TBN & WD probably wont be fundamentally changed (in 6.xx)

[ForteNightshade]

If dungeons didn't matter to the devs then they'd all be on 4 minute cooldowns. I do respect their use cases in raids, but if people want to insist that dungeons dont matter then theres nothing that can really be said, other than the devs and many others unequivocally disagree.

On Warrior, I intentionally wall pull with zero cooldowns running so I can Holmgang and then immediately heal myself to full in two GCDs with Bloodwhetting. Meanwhile, Dark Knight can only dream of such a feat. You mentioned LD being a great "oh crap" button yet that's exactly how Superbolide functions if not already planned out because it doesn't surprise the healer with a sudden healing requirement in 10 seconds. Even better, then Gunbreaker won't take any damage despise being shot to 1HP.

There are zero advantages to Living Dead over any of the other tank invulns. They are all objectively better in every facet. This is even accounting for the duration difference as Living Dead's 5mins never provides a worthwhile advantage over Hallowed's 7min to be either relevant or useful.

Oh, well I tried to impress that I think 100% is too much. I don't want to boldly throw a number out there because it'd just be arbitrary, but so is 100%. So I'll throw an incorrect number out there thats just as arbitrary. 50%. No wait, too easy, 70%. Ahh, too hard, 60%. No wait, 62.5%. Yes, 62.5%, that is The Correct amount needed to be healed or shielded.
:P yaeh I get it, I just didn't want to put a number out there.

Any healing requirement that if not meant results in the Dark Knight still dying remains an objectively flawed design. None of the other invulns have such a drawback, thus they are always better.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

In terms of your percentages, any “amount required to heal” mechanic is still subpar to the other three, in that they do not have an “amount required to heal” attached to them.

Without WD lasting significantly longer, there is no rewarding aspect of it to justify the risk, I agree.

Let me use a ridiculous example then. Walking dead lasts 5 minutes.
Yes, ridiculous but I'm having to be ridiculous if you're going to say something like any amount required to heal is too much. Depends on the reward.

As for many other replies (not you Hyo) I feel like I've been dragged into an argument to defend positions I don't have, which I will not do.
The point is that you can fix to good enough levels without a complete overhaul by turning the knobs instead.

If you reduced the hp required to heal so something stupid low like 25% and had walking dead last 20 seconds, and say its still fundamentally unworkable, at that point we would just be arguing for the sake of arguing.

[Archwizard]

I f you reduced the hp required to heal so something stupid low like 25% and had walking dead last 20 seconds, and say its still fundamentally unworkable, at that point we would just be arguing for the sake of arguing.

It's statements like this that really make it shine that you don't play DRK much, mate.

To spell it out: the Walking Dead buff is both the "invuln" and the Doom timer. You cannot apply or clear one without doing the same to the other.

The invulnerability does not remain for 10 sec just because the healing check was passed. When the healer removes the Doom timer, the invuln instantly shatters too, and you're left with whatever HP amount you had when it did.

So even if they reduced the heal requirement, what you end up with is the "invuln" breaking earlier than other tanks, and leaving DRKs at lower health when it does.
(Which is still true even now, since WAR can full-heal three times over before Holmgang ends, and Bolide triggers HoC. You just trade having barrier healers toss their hands up and watch the DRK die, for pure healers who clear it by accident and still watch the DRK die.)

Bearing in mind that LD isn't even a true invuln like Bolide or HG, it's an Unkillable state like Holmgang – you still take damage, so even the healing DRK acquires to clear WD is subject to being reduced before WD even clears. Which means unless WD got significantly overhealed, you've popped a 5 min CD that lasted 3 seconds and surprise, have under a quarter of your health left from it with no additional protection.

Now, you could separate the Doom timer from the Holmgang effect, or add an innate healing component, or give it another effect for the remaining duration if cleared early, or even make it a true invuln so healers can visually see how much they still need to heal... but then the central conceit of your OP is negated, because that's more than a number adjustment. All of these are fundamental changes to how the ability itself is programmed and functions.

