Paladin Opener

[BuffDude]

Hey yall,

I was looking around for a PLD guide/opener but couldn't really find one. So a couple questions:

1. As OT, i start with goring, hit circle, spirits, spam RA, and refresh goring. Question is for opener, when do I specifically use a potion?
2. I have no idea about a MT rotation. Please help? As of right now, i start with shield oath, RoH twice, and then drop in sword oath.

Thanks!

[mosaicex]

You can get away with OT opener as MT if
-the DPSes aren't very bursty (eg. no skilled BLM who don't use quelling in your party) or
-you have Ninja to shade walker you and smoke bomb the bursty guy
Shield swipe proc from Sheltron also give you an overhead on threat too.
As for MT rotation, PLD lacks super threat generator skill like Unchained, so if the DPS are catching up on threat the I will rotate between RoH and RA combo, refreshing GB as needed. Also dropped to Sword Oath once I'm in comfortable zone and no tankbuster in coming.

[Sarcatica]

Still relevant. This does depend on fights still.

General rule: good NIN will put Trick Attack on the said timing so you can afford to dump RA combo for first if you are OT. If no NIN, just do normal Goring RA RA.

The timing for your FoF will be another huge point. You want to use it before your last combo. 30sec duration means you have 13 GCDs to hit. Using it before Goring will ensure you have another buffed Goring at 3rd combo (10th) then you have 4th combo (13th) for buffed RA. You can try to fit CoS twice during the FoF period.

One thing I am very much curious though is especially for opener, since you can only fit 13 GCDs in 1 FoF, will applying Goring at 4th combo instead be worth? Anything else is pretty much 123 123 123.

[Lyth]

One thing I am very much curious though is especially for opener, since you can only fit 13 GCDs in 1 FoF, will applying Goring at 4th combo instead be worth?

Not sure if I've understood the question correctly, but if GB is the fourth hit in the window (i.e. starting with RA as the first hit), then you have the same number of GBs in the window as you would if you started with GB as your first hit. However, you also have one extra RB, because you fit in two full GB combos instead of one truncated one. You fit an extra 30 potency into the window by doing this (as RB is 230 potency, while SB is 200).

[Sarcatica]

Not sure if I've understood the question correctly, but if GB is the fourth hit in the window (i.e. starting with RA as the first hit), then you have the same number of GBs in the window as you would if you started with GB as your first hit. However, you also have one extra RB, because you fit in two full GB combos instead of one truncated one. You fit an extra 30 potency into the window by doing this (as RB is 230 potency, while SB is 200).

The normal rotation is FoF>GB>RA combo>RA combo>GB combo> RA combo, FoF ends. What if FoF>GB>RA combo>RA combo>RA combo >GB combo, FoF ends? This way you get the full access to that extra 1 tick from not applying GB while not sacrificing anything much from the FoF duration. This is merely my speculation but I haven't been testing it too much. It's only a potential 50 potency gain every FoF though.

[Lyth]

The normal rotation is FoF>GB>RA combo>RA combo>GB combo> RA combo, FoF ends. What if FoF>GB>RA combo>RA combo>RA combo >GB combo, FoF ends? This way you get the full access to that extra 1 tick from not applying GB while not sacrificing anything much from the FoF duration. This is merely my speculation but I haven't been testing it too much. It's only a potential 50 potency gain every FoF though.

I think I see what you're saying. The cost of clipping a DoT is not the damage value of the tick. The damage ticks occur regardless of when you refresh them, as long as the debuff is up when the game checks. The cost of letting a DoT fall off is the value of the missed ticks for the duration that the debuff is off.

Let's use a simpler example to work with for a second. If I apply Scourge and then immediately reapply it the next GCD, I haven't lost any ticks. I have gained 100 potency from the upfront damage of Scourge, but it has also cost me a GCD that could have been spent on my base combo. On DRK, the average value of a GCD is 227 potency (Delirium). So clipping Scourge by 100% of its duration is 227-100 = 127. If you clip DoTs by a small amount, they add up over the course of the fight. If I keep clipping at 3 seconds, then eventually that will add up to 30 seconds, and I'll have lost one GCD. The cost of clipping by 3 seconds on a single occasion is (3s/30s) x (227-100) = 12.7 potency. (Strictly speaking, the true value of a GCD might be difficult to calculate if you clip by less than one full combo over the course of an entire fight, because I can't predict exactly which part of the combo would be truncated. You'd really have to go back and recalculate it by hand once you knew the fight duration. I'm just trying to keep this simple. It's much easier to calculate on SMN, where you're just substituting in an extra Ruin or Ruin 3 into that missing GCD).

For PLD, the average value of a GCD is 233, based on the RA combo. The average value of the non-DoT portion of the GB combo is 207. The cost of clipping RA by 3 seconds is (3s/24s) x (233 - 207) = 3.25 potency. The cost of dropping GB for a single tick is 50 potency. So it stands to reason that letting it fall off for an entire combo would be an even higher potency loss.

[Khalithar]

For dungeons even with really good DPS I do:

Fight or Flight
Shield Lob
Circle
Rage of Halone x2 to spike threat with Spirits thrown in there somewhere.
Sword Oath
Goring Blade
RA combo for the rest of the fight to maximize my damage while refreshing GB as appropriate and using my oGCD dps moves whenever they're up.

I probably should use Halone more but dungeon bosses don't hit hard enough that I worry about the debuff overly much. Even when I have really geared dps (20k+ hp) I rarely ever need to go back to Shield Oath to get a threat lead again.

[MeoTwister5]

Try not to spam RoH as an OT. Use it only to refresh the STR down debuff if the MT isn't a PLD, and use RA the rest of the time.

As an MT, well, how frequently you use RoH will depend mostly on how fast the rest of your squad rises in the threat meter. Otherwise just spam RA and RoH to refresh the debuff.

Sword Oath use will depend on how easy or hard it is for you to keep a comfortable enmity lead.

[SpookyGhost]

Try not to spam RoH as an OT. Use it only to refresh the STR down debuff if the MT isn't a PLD, and use RA the rest of the time.

Don't do this. Goring -> RA -> RA -> repeat. You will lose far too much rDPS applying RoH as OT and the STR debuff is negligible. You're also suggesting cutting out Goring, which is higher potency than RA after only 3 ticks. This isn't me saying "DPS is more important than mitigation!!" either, RoH's debuff just mathematically isn't going to do anything worthwhile to merit the damage loss. Even as MT you want to try and avoid it like the plague.

[Lambdafish]

RoH's debuff just mathematically isn't going to do anything worthwhile to merit the damage loss. Even as MT you want to try and avoid it like the plague.

As an MT, RoH is very boss dependent, on a physical heavy boss (in harder content, don't bother in dungeons, the mitigation is unnecessary), please use RoH when you can, the numbers are not negligable, I believe it is around 10% DR on physical attacks depending on the bosses strength. In savage raiding you should definitely be using RoH as mitigation (especially if you are in ShO). The skill has its flaws, but it is worth using, and as a PLD, mitigation is more important than damage (though you are right to say don't bother as an OT).

Also yes, use goring blade. Your combo should be RoH combo, GB combo, RA combo, repeat; unless the fight is magic heavy, in which case use RoH until you have comfortable hate, then replace it with an extra RA combo.