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

[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.