More Paladin-centered shields needed to close the gap with Aegis & Ochain

[Hayward]

OK, things were bad before with these lazy-minded players shouting "Aegis/Ochain PLD only" for any and all endgame events, but now it's gotten to the point people might as well not even level the job now without either of these supposedly rare items.

I'm calling on S-E to design shields that close the gap between these and shields that non-hardcore players can build or buy. I've recommended a Magian Elemental path series that allows different attributes and augments before, but I'd also like to see crafted shields that also narrow this chasm that has led to this lazy-mindedness.

No job should ever find itself locked out of events due to a lack of R/M/E/D weapons/gear. This, above all else, is killing the game.

[Camiie]

You'll probably get a lot of flak for saying what you did, but you're absolutely right. If a job is essentially non-functional without an item of that caliber then the job is highly flawed. If the perception is that a job is essentially non-functional without an item of that caliber, when that is not actually the case, then the perception is highly flawed.

[saevel]

Yeah it's gotten to the point where unless you have an O.Chain you don't even come PLD. SE's fault for making those shields so broken in the first place, then making NM's with such high offensive power that their needed in the first place.

[Mirage]

Totally agreed. non-aegischain shields are extremely far behind, while RMEs actually have weapons that are pretty close or better (before SoA), depending on which level version you're talking about. You will find common weapons that are close to or better lv85 (and sometimes lv90 RMEs), but there are no shields in the entire game that even get within ten miles of aegis and ochain, even when we're talking about their lv85 versions.

We need common shields that are as good as ochain is at 90, and aegis is at 75. The delve shield is a complete joke. We need something with a lot bunch of Magic Defense Bonus and a high block rate, and something with no MDB and an even higher block rate (and that has very strong blocks). Ochain lets you regain MP when you block, so even if you add a common lv99 shield that block as often and for as much as a lv90 ochain, 90ochain will still be better, and 99ochain will be even better than that again.

Actually, you could probably add a shield that is equivalent to a 90 ochain in block rate, but have it block 20% less damage than ochain, and then put a converts 10% (or 15%) of damage taken to MP upon block, and it still wouldn't really make ochain wielders wet their pants.

Seriously, SE. You need to do this.

[Taint2]

Steadfast shield. Easy to get and very good.
DEF50 is a big deal with a 65% block rate. There are also Rumors of lots of 0s using the shield.


Same can be said of Adamas, it just takes more prep work.

[Traxus]

The increased block rate from reprisal dissipates after blocking a certain number of hits, adamas sucks.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Yeah it's gotten to the point where unless you have an O.Chain you don't even come PLD.

"Gotten to?" It's been "Bring Aegis or bring another job" practically since the Aegis was introduced.

[CrystalWeapon]

It's not just a pld issue. I have friends who can't get any of the key items due to their choice in a main job.

If you have Whm, Cor, Brd, (R/E/M/D)sam, (R/E/M/D)mnk, or (R/E shield)pld then you're good to go for just about everything. Other than that it's all a matter of luck whether or not you'll be able to make any damn progress.

[OmnysValefor]

Oh well, gonna be the naysayer.

If you like the job, invest the time. Aegis hardly requires hardcore playtime to build. Ochain will take longer, but it doesn't either. If you go do 2 VNM a night 45m-2hr, depending on your upgrades/competition), you'll have your vnm done in a month.

Aegis is soloable (farm/buy your currency). VNMs are soloable with Aegis (except Diabolos).

As others, though in support of your post, have pointed out, Paladin is not the only job that needs REMd to be viable in players' eyes right now.

Why should players who committed themselves--yes, like me--be effectively nerfed, because you don't want to build your shield?

(Edit: Tad over-the-top with previous line. :))

An aegis pld can tank most the delve NMs just fine. An ochain is safer on the scorpion, and shield swapping is best, but that's the commitment it takes.

[Duelle]

Oh well, gonna be the naysayer.

Why should players who committed themselves--yes, like me--be effectively nerfed, because you don't want to build your shield?You mean besides Aegis/Ochain acting as on/off switches for paladin viability being fundamentally wrong and unfair to anyone that wants to pick up the damn job?

This also applies to other jobs where RME are on/off switches.

OP has it right, as the gap between a non-Aegis/Ochain PLD and an Aegis/Ochain PLD is huge. The main question is whether it should be resolved via new shields or whether a revamp of shield mechanics is in order and reitemization of shield stats to fit within the new model.

[Dantedmc]

Why should players who committed themselves--yes, like me--be effectively nerfed, because you don't want to build your shield?



Sorry, but you're not getting nerfed. Your Ochain will function exactly the same. The gap needs to be closed period. I don't think anyone is asking for an easier to obtain shield that is better or even on par with Ochain / Aegis, just a shield that allows pld to be played. It's sad seeing delve shouts take a Twilight Zombie over a non Ochain / Aegis pld, but its happening because frankly its more useful.

The fact that PLD can't even function without one of these shields shows that SE needs to look into the job and look for real solutions instead of making band-aids that many players won't be able to achieve.

[Yarly]

SE should just make PLD take zero damage from magic and physical. Therefore you don't even need a shield, just come on a naked PLD99 and you can just tank everything.

That will help all the people who don't have time to make an aegis and ochain!

[Duelle]

SE should just make PLD take zero damage from magic and physical. Therefore you don't even need a shield, just come on a naked PLD99 and you can just tank everything.Despite your failed attempt at sarcasm, the implementation of shields has always been questionable at best. It's almost like they built the whole system around Aegis/Ochain being the best with little concern for anything below those two shields or the implications on player survivability. The until-recent wonkyness of shield blocking did not help at all, and was part of why NIN could wipe the floor with PLD in the tanking department for as long as it did (yes, I still remember the days of lolshield and how you needed an earth staff to tank things).

[OmnysValefor]

You mean besides Aegis/Ochain acting as on/off switches for paladin viability being fundamentally wrong and unfair to anyone that wants to pick up the damn job?

This also applies to other jobs where RME are on/off switches.

OP has it right, as the gap between a non-Aegis/Ochain PLD and an Aegis/Ochain PLD is huge. The main question is whether it should be resolved via new shields or whether a revamp of shield mechanics is in order and reitemization of shield stats to fit within the new model.

Yes, exactly. Aegis/Ochain is an on/off switch.

REM was an on/off switch for a lot of jobs.

It takes effort to build and it's a shame if people don't want to commit themselves. I have jobs I don't want to commit to, and I do half-bake, and ya know what? I take no offense when people don't want them.

If you haven't built either shield, you're not at all being serious about pld.

[OmnysValefor]

Sorry, but you're not getting nerfed. Your Ochain will function exactly the same. The gap needs to be closed period. I don't think anyone is asking for an easier to obtain shield that is better or even on par with Ochain / Aegis, just a shield that allows pld to be played. It's sad seeing delve shouts take a Twilight Zombie over a non Ochain / Aegis pld, but its happening because frankly its more useful.

The fact that PLD can't even function without one of these shields shows that SE needs to look into the job and look for real solutions instead of making band-aids that many players won't be able to achieve.

Haven't tried, because I don't need too, but if it was me, I'd try pld/rdm in a size 3 shield. Keep up aquaveil, proper bar element, and ice spikes. You could probably tank both the cricket and buttflies in Czeizak.

I make no assumptions about anyone, but most of these PLDs I see in steadfast shield are 5/5 Creed +2 (or +1...). They don't bring a DT kit. If they've bothered with dark rings, their 2% rings.

With most people, the people that won't commit to a relic/empy/mythic/upgrading-delve won't commit to other huge expenditures either, whether the cost be time or money. IE, war/drks that wouldn't build armadaberk, let alone adaberk.

There are two mindsets people bring to a job, and it can vary from job to job: I'm gonna put everything into this and do my best. / I'm gonna half-bake this and if it's not good enough, whatever. Noble's tunic whms, perle bsts, etc.

[FrankReynolds]

Yes, exactly. Aegis/Ochain is an on/off switch.

REM was an on/off switch for a lot of jobs.

It takes effort to build and it's a shame if people don't want to commit themselves. I have jobs I don't want to commit to, and I do half-bake, and ya know what? I take no offense when people don't want them.

If you haven't built either shield, you're not at all being serious about pld.

There shouldn't be an on/off switch period. If you think there should be then your not serious about anything.

[OmnysValefor]

There shouldn't be an on/off switch period. If you think there should be then your not serious about anything.

That makes no sense. You can disagree with my opinion, but your reply doesn't make any sense. We play the game SE made. SE has designed a game where if you're serious about goals, you gear the very best you can. If you don't play seriously, and to your best, you encounter an on/off switch.

I didn't ask for Aegis/Ochain to be required, but I--and many others--saw that it was, and so we made them. Gjallarhorn bards didn't ask to need to build Empy as well, but the extra song(s) makes their group better.

(Edit: As I was caught for not elaborating, I'm talking about bard in truly-hard content, like Delve's Mega Bosses. PLD hits the ceiling much much earlier than bard.)

In the funny case of both those jobs, many people made them even when the jobs were grossly underused for a lot of content in hopes that they'd be useful again.

[Demon6324236]

Yes, exactly. Aegis/Ochain is an on/off switch.

REM was an on/off switch for a lot of jobs.No, it was never a on/off switch for other jobs except in Legion and maybe Prov Watcher, besides that it was simply the ignorant community forcing people to have certain things, like how people shout for Hahava and only want RME DDs when its a NM I could literally take down with only 3 well geared people, if that.

For PLD on the other hand, I have a PLD with capped MDT and quite a bit of MDB on it and yet some VW mobs, specifically the Demon adds, were able to 1-shot my PLD, other mobs can still bust out terribly high numbers which can lead to near instant death. A PLD with Aegis is taking 1/4th of the damage of a non-Aegis PLD who is capping MDT, before MDB gear, that 3/4ths extra damage is often enough to make a huge ass difference! Now if you get hit for a nuke for 100 its obviously nothing, my PLD takes about 50 yours takes about 12, both are very low, but what if its a nuke for, say, 2k, I get hit for 1k, you get hit for 240ish, now I am near dead and you are perfectly healthy. The difference there is a 75% difference, DDs at most have a 20~30% increase with their strongest weapon versus a decently easy to obtain weapon, except DRG, which is a special exception obviously.

Ochain is similar to Aegis, but not as much so. Ochain is like Apoc is to DRK in a way, it opens doors you did not have before, its not as important for your primary role, tanking everything, but against Physical damage its by far the best, what other shield has a block rate even close to it besides Aegis? What shield blocks this much damage? What shield, hell, what gear at all gives back this much MP to a tank that can heal itself? Ochain is by far the best shield on non-magic mobs, the gap on that is not messurable as easily as Aegis, but the gap is large enough that it makes such a difference that a non-Ochain PLD can tank 5~10 mobs while struggling, and an Ochain PLD can tank 15 mobs without looking at the screen practically.

The gaps between a RMED DD and a non-RMED DD is much smaller than that of a RE PLD and any other PLD.

[Demon6324236]

I didn't ask for Aegis/Ochain to be required, but I--and many others--saw that it was, and so we made them. Gjallarhorn bards didn't ask to need to build Empy as well, but the extra song(s) makes their group better.Whoa... what? How does that comparison make sense? Last I checked I have never seen anyone request only R/E or R+E BRDs, I have seen people request that of a PLD and refuse those who did not have them, RE BRDs have never been basically forced into those items unless it was by a linkshell, and often a linkshell which does that ends up putting in time to assist with it anyways, which is different because they are forcing you but assisting you with it all the same. PLDs are expected to have R or E or they are simply ignored and thought not worth bringing because of the difference between a normal PLD, and a RE PLD. One is a basic requirement to play the job practically, the other is optional most the time, and when its forced on you its normally by the same people helping you to get it in the first place. Your comparison here is a failure.

[OmnysValefor]

Sorry, R/E in hard stuff, when you're winning by seconds.

Yeah, delve shouts will darn-near take a naked bard if they must, but hard content (not hard for a particular person, but truly hard, like Tojin right now) want relic/empy bards.

But yeah, fair enough, I didn't elaborate and bard doesn't hit the ceiling nearly as early as pld.

[Yinnyth]

No job should ever find itself locked out of events due to a lack of R/M/E/D weapons/gear. This, above all else, is killing the game.

All jobs have similar expectations of them. If 25% of people who played bard in endgame had a 99 daurdabla and a 99 gjallarhorn, you would see shouts for bards requiring them to have both. Luckily for me, most people don't really enjoy playing bard, and even those who do usually don't put forth much effort into making their bard any good, so expectations on me are a little bit lower. Even though having both of these items makes a bard as strong as 2 bards combined, why do you suppose shouts don't require bards to have both? Because they could shout all year and never get a single reply.

But you see these shouts for RMED melees because RMED are strong weapons, and enough of the population of the server has gotten one of these weapons that the person shouting doesn't need to bet the farm on a DD who claims to be skilled enough to overcome the fact that he's single-wielding joyeuse. If you had a shield in the game that was slightly weaker than ochain and aegis, do you really think the ochain and aegis shouts would stop? No, Aegis and Ochain are still better, and there's still hundreds of them on the server. Why beg for pennies when begging for gold bars has a similar success rate?

Players create these requirements on one another. Players, above all else, are killing the game.

[Raksha]

Yeah, all the players should quit! That'll fix the game!

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Players create these requirements on one another.

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

[Yinnyth]

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

You really think we're taking SE's updates along the path they intended? They can design as much as they want, we'll find a short cut which has nothing to do with the path designed by SE. Then SE will have to remedy it, and players will bitch and moan, then find another short cut. Then the cycle continues.

I think the difference in our stances is this: you see the playerbase as a constant, and the devs as a variable while I see the inverse.

Edit: I really shouldn't have used the term "constant", because both are variables in truth. My belief is that my chances of changing the playerbase are greater than my chances of changing what goes into an update. This belief comes from nearly 10 years of experience in the game where none of my suggestions have ever been taken by devs, but in spite of my lack of control over our direction, I have made the game more enjoyable for several players and continue to attempt doing so.

Sometimes the team captain doesn't want you on his team because you can't do as many push-ups as Johnny. That doesn't make the creator of the game a jerk, it makes the team captain a jerk.

[OmnysValefor]

Players are only taking the path of least resistance, a path designed by S-E.

^

Tank parties may well need additional support/backup tanks, taking further dd spots from the alliance slowing the delve runs.

Let's be honest, delve farming is boring. It's cruel and unusual. THe faster in, faster out, the better for us all.

[Lisotte]

For me the issue is that while I'd kind of like to try paladin, to do that the first order of business is thus: go make 90 ochain.
I'm not going to make an empy right off the bat for a job I'm new at/trying out, and there's practically NOTHING that a non-ochain pld is useful for (worth doing anyway; 75 content and such aside). Maybe a few of the easier aby nm's or something.

Comparing that to brd which I am picking up, sure I don't have ghorn or daurdabla but I can still do worthwhile things; it's possible to get experience on the job while plasm farming (for which the bar is pretty low).

[Alerith]

I have to disagree with the idea. The difference in power between some of the better shields and R/E shields is about on par in a similar way as the weapons are.

Seigneur Shield vs Ochain, for example, is along the same lines as Honorbound to Almace.

There is supposed to be a notable performance gap between the two due to the nature of the ultimate weapons/shields/instruments.

What I would agree with, however, is that the content should not be designed around having the ultimates. The benefit of having an ultimate weapon/shield/instrument is to have that much of an advantage in content designed around the average gear level.

I would say it's actually a design flaw to balance content around R/M/E owners, because then this silly "Aegischain PLD" kind of stuff pops up, similar to "R/M/E DD" for Voidwatch. Content should be balanced around average weaponry/defenses and R/M/E should be an augment, not a requirement.

[Yinnyth]

Content should be balanced around average weaponry/defenses and R/M/E should be an augment, not a requirement.

RME is not a requirement. You can beat skirmish with magian weapons. You can beat first-tier delve and naakuals with skirmish weapons. You can beat second-tier delve with first-tier delve gear and skirmish/naakual weapons. You can beat final-tier delve with second-tier delve gear and weapons. RME is a bonus, just like you describe.


The problem exists in the fact that so many people have an RME (and now delve weapon) that they can specifically request "RMED" and they will get one, so why would they ever settle for someone who didn't have one of these? To them, RMED is the norm and anything less than that is slow and unreliable. There are so many well-geared players that it is very easy to be undergeared.

[OmnysValefor]

The other problem is that when you balance hard content around average players, the players who tried the hardest feel no challenge.

[Hexadecimal]

Why should players who committed themselves--yes, like me--be effectively nerfed, because you don't want to build your shield?

I'd like to you know how you're being effectively nerfed by someone else being able to get a decent shield that would be useable and useful until you can complete the content to get an Aegis or Ochain (or both). People can't learn to play the job when they aren't being used in any of the relevant content. I'm speaking as a veteran Paladin.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

being able to get a decent shield that would be useable and useful until you can complete the content to get an Aegis or Ochain (or both).

I think it's worth noting that a PLD lacking an R/E shield isn't even useful in the activities required to obtain an R/E shield. It's a catch-22.

[OmnysValefor]

Easy--Anyone can farm dynamis now. Literally anyone can build an Aegis right now. 0 help is required to build 75 aegis.

Trialing it probably requires help, but a perle bst can and surely have built 75 aegis, as have aurore thieves and blus.

Nothing is holding players back from aquiring aegis except putting it off.

In 75 Aegis, you can solo your VNM trial. I know because I did quite a bit solo. Friends helped, when they were free, but a lot of times, I was out there pld/dnc for Leviathan or pld/thf or Ifrit. I did mine with 95 aegis but 75 aegis, shell IV, and MDT gear will get you pretty close to magic cap. You'll probably kill slower than I did, but I didn't kill exactly fast..

Ifrit was no threat to me at all. Leviathan wasn't really except that while he's casting, he's got a mean 100/tic poison aura. Stunning that, or healing through it, requires /dnc.

Azdaja... you'll most certainly need help with, if you don't have a curebox.

[Duelle]

What I would agree with, however, is that the content should not be designed around having the ultimates. The benefit of having an ultimate weapon/shield/instrument is to have that much of an advantage in content designed around the average gear level.

I would say it's actually a design flaw to balance content around R/M/E owners, because then this silly "Aegischain PLD" kind of stuff pops up, similar to "R/M/E DD" for Voidwatch. Content should be balanced around average weaponry/defenses and R/M/E should be an augment, not a requirement.The problem then becomes how much more powerful RME should be compared to an average weapon. Maybe the gap between Honorbound and Almace should be smaller in order to acommodate this direction you suggest. Otherwise people will RME are going to steamroll the content with the way things are currently designed because the difference in power is that notable.

[Kincard]

Ochain and Aegis are fundamentally broken pieces of equipment because they make PLD nearly invincible. They should've never gotten to be as strong as they are. This is not just a PLD issue but also a tank issue in general. Nobody is going to give a shit about RUN or NIN as long as these two shields exist, unless SE plans on adding even more broken items for both these jobs.

[FrankReynolds]

That makes no sense. You can disagree with my opinion, but your reply doesn't make any sense. We play the game SE made. SE has designed a game where if you're serious about goals, you gear the very best you can. If you don't play seriously, and to your best, you encounter an on/off switch.

I didn't ask for Aegis/Ochain to be required, but I--and many others--saw that it was, and so we made them. Gjallarhorn bards didn't ask to need to build Empy as well, but the extra song(s) makes their group better.

(Edit: As I was caught for not elaborating, I'm talking about bard in truly-hard content, like Delve's Mega Bosses. PLD hits the ceiling much much earlier than bard.)

In the funny case of both those jobs, many people made them even when the jobs were grossly underused for a lot of content in hopes that they'd be useful again.

It makes perfect sense. When asked about playing paladin, no one should ever be told "Go level beast, spend the next few months in dynamis If you're lucky you'll be ready to do content with everyone else on paladin in less than six months. Have fun playing paladin!... I hope you like it...".

People should be able to do content in between level 1 and aegis.

[OmnysValefor]

The problem is that the "thing" you're wanting to do is among the hardest things in the game, as a whole. No melee lets to half-bake gear a job and get in. Standards for most mages are pretty high, save bard.

Bard is about the only exception.

On my server, I do see non aegis/ochains in delve.. and personally, I groan. Typically they're players that above been around for years, because I've seen them around that long, and their paladin is half baked, stacking 300 more in HP gear at the expense of any DT gear, because they're waiting for a good shield "besides aegis/ochain".

Yeah, most of them have steadfast.

These are also the same people who think supertanking is a compliment and don't listen. They don't farm +2 gear, they don't care. Truth is, they want to skip many tiers of gear.

