DRK skill: Living Dead

[EaMett]

Honest question as a new DRK.

Should I make a macro to notify party chat that I’m using LD and to cure me?

Any rule of when I should or should not use LD?

Healers should technically notice you using it. With that said, simple chat messages for LD aren't too intrusive, so you can def make a notification.

LD is absolutely fine to use if you're with a WHM and he has bene up. With time you'll learn to keep track of benediction. It can even be used in a planned manner with WHM and give you and your healer many benefits by reducing the need to heal you for 10s. If there is no WHM present you want to avoid using LD. If it's an emergency and you're about to die, you can pop it in order to survive 10 more seconds. That can be the difference between a wipe or clearing a pack of mobs. But expect to die at the end of it.
Any other use of LD should be planned out with your party/healers.

[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.

[Fynlar]

Honest question as a new DRK.

Should I make a macro to notify party chat that I’m using LD and to cure me?

Any rule of when I should or should not use LD?

I don't think anyone would fault you for having a /p line for it, given how it works. Just don't jam the button multiple times when you use it or anything, and it should be fine.

You use it whenever you're expecting to take a fatal hit (because if you don't, LD doesn't actually do anything for you at all). LD never does anything *bad* for you; the only times it will kill you are in situations where you would have died anyway, so you should still never be afraid to use it if you feel like a fatal hit is coming.

The only potential drawback comes in the form of healers trying to spend MP/resources on you to heal you before WD kills you but failing to heal you enough in time, so then you're dead AND the healers are worse off in MP/resources than they might otherwise have been if you had just died immediately. That is admittedly a big potential flaw of the ability, but that's more of a healer failing than a tank failing, though, and it is most often caused by healers stuck in "dps mode" rather than actually performing the role they're named after.

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.

If someone is planning to use LD for an anticipated fatal hit though, like I said, there is no difference between activating LD immediately before it or activating it 10 seconds prior. Either way, you can stop healing them until WD is triggered by the tank buster or whatever. Again, any time before WD activates, LD is doing nothing for you, ergo it does not count as artificial extended "invuln time".

The 20 seconds thing is a myth, whether you care to believe that or not. I understand that it is a flawed invuln skill and that people want to desperately cling to any sort of thing they can that will make the ability sound better than it actually is, but the 20 seconds thing just isn't it. It's easily refuted.

[WhyAmIHere]

Had to go through old footage to double check, the continuation of that quote goes on to say "I screamed myself hoarse when that Temple Knight slipped past his guard and ran him through!". Apologies, this quote wasn't related to Living Dead. It turns out that it implied Frey was using Dark Dance - a skill that gave increased parry rate or evasion rate if Dark Arts was activated and he lost on RNG. He was also using the old blood price effect - where you were supposed to take more hits to generate blood gauge. The effect of something 'dark and twisted' was probably the damage turning into part of the blood gauge.

Took a huge exmaination on DRK's skillset evolution & changes. They had janky mitigations like Dark Dance (evasion worked against Blood Price effect to restore MP), Low Blow + Low Blows Trait (30% reset chance on Low Blow on parry), but they also had Reprisal, Shadow wall, and Dark Mind. Old Dark Knights weren't known for their mitigations, but rather taking hits and sacrificing a portion of their HP to do more damage via Dark Arts. They were more known for healing by doing damage. By StB, With Abyssal Drain (being a spammable ability but at 120 potency), Quietus, Dark Arts, the old Dark Knight could damage sustain very well against lots of enemies. They also had Sole Survivor that restored 20% HP/MP if target dies. Dark Knights weren't exactly known for their powerful mitigations, rather they had more unorthodox mitigative defense skills in conjunction with their sustain skills before the homogenization for tanks and healers. They aren't as simple tanky as Paladins with their shields or strong innate sustain tank like WAR. They were more closer resembled to caster tanks because of their Dark Arts allowing them to heal by spending MP and then taking damage with blood price and using blood weapon to restore MP.

