Relic of a bygone era

[PTT]

Hi everyone.

I'm writing to ask opinions on how to better myself as a 75 PLD.

I like to think I've been a good Paladin - my friends still say I am. I've been a traditional tank for as long as I can remember. I've had the good fortune to ride the wave of Paladin updates as they happened from the beginning (IE: when Eisen gear was released, I was at the right level, when the Parade Cuirass...ditto, Shield update, and so on.)

So, I've been sitting at 75 for awhile, still in my traditional tanking setup, and the more I go do things, the more I've come to the realization that I've lost whatever edge I used to have in tanking. Instead of commanding hate, it's now whether the damage dealers ALLOW me to have hate, which isn't that often. I recently tanked the last 2 BCNM fights in ToAU, and it was an absolutely shameful performance on my part - Even using a High-Breath Mantle, I had incredible trouble tanking, and it just turned into a big old "Just kill it" frenzy.

So, I don't really know where to go from here. I'm too engrooved in the traditional kind of exp tank role, and I'm fully aware that that's not very effective nowadays, especially in ToAU areas. I don't know if I need to go a more melee-oriented route, or if I simply need better tank gear, but regardless, I'm not sure where to start improvement.

I don't have an Endgame HNMLS anymore, and I'm not really keen on joining one again, but I do run Dynamis with an LS that's let me tag along.

So, may I ask for advice? What should I be doing?

Weapon: Joyeuse
Shield: Koenig Shield
Helmet: Valor Coronet
Hands: Valor Gauntlets
Body: Adaman Cuirass
Legs: Adaman
Feet: Adaman
Belt: Warwolf Belt
Mantle: Knightly Mantle
Earrings: Hospitaler Earring and Drone Earring
Rings: Hercules Ring and Topaz Ring
Neck: Parade Gorget / Shield Torque
Ranged: Rosenbogen

Merits: Chivalry activated, 1 level of Critical Hit +, two unspent merits. Considering getting Guardian, or Enmity+

I've pretty much just been selling off my Adaman as I've been receiving Valor, to get by. I'm usually pretty poor, but I can buy what I need to. I'll usually buy the regular versions of gear, if the +1 is usually, you know, just +1, but 10x more expensive.

Thank you for reading.

[tuggler]

Weapon: Joyeuse
Shield: Koenig Shield
Helmet: Valor Coronet
Hands: Valor Gauntlets
Body: Adaman Cuirass
Legs: Adaman
Feet: Adaman
Belt: Warwolf Belt
Mantle: Knightly Mantle
Earrings: Hospitaler Earring and Drone Earring
Rings: Hercules Ring and Topaz Ring
Neck: Parade Gorget / Shield Torque
Ranged: Rosenbogen

Hi, well there's a few bits of equipment you'd find a little handier. Personally, I think you'd be better of with your AF feet than with Adaman and the Drone Earring is due for an upgrade, perhaps to Mercenary Earring for a bit of VIT or an Insomnia Earring for a bit of MP and HP. Grab yourself a Harmonia's Torque to top up on enmity and macro that in for vokes, flashes and cures etc. If you can get a Jelly Ring you'll find that really handy too. A Bibiki Seashell is also quite nice to have (and is free!).

If you can afford, start getting some DD gear for WS's (Haubergeon, Amemet etc). Swap them in for WS's, which will also help with keeping hate, especially with Warcry and Sentinel up when you do them.

[Timian]

Click my sig, and check my gear PLD gear setups.
Then match those as closely as you can.

[Sevv]

lmao nin's sash right cuz thats a common item...

[Hankthetank]

Click my sig, and check my gear PLD gear setups.
Then match those as closely as you can.

Wow, a bit full of yourself aren't you.

I call shinanigans. No one with that amount of dream gear would be so clueless as to how to dress themselves. While you gear is impecible your gear sets are embarassing flawed.

I'll respond to the OP in more detail later, but please disregard the claims and advice of Timian. I haven't seen such BS in a long time.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Timian]

No, it's true.
I'm dying to see what you'll come up with though,
mr "I tank in Valor" and "No Ridill for my WAR". *shrug*

[Lmnop]

>.> Just get a haub and some woodsmans, yo. Make sure you have an equip swap macro. You can continue to tank pld/war just fine. Just change a few things out for the DD stuff, and when things get bad you swap back. Carry a couple types of food with you at all times -- Tank food, Sushi (Dorado's nice for this), and some meat dishes.

Part of the "Paladin Problem" is that so many want to command hate so solidly. But you have to realize that adaptation is key. It's not so bad if a melee has hate, assuming you have a /ma Cure <stpc> macro set up (you dream paladins do have quick means of curing allies, right?) and you Flash for them. Don't spend all your resources trying to get hate back on you. Ration your resources to support the party. If you "tanked" by never getting hate, and just having a kick-ass Flash cycle, I'd say that you did a damn good job.

Back to the DD concept, it's to help, not to make you incredible. If I can get 10-14k/hour with a pld tank who's still mostly turtle, then do I really need one who could sell his character to feed all of Ethiopia?

[IfritnoItazura]

Not Lv.75 yet, but have you try the combination of more accuracy + enmity gear + haste gear?

I figure enmity+ gear is a natural with accuracy gear--your hits would connect more often, and get more enmity for each hit. Haste is also good for tanking--that Flash recast can never be short enough, and faster sword swings would re-enforce the effectiveness of accuracy and enmity gear.

If accuracy isn't much of an issue, then Dorado sushi will take care of it and add enmity. Haste is hard to pass by, though, and thankfully the Walahra Turban is easy to obtain--not absolutely sure if it's worth trading enmity+3 from Valor Coronet, but at least it's not too expensive to test.

[Hankthetank]

Weapon: Joyeuse
Shield: Koenig Shield
Joy is an awesome sword and a fantastic start to a DD build. I'd get a Mach+1 for Enmity Tanking and a Company Sword for DDing.

Helmet: Valor Coronet
O Hat is a free Ex/Rare DD piece that is an excellent DD piece

Hands: Valor Gauntlets
Taressque Mitts are great for TPing in and can double if you ever use a fire resist build. Pallas are a fairly cheap WS piece that can double in a Max HP build.

Body: Adaman Cuirass
Hauby is the best DD piece here, Valor when you get it is fantastic.

Legs: Adaman
Royal Knights breeches are a fairly inexpensive DD piece Dusk trousers are a better but more expensive option.

Feet: Adaman
I'd stick to AF boots for normal tanking. Amir is an excellent DD piece and is free from assualt.

Belt: Warwolf Belt
Life, Potent and Swift belts are all excellent DD belts

Mantle: Knightly Mantle
Ameniet Mantle is a cheap and exceleent DD piece

Earrings: Hospitaler Earring and Drone Earring
Get a buckler for tanking, and I'd macro hospitaler earring in for cures only. THe rest of the time, drone is fine with a buckler. For DD Spike earrings are cheap and effective, Assualt Earring is a bit more pricey but offers Acc as well.

Rings: Hercules Ring and Topaz Ring
Woodsman for TP and Ruby for WSs. Flame if you are feeling sausy.

Neck: Parade Gorget / Shield Torque
Royal Guards Collar is cheap and a good TP piece, Chiv Chain is a bit better and Pcc is ideal.

Ranged: Rosenbogen
Not much in the way of major improvements here. Fernir Stone, Bibiki Shell, and Happy egg? are all free and situational pieces. A Tilphia Sting is the best DD piece or a Lighting Box as a cheap alternative.

Slowly build a DD build and as you do you will become more DD and less healer. For now Lmnop's advice is best, tank as much as you can and flash/cure to help out when otehrs take hate. Use what DD gear you have and contribute some damage to help kill the mobs faster.

/Derail

No, it's true.
I'm dying to see what you'll come up with though,
mr "I tank in Valor" and "No Ridill for my WAR". *shrug*

Implying my input is less valid because my War doesn't have a ridill on a Paladin forum really doesn't strenghten your stance nor discredit me at all.

You can insult Valor all you like but I'll take it over Gem anyday. It offers the same enmity and gives HP a far more useful stat for endgame tanking as opposed to Gem that gives MP. Or is the Vit you are going for? Nevermind the bonus effects on Valor like the MP on demand the Valor surcoat grants or the enhanced effect of Rampart and Sentinal. I like my Valor and if I am not /nin I wear it proudly.

In your HNM build you off-hand Joyeuse and use a suppa? Are you DD tanking Grands? Faf/Hogg? Aspid? It doesn't make alot of sence. You have Homam feet yet you dont use them for HNM tanking instead choosing Gem feet for 2 enmity. Dumping the suppa and wearing another Hades Earring+1 would make far more sence and would grant you more haste which is the foundation of /nin HNM tanking while maintaining the same Enmity. Cerb+1 is a sexah piece but a High Breath Mantle is cheaper and more functional giving you both more enmity and HP. Your choices are consistanly based around cost of equipment not effectiveness of equipment.

Your DD build is based around a Kclub. Having played with it myself, I'll assume your goal is fast TP gain and lots of Vorpals, yet you use a Pricely sword, which while expensive doesn't produce larger Vorpals than a Company Sword would, a far cheaper option. See the pattern yet? You wear Pallas and a Chiv chain, Trying to get more STR in you TP build? You lack the Acc to eat meat with your DD build especially offhanding a club, unless of course you want to tell me you merited sword and club or only XP in mire. Your entire TP build is all over the place, not enough haste to make a differance, not enough Attack to be effective with sushi and not enough Acc to be effective with meat. Whats most confusing is you have the gear to properly build these sets but you dont. Merman's earring once again is an expensive but odd choice, Assualt Earring is cheaper has only 1 less attack but offers Acc as well, its a cheaper better choice but you dont use it.