Paladin, on the content it is required in, has always been the crux of success, and people are silly for trying to bring anything less than their best. Even in voidwatch, when paladin was only an add-jockey most of the time, if you lost the pld, you lost the event.

People around here seem fond of talking about having to level other jobs to gear your main jobs.. as if it's something new. Unless your main was favored for that era, that's always been a part of FFXI. This isn't a new thing. My BLM, WHM, THF probably (I might have anyway), BLU, NIN, BST (ugh I never wanted to level bst) are only as geared as they are because I was questing to better my PLD, and I'm far from the only person to do this.

I've just finished levelling, and began gearing bard, simply so I can have more delve shouts. Spells cost me about 2 million gil. Don't see me complaining. (And yeah, I'm gonna deck it out. It's a fun job.)

Why do I want more delve? To gear my other jobs, including my pld, better.

[Karbuncle]

I'mma have to agree with OP after reading the first page. Gap is huge.

[Zigfreid]

I suppose it is a bit of a shame. The shields do have quite the gap. Ochain being the biggest in my opinion. Palisade was a step in the right direction as far as block rate goes, however. Maybe that should be touched on, tier 3 merits maybe?

I have both shields and love them both. As most have pointed out they are almost required in the content you actually bring PLD to now. Here's the thing though: it is possible to tank delve nms without these shields. Possible. It would almost be tempting to use a different shield just to toy around since I never got to use Adamas or any of the other new shields.

The catch here is that you would really need a near perfect PDT and MDT set along with an on the ball healer to back you. The killing point is that most of your average players just don't have these or just don't care enough. Most of the players that are willing to spend the time to gear well enough to handle it without the shields either already have 1 or both or are making progress to getting them.

Edit: Spacing

[OmnysValefor]

Bingo, they're not looking for second-best, or a stepping stone. We're not 75 or 90 anymore. The content to acquire these doesn't need much help.

I guess I'm just of a different mindset than most people here, but I came back to XI, saw that I could obtain Aegis, and I set about doing that. It's not a hurdle, it's a goal. Back in 75 days, I would have completely agreed. Koenig shield didn't even belong in the same linkshell as an aegis and you felt gimp if you were standing next to gold in your purple and there wasn't a lot you could do about it unless you were in a really good gil position/had an ls devoted to you, or stole/bought gil (as was the source of a fair portion of relics).

[Radd]

I love it when people support bad game design.

"You must level this job and do a bunch of mundane/repetitive things to even consider playing this other job at PAR." This is what you are saying, and that is the problem with FFXI currently. I don't get why people don't see that, unless they want other people to suffer for hours on end just to play the interesting parts of this game, which is a joke. RME of any kind should be a tool, not a requirement.

[Demon6324236]

You see it as a goal, but you main PLD, what about anyone who does not main PLD? Are only people with excess amounts of time/gil and PLD mains the only people allowed to really play PLD in any meaningful content? I do not mean the hardest stuff in the game, like Delve bosses, I mean older content, VW for instance, or Legion, hell even Odin II adds and really anything level 99 in general. Are Relic and Emp PLDs the only PLDs that should really be useful in this content? Should other shields not truly be useful to some degree that allows people to play the job even if not as effectivly?

[OmnysValefor]

I love it when people support bad game design.

"You must level this job and do a bunch of mundane/repetitive things to even consider playing this other job at PAR." This is what you are saying, and that is the problem with FFXI currently. I don't get why people don't see that, unless they want other people to suffer for hours on end just to play the interesting parts of this game, which is a joke. RME of any kind should be a tool, not a requirement.

FFXI has been this way for as long as I've played it.

You could enjoy your job all you wanted but when it came time to do endgame, you sometimes had to get on a different job. This is not new. I loved my paladin, but I leveled nin so I could have merit invites cuz pld certainly wasn't getting them. This is XI.

Abyssea made it even worse 2/3 of the jobs were worthless most of the time.

[OmnysValefor]

You see it as a goal, but you main PLD, what about anyone who does not main PLD? Are only people with excess amounts of time/gil and PLD mains the only people allowed to really play PLD in any meaningful content? I do not mean the hardest stuff in the game, like Delve bosses, I mean older content, VW for instance, or Legion, hell even Odin II adds and really anything level 99 in general. Are Relic and Emp PLDs the only PLDs that should really be useful in this content? Should other shields not truly be useful to some degree that allows people to play the job even if not as effectivly?

They're not the only pld's useful in the content. I see non aegis/ochains regularly enough. Maybe it's because Valefor sucks and our pool of puggable plds sucks but I see it often enough. I wonder, again, how effective pld/rdm would be for these guys, I've never seen one try it, but the small mdb, the fast cast, and ice spikes (for when reprisal is down), barspell. Yeah their mage can bar, but mages don't like to run into the fight. PLD/RDM and eat a taco. See how that goes.

I've yet to see one of these PLDs have a respectable DT kit, and a dt kit is for pld what a curing kit is for whm. If you don't have one, you honestly shouldn't play it in any serious setting.

[Demon6324236]

You could enjoy your job all you wanted but when it came time to do endgame, you sometimes had to get on a different job.What is endgame anymore? Seems to me almost all level 99 content involves an Aegis or Ochain requirement for PLD, so are you saying content made before level 99, like Abyssea or early VW, are about the only things that are non-EG?

[Demon6324236]

They're not the only pld's useful in the content. I see non aegis/ochains regularly enough. Maybe it's because Valefor sucks and our pool of puggable plds sucks but I see it often enough. I wonder, again, how effective pld/rdm would be for these guys, I've never seen one try it, but the small mdb, the fast cast, and ice spikes (for when reprisal is down), barspell. Yeah their mage can bar, but mages don't like to run into the fight. PLD/RDM and eat a taco. See how that goes./SCH if better than /RDM is for PLD now days thanks to skill boosts, on top of skill boosts you get the -na spells and erase, which provide an amazing bonus to your own ability to survive and maintain yourself, so long as you have echoes very little can stop you.


I've yet to see one of these PLDs have a respectable DT kit, and a dt kit is for pld what a curing kit is for whm. If you don't have one, you honestly shouldn't play it in any serious setting.So far as PLD goes, I like the job, but I do not main it, that is why I have no Aegis or Ochain, at the same time I have a capped PDT/MDT set with a lot of MDT on it as well and a good shield, yet every time I offer my PLD to someone they ask the same question... "Do you have Aegis or Ochain?" and my reply is always the same, I do not, but my PLD is well geared and I know how to play the job. After that, besides people I know and a few VW shouts, I have never really gotten a reply back for PLD, if anything I have to send another tell a few shouts later offering another job because my PLD didnt meet their specs, aka, Aegis/Ochain.

[Radd]

FFXI has been this way for as long as I've played it.

You could enjoy your job all you wanted but when it came time to do endgame, you sometimes had to get on a different job. This is not new. I loved my paladin, but I leveled nin so I could have merit invites cuz pld certainly wasn't getting them. This is XI.

Abyssea made it even worse 2/3 of the jobs were worthless most of the time.

You still haven't rectified or solved the problem. There is no "endgame" as you think of it anymore. It's all level 99 content, thus everyone should be at least be able to attempt it no matter the job they pick. This is the only MMO I can think of where I have to level, gear up, and grind out another job, just to play the job I want. It's makes no sense.


They're not the only pld's useful in the content. I see non aegis/ochains regularly enough. Maybe it's because Valefor sucks and our pool of puggable plds sucks but I see it often enough. I wonder, again, how effective pld/rdm would be for these guys, I've never seen one try it, but the small mdb, the fast cast, and ice spikes (for when reprisal is down), barspell. Yeah their mage can bar, but mages don't like to run into the fight. PLD/RDM and eat a taco. See how that goes.

I've yet to see one of these PLDs have a respectable DT kit, and a dt kit is for pld what a curing kit is for whm. If you don't have one, you honestly shouldn't play it in any serious setting.

I'm sorry, but a DT kit makes a big difference, yes, but you notice an even bigger gap when you have a DT set and a shield that can block 90-100% of the time, which also has a higher defense bonus on blocks compared to your standard size 3 kite shield.

You could practically be naked with Ochain and probably take just as much damage as someone in a fully geared out DT set with an older shield.

[Demon6324236]

You could practically be naked with Ochain and probably take just as much damage as someone in a fully geared out DT set with an older shield.Sadly I would actually think the PLD with DT and old shield might take more depending on the level of the mob, because so far as I know Ochain can hit a 100% block rate, and on anything that is not a NM Ochain+PDT+Phalanx basically means 0 DMG, where as a non-Ochain shield can take it down, but on most mobs it will take it down to 10~25, rather than a straight 0.

[OmnysValefor]

I was talking about the entirety of FFXI. It has always been that you can go fool around on whatever job you like. You have always been able to do outdated content with odd job combos. There's a very old vid of a blm/nin tanking byakko (@75). Yeah they used a stun rotation but it was cool to watch.

There were a certain few jobs you could be on and never want for anything, but even those changed over time.

BLM and WHM might be the only jobs that have always been safe bets to have in XI. So many jobs weren't welcome in old-endgame. So many jobs weren't welcome in merit parties, they weren't even welcome exping. Far too many jobs (most of the list) didn't have a lot of use in Abyssea. Voidwatch opened the spread back up but only because of the proc-system.

For 5 years now, we've had more jobs than you can even fit in an alliance, and when you consider 3 of those are going to whm/sch, 3+ are going to brd/cor, 2 are going to pld.. it gets pretty sad.

But it's how XI is designed. Don't ask me why.

[OmnysValefor]

Sadly I would actually think the PLD with DT and old shield might take more depending on the level of the mob, because so far as I know Ochain can hit a 100% block rate, and on anything that is not a NM Ochain+PDT+Phalanx basically means 0 DMG, where as a non-Ochain shield can take it down, but on most mobs it will take it down to 10~25, rather than a straight 0.

Every one of the delve NMs gets past my block rating with ochain. Not just the melee-only. The cricket gets some unblocked in, the raptor. Kurma does.

Ochain's *thing* is amazing block rate, but now that we're fighting NMs higher than our level again, Ochain isn't stoneskin.

The scorp got me for a 1329 death scissors the first day in about 40% PDT and Ochain. I survived it.

[Radd]

You have always been able to do outdated content with odd job combos.

Irrelevant.

Again, as I've said. You still aren't solving the problem. You are just supporting and making excuses for poor game design. At 75 it was pretty balanced. Nowadays, as I said, it's R/M/E or bust, and that's bullshit from any standpoint.

"Hey, you want to play this game and have fun? Well first you have to jump through 50 hoops, while juggling chainsaws, while tight rope walking over a pit of lava. After that, and only after that, you can attempt to try climbing Mt. Everest naked." This is how it currently feels to me, and it makes the game a pain to log into these days.

It also makes the game pretty boring when there's only one straight way to gear yourself. "Do this or you can't play." Sounds like a rule a 5 year old would make up.


Sadly I would actually think the PLD with DT and old shield might take more depending on the level of the mob, because so far as I know Ochain can hit a 100% block rate, and on anything that is not a NM Ochain+PDT+Phalanx basically means 0 DMG, where as a non-Ochain shield can take it down, but on most mobs it will take it down to 10~25, rather than a straight 0.

You'd probably be right. The shield is just that good, and it's even funnier that they made it such a bottleneck to get. If they are going to make RME stuff entry level, they should at least make it generally routine and simple to acquire now. If they make a Ochain/Aegis mix shield one day, I will probably just shake my head, because every other shield in the game would be instantly useless. Oh crap, I better not give them any ideas.

[Radd]

Every one of the delve NMs gets past my block rating with ochain. Not just the melee-only. The cricket gets some unblocked in, the raptor. Kurma does.

Ochain's *thing* is amazing block rate, but now that we're fighting NMs higher than our level again, Ochain isn't stoneskin.

The scorp got me for a 1329 death scissors the first day in about 40% PDT and Ochain. I survived it.

Holy hell, that just tells me it's even WORSE for someone without Ochain!

[Demon6324236]

Every one of the delve NMs gets past my block rating with ochain. Not just the melee-only. The cricket gets some unblocked in, the raptor. Kurma does.Like I said, depends on the level of the mob. On a high level mob they will do about the same, but on lower level mobs the Ochain PLD will take less nude than the fully geared PLD with a normal shield.

[OmnysValefor]

/SCH if better than /RDM is for PLD now days thanks to skill boosts, on top of skill boosts you get the -na spells and erase, which provide an amazing bonus to your own ability to survive and maintain yourself, so long as you have echoes very little can stop you.

So far as PLD goes, I like the job, but I do not main it, that is why I have no Aegis or Ochain, at the same time I have a capped PDT/MDT set with a lot of MDT on it as well and a good shield, yet every time I offer my PLD to someone they ask the same question... "Do you have Aegis or Ochain?" and my reply is always the same, I do not, but my PLD is well geared and I know how to play the job. After that, besides people I know and a few VW shouts, I have never really gotten a reply back for PLD, if anything I have to send another tell a few shouts later offering another job because my PLD didnt meet their specs, aka, Aegis/Ochain.

I know SCH is better, being able to cut reprisal's recast in half is very nice, stronger everything.

I simple pondered about being able to bar the significant source of the "TANK'S DEAD" damage from those two mobs. Bars aren't 100% proc, but they're better than nothing, although Hailstorm is not worthless^^.

Those same shouts are requiring the DDs to have relic/empies as well, and now delve.

I've seen one voidwatch shout looking for delve weapons. I /facepalm'd.

[Sephiran]

As a PLD with both Aegis and Ochain, I still completely agree with the original post. The job is essentially unplayable if you don't have either of these items. Before I got mine, no one wanted me for anything. When I look back on those days, I realize how fortunate I was to meet the right people to play with. I also realize that many players are nowhere near that lucky, so I must look at their situation with some serious compassion.

I wholeheartedly agree with adding more shields to bridge the gap. I don't feel infringed upon in the least.

[Duelle]

FFXI has been this way for as long as I've played it.Which does not excuse bad game design. Just because it was like this at one point does not excuse its existence. Probably would have helped to have more people comment on it earlier in the game's life, but that doesn't mean you just sit there and take it, either.

[Demon6324236]

Holy hell, that just tells me it's even WORSE for someone without Ochain!Potentially yes, potentially no. It sounds like it was not blocked, so you can remove the block rate and damage reduction, putting it down to base stats.

http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/b/bc/Ochain_%28Level_99%29_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/f/f1/Steadfast_Shield_description.png

Steadfast has 10 more defense than Ochain, but no VIT, which puts it 2.5 defense under Ochain before Augments, level 6 augments are the highest listed on BG. Lets assume for a minute that it has 10 VIT, without counting in HP either, that means Steadfast would be at 2.5 defense ahead, but 15 VIT behind. Now, on top of all of this you have to count in that you are getting 7% extra PDT, which means you could stack more Defense or Null/Absorb gear instead of just PDT gear. So in the end, its very easily possible that a non-Ochain PLD could be hit with less damage than an Ochain PLD, if they have a Steadfast with possible augments and enough gear elsewhere to make up for the difference, and the attack is not blocked by either of them.

[Radd]

Potentially yes, potentially no. It sounds like it was not blocked, so you can remove the block rate and damage reduction, putting it down to base stats.

http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/b/bc/Ochain_%28Level_99%29_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/f/f1/Steadfast_Shield_description.png

Steadfast has 10 more defense than Ochain, but no VIT, which puts it 2.5 defense under Ochain before Augments, level 6 augments are the highest listed on BG. Lets assume for a minute that it has 10 VIT, without counting in HP either, that means Steadfast would be at 2.5 defense ahead, but 15 VIT behind. Now, on top of all of this you have to count in that you are getting 7% extra PDT, which means you could stack more Defense or Null/Absorb gear instead of just PDT gear. So in the end, its very easily possible that a non-Ochain PLD could be hit with less damage than an Ochain PLD, if they have a Steadfast with possible augments and enough gear elsewhere to make up for the difference, and the attack is not blocked by either of them.

While this is true, the problem with this is that only matters when you fail the block check. In overall damage taken, the Ochain paladin will always take less physical damage over a larger amount of time due to the higher block rate alone. I guess it would make a big difference if it was the first hit and the only hit that lands on you, but you know fights last longer than that. lol

[OmnysValefor]

Which does not excuse bad game design. Just because it was like this at one point does not excuse its existence. Probably would have helped to have more people comment on it earlier in the game's life, but that doesn't mean you just sit there and take it, either.

It wasn't one point in the game's history... it's been that way for all the year's I've played it, and gotten worse about it. Abyssea was a severely low point, and Voidwatch was a forced-spike back in the other direction, but SE has never balanced DD and they've now 4 more jobs than you can fit in an alliance, and that's before the 6-8 spots that are spoken for by 3-5 jobs (bard, paladin, cor, whm, sch), and the dd spots want sams, drks, wars, and monks anyway.

[OmnysValefor]

While this is true, the problem with this is that only matters when you fail the block check. In overall damage taken, the Ochain paladin will always take less physical damage over a larger amount of time due to the higher block rate alone. I guess it would make a big difference if it was the first hit and the only hit that lands on you, but you know fights last longer than that. lol

His point was about taking less damage from a likely-killing blow, I'd imagine. If you take the tp moves away from the scorp, or at least death scissors, an rdm and buckler pdt capped buckler pld could hold it.

Yeah, there's no doubt that Ochain is more reliable than steadfast, or aegis, when it comes to physical damage.

[Demon6324236]

Those same shouts are requiring the DDs to have relic/empies as well, and now delve.Yes but there are 2 key differences.

1. A DD can make an Emp easier than a PLD can make an Ochain. Look at their Abyssea stages, a visions NM, 3 pop spots for the NM, KIs can be gotten from boxes, honestly, I think Ironclads are harder than most of them, the only harder here is Glavoid. The second trial is another NM, same way as the first, while Ochain has souls, where you have to farm up a T2 KI, which can take as few as 1~2 pops, or as many as 20+, its very random, then you got another big play of random with the T3 pops, which you have to fight to get to claim even most of the time. On top of everything, a DD only needs 50 of their items, while a PLD needs 75 for this stage. Then for your third stages, well, DDs do not even have to do this stage for parties to accept them most of the time, you have the WS and AM, at that point, your an Emp DD. Ochain does not get anything of any use till 90 though, so you get to do Azdaja, the most difficult NM in all of Abyssea in my opinion, and again, 75 items, now a DD needs 75 items for this stage too but as I said, they are thought to be an Emp DD at 85 anyways, so does this count for them even? If so, still, these NMs are easier than Azdaja. One last advantage DDs have over PLD, souls can not be brewed through, and not many jobs can solo the T3s, so you will probably need people, the same can not be said of Emp NMs, where many can be soloed by skilled and geared players, while brews can be used for mass killings as well.

God that was a long one... ok...

2. As it was said earlier, a PLD is the most vital role in anything you bring it to, if the PLD goes down, there is a high chance you are going to end up wiping. Why does this matter? Because, I assure you I can bring a possibly lacking DD, causing us to kill slower, more often than I can bring a lacking tank, which if they die, causes us all to wipe shortly after. One causes the party to be slower and drag things out, the other leads to absolute failure, a large difference to me.


I've seen one voidwatch shout looking for delve weapons. I /facepalm'd.Yeah, this kind of thing makes me want to just tell people off honestly, not because I have no Delve weapon, but because the weapon you are requesting is newer than the content itself! Its not like its Legion or Odin II, something which was challenging before Delve weapons, its VW, its been easy and its still easy, hell, with Delve weapons you probably wont even be able to cap lights on the thing before you kill it unless you tell your DDs to hold back, in which case, what was the point!?

[Radd]

His point was about taking less damage from a likely-killing blow, I'd imagine. If you take the tp moves away from the scorp, or at least death scissors, an rdm and buckler pdt capped buckler pld could hold it.

Yeah, there's no doubt that Ochain is more reliable than steadfast, or aegis, when it comes to physical damage.

Oh I got his point, but I was just saying that in an overall case of not getting oneshot, you would want ochain glued to your arm for physical attacks no matter what, because it's too broken.

[Demon6324236]

While this is true, the problem with this is that only matters when you fail the block check. In overall damage taken, the Ochain paladin will always take less physical damage over a larger amount of time due to the higher block rate alone. I guess it would make a big difference if it was the first hit and the only hit that lands on you, but you know fights last longer than that. lolYeah, I just meant that one specific hit to be exact would actually be worse for the Ochain PLD rather than for the non-Ochain PLD in that case. In the overall fight or in most cases, when a block is involved really, Ochain obviously takes full advantage and wins, but if you do not block it, then Ochain is worse off than Steadfast if done properly. Its another one of those situational things, kinda like how a Mythic is amazing with AM3, but without it, they suck, well, Steadfast is better than Ochain when Ochain fails to block, but when it blocks, its god.