Post-homogenization, they get more overall mitigations like all tanks but they haven't gotten much to replace the damage sustain and unorthodox mitigation besides The Blackest Night. Truthfully speaking, parry was moved over to GNB with camouflage. Looking at how their defensive skills were initially designed, the original Edgy boi Dark Knight's mitigation was not supposed to be designed to be as strong as PLD or WAR in terms of mitigation but rather focuses more on sacrificing a portion of their HP to do more damage. Dark Arts being adjusted, abyssal drain and sole survivor being changed and removed, and blood price being removed leaves somewhat of a huge hole for Dark Knights kit and healing up has been slightly more difficult with the increased HP values. However, even with the old kit, Living Dead wasn't supposed to be a resilient defensive cooldown, but there were many ways to get your HP back up easier. It seems that Dark Knights just need to get more damage sustain skills back, but that would require giving Dark Knights their MP management skills and MP management gameplay back. However, the lv 70 capstone skill The Blackest Night pretty much incentivize the Dark Knight to never let their HP fall low enough that they would have to rely on their invulnerability.

Honestly a really good quick lookback at what DRK once had and what it could use to make it less... not enjoyable. Hopefully someone in the dev team has this kind of retrospection if/when they look forward to job changes in 6.0 DRK needs a niche after having it carved and gutted and syphoned away and being left a husk molded like a knock-off copy of another tank.

[WhyAmIHere]

As for the "it lasts 20 seconds!!"

It doesn't.
Living Dead lasts for 10s, and Walking Dead lasts up to 10s. You can have LD shift into WD at any point in those 10 seconds, and WD can be cleansed almost whenever in those 10 seconds. Holmgang's one deficit to it's duration is more felt in multi-enemy situations if used on a target that dies, whereby you lose Holm. Learned that the hard way. Living Dead doesn't do jack-all but allow WD to trigger. "But it's a sign to your healers to not heal you!" So? I've been not-healed by my healers enough to say LD isn't any more an incentive than anything else for me to just be left sitting with a regen and TBN on me.

---

spitballing ideas here: tying back to how people have so many things against LD, and DRK just keeps getting skills pruned.
What would be the downside if Walking Dead was adjusted so that any damage taken while under this effect is instead restored as HP to the DRK?

People keep saying "just add in a healing increase to walking dead! like convalescence!" Why settle for just that? It'd still be in line with DRK's lore of persevering through adversity. If anything for the sake of "balance" just make it so that you still die if you're not fully healed after WD's duration, or just inflict a penalty to WD that prevents you from being healed by anything but it's own effect while you're under the effect of WD.

[Daeriion_Aeradiir]

What would be the downside if Walking Dead was adjusted so that any damage taken while under this effect is instead restored as HP to the DRK?

People keep saying "just add in a healing increase to walking dead! like convalescence!" Why settle for just that? It'd still be in line with DRK's lore of persevering through adversity. If anything for the sake of "balance" just make it so that you still die if you're not fully healed after WD's duration, or just inflict a penalty to WD that prevents you from being healed by anything but it's own effect while you're under the effect of WD.

The same downside that plagues half of the ideas for re-designing WD: It robs control of the ability and nerfs it hard in content where it's planned to be used.

Quick example why 'convert damage to HP' would make WD useless against mechanics that other invulns would have no trouble against:

-Golden bahamut uses Ahk Morn.
-DRK takes 100k damage out of their 60k HP, WD is procced.
-2nd Ahk Morn hit fully heals DRK, WD is dispelled
-3rd Ahk Morn hit kills DRK.
-4th & 5th ahk morn hits wipe party, where Holm/hallowed/Bolide would have no issues.

Same concept with any 3-hit+ TB, like Punishing heat + 3 divine spears, Ordained capital Punishment + Ordained Punishment, etc. The effect would also be useless against any needed use of LD where the DRK is currently the OT and not taking active damage (Homing Laser from UWU), or any TB that requires a tank swap which would be complicated as the DRK would have to hold onto the boss for an extra auto, where other tanks you just swap immediately. Or a TB followed by a phase jump/long cast bar where the boss can't deal damage to the DRK to heal them.

For an invuln to have Parity & balance with the others and not have that Tank be cast into the abyss of never being used in certain strategies ever again, its effect needs to either A) be guaranteed to be invulnerable for the duration specified (Hallowed/Bolide/Holm), or B) Have it's effect be controllable by the party to absorb however much damage its needed to without falling off prematurely. (Current WD)

That's why adding a Healing % modifier to WD is a common suggestion, since it tackles the issue of WD without compromising its use as an actual Invuln in any situation bolide/hallowed/Holm are used in. It is a very basic solution, but it would require the least work while making the ability more manageable by a single healer.

