Relic of a bygone era

[Amele]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

pld/nin for merit.

the dot gains are worth the loss of utility in tanking, since it's not like an exp/merit needs a paladin tank at 75 anyway

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

so everyone says... I'm not incredibly convinced.

-Nin tanks voke once/fight.
-Bards pull with the single most potent debuff in the game.
-Flash will negate 1-2 hits.
-Fights only last 30-50 seconds

One Flash and one voke/mob. You won't take much damage, and you'll have hate at least as well as a NIN tank (which, in my small experience, tank a very large portion of the fights). Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.

The biggest problem remains that you prolly wouldn't get to use Berserk. And double attack wouldn't do a lot of good for someone main'ing a Joyeuse (though it would be swell with Justice sword).

[Amele]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

so everyone says... I'm not incredibly convinced.
-Nin tanks voke once/fight.
-Bards pull with the single most potent debuff in the game.
-Flash will negate 1-2 hits.
-Fights only last 30-50 seconds
One Flash and one voke/mob. You won't take much damage, and you'll have hate at least as well as a NIN tank (which, in my small experience, tank a very large portion of the fights). Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.
The biggest problem remains that you prolly wouldn't get to use Berserk. And double attack wouldn't do a lot of good for someone main'ing a Joyeuse (though it would be swell with Justice sword).

(as an aside: we may possibly have missed each other's points, since I wasn't suggesting /nin for shadow tanking like would be used on some hnm's for pld/nin)

if you meant nin/war for NIN tank (as in, actually a ninja) then no. there's a ton of parties that roll without them. if you mean people with shadows who hold hate off the mages? yeah, there's always a couple mnk/nin or war/nin or sam/war or rng/nin (etc etc) hanging around the front line. you don't even *need* voke if you're a monk.

people like ninjas for merit because when dot is king, ninja dual-wield delay reductions are the equivalent of 35-55% (depending on gear) haste, and stacks with haste.

anyway, comparison of what you get with pld/war, vs pld/nin specifically for DD.

pld/war:
1 sword + shield (so either multiple attacks or good base damage, not both)
berserk (15%+ attack, averaged over time. assuming PDIF of 1.0 this will move you to approximately PDIF 1.15 - which is ~15% extra damage) assumes you can use full time - this may be an optimistic assumption, since it means you're probably not the tank.
double attack - 10% extra attacks with non-joyeuse swords, 5% extra attacks with joyeuse (excluded brutal earring since you'd wear it on both combos)
warcry - negligible boost to dot, 5.25% for 30 seconds of 5 minutes is .005 dot to all members (so you could potentially claim ~3% extra damage).

pld/nin
2 swords (so either j/j for 2-4 attacks a round: avg. 3; or company/joy or company/justice for 25% extra attacks and good based amage)
dual wield bonus of 15% (equivalent to 15% haste for dot, means a straight 15% increase in damage, has an increasing effect as you stack more haste).


so, vs a company sword pld/war, pld/nin has approximately a 25% dot advantage (assumes that +15% attack is worth +15% dot)

vs a joyeuse pld/war, pld/nin would have approximately the same dot but better weaponskills (at minimum because he has 7 more strength in the offhand slot) dualing justice/joy - which (I believe) also gives you a higher multiple attack rating during ws.

[Karinya]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

pld/nin for merit.
the dot gains are worth the loss of utility in tanking, since it's not like an exp/merit needs a paladin tank at 75 anyway

What dot gains? DA = DW2 for DoT and beats it for TP gain (DW delay reduction reduces TP gained per hit, but DA gets full TP for both hits); /war still has berserk and warcry and superior STR. Either one can wear haste gear or whatever. The only jobs that DW are a significant DoT gain for are NIN, which gets much stronger levels of it plus AF, and WAR, which doesn't have to sacrifice WAR's job traits to gain NIN's.

