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

[Eurlin]

I already have the feet and body, is why. Still haven't seen a bracelet or Allagan gauntlets.

As far as rings, A difference of 2 Parry between Ultima and Allagan hardly makes Allagan "by far" the best option when I'm already sitting at 570+ Parry with food; a 0.35% increase and who knows how small an increase to my actual Parry rate. Or I could bump my base DET from 230 by 7/11 (a 3% and 4.8% increase respectively) and potentially my crit rate by 11 (a 3% increase).

If it had literally any other stat besides skill speed, it would be the best option. But until and unless they change that, it will continue to suck compared to other (more easily obtained, to boot) options. The extra 2 Parry does effectively nothing, the 15 skill speed does even less.

I'm pretty sure 11 crit is not 3% or are you talking an increase from your original stat i.e. you have roughly 300 crit and 11 crit is an increase of 3%~ from what you have? mitigating is always your first priority and should never change because changing to a "hybrid" build to allow more dps for yourself isn't helping your party any. it'll help your Epeen maybe because you'll get that 1% increase in damage? and possibly give up that 1% mitigation. IF you're going to go a Hybrid build you'll be dropping or wanting to drop about 20-30% of your mitigation to increase your DPS to make a noticeable difference. All that does is put more stress on your healer, which I guess most won't mind, but then that 11 crit vs 2 parry isn't up for debate anymore. it's a whole different situation.

Shit is situational

sure you can say that, but there is no situation outside of you just not doing your job to your best ability, by giving up 30HP and 2 Parry damage mitigation, to gain a possible 1% increase in damage.

[Obsidian]

2 Parry is not even close to 1% mitigation. The point I'm trying to make is that the difference is so finite that you get more out of a better secondary stat (DET vs skill speed) than you do out of the 0.01% increase in parrying rate. It's not a hybrid build, it's a legitimately better option. The 30 HP difference is, for all intents and purposes, purely for bragging about how high you can push your HP, which can be done with a Vortex ring.

To reiterate once more, I'm unconvinced that at 570+ Parry (and I'm not even full i90 yet), the 2 extra Parry from the Allagan ring provides any benefit whatsoever, never mind a meaningful one. Operating under the assumption that the extra 2 Parry is effectively worthless, and knowing that skill speed is a garbage stat, I will again submit that the Allagan Ring of Fending is junk. If you want Parry, use Ultima's ring. If you don't, use a Vortex ring.

[Eurlin]

2 Parry from whatever old tests that have been around is roughly 0.15%~ yes not a noticeable difference 11 Crit however is a 0.25% increase in crit rate which reaches let's say 9% total? HP is impossible to prove good or bad otherwise, but given that 30HP of 6500 HP is a 0.005% increase from where you are. however if you want to nitpick that HP is useless up to a point then obviously you're given the option to turn up to 30 VIT to STR. As you stated yourself VIT doesn't matter outside of EPeen, and I agree. I'm personally looking at where I want to sit my HP before I feel like i'll benefit more from pushing STR up.

so now let's compare I didn't read up on skill speed because I don't care about it either, but i'm sure 11Speed is just as small of an increase as Crit or DET making it just as useless as the other two.

Allagan vs Ultima
15VIT 16Parry 11Speed VS 13VIT 14Parry 7DET

Let's take a look real fast I have 2 more VIT on Allagan which means I can move 2 VIT to STR since according to you taht doesn't matter. Now we both know 2STR > 7DET so the numbers are in favor of Allagan. 2STR 13VIT 16Parry 11Speed > 13 VIT 14Parry 7DET

Allagan VS Vortex
15VIT 16Parry 11Speed VS 15VIT 11DET 11Crit

Since we don't need 15VIT according to you we can still put 2STR on both sides so that cancels out. Vit Cancels out. We're left with 1.21% Parry rate increase, and speed vs 11DET and 0.25% crit increase

1000Hits taken vs 1000 hits given
1000*1.0121=1012 Parried attacks vs 1000 parried attacks. I think the Damage can wait at that point don't you? no? ok well let's switch it over to Crit let's put you around 9% Crit which is probably a little high in a defense build, but it's ok I want to be close.

1000 attacks
1000*1.0025=1002 crits vs 1000 crits. so let's put out the obvious no fight will probably extend over 100 hits on either part so it's probably going to be realistically 1 extra parried attack vs....well nothing. There's a more probable chance of you NOT having 1 more crit in the fight than there is of getting one. Making Vortex ring completely useless unless you again value hitting for 1-2 damage more per attack? and not mitigating up to 27% of one more attack which can be anywhere from 250 damage to 1000 damage.

