Living Dead change

[Syrellaris]

I, too, have already proposed that. Read below.

Personally, I think that would be an absolute terrible way of doing Living Dead / Walking Dead.

[Lyth]

Care to elaborate?

[MaraD_]

Living dead sounds annoying to use, but it didn't prevent world e4s first group from having a dark knight.
So maybe its fine?

No one is arguing a WHM cant benni LD. They clearly did just that.
But what about AST? right now AST is hurting, and if you had a SCH in yoru group, and a DRK, you wont be bringing an AST

IT IS WORSE in this case, as the quote above was referring to tethers in titania ex. The timing to survive 3 pulses is extremely hard with holmgang because of its short duration.
It's easier to do with an invuln with longer duration like living dead.

PLD and GNB can both solo ALL tethers. DRK cant if there is a SCH/AST duo. (Can if there is a WHM)
WAR probably could with either healer combo, but not solely from the help of holmgang. (Just from its toolkit outside of holmgang being included with holmgang.)
The amount of healing required for DRK to take 3 tethers, is nearly the same as PLD and GNB. So its not "better".
plus WAR should be main tanking anyways, since their vengance is part of their DPS, making them the lowest tank DPS atm.
(thats a different argument.) WAR takes the tethers nearly the worst. It requires a tiny bit more healing, OR another person to pick up the last tether.
holmgang isnt the skill that makes WAR nearly the same as the other tanks, but WARs larger mitigation/healing options. WAR has tools to help it deal with its invuln.
But what about having a SCH/AST combo with a DRK tank?
You arent immediately at a disadvantage having an AST instead of WHM if your WAR takes the 3rd tether. But you are with a DRK tank.
Just one more reason DRK and AST are at a disadvantage. The other tanks/healers dont require this sort of match up fixing. Yes LD can work.


LD is "mostly" acceptable... BUT
They removed Convalescence. (thats 20% more healing required)
with the nerf to healing, so Lv70-80 has almost no increase in healing done, but tank HP sky rocketing upwards... there's a bit of an issue with the math.
also, LD is clearly the harder to deal with, over holmgang, so why is holmgang the shorter CD of the two?
LD should have a shorter CD than holmgang.
If its 10s duration is justification to them, just lower it to 8 seconds, but the healing penalty still remain at 10s (keep them different from eachother.)

imo, the death part could still remain, but they should have altered it to be more managable from the start.
be it better self healing options (like people asked for in 3.0)
apply doom, instead, which can be removed by esuna. (CD for this version seems like it would need be increased, but it already matches the conditions to be better than holmgang, but worse than superboilide)
Convalescence type buff attached to it. (honestly a great way to fill the gap of lack of mitigation options for DRK at low levels, even if you dont die, gain 10%~ more healing or so.)
Failure to heal enough leads to "weakness state", rather than death. (very similar outcome though)
And of course everyone saying "heal 50%" instead of 100%
(I also really like the "cant be healed, you instead absorb HP" which can stack with TBN. Sounds really fun honestly. The other one which is a toggle is nice too. Would work just like the esuna/doom example, but the doom effect si only removed by the DRK, not the healer)
or something to keep its theme, but better balance. There's plenty of options.

over all its not some horrible skill, but it is oddly balanced compared to the other tanks, since its 1 min longer CD than holmgang, with the benefits over holmgang, being outweighed by its downsides.

If it was the games shortest invuln CD, then most ppl wouldnt complain AS much.
Most current complainers would justify its existence, even if they still didnt like it.
If this was 3.0, id say it wasnt worth making a big deal over, even if I wanted a small adjustment.
But things are no longer balanced/built the same way in the current build of the game.

Everything built into DRK seems better suited for Holmgang.
Everything built into WAR seems built for Living Dead.

WAR can do some massive self healing, and have healers get increased heals, to deal with LD. (But isnt needed for holmgang)
DRKs can put up potent shields which would keep them alive, if left at low HP numbers after a holmgang. (also not needed, but doesnt help LD at all, but instead it could help holmgang)

I just cant help but feel the 2 jobs got the reverse invulns, based on job mechanics. (plus i always felt DRK should have been the HP tank theme that WAR got, maxHP+ etc)

[Absimiliard]

I question how anyone in their right mind would try to say LD is fine. DRK is the only tank that can't even use its own "oh shit" button without immediate healer support to keep it from dropping dead regardless. Every other tank is perfectly capable of handling themselves after popping their respective invulns. Yes, even GNB.

