Version update and how it affects paladins

[Grizzlebeard]

The following job-related adjustments are scheduled for the next version update.

Changes to the Shield System

In the current system, blocking an attack with a shield negates all damage. However, in the new system, shields will only reduce the amount of damage taken. In addition to the basic defense bonus, how often a shield is used and how much damage is reduced will depend on the type of shield equipped. Also, the frequency of shield usage in battle will increase substantially with this new system.

-The spell "Banish III" will become available.

Well, Banish III will be a nice addition, even though I'll use it as much as Banish II or Holy ie never, but the shield changes concern me. Seems we'll be initially taking more damage but the comment about the ability firing off more often may negate extra damage taken.

What are everyone's feelings on this? Appreciate it has to go live before we can see the true effects.

[breal777]

Depends on how much the damage is cut down when getting a shield block, if it's somewhat like guard with MNK, then it could still be pretty nice. Especially if it's supposedly going to increase the amount that we shield block.

Will be nice if it's actually an improvement over the current system tho.

[Dark Aphalite]

When I read the first line of the shield adjustment I got worried. Then read the rest and was relieved.

The fact that it will trigger "substantially more" makes up for the damage take.
And if anything I think we will be taking LESS damage in the long run.

[Mila]

I think se wanted to improve shielding w/ this update but they had to change it so that u still were dealt damage, like this, to stop it from being over powered... I've always thought as paladins as Shield-warriors... how cool will it be for 1/2 of the attacks a pld takes to be blocked by the shield.

[JP_Ikari]

Sounds good, especially with us shield blocking more and more.

JP

[Rai]

Recently, as I am approaching end game I have had a heavy heart. I have gone 70 levels with a shield and sword combo and I feel that is how a PLD should be equipped. To enjoy end game content I will have to switch to an Earth Staff, this had me depressed. I have been hoping some sort of change would be made or new equipment introduced that would allow a PLD using a sword and shield combo to tank HNMs as well as an Earth/Terra Staff equipped PLD.

I truly hope this change will allow a PLD wielding a sword and shield combo will match a PLD using Earth/Terra Staff.

[?G0t_Rice?]

Originally posted by Rai
Recently, as I am approaching end game I have had a heavy heart. I have gone 70 levels with a shield and sword combo and I feel that is how a PLD should be equipped. To enjoy end game content I will have to switch to an Earth Staff, this had me depressed. I have been hoping some sort of change would be made or new equipment introduced that would allow a PLD using a sword and shield combo to tank HNMs as well as an Earth/Terra Staff equipped PLD.

I truly hope this change will allow a PLD wielding a sword and shield combo will match a PLD using Earth/Terra Staff.

... thats because Paladins have to use sword and shiel stupid noob its people like you that give good PLDs a bad name, dumbass...

[Rai]

?G0t_Rice?,

Wow, I'm totally amazed by your ignorance. Congratulations on having a completely worthless first post.

I only hope you are new poster (as stupid as you may be), and not some spineless coward creating a ghost account to post your senseless remarks.

**Oh gee, what a surprise ?G0t_Rice? AKA j00b got banned.

[Langolier]

Another bonus to this will be getting TP when your shield fires. Of-course depending on how much damage the shield blocks that might not be a big enough advantage.

[imac2much]

Hm this sounds similar to the shield system in WoW. In that game, shield blocks happen more often than in FFXI, but the amount of damage blocked depends on the shield and your strength, instead of completely negating one hit.

[Asherek]

I'm actually welcoming this change, if it's implemented properly.

Problems with the current system:

1. Shield skill is damn hard to raise.
2. Shield blocks don't happen very often, unless you have very high/capped skill, and even then, don't happen that often.
3. Shield block completely negates all damage from that hit. This is potential imbalance if they increase number of Shield blocks while completely negating damage. Not to mention, for weaker stuff, this can actually be detrimental since you can't easily generate the hate by curing yourself if you negate the damage coming to you.

