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

[Viertel]

I have the exact opposite problem right now. Accuracy out the ass. :/

Yeah no shit. Granted, you have to take what you get with Coil drops but damn. I think I'm going to be close to 540 when I buy my next piece of gear next week baring drops. Kinda redonk.

@Kiarax

Question on your signature: where the hell is Rita Modio? Am I just blind or was she forgotten?

[Kiarax]

I have the exact opposite problem right now. Accuracy out the ass. :/

It's good to be a PLD. I get waist tonight then AF2 helm is my final myth piece in two weeks though, very excite. Still need hand, earrings, necklace and bracelet from coil though... really tempted to say fuck it and get crafted i70s.

@Kiarax

Question on your signature: where the hell is Rita Modio? Am I just blind or was she forgotten?

There is a ton missing, Rita included.

[Avarice]

2 star food

Real shame no one will be able to take full advantage of HQ two-star foods for a long, long time. My 505 base Vitality only nets me 15 VIT from them, and the cap is 19; means you'd need a base VIT of over 600 (approximately 620-630) to get the full benefit. Same with the Parry (of Finger Sandwiches), though on a lower scale. With my current gear, the HQ Sandwich will give me 15 VIT (to HQ Toast's 14), but the Toast will give me 23 Parry (to HQ Sandwich's 21).

[Kiarax]

Enjoy your skill speed
http://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodest...m/33ce9194865/

[Jahaudant]

Max HP on Mithra with 2 star food at the moment seems to be 7013. Guy on Ultros hit full 90s last night.

Pretty simple to predict each races HP with whatever gear you want.

In full i90 Sea Wolf (Roe) is 7,057 while Dunesfolk (Lala) is 6,970.

[Dein]

So I've been fairly lucky with some coil drops:


All of my main slots are now ilvl 90 but I've only seen one tank accessory drop. I know that Valor Surcoat and Breeches are bis but I'm considering buying some of the hero accessories first since I never see any tank accessories drop in coil. If I get the last 3 pieces of hero accessories I'll drop down to 479 acc and I'd like to double check what the acc cap for turn 5 is. This thread claims it's 475 but I've had friends tell me the cap is 482. I can easily eat some food to make up for any acc I fall short of but I'd still like to find out if anyone knows for sure what the cap is.

[Xand]

Just after a little upgrade advice,

currently have Sword +1, Shield NQ, full DL and Hoplite ring

sitting on around 900 myth and would love to get out of the tin can.

any advice?

[Carth]

With 900 Myth I'd just go for Valor Body since you only need 300 Myth to upgrade Shield. Allagan Body drops in Turn 1, but I wouldn't rely on the RNG gods to upgrade your gear.

[Jehr]

I'd hold onto the mytho until you get some Allagan. That way you can spend the mytho on whatever you NEED. I got Allagan legs, so I HAD to buy AF2 feet and head, plus wear Hoplite body, to make up for the huge amount of accuracy lost. If you got Allagan feet first, you could spend the mytho on AF2 legs. But yeah, I'd just save them until you see which piece of Allagan you get first so you can determine an upgrade path to either A) make up for certain stats lost (accuracy mainly) or B) fill out in left side i90 gear quicker.

[Kirbyprime]

Allagan tank gear doesn't exist... by which I mean, don't bother hoping waiting any longer than just after your weekly run. RNG is a bitch. Etc etc.

[Petitssk]

RNG is a fickle thing. Last week, the Allagan body dropped, but I gave it to my co-tank to help him out with accuracy-issues. I then got my Valor surcoat this week, finally getting me out of Militia. Then I got Allagan feet. Three weeks until AF+1 legs, back to Militia, I guess.

[ZarakiKujata]

Picked one of the many "I like parry" posts from the thread to quote.

Have full DF and relic +1's. Looking to spend first non-relic myths. Most people say Valor body just because, but then I math it and it's the one choice that seems to lose parry - without adding VIT - and only really adds a ton of DET. Getting hero's ring instead would add parry+vit without drawbacks.

