Returning to game, Theory crafting

Hello!

I'm coming back to the game. was giving the devs time to fix a lot of the crap that was broken. seeing a lot of good stuff.

I originally rolled PUG because a buddy of mine was rolling GLD to tank. we were both tanks in FFXI. but i decided i would focus DD first.

However he didn't come back with me, so i'm thinking of starting to gear for PLD.

I have a question on stat caps.

In my own theory crafting I'm thinking:

enmity=>HP=>MND=>VIT=>DEX=>STR=>mp.

However i know there is a DAMAGE cap on mnd. so many builds i see go for around ~300 MND. but i'm curious if there is a cap on enmity gain or healing from mnd?

because i'm less concerned about damage caps there may be benefit to continuing to stack MND where possible

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Originally Posted by Onisake

Hello!

I'm coming back to the game. was giving the devs time to fix a lot of the crap that was broken. seeing a lot of good stuff.

I originally rolled PUG because a buddy of mine was rolling GLD to tank. we were both tanks in FFXI. but i decided i would focus DD first.

However he didn't come back with me, so i'm thinking of starting to gear for PLD.

I have a question on stat caps.

In my own theory crafting I'm thinking:

enmity=>HP=>MND=>VIT=>DEX=>STR=>mp.

However i know there is a DAMAGE cap on mnd. so many builds i see go for around ~300 MND. but i'm curious if there is a cap on enmity gain or healing from mnd?

because i'm less concerned about damage caps there may be benefit to continuing to stack MND where possible

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try this instead:

enmity=>STR=>MND=>HP=>VIT=>DEX

But really, you'll probably never even need VIT. Damage mitigation from VIT sucks, the only other thing it does for PLD is give HP at a 1:1 ratio.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post708210

With little to no acc i question the str stat. I understand it helps with damage cap. but i see absolutely no reason to put it before MND or HP.

does gear swapping before skills work? mitigation may suck, but it's better than not mitigating at all.

I see no purpose in focusing STR before MND. especially with no dex/acc. i can hit damage caps, but if spiritis within is the only thing that lands reliably, i'd rather pump mnd for better cures

I put STR before MND because it's your primary damage modifier. More damage = more hate, and damage will give you more hate than any amount of curing will. Add acc via electrum rings +1, you may only need 1.

I say MND>STR, MND gives damage, healing potency, and acts as an additional modifier for Holy Succor and Flatblade combo. When you look at the whole picture you're getting more per point of MND than straight up STR.

Best thing to do is just realize that stats in this game as well as XI do very little overall, even after the "boost".

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Originally Posted by Chain

Best thing to do is just realize that stats in this game as well as XI do very little overall, even after the "boost".

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I played a galka in FFXI. i had my VIT/DEF score through the roof. top it off with my high HP i was very difficult to kill with a good healer behind me. me (pld/war) and a rdm/whm held faust for over 45 minutes while my LS killed Seiryu and ran over to us. 3 linkshells were waiting for me to die so they could take claim. Omega would regularly crit me for only 150. the stats don't do much, but if you push the limits they do a lot more than you think they do. Also, not to mention, that all of the 'caps' i see people talk about are soft caps not hard caps. if you really want to push your damage you can go past these caps. you just get less per point.

the DPS pld in FFXI was terrible, except in merit parties. even then i almost always went full tank and abused cover for inevitable hate loss.

Molly: have you parsed your healing amount vs your damage amount? even as a galka PLD i was healing a ton of HP. i got way more healing than damage done, and healing can't miss. not to mention in FFXIV healing can crit. and MND effects enmity.

how much of the damage are you actually doing? on a good day i'd expect to do 1/4 of the damage a real DPS does. if that's the case your damage really isn't doing crap for your enmity threshold. if you're doing 3/4 of the damage a real DPS does then i would buy it.

with no shadows, i have high doubts you can actually deal more damage than you heal for.

Onisake: Thing is, healing has reduced enmity generation in relation to damage (x0.6, if memory serves me well) and the enmity generate by healing is also spread by all targets on whose hate list you currently are on.

Also yes, PLD DPS is pretty bad but it's enmity combos are based off the damage they deal (Was it... x5.5 for Flat Blade and x3.5 for Spirits Within? With SW being actually about as powerful as Riot Blade) so dealing more damage MAY be prefferable. At this point it starts to become a personal issue, I think.

