Shadow wall needs an additional effect.

[Eyvhokan]

The differences between the cooldowns kind of reflects the differences with the three tanks in general, sadly.

[Tint]

I don't know how you can say DRK's defensives "died in a fire." The class only really lost one CD, being Dark Dance, and it just wasn't that important. It had no use in raid other than spotty parrying against autoattacks. Reprisal is actually better now since it can be applied at will without a precondition to deal with specific raid-wide or tankbuster damage.

we had Delirium for raid-wide damage wich we could use at will. it was also great for mitigating personal, magic damage. and we lost our 20 seconds Reprisal with 30 seconds cooldown for a 5 seconds Reprisal with 60 seconds cooldown - even when you had to trigger it with a parry, i would take the old one back in an instant. we also lost Foresight, like every other tank, but i think DRK suffers the most under this lost (at least WAR got Ramaprt as a replacement). we also lost the evasion buff from Dark Dance and the Low Blow-reset from parrys, wich was additional mitigation in trashpacks.

we lost many tools wich lastet longer than 10 seconds, and got a 5 second shield as a replacement. TBN is a powerfull skill, but it's not suited for EVERY situation.

[Sipherous]

Need to remember that sentinal and Vengence were balanced with the idea that WARs didn't really have a button press rampart equiv and PLDs could use Foresite. IB takes 6 GCD's minimum atm to proc (or infurate but chances of u having it when needed are slim to none unless you hold it)

However with SB current stances WAR's have way more defensive options for everything now that they have rampart as part of their kit (Foresite didnt work with magic). PLD's arent to worried about this because we have access to blocks which are insanely effective now that they block magic. Parry is still physical only and has no scale so you are stuck with a 20% reduction/rate. Also WAR are still locked to defiance for Inner Beast so remember that was well. If you want to compare skills lets do so... lets say a rank for skills as a 0>1>2 scale.

Innerbeast vs Sheltron vs Blackest Night -> All in all these three are fairly balanced and I like to give it to the DRK here. TBN is an awesome CD. Sheltron is hampered by the fact if an attack crits or an auto gets in the way u lost your CD/life although in shield oath its a free sentinel and provides DPS. IB will always be good. +1 for all

Rampart -> Was given to all tanks. This cost DRK's flavor made PLD's waste a cross class slot for it now and was a buff to WAR. In my opinion shoulda kept this locked to takes and change foresite to match. Maybe to give a little flavor each skill has a passive trait tied to it (PLD technically got one with intervention) +1 for all

Vengeance >Sentinel > Shadow Wall - Pretty much read how it is, Vengeance is the best Mid tier midigation CD. 2min timer, 15 secduration and reflect dmg. PLD have a longer CD and mitgate more dmg but only lasts 10sec and DRK is the same but mitgating 10% less. In my opinion dropping shadow wall and sentinel to 2 min would help and adding an mp restoring effect to Shadowall would definitely help DRKs. +2 WAR +1 PLD 0 DRK

Thrill of Battle-Bulwark-Dark Mind -> Its really the best comparison here. Bulwark RNG nature puts it behind and that ridiculous CD tied to it is worse. Thrill is Thrill... Free HP plus a small heal is always good. DRK Minds can only mitgate Magic and puts DRK slightly behind, the saving grace is it has a shorter CD and can be buffed although its not as good as it was in 3.0 +2 WAR +1 for PLD/DRK

Clemency > Equallibrium > Souleater/Abyssal Drain? -> in terms of sustain DRK has it harder/easier depending. Clemency will forever be better than both of these skills now that it has half the MP cost can be buffed via resicast and is quickly restored and can heal other party members giving you half the heal. Equalibrium has good synergy with upheaval, thrill and defiance while taking advantage of berserk. Souleater and abyssal drain require more work however done right can be amazing in large AOE pulls. Souleater however require grit to heal you but thanks to the new syphon strike buff on a single target you can get a small 10% heal every 3 GCD's. in the grand scheme tho DRK self heal is lacking compared to the other 2. +2 PLD +1 WAR 0 DRK

Divine Veil = Shake it Off =/= DRK -> you can say TBN is DRK's version but really it isnt and veil does have the benefit of basing its HP off the PLD but doesnt effect the PLD and requires a heal. Im betting this will change in the future in some way. WAR's requires a sacrifice of CD's to increase effect but is based of the individual's HP. it would require 3+ CD's to be eaten for it to effect a castor or healer like a PLD Devine veil but has a shorter CD and is on demand. +1 PLD/WAR 0 DRK

Cover>Intervention>Passage of Arms - say what you want PLD has party mitigation covered. Something wants to kill you the PLD has options. cover and intervention on target then targets target specific macros are really helpful and can be comboed together to reduce a shit ton of dmg to a target. alot of PLD's will hate Passage but if its a choice between a clear or not just hit it. Infinite blocks are good! 15% mitgation is good! Get into my wings! +3 PLD (1 for each)

