Living Dead

[Kabooa]

Ill let you in on a secret. Pld using Shell(30%)+Sentinal(40%) gives the pld 172% effective HP. .

1.0 - (1.0 * .3) = 0.7
0.7 - (0.7 * .4) = 0.42.

At 0.5, this is a 100% increase in effective health (Taking 50% less damage, means your current health value is effectively doubled).

Paladin using SHell + Sentinal is approximately 238% effective HP.

TBN + Wall

1.0 - (1 x .3) = 0.7. This is approximately 144% effective HP.
TBN is 20% more health.

1.44 + (1.44 x .2) = approximately 173% effective HP.

"Healing" tax

Assuming two tanks with 60k hp each.

At 238% EHP, the paladin has an effective total of 142,800
At 144% EHP, the Dark Knight has an effective total of 86,400 + 17,280 (shield)

Throwing a tank Buster that won't kill either, but still require healing: 80,000 raw damage.

Paladin EHP / HP: 62,800 / 26,386
Dark Knight EHP / HP: 23,680 / 16,444

If Magic Buster

Add approximately 16% to the Dark Knight totals for DM and another 44% if DA DM.

Also, due to the way multiplicative reductions work, even if it's the same 'total' (30 + 40, 20 + 20 + 20 + 10, 50 + 20, etc), the less chunks it comes in, the better it is. Adding up to 70% mitigation effects is less powerful than a singular 70% mitigation effect. This is why the Sentinel number seems to absurd. 40% is better than 30% + 10%, and almost better than 30% + 20%, and why Shelltron, with its ability to scale, dumpsters TBN in single hit Scenarios.

[Mycow8me]

I don't understand why walking dead has to be so punishing for how long its cooldown is. It's not preventing damage like hallowed is and it technically may not last any longer either if you factor in the need for it to be cut short its full duration it actually has the potential to be shorter or slightly longer but we all know it will probably be shorter. The safety net living dead provides is moot even if its a planned usage other than letting healers know you dont need heals (yet), we use it right before we think we are going to die if its not planned. If DRK is to keep the chance of death then our invuln needs to be more rewarding or the first portion of living dead needs to be more useful than just a safety net. It needs to be more useful in a soloing situation that it is used as well. Hallowed and holm will prevent death in a soloing situation. Living dead will give you 10 more seconds to kill the mob before you die anyway (If I go down, I'm taking you with me? lol...)

One option is to make living dead compile damage received and unleash an AOE of it for a maximum of 20% the drks HP or something and to make walking dead reflect auto attack damage during its duration. Living dead still becomes useful in this scenario by doing damage even if walking doesn't proc.

Another option is to have living dead compile damage received before killing blow and heal the dark knight for that amount at the start of walking dead or at the end of living deads duration in the case of walking dead never procing. Walking dead's duration will have a form of drain spikes that heals the drk on attacks instead of receiving damage. It has the potential to lower healer burden and will make living dead useful in a scenario that walking dead never procs cause you still receive a heal at the end of it for all the damage you received.

Just throwing out ideas at this point.

[Fyce]

The number of people who think that a WAR doesn't need the healer to intervene for a Holmgang is damn to high.
The number of people who think that the 10s safety cushion before LD procs is worthless is also damn to high.

[Lyth]

The number of people who think that a WAR doesn't need the healer to intervene for a Holmgang is damn to high.

There isn't smoke without fire. If you'll recall, WAR does have a certain reputation for both no healer and solo content clears.

It's not really a question of healer intervention. You'll need healer support after Hallowed wears off as well. What matters is the healing threshold. Holmgang's healing threshold is fight-specific. If you need to be above 50k HP for the next attack, you need that much healing. If there's no further outgoing damage on you for the next 10 seconds, you don't need to be healed for that time. In some situations, the healing threshold can be met by the tank themselves. In others, they need focused healing.

Living Dead's threshold is always your total HP. This requirement can never, ever be reached by the tank themselves, and gets progressively higher with every gear level. There is no visual guidance for your healers on how much more healing you require to hit this threshold. The effective duration is entirely determined by your healers. The one healer ability that is most suited to maximise the effective duration, Benediction, is completely out of phase with the ability (180s recast vs. 300s recast). It feels bad for everyone involved.

