Optimal Materia for Paladin?

I'm trying to figure out whats the optimal materia setup for a Paladin. After reading some of the threads on this forum, I'm getting many mixed reviews. Last night I went with mostly tenacity, but after browsing a little more this evening I've concluded that possibly was a terrible idea.

All input is helpful!

Thanks in advance.

I will redirect you to this thread then as it's pretty much the same discussion.

On a side note: your melds can only do so much, your rotation is more important. The loss by playing sub-optimal is by far bigger than melding sub-optimal.

For rotation, BiS, and melding I recommend this guide: Vigilamus Pro Te - Paladin Primer v5.01

He's right. Don't stress too much over what you meld. The DPS difference between the worst possible melds and the best is less than 3%. Variations in player skill account for MUCH more than that, so work on getting your rotation down.

Personally, I like all Direct Hit for PLD right now, since they do not need skill speed for anything and det and crit are sub-optimal with the current tier of gear. This is expected to change later on once gear starts getting better. Crit typically pulls ahead once you are able to stack enough of it.

As far as Tenacity, players are largely in two groups:

Pro-Tenacity: Believes that the most important job of a tank is to be able to reduce as much incoming damage as possible, Tank DPS, while important, plays a less important role than defense. Plus, if you stack tenacity, then you can use the same gear sets for all 4 tanks pretty much, since all of the tanks benefit equally from Tenacity. The argument is commonly made that a higher tenacity stat reduces healing requirements a little, so healers can squeeze out a little more damage to offset what the tank loses.

Pro-DPS(crit, det, direct hit): Believes that in the current raid tier, DPS checks are the most difficult obstacle to overcome, so every tiny amount of DPS matters. The big argument made here is this: Encounter design is such that tanks are either dealing with a tank buster or auto attack damage. Auto attack damage is typically so low, that tenacity has a minimal effect on it anyways. Tank-busters are easily dealt with when properly mitigated by cooldowns, so it is a rare occurrence that the damage reduction from tenacity will ever make a significant difference. Plus, healing in the game is so powerful that it is common to overheal by 5-10% anyways, even when playing optimally, so tenacity doesn't really help healers much. The unfortunate downside to stacking these stats; however, is that all tanks don't benefit from them equally. WAR largely gets left out to dry right now because DH is the optimal stat for the other 3 tanks, but it is pretty bad on WAR due to how Inner Release and Infuriate work, so to be able to switch between all tanks requires you to remeld when you switch or to have a 2nd set of equipment.

I am in the Pro-DPS camp, but both arguments are valid and have their merits/detriments.

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Originally Posted by Tex_Mex

The argument is commonly made that a higher tenacity stat reduces healing requirements a little, so healers can squeeze out a little more damage to offset what the tank loses.

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I think this is incorrect. Tenacity does not make healing on you from healers better. It makes your own healing better.

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Originally Posted by IntrovertAnt

I think this is incorrect. Tenacity does not make healing on you from healers better. It makes your own healing better.

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The argument is based on Tenacity's passive mitigation, "less danage taken = less healing required", not on the selfheal boost. (and even that is a weak argument at best because it doesnt change what tools healers would use)

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Originally Posted by Reinhardt_Azureheim

The argument is based on Tenacity's passive mitigation, "less danage taken = less healing required", not on the selfheal boost. (and even that is a weak argument at best because it doesnt change what tools healers would use)

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I do agree with you that it is a weak argument. That's why I'm firmly in the Pro-DPS camp.

You need a certain about of skill speed to get the first riot blade under FoF which is 2.38 gcd which is a gain. On gear it's crit>det>sks>tentacity on molds it's direct hit all the round unless you are playing all tanks it's crit then det

I'm in the Pro-"Leave no slot empty" camp. Obviously optimal stats are best but if it ever means leaving slots empty because you lack the materia/clusters/gil to fill the slots, then you would have been better off with the less effective alternative.

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Originally Posted by Wyndam

I'm in the Pro-"Leave no slot empty" camp. Obviously optimal stats are best but if it ever means leaving slots empty because you lack the materia/clusters/gil to fill the slots, then you would have been better off with the less effective alternative.

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haha this is definitely true. DH may be trash on WAR, but it's better than nothing lol

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Originally Posted by Jukebox12

You need a certain about of skill speed to get the first riot blade under FoF which is 2.38 gcd which is a gain. On gear it's crit>det>sks>tentacity on molds it's direct hit all the round unless you are playing all tanks it's crit then det

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Until you breach the 3500 crit breakpoint (vs. DH; probably like 3200 vs. Det) it is better to go for DH and Det for melds, WAR being a different story with guaranteed crits on their main bursts ofc, there Crit probably gets more powerful much earlier.

EDIT: Merely posted to go into detail for the stat priority, not that you said anything wrong.