Paladin Attributes

So I have looked over the guides and while they recommend what types of gear to get, I haven't found one that says what attributes to allocate. I have heard from some you want a 60 40 split in VIT and STR while I have heard from others you want pure VIT or STR. Any endgame Paladins who can tell me what is my best bet? Are there diminishing returns on STR or VIT?

Seeing as I have reached my reply limit of four today, I will just say my thanks in here. I will admit I put points into both but that was more out of not knowing for sure.

Update
Thanks to Gawan and Cadwgan for replying so quickly. I will reset my attributes next time I have the seals for it. I spent a lot on promotions recently. So I only have a little.

For those of you who just read this post, the answer is Vitality. Strength is not going to help out a class that does very little damage to begin with. Might as well stack vitality so you can last all day.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I was reading awhile back that people are dumping the points into STR because gear covers you more in defense or something like that...at the moment I'm just going split thought

Everyone I have asked says dump the attributes in VIT, STR gives to little bonus to put them there. Better to have a bigger buffer for the healers to work with.

Vitality. People will argue STR for (very little) extra enmity generation and damage mitigation but you might only break one tier for parry/block (a whopping 1%). 30 VIT will add a lot more effective health, I've lost count the number of times I've just survived due to a few hundred HP I wouldn't have had with STR attributes set.

the thing you need to understand about min-maxing is that when people optimize, they optimize according to their role in a group and the people that they play with. just because you go full str and that works while you're playing with your friends and your healers heal you up right after taking the damage, it doesn't mean it will work in your favor playing with a less capable and much slower healer. In the end, I really don't think it is a game maker but you will probably notice the VIT a lot more.

Stat allocation is quite a hotbed topic around here. A lot of people give advice based on "feel" or "this worked for me" without knowing the actual data figures to back the claims up. Jahaudant reposted an awesome summary in this thread here : http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...n-FC-confusion.

30 in VIT will give you roughly 10% more hitpoints depending on gear (+450, and starter tanks in average gear at 50 have about 4000 HP without this), and there are a number of hard hitting encounters at 50 where this -does- make a difference. It also slightly improves HP regeneration (I think it's a factor of Max HP, so should be 10% higher regen too).

30 in STR increases your block/parry amount but by such a tiny amount that it's less than half a percent increase in survivability, and maybe even 0% if you don't hit a "round-up" breakpoint. 30 Strength also gives around 2% more damage, which is barely noticeable. You might see +1 or +2 damage on some attack numbers but the difference in holding hate is virtually nothing - the Damage number on your primary weapon is the thing that makes the huge difference to damage/threat output. Strength isnt bad but it needs a huge amount to be visible.

So the choice is between 10% more HP, or 2% more damage. Suffice to say, every tank I've spoken to or read about (including myself) who started levelling with STR and then respecced to 30 Vit didnt notice a single ounce of difference in damage/threat by dropping the strength, but DID notice the big HP pool increase. Even early encounters at 50 like the Tonberry King can hit your tank for thousands of damage, and 450 HP really can be the difference between life and death in burst situations.

TLDR - Go full 30 vit for around 10% more HP. Full 30 strength gives barely 1-2% boost to anything it affects.

Just throwing a small wrench in there devil's advocate style. The +30 Strength would equate to about 7.5% to 8.5% damage increase (if you're going from around 290 to 320, may be less a percent if you're higher up). And in Shield Oath, this means you're attacks are generating 15% to 37% more enmity depending on the ability.

Don't remember where I was going with that now.

Also, you can have a set of +Strength rings and strike a targeting dummy for 10 strikes with your Rage of Halone combo, then try it without the Strength to see how it feels.