The benefits of offhanding Joyeuse with a higher damage main like Company are ok if you don't mind sacrificing some DoT and TP gain for bigger WS - until you get Justice, at which point I doubt it's worth diluting it by DW. (Assuming that you're going to bother to spend virtue stones in merit, which is another argument by itself. It does require substantial time spent organ farming relative to your time meriting.)

At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".


P.S. It would help if there were more shields with useful DD stats like Tatami and Viking. Viking is 300k on Carbuncle, Tatami roughly double that; at ATK+12 or STR+5 the shield slot is not exactly deadweight in a DD pld/war build (or DD thf/war for that matter); but Viking is only level 45 and tatami is partly balanced around its Everything Killer (which usually doesn't matter in merit). Imagine the stats that a level 70+ dd shield could have - acc+7 atk+7 str+3, say. Lower defense and no enmity, and maybe making it a size that's not so great for blocking, would keep it situational compared to koenig and other tanking shields. Thf/wars would love it too if it were allowed for them (I don't see the harm, thief is widely seen as a weak job atm).

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

all the parties I get into want one and only one NIN. Everyone knows that Nins -can- do amazing DD, but there aren't enough of those for pick up groups. For the same reason, no one trusts the ability of say... 4x mnk/nin. They could hold hate just fine, but they'd all have to be thinking. Wars don't even voke enough. A Mnk would never consider purposely trying for hate.

Note that the entire paragraph above is entirely my views of the playerbase. Not of what's most efficient. What is most commonly accepted. And if the player base can commonly accept SH ninjas in their tp burn parties, then an exceptionally open minded party could probably do just as well with a DD PLD/war.

as for DW benefits, if you're actually dualing the 2 multi-swords, neither can proc during WS (apparently). So you're looking at 5-swing vorpal blades. And sure, you get a nice +STR from Justice, but /war will get you ~4 more Str (I think?).

But, as I said before... Berserk would kinda take the point out of the meat tanking combo.

EDIT: Karinya posted at same time as me. The thing about Dual Wield for DoT is that Double Attack is so horrendously marginalized by multi-attacking weapons. And you reminded me of something else that I feel needs hammered into the ground:

Every PLD needs a means of quickly curing party members! I strongly suggest a macro with /ma "Cure III" <stpc> along with maybe an equip swap for hospitaler or... whatever. This goes for every Paladin, but doubly for a DD paladin.

You will never be top DD, so use all of your job's functionality to do what Monks cannot.

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

there's also the issue of overall functionality (versus niche) and of gains per slot.

Haub may be just as good as 2x acc rings + AJ + Fowling Earring but that's 4 slots vs 1. When you're trying to make hybrid builds, it's much easier to sac one great slot for one cause and focus the rest of your build elsewhere. This has long been the basis for Lifebelt on Paladins.

Thanks for explaining it better than I could.

Afterall, there's a reason all the tp burn parties like having NIN tanks -- they never have no tank.

For me the principal behind a True TP burn isn’t that there is “no tank”, it’s that everyone tanks.

It’s a subtle difference, but the difference between everyone just subbing ninja and calling it a “TP burn” Vs a party where 3 party members effectively bounce hate and share tanking responsibilities is the difference between a fantastic party and a mediocre one.

/em misses old school Spampage parties.

Nin and War are the only two jobs that have both shadows and Provoke. I think most people opt for a Nin in their TP burns because, someone has to voke off of the pullers, and the majority of new age warriors don’t seem to have a voke macro or consider them DD only.

P.S. I would like to see a build like Hank's DD layout applied to pld/war in a merit party. With fast Flashes and a sturdy Shield, I bet you could still negate enough damage to be worthwhile and actually tank for half your fights. Would be interesting to see, anyway. Though you'd prolly end up swapping off Pcharm for Parade Gorget a lot.