I don't want a shorter recast. I don't want a more powerful effect. I want to be able to use it with a consistent duration of effect (i.e. a full 10 seconds, not a variable 2-9 seconds), and address any bare minimum instant kill requirements myself. Everything else is in the hands of the healer.

The number of people who think that the 10s safety cushion before LD procs is worthless is also damn to high.

It's not worthless. It has a very specific value. When timed correctly, it shortens the effective recast of Living Dead by 9 seconds, so that you have it up at 291 seconds instead of 300.

The reason why Chrono specifically referenced Delta Attack is because the first and second Deltas are spaced somewhere around 297 seconds apart. So if you don't activate Living Dead early on the first Delta, you won't have it back up in time for the second one. This is no different from mistiming Holmgang.

It's also a bit of a niche case for when the effective recast makes a performance difference. For example, even if you precisely activate LD early enough before the first UE on O8S, you're still going to end up about 5 seconds short of being able to use it on the fourth UE. It requires a very particular set of circumstances.

Either way, it doesn't justify the two minute shorter recast on Holmgang, and it certainly doesn't justify the instant death penalty game.

[Chrono_Rising]

I realize you did not quote me directly, but since I have made similar claims in the past I would like to express my opinion here.

The number of people who think that a WAR doesn't need the healer to intervene for a Holmgang is damn to high.

Ok, lets be clear, a tank at 1 HP will need to be healed, which means healer intervention since no tank does self healing in a great way, my main point is the degree of healer intervention varies greatly depending on your strategy.

We have two choices for dealing with a tank at 1 HP that doesn’t involve killing them: continue to tank, swap or stop taking damage with tools like cover.

Option 1: continue actively tanking. Healing you up to survival range for auto's is probably a heal and an oGCD, if you continue tanking additional heals will be necessary, and depending on the mechanics may need to happen quickly. This is pretty normal healing requirement for a low HP tank who is actively tanking and likely mirrors Living Dead, healers will likely bring you close to 100% before not worrying about you.

Option 2, tank swap after invulning or stop taking damage through other means (like cover). If you tank swap you can probably lower your healing requirement to something like an oGCD and regen, depending on mechanics following after, the healing requirement may be reducible to a regen and fairy heals (12 to 15 seconds should be about half your HP without other healing).

This is what I mean when I say Holmgang doesn’t have a large healing requirement, there are a variety of ways to handle the requirement, half of them being fairly low stress (tank swap or get covered) and let regens and aoe healing do most of the work.

Contrast this with Living Dead. You must restore my total HP in 10 seconds or I will die. Tank swap, cover, other clever strategies do not get us around the healing requirement, heal a total of 66.5K HP or the tank dies. Taking a look at my healers average large GCD heal and oGCD heal, they are restoring around 20k HP on the high side without critting, which means two healers must coordinate 3 to 4 heals to satisfy the requirement and get the most of our my invuln, independent of what else is going on. Of course critting adds an additional variable which is my invuln can wear off early based on crit RNG, which adds yet another layer to this; but multihit tank busters are on the rare side meaning this is usually not something which is a frequent worry.

The number of people who think that the 10s safety cushion before LD procs is worthless is also damn to high.

In terms of raids, I would say all invulns should be used as part of a strategy which healers know in advance. In that context, the 10 second cushion is important for dealing with timing, using the ability early mainly allows for you to have some freedom in timing. For example Neo ex death allowed you to invuln early to catch all three thunder tank busters if you used LD early enough.

Thats the benefit of the 10 second cushion, you can use your invuln up to 20(ish) seconds in advance to be able to invuln something else earlier than you would be able to with other tank invulns. In that respect, Living dead is the most flexible tank invuln in the game. However, and I might be wrong here, I think the last time this was useful was in Neo Ex Death.

As far as a safety net argument, this comes down to a good healer/bad healer argument. A good healer is likely to know the strategy and take advantage of the ability to not heal the tank before they invuln, a bad healer is likely to not take advantage of this ability.