Also people say get valor body for looks. I agree DL is awful, of course. Consensus is still valor body? (or tldr, is DET really worth that much?)

Hero's Ring. It's BiS by default and is the cheapest VIT/parry per myth upgrade you'll make. I think it's like DEF>VIT>Acc(until cap)>Parry>Det/Crit*>Skill Speed. You're getting Valor Body for its highest Parry in slot not the DET.

*Both are equally pointless if you have +1 since unless your DPS are balls to the wall ilvl90 then you won't have significant hate problems. Maybe in turn 5 if you are OT and need to maximize DPS.

I could be wrong but I think a lot of people go to Valor Coronet first and that's part of what makes Valor Surcoat a lot more appealing? That's at least what I did anyway (Valor Head + quint melded HQ Militia Body until I could get Valor Surcoat)

Although going to Coronet first is not a VIT upgrade from DL (it actually drops 1 VIT iirc). It might be with Hoplite though, I didn't use mine.

But basically unless you go to Gloves first, you're going to have to eat that temporary suck upgrade to get the huge upgrade on the second piece.

Coronet+Hoplite is a huge net loss of parry since neither slot has it. I'm not sure why Paladin's do it outside of getting out of the tin can.

Just after a little upgrade advice,

currently have Sword +1, Shield NQ, full DL and Hoplite ring

sitting on around 900 myth and would love to get out of the tin can.

any advice?

Are you doing coil? If yes just wait for turn 1 shield drop. It's better in slot when min/maxing and turns 1-4 can be done w/ NQ shields. I would still hold off on upgrading NQ shield even w/out coil since there are better VIT upgrades per myth for outside coil and that 1% extra dmg reduction on blocks with the HQ is gonna matter even less outside coil than inside. Replace Hoplite ring first since it's a jump from ilvl60 to 90 for only 375 myth.

Your luck in coil might not be that great, but I would hold onto a sizeable stockpile of myth (600ish at a time) until you get a turn 1-2 coil drop. You get 3 out of 4 DL replacements in turn 1-2. Save the myth to replace the ilvl60 piece you'll be using with it until then. If You have shit luck in coil or just want 1 piece of ilvl90 I'd get gloves first since it's a turn 4 drop and the myth gloves are a lot better anyways.

i.e. I got body from Turn 1 and got Coronet the next week w/ saved myth. Same applies if you get boots (since boots + myth legs are BiS). Or if you got allagan legs and bought myth boots.

Caveat to all gear advice for PLD though is make sure you have the acc for coil. My turn 1 boots were my first drop from full DL but womp womp losing that 43acc from DL legs was painful that next turn 2 until I switched back (after we wiped cause I couldnt grab hate when I needed to) and I couldn't wear them (in coil) until I had Allagan Chest drop for me. Staying above 472 as you get ilvl90 is the most important thing.

[Raineer]

Thank you for the post. I did get the ring earlier this week as soon as I got the points for it. I still look like a Rubbermaid trashcan but my stats are better off for it.

[GarbageNinga]

Myth ring vs gryphon skin ring

Also value of crit vs determination- Crit is such a huge upgrade for all other classes is it truly ranked so low for Pallys?

I was comparing a slotted gryphon vs the myth ring-

Bascailly with the myth ring you gain 5 vit and 4 accuracy (already easily accuracy capped) at the cost of - 9 Str, 9 Dex, 1 Parry, 9 skill speed, and (i slotted crit but could also slot determination) 6 crit

Also one last thing Rogedayn VS Hyur
Roge has 1 more Vitality but Hyur has 1 more str and 2 more dex- Which is truly better?

[Jahaudant]

In terms of survivability/EHP only: Myth ring and Roegadyn (Sea Wolf). STR and DEX are literally irrelevant.

If however you wanted to be a hybrid tank/wannabe dps then by all means...

[Sapphidia]

Question to those in the know... I saw someone on the official forums today mention that Awareness was bugged in such a way that it prevents HEALS from critting on you as well as mob attacks. This would make it a detriment to ever pop in a bossfight situation where boss abilities are uncrittable and you're only mitigating the auto attacks with it.

