Why was Living Dead not removed?

[Launched]

But these people think it's fine, so it must be fine. Right?

No ulterior motives here.

You're right, there aren't any. In my experience playing DRK (mostly outside of Savage) and raiding with a DRK in my group (PLD+DRK for all of Stormblood), I really do think the complaints about Living Dead are exaggerated and that it's balanced with Holmgang and Hallowed.

[Danelo]

You're right, there aren't any. In my experience playing DRK (mostly outside of Savage) and raiding with a DRK in my group (PLD+DRK for all of Stormblood), I really do think the complaints about Living Dead are exaggerated and that it's balanced with Holmgang and Hallowed.

Wait, so are you a WAR main like the side bar says or a DRK main? Hmmmm.

As far as LD/WD in a static, yes, it can be done. But it is no where near on par with HG and Hg. The mechanic is a pain outside of an organized group. The mechanics require its usage predetermined and only one of the healers had reasonable way to cleanse WD (ironically the one that was rarely seen due to its own design flaws). The usage has to be laid out in advance because there are no onscreen tells for it that offer assistance to not clear the LD early or to tell you when WD starts or how much time is left. All of that adds a separate level of difficulty that doesn't exist on the other jobs. And before anyone says it, macros are rarely effective for this. Macros have gotten me killed by not allowing WD to activate due to heals then death. The death punishment is the biggest draw back. There are great tactics like War Hg -> TB -> shirk -> tank swap -> Healer regen to the war (unless Raid AOE incoming) that are disallowed by the mechanic of DRKs LD. If SE thinks its such a great ultimate then remove the death penalty lengthen the timer... At least that way DRKs might get one usage out of it per fight outside.

Either way, it's not balanced, that just disingenuous.

[whiskeybravo]

The effective duration is important because a lot of people misinterpret Living Dead to mean that you have 20 seconds of invulnerability. It isn't. It's flat out inferior to Holmgang, both in terms of average effective duration and effective recast, with an obnoxious death penalty that nobody wants to deal with, no UI depiction of the remaining healing required to cleanse the effect, and blatantly incorrect tooltips.

Out of curiosity, have you ever been server ticked on a last second heal? You mention the duration, I think if you're really trying to maximize you would push it to the limits, but I'm curious if say - you got a benediction at 1 sec left - is it likely to not count as a heal in time?

Honestly they should just remove the death penalty from Walking Dead and instead make it so that all of DRK's attack's lifesteal HP back while being invulnerable to damage but can't be healed for the duration. As long as each attack heals for 75% of the DRKs damage potency, it wouldn't be hard for DRKS to get back to 50-75% HP. Having a visual effect to let healers know that they can't heal the DRK by having some sort of bright purple aura around the DRK would allow them to ignore the DRK for the duration of Walking Dead, this way it would actually help healers save on MP and have the skill rely solely on the DRK's own abilities and resources to get back to a healthy position.

This sounds kinda cool. +1

[TouchandFeel]

Honestly they should just remove the death penalty from Walking Dead and instead make it so that all of DRK's attack's lifesteal HP back while being invulnerable to damage but can't be healed for the duration. As long as each attack heals for 75% of the DRKs damage potency, it wouldn't be hard for DRKS to get back to 50-75% HP. Having a visual effect to let healers know that they can't heal the DRK by having some sort of bright purple aura around the DRK would allow them to ignore the DRK for the duration of Walking Dead, this way it would actually help healers save on MP and have the skill rely solely on the DRK's own abilities and resources to get back to a healthy position.

That is an interesting route to go.
I would even be okay with taking it even farther by getting rid of the whole two states (Living Dead --> Walking Dead) aspect and having it's activation drop you to 1hp similar to Superbolide, so basically you just brought yourself to the brink of death to make sure you don't die and you now have to fight to keep it that way. While that may seem punishing, with smart usage or in most buster scenarios it won't matter much at all, it just adds a minimal level of skill to activating it and a semblance of this so called "job identity", probably getting as close to the classic Final Fantasy DRK concept of "sacrifice for power" as we could reasonably get within the MMO constraints of this game.

