What the Hell - Harvester on Hard Mode

[Stork77]

3rd try with my lvl 35 Archer, but I think I got lucky. 1st try was a disaster: died just as I killed his first form. 2nd try I tried to use the switch a lot and managed to get to the 2nd form but then the skeletons were just too strong. 3rd try I ignored the switch until I killed the first form and then there were no skeletons after I used the switch. Just kept shooting the Harvester and my dex was high enough that he couldn't hit me.

I did a lot of prep in Awakenings for this: made sure to get the Heartland bow for me, Vigilance (one hand, defence) and Sentinel armor for Brogan; made lots of Paragon Stout (+14 constitution) and whatever other high-end runes I thought would be useful; Lifegiver accessory (base game).

Can't believe what a cakewalk the Vareterral (sp?) was.....

[fluojn]

At last I'm in the 100% club of Dragon Age x) It took me suprisingly few tries to get Grim Reaper. I used the ability reset Tome, put 20 points to strength and 110 to dexterity, maxed archery talents, took all passives and equipped my rogue with the best bow of Awakening.

I put accuracy and other puffs to my character, spammed Arrow of Slaying and kited the boss and shot constantly like 200-300 damage to him. And soon he was dead. Sweet!

[snake2410]

I had no problems with the harvester. I beat the thing pretty much solo on my first try on hard since my whole party got wiped out a minute into the fight.

I used a sword/shield warrior with specializations in berserker, champion, and spirit warrior. My equipment was the sentinel armor with paragon runes for physical resistance, 3 element resistance rune, and constitution; and my sword/ shield was vigilance 1h and the heartwood shield.

Vigilance had the highest possible rank runes for physical resistance (I think, I'll have to check and possibly edit this), darkspawn damage, and spell resistance( I'm not completely sure about this one either but its my usual on swords). For vigilances stats when I made it in awakenings I did raw power and sharp.

I was also level 35 and had used the tome duping glitch just to fill in two handed weapons to add some versitallity to my warrior but otherwise everything else was normal.

I relied heavily on the spirit warrior ability that forces every attack to do strictly spirit damage and that helped greatly, took minimal damage on the first phase, but did significantly less damage to the harvester on phase two. Otherwise it didn't seem that much harder than other enemies for me, the skeletons didn't seem to be as much of a nusance as had been claimed. Maybe I just got lucky or something though.

[DarqueDragon]

I know this is an old thread, but this Harvester is pissing me off. First, what switches are people talking about? The guide I am using said nothing about switches and I didn't see any (except the lirium switches you use to get to this spot)?
Also, why won't my golem do what I tell him to do? when he is low on stamina, I try to make him use a stamina drought, but he just keeps on attacking, even with no enemy near him. I try to get him to use a healing potion, but all he does is make the motion he does for group heal without actually using the ability.
Is there a glitch no one has mentioned? Any help beating this thing would be greatly appreciated.

[XxDecieverxX]

I almost had the grim reaper trophy...had all my characters alive and well but then right before i killed the first form my last ps3 controller died (dont have charger here) so I gotta go re do this...yay...

[DarqueDragon]

Nothing in three months? Guess I am boned. This will be the last trophy I need for this game, too. Wonder if I can bring my Awakenings character in? I am using my Origins character, who is only at level 24, which is probably why I am getting pwned.

[Heiligkekse]

So just gonna go ahead and post how I got this on my second try with my full party alive:
Level 35 2H Human Noble Warrior
Specializations: Berserker, Champion, Fade Warrior
Put most of my stat points into Strength and Constitution, and then into Dexterity and a tiny bit into Willpower.
I had the Sentinel armor set with 3 Paragon Stout runes and Vigilance 2H with 3 Paragon Lightning runes (I spent well over 600 gold crafting runes).
I threw the Kal'Hirol armor set onto Brogan, also with 3 Paragon Stout runes, with the Landsmeet Shield and his default weapon. I also re-spec'd him to have: Guardian, Champion, and Reaver.
I gave Jerrik the Heartwood Bow, and mix-matched his armor (with 3 Paragon Hale runes in his chest). His specializations were Ranger and Bard.
Strategy:
oh dear, I don't even know. I had everybody set to heal themselves at <50%, Brogan tanking, Jerrik blasting it with arrows while keeping up Song of Courage, and the golem healing everyone at <25%. I went ahead and hit the switch at the beginning (it's the same as all the other switches in Amgarrak, it's a red square switch on the LEFT side that you can only hit if you bring up the radial menu while standing near it), not really sure what that did but it must have helped. I always found the first phase to be really easy, just keep damaging it and healing party members when they need it. The second phase always gives me trouble, but this time I tried actually killing the skeletons before focusing on The Harvester and that seemed to work because nobody died and The Harvester went down quick. I really didn't have much of a strategy but if anyone has questions I'd be happy to answer them as best as I can.
For those thinking it's not possible to do this as a warrior, it certainly is. This is the 2nd time I've done this using the same build. I tried previously using a rogue and a mage and I couldn't do it, but that's just me.

[PurpleMonkeyD86]

My god, was this easy. I was over-prepared or something. I was worried originally but I had no trouble at all. The Golem and Brogan died 1/2 way through Harvester's second form, but it didn't matter. My rogue was untouchable with her 91 dexterity.

-Played duel weapons female human rogue named Knives
-Used my Awakening file, which was originally my Origins file.
-Reached evel 35 and 91 dexterity, 31 strength. Nothing hit my rogue, she was untouchable.
-Rogue had full Shadow skill tree. 'Pandemonium' makes the corpse hordes kill each other. (Also used Assassin and Duellist)
-Gathered top-tier weapons and armour from Origins, Awakening and Golems. Lifegiver is a great ring.
-I was rich by the time I finished Awakening, with like 350 sovereigns. I could buy anything.
-Got all six Golem upgrades. The switch puzzle is not that hard.
-Controlled the Golem until he died (healing, crowd control, never had to use revive)
-Know that the Golem cannot use poultices and potions. He can only heal himself with Group Heal.
-Used Manual of Focus on Jerrick to make him an archer. Used it on Brogan as well to make him tankier and two-handed as I dislike shield guys. (Don't forget to have an awesome bow in your items for Jerrick before you finish Awakenings.
-Remembered to take a few Greater Nature Salves. Harvester has a lot of nature attacks.
-Made sure everyone had max Survival level for Nature resistance
-Destroyed that ugly fleshy bastard in 4 minutes. Jerrick, Snug the bronto and Knives never died.

[DarqueDragon]

After completing Awakenings, I imported my level 35 or so Warrior and didn't even have to respec him. I had armor with three paragon stout runes, weapons with lightning runes (some of the runes were weaker ones, but it was all I could afford), and turned the original party member (can't remember his name) into an archer.
Everytime the golem was close to half health, I switched to him and had him use group heal (if possible) and kept everyone using the tons of heath poultices I had brought with me
The Golem fell during the second form, but I left the other two to deal with the lesser enemies as I went and tanked the harvester.
I actually shouted in joy when the harvester died!

[Francofone]

I finally did it. That one's for you, Jesse.