[Suggestion: Dark Knight] How to make Living Dead more effective...easily!

As I'm sure many people that play Dark Knight can attest, using Living Dead can be a hit or miss. How many times have you used it successfully, slain whatever beast only for you to fall over dead 10 seconds after (with nothing even around to hit you)?

Paladin's Hallowed Ground is very obvious. There is that big bubble shield animation and they take zero damage for duration.

Warrior's Holmgang has the cool chain animation and you can just sit there at one hp and as long as you get healed a little bit, you'll be great usually.

The problem comes in with Dark Knight hitting Living Dead. Once they receive the death blow, there is no obvious animation that "walking dead" is debuffing them. Most healers I've pugged with weren't even able to tell me the correct method to remove it or even knew it could be removed. Of course they just have to keep healing the Dark Knight until it goes away. The mechanic itself works fine. It's just not a very obvious debuff for the dire state it puts the player in.

My suggestion is simple: Make "walking dead" have a obvious animation. No need to change the mechanic itself, just have some kind of animation effect to show the Dark Knight is as good as dead without assistance. How about a animated Grim Reaper giving the dark knight a hug from behind? No? Perhaps some black wings, or a dark black spotlight with skeleton hands grabbing the dark knights feet from the ground to show that the dead are calling to them and going to take them to the underworld soon....etc

TL: DR: For "walking dead" lets get some big obvious animation that shows the dark knight is as good as dead without heals. Heck, even poison turns characters green sometimes.

Also, I thought I should add, it would be helpful if Walking Dead left the player at "0" hp to give the healer a reason to try to heal them. That might be helpful too.

or just make it work like paladin's/warrior's skill and not KO you after 10 seconds.

+1
While their at it give Devine Veil an animation when it successful shields the party, seems rather lazy, yeah it has a cool initial animation but its rather stale after that. :s

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Originally Posted by DukeGr

or just make it work like paladin's/warrior's skill and not KO you after 10 seconds.

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Invulnerability comes at a cost. Although they could maybe cool it with the whole 100% hp thing and lax it to like 50-75% I guess.

The problem isn't the lack of an animation. I use a macro that shows my remaining HP and a sound effect to show I've used Living Dead with the name of the skill. That's pretty much enough notification, especially if spammed at 1HP.

The problem is that the skill has a long CD meant for 8~ seconds of invulnerability. However most situations with Living Dead either go one of three ways. Living Dead -> 1 HP ->Walking Dead -> Benediction/ Healer CD -> Only 1.5 seconds of Walking dead invulnerability. Or Living Dead -> 1 HP -> Walking Dead -> 10 seconds later -> die. Or my favorite one ->Living Dead -> HP Drops -> Benediction/healer CD/healer continues healing -> You never get walking dead.

The way Living Dead works in general is just bad. It requires more thought from the healer than any other Invulnerability cool down. If the coordination and thought between your healer and you aren't strong the CD can be completely wasted and most of the time it is completely wasted, only being useful for things like Holy Bladedance(sword oath) where there's almost no chance for you to not die(and i've seen a healer still manage to kill a DRK during Sword mode HB)

It's a bad skill, It has the potential to be a really good skill but that potential is hardly ever going to be seen in a realistic situation that doesn't involve a static group.

Making a bigger animation won't change anything. And honestly the animation is already really big , fire comes down from the sky and envelops you. It has more of a visual representation than hallowed ground or Holmgang honestly.

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Originally Posted by Cherie

or a dark black spotlight with skeleton hands grabbing the dark knights feet from the ground to show that the dead are calling to them and going to take them to the underworld soon

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There is that kind of animation for an attack by Bone Dragon in LotA.
They could reuse it for Walking Dead.

You died because your healers didn't fully heal your maximum HP

If a healer doesnt know what LD is I dont think an animation is going to help, chances are they wont even see it mid fight and they still wouldnt know how to deal with it even if they did. Using a macro is probably the best option.

A macro is the way to go. Don't forget that a lot of people play the game with only their animations showing. It makes it easier to see AoEs and such when you don't have everyone being flashy. The icon is pretty obvious, and healers 'should' recognise it and heal accordingly, but yeah macros show that you at least made an effort to notify your healer regardless of the outcome.

