[Guide] Paladin Tanking Compendium (Last update 11/13/13)

[Indalecia]

Scrubs will always try to be hardcore. It's all fanfare and you didn't miss much.

[Carth]

Scrubs will always try to be hardcore.

This.

They're sheep that don't know what they're talking about.

[TheGlow]

Out of curiosity, what path do you guys suggest for upgrades?
Current on Garuda's Gaze, DL Armor, HQ Militia Gaunts with +3det, +4crit, DL belt, Hoplite pants and boots,
Darklight Kite Shield, Hoplite necklace, earings, ring. DL wrist and ring.
At 900 philo, 730 myth, with 240 more myth possible.
Seems to get pants maybe? ALso getting sick of the DL armor and debating to get surcoat and stick on the hoplite head.

[Saxon]

While we're on the same topic. Any way to keep AoE hate off relic+1 brds / blm during WP speedrun?

I tend to have issues after the second major pulls when my MP is low. Not sure the cooldowns for songs, but since the brd never does mage's ballad I go into the fight without the MP to Flash and almost instantly lose hate to the BLM. Cover can only do so much and I can't recover MP with riot blade fast enough.

Fight of Flight on every pull. Or make sure they are using Quelling Strikes. 2nd pack is the only troublesome one because you need to pop Fight or Flight during the run of the first pack for it to be ready.

Hey guys, don't use the same set-up as Sath. You get kicked from parties for it!

http://bucket.bluegartr.com/751385e4...c8442618aa.jpg

This was literally a WP run where I was only there to help. To be fair, I didn't specify HQ melded Militia but he had also checked me which prompted the comment. I guess fail on my part for fumbling on words but I was just shocked someone would even question it.

(I Have Hoplite Body so no reason to go to HDL Body even for defensive reasons)

I actually have a macro explaining this to pugs, since I use both Allagan Legs & Feet I needed the accuracy and I wasted tomes on Bravura+1 so can't make up for lost accuracy elsewhere.

[Sylvrdragon]

While we're on the same topic. Any way to keep AoE hate off relic+1 brds / blm during WP speedrun?

I tend to have issues after the second major pulls when my MP is low. Not sure the cooldowns for songs, but since the brd never does mage's ballad I go into the fight without the MP to Flash and almost instantly lose hate to the BLM. Cover can only do so much and I can't recover MP with riot blade fast enough.

If you're talking about before the first boss, then I would just do the whole thing in 1 pull. Flash spam and AOE DPS don't care how many mobs there are. You just have to know how to survive it. You and your healer should Sprint to gather the mobs, and you should pop Hallowed Ground once they all catch up. Proceed to spam Circle and Flash until you're out of MP, and be ready to pop Sentinel + Awareness after Hallowed falls, and then Rampart + Bulwark + Conv. By this point, stuff is hopefully dead or about to be. Once you're out of MP, you should start comboing whatever is lowest HP to try and reduce the number of mobs damaging you. Always keep mobs in your frontal arc for dodge/block/parry. It's a shame that you have to spam Flash at the start of the pull when you aren't taking any damage, as that Blind is going to waste. The reason you use Hallowed at the start is in case your party doesn't keep up properly, and your initial heals are delayed.

If your healer is a WHM, then they can Swiftcast Holy > Regular Holy when you reach the end of the pull for 6s worth of Stun, and over 1000 damage to everything if they're decently geared (more if they crit anything). If you're communicating with them, and if they keep up with you on the pull, then you can save Hallowed Ground till after the Stun wears off to buy more time. Also, if you're grouped with your healer, they can get in another Holy or 2 after you pop Hallowed since you won't need heals, but they'll have to watch the Enmity list and pop Shroud when they top it (and they will). About 4 Holys will leave them at half MP, which Shroud will mostly recover. Since they'll have just put out 2-3k AOE damage, then they won't have to spam heal you as much afterward, and should have enough MP to finish the pull.

If you split it up into 2 pulls, then you simply won't have enough MP unless you're waiting- which kinda defeats the purpose of speed runs, or unless you have a BRD that puts up ballad as soon as the first pull is dead, and keeps it up as you're rounding up the second pull.

[BerenTebogo]

Hey guys, don't use the same set-up as Sath. You get kicked from parties for it!



This was literally a WP run where I was only there to help. To be fair, I didn't specify HQ melded Militia but he had also checked me which prompted the comment. I guess fail on my part for fumbling on words but I was just shocked someone would even question it.

(I Have Hoplite Body so no reason to go to HDL Body even for defensive reasons)

Holy Shit LOL.

You dodged a bullet with that party I'm sure.

Related: FINALLY

[Eanae]

Ugh I'll be 15 myth short of my body this week. Also ~8 weeks of coil clears and were up to a whopping total of 3 tank drops (one was the shield so it doesn't even really count). None yet again this week. Meanwhile our groups 2-4 which started at least 2-3 weeks after our group are swimming in tank drops. This games RNG is awful.

[Jem]

Grats Sath!

Pretty much same boat as me Eanae so I feel for you. I'm not quite that agonizingly short though (@705). Although my coil co-tank does get his Valor Body this week which is good but makes me feel inadequate! That'll teach me for going on holiday at 2.0 release!

Pretty much guarantees Heavy Allagan body will drop next week for us.

[Avarice]

Managed to pick up my Hero's Ring this week, so now all real important slots that are within my control (read: non-RNG) are taken care of. I still have some minmaxing to do, so I'll start saving up now to grab Valor Cuisses in about three weeks' time. Not pictured: Heavy Allagan Gauntlets dropped last night, but I need to get the feet as well before I keep them on full-time.