[Radd]

Yeah, I just meant that one specific hit to be exact would actually be worse for the Ochain PLD rather than for the non-Ochain PLD in that case. In the overall fight or in most cases, when a block is involved really, Ochain obviously takes full advantage and wins, but if you do not block it, then Ochain is worse off than Steadfast if done properly. Its another one of those situational things, kinda like how a Mythic is amazing with AM3, but without it, they suck, well, Steadfast is better than Ochain when Ochain fails to block, but when it blocks, its god.

Pretty much, but the chances of it not blocking are very low to moderate in comparison to your standard size 3 shield, and that's the problem lol. Steadfast looks like a great piece, too bad it's held back by overall block percentages.

[Demon6324236]

Oh I got his point, but I was just saying that in an overall case of not getting oneshot, you would want ochain glued to your arm for physical attacks no matter what, because it's too broken.Admittedly the gap for Physical damage alone is not to large in my opinion on higher leveled mobs, its the advantage from the MP that creates the gap at that points in my opinion because a truly skilled PLD with the right gear can keep themselves alive forever so long as nothing hits them hard enough to basically kill them in 1 shot. No doubt you take less still, but the gap is more like a 20% gap, rather than 50% on lower levels. The MP on the other hand a non-Ochain PLD is not getting, while an Ochain PLD is recovering 25~35% of their MP back just by standing around and blocking, which lets them heal and keep casting a ton more. That goes back to what I said way earlier in here though, and that is that Ochain acts more like an Apoc does for a DRK, it opens that door to greater self sustainability, where as an Aegis is simply for taking hits only, kinda like Rag is just DMG power.


Pretty much, but the chances of it not blocking are very low to moderate in comparison to your standard size 3 shield, and that's the problem lol. Steadfast looks like a great piece, too bad it's held back by overall block percentages.True, and agreed, I just wanted to point out that it does have some use and in that exact situation it would have been better for a Steadfast than an Ochain was all. I know generally it would not be the case. Its block rate will always be better than any other, but the whole thing is that if its to high of a level and blocking is not as likely, it loses a great deal of its Physical reduction power. I don't think there is a point where overall damage would tip in Steadfast's favor, but I think there is a point where on higher level mobs it closes the gap a bit. Magic damage on the other hand, nothing besides Aegis breaks the cap on MDT that a PLD gets natively so far as I know, so that is a gap you can not bridge no matter the level or the shield.

[OmnysValefor]

I've got one last thing to say, but otherwise I'm done arguing, though I honestly have enjoyed your posts Demon^^. It's a silly difference of opinion.

(I will say I was wrong that a mid-level shield somehow nerfs people, like myself, who've built the shields. I DO think it's a bit of a slap in the face, but it doesn't affect me.)

I said my piece, a few times, and a few different ways and it's fine that people disagreed. A lot of people here merely speculating about what Ochain and Aegis must be like are creating illusions of grandeur. Why do I do well in Delve? Why does Zigfried (he's on my server, and were in the same shell for a short time)? We're both well geared PLDs. We don't equip Aegis, ask for Shell and go. We both have good DT sets (his is better than mine, but I'ma get my hands on the precious ring--yeah, d.ring). Ochain's blocking is a luxury but no longer afkable. You can bet that every minute the scorp is hitting me, even though it's purely physical damage, I'm watching my screen.

We don't stack hp gear blindly, we don't supertank in 5/5 Creed +2 (I like 2/5 myself. Hands/Legs.). A lot of people that won't build aegis/ochain won't build decent dt sets. They think 5/5 is fine and don't understand why it isn't. Yes, that set bonus has saved my life, but I'd say the 18% PDT/ 13% DT most players can put in those three slots has saved my life more not to mention causing me to see more 0s, though they're rare against nm's, then the mob gaining tp slower.

When I enter a delve, I'll pull with the group until we find NMs. It's better that I supertank the trash tahn a bard sleeps them because these half-baked bards couldn't resleep a peaceful baby. Ochain's blocking probably is 100% there, not that I pay much attention, and my log scrolls 0s.

When I do get my ring, I'll probably go build an MDB sword to go with ochain when I'm supertanking that way, it might allow me to change other things around and maybe fit in another piece of Creed, if I never get Nocturnus helm.

That's the level of commitment I put into Paladin and it makes me sad that a lot of people really want to half-bake it, though I'm sure the pros of the jobs I half-bake would cringe too. The difference is, I'm not trying to bring those jobs to content where speed of the kill matters.

Ochain/Aegis is so easy to get that there's a number of people that have it that don't even understand their job. I've encountered at least 2 paladins with aegis/ochain in the past week alone that don't know what supertanking is. These paladins have told me things like -

- You can't block while not engaged.
- You can't get tp if you block for 0 with phalanx (phalanx's reduction is ignored, though stoneskin/etc is not).

- so it's sad when you, someone who actually seems to understand the job, don't have the passion to play it the best you can.

Lastly, sometimes I die. These NMs can hurt even an aegis/ochain. I'm not sure what kind of less-good, but still acceptable shield SE could design.

[Numquam]

More lazy players complaining!

[Hayward]

More lazy players complaining!

Thanks for contributing absolutely nothing, BG drone.

[Camiie]

With as good as these two shields are, why do some seem to think there's no room for truly strong shields in the intermediate to high-end range? It seems to me that SE has quite a lot of wiggle room here.

Beyond that with everyone else out there (sans BRD) replacing their hard earned R/M/E or holding out for a saving throw from the devs, why are these shields some sort of sacred cow that can never be approached or surpassed?

[Kincard]

I'd love to see them intentionally create an item with the goal of it beating Aegischain. It's pretty apparent that the reason they never outdated them in the first place is because they KNEW they were overpowered, no sane person designing a game would add in items that make your character nearly invulnerable to attack unless the goal was to add something broken.

[Mirage]

They can't add anything that is stronger than aegischain because it would break the game, basically.

[Karah]

Holy... 24 hours and 70 posts... there is... no way in hell... I'm reading all that whining...

Look it's pretty simple; as a whole, we as a population, use pld for 1-2 things at any given time, as a temporary measure, until something better can be thought of.

We took plds to dynamis, then we learned it was a waste of a spot. We took plds to limbus, same thing happened. We took plds to salvage (i think? i can't honestly remember). We took plds to voidwatch.

It's all past tense. As soon as people understand that it's foolish to use a pld to hold 3-5 NMs in fracture and just start KILLING THEM for MORE plasm AND items, then pld is dead again.

If you're unable/unwilling to make aegis AND ochain, then suck it up, level a real job and wait it out.

And if you lack THEM BOTH you're not a real paladin, and you're not going to be doing the one thing worth needing a pld for right now, fracture naakuls.

Before you even mention it, lolodin. lollegion.

BTW I am 99 PLD -with- Ochain, and no Aegis, and I know better than to even say I have PLD leveled as I lack the Aegis.

[Numquam]

Holy... 24 hours and 70 posts... there is... no way in hell... I'm reading all that whining...

Look it's pretty simple; as a whole, we as a population, use pld for 1-2 things at any given time, as a temporary measure, until something better can be thought of.

We took plds to dynamis, then we learned it was a waste of a spot. We took plds to limbus, same thing happened. We took plds to salvage (i think? i can't honestly remember). We took plds to voidwatch.

It's all past tense. As soon as people understand that it's foolish to use a pld to hold 3-5 NMs in fracture and just start KILLING THEM for MORE plasm AND items, then pld is dead again.

If you're unable/unwilling to make aegis AND ochain, then suck it up, level a real job and wait it out.

And if you lack THEM BOTH you're not a real paladin, and you're not going to be doing the one thing worth needing a pld for right now, fracture naakuls.

Before you even mention it, lolodin. lollegion.

BTW I am 99 PLD -with- Ochain, and no Aegis, and I know better than to even say I have PLD leveled as I lack the Aegis.

You go, sistah!

[Hayward]

Holy... 24 hours and 70 posts... there is... no way in hell... I'm reading all that whining...

Look it's pretty simple; as a whole, we as a population, use pld for 1-2 things at any given time, as a temporary measure, until something better can be thought of.

We took plds to dynamis, then we learned it was a waste of a spot. We took plds to limbus, same thing happened. We took plds to salvage (i think? i can't honestly remember). We took plds to voidwatch.

It's all past tense. As soon as people understand that it's foolish to use a pld to hold 3-5 NMs in fracture and just start KILLING THEM for MORE plasm AND items, then pld is dead again.

If you're unable/unwilling to make aegis AND ochain, then suck it up, level a real job and wait it out.

And if you lack THEM BOTH you're not a real paladin, and you're not going to be doing the one thing worth needing a pld for right now, fracture naakuls.

Before you even mention it, lolodin. lollegion.

BTW I am 99 PLD -with- Ochain, and no Aegis, and I know better than to even say I have PLD leveled as I lack the Aegis.

It must really take a special kind of talent to type so much and say next to nothing. Even some of the more notorious posters on Allakhazam had something of substance in their otherwise inane posts.

[CrystalWeapon]

Holy... 24 hours and 70 posts... there is... no way in hell... I'm reading all that whining...

Look it's pretty simple; as a whole, we as a population, use pld for 1-2 things at any given time, as a temporary measure, until something better can be thought of.

We took plds to dynamis, then we learned it was a waste of a spot. We took plds to limbus, same thing happened. We took plds to salvage (i think? i can't honestly remember). We took plds to voidwatch.

It's all past tense. As soon as people understand that it's foolish to use a pld to hold 3-5 NMs in fracture and just start KILLING THEM for MORE plasm AND items, then pld is dead again.

If you're unable/unwilling to make aegis AND ochain, then suck it up, level a real job and wait it out.

And if you lack THEM BOTH you're not a real paladin, and you're not going to be doing the one thing worth needing a pld for right now, fracture naakuls.

Before you even mention it, lolodin. lollegion.

BTW I am 99 PLD -with- Ochain, and no Aegis, and I know better than to even say I have PLD leveled as I lack the Aegis.

Do you ever post w/o the intent to insult people and or wave your epeen around?

This issue doesn't concern me as I have the weapons to get into delve and NM runs, but I at least have the compassion to see the other side of things. Not every peice of gear in this game is as easy to get lowman as nakid brewing an Ironclad with an event weapon. >.>

[Karah]

It must really take a special kind of talent to type so much and say next to nothing. Even some of the more notorious posters on Allakhazam had something of substance in their otherwise inane posts.

Someone's butt-hurt. My post says anything and everything valid to this topic, to the point you could even close it, with an enough said statement. There is no possible valid argument you could conceivably have against anything I said.


Do you ever post w/o the intent to insult people and or wave your epeen around?
>

I have less than zero tolerance for anyone gimping themselves. For any reason. You can play the RL card. I attend medical school full time. I have 2 part time jobs. I only play X hours a week, maybe 12? and more on weekends, obviously.

You can be lazy, I'm one of the laziest people on XI I can possibly think of, nothing wrong with that. But if you're not going to put forth the MINIMAL effort to better yourself, then stop complaining about it.

[Numquam]

People that can't help themselves should go play a console game.

[Mirage]

Yeah, like for example FFXI!


I have less than zero tolerance for anyone gimping themselves. For any reason. You can play the RL card. I attend medical school full time. I have 2 part time jobs. I only play X hours a week, maybe 12? and more on weekends, obviously.

I attend two medical schools and have three full time jobs. Way to be casual, Karah.

[Yinnyth]

It must really take a special kind of talent to type so much and say next to nothing. Even some of the more notorious posters on Allakhazam had something of substance in their otherwise inane posts.

Actually, Karah raised a topic which is new to this thread: the idea that PLD might not even be of use in Delve in a few months. It has indeed been a trend in other events because PLD keeps us safe so we can get away with more mistakes when we're less familiar with the content. But as we learn more, we find ways to get by without a pure tank and put extra damage in the PLD's slot to finish faster.

Now, I'm not sure that I agree with Karah's assessment of the situation, mind you. Some of those NMs are just complete bruisers. But hey, maybe we haven't found all of their gimmicks yet.

[Radd]

So what Karah is saying is that, as most other events, PLD will become essentially "useless" as time goes on... So logic would tell me that the shields should be even quicker or easier to get if that is the case?

In the future, people would have to suffer grinding these shields out, and might not even attend the events... so why bother keeping both of these shields really annoying to get in the mean time? It sounds like people just want other people to suffer or waste time just because they "did it too." Insanity.

[Karah]

So what Karah is saying is that, as most other events, PLD will become essentially "useless" as time goes on... So logic would tell me that the shields should be even quicker or easier to get if that is the case?

In the future, people would have to suffer grinding these shields out, and might not even attend the events... so why bother keeping both of these shields really annoying to get in the mean time? It sounds like people just want other people to suffer or waste time just because they "did it too." Insanity.

Honestly, how hard is it to make an Aegis? a Month? 2 months? 2 hours a day, i mean really, it's childsplay.

I will give it up that Ochain, is by and large possibly the most soul-crushing (lol) thing in the game right now... VNM color changes are obnoxious to the 15th degree. But, that's another (actually SEVERAL) other threads...

[Radd]

Honestly, how hard is it to make an Aegis? a Month? 2 months? 2 hours a day, i mean really, it's childsplay.

I will give it up that Ochain, is by and large possibly the most soul-crushing (lol) thing in the game right now... VNM color changes are obnoxious to the 15th degree. But, that's another (actually SEVERAL) other threads...

The real question you should ask yourself is "Can I complete this alone with the job I want to use it on?" That's the main problem I've found with this game lately. You either need to level a bunch of other jobs to do what you need to do, or you need help from people. It's pretty bad game design, and since you are right about PLD getting snubbed to the side after time goes on, why shouldn't there be other shields that are almost up to snuff in this sense? Why would anyone have to make these shields just to play the game on a class they want to try?

RME should not be a mandatory requirement to play the game, this is the part I don't know why anyone defends.

Why does anyone have to slave away in a boring event just to remotely have any fun with the game? What sense does that make? Any other DD at this point can get a Delve weapon in 8 hours and be up to par, but for a PLD, they have to grind out shields to even be up to par with expectations. Something is wrong here, and you know it.

[Karah]

The real question you should ask yourself is "Can I complete this alone with the job I want to use it on?" That's the main problem I've found with this game lately.

Yes, a level 1 character with zero skills/no subjob, can obtain an Aegis. You can outright buy it without ever touching any aspect of the game other than crafting/fishing/farming.


You either need to level a bunch of other jobs to do what you need to do, or you need help from people.

The MAJOR selling point of FFXI is that you are NOT locked into playing a single job, this is a double-edged sword. There is the benefit of being ABLE to play all jobs, but it makes it common practice, to even REQUIRE certain jobs being leveled.


It's pretty bad game design, and since you are right about PLD getting snubbed to the side after time goes on, why shouldn't there be other shields that are almost up to snuff in this sense? Why would anyone have to make these shields just to play the game on a class they want to try?

No one should "be interested" in paladin, knowing the game they're playing, and the people who populate this game, sad but true. If you're "interested" in something, you should know what the minimum requirements are, which is, the only viable shield.


RME should not be a mandatory requirement to play the game, this is the part I don't know why anyone defends.

The problem is, they're not REQUIRED but the players capable of obtaining them, are USUALLY of a higher caliber of player, which is why they SEEM to be required.
This was in reference to RME -not- Shields.


Why does anyone have to slave away in a boring event just to remotely have any fun with the game? What sense does that make? Any other DD at this point can get a Delve weapon in 8 hours and be up to par, but for a PLD, they have to grind out shields to even be up to par with expectations. Something is wrong here, and you know it.

FFXI hasn't been "FUN" in a long time... it's a mathematics exam. You laugh at the people who turn it in too fast, you try to do/be the best (that you can be/do).

It -is- wrong that there is no new shield (and instrument) but realistically, how can you make a shield on par with Ochain, without enraging anyone who spent WEEKS doing SOULCRUSHING colorless farming. It's a thin red line that will be crossed eventually.

[Radd]

Yes, a level 1 character with zero skills/no subjob, can obtain an Aegis. You can outright buy it without ever touching any aspect of the game other than crafting/fishing/farming.

Bad game design.


The MAJOR selling point of FFXI is that you are NOT locked into playing a single job, this is a double-edged sword. There is the benefit of being ABLE to play all jobs, but it makes it common practice, to even REQUIRE certain jobs being leveled.

This is still a bad game design method if I need to level other jobs to acquire a certain job only piece through trials for... you guessed it, that job only. Bolding, capping and underlining doesn't make your point hit harder, it just seems tacky.


No one should "be interested" in paladin, knowing the game they're playing, and the people who populate this game, sad but true. If you're "interested" in something, you should know what the minimum requirements are, which is, the only viable shield.

So again, you just confirmed to everyone that for anyone to play Paladin, they need to grind out for months to get a viable shield, while every other job can be viable alone mostly by just playing the game or doing Delve. How do you not see that this is a problem?


The problem is, they're not REQUIRED but the players capable of obtaining them, are USUALLY of a higher caliber of player, which is why they SEEM to be required.

This is the opposite of what you just said.


FFXI hasn't been "FUN" in a long time... it's a mathematics exam. You laugh at the people who turn it in too fast, you try to do/be the best (that you can be/do).

It -is- wrong that there is no new shield (and instrument) but realistically, how can you make a shield on par with Ochain, without enraging anyone who spent WEEKS doing SOULCRUSHING colorless farming. It's a thin red line that will be crossed eventually.

They shouldn't have made Ochain so powerful that it is the only shield you need next to Aegis. It gives players no other alternatives other than grinding out nonsense for weeks at a time. As said before, no other job (except for maybe BRD horn) has to tolerate doing this, as Delve is now an alternate, and quicker option to get into the game and get stuff done.

They spent weeks on it? Good for them, still doesn't solve the problem at hand that it's a complete bottleneck to do the T3 stuff either, nor there is any entry level shields for level 99 that are viably useable for more than just "looking nice."

[Karah]

See the obvious answer is to improve the ways to obtain Ochain, -NOT- make newer, better, easier to obtain shields.

That in essence is the biggest gripe I see with this entire thread.

This whole thread is relegated to;

WHY ARE COLORLESS SOULS SO DAMN ANNOYING?

The answer is, it is the best, and only shield you should/could/would ever use (except for magic damage) it SHOULD be difficult to obtain.

Everything else, is irrelevant (Aegis is so easy to get you're not allowed to complain about it).

[Radd]

See the obvious answer is to improve the ways to obtain Ochain, -NOT- make newer, better, easier to obtain shields.

That in essence is the biggest gripe I see with this entire thread.

This whole thread is relegated to;

WHY ARE COLORLESS SOULS SO DAMN ANNOYING?

The answer is, it is the best, and only shield you should/could/would ever use (except for magic damage) it SHOULD be difficult to obtain.

Everything else, is irrelevant (Aegis is so easy to get you're not allowed to complain about it).

Which still comes back to, the only way you can play on Paladin, is if you grind out Ochain or Aegis. Which was the damn point of the thread in the first place. As you put it, "The answer is, it is the best, and only shield you should/could/would ever use."

...And you don't see a problem with any of this? lol

[Karah]

Not even a shred of a possibility of a problem.

Hike up your dress, put down your purse, hit some mobs, and get your Shield, or play a real job. In a couple months everyone will be crying that paladin has no use anymore (again).

[Radd]

Not even a shred of a possibility of a problem.

Hike up your dress, put down your purse, hit some mobs, and get your Shield, or play a real job. In a couple months everyone will be crying that paladin has no use anymore (again).

Then why bother wasting time grinding it out for so long if it's going to be useless? The logical step would to either have a middle ground or make the other two shields much quicker to obtain. From a game balance point of view, why do you want this to go on? Because you tortured yourself enough to do it? What the hell is a "real job" in this game by the way?

[Mirage]

Whatever is the top DPS in the game at any given moment in time, of course. What else?

Bandwagon Fantasy XI. You're not supposed to like jobs, you're supposed to like the numbers in your chat log.

[OmnysValefor]

It's even a possibility that BST pets might be tanking again. You can "lolbst", but trading 2 tanks and 2 healers for two bsts, a dps, and one healer is still faster kills and healing for the dps in the "tank" party.

It's impossible right now, I'm sure, but with new pets that will probably be higher level than players (regardless of jug level), it's feasible that it could happen. The pet being higher level than its target is a large factor in the pet's ability to tank it. That, and proper choice of pet and proper master's gear.

Even if the bst just had to idle with the pet, it's still more practical if it was ever feasible. No, I don't think bst pets will ever be tanking current content nm's, but we'll likely be plasm farming these zones for a long long time unless new zones, or tiers of zones just roflstomp them in plasm returned despite difficulty.