Honestly, if I were to redux WD to keep its flavor while letting it maintain parity, I'd do the following:

Walking Dead: While this effect is active, your HP cannot go below 1. While the effect of Walking Dead is active, 'Edge of Shadow', 'Flood of Shadow', 'Bloodspiller' & 'Quietus' recover HP based on the damage they deal (100% Convert ratio). 'The Blackest Night' will also heal you for 25% of your max HP during the effect of Walking Dead. Having 100% of your Max HP restored during the duration of Walking Dead will dispel this effect. When the effect of Walking Dead expires without being cleansed, the DRK suffers a DOT equal to 1/4th the difference between their current HP and their Max HP. DOT duration: 12s.

This way, WD keeps its aesthetic flair of needing to be cleansed, but at the same time, giving the DRK more power to assist the healer in cleansing it, while also making it so the effect isn't all or nothing: If the DRK only got healed to say, 80%, then the DOT will tick for 5% of their max HP over the next 12s (or 4 ticks), meaning its a lot more manageable for the healer(s), while still punishing if you barely heal them at all.

[Packetdancer]

I think with a lot of new players nowadays, there should be an in-game tutorial that teaches the abilities of other jobs that you need to watch out for.

I honestly want a "Hall of the Master" successor to the "Hall of the Novice". Instead of just doing things in the little arena, have it be role-specific solo content using an NPC party; it's feasible now that we have the Trust AI system. Fight a large group of mobs, fight a smaller group with one or two mobs that need to be dealt with (interrupted/stunned), fight a boss with mechanics... something like that. For healers, have an NPC DRK that uses Living Dead, and so on.

At the end, you could have the NPC observing the group give you in-world feedback in the form of a little report. Things like noting to a healer that they could have applied more DoTs or done more DPS, explaining why the tank died to the Walking Dead debuff, noting to a tank that they could've used cooldowns at various places, etc. I suspect a lot of players would find that useful, since they'd be able to get advice at their own pace. And the feedback would probably be a *lot* more useful than just using training dummies or hitting up Stone, Sea, Sky.

It could even be presented in-world as training offered by the Scions of the Seventh Dawn for their members.

(But that's hardly specific to Living Dead, just something that would help in explaining it to players.)

[Hycinthus]

Healers should technically notice you using it. With that said, simple chat messages for LD aren't too intrusive, so you can def make a notification.

LD is absolutely fine to use if you're with a WHM and he has bene up. With time you'll learn to keep track of benediction. It can even be used in a planned manner with WHM and give you and your healer many benefits by reducing the need to heal you for 10s. If there is no WHM present you want to avoid using LD. If it's an emergency and you're about to die, you can pop it in order to survive 10 more seconds. That can be the difference between a wipe or clearing a pack of mobs. But expect to die at the end of it.
Any other use of LD should be planned out with your party/healers.

After we take the fatal blow and WD activates and we are left with 1 HP, does taking more damage or getting hit by AOE kill us? Or are we fully invulnerable still?

[Tranquilmelody7]

I firmly believe that the doom debuff needs to go(That's essentially what walking dead is) regardless of what other changes Living Dead may receive.
Why do we need a move that has the potential to kill you in an MMO that is striving to be accessible?

Heck, just having Walking dead drop you to 1 HP would be a massive improvement, without further bloating the amount of text in the skill's already convoluted description.

TBN would work so well with Walking Dead if it just dropped your HP to 1 instead of brutally KOing you.

[EaMett]

After we take the fatal blow and WD activates and we are left with 1 HP, does taking more damage or getting hit by AOE kill us? Or are we fully invulnerable still?

You keep taking damage but it will not kill you for the full 10s duration of WD. Your HP will just sit at 1. If a healer heals you above that, you will lose hp as the mobs hit you. So in that sense, you aren't exactly invulnerable, ever. You're just unkillable. GNB and PLD are the only tanks that benefit from being invulnerable and don't take any damage when hit.