Harvester (strategy)

This page contains detailed tips on how to fight the Harvester.

First phase

 * Vile Disembowelment - The Harvester pulls out a chunk of its gut and throws it at its target, dealing high area-of-effect damage.
 * Ground Slam - The Harvester pounds the floor of the chamber, knocking down one target.
 * Bile Burst - Unknown.

Second phase
The second phase of the Harvester is not hone to any real skills, however, the Harvester is capable of altering your world from a 'normal phase' into a 'red phase' one, as you did with the switches to reach the forge. When this is activated, the Harvester's skeleton minions will become transparent and red, whilst gaining an increase to durability and attack. It is possible that once the Harvester has switched between the two 'phases' many times, all its minions will die.

Preparation
Since release of the Golems of Amgarrak DLC, the Harvester is commonly known to be one of the most - if not the most - difficult fight in the Dragon Age series. If you wish to fight the Harvester on Hard or Nightmare, the following preparations are recommended:


 * Your character should be a damage rogue or a mage. If you are a mage, remember to invest many talent points in healing, defensive, and crowd control spells. The following spells will prove very useful for the fight: Horror, Paralysis, Mass Paralysis, Force Field, Mind Blast, Sleep, Crushing Prison, Waking Nightmare. It should be possible to complete the fight as a warrior, however, you need not be a sword and shield warrior; the fight is much easier to do if you have more damage on hand, so consider respecializing the warrior to a two-handed or dual wielding fighter. The Spirit Warrior specialization is an excellent choice.
 * If importing a previous character from a save game, ensure that your character is stocked up on many healing potions and is holding more advanced rogue and warrior gear. You may find it useful to put this gear on Jerrik or Brogan.
 * It is discouraged to attempt the fight on Nightmare if you do not already have a lot of previous experience playing the game on Nightmare.
 * Jerrik's Bronto, Snug, will be useful.
 * It is also advised to specialize Jerrik as a bard; Song of Courage is useful in this fight.
 * Coat Jerrik and Brogan's weapons with poison. As the skeletons are immune to nature damage, you may want to coat your weapons with fire or spirit damage enhancing poisons.
 * The Runic Golem should be fully upgraded with Revival, Group Heal and Flaming Weapons.
 * If you want to be cheap, you can simply abuse the Accuracy talent. Even a single rogue with a good bow and most of his points in dexterity with Accuracy on will make this battle easy. Just pull threat with one of the characters and keep running around while the rogue shoots the Harvester to death.

Phase One
For the duration of this phase, remember that damage is key. There is no limit to the amount of times you will have to press the switch or the amount of minions the Harvester will summon, so the quicker you take him down the easier it will be. Jerrik needs to focus fire on the Harvester at all times.

As the Harvester will always first use Vile Disembowelment, you will want to avoid starting the fight with your party in its range. Start the fight by diverting the Harvester with your tank, making sure to sustain aggro (for those who are playing after Awakening, Air of Insolence is very useful to activate here). Start attacking the Harvester with your party, making sure to keep your golem at a good distance from the harvester whilst also being able to benefit your team with Cleansing Aura. The Harvester's skills are powerful and quick, so keep a close eye on your tank's health; it will drop abruptly multiple times during the fight (for Awakening players: if you find yourself in a position where your tank's health is dropping fast and he's on potion/heal spell cooldown, don't forget to use Carapace to reduce damage).

The mechanics of the fight is organized such that when the Harvester switches from the 'normal phase' to the 'red phase', a switch on the side of the room will appear. The purpose of this switch is to remove any buff the Harvester gains from switching to the 'red phase', whilst also eliminating any summoned skeletons. Do not always use this switch as soon as it appears! Sometimes the tank will take next to no physical damage whilst in the 'red phase', in which case you will want to use the switch. Sometimes there will be no significant alteration to his defense or attack, in which case, you should be saving the switch for incoming skeletons who may be overwhelming you. The rank of the skeleton he summons is generally random. If the skeleton he summons is Normal Rank (i.e. 'white'), it will be mostly harmless and can be ignored or offtanked by Jerrik's minion. If it's an Elite 'yellow' skeleton, either take it down as swiftly as possible or immobilize it with an appropriate spell. If it's an orange skeleton, you need to be very cautious; orange skeletons hit as hard as the Harvester and will easily wipe your party if they are left to stray. Do not bother damaging the orange skeletons; it is far more effective to focus fire on the Harvester whilst either kiting the orange skeleton with Jerrik's minion or keeping it in place with force field. Be wary that this fight is harder if the orange skeletons make an appearance later into the fight when things are more chaotic; the idea is that you want to eliminate them by pressing the switch.

Once you have defeated the first phase of the Harvester, he will transform into a large 'critter', initiating the much harder Phase Two.

The Fight: Phase Two
Again, in this part of the fight you will want focus fire on the Harvester at all times. Jerrik - with Feign Death and/or Distraction - will be able to keep aggro off him at all times whilst dealing heavy damage to the Harvester. Your golem should try to avoid garnering any attention from the skeletons so he can revive your party if necessary. You may find this fight easier if you are an archer as the Harvester's speed will not hinder your damage.

This part of the fight is significantly harder because of the skeletons. First, the skeletons cannot be eliminated by a simple press of a switch; they stick around for a long time and need to be killed or crowd controlled. If you find it easy to eliminate the skeletons then you might be able to afford some time to kill them one by one, although you should keep in mind they spawn rapidly and randomly. However, once again, the orange skeleton(s) will prove very difficult to handle and you should attempt to either soak up all their damage with your tank or crowd control them for as long as possible.

Throughout the fight, the Harvester will travel around the entire room with great speed, usually traveling with its skeletons. In addition, the Harvester will switch phase from 'normal' to 'red', as it did in phase one. The difference this time is that the phasing doesn't affect the strength of the Harvester itself, but instead appears to improve the skeletons. Red-phased skeletons - who will glow red and look transparent - are significantly stronger and harder to hit. As soon as the Harvester switches phase, this is the time to control the skeletons or else you risk losing your entire party (for Awakening players: Carapace is invaluable at this part). Eventually, after the Harvester phases in and out of 'normal' and 'red' a sufficient amount of times, the skeletons will die instantly. If you managed to reach this point then you'll have a good shot at and will most likely defeat the Harvester.