Is there any truth in this? I'll go test when I'm ingame a bit later if noone knows off the top of their head.

EDIT - fiddled a little ingame and I cannot get a single Cure to crit on myself when Awareness is active. Though my crit rate isnt especially high and I can only get 10 casts per Awareness. Not a high enough sample to say for sure that it's not possible, but looks likely that Awareness is a -detrimental- cooldown in some situations.

[littlesushi]

I actually manually unclick it off after death sentence because I noticed not a single Adlo crits when I have it on.

[Sapphidia]

I actually manually unclick it off after death sentence because I noticed not a single Adlo crits when I have it on.

Yep, been trying more tests tonight and I just can't get a Heal Crit with Awareness up. Maybe I'm super unlucky, but this feels like a bug worth noting in the original post. As it stands, Awareness is more than likely a survivability -decrease- unless you're just tanking a trash pack with no healer.

[GarbageNinga]

I can currently give up 14 Vit for 14 strength to reach the 405 Str. Would it be worth it?

Going off the Valk-Dancing- Block and Parry rates

Also I have experienced the same issue with Awareness.

[Jahaudant]

I can currently give up 14 Vit for 14 strength to reach the 405 Str. Would it be worth it?

See:

Good lord people still defending STR spec on PLD?

Incoming real fucking numbers to hopefully stem the ignorance and "my opinion is fact" attitude.

Edit: Enlightenment has arrived.

STR Tiers and Block/Parry Damage Mitigation


Each STR tier for parry provides an additional 1% damage reduction on attacks parried, and each STR tier for block provides an additional 1% damage reduction on blocked attacks.

Parry tiers are 243, 283, 324, 363 and 405, while block tiers are 270, 337, 404 and 445 meaning that at any given time, depending on your gear, you may need up to 32 STR to hit your next parry tier, and up to 67 STR to hit your next block tier. Unfortunately both of these numbers are higher than the maximum amount of STR you can apply via optional stats, and block tier gaps particularly are very wide. Luckily though, with full Darklight your base STR should fall somewhere around 305-320 which is a good spot to hit the next tier for both parry and block with a respec in to STR. Great! 1% more damage reduction on blocks and parries is the shit! Not exactly...

Block and Parry Rates
http://i885.photobucket.com/albums/a...BlockRates.png

The best shield in the game has a block rate of roughly 16%, and with full end game gear with parry on every piece you are looking at a parry rate of roughly 20% giving you a 36% chance to trigger mitigation 1% higher than you would have without your STR spec bumping you in to the next tier. This effectively means that over any given extended fight you have roughly 0.37% extra average damage mitigation per physical attack you receive.

Edit: The source doesn't specify which shields were used in this testing and it was on the assumption that he was using the level 48 Kite Shield that I based my estimated block rate of Holy Shield +1/Allagan Round Shield. Actual block rate may be higher, but the conclusion is the same regardless.

Even if we assume you have the "Super Shield of Win" with a block rate of 100%, giving you a permanent 1% additional damage reduction, Can you tell me how much of an EHP increase that extra 1% reduction on blocks would give a PLD with 5000 HP (roughly what you should have with a full STR build and full darklight). Hint: It's not 435 (or roughly 448 in a party) thus not better than 30 VIT - and the "Super Shield of Win" does not even exist.

This depends somewhat on your current HP but you can give up a maximum of 1 VIT to hit the next combined block and parry tier (like 405 STR) for it to be a definite improvement in survivability. You might just get away with sacrificing 2 VIT if you are already full i90 but I really can't be arsed to check the numbers on that. As for hitting the next block or parry tier... don't even take that shit in to consideration.

Example: Parry mitigation goes up at 405 STR, block mitigation goes up at 404 STR. If you had 403 STR then you might consider sacrificing 2 VIT for 2 STR (if this were even possible lol) and you would walk away with a sidegrade boost to survivability at least, or an inconceivably small upgrade at best.

TLDR: No.