Harrow build and playstyle suggestions?

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

The PC master race has had him for a while now and us console peons just got him.  Do you gods have any tips for us lowly worms?

[Airwolfen]

Forget slowly getting headshots, get a spray'n'pray weapon and aim for the general area of the head with skill 3. You can at times get 4 kills instead of one carefully aimed headshot and some of those will be headshots. Like his theme is nice and all but this works way better.

Just because you have high shields with redirection does not mean you cant also use vitality as you will be shieldless from time to time.

Make sure skill 2 is up as much as possible a.k.a. spam 1 so 2 is up long.

Ult buff is great but try to save it for when needed

 

Build I dont have at the ready atm. but focus on duration and some power strength and use both defense mods if you dont want to feel vulnerable after each 2 cast.

Edited July 24, 2017 by Airwolfen

[AXCrusnik]

I use stretch to get more shields out of his 1, and spread energy further with his 3 (his 2 and 4 are unaffected by Power Range, and work as long as the team are within Affinity range). Natural Talent may be useful to you as it increases the channeling speed of his 3. 

Use plenty of duration so you support your team (and yourself) longer, and a moderate amount of strength so you get more shields from his 1, lifesteal/buffs from 2, and energy from 3.

Streamline of course... and also Harrow is the only frame I've found Primed Vigor to not seem like a bad idea on.

6 minutes ago, Airwolfen said:

Build I dont have at the ready atm. but focus on duration and some power strength and use both defense mods if you dont want to feel vulnerable after each 2 cast.

Use your first ability IMMEDIATELY before your second. You sacrifice shields with 2, but used with correct timing you'll be left with some shields gained via chaining enemies to protect your HP. Also I only use Primed Vigor for survivability on Harrow.

Edited July 24, 2017 by AXCrusnik

[Wrum]

i use redirection and primed vigor for survival, focus on duration using stretch to bring range back up to 100%, natural talent to speed him up.

for weapons i use tigres prime and zenistar.

plop down the zenistar circle in a high traffic area and you will constantly trigger his buffs and t prime will handle tougher opponents. use his one for cc and shield restore after using 2. 

his 4 is a panic button use accordingly.

i would also advise using the taxon sentinel as he restores shields as well. also as mentioned aim high.

[LSG501]

8 minutes ago, AXCrusnik said:

Use your first ability IMMEDIATELY before your second. You sacrifice shields with 2, but used with correct timing you'll be left with some shields gained via chaining enemies to protect your HP. Also I only use Primed Vigor for survivability on Harrow.

or you could just press 4..... before pressing 2, obviously after maxing out overshields.

As to the builds... most will say duration focus but power strength doesn't hurt either.  Also longer duration means 4 has a longer 'immortal stage' but also a longer cool down (I quite like my 150%ish duration but plenty have over 200%). 

[AXCrusnik]

4 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

or you could just press 4..... before pressing 2, obviously after maxing out overshields.

You might not always have energy to do that. The way I said is more energy efficient if you don't need to use his 4 (or it's currently active).

Edited July 24, 2017 by AXCrusnik

[LSG501]

2 minutes ago, AXCrusnik said:

You might not always have energy to do that

thats what you have 3 for....

To the OP, as you can see harrow requires a bit of monitoring and management to run efficiently

Edited July 24, 2017 by LSG501

[AXCrusnik]

2 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

thats what you have 3 for....

I knew you would say this. So you can use my combo while building up energy with 3 instead of waiting until after you have it built up. Not to mention his 3 doesn't make his 4 castable while buffing crit chance if you happen to be using those super high duration builds.

Edited July 24, 2017 by AXCrusnik

[LSG501]

1 minute ago, AXCrusnik said:

I knew you would say this. So you can use my combo while building up energy with 3 instead of waiting until after you have it built up.

but you can just trigger 3 the instant you start a mission..... you have enough energy to trigger it and assuming you don't have an ember or something killing everything you can get more than enough energy from kills before the timer runs out.  At least that's how I play him and haven't had a major issue with energy when there's stuff to kill.

[AXCrusnik]

3 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

but you can just trigger 3 the instant you start a mission..... you have enough energy to trigger it and assuming you don't have an ember or something killing everything you can get more than enough energy from kills before the timer runs out.  At least that's how I play him and haven't had a major issue with energy when there's stuff to kill.