I gave it a bit of thought and if I was taking /war to a ToA meritpo this is the gear I’d use:

Weapon: Justice Sword
Shield: Balance Buckler
Ammo: Virtue Stones
Head: Koenig Schaller
Neck: Shield Torque
Ear1: Brutal Earring
Ear2: Ethereal Earring
Body: Hauby
Hands: Homam
Ring1: Savatta
Ring2: Woodsman
Back: Cerb Mantle
Waist: Swift Belt
Legs: Homam
Feet: AF+1

Overall that would give me:

300 Shield Skill combined with a buckler shield for extremely high block rate. While the damage reduction is less from a buckler the focus is for more frequent blocks for TP gain. 300 skill actually might be overkill for a size 2 shield, if that where case I’d probably swap out Koenig helm for Homam for more haste, acc and mp.

+28 Acc in conjunction with sushi this should be plenty of Acc for a 90% hit rate.

+10% haste which is decent amount and combined with the Haste spell will drop your Flash recast to 33.75 seconds, which would allow flash to be ready ever fight.

+9 Enmity which isn’t a large amount, but it is something.

15% Overall Double Attack rate which would stack Justice.

This is mostly speculation on my part, I am an avid believer in /nin for meritpos, but I think this looks like a workable /war setup. Decent damage mitigation coupled with what should be fantastic TP gain and frequent WSs.

At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".

That’s a bit of an over statement, cover works regardless of sub, people are not going to be dying because I don’t have provoke. Flash, cures, cover, pretty sure I could keep people alive better as /nin than /war, even if for no other reason than I won’t take damage while covering. Sentinal > Flash > Cure IV is pretty much always going to take hate. Besides most TP meritpo fights barely last more than 1 min. By the time a DD takes hate you should be able to ride cover for the duration of the fight, nevermind the other hate tools you have.

Let me find my old numbers on Pld/War Vs Pld/Nin in terms of raw damage dealing. It’s a good debate.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Vyuru]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Let me find my old numbers on Pld/War Vs Pld/Nin in terms of raw damage dealing. It’s a good debate.

Please do, of the tanking jobs Pld has appealed to me the most, well, pld > war > I guess sam could possibly tank now. But I'd be interested in seeing more of this pld debate

[Amele]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

What dot gains? DA = DW2 for DoT and beats it for TP gain (DW delay reduction reduces TP gained per hit, but DA gets full TP for both hits); /war still has berserk and warcry and superior STR. Either one can wear haste gear or whatever. The only jobs that DW are a significant DoT gain for are NIN, which gets much stronger levels of it plus AF, and WAR, which doesn't have to sacrifice WAR's job traits to gain NIN's.
The benefits of offhanding Joyeuse with a higher damage main like Company are ok if you don't mind sacrificing some DoT and TP gain for bigger WS - until you get Justice, at which point I doubt it's worth diluting it by DW. (Assuming that you're going to bother to spend virtue stones in merit, which is another argument by itself. It does require substantial time spent organ farming relative to your time meriting.)
At best it's a tiny bit better than /war; at worst it gets someone killed. Doesn't seem like a hard call to me. When a DD draws more hate than he can handle the pld/war saves his life and the pld/nin watches him die and says "want a raise 1 dude?".

I was in the process of writing a wall of maths to respond to this (since you're right, I neglected DA) but I'll just summarize rather than write an essay: I think I was wrong. Single handed joyeuse looks like the best dot, because justice is less damage during dot. - the 50% damage boost of multi-attack justice during ws is nice though). j/j dual'd is slightly less (~10-20% dot depending on PDIF) for approximately 30-40% weaponskill gain (again depending on PDIF) assuming justice is mainhanded (taking double attack bonus into account) and I'm not sure that that ws boost overcomes the dot loss.

this of course all assumes that it's possible to keep berserk up for it's entire duration, which may be difficult depending on the party setup.

having a suppa also reduces the gap slightly (bringing dual wield up to about the equivalent of double+bers with a joyeuse), but won't allow pld/nin to overcome it assuming the pld/war is allowed to go all out.

edit: looking forward to seeing hank's numbers if he can find them - the theory stuff I like to run around with at work is never quite as good as looking at actual parses.

