PLD Equipment for HNMs

[Somajan]

How did the last update affect the equipment uses for HNMs with paladins?

I know that there was that knightly mantle and warwolf belt that increases our overall defense and vitality, but that new shield thingy, does it make our earth staves into moot pieces of wood and should we go koenig shield/espadon+1 against HNMs?

Or does the 20% reduction in damage still trump the increased blocking frequency.

[Abriael]

I'm not exactly sure, but if you want to try the sword-shield combination you probably would like to use the Durandal instead of the espadon. It really looks bad, but +7 VIT is... well.. kinda godly ^_^

[Asherek]

In terms of the harder HNM's, keep in mind that HP > All.

As for Sword/Shield, tend to still use Earth Staff. I've used Sword/Shield on some of the easier HNM's (Xolotl, for example) and it turned out ok. I'd have to do more testing with other ones though.

[ClydeArrowny]

If your shield is capped, IMO its worth it to use durandal+koenig shield over earth staff for most HNMs you dont kite. Otherwise you wont block enough to lose the -20% damage. You will get hit for about the same or a little more dmg with the sword+shield, but the extra enmity should make up for it.

[LordBiGGs]

i dont know about HP ever being > than all. what about damage% - gear =P.

[aszephoron]

I personally go with a Heavy HP Setup. I.e. Cassie, Bloodbead earring, Behemoth, BQR. and currently working on my Bloodbead Ring. And I always use my Earth Staff, the -20% is just too sexy to avoid not using, I remove my Jelly RIng and replace it with Hercules due to every HNM and God that I've fought seems to enjoy casting a Magic Spell or 2.


Now answer me this, how is it that even though Byakko is a THF Mob the MOFO likes to Cast Banish III on me oO?

[Verus]

I have basically no HNM experience, but my understanding is that HP is so important because it gives the mages that little extra time to cure you or it lets you take that big hit and not drop. A capped shield might reduce damage more than the earth staff in the long run but on one big shot, you're more likely to get killed with an earth staff. The -20% would act like HP in that it gives you just a little more time on every hit you take.

Keeping on the topic of HP, even before switching over to Adaman I noticed that 3 of the 5 pieces (hands, body, legs) offer no HP boost. I know that a lot of PLD prefer the Surcoat over the cuirass, but I still see a lot of people using the other 2 pieces over AF despite losing 23 HP. If you were going for a HP build, wouldn't it be better to stick to AF in those slots and end up only wearing the head and feet adaman pieces?

One more quick question while I'm at it, I can see why crimson cuisses are good for the end game tank (kiting), but why do I see so many PLD wearing the crimson greaves? Are they really that good for end game?

[aszephoron]

Personally, I used Pre Koenig: Adaman Head/Feet, AF Body/Legs/Hands.

That's the traditional way if you dont have hate problems, I know that some use the other Adaman Pieces due to the Enmity + bonus, but personally I prefer the HP, I don't have hate issues so that's just my situation.

As for Crimson Greaves, personally I use them since they have a Higher HP Bonus than ANY Leg pieces aside from Dusk/Koenig as well as the MP Bonus and the +Elemental. But personally having +12% Movement Speed is just TOO great to not use. I NEVER take them off unless im leveling RNG or another Job

[Elesirdur]

Now that the full Lord's kit is readily available, it looks to be a pretty nice set of HNM or God tanking gear pre-Koenig. Personally I'm of the opinion that for Elvaan you either use your AF or Koenig/Crimson/Valor gear and just skip the Adaman stuff. That said, using a few pieces of the Lord's set in conjunction with Gallant gear would give quite a nice Vitality and HP boost over your normal. I'm hoping my sugar daddy of a Red Mage friend can set me up with some, but that Admiral's Shield set us back quite a bit.

[SolidSnake207]

That Lord's set is worthless for anyone not Taru. They can sacrifice all that MP no one else.