New system potential:

1. Quicker speed of shield skilling.
2. More often Shield blocking. This could quite potentially lead to overall less damage taken than simply having a couple of hits negated here and there. If you get hit for 100+ for 50 hits and negate one or two, versus Shield Blocking 1/3 of those 100+ hits and reducing damage to those 1/3 of Shield Blocked hits.
3. Might actually give us a very viable alternative to using Earth Staff against the HNM's. While I know quite a few JP and NA importer Paladins who still swear by Sword/Shield for HNM's, it's not easily done if you don't have very high Shield Skill. I myself would like to see Sword/Shield being better to use than Staff. Why? Well, call me shallow, but I always pictured Paladin tanking with a Sword+Shield, not a stick....:rolleyes:

[LionhartPLD]

I think its intention is to stop dumb plds from using earth staff in exp unless the things hit really really hard.

[SolidSnake207]

More often Shield blocking. This could quite potentially lead to overall less damage taken than simply having a couple of hits negated here and there. If you get hit for 100+ for 50 hits and negate one or two, versus Shield Blocking 1/3 of those 100+ hits and reducing damage to those 1/3 of Shield Blocked hits.

I agree. Some people actually think that this is a nerf to the current shielding system but if you think about it... How often does that even go off now? I can honestly say I block 1-3 hits tops per hour exping. Thats what? Like 150-250 dmg. Meh. :rolleyes: I'd rather see the new system block more often and take like 50% dmg or something.

Wonder how this new system will work on HNMs... Now theres something I'd like to see... Hrotti and Koenig Shield V.S Fafnir/Nidhoggs. :thumbsup:

But then again this is SE we're talking about... I know they're gonna fuck up something... :sweat:

Off Topic: Yo Rugal how ya been? /salute :D

[Macht]

Originally posted by SolidSnake207
I agree. Some people actually think that this is a nerf to the current shielding system but if you think about it... How often does that even go off now? I can honestly say I block 1-3 hits tops per hour exping. Thats what? Like 150-250 dmg. Meh. :rolleyes: I'd rather see the new system block more often and take like 50% dmg or something.

Wonder how this new system will work on HNMs... Now theres something I'd like to see... Hrotti and Koenig Shield V.S Fafnir/Nidhoggs. :thumbsup:

But then again this is SE we're talking about... I know they're gonna fuck up something... :sweat:

Off Topic: Yo Rugal how ya been? /salute :D

It's a given when changing something like this that the design will have some negative effects. Like you mentioned it seems to stand that the fights with HNMs might get botched with this system since it's going to be doing comparisons.

That'll really be the ultimate test for the new shielding system how they change the PLDs part in an HNM. Also with it going to be activating more frequently it seems that shields may become more viable as well for many other jobs. Hell for the RNGs and Mages if they even get an extra 20% reduced from the damage it can end up being quite significant.

This does also open more potentials for PLDs, for example an ability that increases your shielding chances so also effectivily raising the overall damage shielded from like say 20%-30% up to 50%+ that would be huge, Imagine overall damage that could of recieved and chopping the whole thing by 50% or so.

Example! Say you take 50 hits at 100 each thats a total of 5,000 damage 20%-30% of the whole thing is a nice 1,000 - 1,500 less. Activate a new PLD ability to increase chances of shielding and end up shaving off 2,500 damage off the overall total.

EDIT:

I am getting ahead of myself on the ability, as I understand it though each job is going to get a new ability which is activated by spending merit points on it.

[JP_Ikari]

I just wanna see how this works out. I mean, I don't know if this will make us buy the high def shield depending on how this works out. I just wanna know how it will be. I can't wait.

JP

[Ziguld]

Wonder how this new system will work on HNMs... Now theres something I'd like to see... Hrotti and Koenig Shield V.S Fafnir/Nidhoggs
Hrotti + Koenig is already better than Earth Staff for Fafnir... Can't really say I've had the luxury of enough Nidhogg fights to screw around and see if Hrotti/Koenig would be better than Staff.

