Ask any Dark Knight player or healer in Final Fantasy XIV what the bane of their existence is in dungeons, and you will likely hear them scream “Living Dead” without a second thought. The addition of the Sage healing job only added to the disdain that has been brewing for the ability over the past couple of expansions. Players who have given up hope need not fear, however, as Square Enix has finally addressed the issues with Living Dead in the Newfound Adventure patch.
The official notes for Path 6.1 state that Living Dead will now heal the Dark Knight for a potency of 1,500 for each weaponskill or spell the Dark Knight lands on enemies during its duration. If an amount of HP totaling the character’s max health is restored during this period through this addition and the healer’s help, the Dark Knight will remain unkillable during the rest of the duration of the ability. This is a huge win for Dark Knight players and healers, who no longer have to stress as much to heal up before imminent death.
Living Dead was previously a very flavorful ability that represented the concept of the Dark Knight well. When close to dying, the job could activate it and prevent fatal damage, but would receive a debuff requiring the healer to heal them for 100% of their max health in a small frame of time. Failure to do so would cause the Dark Knight to die when the debuff expired. The many new leveling Sage healers often struggled the most to keep the Dark Knight alive through Living Dead as many of their burst heals are on longer cooldowns.
The Endwalker expansion has made tank jobs extremely self-sufficient. In fact, the Warrior has been memed as a better healer than the actual healer jobs. This self-sustaining element has caused many tanks to be able to utilize their “cheat death” major defensive cooldowns and then just heal up during the safe period. No other major cooldown came with a negative as impactful as Living Dead, however.
During the initial leveling periods of the expansion, many healers noticed that the Dark Knight was the hardest tank to heal as it lacked any major healing and could essentially only prevent damage with The Blackest Night. This huge change to Living Dead has been long requested and will now place the ability as one of the best defensive cooldowns among all the tank jobs, and could actually increase the popularity of the Dark Knight job.
