Living dead must change

[ItMe]

Why does Living Dead even need a drawback?

Holmgang's "downside" is that the duration is short so timing can be tricky.
Hallowed Ground's "downside" is that the cooldown is long so you get less uses.
Superbolide... idk. There's that little gap between being set to 1HP and becoming invulnerable? But that feels more like an oversight than an intended downside.

So, why does Living Dead need some kind of complicated drawback? There are plenty of ways to differentiate it from the other invulns without having to have some kind of risk attached.

[Agner]

Why does Living Dead even need a drawback?

Legitimately, the only reason I can think of is because it states in Encyclopedia Eorzea that using the move is pretty much mortally dangerous. This would make you think that they'd actually opt to make it fun instead of... y'know, not, or at least give us "dangerous" mechanics that don't outright kill us instead of this. But hey, we've already been over that whole subject with abilities like Souleater, but it still begs the question why it has to apply to LD instead lol

[Cabalabob]

Why does Living Dead even need a drawback?

Holmgang's "downside" is that the duration is short so timing can be tricky.
Hallowed Ground's "downside" is that the cooldown is long so you get less uses.
Superbolide... idk. There's that little gap between being set to 1HP and becoming invulnerable? But that feels more like an oversight than an intended downside.

So, why does Living Dead need some kind of complicated drawback? There are plenty of ways to differentiate it from the other invulns without having to have some kind of risk attached.

DRKs identity has been rather confused since its implementation, but if you boil it down to basics, it’s identity is risk for reward, sacrifice for power. In old incarnations dark arts was the prime example of this, making you decide where you want to spend your resources for increased power risking losing darkside, dark arts souleater was the most powerful weaponskill in the game barring fell cleave due to wrath/beast gauge requirement, dark arts power slash was the highest enmity skill and dark arts dark mind was a magic only shadow wall with a very short cooldown.

These days it’s TBN, risking your mp for the most powerful short cooldown shield in the game with the bonus that proper use refunds the mp cost through a free edge of shadow.

Living dead follows this *in theory*. It’s a longer duration holmgang with a 10 second opening window meaning you only start making use of walking dead when you hit 1hp, unlike holmgang which you’ll likely waste a few seconds of the shorter duration above 1hp for a barely longer recast. The risk being the death if not fully healed. In an organised group making planned use of cooldowns living dead is potentially the longest duration invuln of all of them with the second shortest recast.

But like I said, this is only in theory. In practice, the design is flawed and outside of organised groups it is a huge resource dump with potentially the SHORTEST duration of all invulns if cured early not to mention the risk of death being a far too steep penalty on a tank especially when it’s outside of the users control.

[Vyrerus]

Why does Living Dead even need a drawback?

Holmgang's "downside" is that the duration is short so timing can be tricky.
Hallowed Ground's "downside" is that the cooldown is long so you get less uses.
Superbolide... idk. There's that little gap between being set to 1HP and becoming invulnerable? But that feels more like an oversight than an intended downside.

So, why does Living Dead need some kind of complicated drawback? There are plenty of ways to differentiate it from the other invulns without having to have some kind of risk attached.

Holmgang's duration is 8 seconds now, so there is no duration drawback, really.

Superbolide's actual drawback since, afaik, they fixed that gap, is the fact that unless you're taking lethal damage, then you're potentially dealing your maximum HP in damage to yourself, making it ultimately useless as an invuln in any situation where standard mitigation would have resulted in you living. It's invulnerability at the cost of 99.9% of your HP. Pretty fair, honestly, especially as an, "Oh shiz!" button, but fairly easy to misuse. *fondly remembers healing GNBs during comets on Ruby Weapon Ex* Ahh, nothing like a tank dealing 150k damage to themselves to stop two tics of 54k damage. Silly GNBs.

Living Dead's drawback is entirely for flavor, and quite honestly, it's a pretty bad flavor. It's way too much of a penalty, as it always has been. The devs really really believe in the, "Oh it's just advanced play for good players." line. Oof.

[Roeshel]

There is no job identity among tanks, its just 4 shades of WAR.
I think tanks would be far better off if only PLD had the immortality bubble and the rest of the tanks had something else entirely instead.

Holmgang for example could just do the snare and if the warrior shackles his target for the full duration, he can perform a finisher attack.

as for Living Dead, i think it would be better for DRK if it would allow the DRK to stand up on his own once AFTER he died for a set amount of time. During the duration, the DRK's HP stays at 0 and he can use skills normally, but drops dead again after the timer ends.

As for Super Bolide, i honestly don't know, maybe something that would allow the GNB to get a % dmg boost depending on missing HP or improved effects for skills that require cardridge charges.

I like superbolide the way it is. It synergizes pretty well with any healer. I can keep dps-ing while having the regen passively heal them and add in one or two ogcd while spamming my AoE. I can't do that with living dead. Dark knight's invulnerability really is the weakest among all the tanks.

