Enough... If you're a paladin then show it. [How to Tank]

[Kyokaku]

Truthfully, i'm a little disgusted with people these days. "Paladin can't tank, Paladin is useless, Paladin fails"

Tbh, the people saying that are the people running around in full pearl, Vit swords, doing nothing but flash.

I'm going to systematically start listing off reasons why some paladins suck and then at the end, i'll wrap it all up with a pretty bow and explain how i hold hate even off of empyrean mnks (relative - once enmity caps the monster does the turn around dance, but you can keep your hate there)

1) Vit Swords

What the fuck were people thinking. Seriously. First of all, it is common knowledge that most NMs, at least MAJOR nms, that deal a considerable ammount of damage to any player must be tanked /nin. Therefore, the purpose is to not get it. But something dosen't seem to click with people, they full time the PDT-10% swords and then cast utsusemi ichi. People thats like buying a bike tire for your car - it dosen't make sense. THE GOAL IS NOT TO GET HIT, AND USE REPRISAL TO ALREADY REDUCE DAMAGE TO GET ANOTHER SHADOW CAST UP. But go ahead, continue to full time PDT swords.

"Kyo, PDT swords are best on /war"

Liars. If its such a small NM, that you don't need /nin, then the only chance you stand to retrieve hate is through damage. A PDT- sword won't give you damage - hell - a joyeuse will give you more damage. Here's the simple fact kids, if emnity is capped for a mnk, that mnk will always be a target, even if your emnity is capped too. here's another fun fact kids, Provoke is VE and the hate from it decays. Damage over time, DOT, dosen't. Especially if you're over there spamming vorpal blade for 200 and the mnk is getting 4k a ws.

2) You Need to Fight Damage Dealers - With Damage.

If you read the top post, people should know by now, that im eluding to making your paladin do damage. There is 2 ways to accomplish this, and both end up the same - Chant Du Cygne. "Kyo, not everyone will get empyrean". Then try harder. The first 90% of the weapons are easy as hell. Camping level 22 NMs is just annoying, VNM stages in most regional zones are easy as hell now, and then you can opt out of doing Briarius and Sobek and do WOE! If you don't get WOE that sucks for everyone else, just enter and lot coins. (though for the sake of my sanity, please try to learn and contribute).

Why put so much work into CDC? it is a godsend.

Most Paladins will use Atmas that stack HP and VIT. I use RR VV and Omnipotent. My HP is around 3400 with merit abyssites, and most people immediatly think "eh?". My Crit rate is capped at 76 dex +200 and i promise you my fstr is close. So every ws i do, i do around 3000 damage. I outdamage most samurais and dragoons, hell even the poorly geared war.

/nin or /war, it dosent matter. My WS damage remains constant, and tbh, i like /war more (fencer is fun.). And if you CANNOT POSSIBLY EVER try to obtain this ws, Vorpal Blade with these atma's will still do a very solid 800-1200. Its not as good, but fuck, it will still do damage and the mob will know your name. "Kyo, the other dd will cap thier hate too though, that kinda defeats the point of tanking" Yes my friend... until bullet #3

3) How hate loss works

When someone takes damage, they lose hate. Thats the basic of all hate loss in the game. So when Mr. Samurai gets smacked for 500, that monster, if you've been doing what i said to do, will turn back to you. This is where PLD merits and gear come into play. Guardian, with sentinel active, essentially makes you need to take 10x more damage for that same hate loss to occur that just occured on that sam. Additionally, through Creed +2 and Accessories, even LESS emnity is lost through physical damage. The hate cap is the same for all things, but you can drastically reduce what you lose yourself, making even jobs capped at the hate ceiling lose hate, and then the mob turn back to face you.

Creed Armor +2 is amazing. Even the +1 set is amazing. It's good for TP and it's good for Idle. This is something you need to invest in, Perle isn't going to cut it.

You Also need to get a WS set for your ws of choice. Vorpal Blade = STR CDC = Dex. Pick a ws and use it. Don't be the pld that spams spirits within or god damn atonement. Inside of abyssea - there is not point.

4) My Conclusion

I hope i didn't offend anyone. And sorry for poor grammer, typing this on a smartphone on a bus lol. Paladin has been one of my favorite jobs and i hate to see it be ruined by those who are unintelligent of the game facts. Please - I meant no offense, and any comments are welcome

[Cream_Soda]

"Paladin can't tank, Paladin is useless, Paladin fails"

how i hold hate even off of empyrean mnks

Again, holding hate has nothing to do with why pld is useless. If a job that can contribute more to the fight can hold hate off the people who can't afford to have hate, then there is no need for a pld.

What is the point in having a pld when if the pld were not there, the mnk would have no reasonable expectation of death and they deal more damage in comparison?

CDC, you're not out dd'ing an emp WS dd who is worth a damn, so what is the point in using pld to tank over them?

[Kyokaku]

People seem to praise Mnk.

Paladin, with /nin and capped shield, has arguably the same damage migitation abilities you'd find on the mnk (guard and perfect counter = shield skill and reprisal)

Don't doubt the strength of CDC. The only jobs that have ever blown my damage apart is Ukko's Fury and the best of empyrean Mnks. And even then CDC is a very good competitor.

Mnk also can't cure itself. Cure 4 is horrible, and its not even worth casting sometimes, but in a pinch Cure 4 can withstand a lot and help you hold on just a little bit longer.

