Living Dead: Problem List

[TouchandFeel]

I agree that Living Dead is a problem and needs to be addressed and personally I would like to see it get completely replaced with a new ability.

Below is what I wrote about the ability and my suggested replacement that I posted in the Dark Knight Megathread here.

Here is the excerpt ...

This is one that players have been asking to be changed since Dark Knight was introduced in Heavensward. It is the only tank invulnerability ability that has a caveat effect that has a hardline requirement in needing 100% of total tank hp restored or it literally kills the tank. This makes this ability the only such defensive ability requiring such a high level of healing which makes it, as others have deemed it, “a healing black hole”. All other invulnerabilities require only just enough healing so that the tank doesn’t die right after their invulnerability wears off, which is almost always far less than what Living/Walking Dead requires. This problem is then complicated even more by the fact that how the ability even works is not messaged well. There is no good indication of when the transition from Living Dead to Walking Dead occurs, which often leads to being healed too early so Walking Dead never activates and the ability is wasted or not being healed at all or too late because the healer didn’t notice that it triggered. The remaining amount needing to be healed isn’t conveyed at all, making it a guessing game which can lead to over-healing and wasted resources, or not getting healed enough and the tank dying. Then to top it all off, once the healing requirement is met, the ability ends which means that an overzealous healer could heal too quickly and remove the invulnerability effect too early which can easily get the tank killed, and not to mention it guarantees that the Dark Knight will never get a full 10s of invulnerability since when that 10s is reached, the Dark Knight drops dead.
With all the above issues which have been around since Heavensward, making all other tank invulnerabilities 10 seconds long in Endwalker just makes the already problematic Living Dead that much worse by comparison.
At this point Living Dead absolutely must be addressed and preferably completely replaced.
I suggest replacing it with the ability below, Danse Macabre. This ability tries to keep the style and general concept but reworks the mechanics to make it match better with the other invulnerability abilities. It is designed somewhat to be a reverse Superbolide in which instead of being set to minimum HP, you are set to maximum HP and then it reduces you down by 33% per server tick over 3 ticks for a total of 99% of your total health. Functionally they are almost exactly the same asides from two important factors. First, going to full HP is less likely to give your healer a heart attack like dropping to 1HP would. Second, going to max HP and then having it decrease over ~9s makes it easier for a healer to lose out healing through over-healing if they cast the heals too early on. This little extra complication and consideration towards healing is what justifies the lower recast compared to Superbolide.

Lvl.50: Danse Macabre (Replaces Living Dead)
Ability –Range: Self - Cast: Instant – Recast: 300s
Recovers HP to full and renders you impervious to most attacks for a duration of 10s.
Additional Effect: Afflicts the Dark Knight with Death’s March.
- Death’s March effect: Gradually damages the Dark Knight over 10s for a total of their maximum HP. This damage cannot reduce the Dark Knight below 1 HP

[MellowMink]

Just wanted to say that I really appreciate the productive conversations, strong organization, and healthy vibes happening across this thread; thanks a lot for everyone discussing ways to improve this ability in a positive manner! I hope that developers end up seeing this soon too.

[MellowMink]

One thing that came to mind lately while playing a Sage and struggling to save a Dark Knight who went into Walking Dead mode: Why can’t shield potency also contribute toward the recovery? As far as I can tell, it’s solely pure health that goes toward it, which is a bummer for Scholars and Sages who tend to use shield heals more often than strictly normal heals.

[The_User]

The belief that Dark Knight supposed to be a shield tank is a misunderstanding. Dark Knight in heavensward have zero shield ability while WAR have Thrill of Battle barrier since ARR
TBN was created to deal with a fast mp regen/restore of Dark Knight in stormblood since Darkside has been changed from constantly draining mp to just stop natural mp regen so dev create a second gauge aka blood gauge to allow Dark Knight to convert the mp to another resource before it over cap. It is more about the mp control rather than a lore.

[Lyth]

For what it's worth, I put up a summary post of the specific problems with this ability on the Q+A thread in the hopes that they don't go off on a random tangent with it, if it ever comes up. That's the most that I can do.

[NightHour]

The whole point of Tank immunities is to prevent death and protect resources... healer resources specifically.


Living Dead goes against this as the healer is forced to burn resources such as GCD heals to prevent the Tank from dying to their "immunity" ability.

For what it's worth, I put up a summary post of the specific problems with this ability on the Q+A thread in the hopes that they don't go off on a random tangent with it, if it ever comes up. That's the most that I can do.

Worst part of Living Dead is the DRK has absolutely no agency over whether they live or die.



GNB presses Super? Heart of Corundum + Aurora will have the GNB at like 60% health before Super's invulnerability fades.

WAR presses Holmgang? Bloodwhetting + Equilibrium will top the warrior off without healer intervention.

PLD pressed Hallowed? Oh wait their current health is preserved!

[Danelo]

The job just needs to be abandoned by the player base and frankly they have three good reasons to do so. The devs won’t do anything until that happens.