to play anything harder than Mot (Void), such as Sorties, you might be very disappointed with Harrow's survivability on those maps.

Yes, Harrow is not meant for tanking and I think he is not meant for support as well! Bear with me.

How am I able to do tougher maps?

This aura plus the eximus drift, will make sure that you recover your shields instantly after using Penance[2].
It will also make your team more survivable a bit by recharging their shields when they use skills as well.

Along with it I also use, what you obviously would have guessed :

But you will say : They will never get into your health for Rage to be useful.
Then I say : Believe me, they will! 4k shields is nothing when some mob can one shot your whole shield! Then Rage will make sure you have energy to bail you out of death.

Yes, I also use :

All these mods combined, create a HUGE BUFFER of Shield + Health + Energy, that gives me room for 8% chance to refill all my Shields with Arcane Barrier.

Everything I do gives me shield. Taking damage gives me shield, using skills give me shield, Condemn[1] gives me even more, Taxon gives me some more....
If I need health or energy, look further down on the post.

Other useful or not so useful mods are efficiency mods such as :

Because Streamline will decrease the Shield you get from Brief Respite.
Higher energy cost = more shield from Brief Respite
Lesser energy cost = less damage taken to energy (Quick Thinking), makes you live longer with 0 shields and 2 health.
You have to balance which is better for your build. I actually prefer to use Streamline, because Harrow is energy hungry and because we are not using energy aura.

What else can help with tanking, energy and health?
Penance[2] will give you 5% life drain, healing you substantially if you do damage to enemies. Couple it with the following weapons and mods and you will have 10% or even 15%!

Sancti Magister is an awesome weapon for Harrow. Not only it fits well his theme, its chage attacks will AOE heal according to its damage.
This weapon also reduces incoming status proc damage by half, which means poison, bleed, burning and other status damage will deal less damage to you.
The AOE heal can be increased by damage mods, and you can also use Life Strike to heal even more on channeled charging attacks or to heal on normal channeled attacks.
Sancti Magister has good damage, crit and status statistics.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Total 10% life drain from enemies. (Plus AOE heal on charged attacks)

.

As with Sancti Magister, not only it fits well his theme, it has great stats the only down being its speed.
This weapon will reduce 90% damage when blocking, plus it will refill 25% of player health and deal 1000 AOE gas damage to enemies when you fill the Arbiter of Hexis meter - you can use it even if you are enemy to that syndicate!
Pair it up with Life Strike and you will refill your health bar with the press of a button.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Total 10% life drain from enemies. (Plus Truth proc 25% heal on syndicate meter fill)

Hirudo gives you native 5% health drain. Couple it with Blood Rush and you can make even the low crit weapons increase to Red Crits very fast!
It has very high critical damage so Organ Shatter is mandatory. I prefer to use Grim Fury stance instead of Brutal Tide, because of Grim Fury's more in your face moves.
Life Strike 5% life drain from enemies.
Penance 5% life drain from enemies.
Hirudo's native 5% life drain from enemies
Total 15% life drain from enemies.

Prisma Obex is a cool weapon that does not interferes (not a lot) with the visual theme of the frame.
It is a very fast weapon but with low damages that can't be raised by a lot unfortunately. So you will have to deal damage by Parkouring or with Mod Mechanics such as Entropy Detonation.
One pro of Prisma Obex is that it will proc Entropy when you fill the syndicate meter, refilling 25% of your energy and dealing 1000 magnetic damage in AOE to enemies.
Use Prisma Obex with Blast damage or Brutal Tide to make enemies fall or simply slam the ground and enemies will fall. While they are on the ground aim on them for a Ground Finisher, and if they die (most will), they will AOE blast for 1000 damage plus 20% of their health into that damage.
You CAN channel melee during a finisher, recovering your health fully because ground finisher damage is multiplied by 400%! Because of this, Life Strike is very important.
Life Strike life drain from enemies 5%.
Draining from Ground Finishers 5% * 400%.

Now, why Harrow is NOT a good support frame :

1. Headshot mechanic was created specially for Scourge + Knell, where after you throw Scourge it will increase the Headshot target area of your enemies making it easier to actually do a Headshot. Knell is a sniping secondary that benefits from Headshots and Harrow skills such as Thurible[3] and Covenant[4] also benefit.
Believe me, this is not sinergy, this is a handicap because you either use Scourge AND Knell or you will be severely handicapped.

2. If you go for Duration forget your survivability.
Penance[2], while you give yourself and your team 5% Life Drain and reload, it has a low duration even with maxed overshield, so you will have to use Duration mods neglecting your survivability by discarding Vitality, Redirection, Vigor, Quick Thinking, Rage and Coaction Drift.

3. Thurible[3] is the worst of all skills.
It leaves you unable to deal damage while vulnerable to damage.
You are pratically off the game while other frames are actually playing the game.
Your team already killed all enemies by the time you finished channeling, leaving no enemies to reap energy from.
With no enemies after you channeled, Quick Thinking will not save you when Thurible's effect runs off.

4. Covenant[4] duration is so low that even with duration mods it won't make any significant difference.

5. Too much micromanagement to do with durations, throwing scourge, swapping weapons, watchiing shields, health, energy, channeling to recover health, that you often forget to play and enjoy the game, not to mention you don't have room for mistakes unlike other frames that can press [1] and they are good to go. You will die, a lot! I'm talking end game here.
I never died on my Wukong and on Inaros. I almost never die on Nidus or Chroma. I rarely die on Oberon or Nekros.
I never needed to swap weapons. I never had to worry about anything and I could just play the game and be happy with it. This is not the same with Harrow.
Harrow is a paper frame that is more like a job than actual enjoyment.
 

You seems to have very little knowledge of the game mechanics ,terrible guide (seems more a cry in the shape of a "guide") . You can do any content without using any of this terrible advices .

[(PSN)fullblast35]

once you mastered harrow brief respite will become a pain.  with the right casting order,  enough cover and movement you will have plenty of time to get overshields with his 2.  Harrow is tanky in a different way.  He makes the poorest weapons become overpowered or 2 steps better.  

 

 

[Tesseract7777]

54 minutes ago, (PS4)fullblast35 said:

once you mastered harrow brief respite will become a pain.  with the right casting order,  enough cover and movement you will have plenty of time to get overshields with his 2.  Harrow is tanky in a different way.  He makes the poorest weapons become overpowered or 2 steps better.  

 

 

Growing Power, I would add, can basically do what Brief Respite does but WAY better if you really are trying to boost your overshields with your aura -- as the OP is trying to do. 

As long as you keep Growing Power active, you are basically getting extra shields every time you use Condemn, and you are getting a lot more extra from that power strength bonus for more shield, than the pitiful amount you get with Brief Respite. Not only that, but Brief Respite stops working once overshields are active. Growing Power simply makes Condemn add significantly more shields on every cast. 

Edited August 11, 2017 by Tesseract7777