DRK skill: Living Dead

[VenKitsune]

This has been discussed for years in the tank forums, a million different suggestions have been made to make the skill better and SE hasn't listened to any of it, i doubt theyre going to start listening to it as soon as you post it on the general discussion forums.

[Gemina]

This has been discussed for years in the tank forums, a million different suggestions have been made to make the skill better and SE hasn't listened to any of it, i doubt theyre going to start listening to it as soon as you post it on the general discussion forums.

Indeed it has. And as usual I will say that the skill is fine for one simple reason: It prevents you from hitting zero.

Sure, there are a ton of ways the ability can be improved. But the true problem with Living Dead is that it is a scapegoat. I've seen all the tanks, including PLD, get KO'd in the exact same situations that a DRK uses LD.

Healers need to be held accountable for KOs they could have prevented. Simple as that.

[EaMett]

Indeed it has. And as usual I will say that the skill is fine for one simple reason: It prevents you from hitting zero.

Sure, there are a ton of ways the ability can be improved. But the true problem with Living Dead is that it is a scapegoat. I've seen all the tanks, including PLD, get KO'd in the exact same situations that a DRK uses LD.

Healers need to be held accountable for KOs they could have prevented. Simple as that.

I disagree in SCH.
In solo play (dungeon/raid/etc) I'm rarely standing on enough ressources to prevent LD from killing the tank. Everything is done to prevent LD from ever being required. Unlike HLMG or HG that can actually be worked with to reduce the amount of healing required. LD is a loss 100% of the time.
In group play without a WHM often times it's better to ignore LD as well and have tanks do the mechanics as it's less healing and less dps loss. LD can still shine but it's only in limited situations. Generally those would be multi-hit tankbusters that would require repeated healing throughout, like golden bahamut or uwu ifrit, etc. In those cases, saving ressources to deal with LD is easier and less intrusive than healing through the mechanic.

In any event, it's not a scapegoat, something could/should definitely be done.

[Gemina]

I disagree in SCH.
In solo play (dungeon/raid/etc) I'm rarely standing on enough ressources to prevent LD from killing the tank. Everything is done to prevent LD from ever being required. Unlike HLMG or HG that can actually be worked with to reduce the amount of healing required. LD is a loss 100% of the time.
In group play without a WHM often times it's better to ignore LD as well and have tanks do the mechanics as it's less healing and less dps loss. LD can still shine but it's only in limited situations. Generally those would be multi-hit tankbusters that would require repeated healing throughout, like golden bahamut or uwu ifrit, etc. In those cases, saving ressources to deal with LD is easier and less intrusive than healing through the mechanic.

In any event, it's not a scapegoat, something could/should definitely be done.

I main SCH as well, and it's not that they can't heal through LD, it's that it takes up a lot of their resources to do so. I have yet to lose a DRK to LD on any healer I play, including SCH. You also should never have to be alone in healing the DRK back up. What the hell is your co healer doing? It is ridiculous to me that players who play healers have problems when the requirement amps up for them to do so.

I stand by it being a scapegoat, because any situation that a DRK has to use LD already warrants the additional healing. It is your job to get players out of critical HP so they can survive unavoidable mechanics, which includes auto attacks at the tank.

You're right, something does have to be done. I play DRK as well, and while I have yet to lose a DRK to WD while I am healing, I have certainly been victim to WD expiring before the debuff can be lifted. Each time this has happened, it wasn't that the healer(s) couldn't heal me; it was because they didn't. I want absolutely nothing done to rework LD/WD because it's healers that need to be held accountable, as I grow quite tired of their tunnel visioning, and neglect of their primary duty. And we want healing to be more engaging when most can't even handle a simple LD/WD mechanic? They are not making a strong case for themselves for the devs to add more DPS buttons, or make healer gameplay more interesting.

If there is any change I advocate, it would be tell tale sign that the DRK has just cast doom on himself. The animation, sound effect, debuff icon, and call macros are all apparently insufficient. At this point though, I don't think anything is going to work.

