Guard

[Zempten]

Hello

I've read up about guard, but I was wondering a few points about it. . .
1) Do you have to be engaged to guard?
2) Do you have to be facing the monster to guard?

Thanks for your help

[Omni]

i believe its yes and yes.

[KoukiRyu]

Yar, you have to be engaged, and you must be facing them for guard to work, similar to Shield, as I believe it works the same way.

[Malevolent]

a side question for the guard skill

I've been equiping VIT- and what few peices of heca i have for the slow but really havn't seen my guard skill go up any faster...Also i usually do with dou or trios when i wanna skill up guard.

Do you think the Vit- and the slow will help??

[Evion]

You have to be engauged and facing the Mob for your shield skill to go up?! WTF! I wish I had know that all this time...

[KoukiRyu]

I don't see how Slow can help at all. VIT- doesn't seem like it'd do anything either, except hurt you more. Guard seems to have a relatively random rate, I'd just say the more you get hit, the more often the chances of it going up.

[Malevolent]

I figured the slow and Vit- would make me more vulnerable so it'd get hit more so my guard would kick in more...Plus i have no eva gear on so the low evasion would help as well.

I kinda figured with being vulnerable you're other defensive skills would kick in more...but like you stated it all is at random...persay

Could a experienced MONK shine some light? maybe someone 70+

[Amele]

Yar, you have to be engaged, and you must be facing them for guard to work, similar to Shield, as I believe it works the same way.

you do not have to be engaged for shield to trigger, just facing the mob.

I shield all the time on whitemage and I'm never engaged.


guard is like parry (both of which require being engaged and facing the mob)

[Zempten]

Thanks, I appreciate it.

I'm going to try to skillup my Guard with a RDM's Phalanx II + Defense Food against some MNK Orcs in Davoi. Does far this will get my guard? It's at 75 right now.

[LoneGamer]

Try boosting your AGI. That helps with Evasion and Parry, could work for Guard too.

[arkaine23]

Determine what level the orcs that are you'll be fighting. Figure out what capped Guard skill for MNK would be at that level using a ffxi skill cap chart (google for one). That's how high they could take Guard. However, they miss a lot if you're way above their level. You should gear for very high defense and damage mitigation (arhat's and rasetsu, jelly ring, vit gear, etc). Avoid +evasion.

Engage one mob in the distance. Let the others you aggro beat on you while facing them. When you start getting 20-30 levels from where you'd cap vs your targets, .4 and .5 skillup values will disappear, and you might want to consider looking for higher level mobs.

TBH, chigoes work very well if your in the 70's. They're very accurate in spite of being level 62-68. They attack very fast for small damage. If you have a RDM helper, no reason not to grab 5-6 chigoes and get several levels of guard/hour. I get about 2 levels per hour solo going MNK/RDM vs 3 chigoes. So far have gotten Guard skill from 78 to 146. Mandies in Boyahda also work pretty well if you have a healer helper (especially RDM with Phalanx II).



It appears Guard processes about 5% of the time when well below mob level. About 5% of Guard procs give a skillup. So about 1 in 400 hits (not including the attacks you evade or counter) should give a skillup.

It's believed that like Parry, when your skill level is above the mob's level by a good 30 or so you may see a higher proc rate of guard... maybe 10%, possibly as high as 20%. (Obviously can't get this vs mobs you'd skillup on) Some test data for Parry shows these trends. There's no telling if Guard follows the same rules though, but not much reason to expect it to be radically different either. Best way to test would be to aggro a very low level mob and let it hit you for a long time while targeting something else nearby. Of the 20% hits that make it through your evasion, around 10-14% of those will be countered (depending on counter gear and merits), the rest will either hit or be guarded. You record # of hits and # of guards over several thousand hits and analyze the numbers. Since the mob is well below your Guard level (preferably a level 1 mob) you should see the maximum proc rate of Guard.

[Zempten]

I'm only a 43 MNK, but so far the orcs in Davoi got me to 97 targeting Orcish Gladiators. Hopefully it can go further.

[KoukiRyu]

you do not have to be engaged for shield to trigger, just facing the mob.

I shield all the time on whitemage and I'm never engaged.


guard is like parry (both of which require being engaged and facing the mob)

Okey, thanks for that, I wasn't quite sure if shield procced while not engaged. Learned something new. :]

[IfritnoItazura]

I'm only a 43 MNK, but so far the orcs in Davoi got me to 97 targeting Orcish Gladiators. Hopefully it can go further.

MNK's Guard is 'A' ranked skill; at MNK43, the cap is 132.

* * *
Hmm, I would guess that:

• Evasion-, Guard+, and AGI+: Increase Guard's proc rate. (Just say no to Utsusemi/Blink.)
• Defense+, VIT+: Increase survivability. /BLU may be nice for Cocoon, if you have it leveled? Otherwise, Defender from /WAR can be good.
• Bring NPC Fellow on healer mode, or a RDM (or WHM) friend to make things safer.
• You want prey with high attack rate (double/triple attack, or hand-to-hand), but without the ability to kill you fast. Mandragora is nice for that, if appropriate to your level/guard skill.
• Try to fight at zone lines if solo'ing; should the HP bar go down faster than you feel comfortable with, head for the border. >_>;

[Zempten]

Well I'm doing it with a RDM and she keeps Phalanx 2 on me. We target MNKs b/c they take the highest penalty from Phalanx.

Yeah, I'm going to need to find some AGI+ stuff. I'm not sure about /BLU. Last time I tried it I couldn't get the spell to go off with just 2 Goblins in Kazham, I doubt having 3 to 4 Orc Gladiators is going to help me cast it. Good point on the NPC though, I should have thought about that lol ^ ^