Kerghan’s 3.4 Guide to 61 Harbinger

Build

61Harb/13Sc/2Ele

Masteries:
65: Arcane Manipulation
64: Sparking
63: Mental Cynosure
62: Rejuvenating Presence
61: doesnt matter


Buffs:

Eldritch Armor
Reaper’s Blade

Macros: 

Warning! There are a lot of macros thanks to Charged Blade!

Spam:
#show Vorpal Slash
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast [notactive] charged blade
cast Vorpal Slash
cast Storm's Fury
cast Rending Slash
cast Introspection
cast Vengeful Shock
cast conditioned response

Procs:
#show Hailstorm
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cast [notactive] Charged Blade
cast @gtae Hailstorm
cast Lightning Strike
cast Crystalline Missiles

Icicle:
#show Icicle
cast [notactive] Charged Blade
cast Icicle


30 sec cds:
#show arcane manipulation
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Charged Blade
cast arcane manipulation
cast Storm Shroud

Piercing Beam:
#show Piercing Beam
suppressmacrofailures
stopcasting
cancelbuff Charged Blade
cast Piercing Beam

Lucent Slash
#show Lucent Slash
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Charged Blade
cast Lucent Slash
stopcasting

Charge Gain
#show Rending Slash
suppressmacrofailures
cancelbuff Charged Blade
cast Rending Slash

Tempest Winds
#show Tempest Winds
suppressmacrofailures
cast [notactive] Charged Blade
cast Tempest Winds

Blademark
#show Blademark
suppressmacrofailures
cast @focus Blademark

Eldritch Gift

Eldritch Gift is the proc which is given by Eldritch Armor. This makes your next cast time ability instant and also have a 0.5 second gcd. Understanding this mechanic is essential to playing this well. Your slashing attacks (spam macro) have a 60% chance of proccing Eldritch gift

When you get a proc, Eldritch Gift last for 8 seconds. There is an internal cooldown on Eldritch Gift of 3 seconds which blocks you from gaining another proc. If you have not consumed the proc after the internal cooldown is over (5 or less seconds remaining) you may overwrite the proc if you continue using Slashing attacks, essentially wasting the proc. This is important to know as it means we have a 3 second window in which we can delay the use of the proc so that we can use high priority slashing abilities or wait for high priority procs to come off cooldown. I will go into more detail into this later in the guide.


Rotation:

There isn’t a set rotation in 61 harb. You can do okay mindlessly spamming the macros but for you to do good dps, you need to understand the priority list and some of the decision making you need to do during fights. Here is the priority list as well as some guidance on proper use of your abilities.

Hailstorm (via Eldritch Gift)
\/
Piercing Beam (when Piercing Beam is not on the target)
\/
Vorpal Slash
\/
Lightning Strike(via Eldritch Gift)
\/
Tempest Winds
\/
Storm’s Fury
\/
Crystalline Missiles
\/
Blazing Light
\/
Rending Slash (with Charged Blade active)
\/
Living Storm
\/
Rending Slash (without Charged Blade)

• Maintain Piercing Beam, Rending Slash debuff and Blazing Light on the target.
  
• Piercing beam should be refreshed in a manner which all your slashing attacks get the increased damage. You can refresh this early (while a few seconds are left) if it means you do not delay Vorpal Slash.
  
• Refresh Blazing Light by casting Lucent Slash when the DoT has around 1-2 seconds left on the duration. This will account for Lucent Slash’s animation and also means you don’t clip it too early. In certain situations, it is not terrible to let Blazing Light fall off, an example would be if you had Tempest Winds up with EA having 1 second left, you cast Tempest Winds instead of refreshing Blazing.
  
• Rending Slash should be cast at the start of the fight after Piercing Beam to get the damage buff up before you start using your big hitters. It’s pretty much impossible to let Rending Slash fall off during the fight but you should track it in case you target swap. Now it is only one stack, it is not a big deal even if it does fall off.
  
• Conductive Medium needs to be maintained at 3 stacks. This is refreshed when you use Hailstorm, Icicle and the Piercing Beam macro but there will be instances that it will fall off if you don’t manage it. Use your keybind of Charged Blade and simply toggle it off and on to refresh the stacks.
  
• The spam macro contains your slashing attacks. You use this when you do not any debuffs to maintain or any procs to use. This will give you a chance to gain Eldritch Gift procs.
  
