Need help on best gear for lvl 36 tank

[Lush74]

Ok thanks for your advice I will do some research about it.i am very happy for people in game or on here to help me but it's very insulting when you get sworn at and told your rubbish just because your not wearing the right gear and accessories.if the person was giving me advice nicely I would have been grateful.this is the first mmo I have played so I am new to a lot of things.i always just played final fantasy on my console .
Thanks again xxx

[PetiteMalFleur]

Hello Lush Bunny. You've gotten some good advice here. Firstly, those who say jewelry at level 36 doesn't matter are just wrong. I play WHM as my main and I can assure you it makes a huge difference in not just your ability to hold aggro but in your survivability. Having done brayflox over 100 times in duty finder I would say the party's opportunity to complete the dungeon would be impossible given your gear and not having your job unlocked. Your soul stone is extremely important for you to equip at this point. The stat boost and ease in tanking it provides will make an immediate difference no gear can provide.

If you cannot afford the jewelry you need to start doing all side quests. Even if you don't immediately see class appropriate rewards completing them will unlock quests that will gear up your character. You may also be able to shout for a level 35-40 crafter and request they make you the jewelry. Often they will not charge or charge you only for mats.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience where communication broke down in this manner. Please understand it is very frustrating, especially for dps, to wait sometimes 2 hours to queue in duty finder only to find they rolled a severely undergeared tank.

[Gamemako]

i am relying on armour and jewellery I can get from quests or leves

Oh my word, do not do that. Take the cash rewards (allagan pieces, sell to NPC for listed value). You can buy pretty much every optional reward on the market board for less than the amount you'd otherwise get from the quest.

Rubbish

Just about everything said here is wrong. HP does not affect enmity in any appreciable way. It does not affect damage taken, so it does not even affect healing. The only thing you get is passive HP regen out of it, which is utterly negligible. Tanking jewelry does not matter one bit in terms of enmity. The only way you're going to have any trouble in Brayflox. The difference between the best defense gear and what you're wearing? 10% of incoming damage or so. Yes, it's that small. The impact on enmity from your PLD crystal is minimal; your base STR boost is 5 and you get a DPS stance which increases total single-target enmity by ~6% (and adds nothing to AoE enmity). The reason you'd want the job crystal is for the DPS boost, because clearing the dungeon faster is always better.

Having done brayflox over 100 times in duty finder I would say the party's opportunity to complete the dungeon would be impossible given your gear and not having your job unlocked.

I have tanked and healed through Brayflox on both tanks and both healers in phase 3 and release. You could not even have a job at all in phase 3, and the dungeon was more punishing then (first boss adds hit like a truck then). Guess what: we all managed just fine. I've healed an MRD tank wearing swimwear through the dungeon while playing SCH, no problem. Playing as either healer means spending 80-90% of your time spamming DPS instead of healing already. If you come in with a naked tank, you just have to spend maybe half of your time healing. You will never begin to push maximum healing capacity, and you're never going to get bursted down. I've healed both PGL and LNC as tanks through the last two bosses (LNC with CNJ, PGL with SCH). The suggestion that anything is remotely "impossible" is absolutely ludicrous on its face.

[MirielleLavandre]

Hi Lush Bunny! I'm in the same boat, kind of, as I started doing Brayfox recently just for the experience and maybe getting the calvary set from there. If you have the gold, you could pick up I think the lvl 35 Heavy Steel set someone mentioned here earlier that makes you look like a trashcan - if you sell some crystals or some allagan pieces you might even be able to get the HQ ones. With the HQ body-head and leg-feet, it puts me at 1816HP and 609MP - with about 40 more VIT than what you currently have and I'm lvl 35. I didn't notice much help after getting the sphene jewelry, honestly. But what I've really found in that dungeon, compared to all the ones before it, is that you really need a good healer. It seems many healers are used to not having to heal quite as much since those first early dungeons are so easy to heal, and in Brayfox I've noticed that if the healer isn't ready for the amount of healing they will need to do even on trash, it could mean bad new for you as the tank.

Another option since you said you were a little strapped for cash is to run some FATEs to get grand company seals and then trade these seals in for some really good pieces made for PLD/WAR tanks specifically (make sure not to buy the ones that just say "Disciples of War" -- you want the GLD/PLD/MRD/WAR specific armor and shields). Good luck and ignore all those mean people who say things about you as you're just learning. As I started out as a dps, yes - it was sad when runs didn't turn out well after such a long wait -- but it is better to help someone learn the instance and how to tank better than berate them :/

[PetiteMalFleur]

[QUOTE=Gamemako;1589830] stuff
/QUOTE]

OP asked about gear and if you want to advise an inexperienced and new player that their gear doesn't matter then that's your prerogative. Obviously it was an issue with her party if it resulted in a heated argument. Brayflox is just the start. OP has many dungeons to come and I personally enjoy my characters more if I can come prepared to contribute what I can in my chosen role. The small numbers may not seem like a lot but can make the difference between if she can survive a 1k crit. My point is op should keep her gear up to date, including jewelry and it will help even more in future content if she remains conscientious of her overall iLevel when queuing in DF.

OP, at your level don't worry about HQ gear if you can't afford it. Just the base items will be enough of an upgrade and the stat difference is often not in areas that you're really looking at for damage mitigation anyway.