[imac2much]

Originally posted by SolidSnake207
Off Topic: Yo Rugal how ya been? /salute :D

Hey Kuro!
I've been doin alright... played WoW when it came out but got bored at 60 with no high end content.. for the last month or two I've been considering returning to FFXI, but I don't think I have enough time to play. The thing about FFXI is that it's a much bigger time sink than most other MMO's I've played; not necessarily a bad thing, but I can't just play 2 hours a day and feel that I've accomplished anything.

Besides, I might be going back to school now so that means even less time to play :sweat:

On another note, grats on the Koe body! You should change your avatar to show it off :thumbsup:

[Mila]

so.... how has it panned out?

better or worse?

[Asherek]

Only time will tell, but so far, I'm liking it and disliking it at the same time.

Positive things:

Shield blocks occur way more often. I noticed it a lot when tanking Xolotl today. Was triggering quite often. Normal hits from him were for 110-130ish, and Shield Blocks reduced them down to around 35-45 damage, with the absolute lowest being 28 or so.

Negative things:

Can be interrupted quite easily even during a Shield Block. This is seriously dumb, as even an EP can interrupt you now during Shield Block. As well, they removed the message that you blocked from the stupid chat log, which I can't possibly fanthom WHY.

So, I'm sorta mixed feelings on this at the moment.

[Nemes]

I love it. It definitly makes us stronger. On EP-DCs, half of the attacks I did not evade were blocked by my shield. That's a much bigger improvement than before.

Also, I don't think I've been interrupted while blocking so far. I belive you can get interrupted, but it lowers the chance of it by a lot.

[modnar]

Still not many comments on the blocking change... anybody want to tell us what they think of it so far? I want to know how the Paladin's world has changed...

[Anakron]

Just from eye-balling, it would appear that it does active more often.

However, my shield skill (around 110 now, with 170 or so being cap) has only went up by 3 levels while I leveled from 53 to almost 56, so while it does seem to activate more often, it still seems to be skilling fairly slow.

[JP_Ikari]

I'm with Daamian here, it's good to see it fire off more than it used too, but I don't even know that I used my shield or it went besides seeing my character use the shield. It's really weird and I hate the fact that we're getting interrupted when we use block. I guess it's because we're getting hit anyway, regardless if we're blocking or not. Tested in Boyadah last night, and i couldn't tell half of the time if it went off just by looking at my chat log. Stupid for SE to take that off. Oh well, least we're blocking more. So far the damage to me by the Crabs/Knight Crawlers/Mioroche's(sp?) were around 34-36 when I blocked their attack. And i'm using a RK Army Shield.

JP

P.S. My shield pre patch was 141, (with boots it's 151), and my cap at 55 is 176. It went up by .6 points during a 1 and a half hour of exp session. Weak, but I think my -10 Evasion is helping my shield up more.

[Fuzzbox]

From doing a little testing with two different shields in similar exp PT setups (66-67 in Boyahda killing Darters mostly, occasionally a Processionare to keep a chain if the Darters were within link range).

The Royal Guard's Shield seems to fire off maybe 2-3x as often as before, and seems to reduce anywhere from 40-70% of the damage.

A Musketeer Commander's Shield seems to fire off about 3x as much as the Royal Guard's Shield does now, however it only reduces damage by about 20-25%.

Spells seem to get interrupted if you get hit for a certain amount of damage - I could occasionally get a cast off cleanly while blocking if the damage dealt was very much lower than normal (say when the shield reduced a lot of damage from a weak attack), but only the Royal Guard's Shield allowed me to do this. The damage reduction from the MC Shield was not enough to allow me to cast during blocks.

It is a slightly skewed test as the MC Shield has +3 AGI whereas the RG Shield has +3 MND/CHR, so the MC Shield was probably firing a little more often than a similar shield without the +AGI would.

