Need a tad bit of advice.

[dirtyclown]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

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

I'd add Shallops Tropicale in there as well. It beats the hell out of crab and is quite cost effective until tacos.

-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.

Um..The only JA Paladins have that decreases offense is Defender, and..lolDefender. Sorry, it slipped. The only thing that "decreases" our offense is our gear choice. Also, on a related note...STICKY. SRSLY.

[FranckKnight]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

I'd add Shallops Tropicale in there as well. It beats the hell out of crab and is quite cost effective until tacos.
Um..The only JA Paladins have that decreases offense is Defender, and..lolDefender. Sorry, it slipped. The only thing that "decreases" our offense is our gear choice. Also, on a related note...STICKY. SRSLY.

Yes, that's part of it, just didn't explain properly. Another part of it is that unlike most melee jobs, we have nothing that actually helps our attack power. Defender is actually a Warrior ability, not PLD, but since the PLD/WAR is just about the only working version of it, its like if it was ours.

A PLD's job is to soak the damage, and hold hate. And they are the best at it hands down. Ninja tanking is avoiding damage so they keep hate, but don't create as much hate, but they don't lose hate as quickly either. Warriors are the good inbetween defense and damage, so they can do it all. PLDs are not geared toward damage, wether its equipement or ability-wise, despite their high STR rating.

And why would you want to take away what main use they have? There's only two jobs that can tank effectively, three if you consider WAR, althought most of them will go for the damage rather than defense.

Its like that story that my LS said once, about meeting a PLD that didn't want to get hate because he was afraid to die <.< If a PLD isn't there for tanking, what is he there for, looking pretty in his shiny white armor?

[dirtyclown]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

You and I are on the same page, but one of us is reading upside down. Share the damn book, my eyes are starting to hurt. D:

[FranckKnight]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Another small note, if you want to do damage, why take PLD anyway? You can play Ranger, Warrior, Dark Knight, Samurai... They all are better at it.

Turning a PLD into a DD is basically going against what they are good at. Look at their abilities :

Sentinel : Ups defense
Rampart : Ups defense for party
Cover : blocks hit for a party member
Invincible : biggest hate maker and drops damage to 0

Spells :
Protect, Shell : Speak of their own
Flash : 1 second of Blind? No, its for the hate.
Cures : Make hate, keep yourself alive
Banish, Holy : Uhh yeah, the only damaging white spells and they suck in exp parties anyway. Holy is only good for a quick burst of Hate since it takes 1s to cast.

The whole point of the PLD is being there for the rest of the party. They are made to tank.

Would you invite a Samurai to Party, specifically asking them to get tanking gear?

[dirtyclown]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

The whole point of the PLD is being there for the rest of the party. They are made to tank.

Would you invite a Samurai to Party, specifically asking them to get tanking gear?

I would invite a Samurai and ask him to tank for no purpose other than to prove you wrong.

Joking aside, I agree. All out DD with Paladins is retarded in concept and in practice. Then again I find that most of the things that go on at endgame where things like that are common are rather retarded as well. "Hay guys, let's completely contradict the 'working together' and 'team' aspect of the game and simply gear ourselves to kick large amounts of ass. Then, we'll beat the hell out of mobs that we can all easily kill for fast chains! And the only reason we'll be in the same party is so we can compare the size of our e-penises and ooh and ahh at the amazing power of our solo WS! Then maybe later on we can jack each other off while we watch football and swear at our wimminz!"

Alright, I have to stop.

[csBahamut]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Paladin is just a natural for taking hits. Some defense bonus traits, high base VIT, and good HP. PLD JA's, while they give defense bonuses, are really insignificant. The amount of defense gained will rarely affect your damage taken, and they only last for a short time.

The big problem for DD'ing is the lack of offesnive JA's, but that depends on how you look at it. NIN doesn't have any natural offensive JA's, yet they DD. PLD's advantage is that they can sacrifice the same amount of defense as a DD, but take hits better. This allows for better survivability. Of course, Utsusemi has all but nullified this natural trait of PLDs. Besides, the idea of a tank is to prevent DD's from being hit anyways.

The real advantage of the PLD defensive abilities shine in tanking. We can equip some offensive gear, and still tank effectively. It's all about reducing the party's total MP spent, and damage taken, not just your own damage taken.

