DRK skill: Living Dead

[Ilenya]

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.

Oh ick, no. You should never require using a party resource for a single person skill.

[Kazrah]

Maybe if they lowered the threshold to 50% health instead of full health. That way, you'd still have the mechanic, but it would be just enough for any healer to go "oh crap, got it" instead of trying to do the worst active time maneuver in the game just to keep the tank going and then see them die instantly because they didn't have Benediction and could only get them to like 80% health and CAN YOU STOP DYING DARRELL? UGH!!

Anyway, for the original question, no it shouldn't be passive. It's a button that rewards good gameplay when you use it, and better gameplay when you never have to.

[Bsrking5]

While creatively, it isn't a bad idea, that would put DRK at a disadvantage in terms of damage. Many fights (particularly in Savage) have strats that involve actively using invulns, and with your idea, that would really hamper DRK's damage output as they'd have to "waste" MP on a non-DPS action. Even TBN is dps neutral when used properly since it essentially refunds the used MP.

If every single invuln had a damage reducing side effect, this might not be so bad, but since they don't, this change would hurt DRK more than their current invuln does. It's wonky, but at least with healers who are on top of things/a Whm with Bene, there's not too much to worry about.

You are misunderstanding the change. Its not every time living dead procs. Its only if the time expires and would have killed the DRK. Whats better a dead DRK or one with 0 MP and some HP. In those strats nothing would be changed unless they planned on the death of the drk which would just take slightly longer. Thats basically the same outcome.

[Puremallace]

quick suggestion, just wanna see what the community thinks.

I would like to see Living Dead made into a passive trait. all of its skill text and actual application is fine. i believe it should simply be a passive trait, instead of active use

You do understand Living Dead literally kills you if not healed to 100%? In theory it is supposed to be coordinated with a healer who knows you are about to get one shot once it counts down. I have seen sooooooo many Dark Knights just assume that healers keep their tank buffs scaled at 200% get killed because of this ability.

Automatically have something like that proc would not be advised as it would encourage bad Dark Knights to just yolo into fights and then blame the healer for not keeping them at 100% at all times lol

[Lyth]

Living Dead doesn't really make sense from a Final Fantasy lore perspective, either. Vengeance, Justice, and Tenacity are themes, sure, but Undeath isn't. Dark Knights are not Death Knights, and if we were, we'd probably have the self-healing to support the ability (WAR can, we can't). Someone was staring a little too hard at Warcraft for ideas when they tried to rip off Purgatory.



The best ability designs are simple and intuitive. In the case of invulns, they also have to be dps neutral (MP draining or generating concepts don't work because you either avoid the ability or try to proc it on recast). Living Dead is just too convoluted. It needs to be scrapped and redesigned from the ground up.

I think there is a broader problem with invulns, in that with 4+ uses per fight between two tanks, there's a ton of damage that you can simply trivialise, so much so that you don't really have to ration out the rest of your defensive kit.

If you want the healing and mitigation checks in fights to have more challenge to them, you need to put an upper limit on both invuln and raise uses per fight, shared across your entire team.

[AnotherPerson]

Living Dead doesn't really make sense from a Final Fantasy lore perspective, either. Vengeance, Justice, and Tenacity are themes, sure, but Undeath isn't. Dark Knights are not Death Knights, and if we were, we'd probably have the self-healing to support the ability (WAR can, we can't). Someone was staring a little too hard at Warcraft for ideas when they tried to rip off Purgatory.



The best ability designs are simple and intuitive. In the case of invulns, they also have to be dps neutral (MP draining or generating concepts don't work because you either avoid the ability or try to proc it on recast). Living Dead is just too convoluted. It needs to be scrapped and redesigned from the ground up.

I believe the lore behind Living Dead was somewhat related to vengeance and fighting past your limit to gain your sense of justice before finally dissipating into the abyss - the previous user (Frey) was hinted to be doing just that, getting skewered but still fighting on until after he dies completely. It was mentioned before you get your job crystal. Then again Dark Knights were also more edgy before and had to attune themselves to the Darkness with Dark Arts. A part of Dark Knight lore was the more damage they took ('more pain' they feel), the stronger their darkness gets and the stronger their abilities become.

Perhaps giving The Blackest Night having an added passive that removes the 'will completely die' effect of Walking Dead when used would be a good change - from both a storyline standpoint since it shows how we come to accept ourselves and the can embrace the darkest of the abyss while forging on.