[Demon6324236]

Someone's butt-hurt. My post says anything and everything valid to this topic, to the point you could even close it, with an enough said statement. There is no possible valid argument you could conceivably have against anything I said.Show me any other job that is completely and utterly denied from parties requesting the job if it lacks one or two difficult items to obtain. When I say difficult I do not mean hard necessarily, I mean items of which are either hard, or highly time taking enough that the average person would not be willing to do it for a job they may or may not end up playing/enjoying.

[Demon6324236]

One thing about PLD is that unlike most jobs, there is no real knowledge gained during leveling it anymore, none, no tanking in Abyssea, when you do seals, still no PLD tanking. The only time PLD gets to tank is specific endgame content, which no one wants to bring you to in the first place unless you invest in the job quite a bit. So basically, to see if I like a job, I have to go out and deck out the job, get a Relic or Emp, and then finally I can play it the only way I probably ever will, just to see if I enjoy it really.

[Alerith]

The only way to dethrone Aegischain is to make exactly that. A single shield that trumps magic and physical damage on par with both of them and a capped out block rate. Maybe slap on "Occasionally Absorbs Damage" just to add fuel to the fire.

That being said, the problem isn't Paladin or the shields. It's poor content design.

If a scorpion NM can get past Ochain's nigh impenetrable block rate and deal over 1300 damage, what chance does Jimmy and his Seigneur Shield have? They picked a way to make content, and they picked wrong.

We wanted PLD's spot in the light again, but not at the expense of making the R/E shield required just so you MIGHT not get one shot. There's no proper balance.

A PLD with Creed +2, Ochain and Ethereal can literally stand there, get beat on, and cure themselves with Cure IV and never run out of MP. You can maintain yourself until the timer runs try without any kind of support....Unless that one lucky Death scissors gets through and one shots you.

Now look at the guy who doesn't have Ochain. He has an average block rate, average damage reduction and is almost guaranteed to die without his own personal healer.

Now, you could make a new shield that brings him closer to Ochain's level or you could adjust the content so that he can do it without dying at any given moment. Either way, you're either going to leave people underpowered without R/M shields or you're going to make it more boring than it already is for R/E PLDs.

BALANCE.

This is what you get for letting someone with a level 40 character become the producer...

Also:

Yes, a level 1 character with zero skills/no subjob, can obtain an Aegis. You can outright buy it without ever touching any aspect of the game other than crafting/fishing/farming.

Attestations are Rare/Ex and you can't enter Dynamis to receive the drop because you have to be level 65 or higher to unlock Dynamis.

[Demon6324236]

Honestly, how hard is it to make an Aegis? a Month? 2 months? 2 hours a day, i mean really, it's childsplay.Yeah, if you want to make one, which is the same right now as saying, if you want to play the job you have to work for 2~3 months for 2~4 hours a day just to get an item that will make this job playable in anything where you do your jobs... job. What about people who want to play and enjoy the job, use it in some of the lighter end of content, not the Delve bosses, but are screwed? You don't care, you have tons of Relics and Emps, you have Ochain, why do they matter...

[Demon6324236]

See the obvious answer is to improve the ways to obtain Ochain, -NOT- make newer, better, easier to obtain shields.

That in essence is the biggest gripe I see with this entire thread.

This whole thread is relegated to;

WHY ARE COLORLESS SOULS SO DAMN ANNOYING?If you read the posts you claim not to have, you would realize that some people do not want to make an Aegis or Ochain, they want a shield worth a damn that they can get without that kind of work on a job.


The answer is, it is the best, and only shield you should/could/would ever use (except for magic damage) it SHOULD be difficult to obtain.

Everything else, is irrelevant (Aegis is so easy to get you're not allowed to complain about it).No shit its hard, we know that, no one here is asking for it to be easier, as you said, another thread is for that, we want some mid-ground shields rather than it being Ochain & Aegis as the only shields worth using. Making some mid-ground shields is not so hard, see Steadfast? It works well, but needs a little something more, now make it a tower shield, give it the block rate of a round shield, and it will still lose to Aegis & Ochain but it will be much more useful, if you want, remove the second tier of augments for MP on it and put on block rate & Shield Def. Bonus, which would basically amount to the same effects if they put in the right numbers, boom, mid-shield for everyone!

[Demon6324236]

That being said, the problem isn't Paladin or the shields. It's poor content design.

If a scorpion NM can get past Ochain's nigh impenetrable block rate and deal over 1300 damage, what chance does Jimmy and his Seigneur Shield have? They picked a way to make content, and they picked wrong.See heres the problem, NM is to strong, only Ochain will do the job, NM is to weak, why bring a PLD? With our current shield selection there is hardly a balance, if its hard enough to bring a PLD but weak enough it can do without Ochain we have DDs wear hybrid sets because those are possible now days and we can still go at it all the same, the DDs have enough DEF & PDT from their gear to keep them going while healers throw MP at them constantly till it dies. The only place we do not do it is Delve, where the NMs are so hard hitting we can not effectively do that anymore because fights last to long, a PLD has to go in most of the time till we can use its gimmick to kill it off, like the Mata, or Tax. We have no middle ground shield currently so unless its Ochain worthy or Aegis worthy its almost never PLD worthy.


We wanted PLD's spot in the light again, but not at the expense of making the R/E shield required just so you MIGHT not get one shot. There's no proper balance.

A PLD with Creed +2, Ochain and Ethereal can literally stand there, get beat on, and cure themselves with Cure IV and never run out of MP. You can maintain yourself until the timer runs try without any kind of support....Unless that one lucky Death scissors gets through and one shots you.

Now look at the guy who doesn't have Ochain. He has an average block rate, average damage reduction and is almost guaranteed to die without his own personal healer.Yep.


This is what you get for letting someone with a level 40 character become the producer...Aegis and Ochain were over powered before he came in, he was left with that problem. No matter how people try to avoid it, they are a problem, and their ease to obtain is part of it. When only a few select people are each server are so strong they can hardly be touched by anything, that's one thing, when everyone is that way, you have a problem. Aegis and Ochain are so strong by compare to everything else that unless content is specifically designed to take down someone who has them, it will never really kill them without some massive luck, like a high powered TP going through without a block and hitting an Ochain PLD. On the other hand, if its not strong enough that you have to have an Ochain, then someone with an Ochain can make it look like its nothing, hitting for barely anything at all. So the shields have caused a bit of a problem, one he was left with, admittedly I am no more of a fan that he came in saying he had not even beaten Maat yet when he first arrived, but I think he has got good ideas, he only has a hard time implementing them sometimes, this problem, I do not put on him at all.

[FrankReynolds]

See heres the problem, NM is to strong, only Ochain will do the job, NM is to weak, why bring a PLD?



This could be solved by making paladin itself more powerful instead of putting all of the power in the shield. But the shield is way easier to program so...

[Demon6324236]

This could be solved by making paladin itself more powerful instead of putting all of the power in the shield. But the shield is way easier to program so...By the looks of things SE does not want to do any direct job buffs anymore, like with PUP where Alternator is a job fix in a piece of gear, or the SMN grip they talked about, new BST pets, and so on, they don't want to adjust jobs, just make them stronger by specific pieces of gear making them more powerful. So by how things look, they would probably take this design aspect anyways because these two shields are essentially level 150 shields while every other shield is level 90ish at best, besides Steadfast, I think its the first real shield to have level 99 stats.

[Zhronne]

Yeah it's gotten to the point where unless you have an O.Chain you don't even come PLD. SE's fault for making those shields so broken in the first place, then making NM's with such high offensive power that their needed in the first place.
I agree (this goes beyond just PLD btw, but delve weapon atm made the situations for DDs a bit better than it was before, I guess) but you'll have to concur with me it's very hard to balance these things.

You have to make PLD necessary. If monsters don't hit hard enough PLD won't be necessary, and people will just use DDs to tank, or just plain zerg the monsters.

Imho the "wrong" thing about tanking in FFXI ist hat it relies too much on gear. In other games gear matters of course, but tanks get all the "necessary tools" from abilities, spells and job traits.
I feel they should work on this for tanks, and somehow nerf Aegis/Ochain (small nerf please!)

[Riggs]

why is se gimping every r m e weapon by bringing out much better and easier weapons to get but not doing the same to shields?

[detlef]

RME should not be a mandatory requirement to play the game, this is the part I don't know why anyone defends.If you wish to play a DD job for something, you will be competing with other DDs for a spot in the group. Since SE made relic, empyrean, and delve weapons easy enough for a lot of people to obtain, you will inevitably be competing with players of that caliber. With this in mind, given a choice, why should the group leader invite you over one of those other players with a superior weapon?

Relevant to this topic, apparently Aegis/Ochain must be easy enough for many PLDs to obtain if group leaders can afford to be picky about their tanks. Despite that, I do feel there should be an intermediate shield option to hold people over while they work on the ultimate shields.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

I feel they should work on this for tanks, and somehow nerf Aegis/Ochain (small nerf please!)

They are getting nerfed, effectively. Shields (and instruments) are being specifically left out of whatever plans they have to upgrade RMECs one last time.

[Zagen]

They are getting nerfed, effectively. Shields (and instruments) are being specifically left out of whatever plans they have to upgrade RMECs one last time.
Considering those changes are to bring R/E/M up to par with Delve weapons how exactly is that nerfing items that weren't out classed by Delve weapons (none in instrument's case)?

[OmnysValefor]

They are getting nerfed, effectively. Shields (and instruments) are being specifically left out of whatever plans they have to upgrade RMECs one last time.

They were left out because they weren't replaced. When people first got ahold of item lists, there was curiousity about the steadfast shield, in hopes that it would be some sort of stepping stone, but noone asked "What about my Gjallarchain?"

[Demon6324236]

They were left out because they weren't replaced. When people first got ahold of item lists, there was curiousity about the steadfast shield, in hopes that it would be some sort of stepping stone, but noone asked "What about my Gjallarchain?"Exactly, shields do not need a boost because they are fine and were not effected by the new items in the least. Weapons on the other hand were completely trashed, every Delve weapon is the best weapon of its category so far as I know. Even the MAB staff beats all other nuking staffs and SMN staff beats Nirvana, so really weapons were completely trashed. Now on the other hand, there is no new instrument, and Steadfast is good but does not come close to Ochain without some block rate enhancement, Aegis goes without saying is still the top because there is no other way to break the cap, Steadfast lets you stack on some more MDB at best, which does not even come close to a comparison with Aegis.

[Radd]

If you wish to play a DD job for something, you will be competing with other DDs for a spot in the group. Since SE made relic, empyrean, and delve weapons easy enough for a lot of people to obtain, you will inevitably be competing with players of that caliber. With this in mind, given a choice, why should the group leader invite you over one of those other players with a superior weapon?

Relevant to this topic, apparently Aegis/Ochain must be easy enough for many PLDs to obtain if group leaders can afford to be picky about their tanks. Despite that, I do feel there should be an intermediate shield option to hold people over while they work on the ultimate shields.

Getting an Empy weapon to 85 is pretty damn easy and quick and doesn't have as many hoops to jump through as trying to get T3 pops for colorless souls. Some of them can be a pain to get due to the KIs to get (Great Axe) but others like Saladbowl/Fudo-to-Shoha Spam Machine and Almace/Kannagi are pretty simple. Most of these can be done with 2 players or a dual boxer. The shield however you need at least a few dedicated players, Ironclads can be annoying, and I won't even get into how silly the T3 farming is.

Also you can skip this step entirely and just go straight for a Delve weapon which again, pretty easy to get, meanwhile you can't with the shield as it is the bar of par. If you can't understand this, you obviously haven't tried to do anything on Paladin. Who cares if group leaders can be picky about their tanks? If a majority of players just eventually stop playing because of ideas like that, then no one gets to do anything.

The game mindset currently keeps players who haven't broken through a threshold back, while people on top just soar higher and higher with ease. Eventually players get bored of the mindset, and move on.

[Karah]

Attestations are Rare/Ex and you can't enter Dynamis to receive the drop because you have to be level 65 or higher to unlock Dynamis.


Incorrect, you can mule attestations.

http://i41.tinypic.com/vi1fgk.png

[Hawklaser]

Incorrect, you can mule attestations.

http://i41.tinypic.com/vi1fgk.png

Ok, you can mule attestations, that doesn't change the fact need to have a level 65+ to access Dynamis to receive the drop in the first place. So all you have proven is a Mule can make a Relic with enough gil and nothing else.

I agree there needs to be a good, acceptable stepping stone prior to aegis and ochain. Now with all the arguments going on about people being lazy and not wanting to get aegis, ochain, or any other RME, keep in mind the investments needed to obtain them. Which can become trivial once you are already set up and well established, but for someone new or just returning, they won't necessarily have the gil to just buy a relic or mythic, and the atmas and stones to go grind out any empyrean they want.

The big reason I say keep in mind the investment needed to obtain one is because a player that is not already well established is likely only going to work on one for a job they know they enjoy. Most DD jobs its much easier to tell if one enjoys them or not because they usually function the same with or without a party. Tanks, supports, and healers are much harder to tell if one likes without frequent partying as their play style tends to be different when solo or in a group. So when one of the main tanks of the game needs a huge investment in it to be used in its intended role, makes it very hard for someone to truly evaluate the job with the game in its current state. And how many people are going to put a significant investment of limited resources just to be able to see if they enjoy a job when they may already have a known enjoyable job that could also benefit from the same investment?

[Fynlar]

They can't add anything that is stronger than aegischain because it would break the game, basically.

Yep, and it would break the game too if they made anything stronger than RME weapons!

...Oh wait

[Mirage]

No, it wouldn't.

[radiationbots]

Yep, and it would break the game too if they made anything stronger than RME weapons!

...Oh wait

1+1=2
1-1=0

[SpankWustler]

The sad thing is, I feel like this thread wouldn't even exist if the augments on Steadfast Shield weren't the worst thing since sliced cat poop compared to the augments on other items. If the listing on BG Wiki is correct, the only path with something super-useful on it provides a whopping 4 Magic Defense Bonus.

The base shield is very good. That, along with occasional use of Adamas, could have worked as a stepping stone for Paladins. But, the poor selection of augments reduce the shield to an option for Paladins super-tanking in Rieves to see if they enjoy the job or Dark Knights using Requiscat on that annoying Cerberus in Bhaflau Remnants.

[OmnysValefor]

They should make a shield that double's reprisal's duration.

Heck, how about a shield, for all jobs:

Doubles spike spell duration (including reprisal, though not potency)
Enhancing magic +20
Healing Magic +20
Dark magic +20?

[Demon6324236]

The sad thing is, I feel like this thread wouldn't even exist if the augments on Steadfast Shield weren't the worst thing since sliced cat poop compared to the augments on other items. If the listing on BG Wiki is correct, the only path with something super-useful on it provides a whopping 4 Magic Defense Bonus.The HP/VIT/INT augments hold some amount of promise as well in my opinion, as the extra HP can be helpful and the VIT/INT helps to decrease damage taken anyways, but without final numbers its hard to say. If the VIT & INT are only 4 rather than 10 like most augments seem to be for that kind of stat then they are terrible, but if they are 10 it could be the best path we have. In either case, better augments would have made it stand out more, as I said earlier, a path with higher block rate and/or Shield Def. Bonus would have been the best thing it could have gotten, and it would have made it amazing if done right!

[Zhronne]

The base shield is very good.
Yes but one of the problem of any shield that's not Aegis/Ochain, is that you can stack as many -DT as you want on it, but it's still gonna stay within the 50 max cap. Aegis (and Burtgang) allow you to go beyond that, and that's what's really broken.

Aegis wouldn't be that insane if it didn't have this exception, would just free up some slots in your MDT set (well, it would still be an awesome shield of course, just not as awesome as it is today)

[Zhronne]

They should make a shield that double's reprisal's duration.

Heck, how about a shield, for all jobs:

Doubles spike spell duration (including reprisal, though not potency)
Enhancing magic +20
Healing Magic +20
Dark magic +20?

Would totally solve PLD's issues, inorite?

[Mirage]

They should make a shield that double's reprisal's duration.

Heck, how about a shield, for all jobs:

Doubles spike spell duration (including reprisal, though not potency)
Enhancing magic +20
Healing Magic +20
Dark magic +20? No, that's bad. Try steadfast shield as a base, but with -10%DT, +30 MDB and enhances reprisal (proc rate, duration and max damage reflected).

(Edited because of what Saevel brought to light a few posts later.)

[OmnysValefor]

Would totally solve PLD's issues, inorite?

It would be an effort. PLD's "issues" is that some people want to play paladin but don't want to build the shields. PLD is balanced heavily around being geared and yet there are people that want to use their paladin to gear their paladin. It's a fine idea but XI has never worked that way: If your job wasn't up to the level your group needed it at, you did something about it, and that included going back and finishing older content and often leveling another job.

My PLD's only issues is inventory space.


No, that's
bad. Try steadfast shield as a base, but with -10%DT, +30 MDB and enhances reprisal (proc rate, duration and max number of procs before wearing off.

Sorry, I was talking about the skills I listed on steadfast shield, but for all jobs.

Only reason I think all jobs is because other shield-capable jobs would be QQing almost immediately. RDMs would want such a shield.

[Camiie]

Aegis and Ochain sure do fly in the face of the new content level system. What content level are the shields themselves, and what content level are the events they are obtained and upgraded from? What content level are other items from these same events? I'll wager that the content levels for Abyssea and Dynamis and their respective rewards are a good bit lower than Delve. So why doesn't the current highest content level event get something at least equivalent to these lower tier items? Why do lower content level events get such apparently high content level rewards?

[KindCoffee]

A neat magic to hold constant hate on single target or knock-back upon use might be neat.
I recently came back to the game and haven't seen much Paladins.

[FrankReynolds]

and yet there are people that want to use their paladin to gear their paladin. It's a fine idea but XI has never worked that way: If your job wasn't up to the level your group needed it at, you did something about it, and that included going back and finishing older content and often leveling another job.


I built a Delve weapon for sam using an auction house GK. Try doing that on paladin.

[saevel]

The increased block rate from reprisal dissipates after blocking a certain number of hits, adamas sucks.

That's not how it works.

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Reprisal

With the effect of Reprisal up Adamas has the same block rate as OChain, near 100%. Reprisal will reflect part of the damage you take, each time that damage is then deducted from a buffer. The ability wears off after 60s or when the buffer is depleted, it's very similar to Dread Spikes. The buffer is equal to half your max HP at cast time, 1800 HP = 900 damage buffer. Essentially Adamas can turn into O.Chain for short periods of time. It's absolutely critical to have as much haste and FC as possible in your reprisal macro, you want the recast to be low.

I've messed around with it, it's a nice shield. Definitely not in the same class as Aegis / OChain, but it's the #3 shield after those two.

[Camiie]

It seems so far that the only "argument" against there being new powerful shields added is that PLD would no longer be an exclusive club for Aegis/Ochain owners only. I'd say that's a good argument FOR adding more options, but I guess I'm biased since I'm not a member of the club.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

A neat magic to hold constant hate on single target or knock-back upon use might be neat.

Yes, give us Ark Angel EV's Shield Bash.

Hell, just give us Ark Angel EV's Spirits Within.

[OmnysValefor]

I built a Delve weapon for sam using an auction house GK. Try doing that on paladin.

Maybe it's because Valefor is low-pop but I see poorly geared pld's in Delve regularly (Don't take that as "No Aegis / Ochain makes them poorly geared.". I see pld's in a dd sword, 5/5 creed +1/+2, 2% dark rings). With those paladins, it usually means I'm tanking 2 NM's.

Now, the delve runs you went to. I'm sure that your sam was rejected soemtimes/several times because you weren't REMd. Either that, or you went with an ls.

[OmnysValefor]

It seems so far that the only "argument" against there being new powerful shields added is that PLD would no longer be an exclusive club for Aegis/Ochain owners only. I'd say that's a good argument FOR adding more options, but I guess I'm biased since I'm not a member of the club.

It seems so far that the only case for why PLD is broken is people who want the reward without the work, but I guess I'm biased since I put the effort in.

[OmnysValefor]

That's not how it works.

http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Reprisal

With the effect of Reprisal up Adamas has the same block rate as OChain, near 100%. Reprisal will reflect part of the damage you take, each time that damage is then deducted from a buffer. The ability wears off after 60s or when the buffer is depleted, it's very similar to Dread Spikes. The buffer is equal to half your max HP at cast time, 1800 HP = 900 damage buffer. Essentially Adamas can turn into O.Chain for short periods of time. It's absolutely critical to have as much haste and FC as possible in your reprisal macro, you want the recast to be low.