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Couldn’t find my old numbers, so here are some new ones.

Fun with numbers and a Justice Sword
A brutal earring is used in all examples.

Justice:
Out of 100 innings
45 Single attacks
52.5 Double attacks
2.5 Triple attacks
Delay on Justice is 236 so for 100 innings that’s 23600 delay for an expected 157.5 attacks or an effective delay of 149.84 per a hit.

Joyeuse
Out of 100 innings
47.5 Single attacks
52.5 Double attacks
Delay on Justice is 224 so for 100 innings that’s 22400 delay for an expected 152.5 attacks or an effective delay of 146.89 per a hit.

Considering just the dual wield bonus of 20% delay reduction from Duel Wield II and Suppa you are looking at an effective delay of 237.38 for both weapons combined. Divide by two to get a single wield average of 118.69.

Justice /war
Out of 100 innings
7.5 Triple attacks
57.5 Double Attacks
35 Single Attacks
Delay on Justice is 236 so for 100 innings that 23600 delay for an expected 172.5 attacks or an effective delay of 136.81

Joyeuse /war
Out of 100 innings
55 Double Attacks
45 Single Attacks
Delay on Justice is 224 so for 100 innings that 22400 delay for an expected 155 attacks or an effective delay of 144.52

60 delay = 1 second if I am not mistaken. 3600 delay = 1 min, 36000 delay= 10 min.

Joy/Just with its 118.69 average delay per a hit will attack 303.31 times over the course of 10 minutes.

Justice alone with its effective delay of 136.81 a hit will attack 263.14 times over of the course of 10 minutes.

Joyeuse alone with its effective delay of 144.52 a hit will attack 249.10 times over the course of 10 minutes.

So the logical question becomes during the 6 minutes you have berserk up with the increased damage surpass the extra hits you’ll get from dual wield.

For Justice Berserk is active 60% of the time so out of 263.14 attacks its active for 157.88 of them. Those 157.88 hits need to make up for the extra 40 hits I get from dual wielding so each of those hits needs to hit 25% harder than my /nin non-berserked hits.

For Joyeuse Berserk is active 60% of the time so out of 249.10 attacks its active for 149.46 of them. Those 149.64 hits need to make up for the extra 54 hits I get from dual wielding so each of those hits needs to hit 36% harder than my /nin non-berserked hits.

So basically;
If Berserk increases your damage per hit by more than 25%(36%) Just(Joy) when it is active, then War is he more damaging sub.

If Berserk increases your damage per hit by less than 25%(36%) Just(Joy) when active, Ninja is the more damaging sub.

Ok after doing those numbers, I am extremely surprised at how close it is. If my average hit with Justice is 40 Damage, a 25% increase would raise it to 50 a swing. I can see berserk doing that in some camps. Joyeuse is a bit tougher needing to go from 40 a swing to 54.4 but still quite feasible. Just form a pure DoT standpoint /war has a leg to stand on.

Assuming in that 10min time span we had perfect acc, Just/war would have WSed 13 times, and Just/Joy would have Wsed 15 times. So two more WSs for /nin. Not sure how to quantify that, /nin WSs all get an extra hit and 5% DA rate, all /war WSs get a 15% DA rate and 7/8 of them will get berserk too.

I’ll be honest they look really close. My parses all show /nin performing better than /war. Backwards rationalizing those results lead me to believe it was due to:

• /war having to cure more
• the extra hit on every WS /nin pulls my WS average above /wars
• more WSs with /nin

The other biggest thing /nin brings to the table is the ability to not be a MP sink. This at the end of the day is the largest factor in my selection of this sub. Well maybe not the largest, the largest factort is the fact that I think hundred fists with swords is just plain cool.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Empedocles]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

All of this is great guys, it's a very 'clean' discussion with the debaters actually debating and not flaming.