[EaMett]

I main SCH as well, and it's not that they can't heal through LD, it's that it takes up a lot of their resources to do so. I have yet to lose a DRK to LD on any healer I play, including SCH. You also should never have to be alone in healing the DRK back up. What the hell is your co healer doing? It is ridiculous to me that players who play healers have problems when the requirement amps up for them to do so.

I specified solo play. And I stand by it. Addlo is on average an 18k heal so you need roughly ten casts to get a tank up. That's 20-25 seconds. Your strongest options are recitation excog if you have it (roughly 60k), ET addlo which is roughly 36k. So you're left with 70-80k to heal in 7.5s. 3 addlos/physics won't get you there without an extra cooldown/ressource. So basically to heal through LD you need, Recitation, Excog, ET and at least one stack, or some good faerie timing, or a crit.
An argument could be made that it isn't good practice to hold onto so many cooldowns in the first place. Since you should be leveraging your full kit consistently.

The bottom line is that, you can't use LD to reduce healing. If LD is popped, chances are the healer doesn't have any ressources in the first place (which led to your death). It's just a bad invuln through and through.

Furthermore this is compared to what? HG, you don't even need to throw a single heal out. Superbolide is also golden because you can just let hp tick up for a bit and throw a single ressource out to get the tank back to acceptable levels. HLMG isn't as good but you don't need to top the tank up so it's also fine > one, maybe two ressource to get the tank to acceptable levels and continue as planned.
All of the above invulns can be used to easily save a situation irrespective of available cooldowns AND can be used to actually reduce the required healing. LD accomplishes neither of those.

I stand by it being a scapegoat, because any situation that a DRK has to use LD already warrants the additional healing. It is your job to get players out of critical HP so they can survive unavoidable mechanics, which includes auto attacks at the tank.

This is only true in very specific cases that I mentioned in my post. Even with a cohealer. Most of the time LD requires more healing than doing mechanics properly or other invulns. Not only is it more healing, but it's forced to be executed in a 10s window, there's no waiting for a group heal to top your tank off. A total dps loss if you don't have a WHM.

Like I said, the times LD works in AST/SCH comp is if:

• resolving the mechanic without invuln is as much/more healing that healing through LD. Rare, usually confined to ultimate fights.
• You can ignore it and let the tank die (the boss dies before the end of walking dead). Very rare, totally dependent on your kill time.
• Walking dead pops at the same time as a lot of required group healing. In which case you can leverage that group healing as normal and top off your DRK with the 1-2 ogcds you would need to use with any other invuln.
• The AST co healer has ressources that will go unused (overcap) during the fight and can dedicate them to the LD without taking a dps loss.

These cases are few and far appart. In fact, in the current savage tier this only consistently happens ONCE at the end of e8s. e5s shouldn't see any use of LD. e6s and e7s can have it worked in to accompany capping of ressources for the AST or the occasional group heals, but this only works because it is a planned and optimized endeavor. A lot of hoops have to be jumped through.
Optimized groups without a WHM will not use LD unless they can twist things around to make it work.

On the other hand, all other invulns are just used whenever because they simply provide a real, tangible benefit.

[Tranquilmelody7]

I main SCH as well, and it's not that they can't heal through LD, it's that it takes up a lot of their resources to do so. I have yet to lose a DRK to LD on any healer I play, including SCH. You also should never have to be alone in healing the DRK back up. What the hell is your co healer doing? It is ridiculous to me that players who play healers have problems when the requirement amps up for them to do so.

I stand by it being a scapegoat, because any situation that a DRK has to use LD already warrants the additional healing. It is your job to get players out of critical HP so they can survive unavoidable mechanics, which includes auto attacks at the tank.

You're right, something does have to be done. I play DRK as well, and while I have yet to lose a DRK to WD while I am healing, I have certainly been victim to WD expiring before the debuff can be lifted. Each time this has happened, it wasn't that the healer(s) couldn't heal me; it was because they didn't. I want absolutely nothing done to rework LD/WD because it's healers that need to be held accountable, as I grow quite tired of their tunnel visioning, and neglect of their primary duty. And we want healing to be more engaging when most can't even handle a simple LD/WD mechanic? They are not making a strong case for themselves for the devs to add more DPS buttons, or make healer gameplay more interesting.