Taking off my devil's advocate hat, I agree with the Vitality approach if you're rolling more with Duty Finder randoms rather than friends, as you won't know their playstyle, may need the buffer, and they may be too stuck in their ways to see a tank in any other way and may lead to some grief about your HP = less enjoyment while playing the instance.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fiosha_Maureiba

Just throwing a small wrench in there devil's advocate style. The +30 Strength would equate to about 7.5% to 8.5% damage increase (if you're going from around 290 to 320, may be less a percent if you're higher up). And in Shield Oath, this means you're attacks are generating 15% to 37% more enmity depending on the ability.

---

Hmm is it really that high? I'd heard much lower. Still, I guess I can see 30 str equating to about that given a Paladin will have aroudn 300 strength at 50. So depending on weighting a 10% Strength boost would make sense for about that total damage increase.

I don't see how a 7-8% damage increase equates to a 15 to 37% enmity boost though. I was under the impression that Enmity modifiers are directly tied to damage output, so a 7% damage increase will be pretty much -exactly- a 7% threat increase wouldnt it?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sapphidia

I don't see how a 7-8% damage increase equates to a 15 to 37% enmity boost though. I was under the impression that Enmity modifiers are directly tied to damage output, so a 7% damage increase will be pretty much -exactly- a 7% threat increase wouldnt it?

---

Correct. 100 damage Halone = 1000 threat. 107 damage Halone = 1070 threat. 1070 / 1000 = 1.07

I have no idea where he came up with "15% to 37% more enmity".

Quote:

---

15% to 37%

---

What a strange conclusion.

Also, I'm hearing very conflicting information about the actual damage increase 30 Strength gives. Is there a proper calculation table somewhere? It's roughly a 10% increase over the Strength a paladin in average 50 gear will have, so it'll definitely be below a 10% DPS increase depending on how much of a factor strength actually is... but in this thread I've heard a 7-8% dps increase, and in other locations I've been assured it's more like a 2-3% dps increase in total.

I guess it depends whether damage is a factor of Weapon Damage PLUS (Strength-based number) or Weapon Damage MULTIPLIED BY (Strength-based number). In the latter case, 10% strength would equate to a 10% dps increase. In the former, where Strength only applies to a portion of damage and thus the ratio of this value will determine the relative effect of Strength.

Even with it being an 8% DPS increase, Full Vit definitely feels like the best way forward for a tank (as 30 strength gives less than about half a percent of actual mitigation from the datamined tables, so it's -purely- a damage/threat stat), but it would be nice to know -exactly- how much you're giving up.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jahaudant

What a strange conclusion.

---

I agree, I think he is missing a decimal somewhere in there.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Sapphidia

Also, I'm hearing very conflicting information about the actual damage increase 30 Strength gives. Is there a proper calculation table somewhere? It's roughly a 10% increase over the Strength a paladin in average 50 gear will have, so it'll definitely be below a 10% DPS increase depending on how much of a factor strength actually is... but in this thread I've heard a 7-8% dps increase, and in other locations I've been assured it's more like a 2-3% dps increase in total.

I guess it depends whether damage is a factor of Weapon Damage PLUS (Strength-based number) or Weapon Damage MULTIPLIED BY (Strength-based number). In the latter case, 10% strength would equate to a 10% dps increase. In the former, where Strength only applies to a portion of damage and thus the ratio of this value will determine the relative effect of Strength.

---

With Curtana +1, 300 STR, 200 DET, a 100 potency skill will hit for ~93 damage

With the same setup, but 330 STR, it will hit for ~100 damage

So under those starting conditions, it's ~7.5% damage increase. This scales with WD, so a better weapon would marginally increase the result, but since there aren't any better weapons...

Long story short, 7-8% is probably accurate for a 30 STR bump, but that's still garbage compared to VIT.

@Ladon below: So far there have been no visible caps on stats, and everything is almost perfectly linear. Even if there were soft/hard caps, it would be highly unlikely to apply to VIT.

Has anyone hit or found any kind of softcaps with stats yet or figured out the mechanics such as it being tied to iLevel or such? The only reason I'd consider putting attribute points into STR or DEX is if there is some kind of VIT cap. If there is then I would expect to be able to hit it fairly easily with gear designed for tanking and then it would make sense to boost up your other stats which the gear supplies less of.

