endgame and paladin

[Onisan]

well, I've been doing some thinking and I need some encouragement.
alright, too me it seems PLDs have nothing in it for them in the endgame levels. by this I mean 70+. our AF armour is considered the best, and its kinda mandatory at one point of the game, and its technicly free, so what do we have to work towards? we kill a HNM, but we get nothing out of it. no new armour, no nothing.
so it seems like we really have nothing to work towards, and its sorta disapointing because I get my best gear between levels 50-60, and I don't even have to work for it!
now I know theres AF-2, but thats a different story.
also, I heard ninjas can keep hate really well levels 70+ plus they don't get hit at all.
so uhh, whats in it for paladins?
any input would be really apretiated, sorry if I confused anyone, if you need anything clarified just ask, english isn't my first language ^^

[Demetrios]

You could hope for stuff like the Nagan (2 mil gil great sword), or some of the multi million dollar shields, and if you're a Galka like me, a Serkets ring^^

Armor wise, PLD's will probably be wanting the seals to unlock cursed armor... the vit from Koenigs seens very nice. As for HNM armor, the Heavy Cuirass seems decent (dropped from Adamantoise.)

Ninjas are better tanks, rangers are better damage dealers, but thankfully both classes are expensive so Paladins and DRK/MNK/SAM/WAR/etc. have some use later on in the game.

[Zaptruder]

Koenigs armor, AF2 (not the boots, but the second set of AF gear), better shields, better accessories, different swords (not necessarily better tho)...

there's alot to look forward to at high lvls... plus theres always the adventure of fighting HNMs and other various super mobs.

[janeping]

I think high level pld is full with excitement.

There's NM, HNM, avatars (fenrir special), AF2 from dynamis or Koenigs. When I see lvl 75s farming NM, they always have a pld. Let it be Ose, Phantom small groupable NMs or big ones that requires couple of lvl 75 groups. I just can't wait until 75 and knocking those out one by one. My group has successfully killed Ose twice while xping, phantom worm would be our next target I image. Of course, what I really want to see is Dynamis!!

[BrotherRaven]

Here are a bunch of things to get that are "end game":

- Koenig/Kaiser Armor Set
- Koenig/Kaiser Shield
- Numerous Special Swords & Great Swords
- Jelly Ring (-5% Dmg Reduction) off NM
- Defender Ring (-10% Dmg Reduction) off King Behemoth
- Aegishjalmr off Fafnir
- Fenrir Cape
- Relic AF in Dynamix

There is also a bunch of cool items that you could work to get crafted for you:
Behemoth Cape / Behemoth Cape +1
Pigeon Earrings / Pigeon Earrings +1
Earth Staff / Terra's Staff

So ya there is plenty-o-stuff to do endgame.
I think Ninja's can definitly tank well but I think Paladins are just as fine too. I wouldn't worry too much about being useless end game.

[TheBruce]

Actually....

It's not looking good end game. Hnm's apperently don't dispel.

So one of the gayest things I've ever seen in an MMO occurs.

The MT takes no damage.

I was in an alliance that killed Tzee Xicu The Manifest, the Yagudo God and we had a ninja tank blinking the entire time taking 0 damage.

I was relegated to healer and backup provoker and damager.

Yes thats right, we are damagers...

Spirits Within does 700 fully charged on him. Where guillotine does 0. Normal attacks do mostly 0 as well. So basically all melee's are gimped and have to go attack surrounding monsters to gain any form of tp and hope to do damage.

I hope this isn't universal because honestly I rolled paladin for the purpose of tanking Hnm's.

Bside or Daigoro, could you give us more info for Hnm fights if possible. I hope your experiences aren't the same and that we do have a useful tanking role endgame.

If this isn't the case I'll probably hang up my sword for good and play WoW because Squaresoft has no freakin clue how to make a good end game.

[Temeras]

I'm gonna have to agree with thebruce, the endgame doesn't seem very clear and for paladins our role. I mean i aspire to visit dynamis, get relic or koenig armor and whatnot, but whats the point of that armor if we aren't meant to be the main tanks for the HNM fights? I remember the first posts about fenrir saying only ninja or ninja sub can MT it, that was discouraging. You get all this armor, stuff like defending ring which lets you bring down dmg to a certain point but why take less dmg when you can take 0? I mean squaresoft has a great newbie game, a great middles game, heck you can stay in the middle game perpetually rolling new jobs, but there really is a lack of end game.

