Hey, I'm a new level 50 PLD.
Just wondering, what should I upgrade first for DL gear?
And can I go into AK or should I just stick to Castum and WP?
Also, I suppose, when can I do Ifrit? Say on the horrible chance that the other tank is also new and is even worse shape than me to main tank it.
I'm in AF in <i50 gear right now.
If you're the stunbitch, you can go into Ifrit minutes after finishing MSQ. (I know, because BG put out a call just as I came out of the Praetoruim CSes, and that's what I did.)
I can't say for main tanking Ifrit, 'cause I've never done it (except for a short period on bad runs where the main tank eats floor. Unless you have a holy fuckton of skillspeed bonuses, you just aren't going to main tank and stun. *)
Garuda I just got done yesterday as main tank, and I'm wearing a spread of Vermilion, Hoplite, and Darklight on my body (2 each, and not DL body/legs), and Hoplite, Darklight, and crafted in accessories (one ring is the only <50 piece).
The issue is usually more positioning than the damage you take, if you become boss at dodging Slipstream. It's just that in phase 2, positioning becomes insane.
The Darklight belt and hands are probably the biggest and cheapest upgrades you can get at first.
I personally didn't have a Darklight or Ifrit weapon before doing AK, but I did have a bunch of Vermillion and some Darklight gear.
I can't speak to how the healers feel, but if you have the DPS for the race, again AK is more about positioning than your tank gear, (they'll love you if you rotate Spirits and Stun to lockdown the Mindflayer's Void Spells).
Though the dragon's breath hurts. And Dullahan. And the 3x Vodoriga pulls...
WP can benefit from an accessory/VIT boost, breaking midway past 4k means you can eat another Grudge stack at the end, which means fewer tonberries running around causing shit, which is the usual failure mode. Of course, this depends on a DPS being able to kill four between grudges.
I can't speak to Titan or Coil, I'm not that far yet.
*
Spoiler: show
As soon as I was 50 I immediately jumped into AK to farm tomes. I had pretty wretched gear since I leveled from 25->50 exclusively from fate training. It wasn't a challenge at all. Upgrade in order of lowest to highest ilvl pieces. As a paladin you always have a chance to be the stunbot so gear is not required. Just don't take extra damage and be in shield oath. Using this method I am now full ilvl 70 minus my shield which is GC shield since I have been pretty unlucky in WP and rarely do it. I also have an ifrit sword from stunbotting.
You can very much one tank ifrit, I do it often. All the stuns can be tied to some attack and are easily timed. Don't need a high skill speed, just need to know when they are.
Second knockback
Charge
after breath
after knockback
charge
plume
etc etc.
last phase will always be after inner plumes and the knockback.
Garuda is definitely all about positioning, It can also be single tanked fairly consistently with strong dps.
Titan is more a healer/dps fight than a tank fight. For the most part it's a tank and spank with dodge mechanics to keep healers and dps moving. You'll never be directly targeted by any of the extra stuff.
This is more of a theorycraft question than a practical one, but I'm bored in class so figure it wouldn't hurt to ask, but can anyone compare the threat generation rate between Sword Oath and Shield Oath? I'm finding a lot of cases where when I'm off-tanking, I get awfully close or actually do rip hate off the main tank, regardless of him being a PLD or WAR. This even happens when I'm the stun-bitch on Ifrit HM.
Lose Emnity when you take direct damage from target don't you? That was my assumption at least
Enmity doesn't decay at all in this game.
I'm very much finding the same. I'm hearing rumours that Shield Oath is only a 20% threat increase which basically counters out the 20% damage decrease (and marginally improves the threat on Flash relative to no stance), whereas Sword Oath is a flat out threat increase on single targets. I'm not sure which is correct - if Shield Oath was a 100% threat increase as I've seen sites mention it feels strange how high my threat can be when off-tanking.
I have no data to back anything up, but my gut feeling after playing around with both is that Sword Oath seems like -higher- single target threat than Shield Oath, whereas Shield Oath is mostly better for AOE threat (and the damage reduction of course). Several times in AK I've forgotten to swap back to Shield Oath after using Sword vs the Demon Wall and I've noticed no difference in threat generation (though HAVE noticed the damage income difference)
I've noticed similar things. The original source for the 2X enmity in Shield oath came from the Valk Dancing Mad (Blitzball) pages. however, I think those data tests cam from Beta 3. I suspect that they're no long applicable. There's a few other things too, like the fac that Shield lob's threat multiplier is supposedly X4, when it certain doesn't seem that way. I'm curious if anyone has made a new enmity generation table. I've looked, but have had no luck finding anything.