I still fully believe there is no reason to attempt extending your DPS when you have the ability to increase your mitigation to help keep those bad hits at bay.

[Jem]

If you don't need the VIT then both are inferior options to melded i70 anyway.

If you do need the VIT then I'd personally probably go with the more defensive option (Allagan) since you're already willingly giving up DPS for extra survivability so you may as well stretch it that bit further for what amounts to less of a DPS increase than you've already given up.

In reality, the difference between the two is pretty much nothing and there's like a 0.001% chance of it mattering which you use. I'd just use whichever you get first and then pass the other to someone who has neither.

[Eurlin]

If you don't need the VIT then both are inferior options to melded i70 anyway.

...I really didn't even think about the I70 Melded, that would've saved me some typing lol

[Petitssk]

Finally, another pair of earrings from Turn 2; at long last, enough ACC to switch back from Allagan hands to AF+1. Had to switch from Ultima choker back to Darklight, but now I only need the Allagan Choker for a full set of Itemlevel 90 equipment.

[Obsidian]

2 Parry from whatever old tests that have been around is roughly 0.15%~ yes not a noticeable difference 11 Crit however is a 0.25% increase in crit rate which reaches let's say 9% total? HP is impossible to prove good or bad otherwise, but given that 30HP of 6500 HP is a 0.005% increase from where you are. however if you want to nitpick that HP is useless up to a point then obviously you're given the option to turn up to 30 VIT to STR. As you stated yourself VIT doesn't matter outside of EPeen, and I agree. I'm personally looking at where I want to sit my HP before I feel like i'll benefit more from pushing STR up.

so now let's compare I didn't read up on skill speed because I don't care about it either, but i'm sure 11Speed is just as small of an increase as Crit or DET making it just as useless as the other two.

Allagan vs Ultima
15VIT 16Parry 11Speed VS 13VIT 14Parry 7DET

Let's take a look real fast I have 2 more VIT on Allagan which means I can move 2 VIT to STR since according to you taht doesn't matter. Now we both know 2STR > 7DET so the numbers are in favor of Allagan. 2STR 13VIT 16Parry 11Speed > 13 VIT 14Parry 7DET

Allagan VS Vortex
15VIT 16Parry 11Speed VS 15VIT 11DET 11Crit

Since we don't need 15VIT according to you we can still put 2STR on both sides so that cancels out. Vit Cancels out. We're left with 1.21% Parry rate increase, and speed vs 11DET and 0.25% crit increase

1000Hits taken vs 1000 hits given
1000*1.0121=1012 Parried attacks vs 1000 parried attacks. I think the Damage can wait at that point don't you? no? ok well let's switch it over to Crit let's put you around 9% Crit which is probably a little high in a defense build, but it's ok I want to be close.

1000 attacks
1000*1.0025=1002 crits vs 1000 crits. so let's put out the obvious no fight will probably extend over 100 hits on either part so it's probably going to be realistically 1 extra parried attack vs....well nothing. There's a more probable chance of you NOT having 1 more crit in the fight than there is of getting one. Making Vortex ring completely useless unless you again value hitting for 1-2 damage more per attack? and not mitigating up to 27% of one more attack which can be anywhere from 250 damage to 1000 damage.

I still fully believe there is no reason to attempt extending your DPS when you have the ability to increase your mitigation to help keep those bad hits at bay.

A lot of what you said honestly made no sense to me, so I went looking and the only actual value for Parry I could find was 0.076% per point of Parry, so I'm gonna roll with that. All the values I will use are from here. I did the math by hand but I'm pretty sure the calculators he has on there use the same formulas so you can double check. The variance in DET weighting from class to class should only result in a ~5 point damage difference so I just rolled with his DRG formulas.

Also, I have no idea why you're adding 2 STR and dropping 2 VIT but the point isn't to intentionally decrease your HP, it's to get the most out of any given equipment slot. I will continue to say that you get more out of either of the other rings than you do out of Allagan. Because skillspeed is worthless. Literally any other stat in similar quantities will do more than skill speed.

Ultima vs Allagan

Difference in Parry rate: 0.15%
DPS increases with Ultima: WS Damage: 0.41% WS DPS: 0.41% AA increase of 0.73
DPS increases with Allagan: WS DPS: 0.42%

So effectively the same WS DPS increase between them but no Auto-attack increase and you're burning TP faster now, so ultimately, Ultima's is the better DPS ring for an effectively unnoticeable loss in Parry rate and 30 HP.