Of course it would still make sense to throw everything into VIT until you can hit this cap but it's something to consider later on if there is such a cap.

Wow that's nice info to see its 7-8% . Although at this moment I will be going FULL Vit its because there is ONLY PVE so I can only Tank XD. Once they release some pvp arena's or area's they will have to "open up the door" on all the classes to be a little more , so to say, Round in all there characteristics that way pvp, classes are more equal. If they left pallies as is for PVP they would be a sitting duck, a very strong strong sitting duck.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kryzen

I agree, I think he is missing a decimal somewhere in there.

---

No, he's just wording it awkward. Rage has a threat mod of 5x. Savage has a threat mod of 2x. Shield Oath has a threat mod of 2x. For increased damage, you throw out the Shield Oath mod (it cancels out). He's saying it's a 7.5% increase on damage- 15% = (7.5% * 2) for Savage and 37.5% = (7.5% * 5) for Rage.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coramac

No, he's just wording it awkward. Rage has a threat mod of 5x. Savage has a threat mod of 2x. Shield Oath has a threat mod of 2x. For increased damage, you throw out the Shield Oath mod (it cancels out). He's saying it's a 7.5% increase on damage- 15% = (7.5% * 2) for Savage and 37.5% = (7.5% * 5) for Rage.

---

Except that's not correct, because 500 and 540 are still only 8% apart.

% Damage increase == % Threat increase. They are 100% identical.

He wasn't wording it incorrectly, he was just wrong.

Would have been interesting if someone had numbers about if there was some kind of 7-8% damage reduction on blocks/parry from STR as well. If that happened often enough, it would seem to be better than increasing your HP.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Malamasala

Would have been interesting if someone had numbers about if there was some kind of 7-8% damage reduction on blocks/parry from STR as well. If that happened often enough, it would seem to be better than increasing your HP.

---

There is! http://valk.dancing-mad.com/?page_id=227 This shows the table of how much % of damage you block from a blocked attack, based on your strength + shield's block value. Your % chance to block is based off your Shield and a tiny contribution of Dex.

As you can see, you need a LARGE amount of extra strength to make even the remotest difference to mitigation there. IF you happen to hit a breakpoint of block amount with 30 Strength, it will only increase blocked amount by 1%. Sadly, whilst strength as a whole is a reasonable stat, the mitigation you gain from 30 points in Strength seems to be less than 1%, so right now you cannot think of Strength as a mitigation stat. It's purely damage/threat.

Hard numbers

STR tiers follow a 40/41 pattern at higher values, 30 STR might not even break a tier, even if it did it's less than 0.5% overall damage mitigation.

EDIT: Note to self, refresh before posting, had this tab open a while >.>

I wager my post shows the value of VIT through EHP rather than STR not showing a dang thing due to the increments of tiers.

edit: Aw man... this is what I get for not checking the enmity table. Disregard post. I apologize again to the paladin community (as I'm watching y'all to learn how to become a paladin myself someday).

Regarding the enmity, if I understood it right it was as follows:

Damage = enmity
Damage with additional enmity effect = enmity generated equal to x2 damage
Shield Oath / Defiance = double enmity of all abilities

By this:
An auto-attack with attack potency of 100, if you're in Shield Oath, generates 200 potency of enmity.
A Savage Blade combo with added enmity would have an attack potency of 200, but generate 400 potency of enmity. In Shield Oath, the combo would generate 800 potency of enmity.
And my understanding was Rage of Halone was still x2 enmity, so potency of 260 in a combo, enmity equal to 520 potency worth of enmity, in Shield Oath, that would be 1040 potency worth of enmity.

And if you increase your damage by 7 to 8%, that would potentially boost all enmity generated with x2 to x4 multipliers, depending if it's just an auto-attack, Fast Blade, or an added enmity attack.

