What's you method of play?

[Sephriem]

As most players who use the Pugilist Class will know, the class runs in three very unique ways.
So which one are you? --mostly.

I personally play my Pugilist with evasion style,
I'm constantly on the move using hinderence skills to find the enemies weak points from different angles.
main attack wise, Light Strike Scores #1 for me, the added EVA and DEF suits me just fine.

Equipment wise i use mostly Cloth/light based with few being leathers (Belts / Harneses mostly). This gives me the oppertunity to max out my efficiancy with evading, by doing so i do take a hinderence with how much DEF i have but i soon make up for it adding Slightly more VIT on my stats than i would with any other class.

ACCs DEX Rings and Choker, again this is to pump Dex into my stats so that i may allocate to balance for my weakneses. Why not EVA earings you say, This is so that i still have balance to my PC, i dont want to only rely on evasion, if my tactics have to change mid battle/team or solo, i can do so without running the risk of not being able to sustain.

Stat Allotment Priorty (H-L)
Vit
Dex
Str
Mnd
Pie
Int

Weapon type of choice
Bone / Leather

Do share your ideas and gameplay styles

[Rjain]

Pretty much only wear leather. Black leather, naturally. Some cloth as well.

Stats are usually around 154 STR, 128 VIT, 115 DEX, but I want to adjust VIT and DEX so DEX is higher. Blindside 2 makes DEX even more awesome.

I open up with Heavy Strike and keep attacking with Flurry. I used evasion skills heavily such as Haymaker 2 and Simian Thrash.

Here's an example of what my action bars usually look like.
http://share.fantaji.com/pictures/73...ist_skills.jpg

Edit: From left to right for traits I have:

-Prime Conditioning
-Fleet of Foot
-Seasoned Veteran
-Will to Power
-Complete Control

[Meleena]

I wonder why none is giving any bonus points into Mind (not only Pugs).
I mean Mind is at least Magic Defence right?
Why do you guys want to have only physical defence and not magical too?

Am I on the wrong train of thought?
Maybe magic defence is broken so far?
Please explain if you know whats happening.

[Sigiria]

@Meleena: well that's simple pugi is a melee job so most of the time you'll get direct attack so it's more effective if you raised your VIT and DEX, also mobs that's use magic are not so common and even so Shell is enough to make your defence against it.

I also use my pugilist the evasion style I'm equiped with leather and cloth stuff use earrings that raise evasion and ring that raise str and dex, I focus on fleet of foot to evade and counter, then I buff myself with blindside and raging strike before throwing a Follow through wich deal a great amount of damage in a minimum of time.
For the solo I add some magic buff and heal then I can take down orange/red mob quite easily ^^

[Ichi]

I feel like i should share some of my knowledge this being the official forums and all so here it goes, my stats are STR: 102, DEX: 103, VIT: 109, MND PIE and INT: 55. I'll explain why; Attributes in game give diminishing returns on your character the higher level you are, according to a test done by two pugilits (myself and my good friend Mr. Clint Eastwood), the magic number is between 120~130 with 102 str +26 from gear heavy strikes were landing for within 5 points of damage of 150 total STR Pugilist on yellow mobs to solo (Amalj'aa by Red Labyrinth). 22 points of str from 128 to 150 made almost no difference on mobs of this difficulty which equates to even less difference on mobs of higher difficulty. However, from 102 str vs 130 str damage was about 20 poitns lower on heavy strikes and 15~ on flurrys.

Seems to me like a good sweetspot for STR is about 120~130, Iv'e been an advocate of a more balanced attributes set for a while, and i don't think they're broken I think we as a community need to come together and conquer it more logically instead of pouring every point into the first 3 like cavemen. PIE MND and INT are invaluable to me as a sub THM and greatly boost my ability to cast certain spells as a PGL, we should all be experimenting in this manner.

Also best way to fight as a pug is the 4 step combo Light > Heavy > Flurry > Flurry wash rinse repeat, always keeps your evasion buff up and do the best possible damage and tp gain. if your practice this style you'll get to where it comes out automatically and you don't have to to stop and think whenever you need to interrupt the string for other abilities, ws, or spells.

As far as gear goes i like to stack STR and/or DEX up to 120~130 over base, and VIT is at 109 because it's the exact number to hit 2k hp at 50 PGL. I look for Evasion gear but id sooner equip a piece of damage gear over evasion because i feel that the damage i could do would help me hold hate better, and hate > survivability imo when it comes to tanking, though they're both essential. Evasion gear for super challenging unrealistic things of course like soloing Tarbh ^^;

[Meleena]

@Meleena: well that's simple pugi is a melee job so most of the time you'll get direct attack so it's more effective if you raised your VIT and DEX, also mobs that's use magic are not so common and even so Shell is enough to make your defence against it.

Magic attacks dont have to be direct, could be AoE and lets face it Shell does almost nothing (at least to me).
There are a lot Bomb, Imp and Elemental enemies so I think there are enough reasons to have a bit of Better defence.
Anyway I kinda get what you mean, but I still feel that Magic Defence is important (raises your MP pool too).

@Ichi
I don't really play any of the magic classes (hate them :P).
I Ranked Con to 24 and THM to 22 but I only did that to get some good abilities from them, so I dont really want to rise INT and PIE too.

