A (maybe) different outlook on the current DRK situation

[DoppelShifter]

The Suggestions:
If you managed to read until this point, wow, thank you so much!

The suggestions can't be *too* specific without access to lots of playtesting, parsing and access to the the design team's balancing guidelines. I'm a game designer, so I know most player suggestions can't be taken at face value because we lack the proper information. But I can make some "educated suggestions":

1. More self-healing:
   By far the most urgent issue, and there are SO MANY different ways to attack this.
   For example, make Blood Weapon or Delirium also grant lifesteal.
   Or drastically reduce Abyssal Drain's cooldown and un-tie it from Carve & Spit.
   Or give Shadowbringer some life-steal.
   Or make it so the Dark Arts bonus attack have lifesteal.
   Or give some HP regen to Oblation.
   Or buff Souleater's lifesteal.
   
   ...Or, my favorite: a combination of some of the suggestions above. Whatever fixes the issue and matches DRK's self-healing with the other tanks.
   .
2. Make Blood Weapon stack-based as well
   This one is easy: instead of a 10s duration buff, just make it 3 or 4 stacks instead, just like Delirium, so we don't have to worry about melds, or about changing class behavior every time a synced dungeon removes our Materia buffs.
   .
3. Rework Living Dead
   For this I don't have the same direct ideas on how to fix, because Living Dead as a basic concept is so counter-intuitive and so detached from its actual purpose.
   
   But I do have some suggestions, or at least some "directions that might bring fruitful ideas":
   - During the Walking Dead stage, ALL DRK damage (or at least all weaponskills) has lifesteal. This means the burden of topping-off HP is at least a shared burden betweek DRK and Healer, rathen than roll of the dice hoping that you're matched with a White Mage that has Benediction off cooldown.
   - Living Dead makes DRK harder to kill but *unhealable* (as if they were zombified). Increased HP/defenses, etc, but they have to rely on lifesteal to survive the super damage. This won't make them outright immortal like HG/Holmgang/Superbolide, but... let's be frank, neither did the original Living Dead.
   - Do not make it a binary "100% healed or dead" situation. Give DRK a gradual debuff instead, that either has to go off over time or has to be Esuna'd or overhealed. But don't outright make it "Oh, I was off by 1% so now my tank is dead".
   - Similarly to the suggestion above but in a different direction, stack the damage taken above the maximum HP and, after Living Dead ends, give the DRK a proportional heavy debuff (to damage, mobility, etc) that can only be removed by healing it off, like Doom.

This should fix the main issues with DRK and bring it on-par with the other tanks. It still won't have the massive burst of GNB, or the massive utility of PLD, or the raw self-sufficiency and self-healing power of WAR.

But it will keep DRK unique, while also viable.

Thank you for your time.