Guild Wars 2

Dark Armor is a current Necromancer trait that grants bonus toughness while channeling. It was stated during the most recent live stream that Dark Armor will no longer be present in the new Necromancer specializations because “no one was using it.” Understandably, if no one important is using something that could be a good indicator that the object in question is not useful, but I feel that while Dark Armor did not surpass other options in the same slot it still presented interesting game play.

For reference, Dark Armor impacted the following channeling skills:
Life Siphon = Mainhand dagger #2 that deals damage and steals health
Ghastly Claws = Mainhand axe #2 that deals damage and generates life force
Life Transfer Death shroud #4 that deals damage and generates life force
Life Leech = Downed state #1 that deals damage and steals health

What I currently use the trait for, and feel is the most important use case, is to improve my durability during Life Siphon. Rather than the skill just feeling like an additional heal, with Dark Armor I can now use Life Siphon during more tanking and dueling instances. What I propose is that Dark Armor is somehow wrapped into the new traits to maintain this play style that we would otherwise be losing.

We have been shown that ArenaNet is willing to do similar things. The proposed Ranger axe trait, Honed Axes, reads: “Gain ferocity while wielding an axe in your main hand. Winter’s Bite now has an area of effect. Axe skills recharge faster.” The change indicates that by spec’ing into this axe trait you are improving the axe’s core concept of being a ranged, area-damaging weapon.

My suggestion would be to modify the proposed Necromancer dagger trait, Quickening Thirst, to read: “Increases movement speed while wielding a dagger. Gain additional toughness while channeling Life Siphon. Dagger skills recharge faster when activated above the health threshold.” By making it focus on Life Siphon we could avoid the blanket power increase that the old Dark Armor would provide to dagger builds, via Life Leech and Life Transfer, while still maintaining the unique play style choices it provides.

As always, numbers could be tweaked from the old 400 bonus toughness in order to balance the addition. The primary caveat would be that it could be too much of a durability increase to the PvP Power Necromancer build, but I am confident that balance could be achieved.

One final aside, if this were to be implemented I would have one final suggestion. During the live stream, we were shown that ArenaNet has chosen to roll out some new ideas in that Life Blast while traited with the new Dhuumfire will have a modified particle. This both looks cool and gives enemy and allied players additional information when interacting with the Necromancer. Readability has rarely or never been discussed with reference to Dark Armor and Obsidian Focus but I think it should be. Having the Necromancer wreath themselves in blood, for instance, while channeling Dark Armor-modified Life Siphon would present opponents with useful information. Should I hold my high-damaging abilities because I now know that they will be hitting higher armor values? Should I save interrupts because they will be more impactful when cancelling Life Siphon over other skills?

Anet have no imagination. Yeah, the trait sucked, but it can be made to not suck.

My suggestion is to make Dark Armor a grand master and make it so when you have protection, you blind foes that hit you for 1 second. Only thing that clashes a little bit with is spectral armor with life force gain when hit, but it’s still better to take no damage at all IMO. Plus the blind wouldn’t be permanent, so you could still be hit a few times in between blinds.

The trait sucked and they gave us a way to take 10% less damage from poisoned enemies which doesn’t suck. It was replaced with a vastly superior trait.

Bhawb.7408:

The trait sucked and they gave us a way to take 10% less damage from poisoned enemies which doesn’t suck. It was replaced with a vastly superior trait.

Does getting Putrid Defense mean that we shouldn’t be allowed to have both?

They were both adept major death magic traits, so actually yeah we wouldn’t have been able to get both, especially since Putrid Mark was most likely created solely to replace it.

Bhawb.7408:

They were both adept major death magic traits, so actually yeah we wouldn’t have been able to get both, especially since Putrid Mark was most likely created solely to replace it.

My initial point was that Dark Armor creates compelling game play choices for both the user and opponents. While Putrid Defense be may the stronger option numerically it does not provide any interesting decisions. Maintain poison and gain the benefit, it’s effective but simple. I am not at all arguing about the addition of Putrid Defense or its power level. Again, though, that does not mean that Dark Armor should not reasonably exist in some way, shape, or form in conjunction with other defensive traits like Putrid Defense (particularly because my suggestion would have part of it placed in Blood Magic, not Death Magic). Have some imagination; with feedback, the sky is the limit.

I haven’t played in several months but the new specializations peaked my interest once again. I was surprised when one of my favorite traits was said to be going away. It may have not been as strong as other traits but the functionality was sound. Being mainly a dagger and axe user dark armor saw plenty use swapping channeling skills between dagger’s siphon and axe’s ghastly claws.

It filled a definite niche for builds that use a lot of channels and need defensive measures to keep themselves safe while they leave themselves open. It would be nice if it still had a chance to return in some other form.

We never had enough channel skills for it to be useful. It would be a terrible trait even if it was 1000 toughness. Noone used it.

If we could spam evades and then attack with only channelled abilities then it could be a nice idea. So you would be taking advantage of its uptime and avoiding damage the rest of the time. But necro doesnt have any options to avoid stuff between channels. Completely valid choice for them to delete it.

Besides im hoping for some channel time reductions. Those would be buffs that would make that god awful trait even worse.

I used DA for channels sometimes, too. The problem I had most often was it being in a trait line I could not put points in if I was not traiting minions or staff.

Staff mastery and minion mastery were top priorities. The rest of the adept traits just did not make it. I have run it with either axe or dagger mastery but not very often.

As our channel skills take two eternities, the potential threats of channeling skills of such proportions should merit some rewards for opting to do so.

Considering how Protective Mantras was handled, I don’t see why ANet would give toughness to a class they don’t want “to get hit” and take away toughness from necros who really do “want to get hit”.

We should get dark armor as baseline. At the bare minimum. Even if they plan on revealing that the new necro specialization gets healing through deathshroud, there should be more skillful play associated with something so dangerously counterable.

—-

Maybe even some stability stacks on channel skill activate hmm.

Dark armor exists. They just reworked it and called it putrid defense.

Malchior.1928:

We should get dark armor as baseline. At the bare minimum.

---

Maybe even some stability stacks on channel skill activate hmm.

That could work, too, if they don’t fold it into a trait. The lengthy channels that the Necromancer has don’t feel like they have the appropriate risk : reward play at the moment. Toughness benefits Life Siphon and Life Transfer but Ghastly Claws could grant something more thematic like stability or might.

dood.7526:

Dark armor exists. They just reworked it and called it putrid defense.

I’ll ask again as I have before; does the existence of Putrid Defense definitively mean that both effects can’t coexist?