Glad/Paladin stats questions

[gaymer77]

So I'm starting to level a Glad/Paladin in my down time or when I'm getting tired of MSL quests on my WHM. Problem I'm having is I don't know what stats I should be aiming for on the Glad/Paladin besides tenacity. Does direct hit (heaven's eye materia) do anything for Glad/Pal? Is crit hit (savage aim materia) better? What about skill speed (quickarm materia) or determination (savage might)? Trying to figure some stuff out as I level things up and also see about what gear to be using as I acquire it.

[BarretOblivion]

Your first problem is tenacity. No you shouldn't be going for tenacity. No tank focuses on tenacity as the scaling for it is terrible. For now, don't worry about stats till you hit lvl 80.
At that point you prioritize Crit/DET once you hit your preferred skill speed and then meld Direct Hit everywhere else.

[Seraph522]

If you're still leveling, don't bother with worrying about substats; just get the highest ilvl gear you can for your level and keep that gear on-level as much as possible. Defense and MDefense are the first priority for tanks while leveling, since those more directly affect how much damage you take, and higher ilvl gear will have more of those stats. As long as your gear is roughly on level - within five levels pre-50 and within two levels afterwards - you should be good. Don't worry about melding materia, either - you'll be replacing gear often enough that melding isn't really worth it.

Substat melding only becomes important at the level cap, which is currently level 80, and the exact priorities tend to differ depending on the job in question and the point in the expansion we're at. Right now, the first priority for PLD is skill speed to get within a 'comfy' GCD time, which usually hovers around 2.4s, and then Direct Hit materia afterwards; if you run out of Dhit materia, Determination materia should be next, though that may have changed to Crit after 5.05, as I know DRK and GNB had their priorities shift. Tenacity is last on the totem pole because it doesn't really provide that much of a benefit when stacked, so it's usually only applied if you have nothing else.

Note that Crit will eventually take Dhit's place later in the expansion when our gear starts to have more Crit built into it, as Crit scales exponentially while Dhit is linear, so higher Crit values bring better benefits for stacking more Crit.

[Enkidoh]

Traditionally VIT is the main controlling stat for GLA/PLD like all tanks, but that has changed somewhat with SB and SHB's changes to the battle system and enmity generation being more passive now rather than using abilities like Flash to burst generate it like it used to be, so other stats are starting to play a bigger part in the role. VIT is still important though as it increases your HP and defense, two very important factors for tanking (i.e. survivability).

Apart from that, I'm not sure, as I'm not an end-gamer so I don't take much notice at trying to min-max every little aspect of my character. So someone else might have better advice to give on that subject.

[gaymer77]

The whole reason I'm asking about substats is because I've been doing the squadron dungeons as much as I can to level up. I've noticed that I'm averaging 2-4 levels per dungeon run with my squadron. I started off doing gold quests & my hunt log but once I unlocked squadron dungeons and found out how bad ass they were for leveling, I've ditched the questing thing lol. I've done all the job quests as they pop up but mostly its been squadron dungeons. I've been buying some gear here & there or using the ones I've crafted while raising my crafting jobs. The materia is all there too waiting.

[MistakeNot]

The whole reason I'm asking about substats is because I've been doing the squadron dungeons as much as I can to level up. I've noticed that I'm averaging 2-4 levels per dungeon run with my squadron. I started off doing gold quests & my hunt log but once I unlocked squadron dungeons and found out how bad ass they were for leveling, I've ditched the questing thing lol. I've done all the job quests as they pop up but mostly its been squadron dungeons. I've been buying some gear here & there or using the ones I've crafted while raising my crafting jobs. The materia is all there too waiting.

Short answer is that it doesn't matter much what type of materia you use. The difference between best and worst choice is only a few percent anyway.
Only when you are getting into on-level Ex and Savage runs does those few percent even begin to matter, and they still matter far less than player skill.

[TheForce]

Your first problem is tenacity. No you shouldn't be going for tenacity. No tank focuses on tenacity as the scaling for it is terrible. For now, don't worry about stats till you hit lvl 80.
At that point you prioritize Crit/DET once you hit your preferred skill speed and then meld Direct Hit everywhere else.

Some of the most skilled raid/savage Tanks I know meld Tenacity. Stop making it sound like it's a worthless stat. Going for it is fine if you prefer to have a little extra mitigation.

[eagledorf]

They've adjusted it to the point where it barely matters what stat you go for. Tenacity is actually not a bad stat, its problem is you need a lot of it to make any meaningful change in defense so you are usually better off going for pure DPS stats. Savage Eden, like everything since patch 3.0, seems to focus more on AoE damage than high damage on tanks.

Frankly, I hate skill speed more than I hate Tenacity, but I main PLD.

[BarretOblivion]

Some of the most skilled raid/savage Tanks I know meld Tenacity. Stop making it sound like it's a worthless stat. Going for it is fine if you prefer to have a little extra mitigation.

Yeah and I know plenty of skilled raiders who stay as far away from Tenacity as possible. Its a perference stat but its agreed universally that its scaling is too poor to invest heavily in. That's why Tanks don't look for tenacity in our BiS, its Crit and a comfortable SKS. Tenacity is good for progressing but you don't feel any difference melding it. 2-3% isn't enough to save you from TB if you aren't cooldowning properly and if you are... you don't need that 2-3%. Its nice for basic attacks, that's about it.