[kazzel120]

I question how anyone in their right mind would try to say LD is fine. DRK is the only tank that can't even use its own "oh shit" button without immediate healer support to keep it from dropping dead regardless. Every other tank is perfectly capable of handling themselves after popping their respective invulns. Yes, even GNB.

Until you get that lovely server tick that kills you on GNB because it lowers hp to 1 then gives the invuln.

[waterboytkd]

Don't know if this has been suggested, but I wonder if it's worth experimenting with a variant of the "Stagger" mechanic you find in WoW's Brewmaster Monk tank here. Something like:

Living Dead: For the next X seconds, you absorb all damage (or X% of the damage) taken. When it expires, you gain the effect of Walking Dead.
Walking Dead: For the next 10 seconds, you take 10% of the damage absorbed by Living Dead every second.

Thematically, this 10s DoT maintains the idea of this cooldown making you a dead man walking - especially if you've taken more damage than your total HP. However, the smoother damage curve might make it easier to heal through and wouldn't require a Benediction.

Alternately, you could turn this DoT in to a debuff that can be removed via Esuna, or provide Dark Mind with a secondary effect that mitigates / removes the DoT to make that CD more useful.

Not quite a Hallowed Ground-level CD since you still take the damage, but the invlun would probably put it on the level of a Superbolide. Of course, this is all contingent on just how hard busters will be hitting going forward relative to HP values, so it may actually be a terrible idea. That being said, Monk tanks in WoW are kinda OP for progression due to this mechanic, so they might find some use for it here.

I think this is the way to do LD. Especially if the DoT is spell damage that Dark Mind can mitigate. It plays super well with TBN as well. Any mitigation, really. Gives a nice, easy to predict window for the other tank to put some mitigation on the DRK, too. I think it's different enough to provide variety among the tanks, while still being very good (like Holm or Hallowed Ground).

[Absimiliard]

Until you get that lovely server tick that kills you on GNB because it lowers hp to 1 then gives the invuln.

Oh yes, I know that server tick well. I've already become acquainted.

[BlitzAceRush]

I think a cool idea for LD would be that as soon as you pop it you "die" and become undead. Your HP is replaces with 4 TBN shields that replace your whole HP bar, each being a 1/4 of your HP. Each time one is broken you gain the effect of is TBN had broken and after one has broken you can reactivate it to revive yourself. For each shield still intact you gain back that much of your HP, for example if 3 still stand you get back 3/4 of your HP but need to be healed that last 1/4 or you die.
This would create a nice risk/reward where if you allow more to break you get more mitigation and more free DPS but need to be healed for a greater amount.
To balance out its longer duration I'd say the DRK can't be healed during the skill or to stop them falling over if all 4 break they either get a few seconds of invuln in the final segment brakes or can be healed up to the final segment ah head of time once their down to one.

They could also take off the DPS bit by just letting it be a full hp shield without the TBN proc's I just think this would be a cool idea and feel more Dark Knight with the massive shield and really becoming living dead for a time.

[Hammerhorn]

It’s easy I mean just give Hollwed Ground to every tank like they gave Rampart to every tank boom problem solved. While we’re at it just make it a 60sec CD just to be sure. Ok really though here’s my fix if the DRK dies under living dead then it heals him to 100% and adds 100% HP shield to him as well. I’ve always felt like Holmgang deserves something similar we’re tanks we are supposed to be tough.

[Rathael]

That brings up another issue:
Titania, 3 lighting tethers is the common strat.

Healer benes after 2nd tether, invuln erases, 3rd lighting hits, Dies.

So many caveats/nuisances to this ability
1. Dont full heal until tank buster phase is over or, tank dies.
2. Don't full heal from 1-120K+ health, tank dies.
3. Long tank buster over? Full heal in the remaining 1-2 seconds or, tank dies.
4. Have massive raid wide damage during/shortly after living dead? Tank dies.

LD is probably the best and most reliable answer to tether if you have benediction.

HG's cooldown is too long for both tethers in the fight.
Holmgang can only take 2 hits.
GNB seems to be able to take 3 hits on both but they can screw the timing.

You cannot screw the timing with LD. You cant even accidentally proc it early because the first hit doesn't kill you and you get exactly 10 seconds as the second hit lands.

As for mis-timing benediction, it's no different to screwing up any other mechanic. Literally all the WHM has to do is be able to count to 3 before using it.

Provided people execute mechanics correctly beforehand, benediction is not needed for any other purpose.

Using LD on tether means the healers dont have to be in the tether queue at all on either tether. Pretty good tradeoff for just being able to press benediction after 3 hits (remembering that LD is 100% reliable on this mechanic).