Vortex vs Allagan

Difference in Parry rate: 1.216%
Vortex DPS: WS damage: 1.02% WS DPS: 1.02% AA increase of 1.47

Melded rings will generally dump on these options from a DPS standpoint but I don't have gil for materia. Ultimately, if I'm going to give up the accuracy on the Darklight ring for something, that something has to not be skill speed.

[Raldo]

Keep in mind that shield blocks proc before parry, so parry is worth less than it originally seems.

[Jahaudant]

Ultima vs Allagan

Dropping parry and HP to gain auto attack DPS makes Ultima the better DPS ring, it doesn't make it the better ring as you originally put it.

[Obsidian]

It does if you value the increased DPS over the loss of 0.15% Parry rate, which I do.

[Indomitable Will]

I'm pretty sure 11 crit is not 3% or are you talking an increase from your original stat i.e. you have roughly 300 crit and 11 crit is an increase of 3%~ from what you have? mitigating is always your first priority and should never change because changing to a "hybrid" build to allow more dps for yourself isn't helping your party any. it'll help your Epeen maybe because you'll get that 1% increase in damage? and possibly give up that 1% mitigation. IF you're going to go a Hybrid build you'll be dropping or wanting to drop about 20-30% of your mitigation to increase your DPS to make a noticeable difference. All that does is put more stress on your healer, which I guess most won't mind, but then that 11 crit vs 2 parry isn't up for debate anymore. it's a whole different situation.

Shit is situational

sure you can say that, but there is no situation outside of you just not doing your job to your best ability, by giving up 30HP and 2 Parry damage mitigation, to gain a possible 1% increase in damage.

It's not even that situational. Allagan ring is the worst choice of the 4 non-melded choices (hero's>vortex>ultima>allagan) just because of secondary "dps" stats (acc(to cap)>crit>det>skill speed), and even then, over about 6k hp for pld, most of us are pushing for more dps since everything else is extra and doesn't really increase survivability very much. The argument here is really more like, do i want .02% more parry and 30 more hp, or 1% more dps? the dps ends the fight faster so you need less effective hp and damage mitigation, so unless you're getting one-shotted, or consistently failing turn 1 or 4 of coil because you die faster than the healer can heal you, and NEED the extra hp and dmg mitigation, then you go with dps stats.

And again useful dps...goes to how you use it. Are you mindless swinging away at garudaEX, or are you killing the razor plume that's right next to you, so the dps jobs can skip that one and get back to faceraping garuda?...dps stats win.

Edit: Which is why I use allagan earrings of striking (I think, str/crit ears) on pld, because at 6200 hp in party with no food and 30 points in str, vortex ring, hero's ring, as right at the acc cap and full i90 on the rest of the gear, I just don't die really.

[Jahaudant]

It does if you value the increased DPS over the loss of 0.15% Parry rate, which I do.

Do you run 30 STR?

[Obsidian]

Do you run 30 STR?

What does it matter?

[Eurlin]

It's not even that situational. Allagan ring is the worst choice of the 4 non-melded choices (hero's>vortex>ultima>allagan) just because of secondary "dps" stats (acc(to cap)>crit>det>skill speed), and even then, over about 6k hp for pld, most of us are pushing for more dps since everything else is extra and doesn't really increase survivability very much. The argument here is really more like, do i want .02% more parry and 30 more hp, or 1% more dps? the dps ends the fight faster so you need less effective hp and damage mitigation, so unless you're getting one-shotted, or consistently failing turn 1 or 4 of coil because you die faster than the healer can heal you, and NEED the extra hp and dmg mitigation, then you go with dps stats.

And again useful dps...goes to how you use it. Are you mindless swinging away at garudaEX, or are you killing the razor plume that's right next to you, so the dps jobs can skip that one and get back to faceraping garuda?...dps stats win.

Edit: Which is why I use allagan earrings of striking (I think, str/crit ears) on pld, because at 6200 hp in party with no food and 30 points in str, vortex ring, hero's ring, as right at the acc cap and full i90 on the rest of the gear, I just don't die really.

IF you switch to a plume your DPS between a full turtle build and a hybrid would be maybe 40~ per hit at most meaning you'll get to GAruda 1 swing faster if that? the fact is our DPS DOES NOT MATTER...at all, each Parry we can squeeze in -can- even if it's just 1 more parry every 1000 hits, that's more useful than doing a little bit more damage. My math was based on % from the stats. I didn't care to honestly back up my numbers, but I'm pretty sure they all came from where I got the parry info. which looks to be where you saw as well 0.076% Crit is 40Pts for 1% give or take, and I don't know DET, but I figured 7DET wouldn't make a difference outside of maybe 3-4 per hit?

the 2STR was you dropping VIT from your extra 30 VIT IF you were to use a turtle build, while I agree 30 VIT has become seemingly useless with 6900 HP for me, it was meant to direct your logic of saying the 2 VIT is useless, but my point was if you have the 30VIT you can then drop the 2VIT and add 2STR with Allagan which then made the DET moot because 2STR > 7DET. IF you were to put all 30 points into STR I would actually argue that the 2VIT would be more useful in that case because you're dropping your HP down a considerable amount making regen, Lustrate, and Spirits slightly less effective.