If you Holmgang a tank buster at 66.5k HP or 1 HP or anywhere in between, it doesn’t matter, if you Hallowed a tank buster at 66.5k HP or at 1 HP, it does not matter. A good healer is going to capitalize on this regardless, so I see little value in the automatic proc. Yes, we can engineer a situation in which this has more value, but in general I don’t see this as an issue. Contrast this with a bad healer who will not take advantage of the safety net. Well in that case you have gained nothing, because the main advantage in this argument is for someone who does not capitalize on it. Tl;dr the safety net argument advantage doesn’t hold water, good healers already realize the safety net before any tank invuln exists in a strategic sense, bad healers don’t and don’t capitalize on it.

[Fyce]

Snip 1: healer's intervention

All of what you just said about swapping after a holmgang is completly dependant of the fight and assume that the WAR will take absolutly no damage in any way for an extended period of time. You also need good party coordination. These techniques are mostly moot in PF. Being able to pull it off and take advantage of it is actually the exception, not the rule.
Anyway, if you take the possibility of encounters where you don't need to heal your WAR after a Holmgang, I can do the same for cases where strong healing is required immediatly. In which case, Living Dead is, if not better, on par with Holmgang.

Also, it's extremely frequent when a WHM is in the team to use Benediction after a Holmgang/LD. If bene is used, it actually doesn't matter if the tank is a WAR or a DRK. In fact, it's easier to bene a DRK under LD than a WAR under Holmgang, as the timing window is way shorter for a WAR. More on that below.
And when it comes to AST, they might be forced to use more tools and GCD to heal a DRK (Essential Dignity + Synastry + Benefic II. Bonus points if Convalescence is used), but the effort required to heal both tanks doesn't varies that much in the end.

Still, my point remains relevant: healer intervention is usually required in both cases. And the difference in ressources needed to deal with a Holmgang or a Living Dead is actually not that big of a deal. At least, no way near as some people in this thread said.

Snip 2: 10 seconds cushion

The automatic proc guarantees the full duration of the 10 seconds "1hp" state no matter what happens. This is not something you have with Holmgang, which usually means that Holmgang will be effective for something like 5 or 4 seconds only. Or even less if the WAR has a tendency of pressing the button too early.
Living Dead is much more stable and the outcome will always be predictable, meaning that the healer have full control on its timings. When it comes to Holmgang, that's not the case. The WAR plays a big role in how much time they'll give to their healers.

I like the fact that you took Neo Exdeath as an example, it's probably one of the lastest end game content where this difference is the most obvious. With Holmgang, your timing needs to be perfect. Even more so during the delta followed by a random laser that you need to avoid, which can be problematic because of the root. The chance for mistakes is quite high. With Living Dead, the chance of messing up is almost zero thanks to that safety cushion.

If suddendly Living Dead didn't had that automatic proc thingy, it's ease of use would drastically drop, both for the DRK who would now have to time it right, and the healers who would have less time to heal.
It's not only about being able to capitalize on LD, it's about how stable, convenient and predictable it makes this ability. Holmgang is pretty much the complete opposite in that regards, not even talking about the root.

Saying that it's not valuable is absurd. Reducing the possibilities for mistakes is something highly valuable in end game raid environment. The 10s safety cushion provides exactly that.

[Mycow8me]

The 10 second safety cushion doesn't "provide" anything but a transfer into walking dead. If its planned, a DRK can use it 10 seconds before the attack or right before it nothing changes. If its an unplanned use, there is a chance that the healer won't even let it proc and it was wasted, since it has such a high cooldown, in this situation a war was much better off. A warrior can be brought back up to speed with a single cure following deathblows, single healer situation, emergency situations. A DRK requires full HP after the fact and has no tools to assist unless they socket convalescence which really isn't going to save an emergency situation. Honestly WAR has more synergy with living dead than darknight does just because of its HP grab skills which is ridiculous. Wanna trade Invulns? I didn't think so.

