My idea for Living Dead (DRK)

So, as most people can agree, Living Dead can be quite a resource hog if you don't have a WHM sitting on Bene for it. After playing GNB and using Superbolide for a bit I think a similar solution for DRK would work and still give the "job flavor" Yoshida claims is the reason it can't change.

Make it drop you to 1 HP on activation, 10 seconds of no damage like Superbolide, but to balance the extra two seconds, all incoming healing from outside sources does 0. Instead, the DRK's damage during LD is converted to HP (their own self heals work also), so they have to whack the boss to get themselves to a comfy HP.

Thoughts?

If they upgraded Holmgang two times this expansion despite it being the most powerful invulnerability and despite nobody asking for it to become more powerful, the devs probably should do something about Living Dead. Job identity has nothing to do with it.

Several variants of this idea have been proposed over many, many threads. The devs just need to actually pay attention to feedback and do something about it.

Yep, it's been discussed a lot and should be fixed, agreed. But I don't think I've ever seen anyone propose the take I had exactly, apologies if it has been suggested in this form.

I also agree I really don't know what they were thinking buffing Holm, haha.

superbolide should has been living dead in the first place, sacrifice HP to become inmortal fits much more DRK theme that GNB, while similar you sugerence will make DRK complety independent of the healers witch in part it's good, now is fully dependent of healers, the only flaw if they dare to create TB with non targeteable bosses or mechanics that tanks use the invu far away the boss it will be extremly weak meaby.

holmgang probably has been buffed bcs titan savage mostly.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

So, as most people can agree, Living Dead can be quite a resource hog if you don't have a WHM sitting on Bene for it. After playing GNB and using Superbolide for a bit I think a similar solution for DRK would work and still give the "job flavor" Yoshida claims is the reason it can't change.

Make it drop you to 1 HP on activation, 10 seconds of no damage like Superbolide, but to balance the extra two seconds, all incoming healing from outside sources does 0. Instead, the DRK's damage during LD is converted to HP (their own self heals work also), so they have to whack the boss to get themselves to a comfy HP.

Thoughts?

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I wouldn't mind seeing it still make use of the Walking Dead pre-stage, rather than dropping you to 1 HP instantly regardless.

Tbh, I'm not a huge fan of that design even on Superbolide; as fun as it is to minimize that cost by dropping into otherwise dangerous margins beforehand, it feels really awkward when a fairy and oGCDs are enough to keep you topped off and you then end up dropping your entire health bar just to prevent death by something that would only have dealt 30% or so more HP than you've already dealt to yourself, making SB just feel like Nebula's strange cousin. Sure, when you can fully exploit its duration to prevent a tank-swap, it feels great, but otherwise you just look at it compared to either HG and you're just like... "Why this?"

The day the devs do ANYTHING to address living dead is the day YoshiP admits he understands how tanks play.

So I doubt even in 6.0 LD will be worked to be less bad.

I would put living dead in synergy with Living shadow.

If you die in living dead you will be ressurected with 1/4 hp when the living shadow is working replacing Fray shadow with yourself.

As long as Living Dead is on a longer recast than Holmgang, it should have less of a penalty to the player and team than does Holmgang. Look at Hallowed vs. Superbollide. Lower recast = penalty. WAR and DRK have it backwards. There's no point coming up with alternative designs that have penalties as long as WAR has a shorter recast.

One more thing that I'd like to see on the longer term - a limit on the number of times that your team collectively can use an invuln skill per fight.

It’s because DRKs are bad ass. We literally die, become zombies and come back to life

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Originally Posted by Lyth

As long as Living Dead is on a longer recast than Holmgang, it should have less of a penalty to the player and team than does Holmgang. Look at Hallowed vs. Superbollide. Lower recast = penalty. WAR and DRK have it backwards. There's no point coming up with alternative designs that have penalties as long as WAR has a shorter recast.

One more thing that I'd like to see on the longer term - a limit on the number of times that your team collectively can use an invuln skill per fight.

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The penalty doesn't have to be an additional effect, though. It can be the duration itself. It would help, ofc, if the devs would realize how much their particular iteration of their penalty (healing requirement) costs effective duration from Living Dead and wastes what would otherwise be healing spared, but from they're almost certainly seeing "Safety Period + 10 seconds' duration" vs. "No safety + only 6 seconds' duration" and finding the penalty and longer recast both appropriate.

Redesigning the penalty so Living Dead can actually exploit its on-paper advantages may therefore be exactly what is needed.

For my self, I think that the basics mecanics of Living Dead is good. BUT, getting to 100% HP is really HARD on 4-people content (Should never happen, yes, but when you don't have the choice, you have to do it.)

I think, the healing needed must be nerfed, and not be 100% of the life. But something arround 70-75%, This make it really more manageable when you are not a WHM. Benediction is literraly used for Living dead and Superbolide. AStromancer get a really strong heal when you are low HP that can do a massive 70K crit, But still, something like 60-70K is missing when healing Undead. And Scholar, Do I really need to says something about them ? Come on... Their instant heal "shit button" is by far the weakest of them.

