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

[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.