The Harbinger

Difficulty:  Minimum to survive, 100+ recommended for Easy Harbinger, 120+ for Medium, and 150+ for Hard
Level Restriction:  60+ 
Timer:  1 month
Can be Solo'd?  No
Rewards:  One Point of a Chosen Skill (Two for the hard version), Royal Coat of Arms Stamp, Champion of Dereth, Master of the Elements, or Harbinger's Bane title token, additional XP or Harbinger armor, and a chance at a Harbinger Pack Doll

The Harbinger is a physical manifestation of the mana streams beneath Dereth.  Gaerlan had intended to channel its power into Nuhmudira's empty shell, but his plan backfired and his summoning spell destroyed Yanshi in the process.  The Harbinger itself is still a considerable threat to Dereth, so Nuhmudira is willing to aide anyone who helps drive it back into the mana streams.  Alternatively, you could help the Virindi, who seek to learn from it.  Either camp will reward you by giving you a full point of a skill of your choice for your assistance.

New in May 2006, the original Harbinger quest was changed to make three separate ways to defeat the Harbinger.

Preparation:  Item Hunt.  There are several emissaries living in Yanshi - Vincadi the Virindi, Issk the Sclavus, and an Emissary of Asheron.  The first two will give you a book detailing why they want your help and tell you to give them a particular item to signify which skill you want to raise.  Seeing how there is an item for each skill in the game, the list is quite extensive!

All of the items are giveable, so you can trade for them too.  They can all be turned in for experience and an item, if you find extras.  Once you have your item, you can start the quest.

The "Easy" Version

Step 2:  Reflection of the Harbinger.  Find the Arcanum agent in the destroyed tower just west of the Stone of Yanshi.  Everyone will need to buy a Decanter of Nullified Essence.  When everyone has one, head to the center of town and buff up.  Be sure to protect and bane against all damage types.  You can get away with buffing a slashing weapon, but Mages should use Prismatic Isparians if they have one.  When  you are ready, have everyone in your group turn in their Nullified Essence to the big stone at the center of town.  This can be problematic because it is hard to get the decanter to go to the stone due to its size.  When the first person turns in his Essence, Elementals will attack in large numbers, so make sure you're ready!  Everyone who has yet to turn in a Decanter must do so before they begin to fight.  Also be aware that only 30 rewards will appear when  you've succeeded, so if you have more than 30 people in your group, you will have to do this stage twice.  When you've dispatched the first wave of Elementals, you'll have a momentary respite before a second wave of enemies show up.  The second spawn is made up of Children of the Elements, strange looking elementals that are a bit more dangerous than your average elemental.  Once they die, a spawn of Elemental Knights will show up.  Be careful - they can dish out a lot of damage very quickly.  Once they die, a Reflection of the Harbinger will appear.  He's nothing compared to the real Harbinger, but still, be careful.  Dispatch him and 30 Reflective Shards will appear on the ground.  You must have turned in Nullified Essence to be able to pick one up.  Ultimately, you will take it back to Ciandra for 7.5M XP, but there's no sense in leaving and then returning to Yanshi just yet.