Again... that's not gonna make his 4 castable while buffing crits so... really why are you trying to make his 4 the only way to combo with 2? I'm just saying 1>2 is viable to protect your HP if 4 is unavailable or unnecessary.

Edited July 24, 2017 by AXCrusnik

[LSG501]

10 minutes ago, AXCrusnik said:

Again... that's not gonna make his 4 castable while buffing crits so... really why are you trying to make his 4 the only way to combo with 2? I'm just saying 1>2 is viable to protect your HP if 4 is unavailable or unnecessary.

because 4 gives him a period of immortality which allows the shields taken by using 2 to come back without the concern of being killed during a period of no shields not to mention by using 4 you also get the crit buff from the damage taken by the enemies which has synergy with 2, something that would not happen if you freeze them all for shields....

And 2 lasts considerably longer than 4 if you've maxed overshields so you can trigger 4, then immediately press 2 (or the other way round) get your immortal period while you get crit buff from the damage you're taking AND then get the additional weapon speed buffs from 2 all while your shields automatically regenerate in less time than the immortal period.  You can even trigger 3 and 1 as well if you have the energy and considering you can multi task 2 and 3 at the same time it's not hard.  You also can be running 3 when not using 1, 2 or 4 because it's basically a passive ability when active so not having energy with harrow is VERY VERY rare when there's enemies to kill.

[AXCrusnik]

9 minutes ago, LSG501 said:

not having energy with harrow is VERY VERY rare when there's enemies to kill.

Yet it's not impossible. Infested eximus and disruptors at high levels (you only get energy on KILL, so healers and bullet sponges will become a problem to your energy gain eventually) come to mind. So... *shrugs*

Edited July 24, 2017 by AXCrusnik

[Xzorn]

I have two builds. One focuses on Duration > Range > Power for Buff management and the other is Range > Duration > Power which focuses on his CC. IMO he doesn't benefit from Power Strength very much. But this might be different per player since I also find EV to be completely unnecessary. The fire rate increase on his buff isn't always a good thing either. It will put your ammo economy in the dumpster for a lot of weapons. Two weapons I've found work esp well with Harrow are Tigris Prime and Zarr. They're not hindered by ammo economy and enjoy the reload speed.

I use Vitality over Redirection because his Penance has %Life Steal which will keep him alive better any time you're shooting and you'll still end up around a minute in buff duration for Penance. Vitality is of course better for Toxic one-shots and a higher eHP total. If shield gating is ever a thing, this might change.

As the first poster said, hitting multiple enemies is better than head-shots. Head-shots just aren't rewarded properly in this game.

Harrow is decent against Infested and Grineer but gets countered by Nullifiers since his 5k eHP isn't really able to deal with their Lanka at higher levels.

[jopos15]

14 hours ago, Airwolfen said:

Forget slowly getting headshots, get a spray'n'pray weapon and aim for the general area of the head with skill 3. You can at times get 4 kills instead of one carefully aimed headshot and some of those will be headshots. Like his theme is nice and all but this works way better.

Just because you have high shields with redirection does not mean you cant also use vitality as you will be shieldless from time to time.

Make sure skill 2 is up as much as possible a.k.a. spam 1 so 2 is up long.

Ult buff is great but try to save it for when needed

 

Build I dont have at the ready atm. but focus on duration and some power strength and use both defense mods if you dont want to feel vulnerable after each 2 cast.

so with spray'n'pray you mean like this

imagine the shotguns are twin grakatas

Edited July 25, 2017 by jopos15

[DatDarkOne]

15 hours ago, Airwolfen said:

Forget slowly getting headshots, get a spray'n'pray weapon and aim for the general area of the head with skill 3. You can at times get 4 kills instead of one carefully aimed headshot and some of those will be headshots. Like his theme is nice and all but this works way better.

So freaking true.  When I paired him with the Supra Vandal, I was able to go "Beast Mode" while healing and gaining energy for the party.  I still haven't finalized my build or playstyle for him yet, but I like him way more than playing Trinity.  I haven't taken him against Sortie level enemies yet.  I tend to reserve those for frames I'm very familiar with.

