Minor post about Life force

[Anchoku.8142]

> @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> ...yes, I'm counting barrier as healing, since both are extra hit points

I count barrier, in value, as an alternative to protect. The damage reduction is not a fixed percentage like protect but is a max value and fixed duration.

 

However, even more than protection, giving barriers to other players is like giving irony because it works the same way as Death Shroud. Anyone who QQs because their barrier was mis-timed or burst through, or otherwise just not as good as a heal or dps does not play enough Necro.

 

 

[Drarnor Kunoram.5180]

> @"Anchoku.8142" said:

> > @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> > ...yes, I'm counting barrier as healing, since both are extra hit points

> I count barrier, in value, as an alternative to protect. The damage reduction is not a fixed percentage like protect but is a max value and fixed duration.

>

> However, even more than protection, giving barriers to other players is like giving irony because it works the same way as Death Shroud. Anyone who QQs because their barrier was mis-timed or burst through, or otherwise just not as good as a heal or dps does not play enough Necro.

>

>

 

Well, F3 no longer works as a "oh kitten" barrier, and it was our only one we could share to allies. It's still good, don't get me wrong, but it does take away from it.

 

Barrier isn't similar at all to Protection in my mind. It's proactive healing rather than reactive.

[Anchoku.8142]

> @"Drarnor Kunoram.5180" said:

> Barrier isn't similar at all to Protection in my mind. It's proactive healing rather than reactive.

 

Your perspective is correct but I think mine is, too. Heals are something the receiver can keep where barriers are potential damage avoidance or reduction. That is why I place roughly the same value on barrier as protection, not that I believe they have much, if any, similarity. The potential damage avoidance for shared barriers feels roughly equal to sharing protection.

 

Protection's -33% damage, which could be a little or a lot, versus a shared barrier's fixed trim off the top of incoming damage.

 

Barriers are essentially a weak form of Death Shroud that does not force a transform that replaces the skill bar, and is shareable. The innovation was another way to add a second health bar. With enough Scourges, everyone can have two health bars without losing their skills.

 

[DeceiverX.8361]

Refunding resource over time is effectively the revenant's energy mechanic and given the state of revenant idk if I trust ANet with it.

I can see it regenerating to a small pool when out of combat - something like 20% just to have enough to start a fight with the ability to negate a hit or something - but passive regen is really difficult to balance without making it too strong or too weak.

 

To "balance" life force/shroud numerically with other professions would require a complete redesign of shroud and every single skill and ability the class has and all of its interactions with various environments. To be honest, this kind of rework in terms of scale would effectively be an entirely new class. This is just because necro is super binary based solely on its environment. Normalizing some encounters would probably go a long way here and I think people just generally fail to see that.

 

I'd rather see LF from deaths removed with LF gain increased substantially across the board from weapon skills while making death shroud substantially more accessible in terms of a reduced cooldown for core/reaper. This makes the mechanic way more consistent across encounters, buffs its 1v1/self-sufficiency, and if encounters are better normalized, could allow for necro to see more consistent buffs/nerfs to numbers without being wildly OP in one format (WvW and sPvP on Scourge) while simultaneously being super weak in another (raids).

 

As far as barrier goes... it's pre-damage mitigation and relatively unique. Of all things, probably closest to a damage immunity effect because it keeps your actual health value intact and allows for a vast quantity of mitigation before the player's real health is affected. It's just that rather than the measurement of immunity being time akin to things like Endure Pain, it's a measure of total incoming damage.