Although, I cannot help but realise you guys are throwing some pretty awesome gear about... what happens with people like me? I'm 74, almost 75, and I have no endgame LS'es etc, hell, I'm still on Keremit because my CoP static dumped me when they felt like it.

I have a hauby and although I'm perpetually poor with a 3mil debt, I can buy AH stuff, perhaps pester some people to help me get Joyeuse, but that's about it.

Anything to help people like me?

(btw, I'm away from home ~14hours of the day, 5 days a week, plus also live in New Zealand so the time difference is staggering. That's why an endgame LS probably won't work for me.)

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

hank has some pretty down-to-earth advice near the top of page 2.

[Celeal]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

IMHO, beside gear setup, some PLD's tactics need to be adapted into TP-burns too. Lmnop in above post has mentioned /ma "Cure III" <stpc>
A smart back-up curing, and good teamwork with the healers is also valuable in TP-burns as well.

Another point I would like to add is, to make sure either Flash or Provoke is ready at the entry point of the each battle. For example, if the mob is going to die in 10 or 20 seconds, it is better to save the Flash/Provoke the next fight. Enter the mob's hate-list using Provoke/Flash at the beginning of battle does have a head-start of building hate.

I think consistent hate-threshold is the key for PLD tank-temporary in TP-burns. The problem I experienced with some PLD tank in ToAU WS-spam parties is their hate is not constant for each battle: In one battle they can hold very solid hate, but the next battle they may not be able to keep up. As a DD I had a hard time riding hate that way. I would suggest PLD for picking a decent hate-threshold and stick to it. Even though the hate may not be soild all the time, but as long as it is consistent for each battle, it is better for the DD in the long run.

[Lmnop]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

A big problem with most Paladins (at least I perceive it as a problem, though I don't have any numbers to show how it's problematic) is that they don't like losing hate. Every time hate goes elsewhere, they start dumping whatever they need to in order to get hate back. This is assuming the standard, tanking Paladins being thrust into fast paced killing frenzy (which, btw, got us ~14k/hour on silly Colibri. It's not like the traditional method is weak).

But what I mean is that typical paladins are willing to use every single JA or use excessive amounts of MP to get hate back. You gotta stop and think: how long can that DD hold hate decently? That drk/sam probably has Dread Spikes up for when Seigan goes down. Just cure him through Souleater so he can kill faster. That war/nin is a moron. If he doesn't have shadows up after he opened a fight with a 4 digit rampage, let him die. (that's me, btw. I seem to only get hate right after Diaga). If Flash doesn't get you hate, it'll typically do the same job -- negate damage for whoever has hate.

It's the same rhetoric I'm always saying but I just want to drive in that you have to look at party efficiency over your pride. Having a healer with 600 MP and you with 13 isn't a nice balance for a pld/war, for instance.

Yeah... stuff.

[Hankthetank]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Here is my opinion on what I think our priorities should be as a Paladin in a TP burn.

• Get the mobs off the puller. You need to keep mobs of the puller for two main reasons, first they tend to be squishier than other people in the party and second they need to buff and go pull again to keep the chain going.
• Tank our fair share of the fight allowing other’s Utsu timers to cool down. Generally, tanking until the first WS is perfectly sufficient.
• Poke the mobs repeatedly. The more damage we do, the faster we kill, the better the XP.

This was my normal routine as a Pld/Nin in a TP burn:

• First mob of the chain comes in, I flash (/ma “Flash” <stnpc>) it (Get on the hate list) > Sentinel then cure III myself. I keep +HP gear on me so I can always hit a +HP macro and give myself something to cure even should I had full HP. (Taking off gear that adds HP and putting it back on works too)
• This is generally enough to hold the mobs attention until the first weapon skill. At which point I let the melee blink tank the mob for the remaining 10-20 seconds of the mobs life.
• Now that I lost hate rather then fight the melee to get hate back, I am looking for the next mob which is hopefully slept right next to our party. I drop a flash on it to get on its hate list (and take it off the puller in case it wakes early), then I look for people to cure. If everyone is full health I use my HP gear macro and cure III myself. Now that this mob is off of the puller he/she is free to go pull again. I also got on its hate list early giving me a 10-20 second head start to cure people and build hate before the melee even engage it.
• Once the current mob is almost dead and they are ready to get started on the next mob, I’ll wake it with a WS. At this point I have Flashed + dropped at least 1 Cure III + WSed the mob all before the other melee have engaged it. This once again should be sufficient to hold it until the first WS (sometimes longer) and I go right back to step 3. (If you are getting 100TP every other fight then alternate WS > /ja > WS > /ja > etc.)