Your "lolHP" build isn't a pure HP build, and I'm not sure what the point of that set is beyond showing off M.Body. Same with your "lol/war" build. Why you would use Gem feet over AF+1 when you are using a shield is beyond me. If the 2 enmity is that imprtant to you there are better slots for it that sacrifce less then 12 shield skill. Why would you wear the Kings hands other than they are a Rare HQ piece? There are many more functional pieces hand pieces.

Your gear sets just dont make sence, they are barely functional and merely serve to show off what expensive gear you claim to have. Your advice doesn't help the OP with his question and even given the funds to purchase the gear you claim to have, one could easily build more fucntion and better preforming gear sets for far less gil.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Timian]

You know, I'm not disagreeing with what you just said.
These gear setups are pretty much "all over the place".
Reason being; Alla lets you make 6 setups. If I could, I'd make
different setups for each and every HNM/Mob type - but I can't.
The only reason I made that mish-mash is because together they give
a perception of what pieces I'm macroing in and out, depending on situation.
You know as well as I do that there's no such thing as a perfect build that
suits each and every situation.

And yeah, I have hangups about Valor over Gem because I just don't value HP anymore. I'm an elvaan with maxed HP merits, so I can stay above my "comfort zone" of 1500+ without much hassle at all, so I'd rather wear the MP. Especially since I'm /NIN most of the time, and don't really need the HP for much other than staying alive between shadows.

I'm not gonna argue with you though.
You were right about my alla profile being a mess,
but hopefully I've explained why that is now.

[Feba]

Merits: Chivalry Well there's your problem. Haven't you heard? Chivalry is dead.

[Hankthetank]

You know, I'm not disagreeing with what you just said.
These gear setups are pretty much "all over the place".


And


I'm not gonna argue with you though.
You were right about my alla profile being a mess


In light of that and since we can agree the gear sets in your sig are ridiculous, perhaps you should refrain from giving advice like:


Click my sig, and check my gear PLD gear setups.
Then match those as closely as you can.


Yeah, you knew your gear set was flawed before I brought it to your attention. Sure ^^b

but hopefully I've explained why that is now

You haven’t. Your gears sets are truly drastically flawed, you fail to address the majority of my points (not that I think you can even back up your gear choices). I disliked your gear sets for reasons beyond you gear simply being “mish mashed”. Many of your pieces are merely expensive and easily replaced by cheaper better preforming pieces. You claim to not have enough room to make adequate profiles yet you have an “AFK” and a HP build profile. Nice try but I still stand by my original assessment of you.


And yeah, I have hangups about Valor over Gem because I just don't value HP anymore. I'm an elvaan with maxed HP merits, so I can stay above my "comfort zone" of 1500+ without much hassle at all, so I'd rather wear the MP. Especially since I'm /NIN most of the time, and don't really need the HP for much other than staying alive between shadows.


Not that I want to sit here and mud sling with you, but I do feel the need to clarify the above comment this for any up and coming Paladins since the above statement is a common rookie Paladin misconception.

In extended fights your MP is limited by the rate at which it can be replenished, not your Max MP. Your Max MP becomes irrelevant the second you finish casting your first spell since you should never hit full MP again for the duration of the fight. If you are sitting at full MP you are wasting MP and not keeping your hate threshold as high as it could be.

If you want to start a fight with some MP gear on and swap it our after you expend that MP that’s a great idea. If you want to swap some MP gear in before Chivalry, that’s smart playing and my hats off to you. But buying multi-million dollar gear for the sake of adding 10-15 points to your max MP, while bashing Valor and ignoring the other buffs it offers, is just plain asinine.

1500 is a survivable amount of HP if you mages have fantastic mages, but its still in the danger zone for a number of the harder mobs in the game and far from enough to consider wearing +MP gear instead of +HP gear full time.

Seriously, just stop giving advice, the more you type the more crap I see, and the less I am convinced you know anything about being an endgame Paladin.

Sincerely,
mr "I tank in Valor" and "No Ridill for my WAR".

[Timian]

*shakes head*
Seriously, man. Lighten the F up.
Ever see this one before?

http://img1.putfile.com/thumb/5/12101401653.jpg (http://www.putfile.com/pic.php?img=5367517)

Cute, ain't it?

If you wanna discuss gear, sure - I'm all for it,
but getting worked up over it... not my style.
So just take a deep breath, and try to
relax when you type. Makes you seem like less
of a whiny bitch. Kthx.

Yeah, you knew your gear set was flawed before I brought it to your attention. Sure ^^b
Yeah, pretty much, cause see, like I said it's not about making
a perfect build profile for me. You gotta look at the entire picture,
something most people seem to understand.

...you fail to address the majority of my points. I disliked your gear sets for reasons beyond you gear simply being “mish mashed”. Many of your pieces are merely expensive and easily replaced by cheaper better preforming pieces. You claim to not have enough room to make adequate profiles yet you have an “AFK” and a HP build profile.
So yeah, your "point" is that you hate me because I like expensive gear.
Allright then. Doesn't really matter to me.
And yeah, I have an AFK profile as well as a HP profile.
What's wrong with that?
What I said was, there's not enough profiles to make gear sets for every individual NM/Mob. That's still true, regardless of me "wasting" two characters.
So let's see, I could delete those two and make "Fafnir Gear Setup" and "Bune Setup".
Yay, that's two mobs. What about the rest of them?
To make gear sets for everything you ever fight, you'd need 300 profiles.
What I said was true. Alla doesn't let you make enough characters to do that.

Not that I want to sit here and mud sling with you
That's pretty much all you've done so far.
I replied to a thread, in a perfectly neutral tone.
You disagreed with my reply, but instead of just saying that
you just started whining about my alla profiles.
That wasn't just off-topic, it was just you
trying to swing your e-peen around.

In extended fights your MP is limited by the rate at which it can be replenished, not your Max MP. Your Max MP becomes irrelevant the second you finish casting your first spell since you should never hit full MP again for the duration of the fight. If you are sitting at full MP you are wasting MP and not keeping your hate threshold as high as it could be.
If you want to start a fight with some MP gear on and swap it our after you expend that MP that’s a great idea. If you want to swap some MP gear in before Chivalry, that’s smart playing and my hats off to you. But buying multi-million dollar gear for the sake of adding 10-15 points to your max MP, while bashing Valor and ignoring the other buffs it offers, is just plain asinine.

1500 is a survivable amount of HP if you mages have fantastic mages, but its still in the danger zone for a number of the harder mobs in the game and far from enough to consider wearing +MP gear instead of +HP gear full time.
Yeah, the MP thing is true. I never said anything to discredit that, did I?
No, you made an assumption again, basically putting words into my mouth (again).
Once again, I gotta refer to something I've already said. *Sigh*
The character profiles do not show my macro pieces.
My Alla-profiles are not representative for everything I do in-game. Is this hard to understand? My tanking profile has a Gem Cuirass on it. Why? Because, like I said, I want my MP high and guess what; it gives MP - Valor doesn't (and yes, it's expensive, but seriously... Why do you even keep making that point? I can do whatever I want to, with my gil, can't I?).
After spending said MP however, not once did I say that I would keep that cuirass equipped. You just made that assumption. No, I'd be more likely to swap it out
for my K.Body. If I needed to use "Cover", sure swap in the damn Valor. I could even swap in the good, ol' Hauby+1 every once in a while.
You gotta listen to what I'm saying! Those Alla-profiles aren't set in stone.
I macro in 27% Haste every time I cast Utsusemi/Flash, even though
you won't see that much Haste in either of my character profiles.
Thanks to my LS, I have a ton of rare/ex as well as pricey HQ stuff.
In fact, once I manage to find a Cursed Cuirass -1 and get a Valor Cape to drop,
I'm retiring my PLD completely. Ares' would be nice, but I'm already
too sick and tired of FFXI to start collecting anything of the sort.

And then there's the HP issue again.
I'm getting kinda tired of having everything boil down to
a discussion of how much HP is "needed", but sure... I'll do it.
I've tanked with 1900HP and I've tanked with 1500HP.
Not once has that made a difference.
With a competent support party, you shouldn't need more than that.
I suppose you're also one of those people who go "loltaru HNMPLD",
because you know, they have alot of trouble getting to 1550HP without
sacrificing too much enmity/haste.
Personally, I've never died because of 1500HP not being enough.
There's a reason why that is my comfort zone. My mages are
able to keep me alive perfectly fine, with that amount.
To be quite honest, I get more of a feeling that you're clueless since you're still
living by the philosophy that HP > Everything else. If that was the case,
we'd still be running around in full Koenig and brick-walling everything we fight.

Seriously, just stop giving advice, the more you type the more crap I see, and the less I am convinced you know anything about being an endgame Paladin.
Seriously, just stop being a facist. The more you type, the more crap I see, and the less I am convinced you know anything about diversity or reading comprehension.
Honestly, just because
1. My Alla profiles are disorganized
2. I wear rare/expensive/HQ gear
3. I don't agree with your HP obsession
you're gonna start waving your e-peen around, and claim
to be better than me? Sure, suit yourself. I actually don't really care
what you think of me, since we're not even on the same server -
much less in the same LS. I'm never gonna have to work with you,
so why would your opinion of me matter?

