DRK skill: Living Dead

[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.

[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

[Ilenya]

Hallowed Ground is iconic, and therefore can't rightly be removed, but neither does it have to be free. It could, for instance, as easily force a 1-bar Tank LB on use. I'd be fine with Paladin being the only job to retain an actual Invuln. It just needs to have some balancing cost therein that makes it a tactical choice for one's party, rather than a free bonus.

Oh ick, no. You should never require using a party resource for a single person skill.

[Kazrah]

Maybe if they lowered the threshold to 50% health instead of full health. That way, you'd still have the mechanic, but it would be just enough for any healer to go "oh crap, got it" instead of trying to do the worst active time maneuver in the game just to keep the tank going and then see them die instantly because they didn't have Benediction and could only get them to like 80% health and CAN YOU STOP DYING DARRELL? UGH!!

Anyway, for the original question, no it shouldn't be passive. It's a button that rewards good gameplay when you use it, and better gameplay when you never have to.

[Bsrking5]

While creatively, it isn't a bad idea, that would put DRK at a disadvantage in terms of damage. Many fights (particularly in Savage) have strats that involve actively using invulns, and with your idea, that would really hamper DRK's damage output as they'd have to "waste" MP on a non-DPS action. Even TBN is dps neutral when used properly since it essentially refunds the used MP.

If every single invuln had a damage reducing side effect, this might not be so bad, but since they don't, this change would hurt DRK more than their current invuln does. It's wonky, but at least with healers who are on top of things/a Whm with Bene, there's not too much to worry about.

You are misunderstanding the change. Its not every time living dead procs. Its only if the time expires and would have killed the DRK. Whats better a dead DRK or one with 0 MP and some HP. In those strats nothing would be changed unless they planned on the death of the drk which would just take slightly longer. Thats basically the same outcome.

[SomeRandomHuman]

maybe if you can be less disingenuous? You claimed DRK had a good healing ability in Abyssal Drain. You compared it to chaotic cyclone. Chaotic Cyclone by itself doesn't even heal, it only does when used with nascent flash. You did not clarify you meant single target nor AoE, so that miscommunication is also your fault.

You demonstrated a clear lack of understanding on a matter, and I called out your lack of understanding on it, and instead of just saying "My bad, I don't really tank much" and move along, you wanna act like a victim, "how dare I be insulted?!" You made a mistake, I called you wrong. Being told you're wrong isn't an insult, get over it.

I presumed that everyone present knew that by context I was referring to chaotic cyclone under the effects of nascent. As someone who tanks I'd expect you to piece that together without needing to be told directly.

>AD heals as much as chaotic cyclone
Bro do you even tank?
...yeah you don't know tanks..

These comments weren't needed and made you come off as condescending, so please do pardon me for not being fond of condescending tones.

As for taking being told I'm wrong for an insult? Well I dunno what logic you're using, but I'm not bothered by being called out. We're all guilty of making mistakes and that's just reality. Anyone claiming otherwise is just full of hot air.

There's times where I think most of us forums goers ask ourselves your forum name. Oh well. Forums can be endearing I guess.

[Hycinthus]

I think with a lot of new players nowadays, there should be an in-game tutorial that teaches the abilities of other jobs that you need to watch out for.

Things like: stand in these circles for heals, don’t run away from this green/red tethers because they are helpful to you, and yes, those unique tank abilities such as LD.

I’ve had cases in the past where healers get frustrated why I kept dying immediately, but it’s because they just don’t know LD. Similarly, I also did not fully understand healer or other mechanics.

Of course we can always just research from youtube, but to be honest I think majority of players don’t check out forums or youtube to do research.

[Puremallace]

quick suggestion, just wanna see what the community thinks.

I would like to see Living Dead made into a passive trait. all of its skill text and actual application is fine. i believe it should simply be a passive trait, instead of active use

You do understand Living Dead literally kills you if not healed to 100%? In theory it is supposed to be coordinated with a healer who knows you are about to get one shot once it counts down. I have seen sooooooo many Dark Knights just assume that healers keep their tank buffs scaled at 200% get killed because of this ability.

Automatically have something like that proc would not be advised as it would encourage bad Dark Knights to just yolo into fights and then blame the healer for not keeping them at 100% at all times lol

[WhyAmIHere]

These comments weren't needed and made you come off as condescending, so please do pardon me for not being fond of condescending tones.

I presumed that everyone present knew that by context I was referring to chaotic cyclone under the effects of nascent. As someone who tanks I'd expect you to piece that together without needing to be told directly.

Now who's condescending?

Good job pointing out the irony of my forum name though, been waiting for that to happen. Also good job on keeping this civil, but..

The onus of providing context is on the originator of the argument. This fault lies in you for 1) being misinformed as to what the tank invulns are, 2) being incorrect and inaccurate as to what the abilities and strengths/weaknesses are with DRK and Abyssal Drain when compared to the other tanks forms of self sustain, 3) not up-front admitting that you're speaking on a subject you're ill-informed of, and 4) failure to see the own flaws inherent in your arguments by making assumptions at all.

This is General Discussion, an area where more often than not players from all spectrums of play types would see. It is not the tanking section, where a modicum of understanding for how the tanks operate is appreciated.

I do want to counter your earlier comment though, even further.

However, I am aware that for self-healing DRK doesn't have much but that doesn't change much of anything since I've seen AD heal a pretty crazy amount of HP on large mob packs.

You're comparing a 60s recast oGCD ability with the pairing of a 25s recast oGCD (Nascent Flash) paired with a GCD AoE move that is reliant on Infuriate and beast gauge... that can also be ignored via Inner Release if you want to instead rely on Decimate. Comparing a single oGCD which is up every minute, to 3 uses of a GCD under the effects of Nascent is a literal apples to oranges comparison to be made.

I'm done derailing this thread proving you were wrong. LD is a garbage skill and is the punchline to the joke that is DRK in 5.x.

[Alaray]

Actually, I always felt that the ability to go invulnerable was a signature skill for PLD, and I wish it was exclusive to them. They still have the true invuln skill in the game, and the "preventing from hitting zero" abilities are all just watered down versions of it.

LD/WD actually works so well for DRK at least from a lore perspective. It makes sense that they don't necessarily go invulnerable, but rather can still come at you even after death, and you cannot kill what is already dead. It would be so flippin cool if WD's animation was still the DRK dropping, but Living Shadow comes out, and you have full control over it for a full 10 seconds, all the while the mob(s) relentlessly keep up their attack, hitting for 0 damage against the shadow.

WD status should honestly be lifted by casting Raise.

For me it's little to do with lore/thematics with these abilities and more that, in an encounter, they don't often add much to it and since they need to be designed and balanced around, they usually become uninteresting mechanically. Or reduce a mechanic that might, otherwise, be interesting into something incredibly trivial.

Be it negating the mechanical juggling of a tankbuster (ie: Titan Savage), or negating a reason to move for a mechanic and just eat it to the face anyway, or negating a sequence of mechanics (such as when people were adamant, for a while, about PLD Hallowed-ing the ranged baits in O11S) among others.

I just find them uninteractive, and not very interesting to employ in general, but they're often key CD's utilized in a lot of pieces of content and having some be markedly worse than others puts some tanks in spots where it just feels... detrimental.

That said, if DRK could heal itself like a WAR then LD itself might be more palpable. But Abyssal drain, outside of a dungeon mass pull, isn't going to really help much with the situation.