For food:
Boild Crawfish is good until you get around 100 base defense with Protect.
Boild Crab is good for 100+, until around 200 base defense with Protect.
Fish Mithkabobs are good for above 200, and good up until 450+ defense in my opinion. This is because most PLDs will have around 400-450 defense at 75 with Protect. If you need to use defender, then you move onto:
Tavnazian Tacos. These are really only needed when you are going to be using defender so you can hit the cap on Tacos. And then only if you'll be doing a short activity, or there's a high probability of dying.

Why do I say to use fish kabobs? Because the difference of 10 defense and 4 VIT between fish kabobs and tacos will not be noticed at all. You're just wasting money. On the other hand, the bonus MP and HP from Tacos will help a lot more for NMs and HNMs. If you're exping and need the defense from Tacos, then you might as well use Black Curry. Same 150 defense cap, 2 less VIT, but +5 acc. Of course, you shouldn't need defense food for exp most of the time after level 73, unless you're fighting something with really high attack like Golems or Rocs(Greater Birds). The faster a mob dies, the less you will get hit, and so the less damage you will take. Of course, that's to be taken only to a certain point. You have to adjust for each kind of mob to find that sweet spot between balancing your offense with defense. SE has started helping us with this with the shield adjustments.

[Asir]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Its like that story that my LS said once, about meeting a PLD that didn't want to get hate because he was afraid to die <.< If a PLD isn't there for tanking, what is he there for, looking pretty in his shiny white armor?

Thanks to this bit, I have to wipe coffee off my monitor and keyboard now. Thankfully, Death and I are old friends. We hung out plenty of times when I was leveling a taru BST. I'm sure he's looking forward to seeing me again once I'm Dunes-worthy... Maybe he'll give me back that 12k in exp he owes me. ^^

[Maju]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Its like that story that my LS said once, about meeting a PLD that didn't want to get hate because he was afraid to die <.< If a PLD isn't there for tanking, what is he there for, looking pretty in his shiny white armor?

When I make a TP burn PT as PLD/WAR I don't want to get hit. A few days ago we were killing Skoffins in Bhaflau Thickets and I had Berserk on and was wearing full DD gear. Then our THF tricks his WS on me and the skoffin crits me for 480 and then deadly dives for 800. I was not happy.

[Aeni]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

If you want my personal experience...

Level PLD to 10 soloing with a gsword. Fights go much faster. Eat meat food and you're golden. If you can afford persikos au lait, more power to you.

At 10, go and get yourself a 1hd sword and go skill up on lower level mobs outside of town. Scale upwards and by the time you get it around 3 levels below your current level, you should also have a nice cushion for when you try to head to Dunes (Expect to die a lot)

From there on, you should be able to do decent with sword and shield.

If you're trying to solo to 10 with a 1hd sword, good luck. I got better mileage with a bow, arrow and that level 1 rusty gsword. Got 8 levels in just about 40 min. one shotting everything and never really resting (I just get all my HP and MP back FROM leveling up)

[Aeni]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

When I make a TP burn PT

However, for levels 10 to 70, you're there to tank unless there's a main NIN in PT and he absolutely begs you to main tank. At that point, you're going in as DD and healing that NIN.

[Frazzle]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Just one thing when you get to 50 i would advise against Phalanx rings (might have the wrong thing on a break, but they are def 10) I found them much worse than the +2 vit rings. That might just be me but just thought id add my own thoughts. i am a hume if that makes anyt difference

[Aeni]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

NIN doesn't have any natural offensive JA's, yet they DD.

I stopped reading right there.

When NIN was first introduced with RoZ, SE's official statement with regards to this class was that it fit in as a DD. Somehow, NIN + WAR turned it into a tank, but anyway you shake the jobclass, it's natural tendencies outside of utsusemi and provoke is to DD.

-Their weaponskills scale better than a pallys (In other words, they do not need to try as hard as a pally to push it up)

-Their shurikens friggin' own and on criticals, we're looking at godlike numbers. If they have money, that is.

-Their jutsus increase in damage over cycling (wheeling) as each lowers the resistance of the next and so forth. This spell is strictly offensive as it not only gives a measure of DD through "casting" but also debuffs for other job classes when they cast as well (MB comes to mind)

Remember, NINs don't have any solid JA period. Neither on defense or offense. It's their traits, skills and ability to wear and use various equipments that allows a player to shape their NIN the way they want to.

[FranckKnight]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

Its not that the PLD's ability to DD is bad anyway, its just that they aren't made for that. As said, all PLD abilities and spells, save for Banish/Holy, are defensive in nature. As a PLD I almost never used those spells either. MP is better used on cures.

They barely have a single debuff with Flash, and you know its duration is bad, its mostly a hate grabber. The few seconds of Blind is barely enough to slip in an uninterrupted Cure usually.

