How to Build a PLD, needing tips plz.

[Tman]

I did finally manage to get Ace to show me how he does in an instance, and I tried to use an unbiased judgement as best I could even though I am strongly in favor of HP and strongly against Def/Vit.

The stipulation set forth was that we were to fully PuG the group so we had whm's that were unfamiliar with our tanking styles as well as unaware of when burst damage would come, so they were slow on pre-loading a cura. We did CC, 1 strong/physical heavy fight (princess) and 1 Magical intensive fight (chimera). We also agreed to not use food or potions so that this would be purely testing skill/gear. I played the role of a DD to stress his enmity while he obviously tanked.

On Princess his build was strong, being a pure physical fight. Regen kept him up at all times, he did not use sentinel regularly, used rampart on cd, and used stoneskin on cd. On an unmitigated hit (only had protect up) he took roughly 200 dmg from princess, however I was unable to see how much her ws did. Many times throughout the encounter the whm's would aoe, being that we were a pug many couldn't time/save their aoe's for the adds. 1 draw back from the nature of Vit stacking, his hp was lower than I like, so his threat was a bit on the low side, Spirits Within wasn't hitting hard enough. With me as a knowledgeable DD for the encounter, I know what to do when and as such I had to hold back for fear of pulling Princess (red the whole fight until about 30% hp left on princess where I danced red/yellow).

Chimera was the complete opposite unfortunately. We did have a trigger happy DD who pulled chimera off the bat, so I did try to look past this. Positioning was off, but again a trigger happy DD, and the PuG went with what i call the split group setup, whm's a touch closer than the DD's. This may have been decided due to the positioning issue, but let me get to the juicy part. Things appeared to be going smoothly, DD were doing what they were suppose to, Whm's seem to have a handle on things, Ace seemed to have decent threat. First breath, Breath of the Ram, hit Ace like a truck and brought him close to 500 hp left or less. Again due to the nature of this group, the whm's were unprepared for this, and Ace did not dodge it for reasons i know not, be it lag, laziness, or animation lock. The next hit killed Ace, and 2 Cura's failed to go off, my assumption is Unable to cast on KO target.

While Ace's build is strong on a purely physical fight, it needs coordination with whm's and some level of skill throughout the party, not ideal for pug's in the least. HP provides that cushion to keep things from going crazy fast, and enmity via Spirits Within however provides 0 mitigation benefits and rely's more heavily on the pld's skill to time cd's/dodge ws's/whm's able to cure bomb.

tl:dr Def/Vit provides excellent mitigation for physical only fights, HP provides cushion and enmity. Pick your poison or mix and match.

This is purely for the sake of Def/Vit vs HP