We really need to talk about Living Dead

[Rongway]

Unpopular opinion: Even though Living Dead isn't Hallowed Ground, it's okay.

In particular, statements like the following are inaccurate:

It's entire gimmick is that it's debuff will kill you

That's not what it is. It's not "I push this button, then I die."

It's "I'm about to die anyway, but I can delay it for 10s." The debuff isn't what kills you. You get the debuff because you died. The healer then has an opportunity to veto your death that already happened up to 10s ago. If Walking Dead doesn't activate, you were safe all along and didn't need to push the button because the healer was already doing enough healing to keep you from dying. If Walking Dead does activate, you would have died anyway whether you pressed the button or not, but now the healer has 10s to correct that. In an unplanned use situation, it does its job: if you would have died, you don't.

But these abilities are best used when planned, not as emergency buttons. Here's how they work when you plan them:

• PLD: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Damage you take afterwards can kill you, but at least you start of with full/fullish health when it wears off without any healer intervention.
• WAR: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. After buff wears, healer must heal you before you take another hit. However, if they heal you too early it will be for nothing because you still take damage while buffed.
• GNB: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. Healer must heal you before you take a hit unbuffed, but they may do so at any time even while you are buffed.
• DRK: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Once you are fatally wounded, you get Holmgang until the healer accumulates your full HP of healing on you or 10s, whichever comes first. If the healer wants to, they can ignore all damage you take for the next (10-X) seconds, where X is the amount of time it would take them to heal you for full HP.

In all cases except Hallowed Ground, which the devs have acknowledged as blatantly overpowered, the superbutton prevents you from dying if you would have died, and requires a healer's immediate intervention. The only big difference is that Living Dead requires intervention on a Benediction scale, but if the tank were a WAR or GNB coming out of superbuff with 1hp, the healer would likely have responded with a Benediction equivalent in most cases anyway.

[cactuarzzzz]

Unpopular opinion: Even though Living Dead isn't Hallowed Ground, it's okay.

In particular, statements like the following are inaccurate:

That's not what it is. It's not "I push this button, then I die."

It's "I'm about to die anyway, but I can delay it for 10s." The debuff isn't what kills you. You get the debuff because you died. The healer then has an opportunity to veto your death that already happened up to 10s ago. If Walking Dead doesn't activate, you were safe all along and didn't need to push the button because the healer was already doing enough healing to keep you from dying. If Walking Dead does activate, you would have died anyway whether you pressed the button or not, but now the healer has 10s to correct that. In an unplanned use situation, it does its job: if you would have died, you don't.

But these abilities are best used when planned, not as emergency buttons. Here's how they work when you plan them:

• PLD: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Damage you take afterwards can kill you, but at least you start of with full/fullish health when it wears off without any healer intervention.
• WAR: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. After buff wears, healer must heal you before you take another hit. However, if they heal you too early it will be for nothing because you still take damage while buffed.
• GNB: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. Healer must heal you before you take a hit unbuffed, but they may do so at any time even while you are buffed.
• DRK: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Once you are fatally wounded, you get Holmgang until the healer accumulates your full HP of healing on you or 10s, whichever comes first. If the healer wants to, they can ignore all damage you take for the next (10-X) seconds, where X is the amount of time it would take them to heal you for full HP.

In all cases except Hallowed Ground, which the devs have acknowledged as blatantly overpowered, the superbutton prevents you from dying if you would have died, and requires a healer's immediate intervention. The only big difference is that Living Dead requires intervention on a Benediction scale, but if the tank were a WAR or GNB coming out of superbuff with 1hp, the healer would likely have responded with a Benediction equivalent in most cases anyway.

You can visit Healer forum to see how they explain it how among the invuls they hated it the most.The one who shouldering the burden know best. No need to trivialize it.

*But just in case you decided not to look it up I'm going to drop it here :

For WAR and GNB healer only need to heal them to the point that they don't die to auto attack after invul ended. Coupled with how WAR and GNB can heal themselves with their ability just make it way way more easier than dealing with drk and their pitiful self heal.