Step 3:  Tunnels to the Harbinger.  Once the Reflection goes down, take your group to Vincadi, just east of the rock.  Everyone should turn in their items before you start - Vincadi is located by the portal (12.6S, 46.7E).  You will be fighting Sclavus Lords, high level Slithis tentacles, dual elementals, and the Harbinger himself.  After you give Vincadi your item, doubleclick the portal to enter.  The first stretch is linear and filled with Sclavus Lords and Tentacles.  Watch your health - the tentacles drain and use Life Bolts.  After clearing several levels, you will come to the first jump.  This one is almost impossible to mess up.  You will be standing in a small doorway and across the way is another doorway some distance below you.  It looks impossible to hit, but there is actually an invisible ledge running the entire length of the far wall.  Aim at the doorway and do a full power jump.  You will bounce off the wall and land on the ledge below.  Head through the doorway and you will come to a very nasty room filled with large numbers of Tentacles and Sclavus Lords.  Be very careful, as you can get harmed/drained/bolted to death in here very easily.  When the room is clear, gather on the south side of the pit in the middle of the room.  There is a fire pit below, so make sure everyone knows to move out quickly.  Everyone will shift (or tap-shift) jump down into the hole and immediately run through the passageway on the north wall.  You will now come to a series of larger rooms protected by elementals.  Kill them and work your way down the ramps as you see them.  Also beware the NPC tentacles.  They are invulnerable and they will debuff you.  After going down several ramps, you will come to another jump.  Although this jump is quite simple, many people have died on my quests here because of the elementals below.  Have your group wait at the top while you jump down alone and kill them.  If you have your whole group jump, you might be unlucky enough to have the elementals gather around the landing point.  If someone were to land on an elemental on the way down, they could wind up in the damage pits below.  The next jump is the most technically demanding in the dungeon and has been known to kill players who either weren't paying attention or have a poor connection.  Before you explain the jumps, make sure everyone has dispelled any vulns they might have or they are likely to die.  Straight ahead of you are several elemental pits.  You will have to do a shift (or tap-shift) jump straight ahead into the middle frost pit and then quickly run to the far end of the pit.  Then you will need to do a full power jump straight ahead toward the small opening in the wall.  There is another invisible ledge, so bouncing off the wall won't kill you.  If you miss either jump, you will end up in a fire pit far below and die (if you can't recall fast enough).  You can also die quickly on the frost pit if you take too long.  Many quest leaders recommend doing this jump one at a time and so do I.  Make sure you don't stay in the first room past the invisible ledge either - there are several NPC tentacles that can kill you if you aren't paying attention.  Move past that room and kill the Elementals in the couple rooms just beyond while you wait for the rest of the group to jump.  When everyone has made it (or died), kill the elementals ahead and you will quickly come to yet another jump.  This one is not hard to make, but if you don't know what to do, you will die.  Jump down doing any style of jump you like, but as you are falling, turn yourself so that you are facing south (to the left 90 degrees).  As soon as you hit the bottom, run straight ahead and down the ramp.  Make sure you go down the ramp fairly far so as to not take damage from the pit.  Again, do this jump one at a time to avoid accidents.  At the bottom of the ramp is another ledge - do a full power jump straight ahead into the wall and you will land on a ledge guarded by a pair of Hellfires.  Kill them and stop your group for the moment.

Directly ahead of you is a pit containing the Harbinger and about a dozen Dual-Elementals.  Hopefully your group is large enough so that you can break up into an attack group and a healing/debuffing group.  Ideally, no one under 100 should fight the Harbinger, as he can one-hit anyone.  Attackers should equip Prismatic Isparian weapons, as the Harbinger is classified as an elemental.  Before you start, tell everyone the battle plan.  First, the debuffers will imperil all the monsters below.  As soon as everything (save the Harbinger) is imperilled, the attack squad will jump down and engage the elementals.  The debuffers will then go to work on the Harbinger - yield, imperil, slash/pierce/bludge vuln, Fester... the works.  Healers above will carefully watch members of their fellowship.  The Harbinger casts a really terrible spell called 'Weight of the World' that turns you into a helpless wreck.  Use a dispel gem immediately if you take this spell!  As soon as the Harbinger dies, a portal appears in the pit.  You *must* make it through the portal to get the reward, so as soon as the Harbinger goes down, find the portal and take it.  That means the healer/debuffer squad needs to jump into the pit immediately.  Also, the healers need to be prepared for the Hellfires to respawn, so don't leave that squad completely defenseless.  The Harbinger drops several Arm Tokens when it dies.  If you want the Stamp and Title Token, pick one up, but don't take too long or you will miss the portal.

The "Moderate" Version

This version done by first killing the four Essences from the Essence Invasion quest and then killing the Harbinger.  As soon as you kill the fourth essence, several portals will spawn.  These portals are on a timer and are reset if anyone enters the dungeon prior to your group's exit.  To be sure that you will be at full strength against the Harbinger, take out three of the four Essences and then have any fatalities go through the dungeon together.  Running through is possible, albeit exceedingly difficult.  There are several points where tentacles will block your path, so you would need to kill several.  Your best bet is to fight through, slowly and carefully.  When your whole team is back, it's time to take out that fourth essence.  Be very careful and dispel often.  It might be a good idea to keep your melees out of the last fight too - have them act as healers instead.  When that final essence dies, have everyone hit the newly formed portals.