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Originally Posted by Kitano123

If a healer doesnt know what LD is I dont think an animation is going to help, chances are they wont even see it mid fight and they still wouldnt know how to deal with it even if they did.

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This is what I think too. The healer should be paying attention to debuffs and HP, not your flashy animations.

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Originally Posted by Cherie

Make "walking dead" have a obvious animation. [...]
TL: DR: For "walking dead" lets get some big obvious animation that shows the dark knight is as good as dead without heals.

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Sorry, but I, as a main healer, find this pretty nonsense.
I was never explained "holmgang", HG or "Living Dead". But I am always focused, and I realized very quickly what those skills do. I even made some research afterwards to know better (the duration, whether there are added effects or not, etc)
When I first saw Living Dead used, I found it extremely obvious to know what I had to do.

Those who care about their jobs will always do their own research. Those who already don't care will not care more with just an animation.

When I occasionnally run a dungeon as a DPS, I sometimes encounter a situation where the DRK is activating is skill and macro it in chat, like "Big heals or I'm dead!". Do you think the healer would care and try to do something, even though he has all needed infomation to react ? Nope.

It's exactly the same thing as the "pacification" effect for warriors. A good healer will not need to be macro'ed it in chat and will still dispell it. A healer who doesn't care will fail to dispell it, macro or not.

I'll give you a couple of possible macros to use to help make your healers aware of your situation.

/ac "Living Dead"
/p (Living Dead) (Just used it) HP:<HP> <se.7>

Spam it if you're getting low on duration and still haven't been healed enough.
/ac "Living Dead"
/p (Living Dead)(Just used it) <se.7> Take a break healer!
/wait 5
/p HP:<HP> remaining! Heal me to full! <se.7>

or something along those lines. First macro is more simple and the second one is more informative and more likely to help you get at least some invulnerability.

In order to get any real use out of walking dead healers have to actually not be trigger happy or panic healing. It's much better for them to DPS or heal someone else during the majority of walking dead.

Don't forget that if you are going to use Living Dead and try to wait out a good portion of its duration that you should try to throw up convalescence to help bring you back up.

Kill two birds with one stone. Remove Darkside's animation completely, and add it to Walking Dead instead. That will make two groups of people happy!

Honestly, no one needs to know that you have Darkside on except for you. On the other hand it's very important for others to know that you have Walking Dead on!

No ability should require a macro to instruct players how your ability works. However, it is also a mistake to assume that healers who "don't do the research" are useless to you; they're fine for casual content, and it'd still be nice to avoid the occasional Walking Dead death in Sastasha (Hard) or whatever. By giving Walking Dead a visual indicator, it's a much better tool for instructing inexperienced healers. Once they see someone get a wierd aura and then die for no apparent reason, they're likely to ask what happened - and not make that mistake again.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

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Unless of course they have effects off and a lot of people (myself included) have other player effects on off or simple because they get in the way.

It needs a macro because the side effect is death. I'd rather know I did everything I could to prevent my death over dying when I could have lived.

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Originally Posted by Cynric

And honestly the animation is already really big , fire comes down from the sky and envelops you.

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Lol, really? I didn't even know it HAD an animation. Not even when I play DRK myself, much less as the healer ;)
PLD and WAR are both pretty obvious, but I never saw any animation for DRK even once. Only the buff/debuff icon, that's it.

I agree that it wouldn't help all that much because the problem with LD is exactly as described above with either never hitting Walking Dead because the healer cure spams you beforehand, or dying because I never got enough heals during Walking Dead.
And I have to admit, as a healer I find LD really hard to work with. I had it happen more than once that the DRK didn't actually drop to 1 HP before LD ended, and then dying immidiately after, because the buff ended right when the last monster GCD hit, kicking that 20-50 HP DRK into oblivion.. :rolleyes:

Man DRK's got an awesome CD.

