CoP 6-4: Airship with 50 bazillion PLD's

[Kyomu]

I'm looking for experiences of PLD's who have tanked airship battle and won, or people who have had a PLD tank. The last five (hundred) times I've done this battle I've had the golden BRD + NIN combo, but the group I'm taking through right now is PLD heavy, and I need some advice on how to possibly accomplish this fight without relying too heavily on NIN tanks. I can pull some in, along with a couple BRD's but that means splitting up my 15-16 people group into even smaller groups to get everyone though. We've already lost a lot of time on Snoll Tzar, and I'm curious to see people's advice is on this.
"Dump the PLD's" isn't a viable answer either. All three of them are moderately geared, nothing in terms of crazy e-peen, but not gimp either, and we have a good selection of mages to complement, including a COR if that would help in some fashion. DD selection runs the gamut, with MNK, RNG, and THF predominant.
Thanks for any help people can give. I've been agonizing over this for a while considering I have no experience doing it with a PLD tank.

EDIT: Yes, the PLD's do have alternative jobs... two WHM's and a SAM60, DRK75, if all else fails.

[Demosthenes11]

iirc correctly best to go evasion setup for it. bat earrings, auster's staff, etc

[TB]

Since I only had leveled SAM back in the days when I was doing CoP and my static only had a PLD tank, we had to do ALL CoP fights with a PLD tank. Moreover he wasn't the smartest and well geared PLD. >_>

The fight was really hard and we wiped 1 time to Ultima. Setup was PLD/WAR, WHM/BLM, BLM/WHM, BLM/RDM, RNG/NIN, SAM/NIN (nin sub because of AOE and I had to solo a Fomor, but I think RNG sub would've been better)

We won in 44:29 Minutes....

The PLD used full defense equip, including an earth staff (lolz) but still he got smacked pretty hard. He also used 2x Bat Earrings with Blinding Potions and evaded a good amount of hits, so I think an Evasion + Haste build, maybe even with NIN sub will work pretty good on a PLD tank.

We didn't win this fight because of great gear or insane merits. We just came prepared and had perfect coordination, because of TeamSpeak usage.

Pretty much any standart setup can win this, with the proper preparation and coordination.

[Dark Vincent]

I posted my experience on 6-4 as PLD and having a RDM as healer (another thing people say "dump RDM get WHM"). Won in 30minutes.
http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/viewto ... 66&start=0

[Shuemue]

The rumour that PLD can't tank this is bullshit, Aurik and I beat this with a PLD tank. Sure it took a couple of tries to figure a strat that suited us, but in the end the PLD was fine.

I don't recall him wearing anything out of the ordinary, we didn't have a discussion regarding 'oh you need X piece of gear' we just got on with it.

[Dark Vincent]

The rumour that PLD can't tank this is bullshit, Aurik and I beat this with a PLD tank. Sure it took a couple of tries to figure a strat that suited us, but in the end the PLD was fine.

I don't recall him wearing anything out of the ordinary, we didn't have a discussion regarding 'oh you need X piece of gear' we just got on with it.

Yeah I didnt wear anything special either. Gluttony Sword, that lvl 55 Shield, full AF, two Chrysobel (+3 VIT) Rings, Melody Earrings (forgot to switch them after I got done with the Mammets lol, was getting double Mambo on those, since their acc sucks), Chiv chain, Knight Mantle, Bibiki Seashell and Swift Belt.

[Annihilator]

won it as PLD/WAR on our first serious attempt (with meds)
had a couple of au lait's, yag drinks, and filled my inventory with hi potions

cant remember the party setup 100%, but i do remember we had a WHM and a WAR along with my PLD

The strategy was the Super PLD one for mammets... pld gets sight aggro on fomors, WAR vokes one off and tanks it while everyone rapes it, PLD holds all the other mammets while WHM cure bombs when necessary (no hate on WHM if the pld doesnt engage)

Finished the mammet part relatively quickly

Omega was a bit more of a bitch, took him near the starting point, tanked the best I could with DD's doing what they can, used CCB pump when things got out of hand, eventually wiped around 40%. Let him reset, reraise, recover, pull him again, killed.