Holmgang=Hallowed=Living Dead -> these skills have balance. Holmgang is short and spammable but requires strict timings to make extremely effective. Hallowed Ground allows you to Yolo any 1 mecanic in the game and not have anyone worry about your raggety ass. if the fight is long enough you can yolo 2 mecanics. Living Dead can be abused to provide a 12-18 sec invuln windows with only the need for a benediction or ED to get ya back up. If your a SCH well it sucks to be you really shoulda played a real healing class XD +1 all

adding up the points

PLD- 11
WAR- 9
DRK- 4

Things look bad in DRK land. Compared to the other 2 DRKs have it rough. could give an extra point for TBN versatility however its still not as good as WAR's IB and Sheltron just mitigates more total dmg without resource cost and gives more resources

[Lambdafish]

Holmgang=Hallowed=Living Dead -> these skills have balance. Holmgang is short and spammable but requires strict timings to make extremely effective. Hallowed Ground allows you to Yolo any 1 mecanic in the game and not have anyone worry about your raggety ass. if the fight is long enough you can yolo 2 mecanics. Living Dead can be abused to provide a 12-18 sec invuln windows with only the need for a benediction or ED to get ya back up. If your a SCH well it sucks to be you really shoulda played a real healing class XD +1 all

I agree with everything except this. I think you are overestimating the balance of these skills, and you are not taking into account the disparity in their cooldowns and what that means for combat. Lets look at the skills in detail:

Hallowed Ground:
- God tier mitigation
- Lasts 10 seconds
- 7-minute cooldown. You get 1 of these per fight* (I have never had two).

Holmgang:
- Invulnerability at 1HP
- Lasts for 6 seconds
- Binds for 6 seconds
- 3-minute cooldown. You get 2 per fight, 3 in longer fights*.

Living Dead:
- You don't die from HP hitting 0
- Lasts for 10 seconds
- Needs a large heal or else you die
- 5-minute cooldown. You get 1 per fight, maybe 2 if used early*.

*based on a 9-12minute enrage timer

So lets break this down. For ease of analysis we will take hallowed ground out of the equation, it is the best skill with a massive cooldown, you get one per fight which means you have to plan around that fact. It is strong but not versatile in the slightest.

Comparing Holmgang and Living Dead we need to look at the drawbacks of the skills, namely the bind and the need for a heal: The question is, how detrimental is the bind and how detrimental is the heal? I would say the bind is not all that detrimental because it is rare for a tank buster to require movement at all, meaning that the bind is not a detriment at all, in fact, if SE ever puts in a scenario where an enemy can be bound to the partys benefit, then Holmgang is far far better than living dead in every way.

Oh, and to counter your pros about Living Dead, while it is true that you can abuse it, it does require coordination with the healer, and for them to save skills that could be used elsewhere (benediction is on a 3-minute cooldown, lustrate requires aetherflow).

This is all without mentioning that WARs superior self-healing directly affects the functionality of holmgang.

So we see above that the bind and the requirement for healing both have pros and cons, and are pretty balanced against each other. So why is it that holmgang has almost half the cooldown of living dead? Put into perspective above, in most cases DRKs will only get as many living deads as PLDs get hallowed grounds (a far superior skill), when WARs get two Holmgangs guaranteed with more option of a third than DRKs have option for a second Living Dead. I have seen this be relevant first hand on exdeath savage first phase, where WAR can cover the 1st and 3rd Thunder III, whereas parties with a DRK/PLD comp need to swap to cover their longer cooldowns.

So even here DRK loses out and I would say that your score should be +1 WAR/PLD, +0 DRK making your final DRK score a pitiful 3


Edit: A simple way to perfectly balance these skills is set living dead to a 4 minute cooldown, but until they do that DRK loses out.

Making them equal wouldn't be fair, althought we can move while the debuff is active.

How relevant is the movement 90% of the time?

[MauvaisOeil]

I find too that LD is far to be a cooldown as usefull as holmgang or hallowed, because it has neither of the other's tank advantages (no damage taken for HG and short cooldown for holmgang), with the sole ad andvantage of beeing 10s long. While it fits well with the use of benediction, it require a second cooldown from the healer to be potent, or a rain of heals to avoid the sad death.

Considering them equal wouldn't be fair, althought we can move while the debuff is active.


Edit: Quick edit to change wording from "making them" to "Considering them". As I think LD is underpowered and extremely laggy, thus useless outise of prepared content.

[Sipherous]

Id have to disagree, maybe to for people with less experiance these skills are an issue but at a high level of play that becomes mute. Since I avoid casual play Ill get right to my points.

Hallowed Ground can be used twice in most fights that need it. O4S you can use it three time due to the fights nature but more specifically in the neo phase u use it for the first double fist and third double fist. O3S you pull and burn it on the first critical rip and then u have it up and active for the giant ninjas phase, alternatively use it for the white wind and burn it on a critical rip after giant. In Shynryu you use hallowed for first ahkmorn then again for a tetra slash. Many fights in alexander and coil had strats around useing 2 hallowed grounds, especially in midas and gordias. Coil was similar for the final 2 fights of each tier. Burning hallowed for a mecanic in the beginning allowed for my DPS from healers.