Warrior: 6 seconds can't fall below 1 hp. Shortest CD.
Dark Knight: 10 second buff that activates ANOTHER 10 second buff upon hitting 0 HP. So you get the same kinda invuln a WAR gets for 4 extra seconds. The trade off is you need to be healed during it.
Paladin: 10 seconds no damage. Longest CD.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong please but DRK's living dead wears off after 10 seconds (death) or once they've been healed for 100% of their HP (but they don't have to be healed TO full)

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Originally Posted by Atoli

Lol, really? I didn't even know it HAD an animation. Not even when I play DRK myself, much less as the healer ;)
PLD and WAR are both pretty obvious, but I never saw any animation for DRK even once. Only the buff/debuff icon, that's it.

I agree that it wouldn't help all that much because the problem with LD is exactly as described above with either never hitting Walking Dead because the healer cure spams you beforehand, or dying because I never got enough heals during Walking Dead.
And I have to admit, as a healer I find LD really hard to work with. I had it happen more than once that the DRK didn't actually drop to 1 HP before LD ended, and then dying immidiately after, because the buff ended right when the last monster GCD hit, kicking that 20-50 HP DRK into oblivion.. :rolleyes:

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Yeah you stick your sword into the ground, create a magic circle then fire comes down from the sky and sets your entire body on fire. It's a pretty big animation

@Eidolon : It works like this. Living Dead gives you 10 seconds to die. If you don't die nothing happens. If you do die you get Walking Dead which is somewhat similar to holmgang in the fact that your HP can't go past 1 but you can still take damage after being healed. If you try to get the entire 10 seconds of invulnerability (meaning you wait 10 seconds to be healed) you'll die. You can't actually get that entire 10 seconds. Also if you are healed to full then you won't die but you also lose the ability to keep your HP at 1.

Basically imagine if on Warrior you used Holmgang then the healer benedictions you and holmgang ends immediately. Or if you were a Paladin and used Hallowed ground and if someone uses benediction on you , you lose hallowed grounds effect.

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Originally Posted by cgbspender

Sorry, but I, as a main healer, find this pretty nonsense.
I was never explained "holmgang", HG or "Living Dead". But I am always focused, and I realized very quickly what those skills do. I even made some research afterwards to know better (the duration, whether there are added effects or not, etc)
When I first saw Living Dead used, I found it extremely obvious to know what I had to do.

Those who care about their jobs will always do their own research. Those who already don't care will not care more with just an animation.

When I occasionnally run a dungeon as a DPS, I sometimes encounter a situation where the DRK is activating is skill and macro it in chat, like "Big heals or I'm dead!". Do you think the healer would care and try to do something, even though he has all needed infomation to react ? Nope.

It's exactly the same thing as the "pacification" effect for warriors. A good healer will not need to be macro'ed it in chat and will still dispell it. A healer who doesn't care will fail to dispell it, macro or not.

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I don't disagree with you at all. But what my topic was healers that are strangers to you. Surely there are plenty of healers on their game and can handle this no prob. I have a great healer friend that has never failed to clear the debuff off me...well ever. What I was speaking of is total strangers. You know...duty roulette. The horror... the pain... I was just meaning to suggest a slight animation difference for the player not as clearly skilled as you are... you know, the average joe that maybe heals once a week... the standard person we find in duty finder.

Ideally a healer gets on their game and learns the ropes and becomes bomb at their job. This is not the average person however. I personally think you are referring to someone that by population of healers on server, would be considered an exceptional player.

Since Potions are underrated in this game, perhaps making a Full-100% recovery Potions (ouch the mats required to craft o.O ) would be nice to have.

Then as healers we won't have to save our Benediction or Lustrate just-in-case DRK pops their special skill..

I would still vouch for a change in animation, sometimes your eyes are not on the party bar and you are dodging and can't cure to 100%..

perhaps when Time Mage will come, he'll freeze the time in a dome and those inside for a few seconds, giving time for healers to heal back DRK.. hehehe

But yeah, that potion.. wonder how much the stupid MB would sell it..

Would be nice if you had a "doom counter" on your head when living dead gets its effect. Obviously they can make it more ornate and reuse some of the doom counters already in-game, the Arihman fight in WoD comes to mind. My work around atm is having a dedicated macro for when I see Living dead takes on its zombie effect, however this has proven lees that perfect and I opted out to just not use it anymore. Would be a nice QoL.

http://i68.tinypic.com/122gqdl.jpg

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Originally Posted by Cynric

@Eidolon : It works like this.

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Right but I don't think you have to be healed to 100%, right?

