DRK skill: Living Dead

[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.

[Cheremia]

If WD would give enhanced healing effect and enhanced defense...

Just... something that make it easier. Just a little bit

[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.

[Fynlar]

To play devil's advocate here, but DRKs invuln isnt quite like the others.

It doesn't change the fact that it is still DRK's invuln skill, though. To which I ask again: why should theirs be automatic and the others not?

I want to clarify that I'm not saying the ability doesn't have its problems; people have already gone over them well enough in this thread so I won't repeat them. It's just this approach of "make LD automatic" isn't going to do anything in terms of solving those problems.

Technically speaking, its the longest invuln in the game at 20 seconds max,

No, it's not. People love to keep saying this, but the only time the ability is doing ANYTHING for you is when (if) Walking Dead triggers, which lasts for 10 seconds, not 20, and even then you're only getting that 10 if you get the last bit of healing needed to remove WD at the very last moment (which can pretty much only be consistently done with Benediction from an attentive WHM). Prior to the moment WD is triggered, Living Dead is doing absolutely nothing and you are still taking damage as you normally would, damage that would still need to be healed eventually even if WD did trigger.

Assuming you are using Living Dead in anticipation of an expected fatal hit, there is effectively no difference between using it immediately prior to that hit, or using it 10 seconds prior to that hit. You aren't getting 20 seconds of invulnerability by doing the latter, because until that hit occurs, your situation hasn't changed at all.

It's a similar sort of deal with Holmgang; it's "technically speaking" 8s duration, but again until (if) you take a fatal hit, the ability isn't actually doing anything for you, so the effective duration is generally less than 8s -- unless you can consistently pop it immediately before an expected fatal hit every time.

[Aurelius2625]

First, if you don't know about tanks... don't comment. For real dawg this is how we get some stupid "fixes" that people want.

Second: DRK's self sustain is peanuts compared to WAR. Abyssal is ABYSMAL for raids. You never use Living Dead for dungeons, my dudes... unless you have WHM with Bene which indicates a huge problem out of the gate already with having to throw the biggest heal at the invuln for it to be "okay"....

DRK has Soul Eater, 3gcds for like 12k hp heal at a critical at Edensverse best in slot... not great. You get ONE soul eater for the invuln time you have for Walking Dead, when tanks have 160k hp. Abyssal is like...10k as well. So impossible to heal it.

Warrior on the other hand, can easily HEAL THEMSELVES TO NEAR FULL after taking the hit with holmgang, making them never in danger of dying from their invuln. Their invuln sounds like total aids on paper, but in practice, it's the strongest one because of their sustain kit of Equilibrium, which if it crits at edensverse bis is like 70k, Thrill, which increases their hp and heals it, gives them 10 percent heal up buff for 10s which ALSO EFFECTS EQUILIBRIUM BTW!! And let's not even get started with how nutty Nascent is... you can heal over 80k hp one ONE use of it... .two infuriate stacks at 35k to 40k each and upheaval, on a 30s cd, that depending on where it's used either heals 15k or 7k ish whether in IR, or you just crit it. That's at least 84k healing on top of potentially 35 to 70k from equilibrium, and can be boosted with thrill of battle. You are NEVER DYING with holmgang.

Superbolide can be paired with Aurora, 1200 potency of healing and you are INVULN so you don't take chip damage, it just heals you up during that time, for a full clemency's worth of hp, as they are both 1200 potency as well as equilibrium.

You can also proc excog off of superbolide as you meet the requirements for it, and an astro can chuck a 1100 potency Essential Dignity at you, as you are at 1hp and they gain max potency for it. Healers have to use almost NO resources for other tank invulns when done properly. Not for WAR as it heals itself, not for GNB, as it has aurora, probably tank swapped so it's not getting auto'd and is healing with aurora, and not with PLD as it doesn't take any damage.

DARK KNIGHT IS THE ONLY ONE WHERE YOU NEVER WANT TO USE THIS SHIT. IT IS GARBAGE. As Xenosys Vex put it: "What a selfish skill... it's a black hole for healer resources..."

[Hycinthus]

Honest question as a new DRK.

Should I make a macro to notify party chat that I’m using LD and to cure me?

Any rule of when I should or should not use LD?

[Aurelius2625]

Usually people will know when you are going to use it in Savage raids so that's not a problem. It's anything below that that is the issue.

[ForteNightshade]

Now rather than have it proc automatically. What would be better actually would be to have it operate more like Excog, kinda. If you take fatal damage, the LD state procs and you dont die just like normal. You need to be healed for your HP. However if the effect drops off and you havent taken fatal damage, the skill heals you for a percentage of your max hp (Let's say 50%). Now if it doestn pop you get a huge restore so youre still safe for using it, but if it does pop, well better hope your healer is on top of it. It also gives it practicality in solo content as well. HP running low and your starting to worry? Pop LD, mitigate to hell and have it fall off for the restore. This gives you some level of skill in using it too.

Other things that could be done to make it more functional would be to change how the LD effect operates. Have it reduce self healing to 0 - so you cant self heal no matter what. However, if you leave combat before the effect ends, it doesnt kill you. It just falls off with you at 1 hp. Again, to give you some level of survivability, if you manage to kill your enemy in the time frame LD goes off, you dont die at the end of it cause you cant get your HP up.

I actually rather like this idea. Perhaps make the amount healed a percentage of the damage you deal while under Walking Dead in the same vain Warrior can heal itself through Nascent Flash.

Usually people will know when you are going to use it in Savage raids so that's not a problem. It's anything below that that is the issue.

If only.

PF teaches you a scary lesson with LD because the sheer amount of healers who just don't pay attention to it is... concerning. If nothing else, they need to make it far more noticeable when WD activates. Like your name flashes obnoxiously or something.