So I repeat: There is no numeric improvement alone that would bring Living Dead up to par with the other invulns. This is not negotiable.

[HyoMinPark]

Without WD lasting significantly longer, there is no rewarding aspect of it to justify the risk, I agree.

Let me use a ridiculous example then. Walking dead lasts 5 minutes.
Yes, ridiculous but I'm having to be ridiculous if you're going to say something like any amount required to heal is too much. Depends on the reward.

It’s less an argument of “too much to heal” and more an argument that none of the other tank immunities have a criterion on them that results in death if not met. Remove the healing requirement entirely while allowing Walking Dead to last for 10 seconds, and LD wouldn’t be all that bad. Healers wouldn’t have to spend more resources to save the DRK from certain death compared to the other tanks, and the DRK isn’t being punished for using their immunity, either.

[Lyth]

At absolute bare minimum, Living Dead requires the creation of a UI overlay to show healers what healing requirements are left for you to survive. It's actually less effort to just change the action effect then it is to try to tweak it into something usable.

And that's ignoring the balance issue as well. Executed perfectly, Living Dead becomes Holmgang on a 51 second longer effective recast and 1 second shorter effective duration, and to actually attain that it comes at the cost of 2 Benediction uses per invuln due to the mismatch in their recasts. What happens when you try to address that? The reasonable thing to do would be to give Living Dead a shorter recast than Holmgang. But Holmgang's recast is absurdly short to begin with. Do you reduce Living Dead's recast to 3 minutes? Or do you swap Living Dead and Holmgang's recasts and risk incurring the ire of WAR players? Neither of these are great solutions.

And all this ignores the core issues. This is a really badly designed action. It doesn't feel fun to use, and you have no agency over whether you survive the effect. DRK has nowhere near the self-healing capabilities of WAR or PLD. And if you're a new healer and this is your first time encountering the action, you're required to mouseover and read through vague and incorrectly written tooltips. The actual Doom mechanic is more clearly described than this. Compare the size of the tooltip on Living Dead to that of any other invuln in the game. Keep it simple.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

1/2

It's statements like this that really make it shine that you don't play DRK much, mate.

To spell it out: the Walking Dead buff is both the "invuln" and the Doom timer. You cannot apply or clear one without doing the same to the other.

The invulnerability does not remain for 10 sec just because the healing check was passed. When the healer removes the Doom timer, the invuln instantly shatters too, and you're left with whatever HP amount you had when it did.

*Revelation of walking dead*

Jeez, this is why I didn't want to mention specific numbers. This hasn't been some kind of revelation. Don't mean to single you out or anything, just seems like every other drk thinks its secret wisdom and presume that everyone else doesn't. I was being purposely ridiculous for it to be a self-clearable long duration invul

...

So I repeat: There is no numeric improvement alone that would bring Living Dead up to par with the other invulns. This is not negotiable.

As it applies to tank busters. I recognize that, I don't challenge you on that. We actually agree on that. I admit that I'm biased in that I never use it to soak TBs, but I honestly don't think the devs care about that either or they wouldn't range from 4 to 7 minutes

But theres two other use cases (at least)
1) Planned dungeon mit
2) Oh-shi button

And I already know people's opinions on this. Sub-optimal, invalid, dungeons don't matter, you shouldn't be using them as oh-shi buttons.
And.. I guess, judging by the responses in this thread, anything I *don't* say is presumed as my personal opinion for some reason.
So: in recognizing those (additional) use cases other than being used for TBs, let me be clear that I am not asserting that LD+WD is better at either.

