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

[Marxam]

Would be nice if you had a "doom counter" on your head when living dead gets its effect. Obviously they can make it more ornate and reuse some of the doom counters already in-game, the Arihman fight in WoD comes to mind. My work around atm is having a dedicated macro for when I see Living dead takes on its zombie effect, however this has proven lees that perfect and I opted out to just not use it anymore. Would be a nice QoL.

[Eidolon]

@Eidolon : It works like this.

Right but I don't think you have to be healed to 100%, right?

I think it's like, if you enter into Living Dead uptime, and have 18,000 max HP, you need to be healed for 18,000 HP. So say the fire Cure II hits for 4k, then they only need to heal 14k more. If the mob hits you for 2k, you don't have to heal 16k, but instead still just the base 14k.

Basically it seems like any time I use it I don't need a bene, I just need consistent inbound heals.

[FoxyAreku]

I don't believe in catering to incompetence, there's no excuse for a healer to not know what walking dead does at this point or how to remove it unless they are a fresh level 60 or something. (Though this would be useful in that case, I suppose, but it should be common sense to heal a tank until he is topped off anyway when he gets that low.)

It should also be really obvious when they get put in the dying state since it makes that massive, ugly, gray debuff on the tank.

[_slowpoke_]

As a WHM who loves healing DRKs, please do not change how LD works. It's hands down the best invulnerability CD in the game, and in the hands of a capable group translates to almost 20s of completely not caring about the tank (i.e, more time spent in Cleric). There's a reason its CD lines up with Benediction.

Yes, it's sort of meh outside of endgame raiding - so are a lot of other skills, really.

Right but I don't think you have to be healed to 100%, right?

Correct. You only need to be healed for an amount equal to your maximum HP (minus 1), as you explained. No need to completely top off a DRK with Walking Dead.

[SokiYagami]

As a WHM who loves healing DRKs, please do not change how LD works. It's hands down the best invulnerability CD in the game, and in the hands of a capable group translates to almost 20s of completely not caring about the tank (i.e, more time spent in Cleric). There's a reason its CD lines up with Benediction.

Yes, it's sort of meh outside of endgame raiding - so are a lot of other skills, really.

Why limit the benefits to static only? Yes, theoretically Living Dead can turn you into an immortal zombie up to a maximum of 20 (or rather, 19) secs, but from experience, that is rarely the case. Now let's take a look to see the difference between WAR and DRK (putting PLD aside since Hallowed Ground is on another level entirely). Also, all discussion are based upon PvE environments (static-raids / pug-raids / dungeons) only, for simplicity sake.

WAR's Holmgang is a 180 sec cd, bind and root self and target, HP cannot fall below 1 for 6 sec.

DRK's Living Dead is a 300 sec cd, dual-stage ability. For the first 10 sec (Living Dead), if HP fall to 0, the second stage (Walking Dead) will kick in. During WD, for 10 secs, HP cannot fall below 1. However, if max HP amount of heals is received, WD will expire and DRK will be vulnerable to death again. Else if max HP amount of heals is not received, DRK will die automatically.

Theoretically, Living Dead can be maximize as a ~19 sec immortally cd, however, that's pretty much limited to static-raids only (and probably with voip as well). Putting aside a couple of things like: common cd (convalescence / bloodbath, etc), the rooting effect of holmgang (since it's can be a good/bad effect depending on usage and it doesn't exactly prevent death for most situation), as of 3.0, there is one very important difference (besides cd duration) between holmgang and living dead; the ability to self-aid (in case healers are sleeping on the job or screw up).

I'm sure the rest of you have already noticed, but WAR have a vast self-aid tool now. Assuming all cds are up, from holmgang, a WAR can Berserk > Equilibrium (defiance stance) > Thrill of Battle > Second Wind > Inner Beast (possibly twice) and restore a healthy chunk of HP (for self-aid). Meanwhile the best a DRK can do once Walking Dead is activated is... Dark Art > Soul Eater for single target or Dark Art > Abyssal Drain + Sole Survivor for multiple targets. Granted the second option can restore equivalent or higher amounts of self-aid heals as compared to WAR, but for most cases you wouldn't even need to pop Living Dead under said situation (like big dungeon pulls) if you know what you are doing (even if the healers are sleeping on the job).

Don't get me wrong though, I'm not trying to call for a nerf on WAR, but what I'm trying to say is that for the most part, the 300 sec duration doesn't justify the efficiency of Living Dead, so on top of the animation update, I propose to make one of the following changes to Living Dead:

A. Cut down the duration, something between 180 and 300 secs, probably 220 ~ 240 sec for a middle ground.
B. During the duration of Walking Dead, apply a super HP leech effect of some sort (Bloodbath+ anyone?). Call it "Bloodlust" or something if it's to be a separate buff just for lols.
C. During the duration of Walking Dead, apply a damage increase buff with no downside, like Raging Strikes. Call it "Rage of the Dead" or something if it's to be a separate buff just for lols.

