Harvesters and how much you hate them

Magdalina

I'm trying to restrain myself from joining the "NERF IT!" screaming crowd so I'll welcome your opinions and strategies:) Especially those of fellow sorcs.

My biggest problem is I get oneshot by them. I have 1400 health as vet 6, they do 1500+ damage as vet 5, I have like 0.5 second to dodge their Black Winter attack(often can't dodge because casting a spell or smth and don't move fast enough) and I just get oneshot. They also have rather high health and those **** fulheals so I have to put out high dps(ideally aoe to get rid of orbs), during which I inevitably miss a hit sooner or later.

The only way I found so far is to summon a SA on them and try to nuke them from the back - Black Winter doesn't reach there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't as it'll knock my SA down and turn to nuke me/last more than SA. But I don't think I've managed to defeat a single vet Harvester without an ultimate so far.

EDIT: Oh, and not to forget the stun. Stun+Black Winter is an exceptionally good combo.

Enkshar

Ur health is the main problem. On VR levels ull find many mobs that hit more than 1.5K with charged skills or cast spells. On VR 8+ maps probably every trash mobs is capable of doing this dmg, while hitting u for 300 dmg with light atttacks. My recomendation is that u try to get at least 2K hp while playing VR content.

Magdalina

Enkshar wrote: »

Ur health is the main problem. On VR levels ull find many mobs that hit more than 1.5K with charged skills or cast spells. On VR 8+ maps probably every trash mobs is capable of doing this dmg, while hitting u for 300 dmg with light atttacks. My recomendation is that u try to get at least 2K hp while playing VR content.

I don't like that idea. I like having a LOT of magicka. I can heal vet dungeons with it - besides, harvester bosses in BC do NOT oneshoot me, they do maybe ~700 a hit.

And sure, vet 5 trash does 200-300 per light attack easily, though none of them oneshoot me so far. 2-shoot, yes, like 2 fricking daggers is enough to kill the heroic me apparently. Hell, world bosses very rarely oneshoot me. Harvesters do.

I don't like feeling like I'm forced into respecing and putting everything into my health suddenly. I rarely have a problem with running anywhere near to out of magicka in open world, but dungeons are a completely different story, I actually need all of my magicka there.

ElSlayer

I find them... challenging.
Which makes me much more happy when I kill them.

Enkshar

U can easily hit to the magicka cap with only equipment and food while spending no attribute points on magicka. Also having a good HP pool may be requiered to do trials to avoid 1 shots. Another way maybe changing ur home campaign to one where ur faction has emperror that will guve u a good boost on all stats and like 250-300 extra Hp

Magdalina

@Ekshar, thanks, don't do PvP tho and unsure if I plan to do Trials:) 12 ppl sounds a bit too much for me.
And magicka is only soft capped. Mine's overcharged by default at 2076, somewhere at ~2300 or so with food. That's a few hundred that could save someone' life in a dungeon...unfortunately, they don't really save mine against trash xP

Nazon_Katts

Nope, don't like 'em. One shotting shouldn't be in the game, neither full heals and the combination of both just makes for a very long and dragged out fight. Harvesters are pretty boring, as soon as you know how to handle them.

I can take them out without AOEs and still have a full Magicka build at VR3, but they don't leave much room for failure and it's mostly lag or unresponsive skills that get me killed. I avoid them, because they are annoying to fight and offer no mentionable reward and not because they're tough. But that's a rather symptomatic problem of VR levels anyways.

Hilgara

once the harvester starts the cast (watch for animation) it is fixed in that position. It stops tracking you so its easy to move behind or beside it.

Magdalina

@Hilgara, what do you mean by cast? Infamous Black Winter? That one takes them like 0.5 seconds, not really enough time to do anything, not even dodge.

Hilgara

If you keep circling you are never in the dead zone because it stops tracking to cast and you keep moving. Also be aware that the healing ball things will heal you if you get in the way of them.

alexj4596b14_ESO

Magdalina wrote: »

@Hilgara, what do you mean by cast? Infamous Black Winter? That one takes them like 0.5 seconds, not really enough time to do anything, not even dodge.

I had a problem with them as well. They do have a cast you can intrupt. It's vary hard too see study the way if fight and you will learn what it looks like.

Magdalina

Hm. That might be a good advice, asuming I'm ever gonna meet a Harvester in the open space, not cave/place riddled with 100 other mobs on all sides, so I actually have enough place to circle.

Heal me? That's interesting. Are you sure? How much? Will that make the disappear or will they go on to harvester after that?