Interestingly, I found that my shield skill raised more often while using the RG Shield (several 0.1 and 0.2 increases over the course of 3 hours, enough for one skill level at least), whereas the MC Shield raised skill less often but seemed to be for more (I saw two 0.4 increase and an 0.5 increase over a different 3 hour PT). This may just be the randomness of the game however - it would take a far more substantial test to see if this was the norm.

Overall my opinion on the new shield skill is that it's good for PLD who have a moderately raised shield skill (say maybe 30-40 points under cap), and isn't so good for those PLD with capped or very close to capped shield skill, or those with shield skill way below cap (say over 70 points for your level).

As I'm 67 now there are very few coffer/skillup mobs that are around my level range, save demons in Castle Zvahl and quadav in Beadeaux. If I decide to go skill club on those two mobs I will see how shield does vs. similar level mobs - it has definitely changed for the better vs. mobs much lower than you.

[Icemage]

Most of the PLD I've talked to are noting that they are taking significantly less damage with sword/shield now than before, but as noted, the interruption thing sucks. Then again, if you're timing your cures right, interruption isn't as big an issue either way except when fighting enemies with really fast attacks (Torama, etc.).

Also note that Banish III is WHM65+ only, so that change does not affect Paladins at all.


Icemage

[csBahamut]

Yeah, I love the new shield blocks. If my skill was capped, I know I'd take significantly less damage. I need to cap my skill and see how Sword + Shield does on NMs, and slow hard hitters like Ladons. It was doing nicely against Spiders in Dragon's Aery. Seeing crits for like 70 dmg, or Sickle Slashes under 200 are awsome.

I don't know how anyone can have trouble with timing spells. I *never* relied on shield blocks to get off my cures before. It's so easy to time cure IV, even on Toramas. The only things I have trouble using cure IV on are 70+ NMs. Even then, I can still get in cure IV 90% of the time on some of the god pop item NMs.

[Cavalier]

Originally posted by csBahamut
Yeah, I love the new shield blocks. If my skill was capped, I know I'd take significantly less damage. I need to cap my skill and see how Sword + Shield does on NMs, and slow hard hitters like Ladons. It was doing nicely against Spiders in Dragon's Aery. Seeing crits for like 70 dmg, or Sickle Slashes under 200 are awsome.

I don't know how anyone can have trouble with timing spells. I *never* relied on shield blocks to get off my cures before. It's so easy to time cure IV, even on Toramas. The only things I have trouble using cure IV on are 70+ NMs. Even then, I can still get in cure IV 90% of the time on some of the god pop item NMs.


I made it a point to keep my shield as close to capped as possible, so this sounds like it'll be a welcome change I'm coming back to.

And, I also never relied on blocking with my shield (how could you?) to cast a spell. Sure, there were a couple times where I got a spell off thanks to a block, but most of the time I relied on the timing of my cast.

Also, IIRC (and I may not; like I said on my thread, it's been a year since I've last played), you gain TP from getting hit too, right? So this would help at least a little bit in TP gain (something PLD isn't especially know for ;) ), right?

[JP_Ikari]

Hehe, 167 +10 on my Shield now. It fires off more and more, and I can't wait for it to finally cap without our AF boots (but that +10 is always nice to have).

JP

[Shade]

As a note, shield skill on the boots (much like any other "x skill+" raises the current and max cap by whatever the amount, in this case +10. Meaning if your shield was 159/180, then putting the boots on would make it 169/190. You can continue to gain skillups even when you take your boots off if shield skill is blue (capped) with your boots on.

Just an FYI, sorry if I was confusing in any way.

[greysenn]

Originally posted by imac2much
Hm this sounds similar to the shield system in WoW. In that game, shield blocks happen more often than in FFXI, but the amount of damage blocked depends on the shield and your strength, instead of completely negating one hit.

From the looks of it, their shields actually block damage tho. Heheh