As dungeon mit, invuls are plainly better. Only coordination you might need is "gonna SB", and even then if they benediction your immediately before SB, its whatever, you're still fine. Warriors have no need for it in basically any scenario, and WD+LD just require too much coordination to be exploited as planned mit and only whm+drk could fully utilize that, but even then, by far the most inferior (as is)
1/2

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

2/2
As oh-shi button, look I already know what you guys think, so don't presume I don't, presume that I do. But if you look at LD+WD and ask yourself "wtf was square thinking" its easy to see that they see it as an oh-shi button. And as an oh-shi button, and only as an oh-shi button, does it have any kind of conceivable benefit over holmgang. And that evaporates as soon as warriors get raw intuition 6 levels later.
So, I just want to make it clear that I nor anybody think its a good oh-shi button compared to others except in theory it has a bigger catch and bounce window than holmgang for 5 levels, and that true invuls are always superior as oh-shi buttons. To me its clear that the devs view it as an oh-shi button because why else would the living dead be 10 seconds? The only logical explanation is that they view LD as an uncertainty window

So I admit my bias I don't look at invuls through the lens of exclusive TB soaks, I'm a romantic and would like to see it keep the risk and be rewarded with a superior mitigation. And, let me reiterate, that I don't think is currently the case at 100% heal where shields don't apply, nor a 10s WD.
I would prioritize the dungeon mit use case over TB soak, just so we're on the same page.

I respect the opinion that invuls should be designed as TB soaks, I just disagree. We have different opinions is all. But I do think and assert that both could be satisfied by simply turning the knobs.
As a TB soak, a 15 or 18.74109 second WD and a 50% or 62.5% heal and shield requirement... there is some point at which people would just be being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse to complain about it. You survived the TB, cleared the WD requirement, use case satisfied. Suboptimal suboptimal sure, but drk can't heal itself you have to heal it eventually anyways. Holmgang on drk wouldn't change that you still need to actually heal it. Lowering the threshold, extending the window, and allowing shields to count should be enough to satisfy its optimization robots. No change to LD+WD is going to magically turn it into a warrior though, you still need to heal it, so it will always be *suboptimal* in that regard.

As a dungeon mit, a 15 or 18.74109 second WD and a 50% or 62.5% heal and shield requirement, and a UI that communicates how much remains to be cleared, and how much time remains (As Lyth described), could be quite exploitable and deservedly so. This is what I would hope for, this is my bias.
2/2

[Archwizard]

Jeez, this is why I didn't want to mention specific numbers.

... the point of your opening post, and your whole thread, is that you believe that they can be fixed with numbers. Yet when put to task about how that specifically can be done to defend your point, suddenly it's an issue because you know people will nitpick your specifics?

Sir. This is literally your doing. Numbers are your whole thesis. Back them up, or sit down.

This hasn't been some kind of revelation.

And yet, despite this being common knowledge, you still paint the people who point out that even extreme shifts in numbers are "fundamentally unworkable" as being unreasonable, in literally the segment I quoted in my last post.

As it applies to tank busters.

No, actually, I wasn't referring to tank busters.

Most of my experience with dealing with LD, personally, has been healing it off in dungeons across multiple healing jobs – particularly as SGE. And sure, it's part of why DRK is the most frustrating tank to heal overall, though this is largely due to other tanks just having received far more potent upgrades that make "just spam TBN" woefully ineffective by comparison to what it was in ShB.

But I can tell you right now as a healer – as someone who has largely healed as the worst job to pair with a DRK since the start of EW, even – that because of the double-edged sword of WD, simply adjusting the numbers would still be hellish for the reasons I already explained to you; the difference is only whether you're shifting the burden onto the healer removing it, or the DRK mitigating with it.
Something fundamentally unique about DRK in that sense, because as has been pointed out several times, no other tank has a burden associated with theirs. The worst you get is GNB being put to 1 HP, which is usually irrelevant anyway.

No number adjustment can remove that burden. At best it imbalances it, but generally (and let's be honest here, realistically?) just increases the weight on the other person.

And frankly, I don't want to see DRK's other mitigation nerfed in expectation of them leaning on LD more. I might have to abandon SGE if that happened.