[pixelshader]

Managed to pick up my Hero's Ring this week, so now all real important slots that are within my control (read: non-RNG) are taken care of. I still have some minmaxing to do, so I'll start saving up now to grab Valor Cuisses in about three weeks' time. Not pictured: Heavy Allagan Gauntlets dropped last night, but I need to get the feet as well before I keep them on full-time.

Beast! Making me look bad owning this post, but having trash gear haha. Congrats!

[Kipling]

Beast! Making me look bad owning this post, but having trash gear haha. Congrats!

He is a beast.

P-please protect me from the terrible dungeon monsters, Mitsukai-sama! I'm just a fragile Scholar~

[Weltall]

Ugh I'll be 15 myth short of my body this week. Also ~8 weeks of coil clears and were up to a whopping total of 3 tank drops (one was the shield so it doesn't even really count). None yet again this week. Meanwhile our groups 2-4 which started at least 2-3 weeks after our group are swimming in tank drops. This games RNG is awful.

This is the exact same for our group. We get monk and bard shit every run that we already have or just don't need. We have had 3 PLD drops total and each went to Luk, so he is ballin, but I haven't got anything yet XD

Body or Shield I'm sure will drop next which suck. Shield is only worth it once Turn 5 is beatable.

[Tetsaru]

Hey guys, I've got a bit of a dilemma here, maybe yall can help me out.

This is the gear I'm currently using, along with my melded accessories:

Spoiler: show

+1 Curtana, +1 Holy Shield, Heavy Darksteel Body and Belt, Hoplite everything else.

As you can see, my accuracy is only 440, and I keep hearing that I'm going to be needing around 470-480 or so if I'm going to do Coil runs.

Now, here's where it gets tricky. Near the beginning of launch, back when I had no knowledge of this, I had hoarded away enough mats from 1.0 to make myself the HQ Heavy Darksteel Gauntlets and Flanchard to round out the set, and then 5-melded them thinking I wouldn't need to bother with getting any more darklight gear for my PLD. Here are my stats with that gear:

Spoiler: show

Using this gear actually lowers my accuracy (as well as my parry), but provides better stats otherwise.

Since the last "update," I've been avoiding using the HQ Heavy Darksteel gear because I don't want to spiritbind it when I could possibly sell it for a good chunk of gil (and possibly use that towards housing in the future) if I'd be better off grinding for the Darklight gear instead, seeing how the Heavy Darklight Flanchard on its own would give me 43 accuracy.

For the gauntlets, the Darklight would give me +1 extra accuracy and +11 parry, but my crafted ones would give me +9 DEX, +6 determination, +6 crit, and +16 skill speed. I'm not sure which would be better in that case. If there's a chart somewhere that shows a comparison of DEX and parry or something, I'd love to see it.

I just spent my Mythology on my +1 Curtana, so since it'll be a while before I can get any of the Valor set, currently my plan is to just go ahead and grind Philosophy until I can get the Darklight gear, and then sell off my flanchard, most likely. What do you guys think I should do?

[Saxon]

First set with Darklight legs. I don't really see the issue here.

[Tetsaru]

Eh, I figured as much, I was just hoping I wouldn't have to spam dungeon runs any more than I had to...

I'm still curious though as to how DEX and the parry stat are weighed in regards to parry rate (or blocking). Has anyone done any research on this? I saw the chart on how STR affect parry/block damage reduction, but nothing in regards to this, my apologies if it was posted elsewhere in the thread. I figure the 11 parry on the Darklight would be more beneficial than the 9 DEX on the HQ Darksteel, but if not, the latter would be more powerful overall. I'll probably end up selling it though.

[Obsidian]

Earlier in this thread it was said that 40 DEX = +1 block rate %. It's not worth it.

[pixelshader]

Eh, I figured as much, I was just hoping I wouldn't have to spam dungeon runs any more than I had to...

I'm still curious though as to how DEX and the parry stat are weighed in regards to parry rate (or blocking). Has anyone done any research on this? I saw the chart on how STR affect parry/block damage reduction, but nothing in regards to this, my apologies if it was posted elsewhere in the thread. I figure the 11 parry on the Darklight would be more beneficial than the 9 DEX on the HQ Darksteel, but if not, the latter would be more powerful overall. I'll probably end up selling it though.

Dex is in brackets of 40 as stated a few times in this thread, but as you will notice paladin gear does not have dex on it unless you go out of your way to put it on there. That being said its a non point to do research on it unless the game is patched to include dex out of the box on paladin gear.

[Saxon]

Dex is in brackets of 40 as stated a few times in this thread, but as you will notice paladin gear does not have dex on it unless you go out of your way to put it on there. That being said its a non point to do research on it unless the game is patched to include dex out of the box on paladin gear.

Not necessarily, if you can reach a breakpoint with a single DEX materia, then the 1% block/dodge rate you gain from that one materia will be worth more than any other materia you would have put in that slot otherwise.

[Tetsaru]

Not necessarily, if you can reach a breakpoint with a single DEX materia, then the 1% block/dodge rate you gain from that one materia will be worth more than any other materia you would have put in that slot otherwise.

I guess the question now would be at which DEX values do these brackets divide themselves?

[pixelshader]

Not necessarily, if you can reach a breakpoint with a single DEX materia, then the 1% block/dodge rate you gain from that one materia will be worth more than any other materia you would have put in that slot otherwise.

Allagan and valor gear do not have materia slots.