Not entirely crushed, you just need to go for a different approach.
Negative Crit Damage IS something you can get on melees, and if you can get
+ Slide Crit
+ Reach
+ Attack Speed
- Crit Damage
On strong weapon dispositions you can get the crit damage low enough to go negative, and DE fixed the healing enemies so no worries there. The only thing I am unsure of is whether or not it still procs status effects when 0 damage is dealt (can anyone with a Smeeta test that? When you get the 0 damage on next hit "buff")