DRK skill: Living Dead

[Alaray]

Actually, I always felt that the ability to go invulnerable was a signature skill for PLD, and I wish it was exclusive to them. They still have the true invuln skill in the game, and the "preventing from hitting zero" abilities are all just watered down versions of it.

LD/WD actually works so well for DRK at least from a lore perspective. It makes sense that they don't necessarily go invulnerable, but rather can still come at you even after death, and you cannot kill what is already dead. It would be so flippin cool if WD's animation was still the DRK dropping, but Living Shadow comes out, and you have full control over it for a full 10 seconds, all the while the mob(s) relentlessly keep up their attack, hitting for 0 damage against the shadow.

WD status should honestly be lifted by casting Raise.

For me it's little to do with lore/thematics with these abilities and more that, in an encounter, they don't often add much to it and since they need to be designed and balanced around, they usually become uninteresting mechanically. Or reduce a mechanic that might, otherwise, be interesting into something incredibly trivial.

Be it negating the mechanical juggling of a tankbuster (ie: Titan Savage), or negating a reason to move for a mechanic and just eat it to the face anyway, or negating a sequence of mechanics (such as when people were adamant, for a while, about PLD Hallowed-ing the ranged baits in O11S) among others.

I just find them uninteractive, and not very interesting to employ in general, but they're often key CD's utilized in a lot of pieces of content and having some be markedly worse than others puts some tanks in spots where it just feels... detrimental.

That said, if DRK could heal itself like a WAR then LD itself might be more palpable. But Abyssal drain, outside of a dungeon mass pull, isn't going to really help much with the situation.

[WhyAmIHere]

For me it's little to do with lore/thematics with these abilities and more that, in an encounter, they don't often add much to it and since they need to be designed and balanced around, they usually become uninteresting mechanically. Or reduce a mechanic that might, otherwise, be interesting into something incredibly trivial.

Be it negating the mechanical juggling of a tankbuster (ie: Titan Savage), or negating a reason to move for a mechanic and just eat it to the face anyway, or negating a sequence of mechanics (such as when people were adamant, for a while, about PLD Hallowed-ing the ranged baits in O11S) among others.

I just find them uninteractive, and not very interesting to employ in general, but they're often key CD's utilized in a lot of pieces of content and having some be markedly worse than others puts some tanks in spots where it just feels... detrimental.

That said, if DRK could heal itself like a WAR then LD itself might be more palpable. But Abyssal drain, outside of a dungeon mass pull, isn't going to really help much with the situation.

The only counter I can make, as this is one side to point, is that "if SE didn't want tanks using invulns, they either wouldn't design encounters where the invulns trivialize the mechanic, or they'd just remove invulns altogether." If it's there, people are gonna use 'em.

[Alaray]

The only counter I can make, as this is one side to point, is that "if SE didn't want tanks using invulns, they either wouldn't design encounters where the invulns trivialize the mechanic, or they'd just remove invulns altogether." If it's there, people are gonna use 'em.

It's not really a counter as, what I'm saying, is that the removal of them would be more interesting than keeping them.

Speaking for myself, not SE.

[Peace-Division]

For a game that has spectacular combat animations and visuals across many class abilities, I'm baffled why they didn't design the tank invulns to show a visual cue that healers could see that it has been used.

So for example the LD activation could give the the tank a light glow around the body when they are in the safe zone then it changes to purple ( like the trailer shows when the wol morphs into the drk) when it switches to the second life portion and requires the drk to be fully healed. Perhaps even a mild sound cue to go with it.

Unless a healer is glued to looking at a focus bar or party list when the tank is in dangerous hp zones and recognises the icon for the invuln used, its easy for a healer especially if they have no experience of tank invulns because they are new to not know at all that they need to emergency heal.

[Bsrking5]

This has been discussed for years in the tank forums, a million different suggestions have been made to make the skill better and SE hasn't listened to any of it, i doubt theyre going to start listening to it as soon as you post it on the general discussion forums.

I don't see SE changing it but they might eventually. The best hope of a rework might be new expansion release. This and the holy post doesn't belong in the general forums thou. I doubt SE isnt listening, they just have their own idea for how each jobs should preform.

[Praesul]

Living Dead is a giant black hole for resources and if it stays that way no amount of buffs will make it good. They could lower the CD and it would probably still be bad, as long as the CD isn't low enough to cheese EVERY single TB, allowing you to take an extra DPS.

[Seraphor]

Living Dead is a giant black hole for resources and if it stays that way no amount of buffs will make it good. They could lower the CD and it would probably still be bad, as long as the CD isn't low enough to cheese EVERY single TB, allowing you to take an extra DPS.

