[Suggestion: Dark Knight] How to make Living Dead more effective...easily!

[Canadane]

If a healer doesnt know what LD is I dont think an animation is going to help, chances are they wont even see it mid fight and they still wouldnt know how to deal with it even if they did.

This is what I think too. The healer should be paying attention to debuffs and HP, not your flashy animations.

[cgbspender]

Make "walking dead" have a obvious animation. [...]
TL: DR: For "walking dead" lets get some big obvious animation that shows the dark knight is as good as dead without heals.

Sorry, but I, as a main healer, find this pretty nonsense.
I was never explained "holmgang", HG or "Living Dead". But I am always focused, and I realized very quickly what those skills do. I even made some research afterwards to know better (the duration, whether there are added effects or not, etc)
When I first saw Living Dead used, I found it extremely obvious to know what I had to do.

Those who care about their jobs will always do their own research. Those who already don't care will not care more with just an animation.

When I occasionnally run a dungeon as a DPS, I sometimes encounter a situation where the DRK is activating is skill and macro it in chat, like "Big heals or I'm dead!". Do you think the healer would care and try to do something, even though he has all needed infomation to react ? Nope.

It's exactly the same thing as the "pacification" effect for warriors. A good healer will not need to be macro'ed it in chat and will still dispell it. A healer who doesn't care will fail to dispell it, macro or not.

[Cynric]

I'll give you a couple of possible macros to use to help make your healers aware of your situation.

/ac "Living Dead"
/p (Living Dead) (Just used it) HP:<HP> <se.7>

Spam it if you're getting low on duration and still haven't been healed enough.
/ac "Living Dead"
/p (Living Dead)(Just used it) <se.7> Take a break healer!
/wait 5
/p HP:<HP> remaining! Heal me to full! <se.7>

or something along those lines. First macro is more simple and the second one is more informative and more likely to help you get at least some invulnerability.

In order to get any real use out of walking dead healers have to actually not be trigger happy or panic healing. It's much better for them to DPS or heal someone else during the majority of walking dead.

Don't forget that if you are going to use Living Dead and try to wait out a good portion of its duration that you should try to throw up convalescence to help bring you back up.

[LineageRazor]

Kill two birds with one stone. Remove Darkside's animation completely, and add it to Walking Dead instead. That will make two groups of people happy!

Honestly, no one needs to know that you have Darkside on except for you. On the other hand it's very important for others to know that you have Walking Dead on!

No ability should require a macro to instruct players how your ability works. However, it is also a mistake to assume that healers who "don't do the research" are useless to you; they're fine for casual content, and it'd still be nice to avoid the occasional Walking Dead death in Sastasha (Hard) or whatever. By giving Walking Dead a visual indicator, it's a much better tool for instructing inexperienced healers. Once they see someone get a wierd aura and then die for no apparent reason, they're likely to ask what happened - and not make that mistake again.

[Cynric]

snip

Unless of course they have effects off and a lot of people (myself included) have other player effects on off or simple because they get in the way.

It needs a macro because the side effect is death. I'd rather know I did everything I could to prevent my death over dying when I could have lived.

[Atoli]

And honestly the animation is already really big , fire comes down from the sky and envelops you.

Lol, really? I didn't even know it HAD an animation. Not even when I play DRK myself, much less as the healer
PLD and WAR are both pretty obvious, but I never saw any animation for DRK even once. Only the buff/debuff icon, that's it.

I agree that it wouldn't help all that much because the problem with LD is exactly as described above with either never hitting Walking Dead because the healer cure spams you beforehand, or dying because I never got enough heals during Walking Dead.
And I have to admit, as a healer I find LD really hard to work with. I had it happen more than once that the DRK didn't actually drop to 1 HP before LD ended, and then dying immidiately after, because the buff ended right when the last monster GCD hit, kicking that 20-50 HP DRK into oblivion..

[Eidolon]

Man DRK's got an awesome CD.

