Converting PLD/WARs to PLD/NINs and PLD/RDMs

[Kohan]

Coincidentally, after reading this topic, I started to wonder about converting my shell's PLD/WARs to the PLD/NIN side, and perhaps occasionally tossing them into PLD/RDM. Surely, some of you will wonder why we aren't there already, and I can explain it easily: we'd be considered a well-equipped and efficient shell -- if this were 2006. In other words, our methods are -- in some ways -- severely outdated.

The vast majority of our members used to play FFXI frequently, and now only log on for a few hours a week to do events. We are behind on virtually every trend there is. Nonetheless, I'd like to make those few hours more enjoyable for everyone involved. So, here are my questions:

1. In Dynamis, our tanks oft use repeat Provokes to build up hate on slept mobs. What would be an effective way of doing this without using Provoke? In fact, I imagine the loss of Provoke is an utter afterthought to skilled PLD/NINs, but really, how did you replace it?

2. I have read many discussions about PLD/RDM in the past, but -- not being a PLD myself -- I've never practiced such things. I'm wondering if anyone has a particularly good thread/guide. The last thread I'd read on the subject was this one, but of course that's a collection of accounts and not methodologies.

Please forgive my obvious lack of knowledge on the subject. Thank you in advance for any information you can provide. If you need more from me, please don't hesitate to ask, I'll elaborate.

[evilpaul]

Pretty sure most PLDs still /WAR in Dynamis.
/NIN = spam Flash and Cure yourself
/RDM = spam Flash and Cure yourself + Blind, Bind, Sleep spam

[Drex]

Hi koko!

1) For dynamis, our PLDs sub WAR except in Xarc. Voke is handy for short, quick fights like city dynamis mobs, limbus chip farming runs, etc.

For longer fights (limbus bosses, hnms, whatever) the loss of voke is less important because most of voke's hate decays by the time the timer is ready anyway. Flash in haste gear and cures in enmity gear are where most of the PLDs hate comes from anyway in long fights, so the loss of voke is really minor compared to the usefulness of shadows on things that hit hard.

2) I don't know a lot about PLD/RDM cause only one of our PLDs ever uses it, and that's mostly for farming zeni or tanking Jailer of Love, but I can tell you that it outhates PLD/WAR easily. It works pretty similar to RDM/NIN without shadows - spam low MP spells for your hate (along with flash and PLD JAs of course), but it's a blood tank so it's not so good on mobs that hit hard.

I don't think a PLD/RDM guide would be that different from PLD/WAR, except instead of voke you'd probably cast bind and blind. I don't see PLD/RDM being that good in Dyna, I'd think it'd be best in fights like Sarameya or troll king where you're taking lots of fast but not so strong hits. Or of course, Jailer of Love, where you aren't getting hit for 90% of the fight at all.

[Pirian]

Don't use pld/nin in dynamis - pretty much period. I can't think of any situation where i would need to mitigate that much damage. And having to build up a good amount of enmity on the mobs I'm holding in the 45-1min or less that I have until they are targeted by the melee's would be virtually impossible. IMHO pld/war doesn't cut it either, pld/rdm for the win. Mostly out of boredom I've experimented with /drk using the extra JA's and spells, but /rdm's low recast, high CE/VE spells win out in the end.

You'll definitely need either a 2nd refresh if your plds don't have 3mp auto refresh, with just refresh stacked with ares+parade's 6mp/tic and spamming flash/blind/dispel my mp keeps up pretty well. Occasionally it'll fall short with cure4's/3's mixed in cross curing but it keeps up pretty well.

Hope that helps or whatever...Oh and I'm not an aegis pld just for the record

[Kohan]

Thanks, everyone, and 'lo there Drex! Hopefully I'll actually be on the game in the coming weeks -- it feels like every time I'm caught up on work projects, I'm given several more. Well, keeps the money coming in.

Don't use pld/nin in dynamis - pretty much period. I can't think of any situation where i would need to mitigate that much damage. And having to build up a good amount of enmity on the mobs I'm holding in the 45-1min or less that I have until they are targeted by the melee's would be virtually impossible. IMHO pld/war doesn't cut it either, pld/rdm for the win. Mostly out of boredom I've experimented with /drk using the extra JA's and spells, but /rdm's low recast, high CE/VE spells win out in the end.

This isn't what I expected to hear, and it's exactly why I'm grateful people are willing to share information like this. I assumed people did PLD/NIN there, but PLD/RDM is better? Shows what I know! Well then, I'd assume EvilPaul's summary is applicable: use Flash, Cure, Blind, Bind, and Sleep? PLD/RDM does indeed sound much more effective than /WAR to me based on that alone, and I think /RDM could naturally be useful for other reasons as well.