What you want to wear as a HUME are: (Note: Best -> Worst)

Head: Aegis/Koenig/Adaman/AF1/AF2
Body: Koenig/Crimson(Very good for PLDs actually)/AF1/AF2 (No. Don't be the dumbass Hume in Adaman BP)
Hands: Koenig/AF2/Adaman/AF1
Legs: Koenig/Adaman/Crimson(situational)/AF2
Feet: Koenig/Adaman/Crimson/AF2/AF1/Hume RSE (These are NOT good for tanking btw due to low def.)
Ring1: Defending/Jelly
Ring2: BQ/Bloodbead (VIT rings are worthless)
Earring1: Bloodbead/Pigeon(+1)
Earring2: Cassie (As a hume you should have about 302 w/ Cassie on)
Back: Shadow/Gigant/Behemoth(+1)/Knightly
Range: Happy Egg/Rosenbogen(+1)
Neck: Irn. Msk. Gorget
Waist: Ocean/Warwolf - (This is completely your choice. I choose to wear the Warwolf since I've lost a lot of +Enmity going from AF1/Adaman mix to Koenig.)

As far as weapons/shields go. I'd say Joy/Hrotti/Durandal w/ Koenig Shield/Tatami Shield (situational). There are some things where Sword and Shield could be better than Earth Staff *assuming your skill is at least 250+(I wish ; ;.)* Fafnir/Nidhogg, Ada/Aspi. Can also kite with Koenig Shield on for the extra Enmity, up to you.

Hope this helps. :sweat:

[Elesirdur]

I was speaking of using the Lord's set only until lvl 73 when you can actually equip the Koenig/Valor/Crimson stuff.

[JP_Ikari]

So Solid, since you said Best to Worst


Hand: Koenig/AF2/Adaman/AF1

So in this situation, if you can't afford (or can't get) cursed, you're good with AF2 (cause of the HP and DEF being higher than Adaman). Cool least that makes sense ^ ^ b. Assuming you can get it T T.

Ring2: BQ/Bloodbead

So Bomb Queen huh T T. Damn do I have to get that at 73??? Since Bloodbeads out of the question (THE HORROR, THE HORROR I TELL YA).

Earrings: Can I go Reg. Pigeon or have to go with the +1 Ver?? T T, damn this shit is too costly, but oh well I will try and get it then. Now as for the Bloodbead Earring, ICK. Scary thought.

Range, besides the fact that the Happy has +1% of our HP, you're better off with that than a Rosenbogen +1?

Cool, well that's all my concern being that I'm a Hume, I wanted to know how much HP do we actually need to have in order to be an efficient tank for HNM.

JP

P.S. My Shields at 223 ^ ^ b, 12 off cap and still going.

[csBahamut]

I had read +HP was good, but I haven't gotten all the +HP gear that I can get. I finally bought an Ocean Belt +1 and I tried it with a Pescatora for Tanking Seiryu and Suzaku. I can definitely say that all that +HP saved my butt a few times. And me not dieing means less trouble to the melee/mages still alive. I really didn't have much trouble with hate either. It only seemed to be that I was taking more damage from the slight loss of VIT, but that could just be my imagination.

Right now, this is what I've been able to get and tank HNMs fine with:

Weapon: Earth Staff/Durandal(for when I cap shield)
Shield: none/Koenig(240 shield skill right now. Working on Capping it.)
Head: Adaman/AF1(for cover only-cover's spells)
Body: AF1(not going to get Koenig body anytime soon with all those cheaters and MPKer's and Drama crap with ground HNMs)
Hands: Koenig
Legs: AF1(I prefer the +HP here. Adaman doesn't have any +HP on Legs.)
Feet: AF1(For the +10 Shield skill. Adaman are better with Earth Staff though. I just don't need the +1 emnity, so I don't waste the gil)
Ring1: BQ ring/Topaz Ring(when the HNM doesn't use fire based spells)
Ring2: Topaz Ring(I don't like the Jelly ring. Too many HNMs nail me for a ton of spell damage as is. No need to make it undo the lower physical damage taken)
Waist: Ocean Sash/Warwolf Belt(I haven't tested enough with these, so they're interchangeable yet)
Ear1: Pigeon's earring
Ear2: Pigeon's earring
Neck: I.M. Gorget/Shield torque(for when I cap shield)