• When you gain a proc, use the proc macro to consume it. This cast will be instant and will have a 0.5 second global cooldown, Make sure not to spam this macro any more than you need to when consuming the proc you might start hard casting spells which is bad.
  
• Use Empyrean Ascension on cooldown and with raid cooldowns. Your rotation doesn’t really change but you can throw in Icicles in the place of Crystalline Missiles to make advantage of the extra charge EA gives you.
  
• Use the Arcane Manipulation macro every 30 seconds, make sure to spam it to make sure both Arcane Manipulation and Storm Shroud are cast. First time it should be used at the start of Empyrean Ascension then it must be cast on cooldown. Make sure to track the cooldowns of these well.
  
• Tempest Winds should be used as close to cooldown as possible. However, never delay Vorpal Slash for it, either by using it ahead of it or if Vorpal Slash is coming off cd within the duration of Tempest Winds, you should then delay it. You should also not use it if you have Storm shroud and Arcane Manipulation coming off cd within 3 seconds. If you get Tempest Winds coming off cooldown towards the end of EA, use it at the last second of EA to snapshot the damage buff.
  
• Living Storm should be considered a Charge regen skill. Use this when you begin to get low on charge. Only use this during the internal cooldown of Eldritch Gift (the 3 second window I mentioned earlier in the guide). Never ever clip this DoT.
  
• Be aware of your internal cooldown of Eldritch Gift. When the reactive shows between 7 and 5 seconds left, you cannot gain another proc. This is important as it means we can use slashing attacks in that period and not waste the proc which we have just gained. If the proc is going to be used on Hailstorm, use it straight away. If it’s going to be Lightning Strike, delay it for Vorpal Slash. If it is Crystalline Missiles, use Vorpal Slash and Storm’s Fury. If the timer on Eldritch gift gets to 4, you must consume the proc regardless.

Opener should go as follows:

Piercing Beam > Rending Slash > Blazing Light > (Raid cooldowns used) > Empyrean Ascension > HailStorm > Storm Shroud and Arcane Manipualtion > Vorpal Slash > Storm's Fury > Lightning Strike (if proc available) > Tempest Wind (if no proc)


Cleaving/AoE

This spec has the ability to cleave very well while still maintaining good ST dps. It might not be able to beat out 61NB or Reaver but it still does very well.

When you are required to cleave, take the following steps:

1. The first thing you want to do is swap to the Luminous Weapon buff. This is an off global cooldown ability so you do not lose any dps by doing this mid fight.
   
2. Cast Living Storm on your main target. Maintain this for the duration that you have adds to cleave.
   
3. Make sure Blazing Light is up on your main target (should be up regardless).
   
4. Use Lucent Slash to spread Blazing Light to the adds you are cleaving.
   
5. For procs, you want to use Hailstorm obviously, use other procs to maintain charge. If you have 4 or more targets, only use Hailstorm and Forked Lightning.
   
6. If you are cleaving off of a boss, you should still use Vorpal Slash, Storm’s Fury and Tempest Winds to maintain your ST dps. You must keep track of Rending Slash at this point and refresh it manually as you will not be using your spam macro when cleaving.
   
7. If you are just trying to do maximum aoe dps, Lucent Slash spam like crazy but still use the Charge Gain macro to keep your charge at a reasonable level.
   
8. Don’t forget to switch back to Reaper’s Blade once you have finished cleaving! Do this just before the adds die as you want the damage buff to be applied from Reaper’s Blade

Blademark

This ability is so strong it deserves it’s own section. It is pretty simple when you should use it. If you have two targets which both need to damaged, you use it! Make sure before you use it that you have all your debuffs up on your main target first (Rending, Piercing etc) then use Blademark on the second target and proceed to go HAM on the first target. This can be slightly annoying as it can mean you have to switch targets manually. A good way to make this much easier is to use the Blademark macro in this guide and to get your raid leader or whoever marks in your raid to mark the add that you want to Blademark. Then you want to use the following macro:

focus @mark 1

Then all you have to do is use this macro when the target you want to blademark has been marked followed by the Blademark macro and you will never have to target switch. Of course, if your raid leader marks the target with a different mark to 1 then you have to find what number that mark is and change the macro accordingly. Or, of course, you can just moan at him until he either changes the mark to 1 or kicks you from the raid, either way, you won’t have to change your macro.

From: http://forums.riftgame.com/game-discussions/rift-guides-strategies/class-guides/mage-guides/472078-kerghans-guide-61-harbinger-3-4-a.html