Paladin Gear and Hate Problems

[Stubwub]

2nd post and I'm asking for help. Bah, I feel like an ass. ._. Forgive me, I'm shy.

Anyway, I'm having problems lately.. well, I've been having them since I came back to the game. I just hit level 69 on my paladin and I'm having great troubles holding hate in my parties. I'm also confused on my gear.

3 years ago I left the game and took a break, mainly because of money and time problems. When I finally came back I quickly discovered my gear was out of date (It was all VIT/DEF/ENMITY). So I made a few posts on some other boards (allah) and was told I need more DD gear. So I took some time to farm and got some. I started leveling again and now here's what I have. I've got two gear set ups, and no matter which one I use I have major problems.

The first one is basically all my AF gear.

Espadon +1
Iron Ram Shield
Bibiki Seashell
Gallant Coronet
Shield Torque
Buckler Earring/Merman Earring
Gallant Surcoat
Gallant gauntlets
Hercule's Ring/Woodsman Ring
Amemet mantle+1
Life Belt
Gallant Breeches
Gallant Leggings

My second gear set up is my DD.

Espadon +1
Iron Ram Shield
Smart Grenade
Gallant Coronet
Shield Torque
Buckler Earring/Merman Earring
Haubergeon
Fourth Division gauntlets
Hercule's Ring/Woodsman Ring
Amemet mantle+1
Life Belt
RK Breeches
Gallant Leggings

Usually I try to use my DD gear off the bat, but I always end up getting chewed a part and lose HP way too fast. IT doesn't seem to help me hold hate either.

So then I switch to my AF set up, but now I'm losing hate even more often and I'm missing the mob even more and doing like, 0-10 damage. No matter which set up I use I lose hate constantly. It seems like the only time I can hold hate is if I'm fighting an imp and everyone has amnesia so no one can use any JAs or WS. >_>

Am I even using the right gear here? I do the normal thing, I voke/flash, put up reprisal, heal when I get hit. I pop beserk for WS, swap in WS gear, put up defender afterwards, and lose defender when its time to WS again. I use my JA's (especally sentinel + voke or flash). I normally use Tacos for food, and have been experimenting with sushi (dorado and Sole). I just cant seem to keep up and I'm getting very frustrated. I feel like a failure here.

Also, there's no way for me to get any gear from Zilart/COP/TOAU. When I left I was in the process of doing Zilart and my rank missions, and everyone was trying to beat CoP. So I have not finished any of the storylines. I dont think I will for a while either, since I have no LS, and everyone I knew is gone now.. or have forgotten about me. I'm only mentioning this because some people have been telling me to use certain pieces of gear.. which you can only get from completing those storylines and doing content in those expansions, or fighting certain NMs, which I cannot do alone or realistically with a pick up party. ._.

Please help this relic from the past. :/

[Belkin]

Welcome to the new age. PLD's have a hard time keeping hate in parties nowadays just because of the way parties are made now. Usually you'll get a few WAR's, a BRD or a COR and a healer. Then the party (Still thinking old school) realizes they want a placebo tank. So they invite a PLD. I'm sure anybody with a shred of experience knows that the PLD isn't going to perform very well in a party like this, but they say what the hell and go with it.

It's not that you suck, it's just that parties have evolved into TP burns. The only thing you can do is sub NIN, find the best DD gear you can get and use sushi. Flash at the beginning of fights to hold hate for a bit and hope your DD can keep some *decent* hate. Job abilities whenever they are up, use Cover to your advantage if you constantly find one DD taking hate.

Again, I don't think anybody is expecting you to hold complete hate in a party nowadays. Just go with the flow until you hit 75.

[Stiker]

You are doing fine don't worry. It is an EXP party and holding hate in those just isn't what it used to be.

One piece of gear that can boost your enmity (and is quite cheap) is a High Breath Mantle. It is a enchanted item, meaning it has charges (50 charges, 30 min recast). But it will give you a boost to both HP and enmity when used. Just keep in mind you will always have to wear it (that is can't swap) in order to stay enchanted. I would also suggest carrying 2 on you at all times in case of deaths.

