[DRK]; Living Dead; Suggestion/Discussion

[Sousoulsu]

Hey there XIV forums,

I've been playing as DRK, and with many DRKs, and I feel that the implementation of their ultimate defensive cooldown, Living Dead, is not as dynamic and interesting as it could be.

The Suggestion
Add an additional condition of cleansing Walking Dead:
-If you hit an enemy with a combo'd Souleater while Walking Dead is active and Dark Arts is not active, Walking Dead is removed.
-In addition, your MP is reduced to 10% of your maximum; and any MP drained is used to empower the healing component of Souleater, up to a maximum of 600%.

I think having an alternate condition to end Walking Dead which is not as big of a tax on healer resources is a good idea for the class.

I also think this alternative condition also plays into the DRK fantasy of ensuring your own survival by taking matters into your own hands and making big sacrifices.

Numbers tuning is required. I am not a meowthematician.

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Reasoning

The pressure on healers is too great for Walking Dead; especially with the change to Vitality. Healing up a properly-geared DRKs for 100% of their health in 10s is not hard, but it is taxing on MP; or requires the use of another cooldown (Benediction, Tetragramaton, Essential Dignity).

Neither of the other cooldowns require such an investment of MP from the healer. Holmgang requires a single Cure 2 after the hit lands. DRK requires 3 Cure 2's minimum.
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Feedback / Discussion

I'm interested in what the XIV Forum community thinks about this idea. Any DRKs raiding Savage think this would be a good addition to the class? Any DRKs who would like this to save themselves from healers in random groups who don't know to heal you up?
Any more suggestions on how to alter Living Dead?
Do you like Living Dead as it is?

Have a nice day,
-some c@

[Tanathya]

I don't think Living Dead is as bad as people think it is, however, it needs an extra coordination component that many pickup groups lack. In my opinion, it could use some sort of tweak to make it more intuitive, but I wouldn't know what exactly, since I don't really have anything against it beyond using it with randoms.

[SpookyGhost]

I think the general problem with LD is that if you're not at 1 during it for a long duration, healers will generally not be aware of that tiny icon. The only way to really bypass it is using a macro or, if using voice chat, being vocal about when you're going to use it/if you've used it. With Hallowed, you take literally no damage so healers can be off in Siberia and it wouldn't matter. With Holmgang as long as you're not at 1 by the end of it then it s done it's job. I think Walking Dead's healing requirement is a bit... severe - maybe just lowering that to half would make it easier.

[Merkava]

I think the general problem with LD is that if you're not at 1 during it for a long duration, healers will generally not be aware of that tiny icon. The only way to really bypass it is using a macro or, if using voice chat, being vocal about when you're going to use it/if you've used it. With Hallowed, you take literally no damage so healers can be off in Siberia and it wouldn't matter. With Holmgang as long as you're not at 1 by the end of it then it s done it's job. I think Walking Dead's healing requirement is a bit... severe - maybe just lowering that to half would make it easier.

Macro does indeed solve a lot of issues with LD, I'm the sort of person that thinks that pretty much every tank should tie up a macro to their ultimate cooldown in order for healers to be made aware of their usage (even if you can't action queue a macro you can just always spam the button, it's not THAT bad, just attack a /wait line to the macro in order to avoid chat spam). Granted tho, I think a good idea would be to simply add a convalescence like effect to Living Dead, the Dark Knight receiving 30% more heals during its duration... or something.

[Sousoulsu]

An issue I didn't really want to express in the OP (as I felt it was already to lengthy) is:

There is no good indicator for how far along of healing the DRK for a cummulative 100% of their max HP you are. The game's UI is woefully lacking in that critical detail, which makes it all the more difficult to judge.

You could count the healing numbers you're dealing, but that sort of mathyness shouldn't be expected of Healers when it isn't expected of them for anything else.

[Zer0Virus]

I certainly agree with the idea that living dead could use a little more love. First, I think it would be nice to have a visual effect of some sort when walking dead kicks in. Second, perhaps have the debuff itself state how much HP still needs to be healed to take it off.

I was also thinking, in some future point, of one possible new ability for Dark Knights come the next expansion that could also help out. Perhaps an ability to "eat" one debuff which can possibly even restore MP and/or HP, but one great point of this would be its ability to also get rid of the walking dead debuff.

[Tanathya]

It could have a countdown above the character's head once Walking Dead kicked in, similar to how Doom worked on past FF's.

[MagiusNecros]

It could have a countdown above the character's head once Walking Dead kicked in, similar to how Doom worked on past FF's.

Our minds must think alike. I also would like our stats to be buffed by at least 50% for the duration for defenses as well as attack power to bolster our heals. In other games when DRK's casted Doom on themselves they did it with the promise of power with death as the cost.

I might just have to Macro one of the obnoxious shapes or Icons once Living Dead is active.

[Tanathya]

Our minds must think alike. I also would like our stats to be buffed by at least 50% for the duration for defenses as well as attack power to bolster our heals. In other games when DRK's casted Doom on themselves they did it with the promise of power with death as the cost.

I might just have to Macro one of the obnoxious shapes or Icons once Living Dead is active.

I wish they had the decency of looking at other games when they introduced DRK here. Anyway, Walking Dead would do with any visual cue, be it a countdown, turning the character's color black and white, or whatever.

[Sousoulsu]

I certainly agree with the idea that living dead could use a little more love. First, I think it would be nice to have a visual effect of some sort when walking dead kicks in. Second, perhaps have the debuff itself state how much HP still needs to be healed to take it off.


I was also thinking, in some future point, of one possible new ability for Dark Knights come the next expansion that could also help out. Perhaps an ability to "eat" one debuff which can possibly even restore MP and/or HP, but one great point of this would be its ability to also get rid of the walking dead debuff.

I don't think mousing over the debuff is an efficient way of showing how much more needs to be healed; but changing the debuff color may help. Unfortunately, XIV updates its buff/debuff icons for others too slowly for this to be much use, but it's a thought.

I like the debuff-eating type of idea, but I think an ability like that seems like it would almost exclusively be used for WD, similar to how Waren's Paen is only really used to get rid of WAR's pacification; or how Raw Intuition and Awareness are never not used in combination.

Still a good general idea

It could have a countdown above the character's head once Walking Dead kicked in, similar to how Doom worked on past FF's.

I was very disappointed when I first triggered Walking Dead that this did not happen.