Post pictures of your gear V: Throw moar RNGs at it

[Indalecia]

Counter-zing

HEY!






I don't do salvage

[FailureMidgard]

you put miss rate instead of hit rate, aside from that I've parsed my nin to have 5% evasion rate on things as weak as sky gods and jailers in standard tanking setup(arhats+1x2, enm/haste wherever possible, terra's, no evasion).. which is still 277 evasion skill. PLD has similar AGI and would be hard pressed to even come close to that skill if they wore a whole evasion build, you're not getting past lower cap on eva besides when flash is up on anything.. and you usually cast flash when shadows are up


except you're now advocating idling in boxer's mantle indirectly, instead of just macroing it into ichi ... with the addition of atonement, cuchulain's is a better idle back and if it's a mob you aren't meleeing then you're still likely idling in an enmity back instead of boxers @.@

Oops on the miss/hit mixup, my bad! As far as idling, I thought when we're talking about the reduction of the mobs damage over time, we were assuming idling...sorry if that is incorrect. Like I said for the evasion though, it's possible it may only matter during Flashes, but that's probably not that far off from the # of swings that actually hit you during Ichi casts, so it still seems relevant to not entirely discount it.

[Neosutra]

As Thorny stated, unless we are talking about lower end exp mobs, or soloing some EMs, the evasion is going to do jack shit for pld. The parrying is hard to measure, but almost equally as useless.

So it really comes down to ~9% DoT reduction and spell interupt (yes i realize that it isnt exactly 9% due to about 65% of those procs being shield blocks if you are near the cap) vs. 3-4% shield block rate increase that will provide at MOST 3-4*.65 % total damage reduction and 3-4% spell interupt total.

The only situation that boxers mantle would pull ahead is if you are fighting low lvl mobs where you would get the bonus of shield block increas/parry/evasion, and where shadow mantle damage annulments amount to minimal DoT loss (i.e. soloing /rdm for instance where all shield blocks are typically 0 damage taken).

@Vasilik: You have both peices, go test them. I posted my results and told you which is better, and backed it up, yet you still seem too stubborn to modify your existant build. If you dont believe me or the math, then go test it yourself. If you dont believe me or the math and are too lazy to test it for yourself, then stick with what makes you happy, but dont post here backing up either side.

[FailureMidgard]

Are you saying you block ~65% of the attacks, and block ~65% of the damage per attack?

If you have that, and assume a 9% proc on shadow and a 4% increase in shield block rate from 10 skill, out of 100 hits on you:


Shadow Mantle:
5.85 0 damage blocked swings (0.0)
59.15 blocked swings (.35)
3.15 0 damage normal swings (0.0)
31.85 full damage swings (1.0)

Average damage taken per swing is .35*59.15+31.85=52.55%.
# of swings that don't interrupt Utsusemi cast is 68.15%


Boxers:
69 blocked swings (.35)
31 full swings (1.0)

Average damage taken per swing is 69*.35+31=55.15%.
# of swings that don't interrupt Utsusemi cast is 69%.

So, actually, with your #s (though I did assume the high on Boxer's), Boxer's is better for interruption on Utsusemi cast, and you are correct with Shadow Mantle lowering total damage taken more. I personally thought that 2 skill = 1% block, which would be a bit more in favor of Boxer's, but I don't play a paladin, haven't parsed anything to prove that, it's just intuition based on how accuracy/evasion works...it seems odd to me that shield skill would give less % increase in chance to block than evasion gives in chance to dodge per point, when a block is clearly inferior to an evade in every way possible.

[Valisk]

@Vasilik: You have both peices, go test them. I posted my results and told you which is better, and backed it up, yet you still seem too stubborn to modify your existant build. If you dont believe me or the math, then go test it yourself. If you dont believe me or the math and are too lazy to test it for yourself, then stick with what makes you happy, but dont post here backing up either side.

You spell my name wrong EVERY time. I'm a PS3 user so unless you want to take my eyeballing as tests, I'll skip that. I didn't back up either side, I simply said I'll use the one more widely accepted until proven otherwise. Where are your results that you said you posted? I must have missed them.

[Indalecia]

Makes me think Basilisk.


I Play a Vasilisk with Lure card.

[Thorny]

Oops on the miss/hit mixup, my bad! As far as idling, I thought when we're talking about the reduction of the mobs damage over time, we were assuming idling...sorry if that is incorrect. Like I said for the evasion though, it's possible it may only matter during Flashes, but that's probably not that far off from the # of swings that actually hit you during Ichi casts, so it still seems relevant to not entirely discount it.

flashes during ichi casts are only done by your cotank mostly and still not that common.. you have your point about shadow mantle not helping ichi get up for the 65% of the time you shield block anyway, but the evasion is also worthless for the 90% of the time you ichi without flash up ;/

[Thorny]

Are you saying you block ~65% of the attacks, and block ~65% of the damage per attack?

