PLD questions

[eva00r]

For more information-
I'm a career BLU75. PLD is my 2nd main, well, main job while BRD&SCH are situational jobs. I'm a very well geared BLU (full homam/some morrigans/nashira/crimson/wtf etc). I have almost everything needed for BLU, with the exception of Fragarach/Tizona/Hofud.

I really do appreciate you guys' answers. There are a lot of different opinions but I understand what you guys said and the things that you're pointing out.

[Glori]

1) Shield Skill merit, do you really need this endgame ?

- Yes - Shield skill is god, even with reprisal and /nin, blocking is all important when casting ichi, merit it.

2) Gears swapping (that makes your model reloaded), do you do this ? - Assuming your mages don't play on PC and do not have access to BlinkMeNot plugin

- Depends on your mages. Some dont care, some do, i dont blink with casting spells, because its just too much for some to handle. I used to blink alot, now i typically only blink when swapping af2/af for JA's

3) HP max and MP max, how much is enough on average to keep you alive from 1 shotting ? - I'm a Hume PLD

- I'm hume also, I have 8 HP merits, and I LOVE every single one of them. I dont tyically wear a lot of HP gear, like everyone says shoot for 1600ish and you'll be good for most things, having a HP set around for something like Citadel Buster is good. As a hume I can break 2000 HP, just takes alot of gear. If you are worried about being 1-shotted eat carbonara/pescatora.

4) Joytoy or Maha+1 when you're tanking seriously with /NIN ?

- Maha +1 is very very nice, use it till you can get your hands on a hauteclaire, then throw it away.

5) March x 2 or March+Ballad ? - I have haste gears up to 22% recast reduction from haste/fastcast but I don't have much +Enmity gears.

- Situational, how fast does mob it? how much MP are you gonna be using? I typically do march/ballad, I occasionally ask for 2x march or 2x ballad

6) Does defense value matter at all with /NIN ? - I mean like 370 and 400ish def.

- /nin gear Haste, then enmity, then HP, then Def
- casting utsu gear Haste and shield skill
- Defense does matter, BUT other things are more important /nin dont worry about it, typically you will have enough.

[Kayos]

I want to fucking choke a kitten everytime someone says you dont need shield skill anymore. Reprisal doesnt negate the need for shield skill.

Fuck.

You don't need shield skill anymore.
































































If you have a lot of melee jobs :D

[Tan]

Maybe its just my philosophy but if you aren't going to do something right don't do it at all. Jack of all trades is master of none, if you want to be a good PLD, Shield, Parry, Evasion and anything you can do that will make you better at your job are worth it not matter the cost. If you want to go hit shit with your weapon and put up big numbers, whatever, go level NIN and then you won't need to merit shield, but you can still tank.

[Kayos]

Maybe its just my philosophy but if you aren't going to do something right don't do it at all. Jack of all trades is master of none, if you want to be a good PLD, Shield, Parry, Evasion and anything you can do that will make you better at your job are worth it not matter the cost. If you want to go hit shit with your weapon and put up big numbers, whatever, go level NIN and then you won't need to merit shield, but you can still tank.

2004 called. They want their player with only 1 75 job back.

I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. Melee get much more use out of combat merits than tanks.
8 combat merits into a weapon that will be used everytime that weapon is equipped > shield skill merits that are only usefull when shadows are down.

[Callisto]

2004 called. They want their player with only 1 75 job back.

I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. Melee get much more use out of combat merits than tanks.
8 combat merits into a weapon that will be used everytime that weapon is equipped > shield skill merits that are only usefull when shadows are down.

Except once you've already done 2 weapons you only have 4 slots to use. 4 Combat merits in a weapon is meh to me, if you consider yourself a PLD main I think putting those into shield as opposed to a weapon for a DD for your third or 4th job is a better idea.

Hell I'm a RDM main and I'm still going with 4 shield(8 Sword/8 MM), it would probably serve my RDM and PLD better than to level another DD and only put 4 merits into it.

[Tan]

2004 called. They want their player with only 1 75 job back.

I don't agree with this line of thinking at all. Melee get much more use out of combat merits than tanks.
8 combat merits into a weapon that will be used everytime that weapon is equipped > shield skill merits that are only usefull when shadows are down.

If you think shield merits are only useful when shadows are down then, Neosutra is going to be choking a lot of kittens. What about PLD/WAR? Or do you tank PLD/NIN in any dynamis/limbus/bitchwork zone?

Who said anything about having 1 job at 75? Its about job Diversity. 3 different 75 melee jobs with 3 different merited weapons is crap, you won't practically use multiple weapons and you will most likely go your best geared job. Only real job I can see using multiple merited weapons is a DRK, G.sword, Scythe and merited club or dagger depending on your zerg weapon would be most practical. But if you have a 75 DRK that can zerg then why the hell are you tanking in the first place? 2008 is about having job diversity, yet job specialization, if you simply have a melee job and are using all your combat skills meriting weapons only you are a pretty static player, and pretty damn useless. A player with a well merited DD, Tank or Puller (extra combat skills parry,evasion,shield merited) and a Mage job is a helluvah lot more useful than the tool who has 6, 75 melee jobs with 2 different weapon types merited. And as Callisto said 4 merits into a weapon are pretty useless if you want to use that job effectively.

[Kayos]

Except once you've already done 2 weapons you only have 4 slots to use.

That is a good point, I didn't think of that. Although I probably would still choose 4 combat merits.

If you think shield merits are only useful when shadows are down then, Neosutra is going to be choking a lot of kittens. What about PLD/WAR? Or do you tank PLD/NIN in any dynamis/limbus/bitchwork zone?