I've messed around with it, it's a nice shield. Definitely not in the same class as Aegis / OChain, but it's the #3 shield after those two.

Interesting :)

Should try it /sch with supertanking. That and defense food (for lacking defender, and because food's good) might allow you near 100% uptime. Reprisal does no damage when it blocks a tp move, as we all know, so the buffer is probably not affected. (I am aware that reprisal's spikes, eating at the buffer, aren't affected by phalanx, stoneskin, etc, but defense is still a factor).

[Aeonk]

I've seen a PLD tank 3 NM's in delve with a Steadfast Shield. It was a little more stressful on the WHM, but still manageable.

However, the Ochain/Aegis only shouts aren't the fault of game mechanics or SE's decision, it's the PLD playerbase that created that standard. You normally only see 1, maybe 2 PLD's tops in a fracture group. Even if this gap was lessened by shields like Steadfast or Adamas, you're not going to get invited over someone else who did the work.

A quick check on the relic counter for ffxiah says that Aegis is still the most common relic in the game, even despite PLD's falling out during abyssea/VW and the rise of bandwagnarok. There's plenty of them out there, either join the club or have fun competing for the only slot in an alliance and hoping that no career PLDs feel like doing fracture today.

[Hayward]

It seems so far that the only case for why PLD is broken is people who want the reward without the work, but I guess I'm biased since I put the effort in.

So, what do you want? A medal?

People's egos really need to be checked in this game. This focus on catering--dare I say pandering--to those who believe in exclusivism is going to lead to this game being shut down sooner than the developers ever thought.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't believe in exclusivism.

I believe that you can easily go get an aegis. Easily.

Ochain is a little bit harder but only because it takes mroe time and the enemy actually has a chance to kill you.

[CrystalWeapon]

However, the Ochain/Aegis only shouts aren't the fault of game mechanics or SE's decision, it's the PLD playerbase that created that standard.

I both agree and disagree with this statement.

This whole situation is caused by the player's mentality on how they're going to run content. I just think this mentality is way more prevalent in the game nowadays because of how high the bar has been set with delve. Dispite being nice, players aren't going to take anything but top gear players because of how tough the NMs are. Why would you want to risk your time and that of an entire alliance when taking people with better gear greatly increases your chance of winning.

I don't agree with the mentality but I see why it's there.

I just think the problem is here because of a few things. For KI farming it lies in the fact that they've placed this asinine time restriction on the NMs in the field. If the fights weren't capped with a time limit, parties would be more willing to take lesser geared players. It would take longer, yes, but the fights could be done.

I also think that they've progressed the gear teirs with way too much way to fast. They should have released reives and sat on that for a few months before releasing skirmish. They then should have let skirmish stay relevant for at least a few months before releasing delve.

Instead they rushed all this content out together. As much as they want it to happen players, aren't going to want to grind out reives to grind out skirmish to grind out delve. They're going to do what we're seeing now. They're going to get the best possibly geared players they can and grind out the most rewarding content the game has, and ignore everything else.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't agree with the mentality but I see why it's there.

I see this sentiment a lot.. You want your delves to be slower. You want to have to do more delves? I've never met a single person that wants things to be slower.

It's kind of what you're implying talking down on this "player mentality".

I don't like Delve fodder-farming. In no way is it fun, especially on pld, but I do it. So yeah, just as much as they hope I'm not gonna let the NM's loose or screw up supertanking, I hope the DD are pulling off 9000 point ws's. Get that stuff dead, please.

There are places to have fun in the game, but fodder-farming just needs to be over and quick.

[Karah]

I see this sentiment a lot.. You want your delves to be slower. You want to have to do more delves? I've never met a single person that wants things to be slower.

It's kind of what you're implying talking down on this "player mentality".

I don't like Delve fodder-farming. In no way is it fun, especially on pld, but I do it. So yeah, just as much as they hope I'm not gonna let the NM's loose or screw up supertanking, I hope the DD are pulling off 9000 point ws's. Get that stuff dead, please.

There are places to have fun in the game, but fodder-farming just needs to be over and quick.

This. So much this.

[CrystalWeapon]

I see this sentiment a lot.. You want your delves to be slower. You want to have to do more delves? I've never met a single person that wants things to be slower.


/wave

If you see the sentiment a lot then it means you have met people like this. I'm willing to put up with doing things slower if it means helping out other people. I've done 3k plasm ceizak farms b/c I had friends there and they needed dd's. I've run nyzul isle top to bottom about 12x now b/c ls members need the climb. Not everyone cares about doing things as fast as possible, but with the way things are set up you can't win by being nice. There's not much of a choice.

[FrankReynolds]

Maybe it's because Valefor is low-pop but I see poorly geared pld's in Delve regularly (Don't take that as "No Aegis / Ochain makes them poorly geared.". I see pld's in a dd sword, 5/5 creed +1/+2, 2% dark rings). With those paladins, it usually means I'm tanking 2 NM's.

Now, the delve runs you went to. I'm sure that your sam was rejected soemtimes/several times because you weren't REMd. Either that, or you went with an ls.

Most of the Fracture runs I've been on have only had one paladin. I've never been on / seen shouts for a single run where the PAL didn't have one of these two shields.

On the otherhand, I have been on tons of them where there were magian trial Sams spamming shoha, Drks in full reive gear (including the GS) and wars with AH GA's spamming upheaval.

The only time you need uber DDS in fractures is when you are killing the NMs. On farming runs, a lot of time the DDs are just standing around waiting on repops.

On the other hand, if the paladin isn't uber geared (Read as : doesn't have relic/empy shield), you will spend a lot of time dodging the NMs that killed him.

In other words: PAL is required to sport one of the most annoying items in the game to get just to be invited while DD's can rock AH weapons and get in groups all day. Starting your own group just means that you will have to shout for some other guy that has the shield to come with you.

[OmnysValefor]

No, I see the sentiment on the forums. I've never seen someone in game wish that others in the group brought subpar jobs. People try to bring their own, and their friends, sometimes, but they never try to pug someone subpar.

/yell {Seekers of Adoulin} {Dungeon} {Do you need it?} {Light Staff} {White mage} {Thockcha} {Dancer} {Can I have it?}

[FrankReynolds]

No, I see the sentiment on the forums. I've never seen someone in game wish that others in the group brought subpar jobs. People try to bring their own, and their friends, sometimes, but they never try to pug someone subpar.

/yell {Seekers of Adoulin} {Dungeon} {Do you need it?} {Light Staff} {White mage} {Thockcha} {Dancer} {Can I have it?}

Of course not. They just shout for a whm and take whatever they get. Literally. I actually went on a run where the guy was looking for a whm and asked me if I could change to whm. I told him that I had only been back in game for a couple of weeks, hadn't played whm in over a year and most of my macros probably didn't work. He said just make sure the cure ones work and come along. I did three runs with my AH geared whm with a 35% cure set.

[Taint2]

Most of the Fracture runs I've been on have only had one paladin. I've never been on / seen shouts for a single run where the PAL didn't have one of these two shields.

On the otherhand, I have been on tons of them where there were magian trial Sams spamming shoha, Drks in full reive gear (including the GS) and wars with AH GA's spamming upheaval.

The only time you need uber DDS in fractures is when you are killing the NMs. On farming runs, a lot of time the DDs are just standing around waiting on repops.

On the other hand, if the paladin isn't uber geared (Read as : doesn't have relic/empy shield), you will spend a lot of time dodging the NMs that killed him.

In other words: PAL is required to sport one of the most annoying items in the game to get just to be invited while DD's can rock AH weapons and get in groups all day. Starting your own group just means that you will have to shout for some other guy that has the shield to come with you.



Any geared PLD can tank 2 NMs with Adamas or Steadfast. Holding all 5 NMs requires Ochain/Aegis.

The real issue is most PLDs without Ochain or Aegis are utter crap. (and most with are as well but the shields cover up their terrible play)

[Alerith]

The real issue is most PLDs without Ochain or Aegis are utter crap. (and most with are as well but the shields cover up their terrible play)

I really have to agree here. I don't even believe this quote is elitist.

What I believe in is that PLD is a job that requires a lot more care and attention than other jobs. Is it tragic that the playerbase, content or whatever you choose to blame is requiring Aegis and Ochain? Sure. However, if you're really serious about a job, you'll be working towards the best in slot item that you can get, and even then, it doesn't fully make up for a lack of skill. If you don't have the shields (or aren't working on them and want to play PLD), then you can only expect to go so far.

This can be said for any job you want to main. Most PLDs don't play PLD as a fun little side job. I'd bet a vast majority of them play PLD because they WANT to play PLD, to make it their main and something that can kick ass. These are the players you see with Aegis/Ochain. You also have the players that DO level it as a side job, but these players aren't likely to work on either shield, mostly because PLD isn't a priority for them.

So you have two types of PLD where one group want to be THE PLD and work on those shields, and the other group which are side PLDs that don't really care to take it that far. I'm not saying the side PLDs should get the shaft, but neither should the PLDs that choose to put in the work to be the best at their job.

That being said, there are PLDs with Aegis/Ochain that STILL can't perform well enough, despite having them. The shields are an augment to good players and a crutch to poor ones.


Incorrect, you can mule attestations.

http://i41.tinypic.com/vi1fgk.png

Oh, that's great! So a level 1 CAN make a relic without touching dynamis....


As long as you have a 65+ second character? lol

[FrankReynolds]

Any geared PLD can tank 2 NMs with Adamas or Steadfast. Holding all 5 NMs requires Ochain/Aegis.

The real issue is most PLDs without Ochain or Aegis are utter crap. (and most with are as well but the shields cover up their terrible play)


Any time that you make a certain job a requirement to do content like a tank or a healer and then have 20 other jobs that are completely interchangeable like FFXI does, there is a high likelihood that most of the people who play those required jobs do so only because they have to. So I agree. There's a pretty good chance that most paladins in general are crap.

I'm just saying that there should be a little more middle ground between the people who spent months on BST in dynamis or nin in abyssea and the people who didn't.

[Fynlar]

Too bad Adamas is probably harder to get than Ochain anyway.

[Demon6324236]

Harder, yes, more time taking, no.

[Camiie]

It seems so far that the only case for why PLD is broken is people who want the reward without the work, but I guess I'm biased since I put the effort in.


So what's the big deal if you have to make a new shield or the door is opened up to more people being able to play the job effectively? I don't see as you have anything to worry about since you're apparently The Man.

[Demon6324236]

It seems so far that the only case for why PLD is broken is people who want the reward without the work, but I guess I'm biased since I put the effort in.That is an unfair statement, no one is asking for SE to give them Ochain or Aegis for free, rather they are asking for other shields to be stronger so the gap can be smaller between a normal shield and these two shields. No one is asking for them to hand us the best shields, but to make other shields suck less so that they are more comparable, no one can deny that A&O are so far above other shields that they eclipse them, and while RMED weapons may be better, they are not nearly this much better than their non-RMED counterparts.

[Fynlar]

Harder, yes, more time taking, no.

I don't know if I'd even agree with that, to be honest. It was never easy/fun setting up a Provenance group and I bet it's way worse nowadays. On top of that, you're still dealing with lolvoidwatch drop rates.

[OmnysValefor]

That is an unfair statement, no one is asking for SE to give them Ochain or Aegis for free, rather they are asking for other shields to be stronger so the gap can be smaller between a normal shield and these two shields. No one is asking for them to hand us the best shields, but to make other shields suck less so that they are more comparable, no one can deny that A&O are so far above other shields that they eclipse them, and while RMED weapons may be better, they are not nearly this much better than their non-RMED counterparts.

I don't think you're asking for Ochain or Aegis to be given to you. I do think some people are. There are always people in this game that want the reward without the effort. Those are the people that buy gil, or earn it right, and buy their way through trials.

There's nothing wrong with buying your way through a trial. It's your gil, and the seller's time. If they aren't complaining, noone has a right to but Ochain just happens to be more annoying to buy your way through.

I was also making a deliberately broad and biased statement in reply to an equal statement of the opposite position, but that was made obvious.

[Camiie]

I haven't seen anyone ask for Ochain, Aegis, or even an equivalent to be given away. As Demon said, people are just asking for an enormous gaping hole to be filled.

Although if the shields were completely outclassed by the Delve shield they would only be in the same spot as every other R/M/E except Instruments. Anyone serious about PLD would earn and fully upgrade the Delve shield, and that's not a freebie. Even if you consider it a freebie, it's still just like all the weapons sans Instruments. I really don't see that PLDs would have any room to complain when everyone else with a R/M/E is going through the same thing.

[OmnysValefor]

No choice but to agree with that point. At least one of the +1s is me.

That is definitely where they were going to take the game until the uprising.

Now, RME's dmg is being buffed and the aftermath will again place them on top. From there, SE seems a little unclear but I interperet it as RME are being buffed one time to treat the shock players experienced, and the WS's/aftermaths will move to the other weapons (they said that directly).

However, as others have said, it's unclear how they'd make a shied more powerful than Aegis or Ochain.

Aegis 99 and 95 are literally too powerful. They break the MDT cap and take you to the absolute cap (if you have gear to supplement it, doesn't take much and then there's MDT left over. Granted, this means you can and should fill in other slots with other stats (unless you expect to not have Shell most of the fight and that aspect to be a great issue).

Aegis 99 should have been 40% and 95 35%, speaking as a 95 aegis myself.

Ochain is a powerful shield, it's not technically overpowered, it's just nearly necessary. Paladin isn't that powerful without it.

- - -

Noone here has said "Give me aegis and ochain" but several of the people here are crossposting the same points to other threads, like the VNM upgrade thread. Clearly, they want the shield, they just don't want to put in the work.

It's there, it's obtainable with no more than 2-3 people, and it doesn't take that long if you just set yourself to doing it. Mountains look a lot bigger from the bottom.

[Karah]

Truth be told, I think the problem, isn't the shields themselves, well Aegis is in a category of it's own.

But, the only (obviously) thing that make Ochain so absurdly powerful compared to ALL other shields is paladins (and really all jobs with defensive capabilities) failing at blocking.

Really, if you have a shield, when are you -NOT- going to block with it, ever? However, you can't just give all shields (and parry and guard) a flat increase in activation, at least not by a large %. But that seems to be the only real solution.

A complete re-tool of the way that defensive mechanisms work, not the shields themselves. Can anyone really argue otherwise? There are actually BETTER shields than Ochain, if they had the same or even 90% blockrate.

As for Aegis, I really can't see much in the way of changing or adjusting anything to match it, it truly is a unique piece, and a staple in the pld arsenal.

[Demon6324236]

Only way to bring a shield near Aegis or anything close is to allow another piece to break the cap, or flat out give PLD a higher cap in general so you can stack more on it which would make Aegis have a lesser effect.

[Duelle]

Truth be told, I think the problem, isn't the shields themselves, well Aegis is in a category of it's own.

But, the only (obviously) thing that make Ochain so absurdly powerful compared to ALL other shields is paladins (and really all jobs with defensive capabilities) failing at blocking.

Really, if you have a shield, when are you -NOT- going to block with it, ever? However, you can't just give all shields (and parry and guard) a flat increase in activation, at least not by a large %. But that seems to be the only real solution.

A complete re-tool of the way that defensive mechanisms work, not the shields themselves. Can anyone really argue otherwise? There are actually BETTER shields than Ochain, if they had the same or even 90% blockrate.

As for Aegis, I really can't see much in the way of changing or adjusting anything to match it, it truly is a unique piece, and a staple in the pld arsenal.I've been mulling over this for quite some time. Shield mechanics as a whole are questionable, not even looking into how shields factor in overall survivability. That's why I said the system seems to be designed around Aegis/Ochain being the best.

I'd personally scrap everything about shields. Size differences and the can of worms that opened, defense values as we know them and so on.

Add shield block rating to determine activation rate regardless of "size" (scaling with something like STR or AGI), with "size" only determining the threshold of damage that is blocked. Player characters gaining an amount of -DT just from equipping the shield would also help with making shields not seem like a waste of a slot for anyone without A skill in shields.

Either way, I agree that defensive mechanics have been odd for a long time.

[OmnysValefor]

PLD could stand for some stances, like hasso/seigan yonin/innin (even berserk/defender). I don't think my paladin needs to be more powerful, but a defensive stance that was independent of caps would be a buff to other paladins.

Berserk and Defender aren't technically stances, but they're my favorite, because even hard mobs I can keep defender up, pop berserk (normalizing my attack/defense), ws, and cancel berserk, if I feel like my life is really in danger. I like that they stack so that this can be done.

In 75 days, there was also merit to popping JA's and canceling them--just the use of the ability generated sizable enmity.

Suppose, just for numbers, pld had a -10% damage taken stance that could break PDT and MDT cap, and was additive. A paladin in -50% dt gear takes -60% in this stance. A paladin in -5%, takes -15%.

Conversely, something I've long desired, is a DD stance for paladin. It would be fine if this was like nin's stances and overwrote each other but shared a cooldown.

Perhaps the stances shouldn't break caps, maybe they should just be a trait of the job so that a paladin needs only -40% to hit pdt cap and 13% to hit natural mdt cap. This is probably more fair. It doesn't do anything really for a DT capped paladin but is a boost to others.

Stalwart Shield - Raises blocking by (mulplicative?) 10% (Places where an Ochain isn't block capping, it still wouldn't be) and reduces damage taken by 10%. Does not (does?) affect damage reduction limits.
Blade First - Blocking is lowered by 10%, but ... something something... double attack... ja haste? Idk. lol.

If it broke damage caps, such an ability would hamper the value of Aegis slightly, unless you couldn't keep shell up, but that's not common. By hampering Aegis' value, Ochain's would naturally be increased.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

I've been mulling over this for quite some time. Shield mechanics as a whole are questionable, not even looking into how shields factor in overall survivability. That's why I said the system seems to be designed around Aegis/Ochain being the best.

During a previous incarnation of this thread (and let's face it: this comes up every few months or so), I voiced my opinion that size 4 shields should become something other than arm decoration. I think it's kind of ridiculous that the job with the highest shield skill in the game, wearing one of the most job-exclusive shields in the game (they're typically PLD and DRK only), is actually a step backwards from equipping a shield accessible to WAR or even RDM.

You want to talk about the gaping hole between R/E and everything else? Hole, thy name is tower shields.

[Duelle]

During a previous incarnation of this thread (and let's face it: this comes up every few months or so), I voiced my opinion that size 4 shields should become something other than arm decoration. I think it's kind of ridiculous that the job with the highest shield skill in the game, wearing one of the most job-exclusive shields in the game (they're typically PLD and DRK only), is actually a step backwards from equipping a shield accessible to WAR or even RDM.

You want to talk about the gaping hole between R/E and everything else? Hole, thy name is tower shields.I agree, but more because it pertains to the lopsided design for shield mechanics. I get that they wanted to simulate real-life shield wielding when they created the system based on shield sizes, but as you said, it in effect relegated one entire category of shields to being decorations. I belie it is also part of why Aegis was so good at 75. Fully milked the shield size system with none of the drawbacks suffered by anything bigger than kite shields.

[Demon6324236]

The reason Ochain and Aegis are so much better in general when it comes to blocking is because of the way shields work besides them basically.

Rate Reduction
Buckler 4 1
Round 3 2
Kite 2 3
Tower 1 4
Aegis 4 3
Ochain 5 5

Easiest way of showing it. Tower is pointless because it blocks a ton of damage, but never blocks, same with bucklers, round shields are ok but Kites are the shields that excel outside of Aegis/Ochain because they have the best balance. Aegis and Ochain on the other hand do not have the flaw that others do, where increased block rate means reduced reduction, or vice versa. If they fixed shields to be more balanced in that respect it would help too. Tower for instance is so exclusive to PLD and DRK that they should have a better block rate block rate. If their effect was more tied to the jobs that can use them rather than simply low blocking on bigger shields, it would be fine, or if PLD got some trait to make Tower shields suck less.

[Duelle]

Tower is pointless because it blocks a ton of damage, but never blocks, same with bucklers, round shields are ok but Kites are the shields that excel outside of Aegis/Ochain because they have the best balance. Aegis and Ochain on the other hand do not have the flaw that others do, where increased block rate means reduced reduction, or vice versa. If they fixed shields to be more balanced in that respect it would help too. Tower for instance is so exclusive to PLD and DRK that they should have a better block rate. If their effect was more tied to the jobs that can use them rather than simply low blocking on bigger shields, it would be fine, or if PLD got some trait to make Tower shields suck less.I agree with this.

[Alpheus]

A complete re-tool of the way that defensive mechanisms work,

This and extend the rework to parrying and evasion and guard, that stuff gets so useless so fast it's appalling.

[Taint2]

2 of the 3 Delve bosses are now being killed without PLDs.

