Weapons to use before being pld ?

[Shifty]

when you get your pld flag done, always carry a sword/shield, Greatsword, and staff with you. staff, not club. it helps when tanking with earth staff when you can hit things.

[Armando]

Provoke + Boost + Counter + Double Attack + Meat Mithkabob + Great Axe = Overhate. As simple as that. If you use a Great Axe, boost every 15 seconds, Provoke every 30 seconds, and eat your kabobs, noone will be able to pull hate off you after the second Provoke.

As for Swords...please...don't use them as your main weapon. They're so weak compared to other choices it's just plain sad. The reason PLD get such a weak weapon is because if they got anything stronger they'd be too good. They can already hold hate well enough with their Cures. Also, while everyone has the right to play their own way, do remember that there are 5 other people in the party counting on you. Gimping yourself is selfish, as it not only hinders you, but the whole party as well. This isn't directed at anyone specificly, just felt I should point that out.

Having a Great Sword as a backup weapon is highly recommended, as you can set up Distortion with THF for some very sweet damage that'll more than offset the fact that you're not using a Great Axe. Of course, this should be avoided whenever possible and try to get someone else with a Transfixion WS, but if there's noone else, it's a good thing to have.

You'd be doing more damage and hate with a Great Axe, but Axe and Shield IS viable. In fact, it's probably better than a Great Axe when fighting death mobs like Pugils, beastmen, scorpions, and the like, since you'll survive longer. As long as you Boost every 15 seconds in addition to the usual Provokes, you shouldn't have problems holding hate.

If you can carry more than one or two weapons, even better. It won't be necessary, nor expected of you, but it does make you more versatile and skillchain-friendly.

I'd also like to point out that you can easily raise a weapon from 0 skill to 50-60 soloing. Start with level 1 mobs and move on to progressively harder monsters and you'll be fine. And Paladins usually use nothing but swords in exp parties, so your skill will cap not too long after gaining a new level. It won't gimp you in any way not to have your skill pre-levelled.

Hope that helped. Have fun tanking!

[Shifty]

at lvl 55 i decided to use new weapons. was bad choice for me. one problem is when your 55 lvling the weapon (mainly staff) is that i got from 1-100 real easy. thats when skillups start getting a bit harder. then you hit the problem of fighting mobs that con D/C to you, and not having a zone to run to, because when soloing D/C mobs at 55, you have issues killing them with underlvled low dmg weapons, even tho it can be done, and then you start getting .1 skill up per battle, then have to rest up again, so basically ~5 mins for .1 - .5 for skillup. so now, when i try to skill up during exp pts, its to hard to hold hate, when you are missing every hit, or doing 0 dmg to the mob, when your competing with a rng doing sidewinder and barrage... but a good thing is when i hit, i normally get .5 so yay~

just keep in mind if you plan on taking pld high, keep at least staff skilled up, because earth staff is essential.

oh, and about taking up war, you should lvl up G.axe mainly. most the time at lower lvls, dmg is the same to most classes, and dmg is the same with 2h or 1h and shield. but, lvl axe up too, for SC flexability, and possably to get your shield up a bit too.

war/thf is uber dmg with Gaxe and mithkabob at lvl 30. i was doing 250-300 dmg on occasion with sneak/sturmwind. that will help with hateholding but thats if your not tanking, so that will help steal hate :D thiers nothing better than the feeling you get when you steal hate from a pld nin, whatever. :3 i dont get to steal to much hate from pld and nin cause i'm normally tanking anyway...

[Habbaruk]

If you REALLY want to be a good war or pld...

Use
WAR Weapons: Axe, GA, GSD, PLM
PLD Weapons: Sword, Club, Staff



Despite what others say club owns with plds, at lvl 58 i have cap'd Sword and Club (working on staff at 150 atm)

True strike > Spirits Within

sure.. Spirits does 500+ damage at full hp/tp, but you can do Truestrike 1-2x a fight for anywhere from 125-260 damage (on ITs)

[leii]

using a greatsword till 37 makes u dont have to skill up as much when ur a paladin

[Agrathorn]

I didnt use sword/shield when i lvl'd my WAR up to 32. For some strange reason i was drawn to H2H weapons so i used those and great sword the whole time. getting sword skilled up after the switch to PLD is super easy so you got nothin to worry about. But as others have already said do makes you happy and have fun while doing it.

[Azurea]

Gah, i'm tired of you people saying that ALL wars had BETTER BE REAL WARS and USE AN AXE! aksldfjslkgjlsfgjk ::flustered::

[JP_Ikari]

Flustered about wha??? 0_0, sure, you're fine to not raise an inch on your axe, but try and get pass 30 with being a sword using War. You won't go anywhere pass that. I found out about this the hard way since I leveld my war using a GSword/Sword combo and only raised my Axe/GAxe a couple of times and everyone wanted me to use a GAxe/Axe after that. And cause of that, you will keep hearing people telling low level wars to

Originally posted by Azurea BETTER BE REAL WARS and USE AN AXE!

JP

P.S. Use Axe and Gaxe until you get to 30, get PLD raise your sword/shield, staff, club (and occasional on GSword and Polearm) until you get to 60, go back to War and level it up to 37 (while capping both Axe and GAxe), then level the PLD all the way to 75, best scenario for any up and comming PLD's.

[Grizzlebeard]

Not sure about you but I found levelling warrior with sword and shield beneficial when I came to play paladin. Even second time around my shield was not maxed out by 30th level but I was getting twice the opportunities to get shield skill-ups. There again, when I played warrior there were few paladins and were still viewed as a tanking class solely. When I come to put the last seven levels on my warrior now it's /nin and dual axe all the way.

[tdh]

Honestly, I think having a decently leveled Shield skill is more important then having your Sword skill cap'd for PLD. Go Axe & Shield to Lv.30. so your Shield is fairly high. Giving you a huge head start on your Shield skill for PLD tanking.

Once you have Double Attack, go and "power level" Sword. Head to Giddeus, or Fort Ghelsba, and level it up to about 20, then head to Valkrum Dunes and level it to about 40 or so. At that point, you will have a cap'd Sword skill for PLD until what, Lv.15 or so? At that point, you'll cap your sword very fast in EXP. But it gives you that head start.

I've tried to power level ever weapon I use now. (Out side of the 1st leveling experience of course.) I leveled Axe to Lv.100 with my DRK. (Sub'd NIN, went from Qufim - Jungles - Garliage Citadel) Actually did the same thing with Dagger for my THF. I leveled Great Axe to about 85. Going to do some more once I have WAR25 sub. Double Attack will greatly expidite my leveling of Great Axe and Great Sword. I've been trying to power level Sword skill, so it's caught up for my RDM. But I never really get to melee any more, too busy with other things, I never actually swing the weapon. lol