How to defeat the Harvester on Hard as a Warrior

[Steelstick]

Since I only just did it myself, I thought I'd put up a guide on how I did it.

Warden - level 32
20 Strength
15 Willpower
25 Constitution
Everything left in Dextitery
(I used the Memoirs of the Wardens for my stats)

Make sure you bring along a shield you can wear with 20 Strength. I didn't, so it'll only make things easier. Also bring along 2 as strong as possible bows

Skills
Fully upgrade Combat Training, Vitality and Clarity. Other points to Combat Tactics

Talents
Get everything possible for Warrior (especially Taunt), Sword and Shield (for 1st phase) and Archery (for 2nd phase). Remaining points may be spent freely.

Set the following tactics for your teammates:
Health <75%: Use Lesser Health Poultice (all)
Health <50%: Use Health Poultice (all)
Ally health <75%: Group Heal (Golem)
Ally health <50%: Cleansing Aura (Golem
Enemy target of controlled party member: Attack (Jerrick, Brogan, Golem)
You probably control your Warden the whole fight, but set ''controlled party member'' just in case
Attacked with melee: Slam (Golem), for Jerrik and Brogan anything that protects them

Have all your teammates use all possible buffs before battle.

Jerrick is going to fight the Harvester
Give Brogan a bow and set his Tactics as an Archer, attacking the Harvester from a distance
The Golem is going to fight as well

[Phase One]
After the cutscene ends, hit the switch and attack the Harvester. As it focuses on you now, start walking around the room. Fast enough to keep ahead, but slow enough to keep the Harvester just behind you.
If possible, hit the switch of course with and
After a while the skeletons will spawn. If they attack any of your teammates, walk near them and use Taunt. This will cause them to chase you. Result: you have a pack of enemies chasing you and your party is free to attack.
Keep using taunt if necessary to protects your teammates and keep walking.
Eventually the Harvester will go down.

[Phase Two]
When the first form is dead, equip yourself the strongest possible bow. Hold your strategy from phase one for as long as possible. When ALL of your teammates are dead, go to the RIGHT bridge and cross it. You should see a low wall, Walk left around it and stand close to it.
If you stand good, the skeletons and Harvester will follow you, but they cannot attack you.
Now simply start firing away at the Harvester. It might jump away. If it happens, no panic, just wait for it to be in range again.
If things go too slow, leave your safe spot and go to left across the bridge. Go to the right across the other bridge. Try to get the Harvester right behind you. If he is, return to your safespot to have the HArvester almost right beside you. Fire away.
*The length of battle varies depending on the amount of health the HArvester has left when you're alone. He has 1/4 health in my case. You won't hit very high, but eventually it will be enough*

Credits
Steelstick
5% for writing

newbsicle
95% for the safespot-strategy (got ''Grim Reaper'' thanks to him)

[Scotty]

what so you deserve 50% credit for a strategy just because you could be arsed writing it in another thread? good strategy though...

[Xenolith666]

This guy on Hard wasn't that tough.. I killed him first try with a pimped out lvl 35 warrior with no glitches or dupes or whatever it is half of you people are doing. Everyone else in the party died.. but I just tanked on.. didn't even kill 1 skeleton. It is not that difficult people!

[Scotty]

Originally Posted by Xenolith666

This guy on Hard wasn't that tough.. I killed him first try with a pimped out lvl 35 warrior with no glitches or dupes or whatever it is half of you people are doing. Everyone else in the party died.. but I just tanked on.. didn't even kill 1 skeleton. It is not that difficult people!

well done you, but not everyone is blessed with amazing gaming ability, so a glitch or two every now and again may be neccasary.

[Steelstick]

Originally Posted by Xenolith666

This guy on Hard wasn't that tough.. I killed him first try with a pimped out lvl 35 warrior with no glitches or dupes or whatever it is half of you people are doing. Everyone else in the party died.. but I just tanked on.. didn't even kill 1 skeleton. It is not that difficult people!

