The Harbinger's are a series of bosses that must be killed in order to progress The Forgotten Knight Faction and eventually fight Aberroth. Each Timeline has one Harbinger. Harbinger of War is the Harbinger for the Blood, Frost, and Death Timeline. She follows the Agile archetype, which gives her access to the skills of that archetype. She also gains some unique skills from the Frost Lich Formosus, the boss of this Timeline.
In this guide, we cover the rewards, boss mechanics, and provide a strategy for defeating this boss.
Each Harbinger can drop its own Unique as well as Forgotten Knight Faction rewards.
Celestial Doom
Harbinger Eye: Used to summon the Pinnacle Boss Aberroth.
Harbinger's Needle: When equipped in an Idol slot, this item will allow Empowered Timeline Boss kills to give 3 additional Gaze of Orobyss, significantly speeding up Corruption gains. The item is destroyed when the Timeline Boss is killed.
Boss Mechanics
Each Harbinger has a set of skills according to their archetype (agile or tank) as well as a few skills from the boss of the Timeline Boss.
Archetype -Agile
Creates two portals, one next to the Harbinger and another near the player. After a short delay, the Harbinger thrusts her spear into the nearby portal, causing it to shoot out of the other one. Deals low Physical and Void Damage.
Charges and then fires a beam of Fire that travel in front of and behind the Harbinger. Deals moderate Fire damage.
The Harbinger dashes toward the player with her spear drawn, dealing low Physical and Void damage.
Performs two attacks in quick succession while sliding forward. Both attacks deal low Physical damage.
Spawns several orbs on the ground the persist for a short time and deal Void damage to enemies that walk over them.
The Harbinger flies up and then slams down on a telegraphed area, dealing moderate Void damage.
The Harbinger spins and quickly slashes, creating a blast wave that travels away from her. Both the slash and the blast wave deal moderate Void damage.
The Harbinger Creates two Void spears on the ground. After a few seconds, they explode into multiple projectiles that deal low Void damage while also applying Frailty and Shred Armour.
Timeline Boss - Lagon
The Harbinger places several tornado-like DoTs on the ground that slowly move in random directions and deal Cold Damage that gets stronger over time.
The Harbinger channels a large beam in front of him for several seconds that deals high Necrotic Damage and gets stronger over time.
Modifiers
When you go into a timeline boss fight, you carry any modifiers that are active from running echoes. Some of these modifiers can be especially dangerous, while some can actually bring value with little or no downside.
Avoid These Modifiers
Critical Strike Avoidance - If you're a Crit based build and have sufficient Crit to be noticeable.
Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance - avoid these if you don't have capped Critical Strike Avoidance.
Enemies have a chance to Dodge - any builds that rely on Hitting the enemy (including DoT builds that apply Ailmentson Hit) should avoid this modifier (except for Rogues with Focus Fire).
Enemies heal if they have not been damaged recently - Only take this if you're confident you'll never go 4 or more seconds without damaging the boss.
Frenzy and Haste + Berserk - Individually these are manageable (although you may still want to avoid them if you can). Together they can make a boss very difficult to deal with as they significantly speed up the mechanics of the fight. Don't take these unless you're comfortable with the mechanics and confident that the additional speed of the fight won't be a problem.
Take These Modifiers
Anything that affects Rare enemies - Bosses are not considered Rare enemies, so those modifiers do not apply to the encounter. However, the rewards do. This is an easy way to boost the value of a fight for any build without increasing difficulty.
Enemies have +X Critical Strike Chance when Crit capped or Reduced Bonus Crit is at 100%- If so, then this modifier provides no extra difficulty.
Critical Strike Avoidance on a DoT build - DoTs can't Crit, so this won't matter.
Enemies have a X% chance to receive a Glancing Blowwhen hit on a DoT build - Similar to Crits, Glancing Blows only apply to Hits.
Enemies have a chance to Dodge on a build that uses a DoT skill - Ailments generally need to Hit to be applied, so don't take this if you're relying on Hits to stack your DoTs. However, some skills have the DoT tag, meaning they don't Hit. DoTs can't be Dodged, so your damage is unaffected.
Boss Strategy
This is a relatively easy fight compared to some other Harbingers.
Avoid Spear Beam. It's a well telegraphed attack and therefore unnecessary damage. The same goes for Portal Spear and Void Spears.
Most of her other archetypal attacks are difficult to avoid in melee range, but don't deal excessive damage. Either tank it or stay at range.
Avoid both Ice Vortex and Spirit Beam. The damage of each is high enough to kill most builds quickly. Spirit Beam is well telegraphed and Ice Vortex moves slowly, so both should be relatively easy to stay out of