If there is any change I advocate, it would be tell tale sign that the DRK has just cast doom on himself. The animation, sound effect, debuff icon, and call macros are all apparently insufficient. At this point though, I don't think anything is going to work.

I don't think most players would consider catering to the drawbacks of poorly designed skills engaging.

We should be focused on healing required through combat encounters and their respective mechanics, and not healing DRKs too early or too late because they popped a CD designed to drain resources or punish players.

When you need to manufacture some sort of healing rotation just to combat the drawbacks of a CD if you don't have access to Benediction, you know something went horribly wrong during development.

WAR and Gunbreaker do not need to be healed to full HP by any means when they pop their invulnerabilities, let alone in a mere ten seconds.

WAR, GUN, and PLD also don't have to worry about their invulnerability skills ending early if they get topped up by heals too early.

Living is just a terrible skill all around and requires nothing less than a flat out rework.

[Lyth]

...

See, if vengeance and tenacity even in the face of death was the lore reasoning behind it, then you would expect that reaching critical health would make you more resilient in some way (i.e. prevent death for 10 seconds, then give player a shield based on the damage that they prevented). Living Dead as it stands is the least resilient defensive cooldown.

"So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."

...

That's very 'kinda-sorta-maybe' for a definitive opinion.

Early iterations of PLD and DRK have more to do with a simple good/evil binary. The only association that you can draw between Dark Knights and undead is that they're both generally viewed as "evil", at which point you can start drawing arbitrary links between DRK any every darkness-elemental monster that you feel like. FFXIV turns all that on its head anyways. Paladins, historically, serve an institution, the Sultanate. They're trained to be bodyguards. If your ruler is corrupt, you've sworn allegiance to that corruption. Free Paladins soften things a bit by letting you choose what your Oaths are bound to, but that doesn't change their tradition of servitude. DRKs actively seek out and punish corrupt rulers, even if it means being exiled to the fringes of society. They serve no Oaths, and are bound to nothing.

"Sacrifice is to renounce that which binds you. To recognize that which matters─and forsake all that does not. At the very least, you must realize that you cannot continue to carry all these burdens... Unless you wish to die a slave."

It's actually a reversal of FF4's dynamic. When you couple the reveal that with the expansion theme that Light is not necessarily good (complete with Light-elemental Undeath), I don't think that your reasoning holds water.

We aren't Death Knights. Leave the Warcraft lore in Warcraft.

[AnotherPerson]

See, if vengeance and tenacity even in the face of death was the lore reasoning behind it, then you would expect that reaching critical health would make you more resilient in some way (i.e. prevent death for 10 seconds, then give player a shield based on the damage that they prevented). Living Dead as it stands is the least resilient defensive cooldown.

"So as I was saying, that heretic was fighting like a man possessed. Even after he took several wounds, he showed no sign of pain─though there was no mistaking the blood. As the fight wore on, it began to soak through his armor, spreading to every ilm of his body. But when it began to rise and envelop him as a mist, I realized it wasn't blood, but something dark and twisted..."

Had to go through old footage to double check, the continuation of that quote goes on to say "I screamed myself hoarse when that Temple Knight slipped past his guard and ran him through!". Apologies, this quote wasn't related to Living Dead. It turns out that it implied Frey was using Dark Dance - a skill that gave increased parry rate or evasion rate if Dark Arts was activated and he lost on RNG. He was also using the old blood price effect - where you were supposed to take more hits to generate blood gauge. The effect of something 'dark and twisted' was probably the damage turning into part of the blood gauge.