PLD will be useless again once the a shark strategy is found.

[Duelle]

2 of the 3 Delve bosses are now being killed without PLDs.

PLD will be useless again once the a shark strategy is found.All that does is scream volumes about PLD's design. >.>

[Demon6324236]

All that does is scream volumes about PLD's design. >.>Really I would say its the games design in general. As said before, it either hits so hard you need an amazing PLD, or its so weak your DDs can tank it, very little room between. Look at legion mobs though, they used to hit very hard, so hard in fact it nearly killed everyone in 1 hit, what did we do? PD or stun lock it, so it could not hurt us. Tanking in this game simply is broken, DDs can tank, if they cant, you bring support so that you can stop it from attacking completely, very few times is PLD an option without being a drag on resources. The only way PLD would truly work is if something hit so hard that literally no DD could survive more than a single hit from it even in capped out PDT & Defense gear, so no matter what it is impossible for a DD to really tank, then a PLD would have to be able to survive against this exact same kind of attack with quite a bit of HP left. Even then, becomes nothing more than curing the PLD while DDs beat away, or run in to WS. Without things being that way, we will always find a way around using a real tank, and instead favor just another DD in their spot to kill quicker, especially when events are so cramped for time like Delve is, where you have only 45 minutes inside to kill 2 NMs and make it to the 3rd, or 20 minutes to kill NMs outside.

[Fynlar]

PLD isn't really useful for fighting Delve NMs, for the same reasons we didn't really use them for fighting anything else (like in Voidwatch; if you wanted someone to have Shield Bash you just made a BRD sub /PLD). The hate system just doesn't allow for PLD to keep hate, and even if it could, most of the toughest mobs will just AoE your frontline to death anyway, making having a tank pointless.

PLD is currently used for *holding* NMs in fracture, not fighting them. So yeah, the fact that they aren't being used for boss runs (where the goal is to kill all of the NMs, not hold them) should come as a surprise to nobody. I've honestly never been sure why people bother bringing PLDs for things like field NMs; they just seem like wastes of an alliance slot tbh.

[Alerith]

All that does is scream volumes about Enmity design. >.>

FTFY

It's not the job. It's the game. It's a case of trying to fit the round peg (PLD) into the square hole (Game Design). You can't just discard the peg because...well...I cannot fathom the rage that would come from simply deleting a job.

[OmnysValefor]

Concerning PLD, perhaps the mistake was the plethora of -DT gear available to most every job now.

On one hand, you gotta love it because it puts some of the responsibility for the player's life in their own hands, and brings more considerations to what gear you'll carry. On the other hand, you're left with what a few of the last several posts have pointed out. Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.

[Alerith]

Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.

To further complicate matters, making something hard enough that it requires a Paladin to tank it probably means that it requires one of the aforementioned shields. Meaning that if it requires a Paladin but requires an Aegis or Ochain, then that means PLDs without them hardly benefit at all. Inversely, if it's tankable by a PLD without either shield...you probably don't need a PLD to tank it.

[Duelle]

Concerning PLD, perhaps the mistake was the plethora of -DT gear available to most every job now.

On one hand, you gotta love it because it puts some of the responsibility for the player's life in their own hands, and brings more considerations to what gear you'll carry. On the other hand, you're left with what a few of the last several posts have pointed out. Either a PLD has to tank it, or anyone can.-DT is not really the problem. It's more the fact that it was used as a solution to the bigger problem that is damage mitigation.

Looking at FFXI's Paladin, I can tell you it has almost none of the staples of tank design, either on purpose or due to developer shortsightedness. By staples I mean:

* Inherent improved enmity generation: At the baseline, a naked PLD should be able to generate more enmity than a naked <insert any other job>, be it through enmity bonuses to all actions, more JAs and spells that can be spammed to make up for the enmity generated by the DPS, and/or slower enmity decay compared to other jobs
* Inherent greater survivability: Baseline, a PLD should have better survivability than other jobs through greater damage mitigation or damage avoidance; this ties into
* Better results/scaling with armor values and defensive stats compared to other jobs: A PLD should be seeing greater benefits from stuff like armor values and shields as a whole compared to other jobs. Bringing in the tower shields example from last page, a PLD should see notably superior benefits from equipping a tower shield than a DRK.

As of right now, PLD is basically designed within the mold of a DPS job but with lesser damage potential and some non-damage abilities to try to push it into the tank role. Maybe the job was intended to occasionally take hate to give the healers a breather rather than full-time like we'd expect from a tank. I also keep in mind Tanaka aimed for this game to emulate designs from the console FF games, where there was never a need for a tank job.

[OmnysValefor]

Yeah I've played other MMOs, and though their entire design is different I understand what you're talking about. WoW's Paladin has "Righteous Fury" - All divine magic generates double~ (they change it sometimes) enmity. It's like Yonin on steroids.

I can agree that other jobs have better defensive tools. Fan Dance, Seigan, Utsusemi. Shield is a helluva tool in the right scenario and shield was, of course, a boon to PLD/NIN.

Back then, due to less available and less...attractive -DT gear, tanks were the only thing that could tank, but the monsters hit hard enough in the gear players would wear that blocking or blinking was your only hope.

Buffing PLD in the damage department (something they've said in the past they won't do) would also do well to keep PLDs coming. I would enjoy such a buff, but they've painted themself into a corner. If PLD did more damage, then it has the chance to be Invincible *and* a good DD.

That's the problem really is that they're all over the map and make a mess for the next team. You can't really nerf Aegis or Ochain. Re-calibrating blocking would be unfair to those who've built Ochain (yeah, like me) but PLDs need both shields to be most effective. At the moment, there's nothing unfair about Ochain. It's there, it's free, it just takes time, or less time and gil.

[saevel]

Remember the original FFXI job system was based on early EQ and without many of the established roles and methods present in the modern MMO world. SE never designed any job as "tank" because EQ and previous games didn't have dedicated tanks. They had defense melee jobs that could take more hits then others but at the sacrifice of damage output. Enmity generation was a function of the monsters AI and typically greatly favored the nearest thing to the job and taunt mechanics (forced hate).

So when SE build the FFXI job system they build the six basic jobs and just went from there. Warrior was the original job designed to hold the monsters attention and was given a balanced mixed of offensive and defensive abilities, it was adequately balanced back in 2002 / 2003. Paladin was just an upgraded Warrior that sacrificed the offensive abilities to gain some defensive ones and access to low level white magic. It wasn't until years later that SE got around to "fixing" PLD's defensive system and making shields actually work, before they were just like guard / parry. They never looked at the enmity system and how it applies to the role of "tank" and the result is what we have today. Taunt mechanics are pretty much the only way your gonna get a job with such weak damage output to hold a monsters attention and not die. Defense scaling, enmity scaling, and ability access are all screwed up in FFXI.

[Alerith]

Yeah I've played other MMOs, and though their entire design is different I understand what you're talking about. WoW's Paladin has "Righteous Fury" - All divine magic generates double~ (they change it sometimes) enmity. It's like Yonin on steroids.

I can agree that other jobs have better defensive tools. Fan Dance, Seigan, Utsusemi. Shield is a helluva tool in the right scenario and shield was, of course, a boon to PLD/NIN.

Back then, due to less available and less...attractive -DT gear, tanks were the only thing that could tank, but the monsters hit hard enough in the gear players would wear that blocking or blinking was your only hope.

Buffing PLD in the damage department (something they've said in the past they won't do) would also do well to keep PLDs coming. I would enjoy such a buff, but they've painted themself into a corner. If PLD did more damage, then it has the chance to be Invincible *and* a good DD.

That's the problem really is that they're all over the map and make a mess for the next team. You can't really nerf Aegis or Ochain. Re-calibrating blocking would be unfair to those who've built Ochain (yeah, like me) but PLDs need both shields to be most effective. At the moment, there's nothing unfair about Ochain. It's there, it's free, it just takes time, or less time and gil.

I agree with this.

What it comes down to is the fact that SE has backed themselves against a wall in regards to Paladin, and they are too scared of its remaining potential in the one area they refuse to touch: Damage.

Give a PLD proper damage output with it's current level of survivability and you have just broken the game. (Not that they aren't already starting down that path with Delve.)

If a PLD can do proper damage and shrug off Firaga IV or Death Scissors, why bring anything else? It would completely invert the current dynamic. Instead of PLDs being few against the many DD, you would have PLDs everywhere and every other job would be excluded.

You can see an very simplified version of this in FFXIV 1.0. where if you wanted to fight Ifrit, you had to have the Sentinel job ability or you were barred from joining some parties.

[OmnysValefor]

They could control having too many PLDs by things like shield mastery where a significant portion/majority of a paladin's TP comes from being hit.

They could make our attack based of the damage we take, or the damage we mitigate. Creed +2 proves that the server is keeping track of both how much damage could have been done and how much damage was taken.

Doing these things makes it so that more than two paladins, really more than one, hinders the group.

I'm not saying PLD needs a damage buff, but... PLD needs a damage buff if SE expects us to keep a position in the group.

[Alerith]

They could control having too many PLDs by things like shield mastery where a significant portion/majority of a paladin's TP comes from being hit.

They could make our attack based of the damage we take, or the damage we mitigate. Creed +2 proves that the server is keeping track of both how much damage could have been done and how much damage was taken.

Doing these things makes it so that more than two paladins, really more than one, hinders the group.

I'm not saying PLD needs a damage buff, but... PLD needs a damage buff if SE expects us to keep a position in the group.

A stacking buff that increases your attack as you receive/mitigate damage would be something really nice to have, but I don't think it changes how PLD would be used in either case. If you do that as things are now, DD will have to intentionally hold back so the PLD can build and maintain its attack stacks, just to be more useful in...dealing damage. So you have to withhold damage so a PLD can build up and deal more damage. It's counter-productive.

Yes, it would prevent PLD stacking, but it also doesn't help them in the long run either.

On shield mastery, I would like to see TP gained proportionate to damage blocked. Similar to how Ochain converts damage to MP as a percentage, I'd like to see something similar with shield master.

However, even that is limited by the issues I just brought up. PLD is a very stick job to mess with.

[OmnysValefor]

There are ways around that though too. Giving paladin a massive enmity ability to open a fight with (and Ninja and Runefencer as well) is just common sense. PLD isn't present in zerges for the obvious reason. Voke, flash, and a mediocre ws might keep hate off the first round of ws's (it might, but probably won't) and by the second round, someone else is tanking.

It's all downhill at that point, if you're landing every hit, you're ws'ing at 1/5 (that's probably generous) the rate of the SAMs in your group. In many groups, it's made worse that the DDs are getting bards and the paladin isn't. (Unless each party is getting songs).

[OmnysValefor]

I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.

[Alerith]

I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.

Aye, excellent concept, a damn fine execution then...nothing. Like...really, what happened to that stroke of intelligence after Atonement was implemented? The entire concept just fell off the face of the planet.

A WS that has damage varying with Enmity. Brilliant! Caps at ~750? Ok, cool. That isn't bad damage for its time, especially by PLD standards. New add on expansions! I wonder what enmity goodies come of this!

...
...
...

Not a damn thing. Atonement and its concept were never improved or expanded upon and immediately fell behind Chant Du Cygne AND Vorpal Blade because of crit properties. They haven't recovered since.

[OmnysValefor]

Yeah, Atonement was our <every samurai ws>. It took the stat we loved, we stacked, we did the best we could with, and that was the modifier. Spirits Within was a good concept too. It also took a stat we loved, we stack, and made a modifier out of it.

In todays time, we should be able to see 2k Atonements, at least. Our tp gain is so unreliable, and slow--if we're not being hit and blocking that with ochain, that we should be cranking out a strong ws when we have the tp.

[Alerith]

Yeah, Atonement was our <every samurai ws>. It took the stat we loved, we stacked, we did the best we could with, and that was the modifier. Spirits Within was a good concept too. It also took a stat we loved, we stack, and made a modifier out of it.

In todays time, we should be able to see 2k Atonements, at least. Our tp gain is so unreliable, and slow--if we're not being hit and blocking that with ochain, that we should be cranking out a strong ws when we have the tp.

Alas, Atonement is ultimately limited by the crappy enmity cap that has existed since the dawn of Vana'Diel's creation. I'm not saying Atonement should have infinite potential as if there was an infinite enmity cap, but it's currently weighed down in such a way that it CAN'T be useful compared to everything else available.

[Fynlar]

Alas, Atonement is ultimately limited by the crappy enmity cap that has existed since the dawn of Vana'Diel's creation.

If we want to get really technical though, it isn't. 750 is a hardcoded limitation into the WS; it actually doesn't have anything to do with the value that enmity caps at.

When enmity for the WS is capped, it should be doing 720 damage at 100 TP. It could technically be capable of way more than this with higher TP, but no matter how much TP you have, it stops at 750. (If you have 300 TP, you can actually be somewhere quite south of capped enmity and still hit 750 damage.)

In other words, even if they "adjusted" the enmity system, Atonement still wouldn't be capable of hitting more than 750s (unless certain factors are at play, like increased damage taken or whatnot) unless the WS itself also got specifically adjusted.

[Duelle]

You can see an very simplified version of this in FFXIV 1.0. where if you wanted to fight Ifrit, you had to have the Sentinel job ability or you were barred from joining some parties.Admitedly, this was because classes and jobs lacked damage mitigation cooldowns, whereas in other games each class has their own damage mitigation cooldown already built-in.


There are ways around that though too. Giving paladin a massive enmity ability to open a fight with (and Ninja and Runefencer as well) is just common sense. PLD isn't present in zerges for the obvious reason. Voke, flash, and a mediocre ws might keep hate off the first round of ws's (it might, but probably won't) and by the second round, someone else is tanking.Provided SE is willing to mess with databases, you have a good opportunity for this with Holy if they split it to Holy (WHM) and Holy (PLD). PLD version being paltry damage but having massive enmity modifiers. PLD's MP pool is small enough that it discourages spamming it (not to mention it has a lengthy recast timer as is), so it might work out.


I miss the minds that created Spirits Within and Atonement. Especially atonement. They saw a glimmer of the problem, but only for a moment.I was never crazy for either because they scale off factors that fluctuate during combat, thus making them unreliable. Tanking, like healing, is dependent on reliability (though RNG can be used to spice things up if within the right context).

As a concept they're interesting, but that's as far as it got with me.

[Oakrest]

As an Ochain owner, I can think back to the days before I had the shield (or even knew it existed) and how frustrating it was to be a paladin trying to mitigate damage. I basically always /nin if I was doing any serious tanking because relying on shield just wouldn't cut it. When reprisal was later introduced it helped ease the pressure between shadow casts, but the lack of reliable blocking still made tanking on pld very difficult against high level mobs.

After spending a lot of time and hard work on obtaining Ochain, I'm a bit sensitive to having a shield of equivalent power released that can be obtained more easily (such as on the AH, or by fighting a single NM like in Delve). Even with my Ochain only being the level 90 version, the work I spent at the time took months in abyssea and I feel it should represent it's value still.

However, like I mentioned above, I know what it's like trying to play paladin and being required to have Ochain or Aegis to participate in events - it's frustrating and should be improved. That's why I agree with the OP that the window needs to be narrowed (new shields made available) but caution it should be done with balance. The R/M/E v.s. Delve weapons is a great example of how not to do this. I spent months farming Dynamis leading up to SoA: acquired Ragnarok, leveled it to 95, and then found out you can obtain Bereaver by fighting a single NM (a much better Greatsword, even without augments) soon after SoA's release. A very big disappointment.

[saevel]

Fixing atonement won't do a damn thing for PLD. In turtle mode with Sword and Board their already an order of magnitude behind the DD's in damage, their not going to hold any semblance of hate even if the DD's throttle down.

We're really down to the fact that PLD simply doesn't have any real hate tools. It's got "nifty abilities" but none of those modify or otherwise change the base enmity mechanics of the monster. PLD's DPS output is so laughable that it can't reliably use the existing enmity system. Adjusting the current enmity system in any meaningful way isn't going to help PLD much at all, their simply too far behind. We're at the point where PLD (and potentially others) need their abilities severely redefinition (not just adjusted).

Personally my vote is for a modification to Cover. If the target is a PC then it functions like it does now, if the target is a monster then it forces the monster to target only the user for it's duration. Extend it's duration and lower it's recast to such that a PLD can keep it up ~75% of the time with non-PLD's having ~50% of the time.

That's pretty much the only way your going to have a real "tank" in FFXI right now.

[Taint2]

PLD isn't really useful for fighting Delve NMs, for the same reasons we didn't really use them for fighting anything else (like in Voidwatch; if you wanted someone to have Shield Bash you just made a BRD sub /PLD). The hate system just doesn't allow for PLD to keep hate, and even if it could, most of the toughest mobs will just AoE your frontline to death anyway, making having a tank pointless.

PLD is currently used for *holding* NMs in fracture, not fighting them. So yeah, the fact that they aren't being used for boss runs (where the goal is to kill all of the NMs, not hold them) should come as a surprise to nobody. I've honestly never been sure why people bother bringing PLDs for things like field NMs; they just seem like wastes of an alliance slot tbh.


Simply because PLD use since the last year or two of 75 cap was to be the safety net.

New content comes out > PLDs are used
New content is figure out > PLDs are useless

The cycle has been going on since sometime in '06-07 when people started using RDM and DRK tanks over PLD.

When Adoulin first came out I was pumped to use my Excal/Almace/Ochain/Aegis, now PLD is back in storage.

[OmnysValefor]

@Omnys

Provided SE is willing to mess with databases, you have a good opportunity for this with Holy if they split it to Holy (WHM) and Holy (PLD). PLD version being paltry damage but having massive enmity modifiers. PLD's MP pool is small enough that it discourages spamming it (not to mention it has a lengthy recast timer as is), so it might work out.

I was never crazy for either because they scale off factors that fluctuate during combat, thus making them unreliable. Tanking, like healing, is dependent on reliability (though RNG can be used to spice things up if within the right context).

As a concept they're interesting, but that's as far as it got with me.

Eh, i'm with ya on Spirits Within. Finding the opportunity to ws @ 100% hp wasn't always easy. Enmity was controllable, save for hate resets... I'll get back to hate resets in a minute.

There's no need to mess with the database. Give PLD a trait that causes our divine and healing spells to cause more enmity. Kind of the opposite of Tranquil Heart.

Still PLD's damage would have to be looked at if they want us to keep a position in zergs, and in this day and age, everything becomes a zerg sooner or later. I'm happy with my paladin, I really am, but we all know we've no position in zergs. It's ridiculous for an Aegischain to ask for "moar", because the job is quite powerful, but it is so severely lacking offensively.

About hate resets...

I don't even know what to say. They'd make for an interesting concept if tanks had some kind of answer to them. Group hate resets aren't so bad, but when you're DD are @9k enmity and you're suddenly at 0 and you're left with only voke, flash, your ja's, and how fast you cans wing your sword to catch up, it's a long road.

[OmnysValefor]

When Adoulin first came out I was pumped to use my Excal/Almace/Ochain/Aegis, now PLD is back in storage.

Too true. A lot of other LS's and pugs are a good bit behind your progress, but as with voidwatch, everyone will get there, and people won't stay in the groups that can't.

By the time SE does something about shields, paladin will be a solo tool again. When new NMs come out, players will want Aegischains again anyway.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Meaning that if it requires a Paladin but requires an Aegis or Ochain, then that means PLDs without them hardly benefit at all. Inversely, if it's tankable by a PLD without either shield...you probably don't need a PLD to tank it.

Sorry if it's already been said, but I doubt it can be said often enough:

I don't want content to require Paladin. If nothing else, that's not fair to the other 21 jobs. What I'd really like is content that allows or permits Paladin. Right now it's a binary switch, a quantum leap between "needs PLD" and "no PLD allowed," much like the gap between relic/empyrean shields and other shields.

We can drop this whole shield drama entirely if PLD had viable contributions to a party in other ways, say with a Great Sword or a Staff. Excenmille has been rockin' a two-hander for over twenty years, but we players sure as hell can't.

[Duelle]

There's no need to mess with the database. Give PLD a trait that causes our divine and healing spells to cause more enmity. Kind of the opposite of Tranquil Heart.I don't think this is the sort of thing you'd apply a blanket rule to. My aim was creating something that generates high enmity without the damage attached to it.

For argument's sake, imagine PLD's version of Holy was scaled to do the same enmity as Flare, but capable of doing only a fraction of the damage.


Still PLD's damage would have to be looked at if they want us to keep a position in zergs, and in this day and age, everything becomes a zerg sooner or later.I don't think this is possible without some drastic change to encounter design and/or party dynamics.


I don't want content to require Paladin. If nothing else, that's not fair to the other 21 jobs.Less about PLD-onry and more about content that requires a tank.

