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?
