We really need to talk about Living Dead

[Lucy_Pyre]

Fair enough on comparing things one on one, but my point still stands. TBN on its own is powerful, but like you've said before, its how the whole kit comes together. Equilibrium is up about as often as a dark knight would optimally want to use TBN, but it is 10k weaker. Whether you delete the damage or just heal the damage makes no real practical difference.

Does TBN outshine equilibrium on its own?

Yes.

Does TBN outshine Nascent Flash on its own?

Yes.

Does TBN outshine ToB on its own?

Yes.

Does TBN outshine all of these taken together? My answer here would be no. In fact I think the weaker statement: "Does TBN outshine Nascent Flash and Equilibrium together" is also a no. Of course we could put TBN up every 15 seconds like clock work, but I don't honestly think you can pop it that often through autos alone, I usually can only pop it for a raidwide + 2 autos, which means that we could block more damage but at a major dps loss.

The relevance is that we previously disagreed that Living Dead could or could not use some light adjustments on healing requirements based on the power of the defensive kit. But I don't honestly feel that the defensive kit is actually strong enough to support that statement. Even if you look at the "least defensive" tank, GNB, its kit is fairly close in damage deletion power.

I can almost 100% guarantee that the current savage tier will break TBN with 2 autos. I'm taking a break from this tier so I can't give boss auto numbers, but Titan last tier autoed for 33k and TBN shielded for 38k at the time, so the same logically should hold true now. As for commenting on Equilibrium in particular, it's a weird skill; just because the variance for how much it can heal for is so huge. Popped alone and non-crit, 30k. Crit with ToB, like 62k. So it not critting is just depressing. As for what's better, I don't think it's a completely straightforward topic. For one thing, comparing TBN against NF, ToB, & Equil all combined just seems more than a little bit of an unfair matchup. Strong as any cooldown may be, it's bound to lose out when put in a competition against three all together, and that's another reason I think it's only proper to pit TBN against NF individually.

I will concede the point about both WAR and DRK having to lose some optimal DPS in order to get multiple uses of each of their respective CDs (or in WAR's case, multiple powerful uses). Although, on that point it should be noted that WAR does lose out slightly worse in that regard if we're comparing the loss 1:1, as DRK loses a 500p Edge under raid buffs while WAR loses a 920p IC under the same, which is a fairly significant potency difference. Now, I've never analyzed DRK's damage profile in detail so I can't say anything on that regard, but I have for WAR and Inner Chaos makes up around 17%-20% of WAR's total damage output over a fight.

[DWolfwood]

I can almost 100% guarantee that the current savage tier will break TBN with 2 autos...

It doesn't. Not unless you're talking with vuln stacks.

Just came back a couple weeks ago, but noticed even on Shiva you have to ensure you'll get hit by more than just autos.

[Lyth]

I don't follow the purpose of this tangent, interesting as it is. It's great to put out more healing per second, but it only matters if the damage healed or prevented is translated into a raid damage gain or prevents a wipe. How can we guarantee that?

It also doesn't change the fact that Living Dead is a poorly designed action, which is the point of the thread. WAR had the best offensive and defensive toolkit for a good part of Stormblood, and players still complained about Shake it Off at release until it was changed. The argument "Oh, but look at these other great skills," doesn't hold water.

[Miminming]

I don't follow the purpose of this tangent, interesting as it is. It's great to put out more healing per second, but it only matters if the damage healed or prevented is translated into a raid damage gain or prevents a wipe. How can we guarantee that?

It also doesn't change the fact that Living Dead is a poorly designed action, which is the point of the thread. WAR had the best offensive and defensive toolkit for a good part of Stormblood, and players still complained about Shake it Off at release until it was changed. The argument "Oh, but look at these other great skills," doesn't hold water.

Because disscussing a job skill enterily seperatedly with the said job other skills is a guarranted balance breaker, you can't and wasn't supposed to discuss LD without TBN.

[Lyth]

...

I think that you absolutely can and should discuss an ability in isolation when it is badly designed.

[Chrono_Rising]

I don't follow the purpose of this tangent, interesting as it is.