Also they "fixed" overhealing so it doesn't generate enmity anymore.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

I played a galka in FFXI. i had my VIT/DEF score through the roof. top it off with my high HP i was very difficult to kill with a good healer behind me. me (pld/war) and a rdm/whm held faust for over 45 minutes while my LS killed Seiryu and ran over to us. 3 linkshells were waiting for me to die so they could take claim. Omega would regularly crit me for only 150. the stats don't do much, but if you push the limits they do a lot more than you think they do. Also, not to mention, that all of the 'caps' i see people talk about are soft caps not hard caps. if you really want to push your damage you can go past these caps. you just get less per point.

the DPS pld in FFXI was terrible, except in merit parties. even then i almost always went full tank and abused cover for inevitable hate loss.

Molly: have you parsed your healing amount vs your damage amount? even as a galka PLD i was healing a ton of HP. i got way more healing than damage done, and healing can't miss. not to mention in FFXIV healing can crit. and MND effects enmity.

how much of the damage are you actually doing? on a good day i'd expect to do 1/4 of the damage a real DPS does. if that's the case your damage really isn't doing crap for your enmity threshold. if you're doing 3/4 of the damage a real DPS does then i would buy it.

with no shadows, i have high doubts you can actually deal more damage than you heal for.

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To be completely honest, I don't heal myself all that much on PLD, so I know for a fact that I, personally, generate more enmity from damage than healing. That's enough justification for me to keep going in the same direction I have been with PLD. In addition, there really shouldn't be a debate over whether to go with MND vs STR on PLD because the only item they can both be melded to is your sword, and enmity is better there anyway.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Onisake: Thing is, healing has reduced enmity generation in relation to damage (x0.6, if memory serves me well) and the enmity generate by healing is also spread by all targets on whose hate list you currently are on.

Also yes, PLD DPS is pretty bad but it's enmity combos are based off the damage they deal (Was it... x5.5 for Flat Blade and x3.5 for Spirits Within? With SW being actually about as powerful as Riot Blade) so dealing more damage MAY be prefferable. At this point it starts to become a personal issue, I think.

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sounds like damage would be better for short duration fights.

even with reduced enmity from healing how much damage are you really doing versus your healing? the ratio can be figured out to see which is really giving you more enmity. and with the +enmity from gear it's no longer 0.6. still not as good as the damage ratios however, especially since MND enhances them. but to me that's even more reason to focus MND over STR after i look at damage mitigation.

Majority of healing should be done on yourself. spread enmity is a good thing if you're tanking, last i checked. if i heal myself and there are 3 targets, i generate enmity on all 3 targets instead of just the one i do damage to. i don't see that as a factor for damage is better than healing.

I'm not sure on enmity generation from damage, but these seem like 'spike' abilities to me. SW combo requires a blocked attack for Phalanx. how often are you doing them? and they have to actually land. SW has high accuracy so landing this isn't a problem. Fast=>flat looks like it will be very TP dependent. how often do you have enough TP to land it? if geared correctly i'm sure you can land it everytime its up. but i worry about efficiency. I can also always carry two gear sets.

In XI the theory i used was damage is nice, but it is inconsistent. healing myself, is a constant enmity generation. cure 1 was spammable with a refresher, and gave a pretty constant amount of enmity. with an occasional cure II or III i was golden. auto-attacks by comparison gave similar enmity generation when landed, but could miss. against gods, forget it. i might do 16-30 damage and connect 60% of the time. almost all of my TP came from shield blocks and getting hit.

how does this translate to XIV? is it a similar situation? spam curing myself also reduced the work load on the whm. in large scale battles like dynamis, or mobs with a lot of AoE, knowing they didn't have to spam heal me to keep me alive allowed them to top off DPSers who were in the red. I also have my defensive capabilities to further mitigate damage. and since the point of damage mitigation is to reduce load from healers why not push this to an extreme? its one of the advantages we have over MRD tanks, exploit it.

overhealing means you have a bad healer. they should be leaving a buffer for the pld to heal itself. that or you're in a rare circumstance where you aren't taking enough damage.