I also want to mention that Paladin with merits has more chances to get hate back -quickly-, instead of over time, in the event its lost to say a BLM or another DD. MNK really just has boost and ws's, the prime reason why in salvage if you pulled hate off the mnk someone was gonna die so they could get the hate back.

[Cream_Soda]

Don't doubt the strength of CDC. The only jobs that have ever blown my damage apart is Ukko's Fury and the best of empyrean Mnks. And even then CDC is a very good competitor.

I know exactly how strong CDC is. I don't doubt it as a ws.

Mnk is king at a little something called DoT. even if you did 100% identical average ws dmg, you're still not coming anywhere close to a mnk in damage.

Mnk also can't cure itself. Cure 4 is horrible, and its not even worth casting sometimes, but in a pinch Cure 4 can withstand a lot and help you hold on just a little bit longer.

How often do you get into this "pinch"? I'd assume you're referring to an oshi moment, which shouldn't be happening often. That being said, Mnk can chakra. Granted, its only every 5 mins, you did say "pinch". (on top of that, its instant rather than having a casting time).

I also want to mention that Paladin with merits has more chances to get hate back -quickly-, instead of over time, in the event its lost to say a BLM or another DD. MNK really just has boost and ws's, the prime reason why in salvage if you pulled hate off the mnk someone was gonna die so they could get the hate back.

It doesn't take long at all to cap CE. Granted, you lose hate, it should be back on you by your next melee round or once the person who took hate gets hit once or twice. Not to mention that salvage was mostly /nin. /war offers provoke for some quick VE, if ever needed.

[Kyokaku]

It doesn't take long at all to cap CE. Granted, you lose hate, it should be back on you by your next melee round or once the person who took hate gets hit once or twice. Not to mention that salvage was mostly /nin. /war offers provoke for some quick VE, if ever needed.

On big NMs, and there are few, but lets say Apademak, how viable is /war for a mnk?
Adjaza or w\e? Or even Dragua?

Even with Refresh atmas on your whms, /war is suicide and will require shadows on any tank.
Also on bigger things, hate is easier to lose and harder to cap CE where the mobs defense is so high.
Paladin is a better tank in this case.

[Cream_Soda]

Apademak, /war works but /nin works better because of enstun.

Dragua and Adjaza, you can /war just fine.

I'm not even sure why Dragua is on that list. It's viable enough to /war where you can duo it (or dual box in my case) mnk + whm w/ no other support.

s far as the mobs having higher defense, they also take less dmg from magic attacks and such, so those blms or w/e will be capping their hate more slowly as well, so proportionally.

[Kyokaku]

I'm not even sure why Dragua is on that list.

Thats not supposed to be dragua, thats me thinking 2 things and typing half of each. Dragua is a pretty big joke.

I've had bad bad bad experiences with Adjaza gone wrong, particularly due to poor mage support though.

The case being, i'm not arguing paladin is the king of anything. it does need updates and it does need refinement. But i'm saying to paladins out there that you can still tank. It is possible, even if it isn't the best at it.

[Cream_Soda]

I never said they couldn't tank. I just said there's no reason to have them tank since that even if they can, there's other jobs that can also do it and eal more damage in the process.

Pld can tank just fine, its just a dedicated tank is not required, no reason not to use one that can also push out the numbers.

[Zumi]

Current endgame NMs in abyssea can not kill melee very easily since they have so much survivability already . So therefore the idea of having a dedicated tank who most likely do far less dps then a monk or war ect is then unfavorable.

It mobs could actually kill melee easily 1 or 2 shot then yes people would want a tank class again that has great survivability. So until SE starts making content that can't be tanked, by mnk, war, thf, whatever generic melee then people will still find PLD to be not wanted.

Using WoW as an example if your Paladin tank dies the mob will then proceed to 1 or 2 shot everyone else in the group causing a wipe unless the boss is very low on HP because dps in that game have little survivability.

SE would have to do something extreme like this to make tanks useful in FFXI.

[Greatguardian]

The problem with that is that non-Ochain PLD doesn't really get more survivability than anyone else in FFXI. Having access to heavy armor isn't doing anything for them when Defense is worthless. Shield blocks reduce significantly less damage than Counters, as well. The activation rate caps lower than counter, you still receive damage unlike Counter, and you don't damage the foe when you're hit (bar Reprisal) unlike Counter. MNK can cap PDT and MDT as well.

Even if they were to make NMs stronger, it wouldn't really help PLD unless they got a huge survivability boost to go along with it. However, there isn't much that can be done to increase PLD's survivability in the context of existing game mechanics.

Job traits to give static -DT? That's all well and good, but when other jobs can just cap PDT and MDT using gear anyways it's not a big deal (and makes Aegis even more worthless). A Counterstanced MNK in -50% PDT is still going to take less damage than a Sword/Shield PLD in -50% PDT.

The only thing I can think of to make this at all feasible is creating new NMs with extremely high Damage ratings but extremely low Attack ratings. A high-defense player would then take little to no damage, while a low-defense player (Berserk'd anything, Counterstance Mnk, etc) would get smashed if they got hit. This NM would also need to have obnoxiously high Evasion in order to keep MNK from reaching their Counter cap as well; this serves to emphasize PLD's JA/Spell hate tools even more.

But really, what the heck kind of NM is that? Melee DDs wouldn't be able to do anything to it. We'd flash back to 2005 and throw armies of RNGs and BLMs at it till it keels over. PLD being unable to properly melee for any Enmity would also cause them to lose hate if a DD capped TE between recasts, resulting in Blm/Rng trampling. I doubt anyone wants to go back to 2005.