Its a long conversation flowing over many days so I don’t expect anyone to be following other than Lucy_Pyre, but I think Miminming has the right of it.

I believe that Lucy_Pyre primarily disagrees with over arching changes, or even the discussion of changes to Living Dead because like many people they see The Blackest Night as extremely power mitigation, which is both a commonly held sentiment and also true. Therefore the question of just how power TBN needs to be examined.

Evidence for me holding such a claim comes from finding agreement and freely sharing ideas culminating in:

Now, would I call TBN outright overpowered? That's not quite such a simple answer so I can't say with certainty. What I can say, however, is that TBN is by far the most powerful mitigation tool in the game (not counting invulns, obviously, nothing else can mitigate literal millions of damage). While Nascent is capable of healing for more than what TBN shields, the average healing amount over the course of a fight averages out to be less. TBN straight up just removes such a ludicrous amount of damage from existence over the course of an entire fight that, in some way, there has to be a trade off.

In the above post, I believe Lucy_Pyre is making the case that Living Dead is the trade off for such a powerful mitigation. Therefore the question we should critically examine is: how powerful is TBN in relation to the mitigation/self sustain kit as a whole and compared to kits of other tanks.

My argument here is that TBN is so powerful because it essentially is our entire kit, outside of shared things like rampart and the flavor text that is the 30% mitigation tool and invulns. If TBN provides similar mitigation/damage deletion as other cooldowns, then there is no need for it to be balanced with living dead because then TBN just is balanced with respect to other tanks cooldowns, while also being powerful in its own right.

In the above post I’m making the case that TBN functions to rival other tanks' cooldowns but as a single button. ToB, Equilibrium, and Nascent Flash heal back as much if not more damage than TBN + dark mind, but it does so across three buttons instead of two. I believe I proved my point above with napkin math, and then Launched made the fantastic suggestion to examine that with real data, which I verified in the next post.

TLDR; of a conversation that has been going on for many days: TBN is extremely powerful mitigation, but it is balanced with respect to other tanks kits without including invulns; what other tanks do with three buttons dark knight does with 2.

[NobleWinter]

I'm a Scholar Main and Living Dead is not my favorite ability to put it mildly. If I could just redo the whole skill over Living Dead would cause you to gain Walking Dead status immediately upon execution and last 12 seconds with the benefit of keeping most attacks from killing you. It would also cause your damage to be reduced by 20% since you are a zombie while simultaneously increasing the potency of any healing you receive by 20%. The requirement to be healed for a total of your max hp to remove the effect or death after 12 seconds if not achieved would be much more manageable. It's a window healers could work with in a dungeon that would actually help the DRK stay alive. In Savage you would have to play around the benefit of the invuln compared to the damage lost. Ending it by healing as soon as it is no longer necessary to get back to full power would be the point of contention for groups trying to maximize.

The fact Living Dead has two separate icons with two separate descriptions bothers me immensely. If all you ever saw was the Walking Dead symbol it would be easier to learn as a new healer. The red debuffs means my heals are stronger and they die in 12 seconds if I don't step up. The mandatory death seems to warrant increased healing potency received but I would be so thankful for a little bit more time to cast the necessary spells to make it useful.

[Lucy_Pyre]

It would also cause your damage to be reduced by 20%

I cannot explain in words how much I ***HATE*** this suggestion, but this will have to do. In XIV damage is king. If you made Living Dead do this it would literally never be used, EVER, unless the DRK was literally forced to hit the button to avoid an otherwise 100% unavoidable death.

[DWolfwood]

If I could just redo the whole skill over Living Dead would cause you to gain Walking Dead status immediately upon execution and last 12 seconds with the benefit of keeping most attacks from killing you. It would also cause your damage to be reduced by 20% since you are a zombie while simultaneously increasing the potency of any healing you receive by 20%.

This is literally a much worse Superbolide.

Honestly, while a lot of people would hate it. It would probably just be easier on everyone if every ultimate tank CD was the same and was just like Hallowed Ground.

As I said in another thread, balancing defensive CDs is a futile struggle with not much reward.

Just give us cool, unique aesthetics, and different DPS rotations and I'll be happy.