Warrior: 6 seconds can't fall below 1 hp. Shortest CD.
Dark Knight: 10 second buff that activates ANOTHER 10 second buff upon hitting 0 HP. So you get the same kinda invuln a WAR gets for 4 extra seconds. The trade off is you need to be healed during it.
Paladin: 10 seconds no damage. Longest CD.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong please but DRK's living dead wears off after 10 seconds (death) or once they've been healed for 100% of their HP (but they don't have to be healed TO full)

[Cynric]

Lol, really? I didn't even know it HAD an animation. Not even when I play DRK myself, much less as the healer
PLD and WAR are both pretty obvious, but I never saw any animation for DRK even once. Only the buff/debuff icon, that's it.

I agree that it wouldn't help all that much because the problem with LD is exactly as described above with either never hitting Walking Dead because the healer cure spams you beforehand, or dying because I never got enough heals during Walking Dead.
And I have to admit, as a healer I find LD really hard to work with. I had it happen more than once that the DRK didn't actually drop to 1 HP before LD ended, and then dying immidiately after, because the buff ended right when the last monster GCD hit, kicking that 20-50 HP DRK into oblivion..

Yeah you stick your sword into the ground, create a magic circle then fire comes down from the sky and sets your entire body on fire. It's a pretty big animation

@Eidolon : It works like this. Living Dead gives you 10 seconds to die. If you don't die nothing happens. If you do die you get Walking Dead which is somewhat similar to holmgang in the fact that your HP can't go past 1 but you can still take damage after being healed. If you try to get the entire 10 seconds of invulnerability (meaning you wait 10 seconds to be healed) you'll die. You can't actually get that entire 10 seconds. Also if you are healed to full then you won't die but you also lose the ability to keep your HP at 1.

Basically imagine if on Warrior you used Holmgang then the healer benedictions you and holmgang ends immediately. Or if you were a Paladin and used Hallowed ground and if someone uses benediction on you , you lose hallowed grounds effect.

[Cherie]

Sorry, but I, as a main healer, find this pretty nonsense.
I was never explained "holmgang", HG or "Living Dead". But I am always focused, and I realized very quickly what those skills do. I even made some research afterwards to know better (the duration, whether there are added effects or not, etc)
When I first saw Living Dead used, I found it extremely obvious to know what I had to do.

Those who care about their jobs will always do their own research. Those who already don't care will not care more with just an animation.

When I occasionnally run a dungeon as a DPS, I sometimes encounter a situation where the DRK is activating is skill and macro it in chat, like "Big heals or I'm dead!". Do you think the healer would care and try to do something, even though he has all needed infomation to react ? Nope.

It's exactly the same thing as the "pacification" effect for warriors. A good healer will not need to be macro'ed it in chat and will still dispell it. A healer who doesn't care will fail to dispell it, macro or not.

I don't disagree with you at all. But what my topic was healers that are strangers to you. Surely there are plenty of healers on their game and can handle this no prob. I have a great healer friend that has never failed to clear the debuff off me...well ever. What I was speaking of is total strangers. You know...duty roulette. The horror... the pain... I was just meaning to suggest a slight animation difference for the player not as clearly skilled as you are... you know, the average joe that maybe heals once a week... the standard person we find in duty finder.

Ideally a healer gets on their game and learns the ropes and becomes bomb at their job. This is not the average person however. I personally think you are referring to someone that by population of healers on server, would be considered an exceptional player.

[EnoraTaqa]

Since Potions are underrated in this game, perhaps making a Full-100% recovery Potions (ouch the mats required to craft o.O ) would be nice to have.

Then as healers we won't have to save our Benediction or Lustrate just-in-case DRK pops their special skill..

I would still vouch for a change in animation, sometimes your eyes are not on the party bar and you are dodging and can't cure to 100%..

perhaps when Time Mage will come, he'll freeze the time in a dome and those inside for a few seconds, giving time for healers to heal back DRK.. hehehe

But yeah, that potion.. wonder how much the stupid MB would sell it..