[Nixx]

...

[Empedocles]

I've very recently hit 71, (done trial breakage, need Scorp to die ) and my 'DD' set is composed of.....

Haubergeon

I macro it in for ws... and that's all, really.. but then again, I do come from the seems-to-be old school of the Turtle. But, I really haven't had any complaints, usually the DD's are doing enough.

[Malacite]

First off, you're fighting mobs that are way too high, so of course your damage will suck.


Now then, PLD has an A+ rating in Sword, meaning by the time you're 75 it will cap at the highest possible natural skill level of 276. That means plenty of natural attack and accuracy.

However, if you find that you're managing the hits just fine, then consider using some meat dishes to boost your attack. Roast/Juicy Mutton is great for the lower levels, giving +27% attack. You'll swing *much* harder, thus generating more hate. I find the attack food generally beats out defense food early on, but you should experiment with both.

[Kildem]

uhm... why using a damage dealer equip in party when the paladin role is ONLYYYYYYYY to tank so to have as much defense as you can? Your role is not to deal damage, the fact that your sword skills up fast and easily is because it's your A+ weapon. paladin is not a damage dealer, so don't get yourself in trouble by buying haubergeon or scorpion harness or something odd. Keep your defense damn high and save the party.

[Timian]

Originally Posted by Kildem

uhm... why using a damage dealer equip in party when the paladin role is ONLYYYYYYYY to tank so to have as much defense as you can? Your role is not to deal damage, the fact that your sword skills up fast and easily is because it's your A+ weapon. paladin is not a damage dealer, so don't get yourself in trouble by buying haubergeon or scorpion harness or something odd. Keep your defense damn high and save the party.

I dare you to parse against me, as PLD/NIN with my full DD gear.
Seriously.

And whoever suggested DEX rings (Balance Rings or higher. Doesn't matter)
Please stop posting bullsh*t.
DEX is possibly the most useless stat in the game,
unless you're a THF.

[Kildem]

I am not here to dare anyone lol, just saying, paladin was born as a meat shield. Why suddenly changing the history and... trying to be a damage dealer? None talked about pld/nin yet, and i didn't either.

[Armando]

Fact: Defense has diminishing returns. Paladin can hit this point in EXP easily.
Fact: PLD has DD potential. We get most of the same gear as true DDs, and some toys of our own (Justice Sword, Homam.) We also have an A+ in the weapon we do want to use to DD, as opposed to WARs who use A- and B+.
Fact: The more damage you do, the better you hold hate, the faster you kill, and the more EXP you get.
Fact: -Evasion doesn't hurt us, since we couldn't dodge a truck going at 15 mph if it happens to /check anything higher than T. We only dodge during Flash.

Let's see. You could continue to turtle it up for minimal improvements in your damage reduction, or you could equip a Haubergeon and a pair of Accuracy rings, take just a bit more damage, and hit plenty more often. Which do you think is a smarter option?

Any PLD that has the option to do so should get Woodsman Rings at 40 and a Haubergeon at 59. Unless you're overhunting so much that you can't hit the mob in the first place, they'll help more than anything else you can equip in their respective slots in EXP. That aside, I would seriously encourage any PLD to consider putting a set of DD gear together starting at 50. It's not that hard, just takes some time to get money for gear that every other DD has to stop and farm for anyways.

There are cheaper alternatives as well, such as Jaridah Peti 'til you can afford Haubergeon and a Venerer Ring to replace one of the Woodsmans in the meantime.

[Timian]

Originally Posted by Kildem

I am not here to dare anyone lol, just saying, paladin was born as a meat shield. Why suddenly changing the history and... trying to be a damage dealer? None talked about pld/nin yet, and i didn't either.

Change history?
I won't lie, PLD gets nothing in terms of job abilities/traits to help DD.
They do however get an A+ weapon, the 2nd highest base STR of all jobs (beaten only by DRG and DRK) and access to most heavy DD gear.
As a PLD in better-than-stock DD gear I've outparsed plenty of "career DDs", wearing mid-tier gear.

Which brings me to my point;
PLD can be good DDs. Nothing close to a Kraken-DRK, or a Ridill-WAR,
but certainly just as good as your "run of the mill everyday common gear DD".

[Kildem]

Originally Posted by Timian

Which brings me to my point;
PLD can be good DDs. Nothing close to a Kraken-DRK, or a Ridill-WAR,
but certainly just as good as your "run of the mill everyday common gear DD".

