Living Dead: Problem List

[Grimfaust_BLM]

Really like this idea for LD. Kinda reminds me of Stagger from Brewmaster Monk in WoW.

Refined out, this would be a really cool QoL update.

[ArthurATDayne]

Someone from the reddit thread suggested what I feel is easily the best solution to Living Dead. Simply put, you take zero damage but also cannot be healed throughout its duration. So if you active it with 5% of your HP, you'll stay at exactly 5% for 10s. If you active it at 90%, you'll stay at 90%. Not only does this allow DRK to feel powerful using its own invuln but also removes the resource dump required from Healers. This also justifies the 60s longer CD than Holmgang because you're technically immune to damage.

Basically, this fixes nearly all of LD's problems in one fell swoop.

I rather like this idea, not just mechanically but for in game lore reasons it can be interpreted as one of the aspects of being "Living Dead": You are snapshot locked in the state you were the moment you "died", with all the good and bad up to that point.

[Lyth]

Well, I've done everything I can for this. Hopefully someone out there listens to our pleas.

This probably seems like a strange thing to focus on. I know that many people are upset about Blood Weapon not being on a stack system, Delirium being kind of boring and repetitious, DRK being still penalized by having 'spells' that don't benefit from Skill Speed, and the new abilities being fairly underwhelming. But it's more about what it represents: silent, stubborn hubris on the part of the devs to acknowledge a 6 year old problem with lots of player complaints against it and address even basic problems about it, like translation and localization errors or UI communication issues.

I think conceptually, the idea of going down to 1 HP is fun. I still think that using Holmgang on Akh Morn back in ARR something like 7 years ago was one of the most memorable raid moments I've had. I think that high risk high reward gameplay is exciting. But this is all risk no reward, and it's really poorly implemented at that. And the buffs to Holmgang and Superbolide really emphasize how bad this action is in comparison.

I really enjoy this game, and I'll be interested to see how the Hydaelyn/Zodiark arc finishes off. I will be looking forward to Endwalker, if only from a story standpoint and the way that it usually manages to tug on the nostalgia strings. It's just a bit disappointing to have the job that I wanted to play deliver in so many ways aesthetically and yet consistently fail in terms of basic gameplay issues. I'm thankful that Reaper is around. Let's hope that they don't butcher it next expansion.

[Shin96]

Well if we can get them to acknowledge this, I believe it should be much easier for them to take us seriously. One step at a time.

I really like the idea previously mentioned in this thread, where upon using Living Dead your HP stays at 50% for example, except you cannot be healed, or killed. I'd like to add you can restore your own HP, if Blood Weapon had HP properties integrated into its toolkit.

I only want them to acknowledge us. If we don't get our way at least communicate it respectfully or explain why it can't work. I miss this lack of transparency from the developers. Every job has gotten alot of care and love except DRK and SCH. It's not fair given how much people love their jobs and some of us are loyal to a fault. It deserves attention whenever possible.

[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.

[Lieri]

Someone from the reddit thread suggested what I feel is easily the best solution to Living Dead. Simply put, you take zero damage but also cannot be healed throughout its duration. So if you active it with 5% of your HP, you'll stay at exactly 5% for 10s. If you active it at 90%, you'll stay at 90%. Not only does this allow DRK to feel powerful using its own invuln but also removes the resource dump required from Healers. This also justifies the 60s longer CD than Holmgang because you're technically immune to damage.

Basically, this fixes nearly all of LD's problems in one fell swoop.

That Reddit person's idea is overall good but the DRK cannot be healed during invuln so it will still be confusing for healers (especially for casual players) since they need to pay to Walking Dead buff. Press heal 1 second before the buff wears off and you're wasting your juicy heal. Also if the DRK faces a situation where they need to pop the invuln at 5-10% HP. What happens after the invuln goes off can kill the DRK, basically it's like a way inferior version of Hallowed Ground.

My suggestion is to simply make DRK invuln based on a shield, aren't they supposed to be the barrier tank anyway? basically when activated, if they get hit by a lethal damage the DRK wouldn't die, it'll stay at 1 HP and gain a huge shield (preferably with another color than your usual yellow/orange to make it easier to spot), by this time the invuln buff wears off and they will survive by relying on the shield (a separate buff). Then it will be up to the healer to top the HP back when the shield is up. If the shield wears off and no healing was received, then the DRK will die from tickle damage. It's much easier to handle since healers just need to pay attention to "does this DRK have a stupidly huge barrier on their HP bar? if so I spam heal".

To maximize it, the timing of it's usage will different than the other invulns though. But at least this will be controlled by the DRK and not the healers (wherein lies the confusion with current Living Dead, another person having to pay attention to your debuff caused by yourself). Right now when there's a 2x TB upcoming, in most scenarios tanks just use their invuln and forget about the TB since they cannot go below 1 HP. But with this shield invuln, there is no guarantee that the second hit won't break the shield (and if it breaks it will be the healers heal that determines if the DRK will leave or not).

So to gain the most out of it, it'll be something like : 1st hit = eat it -> the DRK is at low HP -> pop the invuln -> 2nd hit -> DRK goes to 1 HP and gains a huge shield -> healers top DRK.

It's not the best idea but since they already have barriers around, why not improve on it if what they're after is something unique. No need to add an overly complicated system. Also barriers are fun. Looking at a huge barrier is satisfying and gives you a feeling of comfort than seeing a debuff that will kill someone if you don't heal them enough.

I also feel like the invuln should be based around the average player's skills. So the healing part needs to be easy. Why? because imagine you're the rank 1 DRK. Then you pop your invuln in a dungeon but because how it works is too big brain, your healer struggles, makes a mistake and as a result you're dead. Not your fault, not (fully) your healer's fault, but you're dead. It's just unfair to everybody. Invuln should save you from a wipe and not causing it.

[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.

[ForteNightshade]

That Reddit person's idea is overall good but the DRK cannot be healed during invuln so it will still be confusing for healers (especially for casual players) since they need to pay to Walking Dead buff. Press heal 1 second before the buff wears off and you're wasting your juicy heal. Also if the DRK faces a situation where they need to pop the invuln at 5-10% HP. What happens after the invuln goes off can kill the DRK, basically it's like a way inferior version of Hallowed Ground.

Neither of those drawbacks are all that bothersome. It's simply casual players making mistakes and isn't all that different from a WHM throwing Bene out only for a GNB to Superbolide. With my version of LD, it should be used immediately in big pulls to minimize the potential drawback. And yeah, it is a worse Hallowed Ground, on paper. It'll actually be better in practice much in the same way Holmgang is. A 5min CD means you'll get more uses out of it than Hallowed.

The issue with shielding is we've gone right back to the DRK being entirely reliant on the healer to heal them through their own invuln. At least they aren't going to die within ten seconds but it's still a scenario I largely want to avoid because unlike WAR and GNB, DRK has no means of sustaining itself. Therefore, making LD require any heals is counterintuitive, imo. Furthermore, a shield is strictly inferior because it can break whereas say all the other invulns have a set 10s immunity.