If you can't stay on topic, at least try to keep
it a gear discussion. Or hell, let's expand, and
start sharing some tactics too. I don't mind.
Just don't try to make it personal. That's just retarded.

[IfritnoItazura]

Well, the OP asked what should he do. You replied:
Click my sig, and check my gear PLD gear setups.
Then match those as closely as you can.

Which is not a very nice answer, since:
These gear setups are pretty much "all over the place".
Reason being; Alla lets you make 6 setups. If I could, I'd make
different setups for each and every HNM/Mob type - but I can't.

1. My Alla profiles are disorganized
2. I wear rare/expensive/HQ gear

You gave him a "disorganized" answer filled with lot's a difficult to follow ("rare/expensive/HQ gear") recommendations.

Hankthetank is overly fired up about your Allakhazam gear profiles, but the part about you giving not very good advice has some weight. If a person is lost, you shouldn't toss him disorganized pile of info and difficult to follow advise (e.g. very difficult to obtain gears), you know? :(

[Timian]

Yeh, I'll agree to that, Itazura.
I just didn't feel like writing a long wall of text in the first place,
even though that's what I ended up having to do anyways. *sigh*

[PTT]

(and yes, it's expensive, but seriously... Why do you even keep making that point? I can do whatever I want to, with my gil, can't I?)

Well, I'm not sure if he keeps bringing it up for this reason, but like I said, I'm a perpetually poor Paladin.

I'm not sure what it is - I just suck at making (and keeping) money in this game (I don't think I've ever had more than 900,000 gil on my own, usually 200k or less). I buy Regular, cheap versions of my equipment (unless the +1 is also cheap and/or provides a large benefit over the NQ, IE: Not just +1 more Stat-Here.)

Also, I don't have an HNMLS/Sea LS/Limbus LS, or even a BCNM LS, if those, in fact, exist. I used to be a part of one, but the constant HNM camping really burned me out, and it ended up being thrust into LS-Drama chaos before the shell finally split. I'm not really too keen on joining one again. So I'll probably not be taking on any HNMs for drops or money, probably not even see Absolute Virtue.

A certain HNMLS however, does allow me to go to their Dynamis with them, and lot on AF2. Valor gear, and maybe, +1 Valor Gear, is definitely a possibility. That Aegis-4 and Excalibur-4 (and Ragnarok-4) probably aren't going anywhere though, but I hang on to them anyway.

Apart from that though, I just kind of hang out with my friends in my social linkshells, do the occasional mission with them, stuff like that.

So in reality, I'm probably not going to get access to the extreme items, and I'll probably always have trouble with DDers in the super-duper piecemeal gear who unload on the monster as soon as it's caught. I still try though, because if I'm not getting hit, there's little use for all my damage reduction tools and heavy plate-mail.

But, I wondered if there was something within my scope of getting things done that I could change gear-wise, anyway. It's been a real long time since I changed PLD gear, so I might have missed something. Since I hear a lot about PLDs going Damage-Dealer, I thought I'd ask about that too. My highest melee is my 40 Warrior, you see, and it's literally been 4 years since I've levelled that job, so I'm quite out of touch with what actual Damage Dealers are supposed to wear ^^;

Thus, my post.

I thank everyone for their suggestions, and I'll take them into consideration. If anyone has anything to add, I'll be happy to listen, too :D

[Amele]

you don't have to go DD pld to tank competently in endgame settings.

but I'll give you some other advice:

with the (relatively) recent increase in the number of instanced endgame events. (nyzul isle, limbus, dynamis, salvage) it's possible to get an "endgame" linkshell that has nothing to do with staring at the same 50' square of terrain for 3 hours (ok, 2 minutes out of every 30 for a three hour period). If you're interested in doing some of the content but don't want to deal with the drama of claim steals/bots/bitterness over going home empty-handed/"did you hear who got that last ridill? they totally didn't deserve it omg"-ness of actual *hnm* camping. look for a shell (or, frequently, several shells) that do endgame but not hnm.

that said: it's probably best to try and build your own set of gear rather than ask for total set advice, since the specific gear can vary so much from job to job (I'd never want a taru tank that used adaman/gem and I'd never want a galkan that used any lord's. etc.)

I'm a whitemage, so this is from a healer's perspective (both of what I like on a tank and what I see my tanks using.)

for exp: totally go pld/nin and DD. you'll have fun, and you'll contribute damage to the party making kills faster and exp better.

for events: generally, enmity, hp+, haste+, shield skill+, are the four things that modern paladins emphasize. obviously when pld/nin (without aegis) most will dual-wield, in which case dualwield+ would replace shield skill.

homam is a very good set for paladin. (although it lacks enmity+) but evaluate each piece individually against your available valor gear. don't forget you have gallant(+1) too: pld got a *great* af set, don't be afraid to use it. koenig (if you can find a sky linkshell you like) is hit or miss these days depending on slot. the most popular piece is the m.abj head (Koenig Schaller) which is a sky drop, you will also occasionally see m.abj hands or legs used, although it's my understanding these slots are much more situational.

I very much prefer valor body paladins, although I realize this can be hard to get. Gallant is my next preference, although I can see justification for adaman/gem (especially on elvaan or galka). Haven't had a homam body paladin yet (or an ares! but looking forward to our first one of those).

accessories: enmity, hp, haste, refresh. find a good balance.

for events that don't involve level 90+ mobs, defense and vit still have an effect, so don't completely neglect these, that said: sometimes taking more damage (within reason) is good - it means you can cure more for more hate, which means you'll tank it better.

most career paladin pick suppa (or more recently knightly for shield although I've been told this is a suboptimal choice: I took a bushi myself for totally unrelated reasons) for DM earring. baha should be pretty obvious.

kind of disorganized and rambling, but I hope that helps you out a bit :)

[Hankthetank]

Having been a perpetually poor paladin in the past, I checked prices for a starter XP DD set.

Prices for Shiva server according ffxiah

Main hand: Company Sword $ 17,500
Off-hand: Joyeuse $ Free
Ranged: Lighting Box $ 5,500
Head: Optical Hat $ Ex/Rare and Free
Neck: Royal Guards Collar $ 4,500
Ear1: Fang Earring $ 5,000
Ear2: Fang Earring $ 5,000
Body: Hauby $ 480,000
Hands: Tarasque Mitts $ 79,500
Ring1: Venerer Ring $ 75,000
Ring2: Woodsman Ring $ 340,000
Back: Amemet Mantle $ 2,000
Legs: Royal Kgts Breeches$ 80,000
Waist: Life Belt $ 33,500
Feet: Amir Boots $ Assualt Reward Free
Totally Cost: $ 1,127,500
Cost Without Woodsman: $ 787,500

A Woodsman ring can be replaced with a Ex/Rare Jaeger ring which drops in Rivine Site and gives 4 acc. Truthfully even without the Woodsman ring this set still gives you 43 Acc which in conjunction with sushi is plenty for any XP party.

Get a Hauby first, its the most expensive piece but it is the foundation for your DD build and will server you very well. The Woodsman should be low on your list of priority purchases, should probably even pick up STRs first (Ruby Rings are fairly cheap). A+ rating with sword means you won’t need too much Acc when eating sushi. Other than those two everything is under 100K and add up to a $ 307,000, not too shabby for a decent DD set. Some things like the Amemet Mantle are an absolute steal on todays economy and should be picked up ASAP.

Overall it adds up to a decent starter XP /nin set allowing you to DDing a bit more while assisting the party with cures and flashes.

Do you do assault? Many assault rewards sell well, and you could probably make 100K a week easily just off of doing assault regularly. I personally find assault a lot of fun as well.

For a more Old School /war XP tanking setup, I’d start with your normal tanking gear and start swapping in DD gear until you are no longer comfortable with the damage you are tanking. Hauby + Lifebelt + bream sushi will increase your hit rate by a very significant margin (I’d expect a 90% hit rate), while in all likelihood not increasing your damage taken by too noticeable an amount. The large increase in landed hits will increase your damage output and will do more to help you hold hate than the enmity you lost in those slots would have.

Play around with it and enjoy it. Making a DD Paladin was one of the more enjoyable projects I took on. It helped me greatly in meriting my Paladin and keeping my buffer capped. For Dynamis I like your current setup and really wouldn’t change anything other than maybe getting a Mach+1, but, Joyeuse really works fine to. For missions and hanging out with your friends a DD set should serve you well.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Sevv]

just a couple of my ideas

Main hand: Company Sword $ 17,500
Off-hand: Joyeuse $ Free
Ranged: Lighting Box $ 5,500
Head: Walhra Turban r/e (haste rocks)
Neck: Pcc (expensive but if you have your nin to 37 you can get another nin and a rdm to do under observation. Pcc and can make some money to help your pld gear out)
Ear1: Merman(coral) Earring $
Ear2: Merman(coral) Earring $
Body: Hauby/Bryne (The Att + works well)
Hands: Tarasque Mitts $ 79,500
Ring1: Venerer Ring $ 75,000
Ring2: Woodsman Ring $ 340,000
Ring *: Assalants ring (+5 att also a good choice)
Back: Amemet Mantle+1(very common now and price is low on most servers) Cerb. Mantle (emnity+ and good att/str. a bit pricey atm but very well worth it)
Legs: Royal Kgts Breeches$ 80,000
Waist: Life Belt/ Swift Belt (Cop needed but haste+ very good on dd)
Feet: Amir Boots $ Assualt Reward Free

[Empedocles]

Just a little question, how useful is Sarashi (http://ffxi.somepage.com/itemdb/2568) to a Lv.74-75 DD PLD? (Assume I have no endgame LS'es)

[Armando]

Sarashi is completely useless regardless of job/level. It adds 1% more to your Dual Wield delay reduction.