Now you said it right.

[Karinya]

Diminishing returns isn't a point, it's a range. And it's in a different place depending on what mob you're tanking. A hybrid DD/tank setup is fine for some things, but scorpions and spiders will tear you apart if you don't take your defense seriously.

The majority of pickup exp parties are against monsters with weak offense (crabs, beetles, crawlers, colibri). But not all. So you should always have a set of good defensive gear available, even if you don't need it in every party.

Your level relative to the monsters also plays a large part in determining how much defense you need. So does your party composition - in a party with several healers you can afford to take a little more damage to deal a little more damage, but in a DD-heavy party your extra damage dealt is less significant and your extra damage taken is more significant. In a party with no THF you will often want one of your rings to be Hercules's ring (or sattva if you have it), while if you have a THF it's probably unnecessary.


Although being able to do more damage can be useful, I don't think it would be a good idea for a PLD to focus on their DD potential to the detriment of their survivability; although it might be wise to maintain a range of gear, you should have an all-out-defense set with you in case it is needed. And possibly a macro to instantly switch into it, too. Slightly improved kill speed is no substitute for being able to keep the party alive when something bad happens.

[Malacite]

PLD used to be an offensive beast back in the beta, but then SE IMO screwed it up by making it too defensive.


To me, the ideal protector is one who smites those who would dare threaten his charge while healing the wounded, not a living punching bag. Maybe SE will do something about this some day ^^

[Karinya]

Eh. It's balance - if PLD could do as much damage as MNK or WAR while also taking hits better and healing the wounded, why would you invite anything else?

No job can be good at too many things at once. So the tradeoff for great defense and some healing ability is less offense than most melee jobs.

Of course, this "balance" thing has been a little screwy since RoZ introduced a job that (often) takes even less damage than PLD and *does* do as much damage as a DD, but that's the theory, anyway.

[Malacite]

Balance my eye >_ > I'm sure there's a way. Whether SE finds it or not, well we'll have to wait and see.

Seriously, NIN more or less threw balance out the window with it's introduction.

[Armando]

Diminishing returns isn't a point, it's a range. And it's in a different place depending on what mob you're tanking. A hybrid DD/tank setup is fine for some things, but scorpions and spiders will tear you apart if you don't take your defense seriously.

I would agree with you if Defense were being lost, but all the gear swaps I suggest (Haubergeon, Woodsman Rings, Assault Earring, Royal Guard's Collar/Chivalrous Chain for the few that still wear Medieval Gorgets at 55, any other sword over Gluttony) only trade VIT for Accuracy, and we all know how little VIT helps. Even if you're fighting Spiders, a Sickle Slash is still gonna hurt like a bitch no matter how much VIT or Defense you have because it's a critical hit WS, just like a SATA WS on an HNM always puts out good numbers regardless of how much Defense and VIT the HNM has, and how many levels higher it is than the player. That's just crits for ya.

Your level relative to the monsters also plays a large part in determining how much defense you need. So does your party composition - in a party with several healers you can afford to take a little more damage to deal a little more damage, but in a DD-heavy party your extra damage dealt is less significant and your extra damage taken is more significant. In a party with no THF you will often want one of your rings to be Hercules's ring (or sattva if you have it), while if you have a THF it's probably unnecessary.

It's true that in a DD-heavy party the damage you do becomes less significant by comparison, but it also means you need more hate, so the more the DDs are outdamaging you, the more you need to step up with your own damage to compensate. Besides, on anything that the DDs are doing so well on you shouldn't be taking that much damage either, since odds are it's a low IT at best.

[Lmnop]

Just a quick correction:

Originally Posted by Timian

the 2nd highest base STR of all jobs (beaten only by DRG and DRK) and access to most heavy DD gear.

It's actually Drk and War. DRG is tied with PLD, I believe. While Sam, mnk, nin, etc are all a bit under.

I encourage all DD jobs to carry a cheap defense set with them at all times. The problem with Pld is that it's hard for them to do the opposite -- there isn't a lot of cheap DD gear that's extremely effective for it's slot the way Phalanx Rings are.

Really, just Lifebelt and a pair of Coral Earrings. That and some Jaridah/Sipah, and you'd do pretty decent. Sipahi stuff is nice since it has a great deal of AGI for your shield blocks in addition to the STR for dmg. If you fight weak enough mobs, some cheap str/attack gear and Sushi would go a long way.