Molly: I knew several plds that played that way in FFXI. they performed well. they were highly skilled and knew what they were doing. however in certain situations, especially against gods, they lost hate, a lot. they didn't have the damage mitigation to reliably maintain a high threshold. self healing is part of your damage mitigation.

First, this isn't XI, damage, cures and enmity do not work the same way.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

Molly: I knew several plds that played that way in FFXI. they performed well. they were highly skilled and knew what they were doing. however in certain situations, especially against gods, they lost hate, a lot. they didn't have the damage mitigation to reliably maintain a high threshold. self healing is part of your damage mitigation.

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In theory this all seems logical, but in practice it isn't true. At least not in my case. Once I have hate I rarely, if ever, lose it. When it happens it's usually a BLM doing it on purpose or not watching their hate. On PLD, I'm slower than some to initially grab hate, but once I do, it's stuck like chuck. Maybe it's because I have enmity rather than MND, STR, or VIT on my sword. BTW, I think my damage mitigation is fine, as far as I can tell. It's better than on my war, and there are situations where my group much prefers me on PLD than WAR (truth be told you can't even tank H1s on a WAR reliably if you wanted to.) If I absolutely need it, I do heal myself but I don't use it as a primary means of enmity generation as you seem to imply that I should.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

First, this isn't XI, damage, cures and enmity do not work the same way.



In theory this all seems logical, but in practice it isn't true. At least not in my case. Once I have hate I rarely, if ever, lose it. When it happens it's usually a BLM doing it on purpose or not watching their hate. On PLD, I'm slower than some to initially grab hate, but once I do, it's stuck like chuck. Maybe it's because I have enmity rather than MND, STR, or VIT on my sword.

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hmmm. I'm a fan of correlation does not imply causation. My understanding is that most mobs deal physical damage right now. I wonder if things will change slightly against mobs that deal more magic damage, or against mobs that are highly evasive.

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by Onisake

hmmm. I'm a fan of correlation does not imply causation. My understanding is that most mobs deal physical damage right now. I wonder if things will change slightly against mobs that deal more magic damage, or against mobs that are highly evasive.

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I don't completely follow this, care to explain? Was this in regards to my recommendation to ignore VIT? Or are you implying that the BLM in the above scenario was not trying to pull hate on purpose? I can say for a fact that it's true, because there is more than one BLM in my LS that tries to rip hate off the tank intentionally. We're usually all on voice chat, and they giggle about it, when it happens.


Actually kinda OT but your response made me think about our own evasion stats. Imo magic evasion is much more beneficial than physical evasion. While it is true that most attacks against you are physical damage, the big ones that will get you close to death or kill you in one shot are usually magic attacks. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the way the evasion stats work is that it gives you a percentage chance to completely evade the attack, therefore magic evasion will save you more often than physical evasion.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

-god that's huge, snip-

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Can't say much about how it goes in regards to healing. I run a pretty fixed group with friends and we tend to always run with two white mages so the tank has a dedicated healer (could it be different, more efficient? I don't know, my friends just enjoy playing that job so it's what they roll with and thus the experience I have).
Also remember you're always going to have Regen on you (which, since we're talking about efficiency and materia we're going to assume it's at top efficiency, so it's 203~ HP every 3 seconds).

I don't actually see healing generating much enmity myself, your Cure should be healing about 400~ and your Holy Succor about 700~ on target and another 350~ on yourself. A single fast->flat combo quickly catches up to a single Cure, and whereas our accuracy is... Kind of worrysome, I say, full party bonus + Electrum Rings tend to solve that problem generously.

Healing also poses a different problem: MP runs out with some expedience. Paladin only has two ways to recover MP by himself, Outmaneuver (and only if you don't have Stoneskin up) which also gives you TP to assist with WSes and Potions which do tend to have upwards of 4 minutes cooldown. So once your MP reaches rock-bottom (which, without equips, is about 1600~) you're kind of done for in that avenue of hate generation. Cure costs 112 and Holy Succor 280 at L50, so 14 castings of Cure or 5 casting of Holy Succor and your MP is down the drain. And you only regen MP on passive mode, what you're never on.

You're going to say "Bard" but- I don't think you want your bard to die and at high-end bosses you generally need to be careful about your positioning because displacing the boss means making the rest of the party vulnerable to conal/line AoEs, so having the bard run up to you when he's pretty much across the friggen map it's usually a bad idea, but 'doable' I guess.