We had 6 minutes left when we got to Ultima. Everyone popped their 2h, went into a zerg rage and won with about 30 seconds left on the clock


Comments from those in the pt that had done this before with a ninja were that its a lot more stable fight with a PLD tank. Its easier to not hold back, and hate doesnt fly around as much, so even though the PLD requires a bit more maintenance, its strenght lies in the other members of the party that can do what they want

Just make sure your PLD's use sword/shield, bring meds and you should come out victorious

[Martinius]

my CoP static had a pld, and the fight is certainly more difficult, but a well equipped, intelligent pld should have no significant problems. nonetheless, it still took us several attempts to finally beat it.

what we found most effective was having someone who could pull hate off of our pld and take a couple hits when he would need to be cured up or get hit with a couple nasty status effects in a row, etc.

our winning setup(not optimal by any stretch of the imagination) was whm, rdm, blm, pld, drk/nin, rng/nin(me). sidewinder and rampage were both able to pull hate enough to let our pld recover, for us to use up our six shadows, but not pull so much hate that flash and or voke wouldnt get hate right back.

also, jack his inventory full of hi pots. i mean full.

winning with a pld feels like a real accomplishment as well. at least it did for us, but that was over a year and change ago, when people basically told us we couldn't win with a pld.

[Keltiks]

Bat Earrings
Wind Staff
Emp Hairpin
Scorpion Harness

Keep yourself blinded and you should be able to evade enough attacks.

[Meloria]

Pld can and will work for this fight. Our pld used bat earrings + blind pots. He brought au laits and hi pots. I don't remember if he used sword + shield or staff (was over a year ago). He aggro pulled the 5 mammets to a corner and the whm cure bombed him as necessary. DD pulled off one mammet at a time. Blm helped cure as necessary.

Straight tank the next two. Make sure mages have plenty of meds. Pro-ethers, vile elixir, vile elixir+1, yag drinks.

[Raineer]

won it as PLD/WAR on our first serious attempt (with meds)
had a couple of au lait's, yag drinks, and filled my inventory with hi potions

This is how you win. PLD can arguably do better than a nin if you get the meds for it. An inventory of hi-pots makes it a lock. Not 10 or 15, but full.

[kamalii]

My first battle was with a PLD tank (we won, done this a few times because ppl love the brd).

Party setup:

PLD/WAR
SAM/RNG or NIN, can't remember
RNG/NIN
RDM/WHM
WHM/???
BRD/WHM

PLD had full meds, WHM had full meds, I carried meds just in case, and we had 6 CCB

PLD wore *some* evasion gear (borrowed my mountain gaiters, and the RNGs bat cape). PLD used that Phalanx shield, blink band, and something else. Some stuff I just don't remember because it was 2 years ago

WHM was in FULL -emnity setup, and ate -emnity food (mushroom stew). (that, along with meds, double ballad and refresh was very important so he would survive the fights - he also borrowed my vermy so he could cure bomb the PLD and try to flash when they were doing WS)

Strategy was this: GO in, buff up. PLD aggros all the mammets, WHM takes care of the PLD, BRD sings double mambo to PLD, SAM and RNG pick each mammet off one by one.

Rest a bit before engage of next battle. PLD starts with blink band and phalanx shield again. BRD sings Double Min to SAM and RNG, Double Mambo to the PLD, and double ballad to the WHM and RDM.

We had a CCB order, and the WHM was really really good at removing status effects. The RDM enfeebled well, since both proc on Ultima and Omega quite well. Both have horrible accuracy, so with just a touch of eva gear, double mambo, and blind sticking quite a few times they would miss.

I think SAM and RNG renkeied, I can't remember. I do remember that we didn't use all the CCB, but the plan was to NOT have the mages use them, rather to trade them to the melee when possible.

We were running a bit low on time toward the end, so everyone 2hr'd, and we finished with 2 CCBs left.

I think with the PLD changes since we did this make it much easier for a pld to tank. Sentinel would work great for damage reduction when blink band were out, and save some mana.

[solsovly]

won it as PLD/WAR on our first serious attempt (with meds)
had a couple of au lait's, yag drinks, and filled my inventory with hi potions

This is how you win. PLD can arguably do better than a nin if you get the meds for it. An inventory of hi-pots makes it a lock. Not 10 or 15, but full.

I did this with a PLD tank and won on our first try (pre shield update). Basically consisted of him spamming hi-pots. Nothing special for the setup. I've done this with PLD BST BST RNG RDM WHM before as well. If everyone brings a generous amount of hi-pots, it should be manageable.

[Kaylia]

The best way is to stick them with a ninja and let them "leech" (they can still get hate if nin die, can cure/flash, and deal some dmg, so its not "that" bad).


