Need a tad bit of advice.

[Asir]

I have always adored having a PLD tank in my exp parties. It always made my magely self feel safe from iminent death. I tried PLD for a little bit on my taru before I deleted her. Me + Taru melee= a lot of death. I will admit I was not up to the challenge.

I shall be unlocking PLD again today on my hume character and could use a bit of advice.

1) When is a good time to switch between Greatsword and Sword/Shield combination? I'd like to have both capped since I heard there are times when a PLD needs to use a GS.

2) What is a good balance of DEF and VIT? I know PLDs need these stats to improve their tanking and I'd like to keep them as balanced as possible.

3) If I have good DEF and VIT, would I be able to skip on foods that add to these in favour of more ATT or STR foods to add more oomph to my attacks?

Any other tips or advice to being a great tank would be appreciated as well. Most of my tanking experience comes from being a WAR in the dunes recently since I've mostly played mage jobs.

[Davitron3000]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

1) I would stick with Sword & Shield and level Greatsword outside of experience parties. I am not saying you can't tank with Greatsword, because I have never tried it. What are the times you have heard that you need a Greatsword? (I have never needed one)

2) I think the DEF and VIT thing is player preference. It will really depend on how you like to tank. When I was leveling I never really thought about what level my DEF was. I just tried to keep decent up to date gear and I suppose I figured my DEF would be fine.
(sorry I am not much help in this category)

3) I always used Defensive foods, but times have changed and I think you should just use food depending on the situation. If you are getting destroyed, use defensive food. If you are not getting hit for much, no reason you can't contribute to party damage.

I think overall you want to strike a balance with your gear and food to hold hate, survive attacks, and keep chains going in experience parties.

[dirtyclown]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Generally you'll want to stick with a sword and shield for any PTs where you're taking damage. The damage reduction of a shield is great for reducing your overall damage taken during a party. When you aren't the tank though, GS is decent. Although the times when you're not tanking will be rare, as you'll be expected to about 95% of the time. I'd refer to the sticky, most of what you're asking is covered in there. And if anything isn't, let me know and It'll get added.

[Maju]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

1. I don't think a GS is really ever needed. A sword + shield combo should deal higher damage than a GS.

2. I feel that def is more important than vit, however, def caps out rather easily against exp mobs so be careful not to over do it or you'll "waste" stats. This is especially important later on when you start getting different forms of Refresh and you won't even need to cap out your defense.

3. Yes, I myself have been eating sushi in all of my exp parties since my early 60s simply because more def is not needed. I also started adding more and more damage dealing gear to my regular tanking setup. And even if you notice you're lacking def, you can always pop Defender and still enjoy a sushi boosted accuracy.

[Vair]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

1) I would stick with Sword & Shield and level Greatsword outside of experience parties. I am not saying you can't tank with Greatsword, because I have never tried it. What are the times you have heard that you need a Greatsword? (I have never needed one)

2) I think the DEF and VIT thing is player preference. It will really depend on how you like to tank. When I was leveling I never really thought about what level my DEF was. I just tried to keep decent up to date gear and I suppose I figured my DEF would be fine.
(sorry I am not much help in this category)

3) I always used Defensive foods, but times have changed and I think you should just use food depending on the situation. If you are getting destroyed, use defensive food. If you are not getting hit for much, no reason you can't contribute to party damage.

I think overall you want to strike a balance with your gear and food to hold hate, survive attacks, and keep chains going in experience parties.

Yeah, what he said. Also, make sure to look up good ways to combine abilities and magic. Experiment as well to see what works best for you. Normally at the begining of the fight I use Voke >> Flash >> Shield Bash ((Aleternating between Sentinal and Rampart.)) A high breath mantle is also good for people who like to level PLD on the side and aren't really serious about it.

As a hume you'll have a good amount of MP too. Remember, being a PLD isn't about dealing damge, but taking it rather. Although, dealing out a sufficent amount of damage is also neccessary.