Getting down the healing needed for LD seems the better choice, since Benediction can overcome that anyway, but Scholar really have a Hard time with that.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

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Penalties are supposed to offset advantages. If you have one action that is both weaker than another and has a penalty to boot, then it's going to be less useful in every situation. Most people recognised that Living Dead was weaker than Holmgang in previous expansions, but with the stream of unnecessary buffs to Holmgang, it's pretty blatant.

The least that the devs could do is admit to the obvious.

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Originally Posted by Lyth

Penalties are supposed to offset advantages. If you have one action that is both weaker than another and has a penalty to boot, then it's going to be less useful in every situation. Most people recognized that Living Dead was weaker than Holmgang in previous expansions, but with the stream of unnecessary buffs to Holmgang, it's pretty blatant.

The least that the devs could do is admit to the obvious.

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Yes, agreed.

Why quote me, though, to say something unrelated to any point I've made in this thread? Or is the connection made solely by implying that duration is worthless and thus making Living Dead's in-practice duration more equal to its on-paper duration will do nothing for the ability?

I suggested a more thematically concise and less individually punishing one.

Living Dead
Ability
Recast: 300/360s
Effect: Summons a Shadowy Simulcrum on to the field with [100-150%] of your HP. The Simulcrum redirects attacks targeting you to it. It expires after 10 seconds or once its HP has been reduced to 0.

In terms of what it allows, it still allows for solo-taking all busters at the moment, it's much more usable in solo/small content, and it doesn't eat up all healer resources unless = White Mage.

In terms of function

E1S: redirecting the attack means there's one tank swap that doesn't have to happen immediately (You won't take the vuln)
E2S: You won't need a Bene if taking it naked.
E3S: Don't need the healing
E4S: You'll take one hit, which should be survivable, from the stomper. Similar to old Holmgang.

At the very least they can just remove the healing requirement until they can properly fix it.

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Originally Posted by Kabooa

I suggested a more thematically concise and less individually punishing one.

Living Dead
Ability
Recast: 300/360s
Effect: Summons a Shadowy Simulcrum on to the field with [100-150%] of your HP. The Simulcrum redirects attacks targeting you to it. It expires after 10 seconds or once its HP has been reduced to 0.

In terms of what it allows, it still allows for solo-taking all busters at the moment, it's much more usable in solo/small content, and it doesn't eat up all healer resources unless = White Mage.

In terms of function

E1S: redirecting the attack means there's one tank swap that doesn't have to happen immediately (You won't take the vuln)
E2S: You won't need a Bene if taking it naked.
E3S: Don't need the healing
E4S: You'll take one hit, which should be survivable, from the stomper. Similar to old Holmgang.

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This idea is rad, the only thing I don't like about this is multi-hits would be a problem that the other tanks (especially now that Holm was buffed) wouldn't have, since it would be like old Holm as you mentioned.

Maybe, if the clone had a short period of invulnerability after losing all it's HP before dissipating (like 2-4 seconds) that would sort it.

Simple idea for Living Dead:
Make it so the DRK only needs to be healed back up to 50% instead of 100% to negate the Walking Dead status. This allows SCH and AST to have an easier time.

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Originally Posted by Jonnycbad

Simple idea for Living Dead:
Make it so the DRK only needs to be healed back up to 50% instead of 100% to negate the Walking Dead status. This allows SCH and AST to have an easier time.

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The only thing I don't like about the "just lower the healing" suggestion is it could lead to accidental early cancellation of WD (and therefore your invuln state), like if you get a crit Excog for example.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

The only thing I don't like about the "just lower the healing" suggestion is it could lead to accidental early cancellation of WD (and therefore your invuln state), like if you get a crit Excog for example.

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Agreed. I don't think LD should end from removing the Doom state.

...Would also love to see DRK get a buff to their self-healing (via Cure potency and lifesteal) at all times, based on missing %HP (starting below, say, 80%), e.g. up to 4x healing below 20% HP. Call it... Blood for Blood.
From there, give lifesteal across all skills during Living Dead. With a burst phase, one should very feasibly be able to cleanse Doom on their own, while it should still be doable easily with minor support outside of burst.

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Agreed. I don't think LD should end from removing the Doom state.

...Would also love to see DRK get a buff to their self-healing (via Cure potency and lifesteal) at all times, based on missing %HP (starting below, say, 80%), e.g. up to 4x healing below 20% HP. Call it... Blood for Blood.
From there, give lifesteal across all skills during Living Dead. With a burst phase, one should very feasibly be able to cleanse Doom on their own, while it should still be doable easily with minor support outside of burst.

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You and me both, I'm mad WAR beat DRK to the self-heal gimmick because that's the thing I identify most with DRK, even over the whole "use HP for damage" thing Cecil does because FF Tactics is my favorite entry.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

You and me both, I'm mad WAR beat DRK to the self-heal gimmick because that's the thing I identify most with DRK, even over the whole "use HP for damage" thing Cecil does because FF Tactics is my favorite entry.