I think it's like, if you enter into Living Dead uptime, and have 18,000 max HP, you need to be healed for 18,000 HP. So say the fire Cure II hits for 4k, then they only need to heal 14k more. If the mob hits you for 2k, you don't have to heal 16k, but instead still just the base 14k.

Basically it seems like any time I use it I don't need a bene, I just need consistent inbound heals.

I don't believe in catering to incompetence, there's no excuse for a healer to not know what walking dead does at this point or how to remove it unless they are a fresh level 60 or something. (Though this would be useful in that case, I suppose, but it should be common sense to heal a tank until he is topped off anyway when he gets that low.)

It should also be really obvious when they get put in the dying state since it makes that massive, ugly, gray debuff on the tank.

As a WHM who loves healing DRKs, please do not change how LD works. It's hands down the best invulnerability CD in the game, and in the hands of a capable group translates to almost 20s of completely not caring about the tank (i.e, more time spent in Cleric). There's a reason its CD lines up with Benediction.

Yes, it's sort of meh outside of endgame raiding - so are a lot of other skills, really.

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Originally Posted by Eidolon

Right but I don't think you have to be healed to 100%, right?

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Correct. You only need to be healed for an amount equal to your maximum HP (minus 1), as you explained. No need to completely top off a DRK with Walking Dead.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

As a WHM who loves healing DRKs, please do not change how LD works. It's hands down the best invulnerability CD in the game, and in the hands of a capable group translates to almost 20s of completely not caring about the tank (i.e, more time spent in Cleric). There's a reason its CD lines up with Benediction.

Yes, it's sort of meh outside of endgame raiding - so are a lot of other skills, really.

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Why limit the benefits to static only? Yes, theoretically Living Dead can turn you into an immortal zombie up to a maximum of 20 (or rather, 19) secs, but from experience, that is rarely the case. Now let's take a look to see the difference between WAR and DRK (putting PLD aside since Hallowed Ground is on another level entirely). Also, all discussion are based upon PvE environments (static-raids / pug-raids / dungeons) only, for simplicity sake.

WAR's Holmgang is a 180 sec cd, bind and root self and target, HP cannot fall below 1 for 6 sec.

DRK's Living Dead is a 300 sec cd, dual-stage ability. For the first 10 sec (Living Dead), if HP fall to 0, the second stage (Walking Dead) will kick in. During WD, for 10 secs, HP cannot fall below 1. However, if max HP amount of heals is received, WD will expire and DRK will be vulnerable to death again. Else if max HP amount of heals is not received, DRK will die automatically.

Theoretically, Living Dead can be maximize as a ~19 sec immortally cd, however, that's pretty much limited to static-raids only (and probably with voip as well). Putting aside a couple of things like: common cd (convalescence / bloodbath, etc), the rooting effect of holmgang (since it's can be a good/bad effect depending on usage and it doesn't exactly prevent death for most situation), as of 3.0, there is one very important difference (besides cd duration) between holmgang and living dead; the ability to self-aid (in case healers are sleeping on the job or screw up).

I'm sure the rest of you have already noticed, but WAR have a vast self-aid tool now. Assuming all cds are up, from holmgang, a WAR can Berserk > Equilibrium (defiance stance) > Thrill of Battle > Second Wind > Inner Beast (possibly twice) and restore a healthy chunk of HP (for self-aid). Meanwhile the best a DRK can do once Walking Dead is activated is... Dark Art > Soul Eater for single target or Dark Art > Abyssal Drain + Sole Survivor for multiple targets. Granted the second option can restore equivalent or higher amounts of self-aid heals as compared to WAR, but for most cases you wouldn't even need to pop Living Dead under said situation (like big dungeon pulls) if you know what you are doing (even if the healers are sleeping on the job).

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not trying to call for a nerf on WAR, but what I'm trying to say is that for the most part, the 300 sec duration doesn't justify the efficiency of Living Dead, so on top of the animation update, I propose to make one of the following changes to Living Dead:

A. Cut down the duration, something between 180 and 300 secs, probably 220 ~ 240 sec for a middle ground.
B. During the duration of Walking Dead, apply a super HP leech effect of some sort (Bloodbath+ anyone?). Call it "Bloodlust" or something if it's to be a separate buff just for lols.
C. During the duration of Walking Dead, apply a damage increase buff with no downside, like Raging Strikes. Call it "Rage of the Dead" or something if it's to be a separate buff just for lols.