[Obsidian]

It still makes no sense to drop the VIT. It's a matter of optimization, not maximization. If I wanted a DPS build I'd be 30 STR already. I don't want that, but I also don't see the use in sacrificing a DPS increase for the sake of an extra Parry proc every 1000 hits. You can't say small DPS increases don't matter and then turn around and say that such a minute increase in mitigation (0.15 * 0.24 = 0.036% increase in effective physical mitigation, but it's even less because your Parrying rate is devalued by your block rate) is worthwhile. You're not always parrying (off-tanking, magic damage), but you're always doing damage.

Spirits' potency is based on HP percentage, not maximum HP.

Edit: To be perfectly honest, if there were decent foods that gave VIT, Parry, and DET or Crit, I'd probably still be using a Darklight ring in Coil for the accuracy. But Pretzels are the only food of that type and that's lowbie food.

[Jem]

It's not a case of getting to Garuda 1 hit faster though is it? It's a case of you dealing more damage to Garuda + whatever sister you're holding in a fight that has a DPS check where if you fail, you wipe. Also, you're shipping increasingly more damage as the fight drags on so increasing your DPS is in a way a defensive measure as it reduces the total damage received.

Just as an example. I use quint melded HQ Rose Gold Ear Screws and HQ Gryphonskin Ring (Both VIT and parry melds). I still have 6900-6950 ish HP. What is more likely to make a difference in that fight? 18 STR or 8 Parry, 10 VIT? Personally I'd argue that the 18 STR is the more defensive option as it means we're slightly more likely to hit the DPS check (not that it's hard) and there's a slim chance it might trim a phase off. Whereas the extra 145 HP and 8 Parry probably isn't going to prevent a death when I already have 6.9k+ HP (which is really overkill anyway)

It's personal preference and will depend on the competency of your healers. But in my opinion, once you're above the HP / defensive threshold where you're not gonna die then you may as well invest the rest in DPS. I totally understand the flipside of the coin where people would prefer to have a larger safety net though.

EDIT: I'm actually tempted to just start using full quint meld i70 accessories for the majority of fights now. 45 STR for 25 VIT (~363 HP) doesn't seem that bad a trade off and it's a better conversion than switching STR/VIT allocation.

[GarbageNinga]

EHP is all that matters for tanks. I have gotten unlucky on T5 and dropped to 15 HPS on a death sentence swipe as I didnt have a "good" cool down up. So I will take every HP I can get.

[Wulfgang]

Well I've searched around in this thread and elsewhere, but does anyone have a list of what they would deem either critical or highly efficient macros? My main is BRD and it's a job that definitely gets a lot of mileage out of a good macro set; however, thus far with PLD, I really haven't found a need to use any macros really given how buffs need to be spaced out and the easy RoH combo order. Most of the "PLD macro" guides I've seen are sub-50 and deal with ease of mob marking, letting your healer know when Convalescence is up, etc.

[Raldo]

I can't imagine as a PLD that you'd really need any macros. Maybe a party-notify Spirit's Within macro for silence if you really want, but I've never seen a PLD that was forced to be on Silence duty on ADS.

Only MNK + BRD can get away with multi-weaponskill macros to ensure proper usage order, so you'll need to keep those skills separate. If you're doing anything difficult, you'll want to keep your defensive skills all separated so you can use specific things at specific times, so you'll need to keep those separate.

I've heard some people have a Shield Lob / Fast Blade combo macro that will use Fast Blade if you're close enough, and Shield Lob if you're not, but in the same breath I hear that that macro will sometimes use Shield Lob erroneously, so I wouldn't recommend that either.

I guess you could make a macro that combines all the somewhat-useful-but-not-very abilities, such as Bloodbath, Foresight, Awareness, etc. if you're hard up for action bar space.

[Ferien]

I've got macros for Provoke and Spirits with party notifications, a Cover <tt> macro, a mouseover Stoneskin macro for when I'm OT, and I have Bloodbath and FoF macro'd into Fast Blade so they're always up. That's about all I've found useful.