The healing window is also more lenient and less stressful and ultimately BETTER than with living dead, which the real cause is that useless doom debuff. Oh and just in case I wasn't clear enough, Invuls is useful but doom debuff is freaking useless. It is the worst*

[Recon1o6]

Snip

As an ex healer main who threw my book into a fire, my globe into the interdimensional rift, and my staves into a woodchipper and the depths of eureka while quitting that as well (throwing a metal pole into a woodchipper is a bad idea) living dead's frustration varies depending on your healer

WHM- Meh, benediction it. Oh bene is on cd? fine tetragrammaton, soul eater and abyssal will cover it. both of those are on cd? oh fine guess I'll take a break from glaring, here you go: 2 cure 2/lillies and if im feeling generous I'll toss another your way. I might have an ogcd as well depending on the rest of the party's incompetece.

4.0 and previous AST (I have never touched ast in shb except to wear the anemos top to a wedding)- ED...other healer's a sch in their rotation? here's a benefic 2. Other healer is an ast in other stance? well they ED you as well so you're good, if not then I'm sure I got a ogcd here somewhere I can throw on
5.0 ast from what i seen from those insane enough to play it- ED, ED, not enough ED? neutral stance/sect+ a benefic 2 per energy drain, abyssal drain and soul eater will take care of the rest, now let me get back to hand cramps and malefic spam

SCH- 4.0 Give me a second I have a few ogcds for that... EOS/SELENE STOP BEING DRUNK
5.0 yay i can finally stop broiling! SERAPH STOP GHOSTING


Now I played a lot of DRK as well. I dearly miss the HW gameplay style of debuffing and magic tanking rather than the mess in SB and the marauder clone we have now in SHB (yes Marauder not warrior, warrior has been gutted too)

There's 2 main problems DRK has with its invul
1. It kills you if it triggers Walking dead.
2. Drk lacks the sustain neccessary to stop itself from dying.

In a prepared party, LD is fundamentally the strongest invul in the game. In a df group where you get placed with a sprout or worse, someone who got boosted through levels so they never learned important healer lessons, its basically a kill me now button.
Ideally we would lose the doom entirely and have something better.

Here's a suggestion:
You gain 10 seconds of living dead. You are reduced to 1 hp and cannot be reduced beyond it for the duration of living dead.
While under the walking dead status you suffer a damage over time for 15 seconds. You also gain a secondary effect that heals you for every attack you make equal to 50% of the attacks damage.

Now, gnb has a shield/heal on brutal shell and a potent heal over time with aurora. We just get angry when the idiots fat finger it or use it but then don't use the rest of their kit to make our lives easier
Warrior has a hp booster they can use and a self cure, and bloodbath nascent flash.

The dot needs to be strong enough to be a mild threat, but the sustain should be strong enough that it can outpace both the auto attacks and the dot

[cactuarzzzz]

Snip

Strongest in which way? It's still 9-10 secs of invuls [need heal equal to a total of 100%Hp after the invul kick in but before it reach 0].
I can assure you that dev won't make boss's one shot attack that require more invuls duration longer than 8 secs of holmgang. They also won't make the boss use one shot more frequently to the point that PLD can't keep up with their Hallow Ground's long recast time.

[Rongway]

You can visit Healer forum to see how they explain it how among the invuls they hated it the most.The one who shouldering the burden know best. No need to trivialize it.
*But just in case you decided not to look it up I'm going to pontificate

You can visit my character profile to see if I've at least taken the time to level healers, or checked the healer forums to see if I ever participate there, before assuming I don't understand how healers think.
*But since you didn't, I leveled all three healers immediately after finishing the story on RDM and I heal roulettes regularly. No need to be truculent.

The healing window is also more lenient and less stressful and ultimately BETTER than with living dead ... It is the worst*

Obviously Holmgang and Bolide are "better" vis a vis "more lenient". Out of four abilities, one of them will always be "the worst", and healers will automatically label the one that takes the most work as the worst.

But it's not bad just by virtue of being the worst, and it doesn't take that much more work.

As for the others being "less stressful", this should be a non-issue. The first thing the healer should look at when getting into a duty is the job icon for the tank, which will dictate, among other things, the appropriate plan for dealing with the tank's superbutton. If you're in a party with a DRK you should already know that it's possible you will be required to heal them to full in the span of a few seconds, just like if you're in a party with a GNB you should know that you don't need to be alarmed if their HP drops from 120,000 down to 1 in an instant. The answer to the potential stress of these two abilities is awareness and readiness.


Would Living Dead benefit from some improvement like Seraphor's suggestion to have 50%≤healing<100% give Weakness instead of KO?

Yes, absolutely. (And Seraphor's specific suggestion made me go, "Oh, that would be a neat way to handle it.")

But is Living Dead just brokenly bad? I don't think it is.