[Lmnop]

Armando has a radar. Every time someone posts the word "Sarashi," he appears in a poof of smoke.

[Sevv]

Armando has a radar. Every time someone posts the word "Sarashi," he appears in a poof of smoke.


lol

[Empedocles]

Thanks for being informative and to the point without being an ass about it, Armando :thumbsup:


Armando has a radar. Every time someone posts the word "Sarashi," he appears in a poof of smoke.

I believe it's termed "bamf" :biggrin:

[Karinya]

A couple minor points:

Ohat isn't free. Expect to pay 500k-1M for eye cluster, or spend quite a while farming eyes yourself (some are soloable pretty easily, some may not be soloable for PLD). Then you still need help to kill Hakutaku.

Assault Jerkin, on the other hand, *is* free (if you have a couple friends to camp it with you, but that's true of all the other "free" EX items too) and is a reasonable alternative to the big-money body pieces. You'll probably want to compensate for the lower acc somewhere else, but it provides superior attack. Swap out attack earrings for diabolos and fowling, for example, and you have similar performance to hauby for a small fraction of the cost. Against some mobs ohat + hauby + lifebelt is already well into diminishing returns on accuracy even with meat, and AJ can provide better performance even without a ton of acc jewelry and accessories.

Woodsman ring can be replaced with jaeger ring, a RA/EX drop from the Carmine Dobsonflies in Riverne A01. Easy fight with 3+ SMN (it's a 40 cap area so they only need to be SMN40). 1 less ACC, 500k less gil and jaeger has no negative stats like sniper and woodsman do.

Amir boots are free and quite nice, but will take several weeks of frequent assault to earn enough assault points for them (longer if you divide your assault activites between multiple areas). They're a good target to work toward, but I wouldn't consider them entry-level gear. (You don't *need* gear from any endgame activity - including Assault - to merit, but it can help.) If you don't have access to amir, other high-level ex footgear or expensive stuff like dusk ledelsens, you may be stuck with tiger.

[tuggler]

A couple minor points:

Ohat isn't free. Expect to pay 500k-1M for eye cluster, or spend quite a while farming eyes yourself (some are soloable pretty easily, some may not be soloable for PLD). Then you still need help to kill Hakutaku.

I farmed all of my eyes as either 75 PLD/THF, PLD/WAR or PLD/NIN.

You can get the Earthen eye easily enough as any of the above combinations. The rest are all duoable, especially with a RDM, BLU or THF helping you. You might just be able to get away with soloing some of the others as PLD/NIN, but the real bane is paralysis, if it sticks (and it usually does) and lasts long enogh, you're toast. Take some remedies with you or something.

I've not tried any of them as PLD/RDM, but reckon it shouldn't be too difficult.

[Amele]

I did all of the eyes (except den of rancor's which were VT) duo as whm/blm + rdm/blm. so there's *no* way that high strength A+ weapon job can't duo (or better) them.

look into assault jerkin. buy a haubergeon. Assault jerkin is for jobs that can't wear haub and don't have their homam yet. (haubergeon really is worth the money) it's not acc+3 att+18 vs acc+10, att+10, it's acc+3 att+18 vs acc+12.5 att+12.5 dex+5 str+5, which isn't even *close* (yes, I realize you lose evasion and agi. you are a paladin, wear your AF or JSE if -20 evasion is gonna hurt too hard). If you've got 8/8 sword merits, consider Byrnie instead. (it may be slightly cheaper) you lose out on 2 strength and 8 dex but gain 20 evasion and 10 more attack.

if you can only get one item on the above lists, I'd say get the haub.

[Karinya]

That's true, except if you've already replaced the woodsman with jaeger, then the hauby is more expensive than *everything else combined*. (Well, unless you follow Sev's suggestion of a peacock charm. But RG collar, or a chiv chain from Assault, will do fine in that slot until you can afford to spend a lot of money on a little upgrade.)

If you can either get one item or lots of items, then get the other stuff to wear while you're saving up for the hauby.

Anyway, I could just as easily say hauby and homam are for people who don't have their ares yet... it isn't very relevant to the OP or people in a similar situation. If you only have half a million gil and can get a hauby or *everything* else on Hank's list (and get friends to help you fight for AJ and Jaeger), delay the hauby and get the other stuff. Then try to raise the money for the hauby later and wear that until you get one of the really awesome endgame pieces.

The performance of hauby is pretty decent, but its performance/cost ratio stinks compared to most of the other gear discussed in this thread.

[Amele]

the big difference between ares and haubergeon is that haubergeon is AH gear and ares well.. isn't. it's a good point though. (I listed homam because dragoon and thief can't wear haubergeon, and are two of the jobs you'll see using AJ into the later levels.)

I guess prices are a bit different between my server and sev's (and yours?) a haub on my server is about 500k. the amemet+1, r.k. breeches, and earrings are already 500k and for paladin (who's going to probably want enmity on his back piece if he's still tanking and frequently has better earring choices) the haubergeon will likely outperform these. (byrnie's even cheaper, one merman + amem+1 will get a byrnie)

either approach would be good, I think, but I tend to buy the most expensive piece first when building a new gear set (so that the set is completed faster after the first actual purchase).

[Lmnop]

there's also the issue of overall functionality (versus niche) and of gains per slot.

Haub may be just as good as 2x acc rings + AJ + Fowling Earring but that's 4 slots vs 1. When you're trying to make hybrid builds, it's much easier to sac one great slot for one cause and focus the rest of your build elsewhere. This has long been the basis for Lifebelt on Paladins.

I agree with Karinya in that if you can get the freebies, do so. They will save you much heart ache while you build towards perfection.

Random thoughts continued...

Haub on my server is like 800k last I checked, while woodsmans are 400 each. This means that if you have 400k, you may as well invest in a woodsman, and just sell it when you've accrued (amount to buy haub - 400k + desired pocket change). To each his own. Just be flexible.

P.S. I would like to see a build like Hank's DD layout applied to pld/war in a merit party. With fast Flashes and a sturdy Shield, I bet you could still negate enough damage to be worthwhile and actually tank for half your fights. Would be interesting to see, anyway. Though you'd prolly end up swapping off Pcharm for Parade Gorget a lot.

[Amele]

pld/nin for merit.

the dot gains are worth the loss of utility in tanking, since it's not like an exp/merit needs a paladin tank at 75 anyway

[Lmnop]

so everyone says... I'm not incredibly convinced.

-Nin tanks voke once/fight.
-Bards pull with the single most potent debuff in the game.
-Flash will negate 1-2 hits.
-Fights only last 30-50 seconds

One Flash and one voke/mob. You won't take much damage, and you'll have hate at least as well as a NIN tank (which, in my small experience, tank a very large portion of the fights). Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.

The biggest problem remains that you prolly wouldn't get to use Berserk. And double attack wouldn't do a lot of good for someone main'ing a Joyeuse (though it would be swell with Justice sword).

[Amele]

so everyone says... I'm not incredibly convinced.
-Nin tanks voke once/fight.
-Bards pull with the single most potent debuff in the game.
-Flash will negate 1-2 hits.
-Fights only last 30-50 seconds
One Flash and one voke/mob. You won't take much damage, and you'll have hate at least as well as a NIN tank (which, in my small experience, tank a very large portion of the fights). Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.
The biggest problem remains that you prolly wouldn't get to use Berserk. And double attack wouldn't do a lot of good for someone main'ing a Joyeuse (though it would be swell with Justice sword).

(as an aside: we may possibly have missed each other's points, since I wasn't suggesting /nin for shadow tanking like would be used on some hnm's for pld/nin)

if you meant nin/war for NIN tank (as in, actually a ninja) then no. there's a ton of parties that roll without them. if you mean people with shadows who hold hate off the mages? yeah, there's always a couple mnk/nin or war/nin or sam/war or rng/nin (etc etc) hanging around the front line. you don't even *need* voke if you're a monk.

people like ninjas for merit because when dot is king, ninja dual-wield delay reductions are the equivalent of 35-55% (depending on gear) haste, and stacks with haste.

anyway, comparison of what you get with pld/war, vs pld/nin specifically for DD.

pld/war:
1 sword + shield (so either multiple attacks or good base damage, not both)
berserk (15%+ attack, averaged over time. assuming PDIF of 1.0 this will move you to approximately PDIF 1.15 - which is ~15% extra damage) assumes you can use full time - this may be an optimistic assumption, since it means you're probably not the tank.
double attack - 10% extra attacks with non-joyeuse swords, 5% extra attacks with joyeuse (excluded brutal earring since you'd wear it on both combos)
warcry - negligible boost to dot, 5.25% for 30 seconds of 5 minutes is .005 dot to all members (so you could potentially claim ~3% extra damage).

pld/nin
2 swords (so either j/j for 2-4 attacks a round: avg. 3; or company/joy or company/justice for 25% extra attacks and good based amage)
dual wield bonus of 15% (equivalent to 15% haste for dot, means a straight 15% increase in damage, has an increasing effect as you stack more haste).


so, vs a company sword pld/war, pld/nin has approximately a 25% dot advantage (assumes that +15% attack is worth +15% dot)

vs a joyeuse pld/war, pld/nin would have approximately the same dot but better weaponskills (at minimum because he has 7 more strength in the offhand slot) dualing justice/joy - which (I believe) also gives you a higher multiple attack rating during ws.