You'll definitely need either a 2nd refresh if your plds don't have 3mp auto refresh, with just refresh stacked with ares+parade's 6mp/tic and spamming flash/blind/dispel my mp keeps up pretty well. Occasionally it'll fall short with cure4's/3's mixed in cross curing but it keeps up pretty well.

Our PLDs do not have any Salvage gear, alas. However, they do have Parade Gorgets. We also have BRDs and RDMs, so we could put Ballad and Refresh on them.

[evilpaul]

Dispel too for /RDM.

[Ferien]

PLD/NIN: Bosses, HNMs, mobs that hit hard, etc.
PLD/WAR: Dynamis cities, if you have more PLDs than you need. Pulls are small and mobs neither sleep nor live long enough for /RDM to build hate. Sub works best if you're fighting very small groups of mobs that are being held for less than 30~60 seconds.
PLD/RDM: Everything else. /RDM is great for building hate over time and for crowd control. If you're in a situation where mobs need to be held for more than 30 seconds to a minute, and bloodtanking is viable, this is the sub of choice.

/NIN, basically need Haste gear to keep your Flash timer down (22 seconds is the lowest it gets, below 30 is the general guideline) with the rest +enmity. Also, nearly all of us have a macro that swaps HP in and out so we can cure ourselves when we're not taking any damage. Mine, for example, starts casting cure3, swaps in a bit of HP>MP gear and removes my +HP accessories, then replaces all of those slots with enough +HP for the cure3 to land for the full ~190. Some people do it with Cure4 too.

/RDM, if you're tanking a single mob, spam Dispel and Blind infinitely. Gear yourself for Refresh, Defense (Shield stuff, mostly) and some Enmity. PLD/RDM builds hate like a monster, so +enmity gear is less of a concern. Like Pirian said, definitely need all the refresh you can get. I keep 3/tick on me and still find myself running out occasionally. If you're tanking a group of mobs like in Dynamis or Einherjar, cure a sleeper and then spam Barspells infinitely. It'll give you enough hate to keep them off of your mages until the melees take them down, I've held 10 mobs at bay this way, there's no way you can do that /WAR.

[Kohan]

Helpful stuff

Thanks, that was very informative. Please forgive me though, as I didn't understand the following part:

If you're tanking a group of mobs like in Dynamis or Einherjar, cure a sleeper and then spam Barspells infinitely. It'll give you enough hate to keep them off of your mages until the melees take them down, I've held 10 mobs at bay this way, there's no way you can do that /WAR.

Cure a sleeper? I do both Dynamis and Einherjar, but unfortunately I don't understand what you mean. I'm trying to think of how this could work. Are you referring to casting cure on a sleeping mob? I know that wouldn't wake it, but does that help with hate somehow?

I felt weird just asking that last question because it seems like one of those things you never ask -- basically, I feel like I'm making a fool of myself -- but of course, trying to learn how it all works. Hopefully I'm not coming across as too boneheaded here.

[Hyriu]

He means cure the BLM or RDM who slept all the mobs then spam Barspells, use JAs etc.

[Drex]

Cure the sleeper to get on the hate list of every mob they slept. Then cast barspells on yourself (or cure bomb yourself by dropping your hp with hp- gear, then switching back to hp+ gear), which will cause you to build hate on every mob that the sleeper slept.

It only really applies to einherjar and dynamis so it's pretty obscure, but it works pretty nice for keeping blms alive since the mobs wake up and go for the PLD.

[fishstix]

Cast cure on a blm or rdm that has slept a mob. blm-rdm sleeps mob, gets hate from that, pld cures them, and gets hate from that action.

[willriker]

I would add some general gear guidelines for these combinations. of course some are hard to come by, but most arent if mission completions are up to date. Its, by no means a complete list of gear for you, but it is enough to give you a general idea of what to look for.

/RDM:
Refresh rate is key here. But so are ways to keep you form hemoraging built enmity due to damage taken to both hold your hate level and increase survivability. In addition, some items to decrease spell cast time helps to spam spells faster.
Parade Gorget
Eatheral Earring
Loq. Earing
Jelly (if only light magic is encountered)
Homam pants
Shield Gear (stacked with phalanx, and you can see how that works)
Enmity gear: rings/hands/legs/head/weapon/shield is more than enough. infact your tanks can get away with less slots and suit it to a particular situation. Like Wlegs if they have it, or Homam Pants for fast cast/haste.

/NIN
Haste is the name of the game here. You want your haste to be in the range of 11-15% from gear to make this combination work best. Back this up with march's and haste spell, and you can hit the 22-24 second timer on not only flash, but also Ni. It would also give you a 15ish second Ichi. There are also some ticks, like having a cure kit. This was mentioned above.