[whiskeybravo]

Keeping jewelry up to date is relatively important, esp once you get to 38-39 and the stats for jewelry start to get a little better. 5 pieces of HQ Heliodor is +20 vit and and +30 parry. And you can round out with STR, ACC, CRIT materia as needed. Fail to see how this is negligible (for any class..)

[Yunnie]

Gear gets out dated so fast due to fates and the way dungeon progression works pre-50.
Let me tell you something that I learned (the hard way), and others have mentioned.
Dungeons give great gear for the dungeon that your running, but the next dungeon is a couple levels away, so your gear gets out dated in a couple dungeons. Why farm dungeons for gear under level 50... If you beat the dungeon, then you don't need better gear so why farm a dungeon that's already beatable. Just buy gear as upgrades become available, but always keep Gil management at an efficient level.

First off, a level 20 dungeon is designed to be beaten with level 10-12 visual gear, because that's what they expect you to have obtained via quests. They dont even expect you to have peripheral gear like rings and stuff. So if your rocking a full set of normal quality level 15 gear including accessories, you should win with minor difficulty. At level 30, the gear requirements increase to level 25 gear and level 10 peripherals. If your rocking level 25-30 crafted gear, that should carry you to level 45.

As a leveling tank, go for defense above all other stats. By design, this will also yield high str and vit. Don't bother melding materia, because you don't need to. Once you hit 45, you get free armor from your class quests.

If doing this gear progression proves too difficult to tank from your dps- think in your head that there is something your doing wrong player side and try to improve your personal playing skills. I'm not saying your bad or that you need to L2P or anything that. Just trying to prepare you for the rude awakening of obtaining level 50. A fresh 50 tank struggles to hold hate off the endless torrent of ilvl90 dps out there. You will have to play harder then good just to hold threat off 1 person with relics let alone 3 people.

[PetiteMalFleur]

If you are doing your side quests the rewards will keep your gear up to date. Those who say level 20 jewelry will last until 50 are right but it makes the dungeons take longer and wiping more likely. Maybe if you're doing dps it's fine since there's no dps check in the leveling dungeons and party survivability is not dependent on dps.

Well, not much of a dps check, anyway.

How the dungeon drops work is about every 4 there is a new dungeon. Brayflox drops a full gear set and the next will drop a weapon. Your next dungeon to drop gear is cutters cry and your gear from brayflox will last until then. So the dungeon drops will last you about 10 levels. If you choose to grind for them. But like I said: your side quests will gear up your character appropriately. As will your class and job quests.

[Zfz]

Either you keep your gear + accessories updated through quest whites, or you must keep at one side updated through dungeon drops (aetherial not more than 2 dungeons gap, green rares not more than 3 dungeons gap).

The cavalry set is slightly better as tanking gear than the level 40 quest whites, which means that you're more or less on the same footing as someone who has full quest whites at level 41 going into Stone Vigil. Getting a few pieces from Quarn and Cutter's Cry will help, but not "absolutely necessary".

There is a little twist though. Aetherial gear gets additional randomized bonus stats. For example the Aetherial Heavysteel armor (head+chest) has 150 defense, 12 str, 13 vit as fixed stats, then it could get anything from 1 to 3 additional bonus stats.

Consider the following:

1. Cavalry head+chest = 146 defense, 11 str, 13 vit, 4 parry, 13 accuracy, 6 determination
2. Heavysteel armor that I have now = 150 defense, 12 str, 13 vit, 13 crit, 15 skill speed

It is hard to say which one is better. The Heavysteel is what we would call an enmity piece (it has no parry). But the Cavalry set isn't that heavy on parry either.

Aetherial gear with the right combination of parry could make it better than rare gear that is just 1 dungeon before. On the other hand, if the aetherial doesn't have the right stats (e.g. has skill speed, determination etc) then it becomes harder to replace the rare gear.

For that reason, a lot of people will be using the Cavalry set all the way to Stone Vigil. The fact that not many people farm Quarn and Cutter's Cry makes it harder for tanks to upgrade their gear, too.

As a rule of thumb, you want to be wearing at least:

• Green gear that is within 8~10 "required levels", e.g. Stone Vigil is Lv.41 dungeon, Cavalry set requires Lv.32.
• Unmelded crafted HQ gear that is within 5~8 "required levels"
• Aetherial gear that is within 5~8 "required levels"
• White quest (or NQ crafted) gear that is within 1~3 "required levels"

Melded HQ crafted gear will probably replace green rare gear that is over 4 required levels out, but I'm not sure of that.

Aetherial tanking gear exist at the following levels: 15, 20, 25, 28, 35, 40, 44, 47. There are some odd scale-mail pieces shared with LNC/DRG, they will be better than older aetherial tanking gear, but will mostly be worse than green rare gear of that level range.

All aetherial gear have their equivalent crafted NQ versions, which are exactly the stuff you get out of quests.

At level 44, you get to enter Darkhold, but it might be better to wait until level 45 when you get your 4 pieces of AF gear. Same for Garuda. No point stressing your healers at level 44 with very outdated gear like the Cavalry set. While the Cavalry set is usable for Garuda and Darkhold, it also shows a lack of dedication as a tank to invest time to maintain your gear.

At level 44, before doing Dark Hold, you should be at least wearing the level 44 whites (High Mythril; obtained naturally from quest progression) or aetherial mythril/heavysteel (lv.40/35). If you can't get those, then wait till level 45 to get your AF pieces.