[Karinya]

pld/nin for merit.
the dot gains are worth the loss of utility in tanking, since it's not like an exp/merit needs a paladin tank at 75 anyway
What dot gains? DA = DW2 for DoT and beats it for TP gain (DW delay reduction reduces TP gained per hit, but DA gets full TP for both hits); /war still has berserk and warcry and superior STR. Either one can wear haste gear or whatever. The only jobs that DW are a significant DoT gain for are NIN, which gets much stronger levels of it plus AF, and WAR, which doesn't have to sacrifice WAR's job traits to gain NIN's.

The benefits of offhanding Joyeuse with a higher damage main like Company are ok if you don't mind sacrificing some DoT and TP gain for bigger WS - until you get Justice, at which point I doubt it's worth diluting it by DW. (Assuming that you're going to bother to spend virtue stones in merit, which is another argument by itself. It does require substantial time spent organ farming relative to your time meriting.)

At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".


P.S. It would help if there were more shields with useful DD stats like Tatami and Viking. Viking is 300k on Carbuncle, Tatami roughly double that; at ATK+12 or STR+5 the shield slot is not exactly deadweight in a DD pld/war build (or DD thf/war for that matter); but Viking is only level 45 and tatami is partly balanced around its Everything Killer (which usually doesn't matter in merit). Imagine the stats that a level 70+ dd shield could have - acc+7 atk+7 str+3, say. Lower defense and no enmity, and maybe making it a size that's not so great for blocking, would keep it situational compared to koenig and other tanking shields. Thf/wars would love it too if it were allowed for them (I don't see the harm, thief is widely seen as a weak job atm).

[Lmnop]

all the parties I get into want one and only one NIN. Everyone knows that Nins -can- do amazing DD, but there aren't enough of those for pick up groups. For the same reason, no one trusts the ability of say... 4x mnk/nin. They could hold hate just fine, but they'd all have to be thinking. Wars don't even voke enough. A Mnk would never consider purposely trying for hate.

Note that the entire paragraph above is entirely my views of the playerbase. Not of what's most efficient. What is most commonly accepted. And if the player base can commonly accept SH ninjas in their tp burn parties, then an exceptionally open minded party could probably do just as well with a DD PLD/war.

as for DW benefits, if you're actually dualing the 2 multi-swords, neither can proc during WS (apparently). So you're looking at 5-swing vorpal blades. And sure, you get a nice +STR from Justice, but /war will get you ~4 more Str (I think?).

But, as I said before... Berserk would kinda take the point out of the meat tanking combo.

EDIT: Karinya posted at same time as me. The thing about Dual Wield for DoT is that Double Attack is so horrendously marginalized by multi-attacking weapons. And you reminded me of something else that I feel needs hammered into the ground:

Every PLD needs a means of quickly curing party members! I strongly suggest a macro with /ma "Cure III" <stpc> along with maybe an equip swap for hospitaler or... whatever. This goes for every Paladin, but doubly for a DD paladin.

You will never be top DD, so use all of your job's functionality to do what Monks cannot.

[Hankthetank]

there's also the issue of overall functionality (versus niche) and of gains per slot.

Haub may be just as good as 2x acc rings + AJ + Fowling Earring but that's 4 slots vs 1. When you're trying to make hybrid builds, it's much easier to sac one great slot for one cause and focus the rest of your build elsewhere. This has long been the basis for Lifebelt on Paladins.


Thanks for explaining it better than I could.

Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.

For me the principal behind a True TP burn isn’t that there is “no tank”, it’s that everyone tanks.

It’s a subtle difference, but the difference between everyone just subbing ninja and calling it a “TP burn” Vs a party where 3 party members effectively bounce hate and share tanking responsibilities is the difference between a fantastic party and a mediocre one.

/em misses old school Spampage parties.

Nin and War are the only two jobs that have both shadows and Provoke. I think most people opt for a Nin in their TP burns because, someone has to voke off of the pullers, and the majority of new age warriors don’t seem to have a voke macro or consider them DD only.

P.S. I would like to see a build like Hank's DD layout applied to pld/war in a merit party. With fast Flashes and a sturdy Shield, I bet you could still negate enough damage to be worthwhile and actually tank for half your fights. Would be interesting to see, anyway. Though you'd prolly end up swapping off Pcharm for Parade Gorget a lot.

I gave it a bit of thought and if I was taking /war to a ToA meritpo this is the gear I’d use:

Weapon: Justice Sword
Shield: Balance Buckler
Ammo: Virtue Stones
Head: Koenig Schaller
Neck: Shield Torque
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Ethereal Earring
Body: Hauby
Hands: Homam
Ring1: Savatta
Ring2: Woodsman
Back: Cerb Mantle
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Homam
Feet: AF+1

Overall that would give me:

300 Shield Skill combined with a buckler shield for extremely high block rate. While the damage reduction is less from a buckler the focus is for more frequent blocks for TP gain. 300 skill actually might be overkill for a size 2 shield, if that where case I’d probably swap out Koenig helm for Homam for more haste, acc and mp.

+28 Acc in conjunction with sushi this should be plenty of Acc for a 90% hit rate.

+10% haste which is decent amount and combined with the Haste spell will drop your Flash recast to 33.75 seconds, which would allow flash to be ready ever fight.

+9 Enmity which isn’t a large amount, but it is something.

15% Overall Double Attack rate which would stack Justice.

This is mostly speculation on my part, I am an avid believer in /nin for meritpos, but I think this looks like a workable /war setup. Decent damage mitigation coupled with what should be fantastic TP gain and frequent WSs.

At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".

That’s a bit of an over statement, cover works regardless of sub, people are not going to be dying because I don’t have provoke. Flash, cures, cover, pretty sure I could keep people alive better as /nin than /war, even if for no other reason than I won’t take damage while covering. Sentinal > Flash > Cure IV is pretty much always going to take hate. Besides most TP meritpo fights barely last more than 1 min. By the time a DD takes hate you should be able to ride cover for the duration of the fight, nevermind the other hate tools you have.

Let me find my old numbers on Pld/War Vs Pld/Nin in terms of raw damage dealing. It’s a good debate.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Vyuru]

Let me find my old numbers on Pld/War Vs Pld/Nin in terms of raw damage dealing. It’s a good debate.


Please do, of the tanking jobs Pld has appealed to me the most, well, pld > war > I guess sam could possibly tank now. But I'd be interested in seeing more of this pld debate :)

[Amele]

What dot gains? DA = DW2 for DoT and beats it for TP gain (DW delay reduction reduces TP gained per hit, but DA gets full TP for both hits); /war still has berserk and warcry and superior STR. Either one can wear haste gear or whatever. The only jobs that DW are a significant DoT gain for are NIN, which gets much stronger levels of it plus AF, and WAR, which doesn't have to sacrifice WAR's job traits to gain NIN's.
The benefits of offhanding Joyeuse with a higher damage main like Company are ok if you don't mind sacrificing some DoT and TP gain for bigger WS - until you get Justice, at which point I doubt it's worth diluting it by DW. (Assuming that you're going to bother to spend virtue stones in merit, which is another argument by itself. It does require substantial time spent organ farming relative to your time meriting.)
At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".

I was in the process of writing a wall of maths to respond to this (since you're right, I neglected DA) but I'll just summarize rather than write an essay: I think I was wrong. Single handed joyeuse looks like the best dot, because justice is less damage during dot. - the 50% damage boost of multi-attack justice during ws is nice though). j/j dual'd is slightly less (~10-20% dot depending on PDIF) for approximately 30-40% weaponskill gain (again depending on PDIF) assuming justice is mainhanded (taking double attack bonus into account) and I'm not sure that that ws boost overcomes the dot loss.

this of course all assumes that it's possible to keep berserk up for it's entire duration, which may be difficult depending on the party setup.

having a suppa also reduces the gap slightly (bringing dual wield up to about the equivalent of double+bers with a joyeuse), but won't allow pld/nin to overcome it assuming the pld/war is allowed to go all out.

edit: looking forward to seeing hank's numbers if he can find them - the theory stuff I like to run around with at work is never quite as good as looking at actual parses.

[Hankthetank]

Couldn’t find my old numbers, so here are some new ones.

Fun with numbers and a Justice Sword
A brutal earring is used in all examples.

Justice:
Out of 100 innings
45 Single attacks
52.5 Double attacks
2.5 Triple attacks
Delay on Justice is 236 so for 100 innings that’s 23600 delay for an expected 157.5 attacks or an effective delay of 149.84 per a hit.

Joyeuse
Out of 100 innings
47.5 Single attacks
52.5 Double attacks
Delay on Justice is 224 so for 100 innings that’s 22400 delay for an expected 152.5 attacks or an effective delay of 146.89 per a hit.

Considering just the dual wield bonus of 20% delay reduction from Duel Wield II and Suppa you are looking at an effective delay of 237.38 for both weapons combined. Divide by two to get a single wield average of 118.69.

