by dontrunwscissors — last updated 3 months ago
The Inquisitor Eternal arises, hallowed by the Void, preaching a gospel of iron and flame.
ITEM RANK
3060 / 60
APPLY CONDITIONALS
Now that I'm nearing my one year anniversary of switching mains to Harrow, I figured I would finally post a build guide based on my personal preferences. I'll give an in-depth explanation as to why every mod is slotted, and point out alternatives for those who find this build doesn't suit their taste.
[Harrow]'s kit is incredibly well designed, and all of his abilities have good reason to be used. That being said though, you can use Helminth much more as a personal tweak than a frame fixing tool. That being said I cannot recommend Pillage enough for a general use build. Pillage provides obscene shield [Regen] and with the new armor strip tweaks, it can easily full strip in two casts. If you are going up against infested however, bring Condemn. Pillage will not restore shields as it will have no shields or armor to drain from enemies. There are some other choices I've considered experimenting with, such as Energized Munitions for ammo efficiency, or Elemental Ward with a Toxin emissive for even more speed buffs. Play around and see what suits you best.
These arcane choices are absolute top-tier. I strongly recommend sticking to the guide here, as these two arcanes provide an absurd buff on [Harrow]. Arcane Aegis will make your shields regenerate so fast that you become effectively unkillable for 12 seconds, and with how easily you can cast Pillage to regenerate them, Aegis should proc fairly frequently. As for Molt Augmented, it provides 60% extra ability strength once you [Reach] 250 kills in a mission, which is a massive boost. If you do wish to swap arcanes, simply pick between sacrificing Aegis' survivability or Augmented's bonus strength. Augmented is the more flexible arcane of the two, and Avenger is the most viable alternative.
For Archon Shards, the ideal slots are 4 Crimson and 1 Amber, with crimson on strength and amber on cast speed.
Crimson Shards are the most important on [Harrow], each Tauforged can provide an extra 15% ability strength, or a weapon buff of your choice. Either of which will have a noticeable impact on his performance.
Amber Shards are the second best on him, they provide some nice perks you may want to consider such as parkour speed or casting speed. Casting speed is especially good on him given his lengthy animations.
Azure Shards are not worth running.
Topaz Shards are a niche choice if you're stacking secondary crit for whatever reason, however they aren't worth the investment considering Penance's absurd crit buff already.
Emerald Shards are equally niche and not particularly worth looking at on Harrow, however the +2 stacks to corrosion could potentially be useful with some weapons.
Violet Shards serve an interesting purpose for Eidolons, but otherwise should not be run on Harrow.
[Growing Power] is his Aura of choice for the easy 25% extra ability strength. Harrow almost exclusively scales off of strength and duration, so more strength is better.
[Primed Sure Footed] is hands down the best exilus, you cannot be knocked down by anything. However it is locked behind 400 days of daily tribute, so if you don't have it some good alternatives are Handspring or Power Drift.
[Primed Flow] is required for maintaining his high energy demands, once you have his ability cycle running he should never have problems, but getting that started can easily take 300 energy or so.
[Primed Continuity] is also required due to his buff duration. With Primed Continuity and Augur Message his Thurible lasts a minute, and his Penance lasts 80 seconds per cast at full overshields.
[Natural Talent] is an optional slot, his abilities have rather long animations and his Thurible especially benefits from the faster charge speed. Swap for a strength/duration mod if you want.
[Blind Rage] is required for giving [Harrow] a ludicrous amount of strength. The hit to efficiency is completely negligible due to Thurible providing infinite energy as long as you land kills.
[Augur Secrets] & Message are both very good slots due to them providing shields on ability cast and increasing his strength and duration even further. Play around with these slots if you want, but they are worth keeping in my opinion.
I saved an entire section just for this choice in particular. Umbral vs. Archon is a tricky subject on [Harrow] due to the nature of how they work. On paper Archon is a straight upgrade, however if you don't run a companion that is both tanky enough to not die and active enough to get hit you will have to rely solely on healing yourself or teammates. If you run a pet like a [Panzer Vulpaphyla] or [Smeeta Kavat] with [Tek Assault], then you should be fine running Archon over Umbral in solo play. Otherwise however, you should run Umbral as it provides a consistent improvement over Archon. Also note that your initial Penance cast will not receive the 30% strength buff for healing, you will have to recast to gain the buff.
With the new Companions rework, any companion which can use Link Shields will greatly benefit from [Harrow] having increased shield capacity. This can be paired with [Reinforced Bond] for even more fire rate. Additionally, shield gate times now scale off of your maximum shields.
[Harrow] can be a bit daunting to pick up, as his demand for ability management is unlike almost any other frame. For his ability rotation, you should be focused on first channeling his Thurible to around 30 energy per kill, then move on to filling your overshields with Pillage. Once you've done those, cast Penance for his fire rate and reload speed buffs. Then simply repeat Pillage and Penance as needed, and refresh Thurible when it expires. If you go into higher level content where Harrow starts getting shield-gated frequently, you may want to also cast Covenant so you can receive some invulnerability during the rest of his rotation. Just practice his abilities and you'll get the hang of how he plays. He's absolutely one of the most rewarding frames to invest in when you know what to do. Also keep in mind his success will heavily depend on your weapons, so make sure they are also well modded.