All in all, just toy with it and you'll find what works if you're really seroius. =D

[Asir]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

What are the times you have heard that you need a Greatsword? (I have never needed one)

When I let my intentions of being a PLD known, I wasn't really given any specific instances for it's need. A close to direct quote was "You should've leveled GS with your WAR instead of those Axes since you'll need it a lot as you level PLD." I did ask at what levels it would be needed but got no reply after that. I figured I would just level GS with PLD instead of WAR since GA and Axe/Shield was better for my parties as WAR. Since I now have verification it's not needed that much, I'll skill it up while farming.

And don't worry Vair, I take all the jobs I play seriously, even the ones that are just subs or for fun. I may wear goofy gear when soloing but in a party, I do my best for everyone since 5 other people are relying on me. I'm really looking forward to my trip to 75 with this job.

[bside]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

There was a time when we really needed to have enough GS skills in exp parties, but that's way back before RoZ. This was to create a Distortion SC, which was pretty much the only SC used in 57-60 range (60 was the cap) in Davoi against Orcs. When there were no other members in a party that could use a Transfixion WS, we were asked to use Power Slash so THF could finish w/ Viper/Dance. Note that Penta Thrust of Polearms had a Transfixion attribute back then, and that it was way stronger than it is right now (average range of 500-600, if I remember correctly), so it was the primary Transfixion WS used by WAR.

But ever since the release of RoZ, things changed, and we no longer needed to have GS. Like dirtyclown pointed out, PLD's can use GS effectively if properly equipped, and also thanks to the high STR rating of PLD (not many people realize this, but PLD has a higher STR than some other melee jobs), can dish out some considerable damage, though of course not as high as "true" DD jobs.

Nevertheless, you'll need to sacrifice some of the tanking gears and their stats if you really wanna deal some damage w/ GS, so not recommended when you tank in higher levels, while it won't matter that much anyways for lower levels.


As for 2 and 3, I second what Maju said. PLD's native deffense along w/ proper gears is usually enough for most of EXP mobs, especially if you're chainning VT's. But there are some hard-hitting mobs, too, so it's best to switch foods depending on what you're fighting. Also, as Vair said, "dealing out a sufficent amount of damage is also neccessary," so you do need some ATK/Acc gears as well, such as Life Belt for Acc (of course, you don't need the crazy amount of DD gears; just need some supporting gears for enough damage). Note that using minimal ATK/Acc gears usually don't sacrifice DEF/VIT as much as it makes you unable to tank, so boosting other defensive stats shouldn't be needed.

Overall, this is rather offensive PLD's model, but this is what I've done. Of course, there's nothing wrong w/ totally defensive PLD's. It's just a matter of preference.

[Slip]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

When I let my intentions of being a PLD known, I wasn't really given any specific instances for it's need. A close to direct quote was "You should've leveled GS with your WAR instead of those Axes since you'll need it a lot as you level PLD." I did ask at what levels it would be needed but got no reply after that. I figured I would just level GS with PLD instead of WAR since GA and Axe/Shield was better for my parties as WAR. Since I now have verification it's not needed that much, I'll skill it up while farming.

For what it's worth you did exactly the right thing with Warrior. Axes and Great Axes are dead on the way to go for Warriors due to a.) better skill (so better accuracy and damage) and b.) better weaponskills. Missing Sturmwind for the appallingly weak Great Sword skills would have been a sad sad thing.

So {Good Job!} there!

As for food, one option that's nice when you're fighting weaker mobs is Dorado Sushi. The +Emnity sounds better than it is, but it's still handy to have on mobs that aren't doing a lot of damage to you (my suspicion is the the +Acc from the sushi helps more with holding hate though).

Early on you may want to use Boiled Crayfish or Boiled Crab though as healing resources are kinda sparse and surviving IT chains can be a challenge. I think I switched to Dorado Sushi in about the mid-50s when damage dropped off a little and I needed to speed up my TP gain a bit. I'm back to Tavnazian Tacos now (in the late 60s) though since Marids hit pretty hard again.

