DRK skill: Living Dead

[Shurrikhan]

....

The sad thing is that the Purgatory design, or nearly the same ("Just make it let me go negative HP for 10 seconds..."), has been requested for... how long now? Whether "undeath" fits or not, at least that form of the immunity would be simple and intuitive.

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.

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

[Vyrerus]

Living Dead doesn't really make sense from a Final Fantasy lore perspective

Wrong.

The first Dark Knights to appear in the series are in FF3 as, "Mystic Knights." They wield Swords of Darkness that prevent monster "splitting" which is essentially monster cloning. That's all.
The next appearance is in FF4 where the main character is a Dark Knight. He can perform Dark Wave, which is what Flood of Darkness is based off of. His standard attacks deal minimum damage to Undead monsters, and it is implied that Blades of Darkness cannot hurt true evil(though mechanically Dark Wave can hurt them just fine) because a Blade of Darkness is of the same evil. This is part of his impetus to become a Paladin. So this is the first DRK lore in FF history, and it is implied that DRKs are on the same level as the Undead.

There are no DRKs in the series after this until FFXI. In FFXI DRK is unlocked by slaying 100 enemies with the Chaosbringer great sword. The Job's 2hr ability is Blood Weapon, an ability that makes all hits drain HP for 100% of the damage dealt. The job goes on to acquire the Drain and Aspir spell line as well as attribute absorption spell lines. Drain spells and hits within FF lore started in FFII, and were unique to undead monsters and the Blood Sword. Furthermore, within FFXI, DRK gains Arcana Killer as a trait, which is a trait intrinsic to Undead in the game as Undead <-> Arcana, both intimidate the other.

Within the DRK Artifact armor questline there is a DRK related blacksmith who stops the flow of his soul's time, in order to pass on his memories, by imprisoning it with darkness. That's a bit of a form of undeath, if you ask me.

[Flay_wind]

There are no DRKs in the series after this until FFXI. In FFXI DRK is unlocked by slaying 100 enemies with the Chaosbringer great sword. The Job's 2hr ability is Blood Weapon, an ability that makes all hits drain HP for 100% of the damage dealt. The job goes on to acquire the Drain and Aspir spell line as well as attribute absorption spell lines. Drain spells and hits within FF lore started in FFII, and were unique to undead monsters and the Blood Sword. Furthermore, within FFXI, DRK gains Arcana Killer as a trait, which is a trait intrinsic to Undead in the game as Undead <-> Arcana, both intimidate the other.

Surprise! FF X-2 had a Dark Knight class Dress Shere which was likely an inspiration for FF XI and XIV DRK.
It used a great sword as a weapon and it was a tanky class (iirc it had the highest health and defensive growths in the game, but was somewhat slow) with emphasis on status effects, both status immunities and status inflicting spells like Confuse, Bio, Break and Doom under Arcana ability. They also had Drain spell and a Darkness skill which sacrificed some hp for a powerful non-elemental attack to all enemies. Also they had Charon aka Self Destruct.

[Vyrerus]

Surprise! FF X-2 had a Dark Knight class Dress Shere which was likely an inspiration for FF XI and XIV DRK.
It used a great sword as a weapon and it was a tanky class (iirc it had the highest health and defensive growths in the game, but was somewhat slow) with emphasis on status effects, both status immunities and status inflicting spells like Confuse, Bio, Break and Doom under Arcana ability. They also had Drain spell and a Darkness skill which sacrificed some hp for a powerful non-elemental attack to all enemies. Also they had Charon aka Self Destruct.

Ah, cool. Though it didn't serve as inspiration for XI's. XI's came out first 2002. X-2 Came out in 2003.

[Tranquilmelody7]

Wrong.

The first Dark Knights to appear in the series are in FF3 as, "Mystic Knights." They wield Swords of Darkness that prevent monster "splitting" which is essentially monster cloning. That's all.
The next appearance is in FF4 where the main character is a Dark Knight. He can perform Dark Wave, which is what Flood of Darkness is based off of. His standard attacks deal minimum damage to Undead monsters, and it is implied that Blades of Darkness cannot hurt true evil(though mechanically Dark Wave can hurt them just fine) because a Blade of Darkness is of the same evil. This is part of his impetus to become a Paladin. So this is the first DRK lore in FF history, and it is implied that DRKs are on the same level as the Undead.

There are no DRKs in the series after this until FFXI. In FFXI DRK is unlocked by slaying 100 enemies with the Chaosbringer great sword. The Job's 2hr ability is Blood Weapon, an ability that makes all hits drain HP for 100% of the damage dealt. The job goes on to acquire the Drain and Aspir spell line as well as attribute absorption spell lines. Drain spells and hits within FF lore started in FFII, and were unique to undead monsters and the Blood Sword. Furthermore, within FFXI, DRK gains Arcana Killer as a trait, which is a trait intrinsic to Undead in the game as Undead <-> Arcana, both intimidate the other.

Within the DRK Artifact armor questline there is a DRK related blacksmith who stops the flow of his soul's time, in order to pass on his memories, by imprisoning it with darkness. That's a bit of a form of undeath, if you ask me.

Great, so SE managed to implement an undeath thematic in the worst way possible.

Gotta love having lore identity being substantiated by weakness and not strength.

[Hazmick]

I can count the number of times I've used LD effectively on one hand. It doesn't feel good to use, and the entire time it's active is just overly stressful as you hope the healer/s manage to get enough heals on you in time.