If you have that, and assume a 9% proc on shadow and a 4% increase in shield block rate from 10 skill, out of 100 hits on you:


Shadow Mantle:
5.85 0 damage blocked swings (0.0)
59.15 blocked swings (.35)
3.15 0 damage normal swings (0.0)
31.85 full damage swings (1.0)

Average damage taken per swing is .35*59.15+31.85=52.55%.
# of swings that don't interrupt Utsusemi cast is 68.15%


Boxers:
69 blocked swings (.35)
31 full swings (1.0)

Average damage taken per swing is 69*.35+31=55.15%.
# of swings that don't interrupt Utsusemi cast is 69%.

So, actually, with your #s (though I did assume the high on Boxer's), Boxer's is better for interruption on Utsusemi cast, and you are correct with Shadow Mantle lowering total damage taken more. I personally thought that 2 skill = 1% block, which would be a bit more in favor of Boxer's, but I don't play a paladin, haven't parsed anything to prove that, it's just intuition based on how accuracy/evasion works...it seems odd to me that shield skill would give less % increase in chance to block than evasion gives in chance to dodge per point, when a block is clearly inferior to an evade in every way possible.

should be 61-62 and 65, iirc 65% is the cap

[FailureMidgard]

flashes during ichi casts are only done by your cotank mostly and still not that common.. you have your point about shadow mantle not helping ichi get up for the 65% of the time you shield block anyway, but the evasion is also worthless for the 90% of the time you ichi without flash up ;/

You misunderstood, I meant if you were looking at it from a DoT point of view, the # of swings on you with Flashes on the mob (including when you have shadows, and save a shadow) is probably not too far off from the # of hits you take (not counting hitting shadows) while casting Ichi, aka, the # of times the shield skill vs 0 dmg matters for avoiding interruption. If timers/# of shadows is potentially an issue, then the evasion during flashes could end up mattering. I'll leave it to the Paladins to decide how often that matters for them, because that's outside of the realm of math, and I don't play paladin!

[SephYuyX]

The equip suggestions werent as rough as I was expecting >.>

[Drex]

The equip suggestions werent as rough as I was expecting >.>

Kindness borne from pity. You are beyond salvation, and should probably just delevel the job and drop all your gear to start anew.

[Crizto]

Can you even come close to the shield block cap on HNM's?

[Max™]

YOU TRIGGERED MY TRAP CARD!

Wut?

With Aegis + shield skill gear, I would imagine you could.

Without aegis + jesusgood shield skill gear, probably?

With just Aegis, I doubt it.

With just a regular shield... you better keep those shadows up.

[Siralin]

I've been lvl synching out the ass, I don't rly upgrade that often lol, and yeah, lemme redo it rq..

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y23...202_220326.jpg

I'd replace Parrying earring with Assault earring.

[Neosutra]

You spell my name wrong EVERY time. I'm a PS3 user so unless you want to take my eyeballing as tests, I'll skip that. I didn't back up either side, I simply said I'll use the one more widely accepted until proven otherwise. Where are your results that you said you posted? I must have missed them.

I stated that I did tests of the shadow mantle proc rate by sitting with an earth staff at 3 different lvl mobs (50, 60, 70, as close as i could find), for about an hour each, and simply counted the annulments. Came out to a little over 9% regardless of mob lvl. Im not sure what else you want me to provide.

From there, it is pretty simple math.

Also, @ FailureMidgard your math is incorrect.

If you put boxers mantle at about 4-5% block increase (lets say 5%), that equal to 5% spell interupt and .05*.65(or .05*.80 for aegis pld) = ~3.3%-4% damage reduced over time. Shadow mantle would provide 0.09(.35(1)+.65(.20)) = 4.3% total damage reduction for an aegis pld and .09(.35(1)+.65(.35) = 5.1% total damage reduction for a koenig pld (reducing more for a keonig pld due to their higher damage taken on shield block.)

Note that I computed damage reduction over time as the proc percentage multiplied by the sum of the non block rate with the block rate, each multiplied by their respective damage taken %s.

So even with taking the absolute best numbers for boxers mantle, shadow mantle still provides superior results.

ALSO:

PET PEEVE - Max you betrayed me! Another common misconception is that Aegis has some higher block rate than other shields and/or requires less shield skill to reach specific block rates. THIS IS NOT TRUE! Aegis only provides higher damage reduction per block than koenig, and sux equally w.o shield skill. There is no hidden increased block rate with aegis, simply the amount of damage reduced when it does block (which is based off the shield def rating).

[Max™]

Hey, I didn't betray you, I assumed Aegis blocked as if it were a size 1 shield but reduced like a size 4, which means you still need a lot of gear to cap it out.

I fully endorse +shield skill on Aegis users, it's why I'm so proud of Arc, rockin his Gallant bewts +1.

[Neosutra]

I wish that were the case.

[Max™]

Is that not true?

I always heard that it acted like a buckler with tower reduction.

T.T

Either way, you'll be happy to know that as a lvl 55 Pld, I'm sporting +21 Shield skill, which will only increase.

I likes mah blocks.

[Neosutra]

No. Aegis procs about the same as koenig and requires the same amount of shield skill to get any use out of it. The only difference, as I have stated several times, is the amount of damage reduced.

[Tricen]

When should I stop using sentinals shield for a different shield?