[georgs]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

I'm a Hume PLD, level 53 and I focus on trying to keep a proper balance for the level. PLD is a good example of balance with stats and how you want to tank.
I think there are two major types of PLDs, or this is how I've interpreted the whole debate.

The Offensive PLD seems to focus on defense and what not, but puts that extra little oomph to their attacks, say swapping out def heavy gear for something that may drop your HP slightly but increases your overall attack. Eatting sushi for acc. seems to be the food of choice.

The Defensive PLD seems focus almost solely on DEF and VIT. DEX and AGI are probably raised as well for Shield and Parry skill bonuses. Eating Tacos or Boiled Crap seems to be the food of choice.


It's a matter of preference, certain races have to adjust for certain flaws, like Galka PLDs seem to use a lot of MP for HP gear while Tarus add AGI. As a Hume, I focus on VIT first, then AGI, DEX, MND, STR, and I just ignore INT when it comes to Stat. bonuses. But, I also know that for emnity to really stick you gotta hit a mob, so I made a decision to swap out my Warrior's Belt for a Lifebelt so I would hit a decent percentage.

I use GS when I farm and I feel like I could do a bit more damage, sure there are great PLD exclusive GSs but that doesn't mean you have to use a GS.

That's my two cents on the whole thing.

[DakAttack]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Defense will come from armor, and you can balance Vit and Agi without worrying much about HP until you're 75. If you see a piece of equipment with +Skill that would be beneficial to you, you should jump all over it.

[Asir]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Finally had time to complete the quests to unlock PLD today. I only had time to play around with it for 6 levels but I'm loving it. I thought having a PLD tank protecting my mages was fun but this is even better. I even had the joy of saving someone who called for help! I was a PLD/WHM since I was soloing. I attacked, cured the poor adventurer to full for hate, popped Invincible and saved the day. I haven't felt that useful since doing banshee/gob train patrols in the dunes before the patch that made mobs disappear.

So, before I ramble any further and bore you with the details of six levels of leveling, I want to thank you all again for the wonderful advice you gave for as I get higher in level.

[Raydeus]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Staff, don't forget to lvl staff in case you haven't, although there isn't much reason to tank using a staff anymore (lvl 51+) having it leveled is really nice, specially after Spirit Taker (if you take PLD that high that is).

Also, unless you go as full DD staff will work better than Great Sword for most situations, and having A- Staff skill is really nice too.

Gotta love Kinkobo.

[dirtyclown]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Staff, don't forget to lvl staff in case you haven't, although there isn't much reason to tank using a staff anymore (lvl 51+) having it leveled is really nice, specially after Spirit Taker (if you take PLD that high that is).

What?

[Celeal]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

/salute ^o^!
Welcome to the PLD community. Have fun tanking :D

[FranckKnight]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Basic PLD guide :

-Vit will increase Def as well as decrease the 'damage curve'. But there is a kind of 'soft cap' on how Vit is useful. Generally speaking, for armors go for Def, Vit and Agi in order. Sacrificing 1-2 Def for +1 Vit won't matter that much thought.

-Boiled/Steamed Crab at low levels, Tavazian Tacos at higher level. That's the best increase in Def/Vit you can find on food.

-Shield size will impact how often you'll block, and how much damage it reduces. The bigger the shield, the more damage it absorbs, but the less often it activates. Generally speaking, you shouldn't worry about shield size. But if you want to cap it, you should use a smaller shield to increase the times it blocks (thus possible skillups), and when you're at or near cap switch to a large shield for increase defense. Shield skillup directly increase how often it will activate as well.

-PLD are best at Sword and Staff. Great Sword, they lack. I'm not saying its impossible, but its generally safer for the PLD and the party to use a sword and shield. PLD's abilities are made to increase his defense at the cost of the offense, so you're not going to hold hate on damage alone.

-Instead, check on accessories that have +Enmity on it. Each action you do will create extra hate, from the Provoke to the Cures, making it easier to hold the mob to you. They won't be available at lower level, but when you can find some they are useful. Don't sacrifice too much defense/vitality for Enmity thought.