Personally, I think option A will be the best, since I don't think Living Dead really need a buff, just small tweaks which shouldn't be abused (like option C), though it will be interesting if they actually come true. Trying to kill yourself for a damage buff? Kind of fit the DRK image if you ask me. :3

TL;DR: putting aside animation update, Living Dead isn't worthy as a 300 sec duration cd, so the duration should be lower or some small buff should be throw in as a freebie.

Update: I actually miss out something very important, that is Holmgang requires a target within range to activate, whereby Living Dead can be pop at will just like Hallowed Ground. However, taking into account that Walking Dead can expire before the timer hits 10 sec, I'd say the targeting factor alone doesn't justify the 120 sec duration difference.

Only change I've ever wanted for Living Dead (well, Walking Dead) was for Dark Arts cost to be reduced to 0 (alternatively just have Walking Dead double up as a persistent Dark Arts effect) and Souleater/Abyssal Drains HP recovery to be doubled. Although that does nothing to address my issue with the skill (Walking Dead just got applied? Get healed instantly every time, wasting its duration), though I would be perfectly happy with Living/Walking Dead doing for HP what Darkside does for MP if the means to fully heal myself were also provided. Honestly kind of peeved at Dark Knights self healing capabilities in general... Warrior is an absolute beast in that regard, and I'm honestly puzzled as to why... Self healing is not something I've ever considered to be a Warrior thing, Paladin has White Magic and Dark Knight has always been about Drain... Oh how I'd love to see Blood Weapon/Price get a Dark Arts effect to switch them to HP recovery instead of MP...

EDIT:

OK, thinking on it a bit more, and realizing I don't even like the concept of all three having an invincibility button... Change Living Dead to double the effect of HP recovery from Souleater and Abyssal Drain, as well as acting as 10 seconds of Dark Arts (so for 10 seconds you could spam Abyssal Drain with its Dark Arts effect, for example). Living Dead is then more of a balls to the wall stance, than an invincibility button. You'd have 10 seconds of OP Drain to try and turn the situation around. Fail? Walking Dead kicks in, as it currently does. The pay off? If Walking Dead kicks in, your MP pool takes a significant hit. Either out right dropping to 0 when Walking Dead kicks in, or applying a Weakness style debuff that reduces your total MP for a duration longer than Walking Dead.

Walking Dead is then still something you can use for ~10 seconds of invincibility, but the aim of Living Dead would be to avoid that to begin with. Rather than it being a third form of not dying because your HP cannot drop to 0, it's more of a not dying because you clawed yourself back from the abyss, with the invincibility being more of a punishment.

IDK, might not work well with certain mechanics, might be unbalanced as heck, but thematically I think it is more fitting for Dark Knight. A last resort to try and survive through your own means, rather than zombie status for healers to remove...

Seems you got trauma with healers...

I have been using my DRK in raids and it's awesome, because you are in voice chat with your WHM and you can tell him exactly how many minutes remaining for benediction (Now it works). And benediction + living dead have same CD.... It's in my opinion bestmitigation ever.

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Originally Posted by l---------------l

Seems you got trauma with healers...

I have been using my DRK in raids and it's awesome, because you are in voice chat with your WHM and you can tell him exactly how many minutes remaining for benediction (Now it works). And benediction + living dead have same CD.... It's in my opinion bestmitigation ever.

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Yup, exactly what I mentioned.

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

Theoretically, Living Dead can be maximize as a ~19 sec immortally cd, however, that's pretty much limited to static-raids only (and probably with voip as well).

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And also;

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

Why limit the benefits to static only?

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

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Living Dead does not make you immortal for anywhere near 20 seconds. It allows healers to DPS for that long with proper planning but you are not immortal. You still take damage and have to die to trigger walking dead. If you die on the 10th second of Living Dead then you will not reap any benefits of the cooldown and will just die.

Living Dead = 18 maximum seconds of healer DPS and 10 seconds of invulnerability.