With recent pld change (parade gorget, refresh, shield mastery...etc), I'm not sure how good pld can do, but I know they were a manasponge before. I'm not saying they can't tank, but a good nin usually make this fight smoother than a pld ever will, even spamming potion like people said above me.

[vagus]

i was helping out a friend's static, i get to the zone and I see a pld. We beat this thing, but the pld was spamming hi-potions. I'm guessing atleast 30. GL!

[Allundaria]

BRD Elegy will help contain the damage that the weapons do a lot, especially when coupled with RDM slow. You'll need to weight the party with a little bit more healing, or stuff the PLD with a lot of hi-pots as an emergency measure in case of some unlucky crits -> WS.

But definitely doable as people have proven and documented.

[Kaylia]

Last fight I did was with a random pickup pt I helped (I know, I'm so damn nice). We had a blu/war tank and managed to win fight with 3 polymer on my first try. rdm whm blm rng mnk blu/war was out setup


I'm not saying blu is a good tank, cause it was horrible, I think we wiped twice and zombie'd the last part, but that pc is still not too hard, so it's possible to win with retarded setup if people die in a place they can RR (like they should)

[Dark Vincent]

BRD Elegy will help contain the damage that the weapons do a lot, especially when coupled with RDM slow. You'll need to weight the party with a little bit more healing, or stuff the PLD with a lot of hi-pots as an emergency measure in case of some unlucky crits -> WS.

But definitely doable as people have proven and documented.

Yeah I didnt spam hi pots either, just used on emergencies. In fact, I brought 8 and used 5. Of course, I did 6-4 after Shield Mastery/Auto-Refresh/Parade Gorget (though barely got to use Parade Gorget, due to my hp bouncing around a lot, latent almost never triggered and I just switched to chiv chain after some time) so that might have helped a bit, but it was before Sentinel/Rampart update too (now it should be even easier then).

[Allundaria]

BRD Elegy will help contain the damage that the weapons do a lot, especially when coupled with RDM slow. You'll need to weight the party with a little bit more healing, or stuff the PLD with a lot of hi-pots as an emergency measure in case of some unlucky crits -> WS.

But definitely doable as people have proven and documented.

Yeah I didnt spam hi pots either, just used on emergencies. In fact, I brought 8 and used 5. Of course, I did 6-4 after Shield Mastery/Auto-Refresh/Parade Gorget (though barely got to use Parade Gorget, due to my hp bouncing around a lot, latent almost never triggered and I just switched to chiv chain after some time) so that might have helped a bit, but it was before Sentinel/Rampart update too (now it should be even easier then).

Ya the shield update and recent paladin buffs made it significantly easier for PLD to hold up in this. The era of 20+ hi-pot spam that people encountered back in the day are pretty much unnecessary. With your AF shoes and capped shield skill you should be able to get a good block rate going with your size3 shield. Just be sure to bring and use your CCB pumps, even the best equipped 60cap PLD won't be able to withstand an antimatter barrage when Ultima goes into omgbbq mode.

[Elesirdur]

I did all of CoP from chapter 2 to the end as PLD/WAR with great degrees of success. The best advice I can give you is make sure you have members in your party that understand how to play with a Paladin. Make sure they're prepped for curing and hate management during the latter portions of the fight. As well, the Paladin needs to be very well prepared; especially for 6-4. Every single slot in your inv should be filled with Hi-Pots/Ethers, Yag Drinks, Curega Earring, Spartan Hoplon, Remedies, Echo Drops, Eye Drops, CCB Polymers and all that good stuff. The fastest way to lose 6-4, or any CoP BC, is to not bring adequate stores of medecines.

As for gear, I used Earth Staff for the beginning when I just let the extra Mammets beat on me then switched to Sword+Shield to finish them off (Vorpal Blade does some mean damage to them). In the actual Omega/Ultima portion I would now council using Sword+Shield for the duration of the fight. Obviously, keep sentinel in your pocket to be used as needed and Rampart's stoneskin might actually help against Guided Missile or other AoE magic-based moves. I suppose if you want to try an Evasion set then go with Earth Staff, but that was never my style (though I know others prefer it).

Just play within the comfort zone of your tank. This can be a stressful fight - being one of the hardest BCs in all of FFXI - and trying to switch up their playstyle and pushing him or her into a new rhythm will only exacerbate the problems associated with the time and difficulty constraints in this BC.