DRK skill: Living Dead

[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.

[WhyAmIHere]

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.

Honestly a really good quick lookback at what DRK once had and what it could use to make it less... not enjoyable. Hopefully someone in the dev team has this kind of retrospection if/when they look forward to job changes in 6.0 DRK needs a niche after having it carved and gutted and syphoned away and being left a husk molded like a knock-off copy of another tank.