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I'm mostly cool with it because it just felt so right for their kit at the time (in some ways, Warrior's first major revisions were a tremendous disappointment to me, given that I'd have preferred that PLD gain more player-scaling defensive output instead of both swapping to content-scaled mitigation), but... c'mon... if it's Blood for Blood? People have been having fits about that skill going to anyone but DRK, or at least a very different version of Lancer/Dragoon that could make better use of its risk and aesthetic, since seeing the skill. Banking an AD for an LD on add phase would, again, just feel right.

Aside: How would you feel if the self-heal was given on Bloodspiller instead, as to allow more flexible timing, or if Bloodspiller at least increased the HP to be generated by your next SE or AD? (In the prior case, gauge skills would have to be given earlier, ofc, albeit likely at reduced potency.)

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Originally Posted by Shurrikhan

Aside: How would you feel if the self-heal was given on Bloodspiller instead, as to allow more flexible timing, or if Bloodspiller at least increased the HP to be generated by your next SE or AD? (In the prior case, gauge skills would have to be given earlier, ofc, albeit likely at reduced potency.)

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I think if it's tied to GCD I'd rather it be on Souleater than Bloodspiller if we had to pick, but my actual answer is put HP steal on both, lol.

The small moderate heal on SE, and the big ol' Nascent Flash + Inner Chaos type of heals on BS.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

I think if it's tied to GCD I'd rather it be on Souleater than Bloodspiller if we had to pick, but my actual answer is put HP steal on both, lol.

The small moderate heal on SE, and the big ol' Nascent Flash + Inner Chaos type of heals on BS.

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That would probably cut into our defense budget... Is there any way we could leverage some other effect not to lose our ability to survive one-shots despite the loss in active eHP bonuses?

Now I admit I didn’t touch DRK at all in SB, but in that didn’t they reduce living dead to needing half health to not kill you? Why did they go back to 100%.

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Originally Posted by Conando

Now I admit I didn’t touch DRK at all in SB, but in that didn’t they reduce living dead to needing half health to not kill you? Why did they go back to 100%.

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As far as I can tell, LD has been unchanged since 3.0. Scary.

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Originally Posted by InfiniDragon

So, as most people can agree, Living Dead can be quite a resource hog if you don't have a WHM sitting on Bene for it. After playing GNB and using Superbolide for a bit I think a similar solution for DRK would work and still give the "job flavor" Yoshida claims is the reason it can't change.

Make it drop you to 1 HP on activation, 10 seconds of no damage like Superbolide, but to balance the extra two seconds, all incoming healing from outside sources does 0. Instead, the DRK's damage during LD is converted to HP (their own self heals work also), so they have to whack the boss to get themselves to a comfy HP.

Thoughts?

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I agree about living dead being a dumb ability, the problem is that.... if the healer cannot heal you fully or misses it, your dead. Came across a few DRK's in dungeon that decided it would be a good idea to pop living dead after pulling a massive amount of monsters, only to suddenly die instantly, something the healer could have healed normally without wiping. Playing DRK, i avoid using this ability due to a huge risk of wiping, should the healer miss it.

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Originally Posted by Windwalker

I agree about living dead being a dumb ability, the problem is that.... if the healer cannot heal you fully or misses it, your dead. Came across a few DRK's in dungeon that decided it would be a good idea to pop living dead after pulling a massive amount of monsters, only to suddenly die instantly, something the healer could have healed normally without wiping. Playing DRK, i avoid using this ability due to a huge risk of wiping, should the healer miss it.

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The thing is we already have "Heal them to full or they die!" 3D graphical markers in the form of Doom debuffs, which could thereafter take on visible and audible timers. I don't see why the same wasn't applied to Living Dead, even if only technically needing for 100% of HP to be filled instead.

I find it rather amusing that Holmgang got an extra 2 seconds added to its duration in 5.1 while Living dead went untouched yet again.

So we have one ability that makes you unable to drop below 1 and lasts 8 seconds with a 4 minute cooldown.
Then we have another that makes you unable to drop below 1, lasts 10 seconds, 5 minute cooldown and it will outright kill you if you don't receive 100 % healing during it. It's also easier to time for max duration because of the living dead > walking dead transition but harder to make use of that full duration because, you know, it'll kill you.

Any other invulnerability pretty much just needs enough immediate healing so that the tank can survive the next auto / mechanic. Also since I'm comparing LD to Holmgang as that is the closest comparison lets not forget that WAR can use Thrill, Equilibrium and Nascent Flash to recover HP if any of those are up at that moment. Thrill also gives WAR a 20 % healing received buff.

I think the most elegant solution would be to very simply remove the whole healing requirement + doom out of LD. Just:
Living dead: lasts 10 seconds, if you take a lethal hit activate walking dead instead
Walking dead: lasts 10 seconds, you can't fall below 1
Holmgang with 2 seconds longer duration and easier timing because of the living dead > walking dead transition offset by having that 1 minute longer CD. That's pretty much what it already is, so if it would be possible for it to not kill me that would be swell. As an additional bonus you would no longer die to a poorly timed Benediction either, because it definitely makes so much sense right now that it loses the beneficial effect too when you get healed.