Edited July 25, 2017 by DatDarkOne

[Airwolfen]

1 hour ago, jopos15 said:

so with spray'n'pray you mean like this

imagine the shotguns are twin grakatas

Made this for another reason a few days ago. But more like this. Bit less majestic but still works really well.

 

Edited July 25, 2017 by Airwolfen

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

Thanks for all the advice.  After formaing Harrow once and taking him into today's sortie survival, I've formed a few opinions:

His 1, Condemn, is actually pretty good CC for being a 1 and it gives shields/over shields too.  What's not to like?

His 2, Penance, is good.  The shield drain isn't even a drawback if you use a sentinel with Guardian.  The healing over time is great, but the fire rate buff could be bigger.

His 3, Thurible, is crizzap.  With enough duration on my 2 and 4, I can get back my energy between casts with Zenurik.  This makes Thurible an unecessary gamble.  Why would I risk even a half full energy pool to cast Thurible and maybe end up with less energy for a lot of wasted casting time?  I use it at the beginning of a game instead of energy pizzas, then just ignore this skill and Harrow is much smoother to play.  As for the team, if mission success depends on a critical warframe having energy, I would either be Trinity because she's much better at giving energy, or I would play the critical frame myself because I know how to manage an energy pool. 

The 4, Covenant, is good as well.  I don't like that it's his only damage avoidance.  Many frames have less complicated and more effective damage mitigation.  Still, it affects the entire team and the crit bonus can get quite big.  I wonder what the best duration is to balance invincibility recastability with the buff period.  My duration of 183 seems like a good starting point but there was an instance where I would have liked to have been invincible to revive some teammates but I had to wait 12 seconds.

I completely ignore the headshot mechanics with Harrow.  It's gimmicky and often impractical.  Harrow also has some of the worst casting times in the game.  

So far in my limited playtime, he makes a great survival support frame spamming 2 and 4.  I was able to keep some real nooblets alive.  I know it was all Harrow because whenever they wandered out of affinity range they went down in less than 20 seconds.

Here's what I think will be the final build, but I'm a little concerned that I'm buffing everything instead of min/maxing.

Corrosive Projection, Power Drift

Primed Vigor, Vitality (this was fine during the sortie, but I wouldn't want to go with any less survivalbility.  Penance is a good continuous heal so I prioritized HP over shields.)

Intensify, Streamline, Natural Talent, Primed Continuity, Constitution, Stretch (not so sure about Stretch, I could add more strength or duration instead.) 

 

What do you guys think?  It's really hard to find a decent a Harrow thread so thanks again for the input.

Edited July 25, 2017 by (XB1)ThermalStone

[DatDarkOne]

2 minutes ago, (Xbox One)ThermalStone said:

His 3, Thurible, is crizzap.  With enough duration on my 2 and 4, I can get back my energy between casts with Zenurik.  This makes Thurible an unecessary gamble.  Why would I risk even a half full energy pool to cast Thurible and maybe end up with less energy for a lot of wasted casting time?  I use it at the beginning of a game instead of energy pizzas, then just ignore this skill and Harrow is much smoother to play.  As for the team, if mission success depends on a critical warframe having energy, I would either be Trinity because she's much better at giving energy, or I would play the critical frame myself because I know how to manage an energy pool.

This is where the Supra Vandal with Entropy Burst made the difference for me.  While using such a high rate of fire weapon, you really don't need to put to much energy into Thurible to get back a lot of energy for the whole group.  I'll admit this only worked so well while there were plenty of enemies to hit.  

[Chipputer]

Honestly the only way I can play, and enjoy, Harrow is to go full melee style with him and make liberal use of his CC potential.

Not only can melee still provide headshots but the scaling damage means you always keep up on kills. The only problem is staying aware of how close you are to your allies while doing this.

[(XBOX)ThermalStone]

19 minutes ago, DatDarkOne said:

This is where the Supra Vandal with Entropy Burst made the difference for me.  While using such a high rate of fire weapon, you really don't need to put to much energy into Thurible to get back a lot of energy for the whole group.  I'll admit this only worked so well while there were plenty of enemies to hit.  

Supra Vandal is my go to weapon.  But with Zenurik I cast Covenant whenever it's ready, spam Condemn and never run out of energy.  You are right though, with Harrow as with the rest of the game spray and pray beats precision.