Hilgara

When I say keep circling I mean within melee range (i'm a NB) so you don't need much space and you are circling quite fast. The balls heal you if they touch you but you still need to destroy them. Bets way for me is to just steel tornado when they get close but any decently wide coverage aoe would do the same. Magic flood for example

Magdalina

Oh, I don't have that big of a problem aoeing orbs(asuming I'm not stunned at the time they appear), my biggest issue is being oneshot.
Thanks for advice, in any case, I'll see if I can use it:)

Aoifesan

Magdalina wrote: »

Oh, I don't have that big of a problem aoeing orbs(asuming I'm not stunned at the time they appear), my biggest issue is being oneshot.
Thanks for advice, in any case, I'll see if I can use it:)

The hands of screaming death will one shot anyone if you are un-clever about it. EACH of the hand animations carries with it 1400 damage. So if you are caught between two of them and get hit by both you will die.

Irgin

Hilgara wrote: »

If you keep circling you are never in the dead zone because it stops tracking to cast and you keep moving. Also be aware that the healing ball things will heal you if you get in the way of them.

Well, if you do this Harvester will still fire the frontal into the crowd while doing a dolmen.
What bugs me the most is the fact, that the distance from where you get hit with the frontal is irrelevant. Usually aoes are way more lethal the closer you are - this game should take this common mechanic into consideration.

Laurelinde

Ugh, hate them. Have more trouble with random 'trash' Harvesters than I did with Molag Bal. They're not impossible, just very unforgiving to fight.

SBR_QuorTek

Harvesters... they are actually more easy to kill than what people know, but would say that melee kill is best.. what I do is on my night blade.

Dual Wield, jump to it with assassination skill, hit it with different stamina skills... assassination skills..... keep circling it.. that way you can avoid the frontal 180 degree AOE it does... once it put you in air and spawn bubbles... whirlwind them down... and usually the harvester die on it right away... they are very squishy... and once learning them they are a push over... their aoe can oneshot my nightblade if getting hit by it but circling it in melee will grant you the upper hand... took me long to learn them fully to know.. but once got it and the tips added here will save everyones day... also when killing the bubbles you get your HP back, must be killed before hitting the harvester itself.

Obscure

Harvester 101

All harvester mobs use the exact same tells, from the world boss harvester, to a certain story line boss, to the regular old harvesters slithering around Cold Harbor. To learn to beat them consistently, learn their tells first. The place to learn this is against the Harvesters in Cold Harbor:

Step 1: Move
The Harvester AI (and generally all AI in the game) is remarkably stupid. When looking at a Harvester, a human being cannot possibly comprehend the magnitude of stupidity looking back at them. The most dangerous of this enemy's attacks is a cone of bluish, translucent arms that travel along the ground in the direction the Harvester thinks you're in. Conveniently, if a player is to continuously move to the right or left keeping the Harvester under their reticle, the Harvester will be absolutely baffled by the astounding maneuver and miss you every time.

Step 2: Hit It In The Balls
Now inevitably the Harvester will get flustered by the players impeccable command of their WSAD keys and use an attack that will drain substantial amounts of your health and convert it into floating balls that should they float into the Harvester will heal it. There's ways to prevent this from happening to begin with by using miss chance debuffs and dodge chance buffs, buff if you have neither, no worries, just hit it in the balls. Each ball you destroy will restore your health and deprive the Harvester of its healing mechanic. The best way to hit the balls is with a bursty AoE such as Volley for bow users or Impulse for d-staff users and so on. Doing this you'll find yourself back at full health in no time.

Step 3: Interrupting is Proper Etiquette
You'll notice that the Harvester has a very obvious casting time tell for its cone attack that you've already learned to avoid by casually moving to the left, but it also has some projectiles it likes to throw at you when it isn't doing that. Be sure to block them, or if your a Dragonknight, Templar, or Shield user, throw up reflects to ping-pong them back into its face. As for the cone attack, bash it in the noggin, thwack it with a Venom Arrow, beam it with Force Shock, or generally anything that'll bring a halt to the cast. You'll now have the idiot stunned and off balance for a quick power attack to put it into another stun. Use this reprieve from its attacks to beat on it without abandon.

During the fight you'll revisit these three basic steps at varied intervals until you ultimately convert that dirty slag's HP into your XP. Happy Hunting!

Magdalina

@Obscure:you, I like your style:) I also like your advices. Thank you.

Still_Mind

4\10 on hate-o-meter. Low for reasons stated by @Obscure.

Being melee-only bumps it by a couple of points, but it's not that critical. The ball-stun is breakable, and that's all that matters.

VR Storm Atronachs, though, I hate a lot more.

Obscure

Still_Mind wrote: »

4\10 on hate-o-meter. Low for reasons stated by @Obscure.

Being melee-only bumps it by a couple of points, but it's not that critical. The ball-stun is breakable, and that's all that matters.

VR Storm Atronachs, though, I hate a lot more.