But seriously, don't worry. If you are keeping your mages alive and holding hate until the first big WS you are doing it right. Parties 70+ started to become more of an exercise of trying to have timely flashes and quick covers rather than keeping hate.

[orinthia]

If you're getting "chewed apart" then it means the mobs you're fighting are either too high to make good use out of certain dd gears (like fighting regular colibri at lv58... it's just stupid, don't do it, you'd be far better off speed chaining lesser colibri), or the dmg they deal ignores all possible defense anyway (crawlers in ToA areas are killers in this respect since their poison/flame breath dmg is based off their remaining hp and hard to actually resist, 999def will do nothing against it).

If my dnc at lv60 with a lolbone knife+1 can hit as hard as you do verses IT+ mobs with your much higher base dmg sword and better att+ gear then there's probably a few things that could be done either in camp choice or debuffing. Just do your best with what you can get and try to push the pt into VT-IT camps for easier times. Hell just going to a VT camp where you can chain without ever stopping will give you great exp/hr and at least after lv60 will last an hour or two (I generally don't care to exp that much at a time so your ideal spot will vary).

[Tomiko]

Honestly, if I'm going to invite a Pld, I'm going to invite them to tank. If I wanted a DD, I would get a DD job. As long as the DD aren't WSing at the very start its not that hard to hold hate. Voke at start, flash ~15s later, Voke once it's up again, use Spirits when you have TP (unless you can consistently land Vorpal/Swift), etc. Don't just cure yourself, cure everyone, especially the DDs.

For Gear: Enmity > all. Don't worry about Def/Vit gear too much.

As mentioned, most parties are built like TP burns, so you don't have to hold hate for long unless you're overcamping. And if the DDs are WSing from the start, then chances are you're not going to hold hate, so just start spamming cures on them for hate.

[Tubbers]

I leveled WAR with a friend of mine who was PLD. I tanked way more than he did, and he had a very good DD build. If you're partying with good DD jobs going all out, the best you can do is hold hate ~50% of the time. PLD is still nice to have for that 50% tanking and the extra cures, they put up respectable damage as well when properly geared.

[Stubwub]

In my last few parties the DD were firing off their WS or skillchains right off the bat. The only time I didn't have trouble with this is in one party when they were /thf and were using SATA or TA to plant everything on me.

The worst is when I started fighting imps, with no JAs I was helpless since flash is on a 45 second timer and I cannot always heal myself for hate. I do heal others as they get smacked, but it just doesnt seem to be enough at times. I always use cover, but that stupid abrasive tanatra screws me over time and time again.

Should I just stick with my AF all the time then for the enmity? Should I use my full DD set up and use Sushi like dorado? Or go DD + taco? AF + sushi? bleh.

It's hard for me to do this, because I was use to being a big fat wall of defense that soaked damage. Now I am supposed to tank while doing enough damage to hold hate? It's confusing.. I'm not complaining or anything, I'm really trying to change and be effective as I can be but..

[Tubbers]

Macro in enmity gear for abilities and spells (AF). Sit there hitting it in DD gear and WS in DD gear. Dorado sushi is fine.

[Hanyoko]

If your interested to learn more about Enmity there has been a large amount of information discovered while you were gone. Its a long read but if your into numbers its fascinating.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/13235.html

[Brill Weave]

Around that level is when hate problems really start to show up. DD's have access to some higher end abilities and gear. Like it was said before most parties just kind of want that placebo tank. You won't be able to hold hate all the time. So what you need to do is concentrate on what else you can be doing to keep the party rolling smoothly. If one DD is consistently pulling hate, run over and Cover him. If someone is taking a bunch of damage throw out some Cure's for them. You're not limited solely to tanking. You can contribute other things.

Usually after a few mobs you can tell if the party is going to be problematic for you. If you're not able to tank the entire time, do whatever else you can to help out.