[Lyth]

Living Dead is universally a weaker form of Holmgang, even before the drawback. It's not risk for reward. It's just risk. Fights are scripted down to the second, and a simple google search should give you a timeline for any fight that you like. If you're struggling with timing cooldowns as a tank, you should probably take up botany as your main progression job instead.

...

It doesn't even make sense from a lore standpoint. Dark Knights are outcasts, feared by oppressor and oppressed alike. It's all about being self-sufficient. I understand how the bit about fighting past pain fits into the worldbuilding. I don't see the part where the lorebook states that we need to be babysat by a healer, though.

Furthermore, there's also this bit from the DRK quest chain:
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...

Where's the part where the damage that we've received gives rise to a dark and twisted aura? I feel like we're cherry picking parts of the lore that excuse the status quo.

[Kalaam]

Furthermore, there's also this bit from the DRK quest chain:
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...

Where's the part where the damage that we've received gives rise to a dark and twisted aura? I feel like we're cherry picking parts of the lore that excuse the status quo.

Well, to me that sounds like Fray used Living Dead when his wounds became serious, died and his inner darkness kept him going for a bit until they managed to take him down for good.

[shao32]

I never understand the insane obsesion of Yoship for defend living dead as a important part of DRK gameplay experience (the only one with TBN as seems too) and lore while the rest of the kit that truly make DRK being the job it was being obliterated at the same time, i always consider living dead a poor skill that was against the lore of the job apart of his kit, a pariah that must survive mostly alone against holy knigths shouln't have to depent so much from others to survive when they use they invul, superbolide should have been living dead rework in my opinion, sacrifice you HP to get the ultimate defense fits DRK lore more than GNB and don't make it a pain to dealt with it for your healers.

[ItMe]

Legitimately, the only reason I can think of is because it states in Encyclopedia Eorzea that using the move is pretty much mortally dangerous. This would make you think that they'd actually opt to make it fun instead of... y'know, not, or at least give us "dangerous" mechanics that don't outright kill us instead of this. But hey, we've already been over that whole subject with abilities like Souleater, but it still begs the question why it has to apply to LD instead lol

Does it really say that?
Haha that's kinda cute. I wonder what other cute fluff in there I've missed.
And yeah, your comment makes me wonder if the devs find it fun... or more conceptually interesting.

DRKs identity has been rather confused since its implementation, but if you boil it down to basics, it’s identity is risk for reward, sacrifice for power.
[...]
But like I said, this is only in theory. In practice, the design is flawed and outside of organised groups it is a huge resource dump with potentially the SHORTEST duration of all invulns if cured early not to mention the risk of death being a far too steep penalty on a tank especially when it’s outside of the users control.

Hmm... I'm with you. I can see the high risk they're going for. But I wonder what kind of high reward we could attach to an invuln? Especially one that wouldn't upset your healers if you're hitting your invuln to drop into living dead as often as possible.

Holmgang's duration is 8 seconds now, so there is no duration drawback, really.

Hahaha when did that happen?
Dang, guess I really haven't played WAR in high end content in awhile...
I'm glad it got buffed. Good for them.

Superbolide's actual drawback since, afaik, they fixed that gap, is the fact that unless you're taking lethal damage, then you're potentially dealing your maximum HP in damage to yourself, making it ultimately useless as an invuln in any situation where standard mitigation would have resulted in you living. It's invulnerability at the cost of 99.9% of your HP. Pretty fair, honestly, especially as an, "Oh shiz!" button, but fairly easy to misuse. *fondly remembers healing GNBs during comets on Ruby Weapon Ex* Ahh, nothing like a tank dealing 150k damage to themselves to stop two tics of 54k damage. Silly GNBs

Huh... that's an interesting way of thinking about it and really shifts my perspective on it. Nice write up~

If you're struggling with timing cooldowns as a tank, you should probably take up botany as your main progression job instead.

Is... this directed at me?
I'm not struggling with anything actually. When I said WAR's invuln window can be a little tight (I didn't say difficult) I was mainly referring to when using it to eat multi-hit tank busters (also I didn't know it was buffed to 8 seconds haha).
I'm not sure why you felt like trying to come at me like this, but I hope you have a good day.

I never understand the insane obsesion of Yoship for defend living dead as a important part of DRK gameplay experience (the only one with TBN as seems too) and lore while the rest of the kit that truly make DRK being the job it was being obliterated at the same time,

I haven't caught him directly comment on it.
What has he all said?

[Beddict]

Hahaha when did that happen?
Dang, guess I really haven't played WAR in high end content in awhile...
I'm glad it got buffed. Good for them.

That got changed in Patch 5.1 and was the second major change to Holmgang in ShB. The first was in Patch 5.0 which changed the whole chaining the WAR to the target. It still exists if you cast Holmgang when a target is selected, but a simple <me> macro will cast Holmgang on the WAR resulting in no chain so the invuln doesn't get canceled early if the target dies or disappears or whatever. The one big downside to Holmgang is gone leaving it with the shortest recast, same duration as Superbolide, and it doesn't inflict Doom on the WAR. Honestly kinda disgusting when compared to Living Dead.