You have to die under one effect to trigger the other, if you have to die you can't be considered immortal.

As for fixes. I think the life leech idea is one of the better ones. Because then at least you can contribute a significant amount of healing or bring yourself back up to full. Though I feel like if it were that strong the CD should be lengthened because it would be pretty close to hallowed in terms of power.

Right now the CD isn't justified but after a buff like that the CD would be too short.

and yeah I realize you don't have to top off DRK, just heal for the maximum health.

Though I can't think of a more wasteful way to use benediction than on Walking Dead. I feel like Living Dead is a skill that pressures healers into using benediction when the point of an Invincibility skill would be to save your healer from having to waste their strongest skill simply because you popped a CD.

Guess I word it wrongly, but kinda agree with everything else you said. As for the life leech idea, I was thinking more of a rough 30~40% max HP (but we will still die if we don't receive max HP heals, so...). Anything more wouldn't be consider a self-aid, in which case we should just get an alternative version of Hallowed Ground instead. And of course, the life leech/damage increase buff will fall off together with Walking Dead, at least that was my idea of a buff if they keep it at 300 sec.

Alternatively, we can get an option D where we have a HP recovery increase buff during Walking Dead, which is also stackable with Convalescence.

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Originally Posted by Katana190

Invulnerability comes at a cost.

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Not if you're a Paladin! #shotsfired

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Originally Posted by SokiYagami

Why limit the benefits to static only?

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It's not "limited to statics only". You'll just never see it fully utilized outside of endgame raiding, and that's fine. As I said, a lot of skills are sub-par or never get fully utilized outside of statics. Foe's (+ BV), Battle Litany, Trick Attack, Divine Veil, and many other skills really only start to shine when used in organized raiding, where you can coordinate their usage with other people. I don't know why this is such an issue. LD is fine as it is.

Also, all the buffs you (and others) have suggested would make LD completely broken and overpowered. It's already one of the best abilities in the game.

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Originally Posted by LineageRazor

Kill two birds with one stone. Remove Darkside's animation completely, and add it to Walking Dead instead. That will make two groups of people happy!

Honestly, no one needs to know that you have Darkside on except for you. On the other hand it's very important for others to know that you have Walking Dead on!

No ability should require a macro to instruct players how your ability works. However, it is also a mistake to assume that healers who "don't do the research" are useless to you; they're fine for casual content, and it'd still be nice to avoid the occasional Walking Dead death in Sastasha (Hard) or whatever. By giving Walking Dead a visual indicator, it's a much better tool for instructing inexperienced healers. Once they see someone get a wierd aura and then die for no apparent reason, they're likely to ask what happened - and not make that mistake again.

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They can as well make the skill animation to overlap Darkside.

My BF like it, he's mad that they removed the black flames. Lots are like him and want this, to each their own.

They should make it so when you play DRK, only you can see it and reinstate the black flames as well, since you won't bother anyone else. (isn't there an option now to remove the effect from your screen if you don't like it?)

But I'll vouch for having an alert-type animation or just a green-glow effect (zombie-mode ;) ), a sound effect, anything to help me (casual but not so bad) Hardcore and no cores ;)

i think it is very obvious to see. the tank is staying there with 1 HP and does not die... if a healer don't know what happened no animation (wich he will not see between all the firework and the huge boss between him and the tank) will tell him.

Oh for the love of- leave darkside the hell alone! It's already tuned down to be less annoying than most other battle effects being on, including the WAR.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

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All the skills you just said don't require any coordination at all. They just require each player to be using an optimal opener and rotation. And Divine Veil just requires a macro or a place to use it.

Also each of those skills are just better in a team but none of them have the drawback of less coordination being death. None of those skills are even close to the same.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

When's the last time you've ever heard anyone need to let you know they're using Trick attack or littany?

Divine veil is probably the only skill that really requires any healer input to get full effect out of that you listed, however there are many ways to use it fully without 100% coordination down to the second with your healer. Unlike LD.

Living Dead requires coordination down to the second to get its full use.


@Kallera: Did you read the thread?

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Originally Posted by Cynric

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Divine veil is probably the only skill that really requires any healer input to get full effect out of that you listed, however there are many ways to use it fully without 100% coordination down to the second with your healer. Unlike LD.