Oh lordie here we go. Neosutra can choke as many kittens as he desires. As far as this example, I think it is pretty silly. You can do an entire dynamis without a single pld. Dynamis is a joke, it doesn't matter whether you are /war or /nin. Limbus ...ugh? We don't bring plds to Limbus. In fact the only time we do bring pld is for shit that actually needs a pld. And then we go pld/nin. Why would we bring a pld to things that a war/nin, mnk/nin, drk/nin, or sam/nin, can tank just as good wihile dealing 100x more damage? So no, can't say I agree with you. Although, I do understand that LS are different and some may still pld/war (hai apathy). In that case I guess shield skill would be better.

Other stuff

You are honestly saying that if I have 4 jobs at 75 (3 melee, 1 pld) it isn't better to go 8, 8, 4 in weapon combat merits than shield, eva, parry? Hmmm. The rest of this paragraph is pretty silly. It is obvious you don't know that people can and do have multiple decked out melee.

And as Callisto said 4 merits into a weapon are pretty useless if you want to use that job effectively.

8 acc and 8 attack is worthless? Should tell that to the people who spend millions on HQ gear that has like 2 extra acc and attack. (Edit: I know its not exactly 8 acc based on the acc formula above a certain skill but its close enough =P)

[Tan]

You are honestly saying that if I have 4 jobs at 75 (3 melee, 1 pld) it isn't better to go 8, 8, 4 in weapon combat merits than shield, eva, parry? Hmmm. The rest of this paragraph is pretty silly. It is obvious you don't know that people can and do have multiple decked out melee.

Whats the point to having 3 decked out melee jobs? They all essentially do the same thing. And if you are taking advantage of the differences between the jobs then you probably aren't utilizing them for primarily meleeing. i.e. using MNK for Chi Blast, or DRK for extra stunning etc. Having 3 merited melee jobs is more or less "oh hai guys I feel like going xxx for luz." There is no way you can say that having the option to use multiple merited melee jobs is going to make or break your event or activity.

Its easy to take things out of context and over simplify someone's argument. Four merited combat skills in a weapon is effectively useless if you have another fully merited job. Why would you go DRG if you only had 4 Polearm merits vs a WAR that had 8 G.axe? If you simply use it for Angon or some shit then thats a waste and not very efficient, might as well get a full time DRG and have your ass benched.

But this is getting off topic, bottom line is Shield merits will only make you a better PLD, whereas combat skill merits for your 3 75 melee jobs or whatever the hell won't make your pld any better. But if your melees are so damn useful why are you tanking on PLD in the first place?

[Therin]

I want to fucking choke a kitten everytime someone says you dont need shield skill anymore. Reprisal doesnt negate the need for shield skill.

Fuck.

Agreed. Even with Aegis.

Also, Koenig Body is only useless if you have Ares's Cuirass. If you don't, it should still be in your "Oops" macro.

[Ruiner]

There is no way you can say that having the option to use multiple merited melee jobs is going to make or break your event or activity.

This right here nullifies your argument completely, because neither will 4 fucking Shield merits.

Why would you go DRG if you only had 4 Polearm merits vs a WAR that had 8 G.axe?

But if your melees are so damn useful why are you tanking on PLD in the first place?

Shit is situational.

[Kayos]

Whats the point to having 3 decked out melee jobs? They all essentially do the same thing. And if you are taking advantage of the differences between the jobs then you probably aren't utilizing them for primarily meleeing. i.e. using MNK for Chi Blast, or DRK for extra stunning etc. Having 3 merited melee jobs is more or less "oh hai guys I feel like going xxx for luz."

I was trying to be civil, but this paragraph just proves to me how ignorant you are. There are so many things wrong with this and the rest of your post that I don't even know where to begin :X


Back on topic: If you are a career pld, then merit shield.
Personally though I like having 8, 8, 4, and having 2 and a half decked out melee jobs.

[Shuemue]

I was trying to be civil

What next, me being considerate? heh

[Kayos]

Touche.

[Kaslo]

For more information-
I'm a career BLU75. PLD is my 2nd main, well, main job while BRD&SCH are situational jobs. I'm a very well geared BLU (full homam/some morrigans/nashira/crimson/wtf etc). I have almost everything needed for BLU, with the exception of Fragarach/Tizona/Hofud.

I really do appreciate you guys' answers. There are a lot of different opinions but I understand what you guys said and the things that you're pointing out.

I'm pretty similar to you except it's BLU > PLD > RDM > lolFarmingTHF

and if you think about it you have no reason not to lvl shield, I mean you have a choice of 20 merits. 8 will be sword of course for BLU. That leaves 12 for jobs that's don't melee or use a sword. Thus just go 4 > 4 > 4 Shield > Parry > Evasion.

Note: I won't be leveling Dagger prob because I will only be farming on THF and Parry/Evasion seems more important to me as a PLD, and hell for tanking on BLU.

[Oulanbator]

I'm not really sure you need parry and evasion merits for paladin.
I do have evasion merits from Ninja and that doesn't make my Pld evade anything reliably.
It is totally random, and the rare times I evade on Pld, I think it's more luck than evasion merits.
Yes, it's cool to evade or parry from time to time, but I wouldn't say it's a reliable tool to avoid taking damage like shield ( or like evasion on ninja).

You are probably better capping everything else on your others jobs before meriting evasion and parrying for pld.

[Atlasion]

Only merit evasion and parry if you have no other job that could use combat skill merits, and if you've capped everything else on PLD. Even then, I wouldn't merit parry or evasion.

[Brill Weave]

As an end game pld, if i see you in a tanking setup w/ a joytoy i'mma SS it and post it in an lolplayers thread.

Agreed.

[TomodachiF]

2004 called. They want their player with only 1 75 job back.

SHIT >< ; ; i keep getting pressured

[Meat]

SHIT >< ; ; i keep getting pressured

you should aim for one that doesn't de-level every death