My stats are: STR: 116, DEX: 112, VIT: 112, INT: 16, MND: 70, PIE: 16
I chose to give a bit more to STR cause my equipment at 44 Rank give a lot to VIT, If I can't get at 2000HP by Rank 50 (and propably I will not) Ill tweak a bit to get that 2000.

I Don't really evade that much, so I dont use Light Strike at all.
For attacking I mostly use: Heavy - Flurry and Skull Sander - Concusive Blow - Aura Pulse.
For defence I have: Protect - Shell - Shock Spikes - Stoneskin - Defender (I don't really notice any big deifference with Protect and Defender on :/ )

I'll rethink my strategy once the stats start making sence and difference...

[bobbygunz]

With my build im tanking and dpsing pritty easly. i just change my attacks but use the same point distrubition and gear for both tanking and dps.

Health: 1,810
175 str, 109 vit, 169 dex. 182 evasion 353 defence. (i have all +1/2/3 armor on)

DPS Weapon useing a Peiste Chelsti +2 (currently, working on making a +3)
Tanking i use Jade hora +1

[Gimmecat]

I have 3 different ways of playing PUG:

Utility (Hate control, Spike Damage, Thief)
Tank (Evasion, Nin)
DD (Pure Damage)

My stats carry across all styles, increasing them with gear accordingly.
Main Base stats:
STR 128
VIT 95
DEX 130

Utility
My main play style is pretty much similar to Thief in FFXI. I use abilities like Blindside, Victimize and Attack Buffs for some huge spike damage. Collusion, Accomplice, Chameleon Out of Sight for hate control. Mixed with TP gaining abilities like Invigorate and signature Thief-like actions such as Feint. Most of my actions come from Lnc, Pug and Arc but I use actions from all Dow. With gear and guild marks I can cap my DEX at 174 and STR at like 152 or something.
Good Buffs for Victimize include Ferocity 2, Hawk's Eye and Murderous Intent. I always use Weapons with the highest crit rate to maximize damage on Victimize, Jade Hora at 50.
Playing with this style is really fun because it is always fun to see a ton of damage in one hit while also helping the party out with TP gain (Comrade in Arms) and Hate control actions. Using Pummel is a great way to get the TP needed for 2k Victimize.
Only used in pt play

Tank
I've had a lot of people skeptical about PUG tanking, but have proved them all wrong. With a blink tank I can put guildleves on harder difficulties and tank mobs that a glad would otherwise take too much damage from. The way it works, since I don't really have blink, is it combines evasive actions with stunning actions to allow for my evasive actions to cooldown and recast. Abilities include Featherfoot, Diversion, Leg sweep, jarring strike and light strike. My main attack is light strike to keep the evasion boost going, I also keep defender up since i'm looking to minimize damage. I try to keep an eye on evading so i can counter with jarring strike which hopefully stuns the mob and allows me to recast featherfoot. Diversion is an emergency ability incase i'm caught without shadows, since it is a 1:30 recast.
My main weaponskills are Jarring strike and Feint, which allows me to keep hate pretty easily. I use only Provoke Taunt and Accomplice.
The only downside to Nin tank is the inability to tank more than 2 mobs, therefore, I don't bother with abilities like Warmonger. I stack evasion like mad, using earrings, DEX, and anything that offers high Evasion.
Mainly used in pt play.

DD
This is probably the easiest and most casual form of playing Pug. Main attacks are Heavy Strike and Flurry for a constant barrage of damage. Abilities include anything and everything that buffs weapon skills using a wide range of weapon skills but mainly from PUG actions to maximize effectiveness.
Good for soloing or pt play.

I have a lot of fun building these classes and switching according to what events are happening. Do not neglect the guild mark abilities from the magic classes such as: Complete control and will to power these take attributes from otherwise useless stats and puts them into the main ones. These are invaluable because they give you 5-10 points no questions asked. What do I mean? Example: Say you have 127 points in DEX and want to add another 5 points, that would cost you 20 Skill points, where as if you got Complete control, it takes 5 points away from MND and adds it into DEX. You effectively just increased your DEX by 5 without using SP.

[Sephriem]

Magic attacks dont have to be direct, could be AoE and lets face it Shell does almost nothing (at least to me).
There are a lot Bomb, Imp and Elemental enemies so I think there are enough reasons to have a bit of Better defence.
Anyway I kinda get what you mean, but I still feel that Magic Defence is important (raises your MP pool too).

Where i use light materials, the magic defense is usually faily high, it's probabaly only 20 or so points below my DEF ^^.
as far as aloting stat points, as most people stating the 'broken / insignificant notice', of Attribute points, i put it down to how much i will use, in terms of MP i have enough to sustain maybe an hour or so curing myself, alot less if i have to cure another, i do have syphon MP though ^^.

i also use light strike fully instead of casting protect, ive noticed, light strike seems to be better than protect after just three strikes in a row.
took a screen the other day cause my hp was 1337 =o.
I do still keep testing set ups as i rank up, i enjoy it alot.

[Zenaku]

PUGs would never use Mind reason for it because it's not a monk. I would like for SE to change all the class name back to FFXI titles like PUG becoming monk then we could use kick attack and more magic attacks second wind is ok but monk chakra and added some MND could give us more then 500hp per use.

By the looks of few interviews they there thinking of doing a tree base system or unlock jobs within your class. So level up Pug to 50 you can now become a Monk or other class. I think i would like the idea of unlocking class it would brig more storyline then just a tree.