Justice /war
Out of 100 innings
7.5 Triple attacks
57.5 Double Attacks
35 Single Attacks
Delay on Justice is 236 so for 100 innings that 23600 delay for an expected 172.5 attacks or an effective delay of 136.81

Joyeuse /war
Out of 100 innings
55 Double Attacks
45 Single Attacks
Delay on Justice is 224 so for 100 innings that 22400 delay for an expected 155 attacks or an effective delay of 144.52

60 delay = 1 second if I am not mistaken. 3600 delay = 1 min, 36000 delay= 10 min.

Joy/Just with its 118.69 average delay per a hit will attack 303.31 times over the course of 10 minutes.

Justice alone with its effective delay of 136.81 a hit will attack 263.14 times over of the course of 10 minutes.

Joyeuse alone with its effective delay of 144.52 a hit will attack 249.10 times over the course of 10 minutes.

So the logical question becomes during the 6 minutes you have berserk up with the increased damage surpass the extra hits you’ll get from dual wield.

For Justice Berserk is active 60% of the time so out of 263.14 attacks its active for 157.88 of them. Those 157.88 hits need to make up for the extra 40 hits I get from dual wielding so each of those hits needs to hit 25% harder than my /nin non-berserked hits.

For Joyeuse Berserk is active 60% of the time so out of 249.10 attacks its active for 149.46 of them. Those 149.64 hits need to make up for the extra 54 hits I get from dual wielding so each of those hits needs to hit 36% harder than my /nin non-berserked hits.

So basically;
If Berserk increases your damage per hit by more than 25%(36%) Just(Joy) when it is active, then War is he more damaging sub.

If Berserk increases your damage per hit by less than 25%(36%) Just(Joy) when active, Ninja is the more damaging sub.

Ok after doing those numbers, I am extremely surprised at how close it is. If my average hit with Justice is 40 Damage, a 25% increase would raise it to 50 a swing. I can see berserk doing that in some camps. Joyeuse is a bit tougher needing to go from 40 a swing to 54.4 but still quite feasible. Just form a pure DoT standpoint /war has a leg to stand on.

Assuming in that 10min time span we had perfect acc, Just/war would have WSed 13 times, and Just/Joy would have Wsed 15 times. So two more WSs for /nin. Not sure how to quantify that, /nin WSs all get an extra hit and 5% DA rate, all /war WSs get a 15% DA rate and 7/8 of them will get berserk too.

I’ll be honest they look really close. My parses all show /nin performing better than /war. Backwards rationalizing those results lead me to believe it was due to:

/war having to cure more
the extra hit on every WS /nin pulls my WS average above /wars
more WSs with /nin
The other biggest thing /nin brings to the table is the ability to not be a MP sink. This at the end of the day is the largest factor in my selection of this sub. Well maybe not the largest, the largest factort is the fact that I think hundred fists with swords is just plain cool.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Empedocles]

All of this is great guys, it's a very 'clean' discussion with the debaters actually debating and not flaming. :biggrin:

Although, I cannot help but realise you guys are throwing some pretty awesome gear about... what happens with people like me? I'm 74, almost 75, and I have no endgame LS'es etc, hell, I'm still on Keremit because my CoP static dumped me when they felt like it.

I have a hauby and although I'm perpetually poor with a 3mil debt, I can buy AH stuff, perhaps pester some people to help me get Joyeuse, but that's about it.

Anything to help people like me?

(btw, I'm away from home ~14hours of the day, 5 days a week, plus also live in New Zealand so the time difference is staggering. That's why an endgame LS probably won't work for me.)

[Lmnop]

hank has some pretty down-to-earth advice near the top of page 2.

[Celeal]

IMHO, beside gear setup, some PLD's tactics need to be adapted into TP-burns too. Lmnop in above post has mentioned /ma "Cure III" <stpc>
A smart back-up curing, and good teamwork with the healers is also valuable in TP-burns as well.

Another point I would like to add is, to make sure either Flash or Provoke is ready at the entry point of the each battle. For example, if the mob is going to die in 10 or 20 seconds, it is better to save the Flash/Provoke the next fight. Enter the mob's hate-list using Provoke/Flash at the beginning of battle does have a head-start of building hate.

I think consistent hate-threshold is the key for PLD tank-temporary in TP-burns. The problem I experienced with some PLD tank in ToAU WS-spam parties is their hate is not constant for each battle: In one battle they can hold very solid hate, but the next battle they may not be able to keep up. As a DD I had a hard time riding hate that way. I would suggest PLD for picking a decent hate-threshold and stick to it. Even though the hate may not be soild all the time, but as long as it is consistent for each battle, it is better for the DD in the long run.

[Lmnop]

A big problem with most Paladins (at least I perceive it as a problem, though I don't have any numbers to show how it's problematic) is that they don't like losing hate. Every time hate goes elsewhere, they start dumping whatever they need to in order to get hate back. This is assuming the standard, tanking Paladins being thrust into fast paced killing frenzy (which, btw, got us ~14k/hour on silly Colibri. It's not like the traditional method is weak).

But what I mean is that typical paladins are willing to use every single JA or use excessive amounts of MP to get hate back. You gotta stop and think: how long can that DD hold hate decently? That drk/sam probably has Dread Spikes up for when Seigan goes down. Just cure him through Souleater so he can kill faster. That war/nin is a moron. If he doesn't have shadows up after he opened a fight with a 4 digit rampage, let him die. (that's me, btw. I seem to only get hate right after Diaga). If Flash doesn't get you hate, it'll typically do the same job -- negate damage for whoever has hate.

It's the same rhetoric I'm always saying but I just want to drive in that you have to look at party efficiency over your pride. Having a healer with 600 MP and you with 13 isn't a nice balance for a pld/war, for instance.

Yeah... stuff.

[Hankthetank]

Here is my opinion on what I think our priorities should be as a Paladin in a TP burn.


Get the mobs off the puller. You need to keep mobs of the puller for two main reasons, first they tend to be squishier than other people in the party and second they need to buff and go pull again to keep the chain going.
Tank our fair share of the fight allowing other’s Utsu timers to cool down. Generally, tanking until the first WS is perfectly sufficient.
Poke the mobs repeatedly. The more damage we do, the faster we kill, the better the XP. This was my normal routine as a Pld/Nin in a TP burn:


First mob of the chain comes in, I flash (/ma “Flash” <stnpc>) it (Get on the hate list) > Sentinel then cure III myself. I keep +HP gear on me so I can always hit a +HP macro and give myself something to cure even should I had full HP. (Taking off gear that adds HP and putting it back on works too)
This is generally enough to hold the mobs attention until the first weapon skill. At which point I let the melee blink tank the mob for the remaining 10-20 seconds of the mobs life.
Now that I lost hate rather then fight the melee to get hate back, I am looking for the next mob which is hopefully slept right next to our party. I drop a flash on it to get on its hate list (and take it off the puller in case it wakes early), then I look for people to cure. If everyone is full health I use my HP gear macro and cure III myself. Now that this mob is off of the puller he/she is free to go pull again. I also got on its hate list early giving me a 10-20 second head start to cure people and build hate before the melee even engage it.
Once the current mob is almost dead and they are ready to get started on the next mob, I’ll wake it with a WS. At this point I have Flashed + dropped at least 1 Cure III + WSed the mob all before the other melee have engaged it. This once again should be sufficient to hold it until the first WS (sometimes longer) and I go right back to step 3. (If you are getting 100TP every other fight then alternate WS > /ja > WS > /ja > etc.)But that’s basically what I would recommend to a Paladin in a TP burn. Holding hate in the beginning of the fight to allow peoples Utsu timers to cool off. Getting the mobs off the puller ASAP lets them safely get back to pulling. Use the fact that people will get hit to your advantage and cure them for more hate on the next mob, all while lightening the load on the main healer who is undoubtedly busy keeping everyone hasted.

I also like to act as the point man as well, picking the next mob to engage and having people come to assist me. This ensures that you don’t have melee waking multiple slept mobs and insures that they get to work on the mob you already started to build hate on.
I haven’t gone Pld/war in a long time, but in reality not much would change in my routine, other than I’d have voke and flash for every mob, and I would take more damage. As long as the damage you are taking isn’t taxing the parties MP pool I don’t think it would be a problem or a huge negative at all.

I also want to add that I am intentionally not mentioning Damage output. More is better, but don’t think you have to be decked out in DD gear to be a worthwhile addition to a Merit party. Just by virtue of doing your share of the tanking, keeping slept mobs from going after the puller, and lightening the load on the backline mages you are making the party run smoother and that translates into more XP/hour and that warrants your spot in a XP party.

Work on getting yourself a DD set, it will make you are better more flexible Paladin and it will serve your well in many situations outside of meriting as well, but don’t become so obsessed with it that it takes away the fun of being a Paladin. I started participating in merit parties with little more than a Hauby, a Company Sword, and my AF. Even with that meager DD setup and some sushi I always felt I contributed enough to my party to earn my spot.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Karinya]

Interesting analysis, Hank, but I'd like to add a few small points:

1. While you assume Suppa for the /nin setup, you don't mention what the /war is using in the other earring slot (besides brutal, which any DD setup will use if they have it). Whatever they choose to put there it will benefit them to some extent which may be difficult to quantify without a parse.

2. The same is true for the shield slot. Viking or Tatami shields for example will raise your damage - if you have a slot open to equip them in, which a /nin doesn't. Base STR is different too. These things together could easily add up to +20 attack for the /war - *without* Berserk. If you're taking hate sometimes shields also mean shield blocks, which mean extra TP, which means more WS. (Leaving out shield bash - whatever you may say about its utility, its *damage* is insignificant with anything other than Aegis.)