Atronachs, like all Daedric creatures, have a severe allergy to being injected with silver at high velocity, and are vastly less effective against people who enjoy glowing circles. Visit your local fighters guild and they'll provide both for you to deal with pesky VR Storm Atronachs with more HP than most VR dungeon bosses.

Ysne58

I hate the harvesters too. Haven't had much experience with storm atronachs yet.

Still_Mind

Obscure wrote: »

Still_Mind wrote: »

4\10 on hate-o-meter. Low for reasons stated by @Obscure.

Being melee-only bumps it by a couple of points, but it's not that critical. The ball-stun is breakable, and that's all that matters.

VR Storm Atronachs, though, I hate a lot more.

Atronachs, like all Daedric creatures, have a severe allergy to being injected with silver at high velocity, and are vastly less effective against people who enjoy glowing circles. Visit your local fighters guild and they'll provide both for you to deal with pesky VR Storm Atronachs with more HP than most VR dungeon bosses.

My main problem with them is CC immunity, the fact that they hit like a truck through block against capped armour, and the fact that their AoE is both, uninterruptable and hard to dodge at melee range (which is de-facto forced on you). Silver bolts spam results in being out of stamina before you say "Heal Me".

My personal solution to them is - kill them before they kill you. Veil of Blades\Banner\Nova\Atronach\whatever, DPS with little regard for personal safety (focusing on blocking\dodging merely delays the inevitable), while healing yourself.

But you are correct about the FG skills. Evil Hunter works very nice for my particular strategy, if your build isn't heavy on Stamina (doesn't get autorenewed against this mountain of hitpoints).

Shiroro

Harvesters are stupid because they jam them into corridors where you can't AoE the stupid orbs in time. I have a harvester boss that I need to kill for a quest in one of the VR zones and all I can do is stalemate him to infinity. There's literally no way for me to kill the thing even though I can stay alive indefinitely. Mechanics of that mob need to change (note to L2Pers: I'm not saying nerf so shut it)

ShedsHisTail

So much.

jesterstear

I'm a tank/healer Templar with sword and shield as main weapon and restoration staff backup. The problem I have with these things is taking out the balls. Sword and Shield has neither AoE nor Ranged attacks and is low DPS overall, in addition to the disadvantage of putting you very close to the opponent so you have little or no time to dodge Black Winter.

So, I sit back and use the staff, but the problem comes with the healing balls. The soft targeting system is really annoying, when trying to aim at the ones behind the harvester, it targets the harvester instead wasting my shots. I can try using Sprint to get a better firing solution, but I'm never going to have time to hit all four. I'm already VR2 and have two weapons trained, I don't think I can spare the skill points for a third. Plus, pulsar is way up the Resto staff tree, will never unlock it before hitting level cap.

Sallakat

1400 health as VR6 sounds pretty low to me. How have you enchanted your gear? and how's the attribute distribution? I have pretty much all my attributes on health on my high elf sorc and enchants are only magicka and health so I can get them as close to soft cap as possible.

With the harvesters I usually use destro staff's skill 'impulse' on those orbs, they usually die with 2 hits. Seems like a faster option than hitting them with weapon attacks one by one. I would assume something instantly cast-able, similar type of aoe attack would do the job if you're fighting alone.

PBpsy

Impulse or any aoe works great for the blobs. Going in circles to their sides is also helphull.

One more thing though since you are in VR5 you must be an EP in DC and you do not really have to kill any of them from what I remember. You can just avoid them. Harvesters and Gargoyles are the mobs that I don't see any reason in fighting more than once to see if you can do it.To much trouble for a nonexistent reward.

Magdalina

Sallakat wrote: »

1400 health as VR6 sounds pretty low to me. How have you enchanted your gear? and how's the attribute distribution? I have pretty much all my attributes on health on my high elf sorc and enchants are only magicka and health so I can get them as close to soft cap as possible.

With the harvesters I usually use destro staff's skill 'impulse' on those orbs, they usually die with 2 hits. Seems like a faster option than hitting them with weapon attacks one by one. I would assume something instantly cast-able, similar type of aoe attack would do the job if you're fighting alone.

I can aoe orbs fine, with Impulse of even Lightning Flood if I'm with resto staff:) I can't dodge black winter. Anyway, will see if any of the advices posted here work next time I'm unlucky enough to meet my favourite monster.

13 points in health, 36 in Magicka, and I tend to enchant armor with magicka, too. I know 1400 is a bit low, but buffed with food it's enough in vet dungeons, surely there must be a way to survive with it in outer world.

Sallakat

I don't usually get out of the aoe hit that the harverster does, but I have a resto staff on second weapon slot so I put up a HoT and continue smashing the target. Or my little twilight will pick me up if I'm below 35%