Personally, I think option A will be the best, since I don't think Living Dead really need a buff, just small tweaks which shouldn't be abused (like option C), though it will be interesting if they actually come true. Trying to kill yourself for a damage buff? Kind of fit the DRK image if you ask me. :3

TL;DR: putting aside animation update, Living Dead isn't worthy as a 300 sec duration cd, so the duration should be lower or some small buff should be throw in as a freebie.

Update: I actually miss out something very important, that is Holmgang requires a target within range to activate, whereby Living Dead can be pop at will just like Hallowed Ground. However, taking into account that Walking Dead can expire before the timer hits 10 sec, I'd say the targeting factor alone doesn't justify the 120 sec duration difference.

[Nalien]

Only change I've ever wanted for Living Dead (well, Walking Dead) was for Dark Arts cost to be reduced to 0 (alternatively just have Walking Dead double up as a persistent Dark Arts effect) and Souleater/Abyssal Drains HP recovery to be doubled. Although that does nothing to address my issue with the skill (Walking Dead just got applied? Get healed instantly every time, wasting its duration), though I would be perfectly happy with Living/Walking Dead doing for HP what Darkside does for MP if the means to fully heal myself were also provided. Honestly kind of peeved at Dark Knights self healing capabilities in general... Warrior is an absolute beast in that regard, and I'm honestly puzzled as to why... Self healing is not something I've ever considered to be a Warrior thing, Paladin has White Magic and Dark Knight has always been about Drain... Oh how I'd love to see Blood Weapon/Price get a Dark Arts effect to switch them to HP recovery instead of MP...

EDIT:

OK, thinking on it a bit more, and realizing I don't even like the concept of all three having an invincibility button... Change Living Dead to double the effect of HP recovery from Souleater and Abyssal Drain, as well as acting as 10 seconds of Dark Arts (so for 10 seconds you could spam Abyssal Drain with its Dark Arts effect, for example). Living Dead is then more of a balls to the wall stance, than an invincibility button. You'd have 10 seconds of OP Drain to try and turn the situation around. Fail? Walking Dead kicks in, as it currently does. The pay off? If Walking Dead kicks in, your MP pool takes a significant hit. Either out right dropping to 0 when Walking Dead kicks in, or applying a Weakness style debuff that reduces your total MP for a duration longer than Walking Dead.

Walking Dead is then still something you can use for ~10 seconds of invincibility, but the aim of Living Dead would be to avoid that to begin with. Rather than it being a third form of not dying because your HP cannot drop to 0, it's more of a not dying because you clawed yourself back from the abyss, with the invincibility being more of a punishment.

IDK, might not work well with certain mechanics, might be unbalanced as heck, but thematically I think it is more fitting for Dark Knight. A last resort to try and survive through your own means, rather than zombie status for healers to remove...

[l---------------l]

Seems you got trauma with healers...

I have been using my DRK in raids and it's awesome, because you are in voice chat with your WHM and you can tell him exactly how many minutes remaining for benediction (Now it works). And benediction + living dead have same CD.... It's in my opinion bestmitigation ever.

[SokiYagami]

Seems you got trauma with healers...

I have been using my DRK in raids and it's awesome, because you are in voice chat with your WHM and you can tell him exactly how many minutes remaining for benediction (Now it works). And benediction + living dead have same CD.... It's in my opinion bestmitigation ever.

Yup, exactly what I mentioned.

Theoretically, Living Dead can be maximize as a ~19 sec immortally cd, however, that's pretty much limited to static-raids only (and probably with voip as well).

And also;

Why limit the benefits to static only?

[Cynric]

snip

Living Dead does not make you immortal for anywhere near 20 seconds. It allows healers to DPS for that long with proper planning but you are not immortal. You still take damage and have to die to trigger walking dead. If you die on the 10th second of Living Dead then you will not reap any benefits of the cooldown and will just die.

Living Dead = 18 maximum seconds of healer DPS and 10 seconds of invulnerability.

You have to die under one effect to trigger the other, if you have to die you can't be considered immortal.

As for fixes. I think the life leech idea is one of the better ones. Because then at least you can contribute a significant amount of healing or bring yourself back up to full. Though I feel like if it were that strong the CD should be lengthened because it would be pretty close to hallowed in terms of power.

Right now the CD isn't justified but after a buff like that the CD would be too short.

and yeah I realize you don't have to top off DRK, just heal for the maximum health.

Though I can't think of a more wasteful way to use benediction than on Walking Dead. I feel like Living Dead is a skill that pressures healers into using benediction when the point of an Invincibility skill would be to save your healer from having to waste their strongest skill simply because you popped a CD.

[SokiYagami]

Guess I word it wrongly, but kinda agree with everything else you said. As for the life leech idea, I was thinking more of a rough 30~40% max HP (but we will still die if we don't receive max HP heals, so...). Anything more wouldn't be consider a self-aid, in which case we should just get an alternative version of Hallowed Ground instead. And of course, the life leech/damage increase buff will fall off together with Walking Dead, at least that was my idea of a buff if they keep it at 300 sec.

Alternatively, we can get an option D where we have a HP recovery increase buff during Walking Dead, which is also stackable with Convalescence.