The portals all drop you in the Harbinger's Lair, which is an open room occupied by the Harbinger himself along with one Child of each Element and one of each Elemental Knight types.  Since you are at full strength now, this shouldn't be too hard, but it would be wise for you as the leader to call out which enemy you want the group to attack at a time.  That will help you dispatch all the Elementals without suffering casualties.  When everything but the Harbinger is down, go after him.  Mages will be your backbone here.  Each mage should be using their Prismatic Isparian wand and shooting off wall spells, ideally using Tusker Fists.  One wall can do several thousand damage if it connects.  Because walls travel so slowly, you will want to keep the Harbinger as stationary as possible.  If the Harbinger comes after you, just sit there and heal.  Drains work nicely.  Be sure to Imperil, Vuln, and Yield the Harbinger too.  Watch out for the Harbinger's most potent spells!  His elemental war magic is strong, especially in conjunction with vulns, so dispel if you take a vuln.  He also has a habit of blowing away your mana, so do your best to keep yourself at full strength.  When the Harbinger gets down to 50%, he will spawn friends.  Again, you will be fighting four Children of the Elements (one of each) and four Elemental Knights.  Unfortunately, the Children have over 10,000 health this time!  Focus your team on one at a time and you should survive the onslaught.  Should you die at any point during the fight, get back to Yanshi ASAP.  Once you pass through the portal after killing all four essences, the portal by Vincadi will take you right back into the Harbinger's Lair.  Your group needs you and you won't want to be left behind, so only buff the bare essentials before going back into the fight.  When the Harbinger dies, grab a Harbinger Arm token from the group and then hit the summoned portal.

The Hard Version

The Hard version is the most direct way of fighting the Harbinger, but it is by far the most deadly.  You won't bother defeating the Essences first and instead fight them while you fight the Harbinger.  Hand in your Harbinger item to Vincadi and he will grant you access to the Harbinger Tunnels, which are slightly different from the "Easy" version Tunnels.  The directions to the Easy version will get you through the dungeon without incident.  The only real differences are that the pit labeled B has a pair of portals at its north edge and that both Issk and Vincadi's portal ultimately lead to the same end point, so if for whatever reason someone needs to go through Issk's side, they can meet up with you at the end of the Tunnels.  The Essence Sanctum portal leads to the Essences (of course...) and the other leads to the Harbinger's Lair.  Announce the order in which you will be fighting the monsters.  The easiest way to do that is to tell everyone you will be fighting the monsters by color.  Start with Green (for the Essence of Verdancy) and then pick the other colors in any order, so long as you have an announced order.  Say a little prayer and then hit the Harbinger's Lair portal.  You will find yourself in one hellish pit, surrounded by Elementals, not to mention one beefed-up Harbinger.  Kill his friends, then focus on the Harbinger.  It will take you quite some time to dispatch this version and you will probably lose some people in the process.  Fortunately, if you return to Vincadi and doubleclick his portal, you will be returned to the Harbinger's Lair - don't forget to buff first!  When the Harbinger gets down to 50% health, he will summon all four essences to try to wipe your group out.  Stay on the Harbinger for a few seconds and make sure you take him down to at least 45% before switching to the Essences or the Essences will just keep respawning when you kill them.  Focus your attacks on one Essence at a time until they are all down, then work the Harbinger again.  When he dies, be sure to pick up a Harbinger Arm token from the floor.  When everyone has their token, take the portal the Harbinger summons - you MUST take this portal to get your TWO! points of skill.

All Versions

Step 4:  Rewards.  Upon taking the portal, you will reappear in Yanshi next to Vincadi.  Form a line and greet him one at a time.  He will reward you with the point of skill (or TWO! points if you did the Hard version).  If you picked up the Arm Token, give it to Asheron's Emissary by the large rock in the center of town.  It will give you the title token and the stamp.  If you are lucky, you will also get a Pack Harbinger!  The title you get depends on which version you did - the "Easy" version's title is "Champion of Dereth", the "Moderate" version's is "Harbinger's Bane", and the "Hard" version's is "Master of the Elements" - I may have the moderate and hard titles switched.  The Moderate and Hard versions also pay XP if you turn in the Arm token.  I believe the rewards are roughly 15% of your level for the Moderate Quest and 20% for the Hard Quest.  The nicest part is that those percentage rewards are not capped, so you can earn hundreds of millions of XP.  Alternatively, you can return the Moderate or Hard Harbinger's Arm to Ciandra in Xarabydun for an item reward instead of the XP.  The Moderate Arm is worth a vial of Shimmering Prismatic Oil, which may be applied to a Diamond Shield or Helm of the Elements to strengthen the item, and the Hard Arm will give you a Harbinger's Arm Guard, which you may turn in for a Harbinger's Finger wand.