We really need to talk about Living Dead

[Rongway]

As I stated above multiple times: it has it's use when you would have definitely died otherwise as it serves to grant you a and the healer a second chance to get things back under control.
If it's the only option available you use it because it's the only option available. Not because it's good. It's your last resort.

But that's what it's for.
(Note: "last resort" doesn't necessarily mean it was used as a panic button; it can still have planned usage where it's the only button that would have saved you.)

I get what you mean "If it doesn't get triggered, no harm done. If it does, the tank would have died anyway". Which is true but that makes it essentially useless it because you use it in hopes of it not getting triggered.

And if you're counting on a skill not having any effect and actively try to prevent it, that's saying something, isn't it?

But you can still use it to cheese a subset of mechanics like you would use any of the other superbuffs; you just can't use it to cheese exactly every mechanic that you could use the other superbuffs for.

In particular, DRK can still solo soak stack markers (e.g., Chadarnook) and take-pass mechanics (e.g., Titania) that would have dealt so much damage that no other defensive cooldown would have worked.

It has no beneficial effect and in case it does get triggered, the healer is now forced to work very inefficiently. And lack of healing isn't the only reason it may trigger. Eating a pull raw because "invul is up" is the most common reason I've seen for it to trigger.

All other tank invuls can be used without any downside whatsoever and are always a gain. DRK has the only invul that has no inherent gain and makes situations worse if used poorly.

This is going back to tanks using it at the wrong time. That can be addressed by fixing the players that are using it wrong.

In cases where it's not the wrong time to use it, it prevents you from dying. This is a gain, and you are better off for having used it.

It's really only a gain if the party is well-coordinated and everyone knows what they're doing and even then, dungeons are the least likely place for it to be useful.

But what I'm saying is, "yeah it's a horrible ability to use on dungeon trash, but not every tank ability has to be amazing on dungeon trash." It's okay for one of them to be less useful on dungeon trash; and even in the case that it's used on dungeon trash, recognizing that you will surely die in the next ten seconds and activating Living Dead to delay death for 10s is still better than just dying.

I know exactly how all the invulnerabilities skills work, but thanks.

The debuff is still what kills you, it just activates the same way as the actual invincibility for Holmang is applied.

The bottom line is no other skill in the game has a drawback that literally kills you.

You keep saying "but it gives you a debuff that kills you" but that's not how it works.

You don't die because you got a debuff.
You died 10s ago. It already happened. Neither you nor the healer could prevent you from taking lethal damage.
But then you got an invincibility effect that says, "but your death can be undone."

There is no drawback that kills you; you already died. But because you activated the ability, you are still alive and therefore better off than you would have been if you hadn't pushed the button.

It's still terrible even if the skill has a very long window of use comparatively.

You can actually easily plan uses for Holmang and Superbollide to make runs easier and not as an "Oh **** button", which is almost always preferable.

You can still plan uses for Living Dead. See above.

[Lucy_Pyre]

"We really need to talk about Living Dead"

Do we? No, no I don't think we do, actually. It's worse than the other invuln abilities in some situations, it's better than the others in some other situations. With coordinated play (and admittedly having a WHM) LD turns into the single best tank invuln due to the fact that it combines Hallowed Ground's length with (nearly) Holmgang's cooldown. Does it function poorly as an "Oh shit, the healer can't keep me up" button in dungeon pulls with randoms? Sure. But then again, Holmgang is subpar in that same situation. I think it's poor form to judge a cooldown based around poor play and execution on the players' part; especially when, when proper play and usage, LD is extremely powerful. The only invuln that I would put as superior to it when used properly is Holmgang simply due to the fact that Holmgang has 60 seconds less on its cooldown.

[Ftail]

I don't think we really need to talk about Living Dead...

If you are with a group and don't have a WHM you can just do what one of my groups did and just lock out DRK from joining the group. You get to create your own groups in this game and nothing is forcing you to take a DRK with you if you know they are going to have a mechanic where they need to use invuln to survive. Last time I locked out a DRK was for Titania EX when that was still new. We opened it back up when a WHM joined and preferred DRK's when we had a bene to use with it, it's really amazing if used correctly.

[Lyth]

If you are with a group and don't have a WHM you can just do what one of my groups did and just lock out DRK from joining the group.

If a single ability impacts group decisions on whether or not to take a job so much, then it's an incredibly badly designed skill that needs to be looked at more closely. Most of us already knew that anyways, though.