What I would like to have as a setup would be:

Weapon: Durandal
Shield: Koenig Shield
Head: Koenig Shield(+5 Shield skill)
Body: Koenig Body
Hands: Koenig Hands
Legs: Koenig Legs/AF2(If I need the +emnity)/Crimson legs(for kiting only pretty much)
Feet: AF1(+10 Shield skill)
Waist: Warwolf Belt(I'll probably need the +emnity)/Ocean Sash
Ear1: Cassie Earring
Ear2: Bloodbead Earring/Pigeon's Earring +1
Ring1: BQ ring/Bloodbead ring(depending on fire magic hitting me)
Ring2: Defending ring
Neck: Shield Torque(+7 Shield skill)

Now, with a shield skill cap of 276 at 75, gear raises that to 298. Depending on if the cap for merits in shield skill is 3 or 7, the skill will become 304 or 312. Now that's a lot of shield skill. If shield blocks with a Koenig shield block often enough at ~40-50% damage reduction, that's a lot of prevented damage. Depending on how often shiekd blocks would go off, more +emnity gear could be swapped in. Right now, I can get all the +shield skill gear(I don't think the earring is worth the loss of +20 HP) to reach this goal. All I need to do is cap shield, and put merits into shield skill. Then I can test it out. Would have to shield block 40% or more of attacks to be worthwhile. Though, I do see it as possible. With 240 + 17 shield skill on Decorative Weapons in sky, I block around 50% already. 72 more skill might be able to make it plausable on HNMs. In fact, I hope it works out well enough to make NIN only NMs/HNMs tankable by PLDs.

Solid definitely has the typical Twinking list for endgame PLD, but I like to stay away from the common sheep methods, especially if there's better. Plus, not everyone has the gil to spend on that kind of gear.

[SolidSnake207]

So Solid, since you said Best to Worst


Hand: Koenig/AF2/Adaman/AF1

So in this situation, if you can't afford (or can't get) cursed, you're good with AF2 (cause of the HP and DEF being higher than Adaman). Cool least that makes sense ^ ^ b. Assuming you can get it T T.

Ring2: BQ/Bloodbead

So Bomb Queen huh T T. Damn do I have to get that at 73??? Since Bloodbeads out of the question (THE HORROR, THE HORROR I TELL YA).

Earrings: Can I go Reg. Pigeon or have to go with the +1 Ver?? T T, damn this shit is too costly, but oh well I will try and get it then. Now as for the Bloodbead Earring, ICK. Scary thought.

Range, besides the fact that the Happy has +1% of our HP, you're better off with that than a Rosenbogen +1?

Cool, well that's all my concern being that I'm a Hume, I wanted to know how much HP do we actually need to have in order to be an efficient tank for HNM.

JP

P.S. My Shields at 223 ^ ^ b, 12 off cap and still going.

1. Hands: Thats correct. Also I'd like to note that in some cases AF2 might be better than Koenig hands. Reason being it has Enmity which Koenig lacks. I throw these on when kiting.
2. Yeah BQ ring helps a ton. Don't really need Bloodbead but I'm sure this also helps out.
3. lol no man. If I put "(+1)" means you can have either or. As for myself I rock NQ Pigeon Earring + Cassie Earring (thats +70 HP and -50 MP).
4. NQ Rosenbogen gives +10 HP. Happy Egg gives +1%. Assuming you break 1000 HP which you will you're getting more HP off the Happy Egg. HQ Rosenbogen gives +15 HP, although I'm at the point where even then the Happy Egg gives me more than an HQ Rosenbogen. =P
5. I'd say 1400+ (this should be no prob.) but of course the more the better.

This is my current tanking setup...

[JP_Ikari]

That's so sexy T T. Thanks Bro, appreciate it.

JP