[cactuarzzzz]

You can visit my character profile to see if I've at least taken the time to level healers, or checked the healer forums to see if I ever participate there, before assuming I don't understand how healers think.
*But since you didn't, I leveled all three healers immediately after finishing the story on RDM and I heal roulettes regularly. No need to be truculent.



Obviously Holmgang and Bolide are "better" vis a vis "more lenient". Out of four abilities, one of them will always be "the worst", and healers will automatically label the one that takes the most work as the worst.

But it's not bad just by virtue of being the worst, and it doesn't take that much more work.

As for the others being "less stressful", this should be a non-issue. The first thing the healer should look at when getting into a duty is the job icon for the tank, which will dictate, among other things, the appropriate plan for dealing with the tank's superbutton. If you're in a party with a DRK you should already know that it's possible you will be required to heal them to full in the span of a few seconds, just like if you're in a party with a GNB you should know that you don't need to be alarmed if their HP drops from 120,000 down to 1 in an instant. The answer to the potential stress of these two abilities is awareness and readiness.


Would Living Dead benefit from some improvement like Seraphor's suggestion to have 50%≤healing<100% give Weakness instead of KO?

Yes, absolutely. (And Seraphor's specific suggestion made me go, "Oh, that would be a neat way to handle it.")

But is Living Dead just brokenly bad? I don't think it is.

1.Profile meant nothing to me here. Only how people show what they knew via explanation.

2.Yeah, go on and be the sole healer that claim LD isn't bad.

[Tranquilmelody7]

Unpopular opinion: Even though Living Dead isn't Hallowed Ground, it's okay.

In particular, statements like the following are inaccurate:

That's not what it is. It's not "I push this button, then I die."

It's "I'm about to die anyway, but I can delay it for 10s." The debuff isn't what kills you. You get the debuff because you died. The healer then has an opportunity to veto your death that already happened up to 10s ago. If Walking Dead doesn't activate, you were safe all along and didn't need to push the button because the healer was already doing enough healing to keep you from dying. If Walking Dead does activate, you would have died anyway whether you pressed the button or not, but now the healer has 10s to correct that. In an unplanned use situation, it does its job: if you would have died, you don't.

But these abilities are best used when planned, not as emergency buttons. Here's how they work when you plan them:

• PLD: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Damage you take afterwards can kill you, but at least you start of with full/fullish health when it wears off without any healer intervention.
• WAR: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. After buff wears, healer must heal you before you take another hit. However, if they heal you too early it will be for nothing because you still take damage while buffed.
• GNB: Press button within 8s of hit that would kill you. Healer must heal you before you take a hit unbuffed, but they may do so at any time even while you are buffed.
• DRK: Press button within 10s of hit that would kill you. Once you are fatally wounded, you get Holmgang until the healer accumulates your full HP of healing on you or 10s, whichever comes first. If the healer wants to, they can ignore all damage you take for the next (10-X) seconds, where X is the amount of time it would take them to heal you for full HP.

In all cases except Hallowed Ground, which the devs have acknowledged as blatantly overpowered, the superbutton prevents you from dying if you would have died, and requires a healer's immediate intervention. The only big difference is that Living Dead requires intervention on a Benediction scale, but if the tank were a WAR or GNB coming out of superbuff with 1hp, the healer would likely have responded with a Benediction equivalent in most cases anyway.

I know exactly how all the invulnerabilities skills work, but thanks.

The debuff is still what kills you, it just activates the same way as the actual invincibility for Holmang is applied.

The bottom line is no other skill in the game has a drawback that literally kills you.
It's still terrible even if the skill has a very long window of use comparatively.

You can actually easily plan uses for Holmang and Superbollide to make runs easier and not as an "Oh **** button", which is almost always preferable.

[Rongway]

As I stated above multiple times: it has it's use when you would have definitely died otherwise as it serves to grant you a and the healer a second chance to get things back under control.
If it's the only option available you use it because it's the only option available. Not because it's good. It's your last resort.

But that's what it's for.
(Note: "last resort" doesn't necessarily mean it was used as a panic button; it can still have planned usage where it's the only button that would have saved you.)

I get what you mean "If it doesn't get triggered, no harm done. If it does, the tank would have died anyway". Which is true but that makes it essentially useless it because you use it in hopes of it not getting triggered.

And if you're counting on a skill not having any effect and actively try to prevent it, that's saying something, isn't it?