PLD happens to attempt to lean in the direction of "tank", and is one of the few jobs that does. SE gave up on WAR, they never even got started with SAM, and then spread stuff out on jobs like DNC for some reason. The flaw is that you have no jobs heavily leaning (or purely designed to) in the direction of tanking. What's worse is that most of those other jobs have some sort of secondary use, while PLD does not. This is all exacerbated by the existence of mitigation via Aegis/Ochain.

[Demon6324236]

I don't want content to require Paladin.If it does not require a PLD, PLD is not worth bringing.

No content in the game will you ever see people truly wanting a PLD if its not required, why? Because, PLD does shit for damage, has no other utility besides tanking that can not easily be done better by another job, holding mobs, Twilight gear, cures, WHM SCH or RDM, DDing, every DD in the game basically. So why bring a PLD if its not required? Simple, don't, and that's the problem, no content truly requires a PLD.

You said its not fair to the other jobs, well really, may I ask how fair it is to PLD that its only use is when content is new and not yet understood? Since no content requires a PLD as soon as we understand how to win we no longer use one, why would we? We can tank with DDs, people putting out more damage and that are overall more useful to the party than the PLD would be because we can survive doing it, because PLD is not required. If it were required, we would have to bring it, but its not, so why do it? Can you give me a reason to bring PLD when its not required? Because outside of saying the same thing Matsui said with taking newer players to Delve, just be nice and take them with you cause they need it too, I can not think of any reason to take a PLD when its not truly needed.

[Alpheus]

I wonder, would you give up the Legendary shields (a nerf) if it meant they strengthened PLD as a DD or otherwise brought it up to par such that it can get away from such a binary function of usefulness?

Edit: I ask this because if SE were serious about changing PLD to have a wider degree of usefulness I see them pointing to those two shields (and to a lesser extent Burtgang) as reasons why PLD cant have (more) nice things. I also ask because its a good point (the whole binary usefulness of PLD) and I am simply curious what other good points can be brought up if it was discussed further.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

If it does not require a PLD, PLD is not worth bringing.

Which is exactly the problem I want to see fixed. Was that particular paragraph too long?

[Duelle]

I wonder, would you give up the Legendary shields (a nerf) if it meant they strengthened PLD as a DD or otherwise brought it up to par such that it can get away from such a binary function of usefulness?

Edit: I ask this because if SE were serious about changing PLD to have a wider degree of usefulness I see them pointing to those two shields (and to a lesser extent Burtgang) as reasons why PLD cant have (more) nice things. I also ask because its a good point (the whole binary usefulness of PLD) and I am simply curious what other good points can be brought up if it was discussed further.I recognize that it would be easier to nerf PLD survivability over fixing the battle system, shield design, defensive mechanics, party dynamics and mob design.

At the same time, I'd only accept it if PLD were to be redesigned around Holy Sword skills (one of the more memorable concepts from FFTactics), and even then I wouldn't think it was a surefire way to change things. Seems too much like taking a shortcut in an attempt to avoid the real problem.

[OmnysValefor]

I don't think this is the sort of thing you'd apply a blanket rule to. My aim was creating something that generates high enmity without the damage attached to it.

On anything that matters, pld is lucky to clear 100 damage Holy II, without divine emblem. Of course DE is sitting there, but DE isn't enough and the cooldown sucks.


For argument's sake, imagine PLD's version of Holy was scaled to do the same enmity as Flare, but capable of doing only a fraction of the damage.

Right, a trait to increase Holy or Holy 2's damage does this, yeah?


I don't think this is possible without some drastic change to encounter design and/or party dynamics.

I agree. While a warrior can tank a zerg, it still can't tank like a pld. Asking for pld, in its current state, to be given more damage potential is like asking for warrior to gain some more tankiness.

I'd say that PLD is purely a tank. Tanks in all games do some damage and that's all that PLD does. It's enmity, and the love of designing zergs, that's broken, and not so much PLD. XI creates this atmosphere of the boss needing to die, and needing to die now. WAR, SAM, DRK tanks can contribute more damage in their -DT sets than a PLD can in his DD set, even if he were using a GS most likely, especially since the war can, and will, swap to a ws set for ws.

That's what it boils down to really.

[Demon6324236]

Which is exactly the problem I want to see fixed. Was that particular paragraph too long?No, but no matter what you do to PLD, unless it can do something else besides tank so well that it can do it just as well as another job, and its a viable use, then it will never fix that PLD is only useful when absolutely required. If a PLD could DD for instance, would I bring a PLD to tank and DD, or bring a WAR which can tank all the same, take more damage, but deal more damage as well? Chances are, I will take the WAR, or a DRK, or a SAM. What if it healed as well as RDM or SCH? Nope, I have dedicated support for that, same as buffing. Like I said before, can you give me a reason to bring PLD when its not required? If not, can you give me a real idea, not a vague idea, a real, solid idea, that would fix it?

[Demon6324236]

On anything that matters, pld is lucky to clear 100 damage Holy II, without divine emblem. Of course DE is sitting there, but DE isn't enough and the cooldown sucks.



Right, a trait to increase Holy or Holy 2's damage does this, yeah?He is talking about giving you the enmity as though there were damage, without the actual damage, so that you can spike enmity with them, but not deal extra damage.

[OmnysValefor]

Oh I know, like he said. Flare's enmity, without flare's damage. A passive trait to pld increasing divine enmity would do just that. My point was that Holy / Holy 2 are already pretty awful. They've already got the low-damage aspect down, all they need is more enmity.

[Demon6324236]

Ah, well in that case I most definitely agree, no matter how you try PLD will never do any kind of respectable damage with Divine magic, nerfing it further... that's like if they took SMN right now and nerfed its avatars, its just kickin ya while your already to weak to do anything in the first place.

[Alerith]

Damage, be it with the sword or divine magic, is the only area left where PLD's potential hasn't been fully explored. Chant Du Cygne is great and all, but it doesn't make you a viable source of damage. Atonement and Spirit's Within had the right idea, but that concept fell off the face of the earth. A direct damage boost to either sword or divine magic is no good either, because then you've broken the game due to PLD's current ability to mitigate damage.

Maybe a single target weaponskill that acts like Atonement but also collects a percentage of enmity from your party and applies it to damage?

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

Or maybe they could find ways to encourage jobs to use weapons other than their single A+++ choice. But then we'd end up with some sort of crazy, mixed-up world of SAMs using bows, MNKs using staves, and WARs using any of the 183 weapon choices they have that aren't a Great Axe.

[OmnysValefor]

Your snark is obvious, of course those jobs used to use those weapons, but always because they were an A+ choice for the task. Not once has anything subpar become a trend in this game, not that I can think of. SAM/RNG's didn't just SAM/RNG and go, they built entire gearsets, ate different food. The first person to do it might have had a special-snowflake+min/maxing mentality, but others followed because it was a very strong source of dmg.

[Mirage]

I seriously think more weapons should be more viable for more jobs. What's wrong with making more variety in the game? What's wrong with having poles and clubs be viable weapons for monks? What's wrong with having bows and polearms be viable weapons for sam?

Except that it might be harder to actually balance for SE, that is. But that's SE's problem, not ours!

[OmnysValefor]

I wouldn't mind using club on PLD if there were good options, but there aren't (http://www.ffxiah.com/search/item?&slots[]=1&jobs[]=128&skill_id=11&fields[0]=2&order[0]=1#adv), besides the delve reward, but I don't want to give up WS points for Realmrazer.

[Duelle]

I seriously think more weapons should be more viable for more jobs. What's wrong with making more variety in the game? What's wrong with having poles and clubs be viable weapons for monks? What's wrong with having bows and polearms be viable weapons for sam?

Except that it might be harder to actually balance for SE, that is. But that's SE's problem, not ours!You'd have to either adjust weapon skills so that they are job-inherent instead of weapon-inherent, or simply make all weapon skills the same and raise/abolish proficiencies across the board.

I don't see either happening.

[Vold]

As far as hate control goes, I recall this one MMORPG I had played for a few years. About 5 years into the game's existence the warrior tank class got a pretty big boost to holding hate. Just by engaging the warrior would essentially get a dev created "cheat" where by the only way to drag hate off of the warrior you would need to not be using your abilities to lose hate(like what BLM gets for example)

I can provide more examples but what it boils down to is this: SE can make it so that a PLD holds hate forever. They just don't want to do it. They can't really do it. Not yet anyway until they are well into their new plans for EQ/WoW end game.


Beyond that I just don't have an answer for making PLD useful beyond the ochain/aegis. The only way to do it is to use cheats. Whether it's the above or have NMs detect jobs and if any job other than PLD is tanking it gets utterly raped(for example a war tanks it gets hit for 2k damage, PLD tanks they get hit for 300 dmg) or both or whatever. Cheats are cheats. A lot of MMORPGs have to resort to them for tank classes because the last thing you ever want to do is create a tank that's as powerful as DD and tanks. It just goes against the laws of... something.


I have an ochain and aegis and I'm totally for more options for lesser tiered shields. But make no mistake, no one who does their shout groups will care about anything less than ochain unless it is practically ochain. After going through my 75 colorless soul farming I'm not sure how I feel about such a shield. But I'm already used to the treatment with delve weapons so whatevs man. Whatevs.

[Zagen]

As far as hate control goes, I recall this one MMORPG I had played for a few years. About 5 years into the game's existence the warrior tank class got a pretty big boost to holding hate. Just by engaging the warrior would essentially get a dev created "cheat" where by the only way to drag hate off of the warrior you would need to not be using your abilities to lose hate(like what BLM gets for example)

I can provide more examples but what it boils down to is this: SE can make it so that a PLD holds hate forever. They just don't want to do it. They can't really do it. Not yet anyway until they are well into their new plans for EQ/WoW end game.


Beyond that I just don't have an answer for making PLD useful beyond the ochain/aegis. The only way to do it is to use cheats. Whether it's the above or have NMs detect jobs and if any job other than PLD is tanking it gets utterly raped(for example a war tanks it gets hit for 2k damage, PLD tanks they get hit for 300 dmg) or both or whatever. Cheats are cheats. A lot of MMORPGs have to resort to them for tank classes because the last thing you ever want to do is create a tank that's as powerful as DD and tanks. It just goes against the laws of... something.


I have an ochain and aegis and I'm totally for more options for lesser tiered shields. But make no mistake, no one who does their shout groups will care about anything less than ochain unless it is practically ochain. After going through my 75 colorless soul farming I'm not sure how I feel about such a shield. But I'm already used to the treatment with delve weapons so whatevs man. Whatevs.

Even if PLD was able to hold hate 100% of the time that wouldn't matter for anything outside of the "PLD holds a monster" situations. Currently that's Plasm farming (which is super tanked so hate isn't the issue) or groups who're diving into content without feeling confidant in using a more aggressive strategy yet.

As someone else had mentioned even if it's a monster that rips through DD's HP meaning they can't fill/share the tanking role then the monster just gets stun locked or PD/Embrava cycle zerged.

The whole combat system would need to be reworked in order for PLD with or without Aegis/Ochain to remain a relevant role in combat dynamics.

[Duelle]

The whole combat system would need to be reworked in order for PLD with or without Aegis/Ochain to remain a relevant role in combat dynamics.Sadly, I reach this conclusion as well. You have to set a strict guideline for tank and non-tank survivability with neither interlapping. Then establish your tank classes, give them the needed tools to hold hate and generate enmity at the same capacity the DPS can. Then design the boss mobs around that. It is admitedly a ton of work, but the devs have been sitting on their hands when it came to this since pre-CoP.

[Zhronne]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.

A small nerf to Aegis/Ochain, better normal shield, and better job traits to PLD main job would be all that's needed.
That means shifting some of the power that currently lies into Aegis/Ochain, into the job itself.
The overall result of PLD + Aegis/Ochain would remain the same as it is today, but the distribution of power would be more even instead of the current one which is shifted towards the shields instead than the job itself.

It would also make PLD + another shield a more viable option, while still not as good as Ochain/Aegis.
Min/Maxers of HNMLS would still be aiming for Aegis/Ochain of course, but for other content (PUGs, etc) or for when all your Ochain/Aegis PLDs are offline, other options would be more viable than they are as of now.

[Mirage]

I can agree with that.

[Zagen]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.

A small nerf to Aegis/Ochain, better normal shield, and better job traits to PLD main job would be all that's needed.
That means shifting some of the power that currently lies into Aegis/Ochain, into the job itself.
The overall result of PLD + Aegis/Ochain would remain the same as it is today, but the distribution of power would be more even instead of the current one which is shifted towards the shields instead than the job itself.

It would also make PLD + another shield a more viable option, while still not as good as Ochain/Aegis.
Min/Maxers of HNMLS would still be aiming for Aegis/Ochain of course, but for other content (PUGs, etc) or for when all your Ochain/Aegis PLDs are offline, other options would be more viable than they are as of now.

How does that addresses this question: What's the point of bringing a PLD to an event where a DD would overall be a better choice?

Aegis and Ochain aren't the problem with the concept of a "tank" in FFXI.

[FrankReynolds]

Some things I think might help the situation:
* Increase Paladin's survive-ability in general (not through extremely difficult to obtain gear).
* Give NMs (only NMS not nq mobs) incredibly powerful single target / conal attacks
* Remove AOE deathga type attacks and replace them with strong AOE debuffs etc.
* Don't make NMs that can (and usually have to) be killed in less than 5 minutes
* Increase the emnity cap for tank jobs
* Stop making time limited content that forces people to zerg
* Stop making single spawn points that force people to wait for other people to take their sweet ass time


Most of those things are really easy to implement.

[Zhronne]

How does that addresses this question: What's the point of bringing a PLD to an event where a DD would overall be a better choice?
Not sure I get your question, I might have missed something along the way.
Allow me to recap from the beginning.


PLD was useless.
To make it more useful SE introduced a lot of changes, among which NMs that do so much damage that DDs can't possibly tank them.
PLD is now useful but those NMs are so strong that Aegis/Ochain are required for that PLD to be even considered for the role.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, the problem of the op is not just that PLD is still useless, but rather that to be useful it has to rely on two items.
This is a strange situation because tipically a job has all the tools he needs to do his job from his job abilities/traits/supportjob and Equip just helps him do his job better.
Here we're talking about mandatory gear.
Which is not that far from the "R/E/M required" situation that we saw before SoA for DDs
Yet that situation has been partially solved (or, let's say, mitigated) by the introduction of Delve weapons and how easy they are to obtain.
PLD didn't receive such a (compromisory) treatment, and hence this thread.

My point is that atm PLD's usefulness is too much shifted towards the shields.
Allow me to make a numeric example (don't take it too seriously, it's just an example)
Total PLD power ==> 100
PLD job power => 20
Aegis/Ochain power ==> 80

What I suggested is to keep the same total number (100) so that the situation doesn't really change compared to now, but to "shift" the balance and make it something like 40/60? 50/50? Whatever, anything better than the current one.
This change in addition with more decent shields would create a scenario where Aegis/Ochain are still the best and min-maxer would still aim for those, but everybody else would still be able to provide a much higher level of usefulness making PLD viable even without Ochain/Aegis.


This was my point.
Now please explain again your question to me because I still don't get what you meant.

[Zagen]

Not sure I get your question, I might have missed something along the way.
Allow me to recap from the beginning.


PLD was useless.
To make it more useful SE introduced a lot of changes, among which NMs that do so much damage that DDs can't possibly tank them.
PLD is now useful but those NMs are so strong that Aegis/Ochain are required for that PLD to be even considered for the role.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, the problem of the op is not just that PLD is still useless, but rather that to be useful it has to rely on two items.
Actually the issue is most PLD suck, Ochain and Aegis go a very long way to hide this fact. Combine that with the fact most PLD who are actually good have those 2 shields because they not only take them from good to great but good to awesome in the 3 things a PLD is good at doing in this game:
1) Super tanking.
2) Against new content that hasn't been figured out.
3) Against old content that has been figured out but the group is scared of using a more effective strategy that is more aggressive either because they lack the jobs or player skill.

1 is replaceable by a sac or Twilight Zombie. 2 and 3 don't require Ochain or Aegis they just make it much much easier especially if the PLD in question isn't living, eating, and dreaming tanking.


My point is that atm PLD's usefulness is too much shifted towards the shields.
Allow me to make a numeric example (don't take it too seriously, it's just an example)
Total PLD power ==> 100
PLD job power => 20
Aegis/Ochain power ==> 80

I agree with these numbers but not because of PLD as a job or the gear it has available but because of the players behind most PLDs. I've seen Adamas/Delve Shield PLDs do the same thing Aegis/Ochain PLDs are wanted to do in Delve NM clears and fracture farming. The difference is doing it with those shields requires more skill.


This was my point.
Now please explain again your question to me because I still don't get what you meant.

In a world (FFXI) where the safest way to kill a monster is as fast as possible. When there are options such as Stun, Terror, Embrava, Perfect Defense, MNK's HP, easy to cap DT sets for nearly all DDs. How does PLD which doesn't help speed up a fight fit?

As I said PLD's problem goes far beyond Ochain and Aegis.

[Duelle]

I disagree.
I concur that it would require a lot of changes, but it wouldn't be as massive as you make it be.All you're doing with this is fixing the discrepancy between non-Aegis PLDs and Aegis PLDs while entirely ignoring the underlying problem of tank design and tanks relative to the other jobs in the game.

The reason I'd call for bigger changes is simply due to combat being (IMO) utterly borked, with class dynamics suffering most from this lack of action/attention. I am aware that the jobs were most likely imitating guidelines from prior FF games where tank classes don't really exist. Likewise, I also think you need clearly-defined tanks (and healers and DPS) to get working group dynamics without the problem we are currently facing, where the "tank" job is getting ignored because DPS jobs can gear up to mitigate damage, and while still less effective at mitigating damage are still preferred due to a net gain in kill speed over "wasting" that slot with a PLD.

[OmnysValefor]

The problem is, like I said before:

There's too much dt gear. Se has blurred the line so far. Yes high defense and low defense matter more now than they probably ever have, but not to an extent that dt gear doesn't make up for the low end. DPS can, will, and should (in this dynamic) still tank many things. SE tried turning things on high with some of the numbers and all it did was make groups demand more out of their mages.

The game has gotten to the point that NMs could hit a player for 75% of his total health, ever hit (so two hits with no heals would kill) and players would dt up and still try to zerg it.

The high baseline requirement for paladin isn't caused by paladin, or even paladin's gear. It's that paladin has two purposes. A safety net that the mob will swing at sometimes and keep the mages safe if fecal hits fan, and an add-jockey.

I guess that's the key really. A pld/war without aegis or ochain isn't that much better of a tank than a war/pld in the exact same gear. The warrior will likely hold hate better. (War/pld merely for comparison's sake, for both having access to defender and sentinel). Yeah the pld will block more. A sam/war might hold his own as well for having defender and full-timing Seigan (merely argument's sake).

Still, it's not the shields that are broken but simply that it takes the shields to have an edge over a properly geared dps.

[Duelle]

There's too much dt gear. Se has blurred the line so far. Yes high defense and low defense matter more now than they probably ever have, but not to an extent that dt gear doesn't make up for the low end. DPS can, will, and should (in this dynamic) still tank many things. SE tried turning things on high with some of the numbers and all it did was make groups demand more out of their mages.The only answer I have to this is, regardless of how you feel about -DT, to remove it from the game and give PLD/tanks traits that allow it/them to get more defense (thus mitigation) from armor than non-tank jobs.

Ideally I'd add any -DT on gear to that piece's specific armor value, then change Defense Bonus to act as a multiplier for Defense Rating gained from equipment rather than increasing defense by a flat amount. The multiplier would be small pre-50, and then you really start seeing the benefits once you get Defense Bonus III. Then I'd balance everything with the idea that the tank has the edge on mitigation over everyone else, as players wouldn't be able to bypass having a tank by just swapping in -DT gear.

-DT was a shortcut to dealing with mitigation without putting the actual work needed to fix defense. Even what they've recently done is a far cry from what I would think needs to be done to address this problem.


Still, it's not the shields that are broken but simply that it takes the shields to have an edge over a properly geared dps.The shields are accessory to a bigger problem. Excluding them from the equation is foolhardy, IMO.

[OmnysValefor]

Some DT gear is okay, I think, just that there's too much now. I agree that defense being the primary/singular modifier of PDT would have been welcome design. Still, gems like Creed Cuirass +2, Defending Ring, these are very nice pieces and welcome in the game.

Even Hauteclaire, and perhaps, Burtgang. Shadow Mantle's unique aspects are really nice as well.

The shields aren't the problem though. They're paladin's only counter TO the problem.

