We really need to talk about Living Dead

[Lyth]

????

Actually, even at Heavensward's release you needed to be healed for a total amount equal to your max HP. You didn't actually have to be at max HP, any more than you do now. The problem was that it previously didn't count overhealing, which is why Benediction previously wasn't enough on its own. You had to take a tick of damage so that the last bit of healing wouldn't be disregarded as overhealing.

Gauges exist to provide you with information. You could have a friend with a calculator sitting over your shoulder and furiously punching in heal values to add them up as they pop up on screen. But that's why gauges exist in the first place. By that same token, there's no reason why we need gauges showing current HP or current MP values. You just need to know the max values and watch the floating text to calculate the current running total. Why don't we do that then? UI elements exist to make things like this less cumbersome.

There are plenty of situations in which invulns are used to mitigate more than one attack. You can't make the claim that invuln duration doesn't matter. It's one of the factors used to balance them against each other.

Living Dead doesn't have an effective duration of 19 seconds. The effective duration is the period in which the invuln mitigates damage.

[Vyrerus]

Stuff

Yeah, and we already have the U.I. Element we need for that. HP bars in the party list. You're asking for a stylized gauge that pops up on the healer's screen or everyone's I guess when Living Dead activates. While not unfeasible, that's not gonna un-muddle a new healer's first time with Living Dead any more than the tooltips, buff icon, or communication do now.

I didn't make that claim.

It does, because once you activate Living Dead, at any point during its duration, you may take lethal damage and then trigger the second effect, where damage no longer matters. And once Living Dead is active, as long as you take fatal damage, then you no longer need to be healed for the duration. That gives it a far greater wiggle room, the opposite wiggle room from shorter duration invulns. Contrast with Superbolide. You activate Superbolide and take your remaining HP - 1 in damage to gain 8 seconds where damage doesn't matter. As long as the damage is fatal for DRK, then you have an effective period of time that is longer than any other invuln where no one needed to support you(and if they did it probably screwed you over).

While we won't be seeing it as much since they increased its duration, the most notable comparison of duration comparison was against Holmgang when it was six seconds. Holmgang had the opposite problem, particularly for multi-hit TBs like Ahk Morn, Thunder III, and Stonecrusher. Where you practically had to wait until the cast bar was 80% full before you activate your invuln. You can think of it as a grace period, I guess. But basically since the, "mitigation" phase won't trigger until you take lethal damage, I reiterate that this is a whole 10 seconds where the only thing that matters about damage done to you is that it is lethal.

[aodhan_ofinnegain]

It does, because once you activate Living Dead, at any point during its duration, you may take lethal damage and then trigger the second effect, where damage no longer matters. And once Living Dead is active, as long as you take fatal damage, then you no longer need to be healed for the duration. That gives it a far greater wiggle room, the opposite wiggle room from shorter duration invulns. Contrast with Superbolide. You activate Superbolide and take your remaining HP - 1 in damage to gain 8 seconds where damage doesn't matter. As long as the damage is fatal for DRK, then you have an effective period of time that is longer than any other invuln where no one needed to support you(and if they did it probably screwed you over).

Living Dead is more akin to Divine Veil in that you can pop it 10 seconds before you need it to shave 10 seconds off the next recast, but the actual invuln is the Walking Dead that comes from otherwise dying. Likewise you need a GCD heal to trigger within the 30 seconds of Divine Veil which then applies the shield on the party. So if you pre pop veil 30 seconds prior to needing the shield then activate it via GCD heal 29 seconds into the duration, the next Divine Veil recast is only ~60 seconds away.

If anything Living Dead is a buffer to give people leeway to timing their invuln, something that Hallowed Ground, Superbolide and to lesser extent Holmgang (more responsive) don't necessarily suffer.