[Stiker]

If your interested to learn more about Enmity there has been a large amount of information discovered while you were gone. Its a long read but if your into numbers its fascinating.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/13235.html

This seriously changed the way I thought about tanking and the way a play. I don't have the numbers memorized, but I know a lot more about how to get and maintain hate thanks to that research.

Of course the maintaining hate tends to come in handy more for everything else, but EXP parties lol.

[Maaglin]

For going the DD route on pld, is great sword an option once they hit 69 and get access to spinning slash? Seems with a full on DD setup w/ sushi, great sword wouldn't be so bad or does 1h sword beat it out handily to due A rating?

[Brill Weave]

The only way I would consider using a Great Sword over a one hander is if you are able to snag an Algol(which I do have.) And even then it's not as easy as slapping a great sword on and calling yourself a DD. I have a 249 GS skill right now(I've been like .2 away from capping for a while) and even when I am fully decked out in DD gear, my damage pales in comparison to other DD's.

That's not to say I'm doing horrible damage. I can usually put up respectable numbers. But with how high our sword skill is compared to our gs skill, you will almost always do better with a one handed sword.

For me I bust out the Algol when I'm meriting with friends. It's a fun toy to use but in a serious xp/merit party I'm using one handers.

[Ophannus]

The damage mitigated by Shield FAR outweighs the extra damage you may or may not get from using Great Sword. A safe bet is that shield roughly negates 20-40%(pulled from my ass) damage that you'd take in a party. Not to mention you can't use Shield Bash with a great sword.

At early levels Great Sword will actually help you hold hate better than shield/sword combo, especially at those early levels before Shield Mastery. I used Great Sword till about 25 and was doing just as much damage as a DRK or a WAR(90-160 dmg Power Slashes). But at this level skill ratings don't even matter.

[Maaglin]

The damage mitigated by Shield FAR outweighs the extra damage you may or may not get from using Great Sword. A safe bet is that shield roughly negates 20-40%(pulled from my ass) damage that you'd take in a party. Not to mention you can't use Shield Bash with a great sword.

At early levels Great Sword will actually help you hold hate better than shield/sword combo, especially at those early levels before Shield Mastery. I used Great Sword till about 25 and was doing just as much damage as a DRK or a WAR(90-160 dmg Power Slashes). But at this level skill ratings don't even matter.

I'm talking about playing pld as a DD @69 (first useable GS WS), not a tank so I'm not concerned with shield damage mitigation. For mitigating damage you could sub nin, so you're basically playing like a weaker GS drk/nin for lack of a better comparison. I'm also not concerened with the lower level ranges that you're talking about.

People talk about a DD PLD, but they're using 1h sword and shield afaik. But around 60ish when you can start to TP burn colibri, hate control becomes less of an issue and /nin is great damage mititgation for all melee to have access to. Obviously, nobody wants a pld/war trying to blood tank mobs. The only thing really keeping GS down afaik is the B rating with the weapon, but that could probably be overcome to an acceptable level with sushi and non-gimp DD gear. At that point you can either sub /nin for mitigation, /war if you're partying with better melees and hence you won't have hate all that much, or hell, why not /sam for hasso and meditate and seigan at 70?

I never see pld's like this and I don't really know why. Seems like a viable alternative.

[Brill Weave]

To me it's not worthwhile to sub Ninja if I'm using a GS. Delay is so long as it is even with haste, then factor in the loss of double attack, and you're getting horrid tp returns at a horrid rate(even with an Algol.) On top of that we lose Warcry and Berserk which are pretty damn important for us to put up decent numbers. If you're going to go as a purely DD Paladin in an XP party, most will sub Ninja and throw on a Company Sword and a Joyeuse. I don't even remember what level you get Spinning Slash at.

Like I said before, GS is fun when you're fucking around with friends. But for serious xp/merit parties stick with either the s/s combination or dual wield swords. If you're geared properly your Vorpals should do a fairly decent chunk of damage. And you will be able to toss them off more quickly than a Spinning Slash.

[Stubwub]

Thank you all for the help.

Also, I didn't know about that enmity testing thing. I will be giving that a good reading.