Lets say it wasnt difficult for you.
There's plenty of people out there who do have trouble

[Vigor]

Congrats, I just subscribed to this thread and it's appears to be #100 on the same fucking subject, you seriously deserve a cookie and then some.

[Scotty]

Originally Posted by Steelstick

Lets say it wasnt difficult for you.
There's plenty of people out there who do have trouble

i see you've changed the percentage, i was only joking, maybe 30% for taking the time to guide people step-by-step

[fabgeekling]

If you're a warrior there is a lot faster way to do this than with a bow.

If you spec out the sword & shield talents to include Carapace and Bulwark of the ages you get like 10 seconds of pure damage with the sword on every cooldown and then just kite the boss and adds around until cooldown is up. Just use regular melee tactics/talents to do as much damage as possible in that time.

I prepared by importing a character with the poison talent and a bunch of different bombs. As you kite you can pause and drop a couple of bombs to do some elemental/spirit damage. You have to be very quick so the skeletal things don't catch up too much. If you do use bombs, they will eliminate most of the adds.

In the second phase if you get low on health you can hide in the little nook in the wall across the bridge.

[LURadioDJ]

What about if my Warrior is 32 and uses 2H weapons so doesn't have a shield, etc. and I don't have a book from Awakening to respec my character, I have my stuff from Awakening but knowing I could've used that would be helpful

What should I do, cuz there's only 3 Dragon Age achievements that escape me right now: this one, Traveler, and Enthralled

[Steelstick]

Originally Posted by LURadioDJ

What about if my Warrior is 32 and uses 2H weapons so doesn't have a shield, etc. and I don't have a book from Awakening to respec my character, I have my stuff from Awakening but knowing I could've used that would be helpful

What should I do, cuz there's only 3 Dragon Age achievements that escape me right now: this one, Traveler, and Enthralled

Um if I'm correct it's auto-added to your inventory when you start GoA or Witch Hunt

[AtomicBLB]

The easy way to do it on hard with a warrior is... re-roll mage

[RockWhore]

I tried doing this a few times with my Warrior (2H spec) and always failed on the 2nd phase.
After failing I decided to check the forums and noticed people mentioning the switch to get rid of the other enemies, I hit this as soon as he hit the 2nd phase and it must've have worked perfectly as there was only the boss remaining, no other enemies at all. This made it so much easier to deal with!

[reaper527]

Originally Posted by Steelstick

[Phase Two]
When the first form is dead, equip yourself the strongest possible bow. Hold your strategy from phase one for as long as possible. When ALL of your teammates are dead, go to the RIGHT bridge and cross it. You should see a low wall, Walk left around it and stand close to it.
If you stand good, the skeletons and Harvester will follow you, but they cannot attack you.

i had the best glitch ever using this method. somehow, the enemies got split into 2 groups, so some of them came over toward the safe spot, while others didn't, and when i killed all the ones from the safe spot, the game thought the battle was over.

this meant all my allies got up, and i was able to make a quick save during the second form!

[Steelstick]

Originally Posted by Vigor

Congrats, I just subscribed to this thread and it's appears to be #100 on the same fucking subject, you seriously deserve a cookie and then some.

Yes, this subforum is indeed flooded with strategies for Warriors ...
All other Grim Reaper guides either are for Mage/Archer/Rogue or don't specify a class.
When I wrote this guide, it was the first guide for Warriors on how to do this.
And don't tell me or anyone else how many guides there already are. This boss fight is something people want a lot of strategies for so they're not screwed when one doesn't work.

Originally Posted by scottttocs

i see you've changed the percentage, i was only joking, maybe 30% for taking the time to guide people step-by-step

5% for me is more than enough
I got the tanking tip from another guide as well. All I did was mixing two guides into one. I couldn't remember where I read the other guide, otherwise I would've mentioned taht one as well.