Shield Bash' stun time is mediocre at best, its mostly used to disrupt a spell or an ability casting, because it doesn't do much else. Because even a single second of stun can disrupt the casting at least. The damage it does isn't worth the 5 min recast time usually.

Everything else the PLD might have in abilities and spells is defensive or curative. What is somewhat offensive comes from the Warrior sub.

The PLD's STR is not in cause here. They have a superb STR rating, but they aren't given ways to use it on the damage.

Aeni's point on Ninja is right on. They don't have a damage multiplier like Dark Knight has, they don't get TP by breathing like Sam, but their dual wield ability that rises in speed as they level up, their damage+debuff spells...

Utsusemi was probably thought just to be a way to avoid damage when you did too much damage and got hate, but it was turned into a tanking method by players that specialize into finding the slight 'design flaws' in everything.

In a way its better for parties to have many tanking choices. WAR was supposed to be the second choice, as proven by most of the gear choice they have, but they always were thought as the middle between the offense and defense. They just were left aside with Ninja's ability to tank, and players turned warriors into powerhouses with the right gear/subjob choices.

Its not that WARs can't tank, its that most of them will take the road of the DD. When you invite a WAR in a party, 99% of them will say 'I don't tank', despite a Ninja sub.

[csBahamut]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

I stopped reading right there.
When NIN was first introduced with RoZ, SE's official statement with regards to this class was that it fit in as a DD. Somehow, NIN + WAR turned it into a tank, but anyway you shake the jobclass, it's natural tendencies outside of utsusemi and provoke is to DD.
-Their weaponskills scale better than a pallys (In other words, they do not need to try as hard as a pally to push it up)
-Their shurikens friggin' own and on criticals, we're looking at godlike numbers. If they have money, that is.
-Their jutsus increase in damage over cycling (wheeling) as each lowers the resistance of the next and so forth. This spell is strictly offensive as it not only gives a measure of DD through "casting" but also debuffs for other job classes when they cast as well (MB comes to mind)
Remember, NINs don't have any solid JA period. Neither on defense or offense. It's their traits, skills and ability to wear and use various equipments that allows a player to shape their NIN the way they want to.

Should have finished reading, then you would have gotten my point. PLDs don't have offensive JA's. NIN's don't have offensive JA's. Get it? Just because PLD lacks offensive JA's doesn't mean it can't DD at all.

Not entirely true about the WS damage either. When a NIN is always using atk or acc food vs. a PLD using defensive food, who do you expect to have generally higher WSes? I can reach the numbers that NINs get on Jins pretty easily, and I don't have a lot of the 1337 gear that could bump it up even more. Of course, this is comparing your average NIN (no mass of HQ's and god gear). I have just the Heca boots for god drops on WS. Everything else is typical melee gear that any average melee would generally have. If you want to compare damage, you need to compare it on equal grounds. PLD with defense food using defender vs. NIN with atk food using berserk is just "stuffing" the number. The only problem comes when PLDs are tanking, then they can't keep up (but I sure ain't that much weaker.).

Shurikens + higher dual wield definitely give NINs an advantage over PLD when DD'ing. As does a kick but +crit weapon. Sange is just disgusting. Can't forget that NINs can dual wield and have berserk (just like WAR/NINs), while PLD has to choose between one or the other and lacks anything to make it up.

Add in Ninjitsu...well, why can't we consider what PLD magic adds then? Both help in their own way, so there's a balance there.

Really, people need to get away from the whole "PLD can't DD!" mentality. It's not one of the bandwagon jobs (WAR/NIN, NIN/WAR, MNK), but PLD is respectable compared to other DD's (though my bro's DRG is pimped out and pwns me in damage). If PLD couldn't DD, the how in the world did I pull hate off the NIN/WAR and MNK/NIN on Hakutaku with pure melee damage? /sarcasm on "Obviously PLDs can't DD." /sarcasm off. It's just generally easier to see a PLD as a tank since that's mostly what we know about the job. Most people don't know the DD side of PLD at all, and usually think it doesn't exist by default.

[Rai]

Re: Need a tad bit of advice.

1. When you coffer hunt, Skill-up of Farm but never in an EXP party.

2. VIT VIT VIT, that was my build, get the Head Body Legs with the highest DEF for my lvl and anywhere else I can stack VIT I do it.

3. As a PLD DEF/VIT food is all you should eat in EXP parties. PLD is an MP sponge so minimize the MP need to keep you alive.