This shouldn't be exclusive to paladin either. Every tank deserves something that puts it above the cut vs dps. You'd figure that's obvious, but saying it just in case.

[Duelle]

Some DT gear is okay, I think, just that there's too much now. I agree that defense being the primary/singular modifier of PDT would have been welcome design. Still, gems like Creed Cuirass +2, Defending Ring, these are very nice pieces and welcome in the game.

Even Hauteclaire, and perhaps, Burtgang. Shadow Mantle's unique aspects are really nice as well.I feared you'd try to defend the existence of pieces like D. Ring, but stuff that ignores the limitations placed on tank design (this includes stuff that takes you "over cap") cause trouble unless we were to take an approach similar to real tiered progression.

By this I mean making Defending Ring a piece of tank gear for a specific batch of content (lv75 content, as that is where it comes from), then made obsolete through stat/item level differences; following this, it would be no different from gear that adds unique mechanics (along the lines of Shadowmourne or Val'anyr in WoW) that is eventually phased out due to how progression works. Changing it from -DT to something like an on-use item that increases your defense rating by X amount for 60 seconds every 30 minutes would also work without heavily messing with whatever intended mitigation you want to give tanks.


The shields aren't the problem though. They're paladin's only counter TO the problem.Let me put it another way: the current shield system is garbage given that Aegis and Ochain bypass most of the downsides of the shield system, which combined with block rates and the nonsense with shield skill only reinforces Aegis/Ochain-onry mentalities. This also goes back to the post made earlier about Tower Shields being a total waste.

Thing is, if you change the shield system to address this (having block rate being entirely determined by a stat like AGI or STR instead of shield size, block thresholds changed to be determined by shield skill, adjusting defense gained from shields to correspond to their size so that the shield passively contributes to mitigation), you'll most definitely also have to adjust Ochain and Aegis, as they would no longer have the superior block rate to make them stand out.


Every tank deserves something that puts it above the cut vs dps. You'd figure that's obvious, but saying it just in case.Agreed. Though you first need to decide who should get adjusted into the role of tank.

[OmnysValefor]

Ignore the bit about D.ring. I misread the first time and thought you were saying Dring is obselete. I think you're saying it should have been made obsolete?

---

I was trying to say that certain pieces being the exception, rather than the rule, is fine.

We had DT gear at 75, of course. It was just unneeded in most situations and was certainly a lot harder to assemble a set.

I wasn't aware Defending ring was made obselete now. That's a lot of hard dt% on a slot that's not incredibly strong. Not that it matters, but a tank isn't giving up hp, defense, or too much in the way of offensive stats to equip Dring. I don't have one yet, though it's my main focus right now.

Although I think it would benefit, XI doesn't operate on item levels. That's why okotes and PCC were common at 75 and you still see PCCs at 99 on some players. Higher level is usually better, but it's not always, especially when you get down to macros.

Actually, it's our ability to macro that makes a lot of pieces matter. If we couldn't swap in gearsets mid-combat (as you can't in most mmos), our gearsets gearset would look a lot different.

Aegis would need no adjustment, it would get swept along and be this mdt absurdity.

Still, all I mean is that Paladin's place isn't exactly solid right now. Most of us, whether we're in steadfast or ochain, know that as soon as the group doesn't need us, we're gone. Depending on your task, not needing a tank frees up 1-2 slots for more zerg.

Aegis is probably gamebreaking. It goes too far past the MDT cap, or perhaps the hard-mdt cap is just two high. Either way you want to look at it.

I just don't think that Ochain is.

As for who should tank, I'd say PLD, NIN, and RUN, and I begrudgingly add RUN. XI didn't really need another tank right now when they can't manage the two they've got and both stop getting invites when they're not needed.

[Zhronne]

All you're doing with this is fixing the discrepancy between non-Aegis PLDs and Aegis PLDs
Which was exactely the purpose why this thread was opened in the first place, wasn't it?
Also, it's a realistic thing that could happen.

As for the rest we both know it's just pure utopia and they're not gonna go that far into changing the game after 11 years.

[OmnysValefor]

Dreamin is fun but they won't be changing combat. Neither can they really nerf Aegis and Ochain for an outcry like RME being dated.

As for treating the same as all other RME were treated, obsoleting it.. Aegis can't be obsoleted. It's too good. It's difficult to imagine what would beat Ochain.

[Kincard]

Neither can they really nerf Aegis and Ochain for an outcry like RME being dated.
Aegis can't be obsoleted. It's too good. It's difficult to imagine what would beat Ochain.

Their only choice to balance the other two tank jobs is to introduce respective items for them.

For NIN, they need to add a katana (or a throwing disc/returning shuriken) that gives the ballpark of evasion +200 (Probably needs to me even more than that, enemy NMs have ridiculous amounts of accuracy) and lets them break the evasion cap into 90-95% dodge rate. Possibly also adds some kind of bonus to Utsusemi (Absorb regularly unabsorbed AoEs probably), also makes Migawari less restrictive in some way (Massive recast reduction/increased duration is pretty much all it needs).

For RUN, they need to add a GSD that gives a permanent Liement effect and increases their parry rate by like 50%. Also makes swordplay last longer and adds a bunch of effects to it (I vote for JA Haste and En-spell damage+++).

Drastic? Yes, yet they will still be weaker tanks than PLDs. That's how broken Aegischain is.

Well technically there's another option- scrap the idea of RUNs or NINs ever tanking because PLDs are fucking invincible and just increase RUN and NIN offensive capabilities so they can DPS with the best of them.

Option Delta: Leave things as they are and piss off the playerbase. (This is their usual solution)

[OmnysValefor]

Fair ideas.

They've just never mad an effort to balance tanks. PLD/NIN was an atrocity (a very powerful one^^) but pld/nin was a player counter to an SE problem: PLDs were ineffective tanks, at the time, because they took a hit like a little girl.

With tank balance, SE faces the problem they've always had with their own combat design. It's infinitely better to dodge a hit than to take it. Healers don't lose mp, mop gets a little less tp, and that hit that missed didn't do the wild damage it might have done.

If NIN can evade enough again to be relevant, NIN would replace PLD in some cases, until neither are needed.

Ninja needs to be able to evade enough, even in DT gear, that they can expect an enemy to miss.

It sucks but it's no different than all the DD that don't come on their favorite jobs because the group wants war, sams, drks, and monks.

[Zephrose]

Fair ideas.

They've just never mad an effort to balance tanks. PLD/NIN was an atrocity (a very powerful one^^) but pld/nin was a player counter to an SE problem: PLDs were ineffective tanks, at the time, because they took a hit like a little girl.

With tank balance, SE faces the problem they've always had with their own combat design. It's infinitely better to dodge a hit than to take it. Healers don't lose mp, mop gets a little less tp, and that hit that missed didn't do the wild damage it might have done.

If NIN can evade enough again to be relevant, NIN would replace PLD in some cases, until neither are needed.

Ninja needs to be able to evade enough, even in DT gear, that they can expect an enemy to miss.

It sucks but it's no different than all the DD that don't come on their favorite jobs because the group wants war, sams, drks, and monks.

This basically points out the grand problem with combat in the first place. When Aby came out, Nin was the over powered tank that could do no wrong. That is, until Mnk, War and Drk got their -dt% gear to tank anything you wanted with a pocket/backup Whm...

At the moment, Pld is the flavor of the season and will probably go out of style down the road. In fact, more fracture groups are using only one, or in some cases, none at all.

As for the shield gap, there will be no easy way to fix this. Even if there was a proper way to approach this issue, it would take a good dev cycle to come up with a worth while approach. But I truly believe the shields are balanced as they are now. For the work and effort taken to gain such an item, much like the relics of old, you get out what you put in. Why would this be any different? There might be a noticeable gap, but that gap has always been there. The sole reason this comes up now is in part with delve NMs actually having a chance to hit players now. And who better to put in front of these nasty baddies, a solid Aegis or Ochain Pld.

[Kincard]

When Aby came out, Nin was the over powered tank that could do no wrong. That is, until Mnk, War and Drk got their -dt% gear to tank anything you wanted with a pocket/backup Whm...

At the moment, Pld is the flavor of the season and will probably go out of style down the road.

You need to look at what the stats actually say rather than what players favor using if you want to determine what jobs are "overpowered". NIN wasn't overpowered unless you also count THF, DNC, WAR, MNK, and numerous other jobs that had ridiculous inflated numbers in Abyssea. The only reason its use was so prevalent was because it was one of the most convenient jobs to use, being able to cover a large variety of red procs (amongst them some unique to NIN) to obtain KIs, offering a selection of yellow procs and standing close to the other top-end of DPS, so basically, it allowed you to play inside Abyssea longer without needing to warp back to town and swap jobs. When it came down to it it wasn't actually much stronger than the other jobs that got Abyssea's power boost. It'd be similar to saying DRG is currently overpowered because you almost require Angon to defeat certain bosses.

PLD's damage-taking ability IS overpowered- at least in comparison to the other "tanking" jobs. I don't want to say they're the best tanks because tanking in general is broken in the game, but if they ever fixed enmity and made tanking relevant there would be 0 reason to ever use a NIN or RUN over a PLD, because neither job comes close to the amount of damage mitigation that PLD currently has.

Interestingly, Abyssea actually holds the key to how they could balance a few of the jobs- the inflated critical rate and being able to evade more in TP gear is what massively helped out one-hander jobs. If they could take that and apply it in a less extreme fashion outside Abyssea it could probably help.

[OmnysValefor]

Nah, Ninja was overpowered in abyssea. It's fine to admit that.

I don't need to go into detail but being able to cover almost all of the procs, especially once ark scythe came out, and cap subtle blow, and fast attack speed.. taking little damage. Ninja was overpowered.

We were all overpowered in abyssea, but ninja got a lot of love. Monk was pretty overpowered too. "You tank this, by punching things. The healers will worry about everything else.".

Thief and Dancer needed to sub warrior to proc like anything near a nin and that was a hindrance to their solo and lowman efforts.

I don't think pld's damage taking potential is overpowered. I think the other tanks are underpowered. I'm not splitting hairs. A pld's shield is their primary mitigation above DD, and there are only 2 worth note. Steadfast, Seignuer, and Koenig before that, are merely the best of a bad situation. A proper DD will throw on DT gear as needed, so the shield is largely what seperates how hard I get hit for and how hard he does.

[Kincard]

Thief and Dancer needed to sub warrior to proc like anything near a nin and that was a hindrance to their solo and lowman efforts.

That's just my point- the job itself wasn't really overpowered because its overuse was due to a design flaw in the event (specifically the Abyssea proccing system) rather than the job (or item I guess) actually being overpowered. Just about everyone except DRK was destroying everything in sight in Abyssea, so the only thing people ended up caring about is whether you had utility, which is why every party ended up being NIN WAR THF BLU BRD BLM WHM.

Nobody cared about fast attack speed and almost nobody cared about how much damage you were taking in Abyssea since everyone had 3000 HP (and thus by extension Subtle Blow wasn't all that useful either).

If you want to say that overpowered and simply being useful are the same thing, that's up to you, but the whole time Abyssea was the center of the game Ninja was still a horrible job outside Abyssea. Once Ochain got introduced PLD was nearly invincible regardless of where it was fighting. Once Abyssea passed the results of their total lack of balance has become more and more obvious.


I don't think pld's damage taking potential is overpowered. I think the other tanks are underpowered.

I agree. I usually just use overpowered as a relative term, because if you design a really hard monster with all the jobs balanced out, people will still have fun playing the job they like, but if you have poor job balance, the enemies can be ridiculously easy (Abyssea) and people will still flock to those specific jobs, and it ruins the game.

[Zephrose]

That's just my point- the job itself wasn't really overpowered because its overuse was due to a design flaw in the event (specifically the Abyssea proccing system) rather than the job (or item I guess) actually being overpowered. Just about everyone except DRK was destroying everything in sight in Abyssea, so the only thing people ended up caring about is whether you had utility, which is why every party ended up being NIN WAR THF BLU BRD BLM WHM.

Nobody cared about fast attack speed and almost nobody cared about how much damage you were taking in Abyssea since everyone had 3000 HP (and thus by extension Subtle Blow wasn't all that useful either).

If you want to say that overpowered and simply being useful are the same thing, that's up to you, but the whole time Abyssea was the center of the game Ninja was still a horrible job outside Abyssea. Once Ochain got introduced PLD was nearly invincible regardless of where it was fighting. Once Abyssea passed the results of their total lack of balance has become more and more obvious.



I agree. I usually just use overpowered as a relative term, because if you design a really hard monster with all the jobs balanced out, people will still have fun playing the job they like, but if you have poor job balance, the enemies can be ridiculously easy (Abyssea) and people will still flock to those specific jobs, and it ruins the game.

I think you are missing the point, or at least talking around it. Ninja was the better Tank in and out of Abyssea up until the last version of Abyssea was released. The fact that Ninja could out preform Paladin in not only damage but in damage taken via Evasion is the point. You are correct in stating when the Ochain came out, Paladin stepped up into the tanking role again. Allowing them to gain TP at an increased rate gave them a chance to come close to Ninja's damage output while still taking solid hits from larger baddies.

Since then, and until recently with the new Expansion, Ninjas and Paladins have held their place. I've played both jobs, they both have their uses and needs but the content prior to the expansion didn't require a tough tank to help with anything. Again, with the new expansion out, Paladins have made the highlights in part with the new baddies hitting as accurately and as hard as they do. Groups are finding ways around including Paladins to the fights now, however; because like before, Paladins damage output is no where near the amount of an above average Damage Dealer.

[OmnysValefor]

Once everything became less than 18 in abyssea, or you brought people only to share key items and wins, subtle blow from monks and ninjas really really picked up in value.

It's not semantics. Ninja was favored highly by aby and atmas only made it better. As to fast attack speed, once hate-cap really became a problem, attack speed is all that made ninjas or monks a tank. As the AI would think about turning towards the blm, the melee in front would get a strike in. Evading so much and shadows also caused ninjas no/less (shadows) enmity loss than meat tanks so... blah blah blah.

It's abyssea. We all know how it went.

As to overpowered, only reason I bring up the use of the word is because it's important to properly identify the problem. Paladin, Aegis, Ochain aren't the problems. Combat design and DT gear are the problems. An Ochain paladin isn't overpowered, he's powerful enough for the task players desire for the job.

[Zephrose]

Paladin, Aegis, Ochain aren't the problems. Combat design and DT gear are the problems. An Ochain paladin isn't overpowered, he's powerful enough for the task players desire for the job.

This.

Ochain emphasizes on Paladins main job role. No different than Ninja's getting gear to enhance Evasion or Number of shadows or Duel wield or etc...

[Duelle]

I was trying to say that certain pieces being the exception, rather than the rule, is fine.

We had DT gear at 75, of course. It was just unneeded in most situations and was certainly a lot harder to assemble a set.Indeed, but if you were to adjust how mitigation plays into PLD design, they suddenly become very important. Kind of like the current thing with Aegis taking you over the -MDT cap.

As for who should tank, I'd say PLD, NIN, and RUN, and I begrudgingly add RUN. XI didn't really need another tank right now when they can't manage the two they've got and both stop getting invites when they're not needed.I disagree on this. Two tanks out of 22 jobs is a sign of lopsided role distribution.

Which was exactely the purpose why this thread was opened in the first place, wasn't it?
Also, it's a realistic thing that could happen.Then the discussion veered in the direction of the issue running deeper than just shield discrepancy. Which is very much true.

[Karah]

I disagree on this. Two tanks out of 22 jobs is a sign of lopsided role distribution.


When you consider the real distribution of jobs;
2 Supports (brd cor)
Top 3 DD (DRK MNK SAM)
Healer (WHM)
MISC maybe wanteds (TH, Angon, Stun)

-1- Tank (PLD not NIN, not even close RUN) it appears to be a more reasonable distribution, 1/7.3

Just to chime back in, since this thread is just going on and on and on and on and on and on.

It's the battle design, aka; The way shield blocking procs is the issue, and to a lesser extent the ease/availability of all the DT gear for all (20) jobs.

Not the shields themselves, even before Ochain, PLD was a poor job, that's because shields just don't block like they're supposed to. The only thing stopping a PLD from blocking with ANY shield should be a debilitation.

Honestly even while petrified, the shield is still in front of your body, so you can throw that one away, and say sleep should be the ONLY reason a shield is unable to block an attack.

[OmnysValefor]

It doesn't really matter what the job distribution is as long as theirs good player distribution and there certainly are enough paladins and ninjas. DNC can also tank for lowman things.

Ninja is the evasion tank. Paladin is the meat tank. There wasn't room for a third, especially for a team that's never managed to keep the two remotely neck-and-neck.

Would you say the game needs another healer? There's only 3, and you could argue 2. RDM can heal but not quite like an sch or whm.

Did the game need another support job? Especially one that may become as necessary as bard? People who play support will play support, people who don't, won't.

[Duelle]

When you consider the real distribution of jobs;
2 Supports (brd cor)
Top 3 DD (DRK MNK SAM)
Healer (WHM)
MISC maybe wanteds (TH, Angon, Stun)

-1- Tank (PLD not NIN, not even close RUN) it appears to be a more reasonable distribution, 1/7.3I was being generous. I generally don't count NIN because tanking ninja are iconoclastic.


It's the battle design, aka; The way shield blocking procs is the issue, and to a lesser extent the ease/availability of all the DT gear for all (20) jobs.

Not the shields themselves, even before Ochain, PLD was a poor job, that's because shields just don't block like they're supposed to.I trace it back to how shields add nothing aside from shield block procs, which goes back to my comment that shields should grant passive mitigation before you even factor shield blocking.


It doesn't really matter what the job distribution is as long as theirs good player distribution and there certainly are enough paladins and ninjas.Player distribution and role distribution between classes go hand in hand. Variety in gameplay and mechanics can attract people to roles they would normally avoid.

[OmnysValefor]

In other games where balance is a continuing quest, I'd be all for more tanks. In WoW, I had a Warrior, Paladin and Bear. I also played all four healers (two overlapping, obviouslly).

Ninjas and paladins will never be equally good for every task, they're too different. WoW achieves balance by making classes more alike if they need to be. I prefer having different classes.

But Ninja is not even a consideration for tanking in delve. It's squishy, it really got hurt by the changes to defense, and those agas gonna hurt something fierce.

I'd prefer they made a focused effort to make both tanks desirable. There's nothing, certainly about many of the individual NMs that ninja shouldn't be able to tank if SE gave ninja some defensive attributes of their own. Ninjas may never be multi-target supertanks, but supertanking is boring anyway.

Adding jobs merely for the sake of adding jobs has gotten old, since we've had, for 6? years now, more jobs than we can fit in an alliance, and that's before we talk about the duplicates we'll bring (whm, brd, pld maybe, sam, war, drk, mnk, cor, and sometimes rng).

[Fynlar]

The idea of "tanking" in Delve is (currently) absurd. The game so strictly forces the zerg mentality on you in Delve in order to beat any of the NMs that hate inevitably becomes shared among whoever makes it to the hate cap. There is no "tank", other than NM holders.

[Demon6324236]

The game so strictly forces the zerg mentality on you in Delve in order to beat any of the NMs that hate inevitably becomes shared among whoever makes it to the hate cap.No time limit, people zombie things till it dies no matter how difficult, have a time limit, nothing but a zerg fest to kill everything as fast as possible so you can kill before time runs out. Gotta love how terrible it is either way.

[Mirage]

Sounds like it is time to disable combat raise!

[Taint2]

The idea of "tanking" in Delve is (currently) absurd. The game so strictly forces the zerg mentality on you in Delve in order to beat any of the NMs that hate inevitably becomes shared among whoever makes it to the hate cap. There is no "tank", other than NM holders.



Exactly. All 3 Delve bosses have been downed with zerg strats.

[Duelle]

Sounds like it is time to disable combat raise!They'd have to stop counting player deaths and zombie tactics as part of the strategy needed to beat stuff.

[Alerith]

Sounds like it is time to disable combat raise!

This may be the most glorious change to ever occur at this point.

[Demon6324236]

Sounds like it is time to disable combat raise!That only helps some events, things like Delve NMs outside were not done, and still are not done, by raising people, if someone dies you just have them HP and come back, that only helps instanced events, and even then... you make fatal mistakes literally game over for the party.

[OmnysValefor]

Outside NMs are pretty special in that regard. HP'ing in HNM, Sky, Sea, Dynamis days was either impractical because of the time taken to get back or because you couldn't re-enter an area anyway. It almost seems like they went out of their way to stack waypoints on top of most Delve NMs.

Such a thing would ... possibly help many events, but they'd have to rethink every relevant fight, and they won't be doing that any time soon.