Could reaper's blight boon be reworked into a dodge-replacing mechanic?

[Al Masone.1274]

"Capable of heavily afflicting their victims with chill and other conditions, the reaper wades into melee receiving and dealing blows knowing nothing can save its foes!" From the reaper release notes, also viewable in the wiki article. 

 

That got me thinking, what if reaper just ditched the standard dodge, since he's an unstoppable force who walks straight into danger?

I tought about an ability that, instead of evading, would instead absorb all sources of damage when you press the dodge button. Kinda like a very brief parry (I'd say about half second, at most 3/4th just like a dodge), that would refill your life force pool based on how much damage you prevented. And if you used it while in shroud, it would instead restore a relatively small amount of health

[Dadnir.5038]

First, what you suggest is a straight downgrade of the current trait (or are you even talking about the trait in the end?) which isn't even very popular.

Second, Reaper moved away from it's initial description long ago when a bunch of player pushed ANet to force the reaper into a "power dps" instead of the "condi tank" it used to be at it's release (can't blame them, we were just leaving the vanilla game where power dps were gods).

That said, the necromancer isn't designed around the dodge mechanism, it would be surprising that the reaper all of a sudden ended up with a special dodge. You could probably see a special dodge put on a spec with a shroud that isn't protected by the LF pool thought.

[KrHome.1920]

I like the idea as long as it works like a normal dodge in terms of the increased movement speed.

If you have something in mind that does not improve movement over its duration or even locks the reaper in place, then that sucks.

 

Edited September 29, 2021 by KrHome.1920

[Al Masone.1274]

9 hours ago, KrHome.1920 said:

I like the idea as long as it works like a normal dodge in terms of the increased movement speed.

If you have something in mind that does not improve movement over its duration or even locks the reaper in place, then that sucks.

 

Considering that necro has such limited mobility to begin with, I'd never go as far as locking it in place by pressing dodge. 

I didn't think about a speed boost, but it coulud fit in there. Instead of just a small application of swiftness, it could be like Axe 5 for warrior, that gives +50% movement speed during the animation, which stacks with swiftness. It would still be very brief. 

My reasoning comes from the fact that necro in general has the least mobility of all professions, which already forces you to use the dodge button very wisely. So why not adding a bit more reward in at least one of the specs? 

Also it would be very cool if the reaper, instead of jump around to avoid attacks, would just run straight ahead toward the enemy, maybe with an extended arm to catch the incoming damage and convert it to life force. 

Personally I'm still convinced that the "power tank" reaper fantasy can still work, it just needs a little nudge here and there, without of course negating the pure power dps build everyone expects you to play nowadays. 

[Bookah pls.9352]

I've always felt due to its name that blighters boon should work on applying conditions too.

Dodging has always felt a little silly as a reaper while in shroud but obviously necessary, op suggestion would be cool for a reaper shroud dodge imo.

[Zenith.7301]

On 9/29/2021 at 2:17 PM, Al Masone.1274 said:

"Capable of heavily afflicting their victims with chill and other conditions, the reaper wades into melee receiving and dealing blows knowing nothing can save its foes!" From the reaper release notes, also viewable in the wiki article. 

 

That got me thinking, what if reaper just ditched the standard dodge, since he's an unstoppable force who walks straight into danger?

I tought about an ability that, instead of evading, would instead absorb all sources of damage when you press the dodge button. Kinda like a very brief parry (I'd say about half second, at most 3/4th just like a dodge), that would refill your life force pool based on how much damage you prevented. And if you used it while in shroud, it would instead restore a relatively small amount of health

 

Awful idea. In raids and fractals, getting out of some death areas is far more important than a second or two worth of parry. It's why mirage was given super speed to function on top of having Jaunt (try doing fractal 100cm without Jaunt and notice the humongous difference in a class without movement in a dodge).