DRK skill: Living Dead

[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.

[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.

[SomeRandomHuman]

Now who's condescending?

Good job pointing out the irony of my forum name though, been waiting for that to happen. Also good job on keeping this civil, but..

The onus of providing context is on the originator of the argument. This fault lies in you for 1) being misinformed as to what the tank invulns are, 2) being incorrect and inaccurate as to what the abilities and strengths/weaknesses are with DRK and Abyssal Drain when compared to the other tanks forms of self sustain, 3) not up-front admitting that you're speaking on a subject you're ill-informed of, and 4) failure to see the own flaws inherent in your arguments by making assumptions at all.

This is General Discussion, an area where more often than not players from all spectrums of play types would see. It is not the tanking section, where a modicum of understanding for how the tanks operate is appreciated.

I do want to counter your earlier comment though, even further.


You're comparing a 60s recast oGCD ability with the pairing of a 25s recast oGCD (Nascent Flash) paired with a GCD AoE move that is reliant on Infuriate and beast gauge... that can also be ignored via Inner Release if you want to instead rely on Decimate. Comparing a single oGCD which is up every minute, to 3 uses of a GCD under the effects of Nascent is a literal apples to oranges comparison to be made.

I'm done derailing this thread proving you were wrong. LD is a garbage skill and is the punchline to the joke that is DRK in 5.x.

I thank you for putting up with my stubborn antics and showing me the error of my thinking. I've everything leveled to 80 and, as expected, my intel on each given job ranges from basic rotations to more in-depth mechanical understanding and everything in between.

I do however, wish to apologize for any headache I've ushered upon you!

[ForteNightshade]

Indeed.

The main issue with LD is how you're completely reliant on the healer to execute your job mechanic.
It needs to be able to be used and resolved by yourself.
I think that it should take any remaining HP off your MP first.
For example, lets say you get healed to 20% HP, leaving 80% required to survive.
If you have at least 80% of your MP, you lose that instead. Less than 80% MP you still die, but at least you have the opportunity to resolve it yourself with resource management.

This still penalizes Dark Knight as it's the only invuln where you can lose damage. In fact, it may actually be a gain for healers to let LD eat your MP if they lack oGCDs because healer DPS is comically high nowadays. All they need to do is slap a healing component on LD and leave it at that. Yes, it effectively becomes edgier Holmgang but if we're being honest, Superboilde is just Persona Hallowed Ground.

[Melichoir]

Why should DRK's invuln be automatic whereas all the other tanks' invulns aren't?

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

Broadly speaking, it is the only invuln in the game that needs a second person to use it correctly. Hallowed Ground is straight forward Invuln, Holmgang and SuperBolide just reduce HP to one but both classes have self healing so you dont die instantly, and even then you can techincally pop a pot (I know its not super effective but it's something), so you got even the smallest amount of cushion.

LD is if it activates, you die unless your healed for your HP. DRK has no way to fully restore their own HP in the time frame to allow for this. This exception makes it drastically different than others. Technically speaking, its the longest invuln in the game at 20 seconds max, but thats only if you really plot that out and take fatal damage on the last second, and then get fully healed on the last second. In reality, unless its a tankbuster thatll kill you for sure otherwise, you sometimes end up in situations where your healers stop healing you to pop LD but you dont quite take fatal damage. So your HP gets low but LD doesnt pop cause you dont die, then something crits you and you die before your healer can react. It's a janky Invuln.

Now rather than have it proc automatically. What would be better actually would be to have it operate more like Excog, kinda. If you take fatal damage, the LD state procs and you dont die just like normal. You need to be healed for your HP. However if the effect drops off and you havent taken fatal damage, the skill heals you for a percentage of your max hp (Let's say 50%). Now if it doestn pop you get a huge restore so youre still safe for using it, but if it does pop, well better hope your healer is on top of it. It also gives it practicality in solo content as well. HP running low and your starting to worry? Pop LD, mitigate to hell and have it fall off for the restore. This gives you some level of skill in using it too.

Other things that could be done to make it more functional would be to change how the LD effect operates. Have it reduce self healing to 0 - so you cant self heal no matter what. However, if you leave combat before the effect ends, it doesnt kill you. It just falls off with you at 1 hp. Again, to give you some level of survivability, if you manage to kill your enemy in the time frame LD goes off, you dont die at the end of it cause you cant get your HP up.

[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.

[Gemina]

I disagree in SCH.
In solo play (dungeon/raid/etc) I'm rarely standing on enough ressources to prevent LD from killing the tank. Everything is done to prevent LD from ever being required. Unlike HLMG or HG that can actually be worked with to reduce the amount of healing required. LD is a loss 100% of the time.
In group play without a WHM often times it's better to ignore LD as well and have tanks do the mechanics as it's less healing and less dps loss. LD can still shine but it's only in limited situations. Generally those would be multi-hit tankbusters that would require repeated healing throughout, like golden bahamut or uwu ifrit, etc. In those cases, saving ressources to deal with LD is easier and less intrusive than healing through the mechanic.

In any event, it's not a scapegoat, something could/should definitely be done.

I main SCH as well, and it's not that they can't heal through LD, it's that it takes up a lot of their resources to do so. I have yet to lose a DRK to LD on any healer I play, including SCH. You also should never have to be alone in healing the DRK back up. What the hell is your co healer doing? It is ridiculous to me that players who play healers have problems when the requirement amps up for them to do so.

I stand by it being a scapegoat, because any situation that a DRK has to use LD already warrants the additional healing. It is your job to get players out of critical HP so they can survive unavoidable mechanics, which includes auto attacks at the tank.

You're right, something does have to be done. I play DRK as well, and while I have yet to lose a DRK to WD while I am healing, I have certainly been victim to WD expiring before the debuff can be lifted. Each time this has happened, it wasn't that the healer(s) couldn't heal me; it was because they didn't. I want absolutely nothing done to rework LD/WD because it's healers that need to be held accountable, as I grow quite tired of their tunnel visioning, and neglect of their primary duty. And we want healing to be more engaging when most can't even handle a simple LD/WD mechanic? They are not making a strong case for themselves for the devs to add more DPS buttons, or make healer gameplay more interesting.

If there is any change I advocate, it would be tell tale sign that the DRK has just cast doom on himself. The animation, sound effect, debuff icon, and call macros are all apparently insufficient. At this point though, I don't think anything is going to work.

[Gemina]

Yes and no.
Using tank invuln are part of some strategy for example in savage.
Which make DRK behind in that part if you don't have a whm. Sure, he'll get the heal, but you have to use so many ressources just for that in comparison.

You mean cheese mechanics? Path of least resistance though, right? Can you name any savage mechanics that cannot be done without using tank invuln skills? And by that, I mean it is not possible, which means the group has to strategize around it, not with it. I don't prog savage, so I am genuinely curious.

And yes, you have to use your healing resources to heal. What else are they used for? Again, I will dismiss any argument that has healers griping about having to heal. I am more in favor of removing the invuln skills from the game completely.

[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.

[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.