3. Attack Bonus trait. WAR has it, NIN doesn't. Now we're looking at a 30 point attack swing with the same gear and food (aside from suppa vs. assault/coral and viking vs. DW).

4. Warcry. Not only one of the most powerful hate tools a PLD/WAR has, it also boosts the damage of every physical DD in the party. It's hard to say exactly how much extra damage comes from Warcry, but it's not zero (unless you're not using it at all).

5. Not everyone *has* a suppa - DM earrings can't be rechosen, ever. For those who chose something else - because they did DM before /nin became as popular, before the other gear/mobs to make the build work were around, or as a different main job altogether - /nin isn't nearly as attractive an option.

6. Your DW numbers assume justice/joyeuse. This is a great setup if you have it. If you don't, something like company/joyeuse will fall far behind single-wielded joyeuse in attacks per minute.


Overall I think that if you're not going to use shadows frequently, /nin isn't really worth using; DW looks good at first, but the benefits of /war are more wide-ranging than is immediately apparent.

[Hankthetank]

1.While you assume Suppa for the /nin setup, you don't mention what the /war is using in the other earring slot (besides brutal, which any DD setup will use if they have it). Whatever they choose to put there it will benefit them to some extent which may be difficult to quantify without a parse.

/war you are using the Suppa as well. 5 Sword skill = 5 Atk and 4.5Acc. So even /war you’ll be using a suppa ideally.

2. The same is true for the shield slot. Viking or Tatami shields for example will raise your damage - if you have a slot open to equip them in, which a /nin doesn't. Base STR is different too. These things together could easily add up to +20 attack for the /war - *without* Berserk. If you're taking hate sometimes shields also mean shield blocks, which mean extra TP, which means more WS. (Leaving out shield bash - whatever you may say about its utility, its *damage* is insignificant with anything other than Aegis.)

Viking, does add a nice amount of attack and I’d like for being a buckler giving a higher block rate for nice TP gain when you are getting hit. It’s still only an extra 3TP a block, since you get 2 for getting hit without blocking. So it’s 33 shield blocks (rounding down) to get one more WS. Assuming a 75% block rate with a size 2 shield that means you have to take 44 hits. Even with a size 2 shield you will need some +shield gear to hit the block rate cap. Using +shield gear is using slots where a /nin is adding DD gear, effectively negating the attack bonus you get from your shield. The big shield slots are back feet neck, which also happened to be big DD slots too.

I haven’t used a buckler shield in forever, but I think 50% block rate with no shield gear is a generous guess? In that scenario it takes 66 hits to get one extra WS. Take into account the pounding I am taking meaning I have to cure more, which is more lost attack innings, and more mp both myself and mages need to spend. I can attest to the fact that in full DD gear and with berserk up I get just about as hard and any other melee. In theory I’ll give sword and board an advantage, but not so much for practical purposes.

The extra attack and it’s impact really depends on what your are fighting, 25 Atk on Imps in mire isn’t very dramatic for me. 25 Attack on trolls can have a noticeable difference. Attack is a key DD stat, but its not the end all DD stat. My warriors base attack now at 75 is lower then its been since I was 70, but there is no doubt he is much more powerful now. Attack is great, but haste is better, unless you are taking about huge amounts, trading attack for haste is usually the right call.

Base Str makes very little difference when TPing and in small amounts its not a huge factor for WSs. I have 5 Str merits and I really don’t notice the difference. The difference in WS damage between a Elvaan and a Hume isn’t that big, and that STR spread is larger then the difference between Pld/War and Pld/Nin. Yeah it is there but I really don’t see it as a significant factor.

Also on the Tatami shield, I wouldn’t bother, 12 Atk is better than 3 Str which is only good for WSs, and the block rate on a Tatami is lousy even with 313 shield skill.

3. Attack Bonus trait. WAR has it, NIN doesn't. Now we're looking at a 30 point attack swing with the same gear and food (aside from suppa vs. assault/coral and Viking vs. DW).

The attack trait is 10 Attack, 12 from Viking shield, brutal/suppa are the ideal earrings either way so it’s a 22 attack difference. It’s very nice, but by itself it’s not going to change the outcome drastically by itself.

4. Warcry. Not only one of the most powerful hate tools a PLD/WAR has, it also boosts the damage of every physical DD in the party. It's hard to say exactly how much extra damage comes from Warcry, but it's not zero (unless you're not using it at all).


Well, its has a 5 minute recast and a really rather insignificant effect on damage output, check the attack boost it gives. You use it and pull hate you’ll take more damage and curing yourself and the 1 attack round you lost would easily make up for the tiny bit of extra damage you do because of Warcry. I really stopped using it all together it’s a hate tool only for me.

5. Not everyone *has* a suppa - DM earrings can't be rechosen, ever. For those who chose something else - because they did DM before /nin became as popular, before the other gear/mobs to make the build work were around, or as a different main job altogether - /nin isn't nearly as attractive an option.


Without a suppa you lose 5% dual wield reduction. Both /nin and /war lose the 5 Atk and 4.5 Acc so the replacement earring is irrelevant and would be the same for both jobs. Without the 5% delay reduction, I can see /war on paper pulling ahead in DoT due to how close the numbers are.

6. Your DW numbers assume justice/joyeuse. This is a great setup if you have it. If you don't, something like company/joyeuse will fall far behind single-wielded joyeuse in attacks per minute.


Actually I didn’t do numbers on Comp/Joy Vs Joy simply because it then all comes down to WSs as well as to delay. Justice and Joy are so similar, its easy to compare then since we need only take the delays into account. Actual WS numbers need to take into account Mob level, mob type, other you have buffs, debuffs on the mob, and your WS gear set in general.

Without actual WSs numbers to compare its alot of conjecture. In this case I would rely on my parses and the majority of parses testing the two jobs was done with Comp/Joy Vs Joy and Comp/Joy, and /nin won every time. I understand the TP gain is slower, but a Vorpal with a Company Sword Vorpal is very respectable, while a Joy or justice Vorpal is very lack luster. This is the primary reason I was so surprised when Just/Joy Vs Just worked out so close. Just/Joy destroys Comp/Joy and all my parses show Comp/Joy destroying Joy. I really assumed the numbers would be much stronger in favor of Just/Joy then they worked out to be. I could try and work some numbers for Comp Joy Vs Joy later. I think 450 average Vorpal with Joy and about 750 with Company is a fair ball park estimate. It’ll look at how that compares on paper later. But doing numbers this way just seemed to open a door to a derail into how big the difference between a Company Vorpal and a Joy Vorpal are. Which once again seems very difficult to prove.

Overall I think that if you're not going to use shadows frequently, /nin isn't really worth using; DW looks good at first, but the benefits of /war are more wide-ranging than is immediately apparent.

Perhaps this is where we don’t see eye to eye. For me its not a question of “if” I’ll be using these shadows, I have always used my shadows. Even back in the beginning when I barely had a DD build, I would generally tank the first part of the fight, flash is a great hate gainer. If I am not using my shadows then /war loses any TP advantage he might have due to shield blocks.

It seems to be a matter of Theoretical Vs Practical. I’ll be the first to admit I often end up speaking about practical when we are talking about theoretical.

Theoretical -> Practical
1. Fast TP gain due to shield blocks -> You are a MP sink & lose attack innings to cure
2. Faster WSs (Compared to Comp/joy) -> Weaker weapon Skills (Comp/Joy)
3. Big Attack boost from Berserk -> Huge MP sink from berserk being up
4. Shadows offer no bonus to DD -> Shadows offer me safety to pull hate at will
5. More STR Vs Elvaan WS -> Hume WS /shrug
6. More base Attack -> Haste generally performs better

At the end of the day, I wouldn’t vehemently disagree with someone who claims /war is a stronger damage dealer on paper and can see how they would take that stance. But in light of all my parses showing the opposite, I find it extremely hard to believe the difference is hugely in /war’s favor. Nonetheless, in any practical setting, /nin is a more beneficial sub combining excellent damage dealing potential and excellent survivability. The added survivability gives me ability to pull hate at will without worry of becomming a MP sink this lets me go balls to the wall and never slow down in merit parties. Not having to hold back seems to allow for more damage to be dealt.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Lmnop]

Haste should be virtually identical in either case.

The only piece of Homam I'd see worthwhile tossing would be the AF boots. Look for Armando's tests on shielding rate -- he came to the conclusion that additional shield skill+ didn't help much. I wouldn't even use the torque. Actually, if you used the torque, you could use Homam feet. Or, you could put on a Boxer's mantle. If you were really macro happy, you could swap off amement +1/cerberus/whatever and Pcharm for Boxers/Torque every time you had hate. Since those 2 slots are accessories, they would't make you blink -- they'd execute quickly and it wouldn't really slow you down since you'd only have hate half the fights anyway.

[Celeal]

/nin + Ni + Ichi shadows are so broken m('A')m

Seriously, front-line melee's subjob choices in merit TP-burn parties (the ones that make sense) are very limited:
(1) /nin,
(2) /war, /sam
what else?

Although shield block can prevent interrupt for casting magic, I doubt any shield is needed for pld/nin.