I'd personally like to see it more along the lines of: 'Prevents you from dropping below 1HP, increases heal potency of DRK abilities like Souleater by X%.' It would feel way more themeatic and useful IMO.

[Kiarin]

As SCH, I experienced serious problems with outhealing LD/WD on lvl 80. Tanks just have so much HP there. Sometimes you pour into them 6 Lustrates and Aetherpact and whatever else, and that's still not enough to lift off WD.

On levels 50-70, I've rarely seen problems with LD actually.

Imo, best way to balance LD is to make WD cancelable by Raise. Not too hard, not too easy, and lore-friendly.

[Cheremia]

If WD would give enhanced healing effect and enhanced defense...

Just... something that make it easier. Just a little bit

[Fynlar]

To play devil's advocate here, but DRKs invuln isnt quite like the others.

It doesn't change the fact that it is still DRK's invuln skill, though. To which I ask again: why should theirs be automatic and the others not?

I want to clarify that I'm not saying the ability doesn't have its problems; people have already gone over them well enough in this thread so I won't repeat them. It's just this approach of "make LD automatic" isn't going to do anything in terms of solving those problems.

Technically speaking, its the longest invuln in the game at 20 seconds max,

No, it's not. People love to keep saying this, but the only time the ability is doing ANYTHING for you is when (if) Walking Dead triggers, which lasts for 10 seconds, not 20, and even then you're only getting that 10 if you get the last bit of healing needed to remove WD at the very last moment (which can pretty much only be consistently done with Benediction from an attentive WHM). Prior to the moment WD is triggered, Living Dead is doing absolutely nothing and you are still taking damage as you normally would, damage that would still need to be healed eventually even if WD did trigger.

Assuming you are using Living Dead in anticipation of an expected fatal hit, there is effectively no difference between using it immediately prior to that hit, or using it 10 seconds prior to that hit. You aren't getting 20 seconds of invulnerability by doing the latter, because until that hit occurs, your situation hasn't changed at all.

It's a similar sort of deal with Holmgang; it's "technically speaking" 8s duration, but again until (if) you take a fatal hit, the ability isn't actually doing anything for you, so the effective duration is generally less than 8s -- unless you can consistently pop it immediately before an expected fatal hit every time.

[Melichoir]

It doesn't change the fact that it is still DRK's invuln skill, though. To which I ask again: why should theirs be automatic and the others not?

I want to clarify that I'm not saying the ability doesn't have its problems; people have already gone over them well enough in this thread so I won't repeat them. It's just this approach of "make LD automatic" isn't going to do anything in terms of solving those problems.

I didnt say make it automatic. I dont think it should proc automatically like a trait. I think it should be reworked as I suggested - If you take Fatal damage, you have 0 self heal and will die if you dont receive your HP in outside heals OR end combat before the duration ends. If WD doesnt proc by the time the duration of LD ends, you recieve a large percent based heal. This gives it much more flexibility and makes it worth while to use. It also gives DRK an "Oh S***" self sustain ability that other classes have that DRK doesnt. So if your out on your own or without a healer, you can still use LD to some effectiveness with TBN to mitigate the hell out of damage and get healed by having LD Drop off.

No, it's not. People love to keep saying this, but the only time the ability is doing ANYTHING for you is when (if) Walking Dead triggers, which lasts for 10 seconds, not 20, and even then you're only getting that 10 if you get the last bit of healing needed to remove WD at the very last moment (which can pretty much only be consistently done with Benediction from an attentive WHM). Prior to the moment WD is triggered, Living Dead is doing absolutely nothing and you are still taking damage as you normally would, damage that would still need to be healed eventually even if WD did trigger.

No, the 'invuln time' is 20 seconds because the concept behind it is to stop spending heals on a DRK once LD has been activated. You are literally wasting heals or the invuln if you continue to heal a DRK once they have activated the skill, because either LD pops and all those heals you did were for nothing, or it doesnt pop cause you kept healing them and you wasted the potential 10 invuln. So if youre a smart healer, you stop healing once the skill has been activated because you want the damn thing to pop, regardless or not if you have a WHM or not in party because you are going to assume that they will take fatal damage. And yes, All healers can heal DRK to max during the 10 second phase. It just is a heavier resource drain on AST and SCH compared to WHM thanks to Bene. And thats not good.

In the most ideal situation, it would be roughly 10 seconds in the activation phase so no heals necessary, take fatal damage at the last moment which activates Walking Dead, about 10 seconds of that before you get the necessary HP to stop WD from killing you. This gives you technically around 20 seconds of 'invuln', or rather 20 seconds of time where you technically cant be killed IF timed perfectly. This isnt like War's Holmgang, where you can accidently be killed by a lucky crit or mistimed heal if you let the War's HP drop low before they use the invuln in an effort to maximize dps and reduce unnecessary healing. Once LD is activated, you cannot be killed (with the exception of very specific Boss Mechanics) for the bare minimum of 10 seconds, and up to 20 seconds.

Does it happen often where you get the max duration? No, almost never. Ive heard of it happening but Ive yet to see it myself. And mind you, prior to your fatal damage, a lot can be happening. Dot damage, Raid wide AoE, Autos, etc. So there is plenty that can hurt you in the 10 second time frame. Even with that considered there are some odd considerations to make too. Pop it to early with consistently high damage coming in, and you may proc WD sooner than you need, having it fall off (assuming you get the heals) before youre hit with a tank buster. No matter how you cut it, its a Janky Invuln compared to the others and isnt like the others. The biggest difference being the fact that unlike other classes, using yours kills you if you dont get HP back and you have no way to do that by yourself.