Paladin heals are actually pretty good for self-sustenance, actually, and will go you a long way in an extended fight. However, you simply don't have enough tools to hold on only to cure-based enmity generation, I don't think. Hell that comes alone from fighting solo a good deal of my later levels, MP is not as easy to come by as it might seem.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

I don't completely follow this, care to explain? Was this in regards to my recommendation to ignore VIT? Or are you implying that the BLM in the above scenario was not trying to pull hate on purpose? I can say for a fact that it's true, because there is more than one BLM in my LS that tries to rip hate off the tank intentionally. We're usually all on voice chat, and they giggle about it, when it happens.


Actually kinda OT but your response made me think about our own evasion stats. Imo magic evasion is much more beneficial than physical evasion. While it is true that most attacks against you are physical damage, the big ones that will get you close to death or kill you in one shot are usually magic attacks. Somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the way the evasion stats work is that it gives you a percentage chance to completely evade the attack, therefore magic evasion will save you more often than physical evasion.

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Oh sorry. I was just thinking out loud. nothing to do with your recommendation on VIT. I'm really trying to get a feel for the current dominant theory. I will most likely start with my own theory and branch from it. seeing as the dominant theory is damage=enmity I'll be testing it seriously instead of just spear-heading my own thoughts.

Right now end-game content is limited. and everywhere i've read, the majority of damage received is physical in nature. didn't have anything to do with your theory on VIT, just a comment that the theory may need to change quickly if the next end-game content is magic heavy or against something highly evasive/defensive where PLDs ability to do damage is severely compromised. IE: need a reliable backup to damage=enmity because it may not always be the case. it's more of a quip at MRD tanking than PLD tanking. it also helps me theory craft on building other classes/jobs, when i'm dealing tons of damage on a DD class i don't want to worry about getting smacked in the face.

if hate really cannot be maintained relying on heals, in that situation PLD theory would need to change to keep it relevant. it's just theory, we have no idea what will happen moving forward with end-game content. But i have noticed a severe lack of magical defense stats on almost every recommended build. i'm not sure how enmity works exactly yet, but in FFXI if you took a big chunk of damage you lost a big chunk of enmity.

because i'm expecting a level cap increase at some point, and more variety to content i'm expecting to need at least two different gear sets. one for physical tanking and another for magical tanking. how they are optimized (either straight damage mitigation focusing on heals for enmity or damage=enmity) comes later. I may try to maximize potential and get 4 different gear sets to cover as many situations as possible. this will be important when exploring new content. being able to adapt to a new situation quickly can make-or-break you in determining a successful run.

I'm inclined to agree with you on physical evasion. This stat likely has a cap (i'd guess 20%) and because we have parry and block to help mitigate physical, magical evasion will be far more beneficial.

however i'd be more inclined to see how elemental resistance holds up against magical evasion. or maybe a combination of the two is needed.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Can't say much about how it goes in regards to healing. I run a pretty fixed group with friends and we tend to always run with two white mages so the tank has a dedicated healer (could it be different, more efficient? I don't know, my friends just enjoy playing that job so it's what they roll with and thus the experience I have).
Also remember you're always going to have Regen on you (which, since we're talking about efficiency and materia we're going to assume it's at top efficiency, so it's 203~ HP every 3 seconds).

I don't actually see healing generating much enmity myself, your Cure should be healing about 400~ and your Holy Succor about 700~ on target and another 350~ on yourself. A single fast->flat combo quickly catches up to a single Cure, and whereas our accuracy is... Kind of worrysome, I say, full party bonus + Electrum Rings tend to solve that problem generously.

Healing also poses a different problem: MP runs out with some expedience. Paladin only has two ways to recover MP by himself, Outmaneuver (and only if you don't have Stoneskin up) which also gives you TP to assist with WSes and Potions which do tend to have upwards of 4 minutes cooldown. So once your MP reaches rock-bottom (which, without equips, is about 1600~) you're kind of done for in that avenue of hate generation. Cure costs 112 and Holy Succor 280 at L50, so 14 castings of Cure or 5 casting of Holy Succor and your MP is down the drain. And you only regen MP on passive mode, what you're never on.