[WhyAmIHere]

I believe the lore behind Living Dead was somewhat related to vengeance and fighting past your limit to gain your sense of justice before finally dissipating into the abyss - the previous user (Frey) was hinted to be doing just that, getting skewered but still fighting on until after he dies completely. It was mentioned before you get your job crystal. Then again Dark Knights were also more edgy before and had to attune themselves to the Darkness with Dark Arts. A part of Dark Knight lore was the more damage they took ('more pain' they feel), the stronger their darkness gets and the stronger their abilities become.

Perhaps giving The Blackest Night having an added passive that removes the 'will completely die' effect of Walking Dead when used would be a good change - from both a storyline standpoint since it shows how we come to accept ourselves and the can embrace the darkest of the abyss while forging on.

Yeah but then that just adds more unneeded complexity to the skill.
"If The Blackest Night is active while under the effects of Walking Dead, [x] instead of [y]." Plus i'm sure that'd be a nightmare and a half to figure out what to do, let alone code.
I'm all for just a redesign to something that isn't as punishing on the user for other players misplays.

[AnotherPerson]

Yeah but then that just adds more unneeded complexity to the skill.
"If The Blackest Night is active while under the effects of Walking Dead, [x] instead of [y]." Plus i'm sure that'd be a nightmare and a half to figure out what to do, let alone code.
I'm all for just a redesign to something that isn't as punishing on the user for other players misplays.

How is this change punishing the user for other players misplays? Giving The Blackest Night an extra effect to remove Walking Dead while giving the shield ability lets the user correct other player's mistakes by letting them survive with their own invulnerability skill properly without relying on others.

Skills that do [x] instead of [y] under buff [A] or buff [B] exists already - AST's collective unconscious is a prime example. We also have Monk's Dragon Kick and Bootshine being the best example here. Under the status effect of [Leaden Fist], Bootshine's effect gets a potency change. When under the effects of [Walking Dead], The Blackest Night's skill activation can simply be coded to remove Walking Dead's effect if it is active. The barrier is a separate buff from the skill itself.

This would be a Quality of Life change as you should still be dependent on healers to adjust and remove the walking dead buff since walking dead only stops your HP from dropping under 1 in group content.
However, in the event the healer dies or you're playing solo content, you can use your invuln with The Blackest Night without strictly requiring a healer to save you from the Living Dead's killing effect. The Blackest Night may remove Walking Dead from killing you and giving you an HP buffer with the shield, but it won't restore your HP - as is with all invulnerabilities.

The only problem here would then be if you somehow popped The Blackest Night 5 seconds before you turn on Living Dead (which makes no sense why you would shield before activating the invuln since the invuln loses its effectiveness) and then wouldn't have The Blackest Night available to remove your Walking Dead status.

That can more easily and effectively be achieved through a general job mechanic, though, rather than making one skill in particular convoluted af.

I'd agree with you here. The effect can be a trait tied to living dead that changes walking dead automatically at lv 70. Then again, you also have people who complain tanks play all the same and are carbon copies of each other. The invulnerabilities are at least somewhat unique with each job having their own caveats with their invulnerability so I proposed an idea to keep the skill's uniqueness rather than make them similar to the other but eh. I guess people also like the idea of going down the route of turning Living Dead into a better Holmgang/Superbolide with different animation effect.

[Shurrikhan]

I'd agree with you here. The effect can be a trait tied to living dead that changes walking dead automatically at lv 70.

I was thinking of, again, a job general mechanic, rather than necessarily removing the button-press from Living Dead.

For instance, if DRK had some worthwhile self-healing and that healing was increased with %HP missing (including whatever fatal damage is stored by Living Dead or its replacement), then DRK's core mechanic would have a great synergy with its invuln.

Yes, it wouldn't remove the excess/fatal damage entirely, as per Holmgang, but it'd at least offer something in turn. That'd make it technically the worst invuln, at least if not for its pre-stage, but that in turn allows you to place it on a lower CD despite DRK being able to use it to survive lesser cheeses even without a healer. Better yet, it sets a precedent that invulns needn't waste other mitigation CDs.

[RyuDragnier]

Perhaps giving The Blackest Night having an added passive that removes the 'will completely die' effect of Walking Dead when used would be a good change - from both a storyline standpoint since it shows how we come to accept ourselves and the can embrace the darkest of the abyss while forging on.

While a nice idea, the skill is already bloated and confusing as is. It definitely needs a complete rework somehow.