Newer PLD here, and I'm having a bit of an issue keeping hate. I had at first put all my ability points in STR and had 0 problems holding hate, but had a low HP. So I then put all my points into VIT, had a high HP but found I was losing hate a bit quicker. So now I've done 2 vit to 1 str and seem to be doing better keeping hate.
Usually I shield lob to gather, once gathered Flash, then on the target fast blade, savage blade, flash again, rage of halorne. If hate gets ripped off me I will then voke, sheild lob and spirits if it's up to try to spike hate back onto me. I'm running AK with a really well geared good bard and I watch him creep right up the threat meter and often times take hate from me. What can I be doing better? Any top tier food I should be aware of?
From what you're saying, I'd suggest front - loading spirits into your first main target, and to use circle of scorn while gathering (right after shield lob, but before flash) - both scorn and spirits are off the GCD so there's no reason not to use them. Also, if the bard is ripping something off of you and it's close-ish to dead, I'd just pop a stun on it instead of trying to grab aggro back.
Ahh yes I left out scorn, which I usually do after the first flash, but doing it before the first flash since it's not on GCD would be smarter. Second issue I'm having is in Garuda HM, I am the off thank grabbing the red beam add (name escapes me right now) and I grab with shield lob, then flash, then spirits. I will now try shield lob, scorn, flash, spirits. Hopefully that will keep it stuck on me, for some reason I have an extremely hard time grabbing the add and keeping it glued to me. Wonder if it's because of the healers spamming and generating a ton of threat.
They were tested in P3, tested again in P4, and absolutely no difference is shown.
Shield Lob/Tomahawk = 3x, Savage Blade/Skull Sunder = 3x, Rage of Halone/Butcher's Block = 5x. Shield Oath is 2x overall.
Go outside and prove this is correct by bringing along a healer friend just look at the start of a fight before unleashing a SO'd Rage: everyone slams to the bottom because that's a massive amount of threat in a single move compared to everyone else but a healer.
If you're stun bitch and creeping up on hate on Ifrit your other tank fucking sucks at generating hate a lot better and needs to pick it up.
Feel free to take a healer friend and prove the numbers right.
Your gut is wrong.
If you're still getting used to tanking and are losing hate at the start of a pull, Rage spam a few GCDs. It'll get you enough of a lead to actually go into your full combo.
e.g. Shield Lob > Rage +Circle > Rage +Spirits > Rage > resume normal combo.
Rage spam is inferior to a full combo but when you need initial burst on something it works better than attempting to go right into a combo.
As far as food's concerned it only boosts secondary stats and VIT. DTR food may help (or Crit), but ultimately it's more than likely a gear issue, inexperience, and dealing out better burst threat (or the BRD chilling the fuck out if need be and give you a GCD).
Red/Green adds on Garuda HM is random so the name doesn't matter. If you want a bit better lead in, aside from the above burst, prep the combo on Garuda herself since you have a long time before the combo will wear off and land the fully comboed Rage on the add. That'll help.
No, stop it, I know you're not dumb enough to not understand math.
Damage mitagated = block rate * block strength
Bulwark = block rate * 1.6, so with Bulwark up it's
Damage mitgated = block rate * 1.6 * block strength, meaning it scales with block strength equally as well as it scales with block rate.
I see your point, but you mislabelled Bulwark as Sentinel there.
I'll gonna be quite honest, after fighting and observing Garuda HM at number of times as Off-tank, I'm finding this really doubtful that Shield Oath is 2x.
I total 317 STR with Full darklight, Ifrit's Blade, Darklight Shield, and a 20VIT/10STR spec. Other PLD had 308 STR. Same weapon, Same shield, just not full darklight. That's a 9 point difference.
I once again managed to grab hate from the MT, and he was using Fight or Flight at the time (10% Damage increase with Shield Oath up), and I had no buffs whatsoever up. He used his Halone Combo, I used mine right after.
Unless Sword Oath is that fucking good, I'm really doubtful Shield Oath is x2 enmity.
Or he whiffed Halone. Either way if you're drawing hate off him with Shield Oath up he's probably terrible.
For all the times I pulled hate off of main tanks, I must be the best damn tank in the world.