Imo the current endgame seems to getting to 70's and camping NMs for gil to sell on ebay.... at least its what i figure when i see certain people in AH seeminly making millions of gil a week... its hard for me to believe anyone needs that much money in game unless they are selling it.

[Abriael]

Ninja are NOT better tanks, they can be in certain situations (that are just a few compared the the many ones where a special attack or spells can slaughter them), remember that mobs that attack only physically (and slowly) are quite rare endgame, and theese are the only mobs that a ninja can tank without taking big risks.
They're less reliable, have a much worse aggro control and tend to have no tools to solve critical or emergency situations.
Just to make an example, yesterday i tanked the hardest of the three gobs of Warrior AF without any kind of problem, a ninja would have been totally slaughtered by repeated bomb toss.

[Arnda]

You're gonna be glad that AF armor is good and more or less free when you see the price tag on a Gluttony Sword. :sweat:

[Abriael]

Lol i farmed a week in the marshes to buy it ^_^;;;

[albert lee]

brynie... i'm a drk, but that armor's sexy... really good for a pld imo.

[Temeras]

Umm a ninja and paladin would take just as much dmg on bomb tosses, don't really see your point there, I don't see how paladins would take less. Also the warrior AF mobs, all three are a joke to tank... can't really compare them to a hgih HNM encounter, and I've been on most of the AF3 mob runs, the warrior is among the easiest by far.

[TheBruce]

Honestly, unless Hnm monsters dispel or can attack through blink, Ninja/war or War/ninja will be more ideal.

On my server at least, many of the high level paladins roll into Hnm fights with a ninja sub dual wielding a Kraken club and another sword that attacks twice.

I've heard rumors that squaresoft might be addressing this issue, but atm blink > damage mitigation.

[Abriael]

Mah, i tanked all the AF3 nm so far (excluding samurai), and warrior didn't seem the easiest to me (quite easy though, i said it was not easy for a ninja not for a paladin), moreover a ninja takes far more damage than a paladin from any kind of attacks that pass trough his blink (from 1.5 times to 2 times as much) due to lower DEF, VIT and MND. This even without counting the lower base HP.
This means than the first strong area attack (and HNM and quest NM in general don't have weak ones for sure, not to mention dynamis ones for instance, at least from what i've seen from a movie i downloaded, it was a shower of strog area damage, at least in sandoria) will possibly blam a ninja in the red, and i've seen oneshotted ones so far.
Moreover in an aliance is far easier to loose hate, that means that a ninja will have much harder time at avoiding hate to bounce within mages/rangers/drk and so forth.
The difference between ninja and paladin is than ninja is more extreme, but much less reliable. People i know and gropup with on my server don't believe much in luck, luckily

[imac2much]

No, there's a HUGE difference between AF3 NMs and HNMs. Surely you know this at your level.

I have tanked all AF3 NMs as well. They're absolute jokes compared to HNMs. AF3 NMs hit me for at most 100-150 damage... HNMs can hit me for 250+. AF3 NMs have a ton less HP too. As for your analysis of NIN/WAR...

You do realize rich NIN/WARs can hold hate *JUST AS WELL* as a PLD right? You heard me, our sole advantage is gone. How, you may ask? I've seen rich NIN/WARs spam nearly every ninjitsu (not just utsusemi), and have max shurikens, so they spam those too, and with 5 Dual Wield hastes by lvl 70 with Blade : Ku they're doin a helluva lot more damage than any paladin.

You can believe that PLD is better than NIN at high level, but obviously you haven't seen good NINs in action. Plus for HNM it's a totally different story. You can easily just have 2 NIN's and 2 THF's for any HNM, 1 THF behind each NIN. And just have them alternate between fuidama Dancings. They'll take less damage, hold hate nearly as well.

It's depressing, but it's true. PLD's CAN tank HNMs, but NIN's and WAR/NIN's do it better it seems. PLD is still great for XP'ing IMO when there's only one tank, but when it comes to HNMs...

Plus, contrary to your belief, nearly all AE attacks do the same damage to people regardless of defense or vit. Bomb toss, for example, is a fire attack. It has nothing to do with your VIT or DEF. When fighting gobs in Gustav or whatnot, our DRK using 'Zerk takes the same damage as me for bomb toss. The same goes for several other AE's and of course -ga spells. So you're wrong on that account too unfortunately.