Invulns in general are bad design. The devs will almost certainly realise this when they try to come up with yet another dumb invuln gimmick for their next tank design, but I really don't want to wait that long to see them purge invulns from the game.

[Tranquilmelody7]

You keep saying "but it gives you a debuff that kills you" but that's not how it works.

You don't die because you got a debuff.
You died 10s ago. It already happened. Neither you nor the healer could prevent you from taking lethal damage.
But then you got an invincibility effect that says, "but your death can be undone."

This is nothing more than semantic wordplay.
If you fulfill the requirements to apply the complete damage mitigation, the move will subsequently apply a debuff that kills you if you don't fulfill the requirements to purge it - that's really all there is to discuss.
Nice use of flavor text though.

There is no drawback that kills you; you already died. But because you activated the ability, you are still alive and therefore better off than you would have been if you hadn't pushed the button.

In heavily coordinated group uses yes, but in PUGS it's far more practical to avoid the move like the plague.
You risk more by depending on the 9 seconds of actual invulnerability due to the healer potentially being unable to purge the debuff for you.
With WAR and GUN( I will actually make one for PLD as well soon) I pop a macro to let my group that I will trigger an invulnerability skill so they may focus on damage until the migitagion ends.
Heck with WAR at level 76, I can just utilitze burst and Nascent
Flash and can top myself off without any help from Healers.
With DRK in PUGS I just don't use Living Dead, I can't do anything to cleanse the debuff with DRK's pitifully limited self healing options, and I never want to pressure my healer that much.

You can still plan uses for Living Dead. See above.

The move clearly has a niche where it shines in high end content where significant coordination and cooperation are vital.
It does have the longest duration of any invulnerability after all, with 9 seconds to trigger the mitigation and a subsequent 9 seconds to accumulatively heal 100% of a respective DRK's(Which is nothing since the DRK was previously at 1 HP anyway).

The move still sucks!
It puts way to much pressure on other players in most other situations, leaving DRK themselves helpless if others don't intervene with heavy heals.
If DRK traded invulnerabilities with WAR, perhaps things would mesh better due to WARs crazy amount of healing options.

Savage content should be the primary focus of balancing jobs for sure, but if you have a vast amount of players complaining about a skill for years all the way back before it's inception, some things cleary need to change.

If it were up to me, I would just opt to lessen the severity of the debuff.
Maybe reduce the DRK's HP by half or even two thirds if the debuff isn't purged.

[cactuarzzzz]

"We really need to talk about Living Dead"

Do we? No, no I don't think we do, actually. It's worse than the other invuln abilities in some situations, it's better than the others in some other situations. With coordinated play (and admittedly having a WHM) LD turns into the single best tank invuln due to the fact that it combines Hallowed Ground's length with (nearly) Holmgang's cooldown. Does it function poorly as an "Oh shit, the healer can't keep me up" button in dungeon pulls with randoms? Sure. But then again, Holmgang is subpar in that same situation. I think it's poor form to judge a cooldown based around poor play and execution on the players' part; especially when, when proper play and usage, LD is extremely powerful. The only invuln that I would put as superior to it when used properly is Holmgang simply due to the fact that Holmgang has 60 seconds less on its cooldown.

OK when 5.3 drop WAR can have LD and DRK will have Holmgang.

[Launched]

DRK really doesn't need any kind of defensive buff.

[elioaiko]

Healer main here.

I personally hate LD, the fact you need to recover the total HP of the DRK in order to purge the debuff is seriously annoying on AST and especially SCH.

Ofc on WHM it's a joke but having to essentially force WHM/DRK comps is what SE should avoid altogether. But having Benediction just makes the invuln a joke, since it defeats the urgent nature of it I suppose so why not change it?

At least with GNB/WAR it's something that can be fixed with an OGCD.

I suppose they can't find more unique invuln skills as GNB's just punches itself in the face (but really it's just a combination of Holmgang and Hallowed)

It's just a headache on non-WHM healers and people aren't always going to want to play WHM or should they be forced to for the convenience of dealing with LD.

[cactuarzzzz]

DRK really doesn't need any kind of defensive buff.

I agree if dev decide to remove WAR from this game.

[Miminming]

Just say it, you want your main to be the best at everything, everyone does.

DRK already is the most OP MT atm, no need more buff.