Hasso and Seigan from /sam have penalty of magic /recast timer. The only tool for PLD to enter the hate-list of a slept-mob without waking up the mob is Flash. pld/sam + staff is out of the question unless the pld has a lot of Haste to overcome the Hasso + Seigan's penalty of magic timer.

pld/war needs at least some tanking gear if hold hate against VT+ is required in TP-burn parties. But once again, /nin + Ni + Ichi shadows are so broken m('A')m

Some odd combo like pld/blu, pld/rdm, pld/whm offers alternative damage migration, but no increase in DD output.

I guess theoretical, it is either pld/nin or pld/war at the end. Want more hate control? Trade off with some DD output with pld/war using DD+tank hybird gear. Want more damage output and better damage migration? Trade off hate control with pld/nin.

[Lmnop]

TP party SJ choices:

1) /nin
2) wait for a /nin to appear
3) anything else

just wanted to point out that the only real reason for Pld/blu is that it'd actually drastically increase your DD potential. Likely much more than /war could ever do -- at the cost of heightened mp consumption. If it could be balanced, it could be powerful. I don't know that it has a place in tp parties.

And pld/rdm isn't too far behind -- they gain a lot in means of negating damage, which allows them to use sushi or whatever and DD with a bit more breathing room... things still on the drawing board though, that need not be discussed heavily in this thread.

[Hankthetank]

just wanted to point out that the only real reason for Pld/blu is that it'd actually drastically increase your DD potential. Likely much more than /war could ever do -- at the cost of heightened mp consumption.

Can you point me towards someone who has tried this? I ask because I tired it got very poor results, I would very interested in how they made it feasible.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[IfritnoItazura]

Armando's PLD/BLU conjuncture and testing (http://www.ffxionline.com/forums/paladin/61010-pld-blu-early-testing-theories.html)?

[Hankthetank]

Thanks, i read that and posted my opinions in that thread. I appluad the effort and was wondering if anything further was done with it.

If I remeber correctly there was no actual testing of Pld/Blu in a battle situation beyond soloing lesser Colibri, and the majority of the thread was largely hypothetical.

I was hoping there was some futher info on the topic or perhaps a success story since my experiances with the job combo aren't very positive.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Lmnop]

things still on the drawing board though, that need not be discussed heavily in this thread.

I just wanted to mention it in response to Celeal. Not say "yes, it's true, pld/blu outDDs Monks." Just that it's hard to quantify unexplored subs. In the instance of a sub that provides nothing but defense, for instance (/rdm), it offers no DD advantage to a PLD except for the fact that his sub lets him focus more on DDing. Pld/Blu is nothing but theory, and it may very well never be plausible (very similar to war/mnk - has many elements of a powerful combination but in practice, becomes a hindrance).

But since we really don't know for sure what their capacity is, we shouldn't be commenting on them here.

[Amele]

war/mnk is a strong and proven blood tank sub. it's still a decent g.axe sub, although war/thf and war/sam are probably both stronger in terms of pure DD now.

blood tanking is so 2005 though.

[Empedocles]

Looking back, I noticed SevIfrit mentioned the Walahra Turban, and it seems to have "slipped under the radar".

I agree with Sev that the haste is rather nice, but I'm no mathmetician and to date there have been no pieces other than O-hat recommended... ( I haven't checked any links to gear)

So.... the opinion on it?

[Lmnop]

I'm of the mindset that everyone needs to get one eventually. If you cast spells, there's no reason not to macro in the turban. The math always seems to come out showing that Haste gear full time isn't worth it 'til you hit 8%... I'm not sure and I don't currently feel like figuring the gains.

[Armando]

Actually, a certain poster from Allakhazam (MargavineLiselle from the RDM and NIN forums) has taught me that even small amounts of Haste make a difference in an EXP party setting. I too made the error of assuming that for Haste to matter, you first need to get enough that you'd reduce your Delay by one swing's worth, but this is false. In order for the Haste to have make a difference, it needs to allow you to score an extra hit during the fight. However, in a party, you're not the only melee, and other melees will frequently steal the finishing blow. Thing is...well, it's easier to illustrate visually. Assume you have 4 secs unhasted, 3,8 hasted

4.0 secs | 8.0 secs | 12.0 secs | 16.0 secs | 20.0 secs | 24.0 secs
3.8 secs | 7.6 secs | 11.4 secs | 15.2 secs | 19.0 secs | 22.8 secs

The difference in the first attack round is 0.2 secs. In the second, 0.4. In the third, 0.6. This difference keeps getting wider as the battle progresses. In the above example, if another melee got the killing shot at, say, 23.5 secs, you would've scored an extra hit with the 5% Haste while fallen short without it. The longer the fight goes on, the more likely it is that Haste will make a difference.

Also, Haste technically has increasing returns, and you're going to have the Haste spell on you. Going from 4.0 secs to 3.8 means your Delay is 95% the original amount, but if you have the Haste spell on (15%) then in reality you're going from 3.4 to 3.2, 94% of the pre-turban quantity. Plus, Haste numbers are kind of deceiving. Having 15% less delay really translates into 17.65% more hits. Having 20% less delay really translates into 25% more hits. So the actual improvement to your speed is 6.25%

As for a Turban vs O-Hat comparison, the difference is small (Turban is 5% Haste, O-Hat improves hit rate by 5%.) It depends on your current Haste and hit rate levels. The lower your hit rate, the more valuable that extra 5% hit rate becomes. The more Haste you have, the more valuable that 5% Haste becomes. As mentioned earlier, going from 15% to 20% Haste means you hit 6.25% more often. Going from, say, 80% hit rate to 85% is a 6.25% improvement. If you get more Haste or your hit rate is higher, the turban pulls ahead. If for some reason you're not getting Haste cast on you, or your hit rate is lower, O-hat pulls ahead.

[Amele]

As for a Turban vs O-Hat comparison, the difference is small (Turban is 5% Haste, O-Hat improves hit rate by 5%.) It depends on your current Haste and hit rate levels.

this is silly. +10 accuracy is not necessarily 5% hit rate. -> conversion isn't linear.

+10 accuracy may be approximately +5% to your accuracy value (depending on your skills and stats, this is highly optimistic, since it's 5% of 200, and your skill + 1/2 dex should be much higher than this) but this does not directly translate into 5% dot via 5% net hit rate gain.

walahra turban is better, in almost all situations by the time you can wear it (since it's a level 75 item).

[Lmnop]

I disagree. While you're looking at a PLD trying to fulfill more than one role at once (remember the title of this thread?) and deciding between 2 head pieces that have 0 defense, I think it's worth considering the rest of the build. And until you have lots of Homam or Hydra Haubert set, you're probably not going to have enough accuracy in addition to other things you need (depending on build - I'm thinking about all the phases that occur between DD paladin and turtling paladin and enmity paladin and HP paladin etc etc). The glorious thing about Homam is that it gives acc and haste, so we don't have to make the decision. But when we do, you probably need to worry about acc first.

As for what Armando said, it's a concept I'm well aware of. I was trying to explain that talking to a friend about melee'ing in Rutter Sabatons. It's only 2% and it's completely unnoticeable, but the probability is still there that a monster would die faster if you weren't using it. So haste gear is the same concept (though in the positive, obviously) and if all melee swing 5% faster, then they may not get an extra swing but at least the fight will end 5% faster (all the same damage delivered, but compressed into less time).

Understanding all of that, I still don't think 5% is worthwhile full time. As Armando stated, Haste technically has increasing returns - not diminishing.

Still... all said, I guess I never thought about how useful even 5% in gear is if you can assume that you'll be hasted full time already.

[Hankthetank]

this is silly. +10 accuracy is not necessarily 5% hit rate. -> conversion isn't linear.
Yeasterday I'd whole heartedly agree with you. However a Naga on BG seems to be showing a directly linear effect of Acc and Hit Rate.

http://www.bluegartrls.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17450&start=330
Thats a link to the thread if you are interested.

I never would have guessed it was a linear correllation, but his numbers look solid, and Naga even accounts for Level differance.

I may have to rethink my stance or at the very least do some tests of my own.

On O Hat Vs Turban.

My Advice would be:

If you are above 90% Acc with sushi switch to the Turban. If you acc is below 90% keep the O Hat and try and get more Acc elsewhere as well.

85% Acc with Meat
If you can stay above 85% Acc eatting meat, then use the turban, below 85% keep the O Hat.

The goal is a full haste build while eating meat. So Meat + Turban and 85% Acc is the ideal. But I would priortize it as Acc > Meat > Haste. Eatting meat with O Hat is going to offer better over all damage than Turban and sushi assuming turban is your only haste piece.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Armando]

We probably thought the Acc -> Hit rate conversion wasn't linear because going from 60% to 65% hit rate is a bigger improvement than going from 80% hit rate to 85%. Plus, most people look at the parsed average accuracy rather than the accuracy on specific mobs, and since mobs vary in level, the improvement isn't the same on each one of them and the average doesn't reflect the exact effects of X Acc.

[nickofearth]

I'm only 71 PLD atm but I don't have too much trouble with hate.

Weapon: Joyeuse
Shield: General's shield (will upgrade @ 74)
Ammo: Bibiki Seahell
Earring: Drone Earring/Assault Earring (at 72 i switch Drone to Ethereal)
Armor: Gallant set (I have valor coronet when I hit 73.)
Neck: Shield Torque
Rings: Herc. Ring/Jelly (wear Rajas Ring when fighitng magic casting mobs)
Back: Amemet Mantle+1
Waist: Warwolf Belt

P.S: yay for responding to topics without looking at the dates :D

[Yellow Mage]

Suddenly, the title of this thread has a whole new, far more ironic meaning . . .