Holmganging something is preferred universally to negating a tankbuster or mecanic by many healers as there is no fear from the WAR actually dying to the hit. they dont need to shield them dont need top them off until after the hit goes off and those heals are already planned well in advance of the hit connecting. If they aren't your healers are bad or lagging.

Living dead needs planning yes, but it also allows for the greatest room for recovery. You over estimate how hard it is to recover from it because it instills a panic when u see the effect. A WHM should always have bene on hand for a DRK. Its law when running with on and even if you dont tetra and 2 cure 2's cover it just as well, 2 GCD's at the most with an oGCD. Astros have ED and maybe an aspected benefic to get them topped off, thats at most 2 GCD's if the first aspected benefic sucked. SCH are the only healer that have issues with this skill because they hate useing aetehrflow stacks for heals. If a healer prioritizes DPS over heals then they deserve to be forgotten.

Coordination is a mute arguement anyways because if your raiding or doing any high end content you know, then you need to have things planned before hand. No healer/tank goes into content and hit there CD's all willy nilly, its planned before hand and if its not you better learn fast before u get killed or dropped by your group.

[Lambdafish]

Burning hallowed for a mecanic in the beginning allowed for my DPS from healers...

...Coordination is a mute arguement anyways because if your raiding or doing any high end content you know, then you need to have things planned before hand. No healer/tank goes into content and hit there CD's all willy nilly, its planned before hand and if its not you better learn fast before u get killed or dropped by your group.

This is the thing though, we are talking about versatility. Experience doesn't matter because if it did then all of the effects would be negated and all we would be left with is the cooldown.

I will concede that perhaps you can use two hallowed grounds but the 7-minute cooldown still causes versatility problems. The fact is that in order to get 2 hallowed grounds, the first MUST be used at the beginning. There is no room to save it for a mechanic in the middle of the fight because then it will not line up for a mechanic at the end. You have two choices in this case, 2 Hallows (beginning and end) or 1 Hallow (anywhere in the middle). Possible, but not versatile.

DRK suffers similar issues and still has the issue of coordinating with the healer. You say that bene should always be left up for a DRK, but that's the point, bene needs to be kept up for a DRK, whereas PLD and WAR don't need it, and it can be saved for high outgoing damage and emergencies. It isn't about the difficulty of planning, it is about what is needed for the plan to succeed, and it impedes on the versatility of not only itself but also the healer's skills.

Like we have both said, homgang is preferred for its versatility, you get more of them in a fight with almost the same amount of combined uptime (18 seconds to negate three tankbusters is far better than 20-24 seconds to block two) and the bind is less impactful than the healer needing to save skills in order to optimise living dead.

Living dead is a good skill, but it is not 2-minute cooldown better than holmgang.

[Ekimmak]

The two times I really wish Holmgang didn't have a bind effect is when I need to use it to survive Twinbolt or Queens Waltz: Library Edition, because those attacks tend to be followed up by really unpleasant movement based mechanics (Twinbolt is often followed by Clamp, if someone's forced me to holmgang during Queens Waltz, then Oink is coming next).

I kind of wish that Walking Dead had an additional effect like this:
"Allows for the use of Raise spells on you. Recieving one heals X% of your health and removes the effect of Walking Dead"

[Cabalabob]

The biggest issue with living dead is that it’s the only tank ultimate CD that requires someone else knows how it works other than you. When a WAR holmgangs they have options to save themselves once they hit 1hp, thrill, equilibrium, inner beast, even storm’s path, as long as they can get their own health back up from 1 they’re fine. Hallowed is hallowed, PLD is safe for 10 seconds and can fix themselves up with clemency. But DRK, on activating LD, the healer can screw it over by preventing them hitting 1hp, which happens a lot in pug groups because allowing your tank to hit 1hp is crazy talk. Once it does activate the healer can screw it over by healing you to full in the first 2 seconds making the rest of that free time wasted, or the healer can not know they need to heal you to full and not understand why you suddenly died. The DRK themselves can’t do anything about it, they have nowhere near enough healing power to heal through LD making it useless in a situation without a healer like palace of the dead, something none of the other tanks run into.

This reliance on someone else who simply could not know how it works or may not even be available makes it by far the worst of the 3.

[TouchandFeel]

snip

I agree so much on this.
When I run roulettes as DRK I just ignore that I have Living Dead. Everytime I have used it in a PUG/roulette situation it has either been overwritten by the healer healing over it so Walking never activates or it gets me killed. This is even with me macroing in concise instructions on how to handle it. I literally have yet to get a healer in a roulette that knew what to do.
This really sucks because I end up being down one important defensive tool that would really help a run if it wasn't so convoluted.
An ability shouldn't require a pre-made just to predictably function.