You're going to say "Bard" but- I don't think you want your bard to die and at high-end bosses you generally need to be careful about your positioning because displacing the boss means making the rest of the party vulnerable to conal/line AoEs, so having the bard run up to you when he's pretty much across the friggen map it's usually a bad idea, but 'doable' I guess.

Paladin heals are actually pretty good for self-sustenance, actually, and will go you a long way in an extended fight. However, you simply don't have enough tools to hold on only to cure-based enmity generation, I don't think. Hell that comes alone from fighting solo a good deal of my later levels, MP is not as easy to come by as it might seem.

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hmmm. that is good to know. I wasn't sure what options there were for mana regen. are there any food options? if mana really is a big problem i can now understand why damage is the go-to for enmity generation. it would at that point be more reliable because you don't have to worry about a limited resource.

TP, by contrast, is sustainable provided you can land hits.

There are some foods that increase your max MP but they'd give at best one or two more cures, hardly worth it in contrast with other foods that could increase your sustainable hate increase.

Also, not related to your answer to me but your answer to Molly, there is no actual enmity decay of any sort in this game. Neither time nor taking damage will take you down the enmity list of enemy. If you have accrued, say, 250 Enmity, you could stay in the fight for a day or take 5000 worth of damage, you enmity will remain 250. There are, however "Enmity dump" moves (Chameleon[ARC], Freeze[BLM] and Elusive Jump[DRG], In a way Shroud of Saints[CNJ] but it's just temporary) that cause a literal reduction in your enmity value.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

I'm inclined to agree with you on physical evasion. This stat likely has a cap (i'd guess 20%) and because we have parry and block to help mitigate physical, magical evasion will be far more beneficial.

however i'd be more inclined to see how elemental resistance holds up against magical evasion. or maybe a combination of the two is needed.

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suprisingly, the two don't seem to be tightly related

http://kanican.livejournal.com/55370.html

It also looks like I was slightly wrong about how m.eva works. But it does seem that the more of it you stack the more "triple" resists you'll have, which explains my observations.

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Originally Posted by Onisake

hmmm. that is good to know. I wasn't sure what options there were for mana regen. are there any food options? if mana really is a big problem i can now understand why damage is the go-to for enmity generation. it would at that point be more reliable because you don't have to worry about a limited resource.

TP, by contrast, is sustainable provided you can land hits.

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There isn't anything other than stacking MP materia that will give you more MP back per regen 'tick'. Stacking TP works to increase MP regen because the regen is percentage based. The more total MP you can have, the more you get back per tick. Is stacking MP worth it for PLD? Because of the MP cost of a single cure, my guess is probably not.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Also, not related to your answer to me but your answer to Molly, there is no actual enmity decay of any sort in this game. Neither time nor taking damage will take you down the enmity list of enemy. If you have accrued, say, 250 Enmity, you could stay in the fight for a day or take 5000 worth of damage, you enmity will remain 250. There are, however "Enmity dump" moves (Chameleon[ARC], Freeze[BLM] and Elusive Jump[DRG], In a way Shroud of Saints[CNJ] but it's just temporary) that cause a literal reduction in your enmity value.

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That wasn't my comment, I knew enmity stuck through the whole fight. Somebody else made the comment regarding enmity reduction when you take a hit in XI. That would really suck, tbh, how would a tank ever hold hate?

Uhn, no- I mean, Molly what I meant there was "Onisake's answer to Molly" not "Molly's comment", sorry for that my language skills are kind of lacking.

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Originally Posted by Molly_Millions

There isn't anything other than stacking MP materia that will give you more MP back per regen 'tick'. Stacking TP works to increase MP regen because the regen is percentage based. The more total MP you can have, the more you get back per tick. Is stacking MP worth it for PLD? Because of the MP cost of a single cure, my guess is probably not.

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Also, while what you said is viable with mages it is not viable with Paladins because you don't regen MP on active mode. Which only does in fact grandiously increases a Paladin's MP issues in relaton to, say, a white mage.

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Originally Posted by Skies

Also, while what you said is viable with mages it is not viable with Paladins because you don't regen MP on active mode. Which only does in fact grandiously increases a Paladin's MP issues in relaton to, say, a white mage.

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Oi, I completely neglected that fact. That settles the debate then, damage > cures for enmity.

Awesome guys. thanks for all your help. really learning a lot :)