Edit: Wait, let me look at this for a moment.

Rereading my original post, I'm not sure why I said 15%-32% increase in enmity. I should have looked at the potency first. I apologize folks for the enmity misinformation percentages. But would still encourage looking at the Valk's Dancing Mad web site.

Referencing Seiken/Kanican's testing data.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by PessimiStick

Except that's not correct, because 500 and 540 are still only 8% apart.

% Damage increase == % Threat increase. They are 100% identical.

He wasn't wording it incorrectly, he was just wrong.

---

He's comparing to baseline which is meaningless. I wouldn't call it inherently wrong.

Ok pencils down... ive seen arguements back and forth for all 3the stats

Str - enmity gen/block str
Dex - block rate
Vit - max hp

As much as i would like it proven ...wrong about str/vit


Sounds like vit really is the way to go for gld/pld in the grand scheme of things...

Would a ratio of 3:1 of vit:str be a good allocation?

Honestly at endgame, a PLD has no problems holding aggro in ST. Paladins have always had weak(er) aoe aggro, and frankly a 7-8% increase in Flash's hate gen wont help very much. So STR is not that great.
What I can say with certainty is this:


You want a PLD with 5k+ HP in a group to solo tank HM Garuda. They need that much hp to survive up to 3 simultaneous Slipstreams from the boss+adds. This frees up a slot to add an extra dps to mow everything down.
Next, as a PLD, you pretty much NEED ~5.4-5.5k HP in a group to tank HM Titan. In his last phase, Titan will hit you for 3.5k with an ability, and immediately follow up with a 1k autoattack. Those numbers fluctuate a bit, so 5.5k is considered the safe value for surviving that combo, and having enough of a buffer to get a heal and survive the next hit.
In my FC, we have a PLD in full DL armor, with full DL jewelery, DL kite shield, and Ifrit's Blade. He is at 5.5k in a group with 30 vit.
That is pretty much ALL the farmable gear you can get, to have enough hp for HM Titan. Throw out that 30 vit from allocated stats, and you now need several Mythology pieces to cover that gap. It takes about 1.5 weeks per piece of jewelery, at 8 AK runs per week...

That 30 vit is starting to look pretty good right now.

VIT is so much more beneficial @50. Holding threat isn't an issue generally unless your heals are spamming aoe heals. But the 2500+ hits from bosses can very much be a strain.

The only real reason worth putting points into str is to get to the next tier of the block plateau. Anything over that is completely wasted as the gain in damage is minor. Even if it would equal to a 10% increase (extremely high and won't happen) you're looking at most 30 more damage from a crit. If that 30 damage is what makes you hold threat on a mob you have much bigger problems.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fiosha_Maureiba

Shield Oath / Defiance = double enmity of all abilities

---

Except if you test Shield Oath yourself you will notice that it is not in fact double threat. I believe the testing that was done came out saying it was a 20% increase could be wrong on the number though. Hence the reason any PLD off tanking with Sword Oath can and will pull threat if they just spam their rotation. So this makes STR even more useless to us

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Coramac

He's comparing to baseline which is meaningless. I wouldn't call it inherently wrong.

---

It's still wrong. Comparing base damage with no threat modifiers to a damage increase *with* threat modifiers is, at best, nonsensical, and generally speaking, wrong. Along the same lines as a units mismatch.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WindnC1oud

Would a ratio of 3:1 of vit:str be a good allocation?

---

Not as good as 30:0 is.

So if Vit is the best and STR isn't ... is the next cap to shoot for 405 STR for a 2% increase?

I allocated all my points on VIT and I don't have any issue getting and holding hate from monsters. I've endured a lot of deadly hits thanks to that extra HP.

Ok, I watched Mr. Happy's vid on stat allocation and put all my points into strength. Now at end game and these posts I can see the value of an added 450 hps. Is there any way for me to reset my stats?

Head to your Grand Company. You can get an item that'll allow you to reset your points.