Living Dead: Problem List

[AC9Breaker]

I like Living Dead. I think its fine.

[Wayback]

I've had another direction I'd like to see Living Dead go -- one that allows DRK some hope of recovery and gives Barrier healers more breathing room, while keeping the identity of the skill in place.

Living Dead - Duration 10s
While under the effect of Living Dead, if an attack would reduce you to zero HP, instead your status changes to "Walking Dead" and you gain 4 stacks of "Beyond Death"

Walking Dead - Duration 10s
While under this status, most attacks will not reduce your HP below 1 (alternativly, full invunerability). When you are healed for 25% of your health, lose 1 stack of "Beyond Death". When the duration of Walking Dead ends, you take damage equal to 25% of your HP for every stack of "Beyond Death" you have remaining.


With this setup, healers and the Dark Knight can actually see how close they are to a full recovery by tracking how many stacks of Beyond Death remain. By shifting it from a guarenteed KO on expiration to variable damage, it also gives barrier healers and the DRK with TBN greater flexibility in surviving the subsequent hit. Furthermore, that damage can then be used to pop TBN and get some immediate payback against their enemies. And ultimately the skill would retain the risk/reward and self sacrificing nature that the ability is trying to achieve.

[mistaya]

At the very least split the effect so that Walking Dead's damage immunity doesn't end on being healed. I am so tired of being killed by healers who are just trying to do their job. I would also suggest if it does not proc (as in, you used it but were saved by the healers and Walking Dead does not proc) that the cooldown could have a partial refund since you got nothing out of it. It won't change anything for planned usages but any time I have to use a panic Living Dead and it doesn't proc because I suddenly get a bunch of heals it feels really bad. Holmgang can also not grant it's bonus but the cooldown is much lower than Living Dead's and since Holmgang is flatly superior at this point that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

[Lyth]

I really want to see this action addressed this expansion. There's no way that the dev team hasn't seen 6 years worth of complaints about Living Dead. It's baffling that they buffed every other invuln to make it even more awful by comparison. They really don't want you to play this job.

[Videra]

I like Living Dead. I think its fine.

Allow me to illustrate, from the PoV of a longtime tank, why Living Dead is garbage:

Living Dead is a black hole for other resources, as it requires a full HP heal so that the Dark Knight can keep standing. There are a few ways one could resolve this; reducing it to a 50% HP heal, instead of 100%. Living Dead sucks up resources where Superbolide, Hallowed Ground, and Holmgang don't - and that, in my opinion at any rate, - is a terrible thing. While I'd prefer a full rework of the skill, if they wanted to keep it in theme with what it currently is? My prior suggestion would likely be the best option.

[Cabalabob]

Personally I feel like DRK needs another rework, if you look at tanks like PLD and WAR, they know what they want to do and they do it well, PLD is a flat mitigation tank, most of it’s moves focus on getting more blocks and it’s invuln takes that to it’s logical conclusion of 100% mitigation. WAR is the self heal tank, it has a lot of moves that recover HP or make it easier to recover HP and it’s invuln prevents it from going below 1 HP which suits it perfectly as a tank that can recover HP.

DRK (and this applies to GNB as well honestly) lacks that identity. It has cooldowns that reduce magic damage, a cooldown that requires a full heal on a tank with next to no self healing and a cooldown that gives it a shield. There is no coherence, no synergy and the fact living dead is a badly designed ability in general is just the cherry on top.

Since TBN has been relatively well received by DRK players I think they should lean into that. Make DRK a barrier tank, change dark mind to something like a 10% HP shield that restores the users HP as it is consumed. Change dark missionary into a party wide HP shield that gives the DRK dark arts stacks for each shield that’s broken (making it stack obviously) so it’s more of an actual mechanic rather than just your glorified TBN refund. And change living dead into a super charged TBN that gives you a 100% HP shield and if it’s broken you get a full heal and a few seconds of invulnerability.

Right now DRK just lacks any identity and in my eyes that hurts it more than any one move.

[RatCopter]

I had assumed that we would be getting a completely overhauled Living Dead whenever this great invuln overhaul project was going to happen, so I would have been happy enough to be stuck with it for a while longer.
But with the underwhelming look of the other skills we're getting, and the already better invuln being pushed to 10s? It's getting really hard to give the benefit of the doubt, and instead assume that all this disappointment and frustration is by design.

[Derio]

With the buff to other tanks invulns to be 10s. Is DRK currently imbalanced? PLD had the animation issue and probably still does, same with GNB but holmgang is now literally the best invuln in the game by far with no downside.

But as it was stated earlier. None of the comments here on this forum get read or even relayed to the devs. Even JP forum complaints about LD and BW are not received so what does that tell you.

[ArthurATDayne]

With the buff to other tanks invulns to be 10s. Is DRK currently imbalanced? PLD had the animation issue and probably still does, same with GNB but holmgang is now literally the best invuln in the game by far with no downside.

But as it was stated earlier. None of the comments here on this forum get read or even relayed to the devs. Even JP forum complaints about LD and BW are not received so what does that tell you.

I predict that after all this SquareEnix will eventually Improve Living Dead to require just 95% Max HP Restored to Avoid KO. Big Brain Fix, DONE DEAL.

[AC9Breaker]

Allow me to illustrate, from the PoV of a longtime tank, why Living Dead is garbage:

Living Dead is a black hole for other resources, as it requires a full HP heal so that the Dark Knight can keep standing. There are a few ways one could resolve this; reducing it to a 50% HP heal, instead of 100%. Living Dead sucks up resources where Superbolide, Hallowed Ground, and Holmgang don't - and that, in my opinion at any rate, - is a terrible thing. While I'd prefer a full rework of the skill, if they wanted to keep it in theme with what it currently is? My prior suggestion would likely be the best option.

cool. Ive been playing since 1.0 too. This game isn't too hard so its fine.