[DanielNegreanu_Adamantoise]

At absolute bare minimum, Living Dead requires the creation of a UI overlay to show healers what healing requirements are left for you to survive. It's actually less effort to just change the action effect then it is to try to tweak it into something usable.

And that's ignoring the balance issue as well. Executed perfectly, Living Dead becomes Holmgang on a 51 second longer effective recast and 1 second shorter effective duration, and to actually attain that it comes at the cost of 2 Benediction uses per invuln due to the mismatch in their recasts. What happens when you try to address that? The reasonable thing to do would be to give Living Dead a shorter recast than Holmgang. But Holmgang's recast is absurdly short to begin with. Do you reduce Living Dead's recast to 3 minutes? Or do you swap Living Dead and Holmgang's recasts and risk incurring the ire of WAR players? Neither of these are great solutions.

And all this ignores the core issues. This is a really badly designed action. It doesn't feel fun to use, and you have no agency over whether you survive the effect. DRK has nowhere near the self-healing capabilities of WAR or PLD. And if you're a new healer and this is your first time encountering the action, you're required to mouseover and read through vague and incorrectly written tooltips. The actual Doom mechanic is more clearly described than this. Compare the size of the tooltip on Living Dead to that of any other invuln in the game. Keep it simple.

Ok you got me here. Yeah making the UI changes to communicate this for one particular ability does seem unlikely since UI doesn't appear to be square's strong point. I'm an app and web developer by trade and some UIs are easy to alter, such as web-based UI, and other UIs are an ungodly clusterf*q to work with and alter, and the feel of FF14's UI leads me to believe that it is based on some antiquated hell technology like winforms or worse.

To really do WD justice it would be integrated into the tank's healthbar UI somehow, like barriers are, but red or something. With a visual time (loading) bar backdrop, like a dark red loading bar filling in the drk's group-window element background.
Like you said the introduction to WD to new healers is, they died without explanation and that tank probably sucked.

At the same time I think true invuls also would be nice to have a similar invulnerability loading-bar backdrop, but in the reverse. SB and HW turning the tank's group-window element with a golden background, but drains over the 10 seconds. Warriors could be orangish-red and drain as well.
But with DRK theirs gets special attention. Theirs filling instead with an ominous attention grabbing dark red.

Admittedly this is even less likely in 6.xx than just turning WD into holmgang, which would be square surrendering and admitting defeat.
I honestly don't think turning WD into holmgang would make it overpowered or anything, just less interesting, wasted potential.
Holmgang is only holmgang because its on a warrior, so that'd be a silly complaint for them to make.

It all seems pretty unlikely though. Imo I think the most likely thing is no change at all. Second most likely thing is that they'd consider tweaking the numbers. Removing WD risk would be a blow to pride, a cutting off the nose to spite the face.
Equally unlikely I think are UI changes or turning it into holmgang.

[Archwizard]

Imo I think the most likely thing is no change at all.

They literally mentioned in LL68 that LD is getting adjusted in 6.1. That's what all the hype about it the last few weeks has been about.

Question: Dark Knight's Living Dead and Blood Weapon are more difficult to use effectively compared to other tank skills. Are there plans to adjust this?

Answer: So not just Dark Knight, but a whole bunch of jobs will be adjusted in 6.1. We are looking closely at all of your feedback, and will fulfill as many of your requests as we possibly can in 6.1. We are definitely adjusting Living Dead, so you can wait and see how it goes.
We've also definitely seen your feedback about Machinist and White Mage that you're having trouble right at the moment, and we are working on that, so please wait just a little longer. We're also looking at Dragoons who are concerned about the Jump animation lock being too long. We're gonna try to shorten that up, so we're gonna adjust things that affect the feel of your gameplay in addition to just the numbers.
And of course I'd like to say that even if I didn't specifically mention your job today, we're still looking at feedback and making adjustments for those too, so please do not descend on us in a cloud of black smoke because I'm scared.