Haste gear: pile it on
Swift belt
Homam hands, legs, some go for feet as well
Loq. Earring (not only reduces cast time but also reduces recast time by a small amount)

Once you have your 11-15% haste from gear, you can now focus on shield/Enmity gears.
Herc/Saatva
Cerb Mantle
Hades+1 earring
Emnity head peice (if head slot is not consumed to hit the 11-15% haste)
Koenig/Terror/wivre shield all work fine (but each have proponants and opponants)
Mach+1 sword

Shield:
Hit this button to effectively turtle up as much as you can. It is basicaly your oh crap button. And will also help misstimed ichi get off.
Af1+1 feet (if slot not needed to be consumed for haste)
Shield earring
Shield torque
Mhead (if head not consumed for haste and are comfortable blinking out to use it. not many do)

Cure Kit:
Nice trick, as if played properly, there will be a minimal amount of damage taken during the fight. So PLD's need to get their hate from some place. In addition to Flash Spam, there is the cure kit. I prefer to not blink out, so ill give you an example of a Cure III kit for HUME which will not cause you to blink out.
Step one: remove HP gear macro
Step two: Equip HP gear
Ocean Sash
Gigant Mantle
Bomb Queen Ring
Saatva ring/Bloodbead ring
Intruders Earring
Cassie Earring (Note: 6 slots, so your PS2 users can also use this)
Cure III
Macro to go back into your tanks idle gear



Some notes:
/rdm relies on spell spam to over come the hate lost due to taking damage. It also relies on being able to blood tank the enemy. It has been use for things on the order of taimat, but not many can pull that feat off with a success. Kings/Einherjar/Dynamis as this subs niches though it does have uses on other odds and ends like JoL. If it can be blood tanked just fine, you should see better results with a pld/rdm than a pld/war. Focus on refresh > shield > enmity > some vit/hp to back it all up.

/nin relies on haste. The true reason that it works is somewhat missleading. It does not work because your flash is down to 22 seconds. It does not work because you have a cure kit. The real reason behind why /nin works is that the tank does not lose hate built by taking damage. Shadows are absorbed instead of HP. This sub really earns its stripes on enemies which, when a hit lands, it will hit for 200-300 damage. 200-300 damage is much much much more of a hate bleed than 1 shadow.

Truth be told, the enmity you build up through Flash (talkin CE only here) barely covers the lost enmity from shadows absorbed. Basicaly flash protects the enmity you have built, though other means, from being touched at all due to shadows absorbed. So, you will need cure spells or damage dealt on the enemy to generate that additional enmity. HNM's are a bit tough to hit, but Atonement will really help on building enmity. But, more often than not, curing others hit with AOE will produce more than enough enmity for you. One enemies with a small amount of AoE spam, or you have a tank that is producing far more enmity than you are, there is the cure kit to back you up and even the playing feild.

[Furionstormrage]

Ok just do what Willriker said

I was just typing up almost the exact same post.

[Kohan]

He means cure the BLM or RDM who slept all the mobs then spam Barspells, use JAs etc.

Duh, I knew it was going to be something simple that made me look like a silly ass for not realizing it in the first place.

Thanks again, everyone. Extremely informative posts in here. I've already talked to the leader of our shells, and they're completely open to implementing all of this stuff. I'm excited, it should yield better results in our weekly events and give our tanks something new to try out.

[Judai]

/NIN = spam Flash and Cure yourself
/RDM = spam Flash and Cure yourself + Blind, Bind, Sleep spam

This is the good short answer.

I don't even take PLDs to dynamis anymore, I just have WARs tank. Your Sleepers should have no problems keeping mobs asleep and staying alive if they all share sleeping responsibilities.

The only place I take PLD is Xarc/Tav and both of those I PLD/NIN in a DD set because we small man them.

[Furionstormrage]

I do Xarc NMs as PLD/NIN, but I've only done them twice so I'm sure once I figure out the pathing I could kite them on whatever/iwant.

I'll agree for PLD/WAR being mostly a wasted slot in Dynamis, I tend to sit around curing people until a MNK mob shows up, Sentinel tank it, then go back to being a backup healer.

[Tekki]

/blu crowd control.

[Callisto]

Someone else mentioned it, but I want to reiterate that you need a fair amount of Refresh to pull off PLD/RDM relative to /WAR. /RDM makes great hate, but the MP cost really adds up if you don't have something like Ares body/Ethereal and aren't getting 2 reliable sources of Refresh, I had a very hard time keeping MP up when I was only getting standard gear + 3/tick outside Refresh(this was in Temenos chip zones).

[ninjafox]

Why would you pld/nin in Xarc? The demons do generally the same damage as city mobs from what I've noticed. Not a pld, most of the time im on rng or war and don't really see a difference in damage.

[Callisto]

Against normal demons yea, against the court sometimes /NIN is nice, some of them still hit relatively hard, and against something like Chainspell nukes shadows help a fair amount.