But you can still use it to cheese a subset of mechanics like you would use any of the other superbuffs; you just can't use it to cheese exactly every mechanic that you could use the other superbuffs for.

In particular, DRK can still solo soak stack markers (e.g., Chadarnook) and take-pass mechanics (e.g., Titania) that would have dealt so much damage that no other defensive cooldown would have worked.

It has no beneficial effect and in case it does get triggered, the healer is now forced to work very inefficiently. And lack of healing isn't the only reason it may trigger. Eating a pull raw because "invul is up" is the most common reason I've seen for it to trigger.

All other tank invuls can be used without any downside whatsoever and are always a gain. DRK has the only invul that has no inherent gain and makes situations worse if used poorly.

This is going back to tanks using it at the wrong time. That can be addressed by fixing the players that are using it wrong.

In cases where it's not the wrong time to use it, it prevents you from dying. This is a gain, and you are better off for having used it.

It's really only a gain if the party is well-coordinated and everyone knows what they're doing and even then, dungeons are the least likely place for it to be useful.

But what I'm saying is, "yeah it's a horrible ability to use on dungeon trash, but not every tank ability has to be amazing on dungeon trash." It's okay for one of them to be less useful on dungeon trash; and even in the case that it's used on dungeon trash, recognizing that you will surely die in the next ten seconds and activating Living Dead to delay death for 10s is still better than just dying.

I know exactly how all the invulnerabilities skills work, but thanks.

The debuff is still what kills you, it just activates the same way as the actual invincibility for Holmang is applied.

The bottom line is no other skill in the game has a drawback that literally kills you.

You keep saying "but it gives you a debuff that kills you" but that's not how it works.

You don't die because you got a debuff.
You died 10s ago. It already happened. Neither you nor the healer could prevent you from taking lethal damage.
But then you got an invincibility effect that says, "but your death can be undone."

There is no drawback that kills you; you already died. But because you activated the ability, you are still alive and therefore better off than you would have been if you hadn't pushed the button.

It's still terrible even if the skill has a very long window of use comparatively.

You can actually easily plan uses for Holmang and Superbollide to make runs easier and not as an "Oh **** button", which is almost always preferable.

You can still plan uses for Living Dead. See above.

[Tranquilmelody7]

You keep saying "but it gives you a debuff that kills you" but that's not how it works.

You don't die because you got a debuff.
You died 10s ago. It already happened. Neither you nor the healer could prevent you from taking lethal damage.
But then you got an invincibility effect that says, "but your death can be undone."

This is nothing more than semantic wordplay.
If you fulfill the requirements to apply the complete damage mitigation, the move will subsequently apply a debuff that kills you if you don't fulfill the requirements to purge it - that's really all there is to discuss.
Nice use of flavor text though.

There is no drawback that kills you; you already died. But because you activated the ability, you are still alive and therefore better off than you would have been if you hadn't pushed the button.

In heavily coordinated group uses yes, but in PUGS it's far more practical to avoid the move like the plague.
You risk more by depending on the 9 seconds of actual invulnerability due to the healer potentially being unable to purge the debuff for you.
With WAR and GUN( I will actually make one for PLD as well soon) I pop a macro to let my group that I will trigger an invulnerability skill so they may focus on damage until the migitagion ends.
Heck with WAR at level 76, I can just utilitze burst and Nascent
Flash and can top myself off without any help from Healers.
With DRK in PUGS I just don't use Living Dead, I can't do anything to cleanse the debuff with DRK's pitifully limited self healing options, and I never want to pressure my healer that much.

You can still plan uses for Living Dead. See above.

The move clearly has a niche where it shines in high end content where significant coordination and cooperation are vital.
It does have the longest duration of any invulnerability after all, with 9 seconds to trigger the mitigation and a subsequent 9 seconds to accumulatively heal 100% of a respective DRK's(Which is nothing since the DRK was previously at 1 HP anyway).

The move still sucks!
It puts way to much pressure on other players in most other situations, leaving DRK themselves helpless if others don't intervene with heavy heals.
If DRK traded invulnerabilities with WAR, perhaps things would mesh better due to WARs crazy amount of healing options.

Savage content should be the primary focus of balancing jobs for sure, but if you have a vast amount of players complaining about a skill for years all the way back before it's inception, some things cleary need to change.

If it were up to me, I would just opt to lessen the severity of the debuff.
Maybe reduce the DRK's HP by half or even two thirds if the debuff isn't purged.