Harrow and Thurible, or: How I learned that stealthnerfs make me very upset.

[LordGale]

So, like many who picked up Harrow after he was introduced, I quickly became a huge fan of the frame, who took my spot for #1 support frame.
Harrow's ability to heal, generate overshields, restore energy, and give critical hits all made him a solid, sturdy frame with very few gamebreaking exploits or game ruining flaws. He was just right, and even the penance nerf didn't bother me all that much- as a Harrow, you're supposed to be proactive about getting your kills and overshields in, and a decent Harrow is never idling for too long.
But just recently I realized that Harrow's thurible hasn't been working as it used to. One of Harrow's most useful traits was that he was able to restore energy to frames channeling abilities, and this wasn't as broken as it sounds at all. Harrow needs to get kills to fuel this ability, and simply sitting by won't do anything. This already countered the playstyle DE is so set against, but apparently that wasn't enough, as Harrow has yet again been nerfed, and his Thurible no longer gives energy to allies using channeled abilities. I'm most upset by how this will affect his synergy with Oberon, which was some of the best in the game purely for survivability in longer, more dangerous missions where energy is scarce and healing is paramount. I'd understand if the energy given to frames channeling abilities was reduced, say by half or more, but to not allow it at all and then not announce it is frankly upsetting. Harrow's utility is all he has, and to remove one of his best utilities sets him back a great deal. He's still one of my favorites, but this was most certainly not appreciated.

[AlendasNaro]

Harrow kinda had the nerfs coming... To be honest I am still wondering why people want Trinity nerfed when Harrow is much more worse what comes on warframe power.

Edited September 4, 2017 by AlendasNaro

[Autongnosis]

Nothing but energy orb and rage work on channeled skills. It's consistent across the board. To be honest i was surprised by the fact that it worked. It was to be expected. Also, i find Harrow to be far less useful as an energy source and far more useful as a buffer / life source. 

[Doomsknightmare]

Wow so he can give energy to frames channeling abilities before this stealth nerf ? That's something very important to know but now seems it won't matter anymore...

[LordGale]

Whether or not the nerfs were coming, we didn't KNOW they were coming. The ability just got patched and we weren't informed. Whether he's the best energy source or not isn't really the question, but it DID help balance out what he could do. He wasn't the best, which made up for the ability to give energy through channeled powers. A small boost rather than a refill.

[PsiWarp]

That is if it was the intended behavior, which was not. Even before Harrow was released Pablo explicitly stated Thurible won't restore energy to frames channeling abilities with energy drain per second, which he mentioned in relation to Energy Vampire (somewhere in Second Stream podcast 14).

If you found a channeled ability that while active still got energy from Thurible, either a bug allows energy through or they missed it during design to rule it out for Thurible (not surprising since there are 132 abilities to sort through).

[Fallen_Echo]

1 hour ago, PsiWarp said:

That is if it was the intended behavior, which was not. Even before Harrow was released Pablo explicitly stated Thurible won't restore energy to frames channeling abilities with energy drain per second, which he mentioned in relation to Energy Vampire (somewhere in Second Stream podcast 14).

If you found a channeled ability that while active still got energy from Thurible, either a bug allows energy through or they missed it during design to rule it out for Thurible (not surprising since there are 132 abilities to sort through).

Im actually suprised, i always thought that frames when getting energy restore activate a command to fill up the avaible amount.

When it came to channelled abilities the frames simply have a command what says "no energy filling while this is in use".

Going out and programming each skill to not affect every other while they are channelled seems a bit overcomplicated.

[Gurpgork]

That doesn't sound like a stealth nerf to me. That sounds like them fixing a bug. Energy Vampire doesn't work on Warframes with channeled abilities, so I don't see why they would make Thurible work with them. 

6 hours ago, AlendasNaro said:

Harrow kinda had the nerfs coming... To be honest I am still wondering why people want Trinity nerfed when Harrow is much more worse what comes on warframe power.

The problem that most people have with Trinity isn't so much her raw power as it is how little you have to work for her power. 

Thurible requires you to spend a huge amount of energy, spend a not-negligible amount of time vulnerable while you channel it, and then you have to get kills that are preferably headshots. 

Trinity requires you to aim at an enemy and hit 2.

And on top of that, Harrow's most powerful buffs (invulnerability and crit chance) both have maximum uptimes (33% uptime and 66% uptime respectively) regardless of how much duration you stack.

I think people point to Trinity rather than Harrow a lot more not because Trinity is genuinely more powerful, but because Harrow has a lot more limitations and requirements to access his power, while Trinity is almost completely brainless and still outperforms a well-played Harrow in providing healing and energy management. 

[(PSN)MrNishi]

17 hours ago, Autongnosis said:

Nothing but energy orb and rage work on channeled skills. It's consistent across the board. To be honest i was surprised by the fact that it worked. It was to be expected. Also, i find Harrow to be far less useful as an energy source and far more useful as a buffer / life source. 

Also Rift allows energy to work on Channeled Skills, which is weird since it is basically protecting the 'Rifted' player while letting them do cross-dimensional/plane damage.

 

@LordGale

I fully expected Harrow Thurible to work just like Energy Vampire and not refill 'most' channeled Ability Allies. (As such I did not realize it was changed to behave as such.)

•I swear Chroma Effigy works with Energy Vampire but not Thurible***

 

I am happy with how Harrow turned out, for the most part.

•I still feel base animation speeds feel to slow (Natural Talent feels like a Staple mod on Harrow)

•I wish Thurible had a Harrow benefit beside Energy replenishment. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll receive an Augment that allows Thurible to grant faster casting and Weapon holstering; with a lingering duration effect (like Wormhole) so that the casting/holstering buff can remain after Thurible has ended.

[InDueTime-EN-]

I'm pretty sure that Thurible didn't work with channeling abilities to start with. Whenever I was with a banshee just sitting in her Sound Quake, I wouldn't see the buff on her. This was during the first 2 weeks of launch. 
Anyways, no energy restore should be able to replenish energy through channeling abilities. And Oberon doesn't really need energy sustain, just get rage and soak a bit of damage. 

[LordGale]

One of the reasons I feel so strongly about this is that without this bug, Harrow has very little to set him aside from any other healer with the exception of his crits. He does a lot of things I like, but he doesn't do anything NEW, and that overlap with other healers leaves him behind in terms of how much he can heal at once or how much energy he can restore in one go or how many enemies he can CC. This bug gave him a single edge against Trinity.

And no, Harrow wasn't NEEDED to help Oberons, but the synergy they had was tremendous and lead to quite a few incredibly enjoyable matches with my alliance's oberon main. I'm going to miss that dynamic.