Newish Paladin Assistance help

[Shibayama]

I understand that for the most part, these boards are used as a gateway to communicate with SE, but I figure I would be able to get some good advice here from you guys.

So anyway, I decided to level paladin awhile back and as of now I am level 80. I'm assuming that most people assume that once you get to 75 you are expected to be *good* at your job. However, I have had no prior experience playing paladin in an endgame or even abyssea setting - my experience with it for the first 60 levels or so were old-school 6-man parties and afterwards it was GoV books till 72ish and then dominion parties.

I know stuff about the various types of emnity and have all the right merits and things but right now I have more of a paper understanding of the job as apposed to a functional one. I don't really know things like how to properly time my abilities for the best defensive results or to get emnity, especially how to play /nin and how to maintain hate against heavy DD's. Another thing I'm confused about is the priority of stats - as far as I can tell, flat damage taken -gear seems to be the priority and having full creed +2 seems to be a good idea as far as I know, but where do the other stats like HP+, VIT, MDB ect come into play - what should be prioritized (aside from the obvious "use MDB gear against mages" thing. Good places/mobs to skill up shield skill which is now quite low due to group-leveling?

If anybody could share their wisdom or even link me to an exceptionally good 75+ pld guide I would really appreciate it. I know there are a lot of frustrations with the current position of PLD in the non-voidwatch scene and honestly I would rather take the time to learn how to be an exceptional paladin than to race to 95 and be a gimp in full +2.

[Greatguardian]

This is a little something I wrote up that you may find useful. (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/10087-A-Treatise-on-Fundamental-Game-Mechanics-in-the-Context-of-Early-2010-Paladin)

As far as shield skillups go, I highly recommend just grabbing some Regen atmas and hitting Abyssea - Altep, Flux #06 (I think?) and linking a bunch of Fear Deargs, the black Mandragora. They'll hit for 0 a lot with Phalanx up with will cap your shield skill in no time flat.

In general, don't mix/match gear based on what you're fighting. Just create different full sets that you can swap into as the situation dictates. For example, you'll want a full PDT set, a full MDT set (I go over the difference between MDT and MDB in my thread above), a full TP set, and a bunch of others with the ability to switch between them on the fly. For example, swapping to your MDT set when a big baddie starts casting Ultima, and then swapping back to TP afterwards.

If there's anything else in particular you're not quite sure of, feel free to ask.

[Shibayama]

Wow, this is really some in-depth stuff going on here. It looks like I have my reading material for before bed haha.

I do have a question though about the ability Cover - did the modifications to the effect and duration of it make it a more viable way to grab hate from big DD's to the point where it would be worth meriting 5/5 along with sentinal recast?

[Greatguardian]

Wow, this is really some in-depth stuff going on here. It looks like I have my reading material for before bed haha.

I do have a question though about the ability Cover - did the modifications to the effect and duration of it make it a more viable way to grab hate from big DD's to the point where it would be worth meriting 5/5 along with sentinal recast?

Personally, I would not bother meriting the duration. The Enmity transfer is done at the usage of the ability, so you don't get any additional Enmity transferred to you for covering your party member longer. In fact, Cover has generally been counterproductive as an Enmity tool because the DD with high Enmity is not taking hits (and thus not losing Enmity), while the Paladin trying to get hate is taking hits (and thus losing Enmity from damage).

If all you want to do is make sure that you're getting hit for a few more seconds instead of the DD, then Cover is useful and the duration increase is useful. But if what you're after is increasing your Enmity and decreasing the DD's Enmity, it's actually more efficient to just use Cover on them and then let them take a hit to lower their Enmity even further.

Personally, I only really use Cover for an easy MP refill, lol. Valor Surcoat is pretty handy.

Edit: Note that I haven't really messed with it that much post-update so if I'm flat out wrong, and Cover does transfer additional Enmity for every hit you take, please please please correct me.

[Anethia]

Meriting cover duration is a waste of merits. The enmity transfer of cover is minimal at best and unfortunately has a similar mechanic to old school SATA (sneak attack/trick attack) in that it only works with a perfect alignment between the mob and the cover target. But from my own experience on pld from 2004 to now is that most DD's have no idea how the ability works and they keep moving around and getting ticked off at you for not doing your job.

Like GG said, macro valor surcoat into your cover if you are looking for an increased duration. For merits I suggest looking to put merits into chivalry recast, rampart recast, sentinel recast, iron will (spell interrupt down during rampart), and guardian (decreased enmity loss while using sentinel). Rampart and sentinel are my suggestions due to the enmity gain they provide.

Edit: I wouldn't bother with meriting shield bash, sure it's a nice hate tool and good in a pinch for stun. But there are other jobs that can spam stun much better than paladin, notably blue Mage with 8 variations if you really need a stun whore.

Edit 2: HP+ gear is not as high of a priority as you would think. MP+ is a better choice when you can afford it, especially in merits. MP always > HP, if you look at MP like a latent pool of HP and enmity, it can only help you. Vit+ these days is as outdated as adaman gear. With godly defense stats of creed +1/2 you can afford to sacrifice vitality in favor of more offensive stats or enmity + gear.

[Greatguardian]

Just to be clear, Valor Surcoat does not affect Cover duration. It just converts 20% of damage taken to MP if you wear it while actively covering someone. Back when I played Paladin more actively (I'm usually Armageddon COR for Voidwatch), my co-tank and I would often cover each other whenever we needed to refill our MP bars.

[Arcon]

[..] my co-tank and I would often cover each other whenever we needed to refill our MP bars.

I was kinda shocked to discover how rarely this was used. Maybe it had to do with Valor Surcoat not being the most common drop, so most people wouldn't get much use out of it.

About HP gear, it's not entirely useless, and in fact I wouldn't gear for MP at all (unless you're an obsessed perfectionist like me and have a dedicated PLD/SCH healing set). Most MP gear reduces or leaves out other stats that are more important. And in these days when you can get 20 MP/tick refresh outside of Abyssea, max MP counts for very little.

HP gear on the other hand can be very useful in a number of situations, most popularly the "Cure IV cheat" - even with full HP, start casting Cure IV, and before it finishes casting equip HP+ gear. As a result, you get lots of enmity, even though your HP was full before (in your melee/tanking set). You can even leave it on for the next hit, then switch back to your normal set, so you effectively don't lose any HP.

It's also useful for high damage moves. Usually you'll go for PDT or MDT/MDB, but if you're capped in those, you can equip HP gear for the remaining slots. That's because enmity loss is affected by your max HP. So the higher your max HP when you take damage, the less enmity you will lose.

I hope this all doesn't sound too complicated, the truth is, to be efficient at PLD, you will need a lot of macros and gear swapping. I notice the difference a lot more on PLD than almost any other job. But it's also one of the jobs I like playing the most. Once you have it down, you'll start to think as a PLD, which will make other parts of the game and different game mechanics easier to understand. I believe PLD is one of the jobs that requires the most knowledge of the game mechanics and party dynamics. As such, it is a great learning experience.