DRK can already cheese most normal TBs with TBN.
Maybe that's why LD has been left as it is, it's unnecessary to even use it 95% of the time.

It sucks as an emergency invuln, but for planned use in high end content, although it takes more coordination with the healers, it can actually be better than the others.

For example with the tethers in Titania EX, DRK as the OT can take five of them, between TBN and LD.

[Seraphor]

Actually, I always felt that the ability to go invulnerable was a signature skill for PLD, and I wish it was exclusive to them. They still have the true invuln skill in the game, and the "preventing from hitting zero" abilities are all just watered down versions of it.

LD/WD actually works so well for DRK at least from a lore perspective. It makes sense that they don't necessarily go invulnerable, but rather can still come at you even after death, and you cannot kill what is already dead. It would be so flippin cool if WD's animation was still the DRK dropping, but Living Shadow comes out, and you have full control over it for a full 10 seconds, all the while the mob(s) relentlessly keep up their attack, hitting for 0 damage against the shadow.

WD status should honestly be lifted by casting Raise.

I don't think Raise would be any easier than frantically spamming heals tbh.

But yeah, total invulnerability isn't strictly necessary most of the time.
Even something like 90% damage reduction, or increasing your HP by 80% for 6s, would probably work as an alternative.

[Gemina]

I don't think Raise would be any easier than frantically spamming heals tbh.

But yeah, total invulnerability isn't strictly necessary most of the time.
Even something like 90% damage reduction, or increasing your HP by 80% for 6s, would probably work as an alternative.

Why not? They are already having to do that on top of the spam heals that didn't save the DRK. I just took out the brunt of the work. Any DRK main will tell you that the rate that which they actually survive WD is going to be around 50/50, or 'hit ot miss'. Casting raise is problematic only in the sense that the healer has to sacrifice their mobility. Otherwise you hit one button, and call it a day. There is the option to swiftcast it, which the healer is going to have to do anyway if their spam heals aren't enough to lift WD. I will admit, it is an ARR-isque solution, but one I would take as someone who plays the healers and DRK.

90% damage reduction is basically just a weaker Hallowed. I am highly in favor of tank invuln skills using the essence of that job's identity. I think PLD and DRK do well in this regard. I do like the idea of increased HP for WAR. Like seriously all it does it makes them a beast: basically just a big heal to get them out of crit + increased def that makes them nigh-invuln + increased damage. They can only use it when it crit HP though. GNB I am not so sure since I haven't touched it yet. Currently I find them basically casting Heartless Angel on themselves to be kind of wonky, but it works.

[Shurrikhan]

Personally, I'd rather each of the Invuln skills were revised to... less of an invuln and more of a unique mitigation+utility skill.

Consider, when Holmgang ("Going to the Holm (a small island on which duels could be held)" or effectively just "Duel") first came out, it literally just tied the Warrior and its target in place, allowing certain kiting strats (when others had threat on its target) and ignoring knockbacks. The Warrior mog in the Good King Mog fight more or less copies this with a mass draw-in and snare skill. It'd make sense, perhaps, for it to prevent dying from any other targets while causing damage taken from any other sources to build Beast Gauge or the like, but a general death prevention seems a bit out of left field, as fun as it may feel at times.

Living Dead would be mostly fine if it just had a shorter cooldown (or if the others were nerfed to compensate), if it had a further effect during the actual Living Dead (not Walking Dead) component, and if DRK had decent life-steal, at least contextually. Make the skill as a whole more granular, effectively just allowing it to drop you into negative HP without dying instead of an all or nothing healing cost penalty, and give DRK a Blood for Blood trait, increasing its life-steal based on %missing HP (including the amount stored in Living Dead as negative HP) atop some lifesteal revisions across the whole kit. If capped to as much fatal damage absorbed as your maximum HP, it'd effectively allow no more and no less than twice your maximum eHP, but without any of the added healing efficiency; instead it'd tie into synergies with DRK's own kit to make up the difference.

Superbolide is... strange. The "hit just before death to minimize cost" gimmick is fun but, there's little else good, let alone unique, to be said about it. Not sure how I'd change this one yet.

Hallowed Ground is iconic, and therefore can't rightly be removed, but neither does it have to be free. It could, for instance, as easily force a 1-bar Tank LB on use. I'd be fine with Paladin being the only job to retain an actual Invuln. It just needs to have some balancing cost therein that makes it a tactical choice for one's party, rather than a free bonus.