Living Dead requires coordination down to the second to get its full use.


@Kallera: Did you read the thread?

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Yes I did. I think living dead should have a sound or an effect to go with walking dead to make it more obvious the walking dead effect is active. That said, the threat of death is always going to make the invulnerability of walking dead have questionable use in most situations.

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Originally Posted by _slowpoke_

It's not "limited to statics only". You'll just never see it fully utilized outside of endgame raiding, and that's fine. As I said, a lot of skills are sub-par or never get fully utilized outside of statics. Foe's (+ BV), Battle Litany, Trick Attack, Divine Veil, and many other skills really only start to shine when used in organized raiding, where you can coordinate their usage with other people. I don't know why this is such an issue. LD is fine as it is.

Also, all the buffs you (and others) have suggested would make LD completely broken and overpowered. It's already one of the best abilities in the game.

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Erm... nope? Cynric already spoke on the first part so I'm gonna skip on that.

As for "completely broken and overpowered"? You do know that the buff I mentioned is one of the three right? Considering the fact that it's rarely ever fully utilize, how will it be "completely broken and overpowered" if LD is shorten by approximately a min?

As for life leech, I mentioned it should at tops, tops (meaning walking dead run for the full 10 secs before it expire) heal only up to 30~40% max HP. Which means, the DRK will still die if healers are dead or sleeping on the job. This is mainly to help lighten the healers burden so they don't need to burn their biggest cd (aka Benediction). If you think this is "completely broken and overpowered", I direct you to take another look at WAR's self-aid set which I mentioned earlier.

As for damage buff, yup, it could potentially be broken, but consider this: for argument sake, let's based this on a single-target raid boss environment where both the WAR and DRK pop their oh-shit cd and will be receiving a Benediction from WHM.

Assuming WD get the damage buff I propose (let's set it on raging strike potency; 20% damage increase), within 10 secs, the biggest possible DPS spike a DRK can deal is:
(Pre-cast) Dart Arts + Carve and Spit (450 potency), Hard Slash (150 potency) > Dark Passenger (150 potency) > Syphon Strike (250 potency) > Plunge (200 potency) > Dart Arts + Souleater (400 potency)
which sums up to 1600 potency, add 3 ticks of Salted Earth at 75 potency and 3 ticks of Scourge at 40 potency each, that will total up to 1945 potency. Multiple it by 1.2 will result in 2334 potency over 3 gcd, averaging in (give and take) 778 potency per gcd.

within 6 secs, the biggest possible DPS spike a war can deal is:
Fell Cleave (500 potency) > Fell Cleave (500 potency)
which sums up to 1000 potency, add 2 ticks of Fracture at 20 potency each, that total up to 1040. However, we need to take into consideration of pre-casted Berserk (50% damage increase), Maim (20% damage increase) and that will increase the total damage to 1872 potency, averaging to (give and take) 936 potency per gcd. And that's excluding Storm's Eye's 10% slashing resistance debuff too.

And for further argument sake, let's assume I made a mistake in the calculation (which I most probably did), and say DRK can deal higher dps per gcd within the 10 sec Walking Dead window with the damage buff I propose, do recall it is on a 300 sec cd, which the DRK also need to "die" once in order to activate said damage buff. How many chance can you get to abuse this 10 sec damage buff in a single fight? 2 times? 3 times? Seriously, how the hell is this "completely broken and overpowered"?

TL;DR: Living Dead can be easily wasted, hardly ever fully utilize (outside of static-raid, probably equip with voip) and is simply a wasted potential as a 300 sec cd for the most part.

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Originally Posted by Kallera

Yes I did. I think living dead should have a sound or an effect to go with walking dead to make it more obvious the walking dead effect is active. That said, the threat of death is always going to make the invulnerability of walking dead have questionable use in most situations.

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Oh okay it's just your post seemed like it had something to do with Darkside o.O

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Originally Posted by Reynhart

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Originally Posted by Cherie

or a dark black spotlight with skeleton hands grabbing the dark knights feet from the ground to show that the dead are calling to them and going to take them to the underworld soon

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There is that kind of animation for an attack by Bone Dragon in LotA.
They could reuse it for Walking Dead.

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I quite like this idea.