In terms of Usability Living dead is not 10 seconds, it is always below 10. At 10 you die anyway. I'd like to meet the healer with balls of steel that let it go to the last tic on purpose. It gets to a point that waiting for the last tic doesn't even matter cause only hits at 1HP are being mitigated and any healing being done is mostly just to get rid of walking dead while hits are still going out which can sometimes cause a panic overheal.

I feel like the people who are giving living dead so much credit are the ones who have not had bad experiences with it.

[Fyce]

The 10 second safety cushion doesn't "provide" anything but a transfer into walking dead. If its planned, a DRK can use it 10 seconds before the attack or right before it nothing changes.

It is different. An automatic trigger drastically lowers the chances of mistakes. Besides, you will not "waste" anything by using it early, like you would with Hallowed Ground and Holmgang. Especially Holmgang given its short initial duration. It's a "fire and forget" skill for the DRK, while it's a "I must time this exactly right or I die and we most likely wipe" for the WAR and PLD.
There is a reason why people absolutly hate the fact that Hallowed Ground takes about a second to activate, leading to deaths that would not have occured with Living Dead. That simple thing is enough to say that yes, it is different and it does play a role. Brushing it off because people could theoretically be perfect is stupid. The playerbase is far from being made of perfect players. The more safeguards the better.

If its an unplanned use, there is a chance that the healer won't even let it proc and it was wasted, since it has such a high cooldown, in this situation a war was much better off. A warrior can be brought back up to speed with a single cure following deathblows, single healer situation, emergency situations.

If the WAR has a target. And is in range. And doesn't put the group at risk for being rooted. And doesn't die from an auto-attack after that "single cure".
That's a lot of "if" to strictly say that Holmgang is better.

In terms of Usability Living dead is not 10 seconds, it is always below 10. At 10 you die anyway. I'd like to meet the healer with balls of steel that let it go to the last tic on purpose. It gets to a point that waiting for the last tic doesn't even matter cause only hits at 1HP are being mitigated and any healing being done is mostly just to get rid of walking dead while hits are still going out which can sometimes cause a panic overheal.

Even if it's 6, 7 or 8 seconds, it's still better than Holmgang and allows you to have more leeway for situations where you need to take multiple hits that would kill you in a row.
Besides, letting it tick to its full duration doesn't achieve anything. As soon as the mechanic is dealt with, and no big benefits would come from letting it tick, LD can be removed. Living Dead not being able to go through all 10 seconds is completly irrelevant. It's a pointless argument. Same thing for Holmgang. Nobody would wait for it to end to get the WAR back up if there's a danger of getting hit after that.

I feel like the people who are giving living dead so much credit are the ones who have not had bad experiences with it.

You can replace "living dead" with Holmgang and Hallowed Grounds anytime.
Who never activated HG just a bit too late and cursed at it for being on cooldown but you being dead? I sure did.
Who never had bad experiences with the range/root/target/timing of Holmgang? I sure did.

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@Chrono_Rising: Most of my post was about the automatic trigger of Living Dead. Not the fact that you can (and should) heal and remove it before the full 10 seconds. I know that you can remove Living Dead before the end. Duh. Almost two thirds of your post missed my point. I seriously cannot be bothered to do a quote war with that.
I'll just bring one thing quickly here: you talked about Living Dead having an issue in O4S in that it required to be correctly timed. And then, in the very next paragraph, you went on to say that timings aren't a big deal after all. Dude. Don't argue against Living Dead just for the sake of it, expecially if you don't even believe in your own arguments. Otherwise, back to square one where I made my first post: the number of people arguing against Living Dead with false/over exaggerated arguments is damn too high. Or just be honest and say that you simply want to vent and that Living Dead seems like a good scapegoat.

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Look, I fully agree that Living Dead drawback could be better. But frankly, you have to admit that some arguments in this thread are simply ridiculous. Living Dead doesn't only have negative points. It's not unusable. It doesn't require that much effort to deal with.
Besides, there's no rule saying that all three "invulnerability" skills must be on an equal footing. Is Living Dead good enough to do what it's supposed to do? Yes it is. Could it be better? Sure. Does it absolutly need to be? Not at all.

[Mycow8me]

I lack the motivation to counter argue your post so please settle with a reactionary gif and lets agree to disagree.