In tandem with changing Living Dead, or whatever it would get renamed as I am not partial to the name since it is too "undeady" and not really "Dark Knightish", I feel Hallowed Ground could use a change to where it makes the PLD invulnerable to damage like it currently is but like DRK they cannot receive external healing. Clemency would still work but that of course has it's own costs attached so seems fair. That way it has it's own skill element to activation.

Holmgang and Superbolide could stay as they are and the duration and recast times for all the invulns should be adjusted to make them approximately balanced.

Just off the cuff maybe something like this ...
Hallowed - duration 8s - recast 420s
Living Dead - duration 10s - recast 360s
Superbolide - duration 10s - recast 360s
Holmgang - duration 8s - recast 300s

[Shougun]

Just off the cuff maybe something like this ...
Hallowed - duration 8s - recast 420s
Living Dead - duration 10s - recast 360s
Superbolide - duration 10s - recast 360s
Holmgang - duration 8s - recast 300s

I feel that's a strong nerf to Paladin's Hallowed Ground, since they lose 2 seconds, have the longest cooldown still, and they can't be cured during the duration. Coming out of it with hp (from healer heals) is quite helpful when moving to the next step of something.

Especially if you casted Hallowed Ground later in your HP pool, come out of it with sub 15% hp and then evaporate because the healer wasn't ready for that millisecond cure lol. I think that just introduces potential frustration to HG (beyond not triggering when you cast it right away xD). Strength of Holmgang in the changes depending on the frequency of tank busters, since it's the lowest it could still be #1 (especially if Paladin's lasted just as long and they couldn't heal up during it).

Maybe if their clemency was buffed or something during Hallowed Ground? (and could cure self). I think bringing the cooldowns and durations closer together would be good but I don't want to see the can't be cured applied to Paladin (and the strength of a low cooldown I hope is recognized over the casual "OP" appearance of Hallowed Ground, Holmgang is one of the most OP of the four impervious skills).

[KatsuraJun]

I think living dead has some advantages in comparison to HG and hg.

- More time after activation: You can tank more damage before get healing
- More time to activate: You can press the button earlier than the other CDs, meaning you can get 5 or even 10 seconds of CD down for the next activation.

I just wish they put a trait to add +20% healing when you are in living dead state to compensate the convalescence exit.

It really does have its advantages and it's honestly the 2nd best, as I said. Annoying? A bit, but the still 2nd best just considering the 2nd lowest CD which is really the most relevant factor, and the fact that the long duration and ability to preemptively activate it maximizes the duration of the invincibility, allowing you to easily catch multiple successive TBs (which does happen often enough for this to matter!).

Seeing as how Superbolide is going to be a 6 minute CD, it's going to stay 2nd best.

The real problem is that Holmgang is just so much better than everything else. It has a whole 2 minutes over the next best competitor, LD, and even more ridiculous is when you compare it to HG's CD! You can cast *two* holms and be halfway done cooling down the third in the span of a single HG. Is that fair? Probably not!

[TouchandFeel]

I feel that's a strong nerf to Paladin's Hallowed Ground, since they lose 2 seconds, have the longest cooldown still, and they can't be cured during the duration. Coming out of it with hp (from healer heals) is quite helpful when moving to the next step of something. Strength of Holmgang depending on the frequency of tank busters, could still be #1 (especially if Paladin's lasted just as long and they couldn't heal up).

Maybe if their clemency was buffed or something during Hallowed Ground? (and could cure self).

It is indeed a strong nerf to Hallowed which was intentional in order to bring it more in-line with the proposed Living Dead and Superbolide, just like raising Holmgang's recast by 120s to 300s (almost double) is a strong nerf to Holmgang and for the same reason. Both Hallowed and Holmgang are relatively too strong and really do need to be nerfed.

Basically with the changes I proposed Hallowed is entirely proactive, where all preparations such as healing are front loaded. You want the PLD's HP to be as topped off as possible before they use it. This introduces an element of skill and different considerations to it's usage. If properly executed it is little different than the current version, you just heal right before as opposed to during. Conceptually it just pauses the state of the PLD's HP for 8s, nothing in and nothing out. The longer recast compared to the others, which is actually the same as it currently is and less of a difference than the current spread of recast times, is because Hallowed would be the only invulnerability that has the chance under the right circumstances to completely negate much if any need for healing to compensate for it's usage.