Took a huge exmaination on DRK's skillset evolution & changes. They had janky mitigations like Dark Dance (evasion worked against Blood Price effect to restore MP), Low Blow + Low Blows Trait (30% reset chance on Low Blow on parry), but they also had Reprisal, Shadow wall, and Dark Mind. Old Dark Knights weren't known for their mitigations, but rather taking hits and sacrificing a portion of their HP to do more damage via Dark Arts. They were more known for healing by doing damage. By StB, With Abyssal Drain (being a spammable ability but at 120 potency), Quietus, Dark Arts, the old Dark Knight could damage sustain very well against lots of enemies. They also had Sole Survivor that restored 20% HP/MP if target dies. Dark Knights weren't exactly known for their powerful mitigations, rather they had more unorthodox mitigative defense skills in conjunction with their sustain skills before the homogenization for tanks and healers. They aren't as simple tanky as Paladins with their shields or strong innate sustain tank like WAR. They were more closer resembled to caster tanks because of their Dark Arts allowing them to heal by spending MP and then taking damage with blood price and using blood weapon to restore MP.

Post-homogenization, they get more overall mitigations like all tanks but they haven't gotten much to replace the damage sustain and unorthodox mitigation besides The Blackest Night. Truthfully speaking, parry was moved over to GNB with camouflage. Looking at how their defensive skills were initially designed, the original Edgy boi Dark Knight's mitigation was not supposed to be designed to be as strong as PLD or WAR in terms of mitigation but rather focuses more on sacrificing a portion of their HP to do more damage. Dark Arts being adjusted, abyssal drain and sole survivor being changed and removed, and blood price being removed leaves somewhat of a huge hole for Dark Knights kit and healing up has been slightly more difficult with the increased HP values. However, even with the old kit, Living Dead wasn't supposed to be a resilient defensive cooldown, but there were many ways to get your HP back up easier. It seems that Dark Knights just need to get more damage sustain skills back, but that would require giving Dark Knights their MP management skills and MP management gameplay back. However, the lv 70 capstone skill The Blackest Night pretty much incentivize the Dark Knight to never let their HP fall low enough that they would have to rely on their invulnerability.

It's actually a reversal of FF4's dynamic. When you couple the reveal that with the expansion theme that Light is not necessarily good (complete with Light-elemental Undeath), I don't think that your reasoning holds water.

We aren't Death Knights. Leave the Warcraft lore in Warcraft.

To take your words into account, that may be why they removed a large portion of the damage sustain gameplay that Dark Knights initially had and start moving Dark Knights into another direction. However, that just brings a hole to the Dark Knight kit in the end though because of the way DRK storyline was initially portrayed.

[KDSilver]

Indeed it has. And as usual I will say that the skill is fine for one simple reason: It prevents you from hitting zero.

Sure, there are a ton of ways the ability can be improved. But the true problem with Living Dead is that it is a scapegoat. I've seen all the tanks, including PLD, get KO'd in the exact same situations that a DRK uses LD.

Healers need to be held accountable for KOs they could have prevented. Simple as that.

Yes and no.
Using tank invuln are part of some strategy for example in savage.
Which make DRK behind in that part if you don't have a whm. Sure, he'll get the heal, but you have to use so many ressources just for that in comparison.
Plus, any "random" living dead" in other scenario to prevent death means that, if you, as healer, is not ready because you already used your ressource for something else, you'll left spamming your your biggest GCD heal asap, not even knowing if it'll work (hello 20hp remaining).
It's honestly meh. I'm for a rework of it as well.
Too many drawback for what it does.

Paladin is invuln, so np.
Gnb is also invuln, so no stress as long as he'll endure the next hit with enough hp once bolide ends
War same, just some more hp
But a full HP bar.

I wouldn't mind if each tank would require the same amount of dedication for their invuln.
But that's not the case

[Gemina]

Yes and no.
Using tank invuln are part of some strategy for example in savage.
Which make DRK behind in that part if you don't have a whm. Sure, he'll get the heal, but you have to use so many ressources just for that in comparison.

You mean cheese mechanics? Path of least resistance though, right? Can you name any savage mechanics that cannot be done without using tank invuln skills? And by that, I mean it is not possible, which means the group has to strategize around it, not with it. I don't prog savage, so I am genuinely curious.

And yes, you have to use your healing resources to heal. What else are they used for? Again, I will dismiss any argument that has healers griping about having to heal. I am more in favor of removing the invuln skills from the game completely.