Guild Wars 2

Berzerker just got a trait called

Dead or Alive: taking fatal damage while in berzerker mode ends berzerker mode but converts remaining adrenaline into health.

This is essentially “Unholy Sanctuary” but, because warrior adrenaline doesn’t normally convert into Heath, it’s really Unholy Sanctuary And it’s Death Shroud and it’s only a major trait.

I find this very interesting because the supposed reason that the Necromancer was not allowed to have defenses like blocks or stability, the second health bar, was just given to Warriors. Also anet has acted extremely afraid of necromancer sustain & generally skills that grant life force are underpowered (axe 2, scepter 3, staff 1), but warrior adrenaline gain is supercharged.

Also, I fully get that a lot of Berzerkers will not even take their new Death Shroud plus unholy sanctuary trait, because the other trait in the line is even better!

I’m starting this thread to compare Death Shroud vs Berzerker Shroud.

Activation

Death Shroud: Must be pre activated (or have unholy sanctuary) or it does nothing

Berzerker Shroud: Same

Death Shroud: Cannot be activated if you don’t have enough life force

Berzerker Shroud: Will always give you 2610 Heath & enough bonus adrenaline to activate an F1 afterwards

Health Degen

Death Shroud: Loses 4% shroud HP every second

Berzerker Shroud: No health Degen

Healing

Death Shroud: Almost no healing allowed.

Berzerker Shroud: All normal healing allowed

Cooldown

Death Shroud: 10 seconds, unholy sanctuary has 30 second Cooldown

Berzerker Shroud: 15 seconds

Size of Heath Pool

Death Shroud: Zero minimum, half of health pool maximum & scales with vitality

Berzerker Shroud: 2610 minimum at least 7830 maximum. Unknown how scales with vitality or healing, or whether the berzerker changes to adrenaline mean it can grant even more health

Skills Available

Death Shroud: Locks you out of your utilities, elite and heal skills. You are also locked out of your weapon swap sigils. Grants you new skills that you have to take multiple traits to do decent damage, but are always a DPS loss vs your dps weapon.

Berzerker Shroud: All skills available.

How is Shroud generated?

Death Shroud: Nearby Deaths, also certain skills generate life force but these skills are generally underpowered. The Soul Reaping line, which increases life force gain, is considered essential in every build.

Berzerker Shroud: basically everything a warrior does generates adrenaline, also getting hit. Has ways to completely fill adrenaline just by using skills

Damage Reduction

Death Shroud: Sometimes you get 50% damage reduction in shroud & sometimes you don’t. It’s bugged one way or the other.

Berzerker Shroud: Has about 15% more damage reduction from armor compared to necromancer, & now it has the second life bar too.

Tl;DR. New Berzerker Trait = Death Shroud + Unholy Sanctuary. Death shroud has about a 50% bigger pool, but the warrior shroud fills up so much faster and is not kneecapped by arbitrary limitations, so it’s probably better.

From what I saw of the numbers Dead or Alive heals much less, so you’re still vulnerable if it activates. Plus it only activates if you get brought to 0 health while Berserking. You also need to choose between using a T3 Burst skill or berserking and possibly being brought to 0 health. To contrast, necro always uses Shroud and doesn’t have any conditions, besides it being off cooldown and having enough LF, to use it to tank damage. I think Dead or Alive is more just to give you a second chance to get out of a poor situation.

Also just to point this out, it heals 2610 hp + 266 hp per point of adrenaline that the Berserker has at the time his hp hits 0. A Berserker has 10 Adrenaline max while Berserking and since the heal is not Tier based but per point it would heal for
2610-5270 hp not 7830.

Dead or Alive isn’t nearly the defense that Death Shroud is. Just one bar of Death Shroud, without unholy sanctuary, is very easily going to outperform a best-case Dead or Alive proc.

Are they somewhat similar? Sure, Warrior torch is extremely similar to Guardian torch, Warrior traits are similar to a variety of traits through other professions, and Berserker has some similarities to transforms. And while I’d love to see Dead or Alive adapted to Necromancer as a true cheat-death mechanic, I don’t think anything else has to really change, nor is what they are getting OP.

Ingros.7801:

Also just to point this out, it heals 2610 hp + 266 hp per point of adrenaline that the Berserker has at the time his hp hits 0. A Berserker has 10 Adrenaline max while Berserking and since the heal is not Tier based but per point it would heal for
2610-5270 hp not 7830.

Also, just throwing this out there, wouldn’t it be affected by poison as well?

Ingros.7801:

Also just to point this out, it heals 2610 hp + 266 hp per point of adrenaline that the Berserker has at the time his hp hits 0. A Berserker has 10 Adrenaline max while Berserking and since the heal is not Tier based but per point it would heal for
2610-5270 hp not 7830.

I thought they had 30 adrenaline max (like warrior), and the minimum that the trait would give you is 10, meaning a 7830 heal*

Plus any available scaling.

nekretaal.6485:

Ingros.7801:

Also just to point this out, it heals 2610 hp + 266 hp per point of adrenaline that the Berserker has at the time his hp hits 0. A Berserker has 10 Adrenaline max while Berserking and since the heal is not Tier based but per point it would heal for
2610-5270 hp not 7830.

I thought they had 30 adrenaline max (like warrior), and the minimum that the trait would give you is 10, meaning a 7830 heal*

Plus any available scaling.

Nope. They have 10. You see it during the live stream a couple of times when they move there mouse over the Adrenaline Bar. They also say it a few times and the skill Berserk gives 10 Adrenaline and that skill maxes out their Adrenaline when they go Berserk after consuming all 30 Adrenaline.

In all honesty the trait doesnt look that great.

Yep, Berserker raises the maximum adrenaline to 10, the point being it is super easy to get your full power burst skills off while berserk. But in this case it makes the heal really small, though it might scale with healing power (not that any warrior runs that).