That then gives Superbolide it's own reasonable niche. It stops damage entirely like Hallowed but reduces the GNB's HP to 1 which means it will likely remove health that then needs to be compensated for and since you can't leave the GNB at 1 HP it forces the healer to have to heal the GNB up. The aspects of it likely forcing both lost HP and required healer intervention is why it is where it is recast and balancewise.

Living Dead basically acts just like Superbolide but puts all the responsibility of healing on the DRK themselves since it stops external heals but empowers self-healing. The pros for this versus Superbolide is that it completely negates healer interaction during it's duration but it's cons are that it is inherently riskier since the DRK could bungle their self-healing and that they won't be able to top themselves off so the healer will likely have to be ready to react with a quick heal once LD wears off. The inherent risk seems like a fair trade off for potentially less needed external heals and that's why I put it on the same recast as Superbolide.

Holmgang gets to keep the lowest recast because while it stops death, the WAR still takes damage for the duration so any incremental healing or self-healing still gets drained while it is active leading it to potentially requiring the greatest amount of external healing. Also keep in mind that there is a huge difference between a 300s recast and a 180s recast, so even with having the lowest recast of the bunch it would likely only get one extra usage in most fights if any at all and we wouldn't be seeing the ridiculous usage disparity we have now.

Basically the recasts were set based on potential healing required to get back to where the tank was when they used it, with a general shift towards longer recasts overall.

Is what I came up with or expanded on perfect? Not by any means, I pretty much came up with it stream-of-consciousness but all in all it's actually not too bad, well unless you are really really opposed to any form of nerf to Hallowed or Holmgang at which point we will just have to agree to disagree.

[Shougun]

Is what I came up with or expanded on perfect? Not by any means, I pretty much came up with it stream-of-consciousness but all in all it's actually not too bad, well unless you are really really opposed to any form of nerf to Hallowed or Holmgang at which point we will just have to agree to disagree.

I don't like the idea of preventing cures from Paladin, just as a period feeling. Doesn't really feel thematic or good, imo. Also makes the skill more frustrating sounding. That said I am for making them closer to each other in cooldowns and duration, for all the impervious skills.

Or to be honest remove the impervious concept and make them all super utility that fits their themes. Because the lowest cooldown, unless almost negligible in difference, will be still a very powerful trait to have in comparison to each other (making Holmgang likely still the most OP of all four- depending on tank buster occurrence, and now lasts 2 seconds longer).

[TouchandFeel]

I don't like the idea of preventing cures from Paladin, just as a period feeling.

My apologies, it likely wasn't clear in my initial post. It would only prevent external healing, the PLD could still heal themselves with Clemency. Since Clemency has cost to it's usage it seems fair for it to work. I've updated my original post to make that more clear.

[Shougun]

My apologies, it likely wasn't clear in my initial post. It would only prevent external healing, the PLD could still heal themselves with Clemency. Since Clemency has cost to it's usage it seems fair for it to work. I've update my original post to make that more clear.

Seems better now! Before if Paladin didn't preemptively cast it hard enough (before something took him low) he might as well jump off a cliff or pray the healer gets a heal before the monster gets a swipe in lol. Now it has some minor error correction (lose some DPS to heal yourself).

I still worry about the strength of being the lowest cooldown impervious skill (I think Warrior has a high chance to be the best impervious skill still), but I guess that depends on how content will be designed. Anyway I agree with the intention of bringing the timers (both cooldown and active) closer together, if SE wants they can make them stand out further by adding other nifty effects. I suppose if the number crunching is true that Paladin has higher sustained damage of the tanks, then Warrior should have a better impervious skill lol, but if Warrior gets buffed to be number #1 Tank DPS.. I would like to keep that impervious crown in mind (and possibly give it to someone else).

Also a thought on Living Dead name, Dark Bargain might fit.. ?