But that’s basically what I would recommend to a Paladin in a TP burn. Holding hate in the beginning of the fight to allow peoples Utsu timers to cool off. Getting the mobs off the puller ASAP lets them safely get back to pulling. Use the fact that people will get hit to your advantage and cure them for more hate on the next mob, all while lightening the load on the main healer who is undoubtedly busy keeping everyone hasted.

I also like to act as the point man as well, picking the next mob to engage and having people come to assist me. This ensures that you don’t have melee waking multiple slept mobs and insures that they get to work on the mob you already started to build hate on.
I haven’t gone Pld/war in a long time, but in reality not much would change in my routine, other than I’d have voke and flash for every mob, and I would take more damage. As long as the damage you are taking isn’t taxing the parties MP pool I don’t think it would be a problem or a huge negative at all.

I also want to add that I am intentionally not mentioning Damage output. More is better, but don’t think you have to be decked out in DD gear to be a worthwhile addition to a Merit party. Just by virtue of doing your share of the tanking, keeping slept mobs from going after the puller, and lightening the load on the backline mages you are making the party run smoother and that translates into more XP/hour and that warrants your spot in a XP party.

Work on getting yourself a DD set, it will make you are better more flexible Paladin and it will serve your well in many situations outside of meriting as well, but don’t become so obsessed with it that it takes away the fun of being a Paladin. I started participating in merit parties with little more than a Hauby, a Company Sword, and my AF. Even with that meager DD setup and some sushi I always felt I contributed enough to my party to earn my spot.

Sincerely,
Hankthetank

[Karinya]

Re: Relic of a bygone era

Interesting analysis, Hank, but I'd like to add a few small points:

1. While you assume Suppa for the /nin setup, you don't mention what the /war is using in the other earring slot (besides brutal, which any DD setup will use if they have it). Whatever they choose to put there it will benefit them to some extent which may be difficult to quantify without a parse.

2. The same is true for the shield slot. Viking or Tatami shields for example will raise your damage - if you have a slot open to equip them in, which a /nin doesn't. Base STR is different too. These things together could easily add up to +20 attack for the /war - *without* Berserk. If you're taking hate sometimes shields also mean shield blocks, which mean extra TP, which means more WS. (Leaving out shield bash - whatever you may say about its utility, its *damage* is insignificant with anything other than Aegis.)

3. Attack Bonus trait. WAR has it, NIN doesn't. Now we're looking at a 30 point attack swing with the same gear and food (aside from suppa vs. assault/coral and viking vs. DW).

4. Warcry. Not only one of the most powerful hate tools a PLD/WAR has, it also boosts the damage of every physical DD in the party. It's hard to say exactly how much extra damage comes from Warcry, but it's not zero (unless you're not using it at all).

5. Not everyone *has* a suppa - DM earrings can't be rechosen, ever. For those who chose something else - because they did DM before /nin became as popular, before the other gear/mobs to make the build work were around, or as a different main job altogether - /nin isn't nearly as attractive an option.

6. Your DW numbers assume justice/joyeuse. This is a great setup if you have it. If you don't, something like company/joyeuse will fall far behind single-wielded joyeuse in attacks per minute.


Overall I think that if you're not going to use shadows frequently, /nin isn't really worth using; DW looks good at first, but the benefits of /war are more wide-ranging than is immediately apparent.