Dear Paladins...

[Aceofspades]

We've had discussions like this before Ace and most of us completely agree that defense and VIT are good and necessary, however the point of deminishing returns is too low, too easy to cap, or requires absurd DEF/VIT obtain due to the D-Level factor.

But you know what Ace this whole ongoing DEF/VIT argument that you've been crusade about shouldn't even really be going on PERIOD because (And I'm going to be vocal and frankly biased by this point)

"DEF/VIT MATERIA CAN ONLY BE PUT ON VERY FEW, SELECTIVE PIECES OF GEAR, HP CAN BE PUT ON DAMN NEAR ANYTHING. EVEN MIXING YOUR ONLY OUT 200-300ISH HP AT THE MOST, SO YOU CAN HAVE YOUR EFF'IN CAKE AND EAT IT TOO! SO DROP IT! FFFS!"

Secondly, your personal play style does not advocate good methodology on paper or in practice. Saying you can do this and that (such as purposely eating 100-Tonze Swing) is more of a look what I can do or this is easier for me, than hey what can make this go faster, is safer, and runs the best chance of success.

Lastly, in either an LS or PUG you should know that players expect things of you just as you would of them. If that means avoiding 100-Tonze Swing so close ranged DD's have a shot to wail on CC when he's on his ass, and WHM's don't have a heart attack every 5 second from back to back 100-Tonze Swings, then by all means you should be adjusting your strategy to help the group win more than to suit your personal playstyle.

There is a very fine line of being unable to pick up the slack of other players, and choosing to slow down the group even more just because you want to play a particular way, or even being a hinderance to your group because you want to strictly enforce your own playstyle.

Weather or not your advocating people to try your method, you know your methods are usually not well suited nor suggested for new players, so there is little to no point in even suggesting or going to the great lengths of defending your posts, especially when you come around saying "I don't care what players do or if they do what I do".

/rant off

would like to touch on your sixth paragraph, in wich I fully agree with. Just not sure if your fully understanding my argument. IF you can eat 100% of 100 tonze and keep near full health without healer support, this prevents you from having to run from the attack wich still has a chance to hit you with or without server lag, I will agree it dose take some skill to time running from the attack with a degree of success. But there inlies the problem. Your basicly have two choices when it comes down to a situation like 100 tonze

1: Use your gear and well timed abilities in order to negate the damage. This offers one distinct problem, the gear must be substantially suited for what ever fight you plan on strait tanking , in wich case, for 100 tonze, vit and def are an obvious stats to stack. Not an easy build , I fully agree , but we are not saying wich is easiest to build but wich stats are ultimatly better for the job.

2: you can attempt avoiding the attack alltogether. In this case , avoiding 100 tonze actually incaps the boss for a few seconds wich would be valuable time if mages needed to regen mp for heals , nukes , ect. However, there are two distinct disadvantages to this tatic.
1: running from a tp/mp moves requires free movement, and sense there is no 100% way to insure you will not be caught in animation lock, due to randomness of the procing of tp/mp moves (even with useing the action log) there is still an off chance to be caught off guard.
2: Server latiency has been an issue since the games release. This is said to be corrected with 2.0 , that being said, it is still an issue, to advise any player without knowing their hardware and/or how the server decides it wants to act that particular day, I think its rather ambitious to expect everyone NOT to have lateincy issues. I said all that to say this, IF you have latiency issues, you can be standing well out of range of 100 tonze seconds before it gose off and still get hit by it, this is the reason Ifrrit was such a pain in the beginning.

I think both sides have their issues, I personally perferr to use my tatic and do not see how I would be bringing down the party by doing so. CC sitting on his butt takes as much damage as he dose standing up. Those additional seconds to recharge mp would be important IF the mages had to be mobile at any point in the fight, in this particular fight , they do not. And by me strait tanking CC I can insure with a greater certainty that I will survive then if I were to turn my back on CC in attempts to flee his hardest hitting move. and being that not only do PLD's take more damage from the rear but half the pre-emptive abilties I used to negate damage from 100 tonze would be worthless as they only work if I face the target hitting me. And all this dosent even take into account for animation lock, should I get stuck in the middle of a combo, I would have no time to run and just enough time to pop sentinal or ageious boon. Seeing how I know I am gona get hit anyways, just makes more sense to prepair for a devistating blow rather then attempt to run from it.

If one can take the damage and be as survivable as one who runs from the damage, sounds like there is even less to gain from fleeing an enemy ability. After all, if 100 tonze hit everyone for 500 damage would we still run from it? If it was convient to Avoid , I would say yes, but sense it is not , I would have to say no.

Certainly there are fights in wich Abilties must be avoided, but then again there are fights in wich abilities can not be avoided. To build a ends all tatic for every fight off of the ignorant assumptions for one fight , to distribute as "the way" to fight a boss for new comers is dangerous for any new comer to the game. You may not agree , But to try to discredit me because you personally disagree is just ignorant.

I have offered the terms in wich I will take back all my claims and tatics that I endorse on the forums. And that is, either someone comes forth with raw data ( not charts based on data collected in wich we have no evidance of even existing) via video or parse or both. Or the developers them selves tell release a statement in wich they say that DEF and or VIT are essenutally broken.

One more statement I will conqure with to some reguard before I go. Yes, I know and agree that the amount of DEF one must have inorder to be of any note in a boss fight must be great in comparison to single or no materiaed rare/ex gear. This being said, double stacking vit and def is not that hard , if one soo wished and was inclined to try. Expensive? ABSOULUTELY! But if getting epic gear was easy , why on earth would anyone care to have it much less play a game in wich building a "endgame set" was yet another aspect that was handed over to the casual player as an insentive to play. No offense to the casual gamer but , why would a hard core gamer play if everything they attained can be done on the weekend for a casual gamer? I know this is a little off subject , but, I for one like a mmo with some prestige in attaining hard to get things. To conclude this statement I will simply say, your gear is what you put into it, Yoshi P in his understanding of the mechanics of this game has briliantly designed it in such a way that no longer is epic gear simply droped , or easly crafted, its a culmination of farming/crafting/risk/ and stat stacking. One can make up his or her own mind how they wish to go about building their gear, I simply like to , and implore others to, stack def/vit as main priority for tanking, IF you disagree, you are entitled to do so, but you can not factually discredit my claims without the terms I listed above. Point and case.

sorry for any mis-spellings, not the best when it comes to writing.