How to Build a PLD, needing tips plz.

[Chardrizard]

When you are not taking any big damage, the WHMs can afford to nuke and speed up the kill.

[SwordCoheir]

Your logic is somewhat flawed Ace. While you may have the capability to take the brunt of the hit from 100 Tonze, you also have to consider that once he gets to 50% CC starts to spam moves back-to-back which leave alot of room potential hazards to occur like Animal Instinct, Eye of the Beholder, etc. When he's on his ass that's 10-15 seconds he's not spamming those potential moves (even longer if you get a good stun on him), meaning WHM's don't have to waste MP to help heal and can help nuke to speed up the kill, close-ranged DD's can freely go all out w/o taking a risk, and you have a short breathing period to heal, buff, or DD yourself especially if your defensive abilities are on cooldown, it's also the perfect opportunity to throw out a Riot Blade combo to land Defense Down and help your DD's floor him faster.

I just overall don't see the benefit of trying to take it head on when you make it that much easier on yourself and your party to NOT get hit by it.

[Aceofspades]

Your logic is somewhat flawed Ace. While you may have the capability to take the brunt of the hit from 100 Tonze, you also have to consider that once he gets to 50% CC starts to spam moves back-to-back which leave alot of room potential hazards to occur like Animal Instinct, Eye of the Beholder, etc. When he's on his ass that's 10-15 seconds he's not spamming those potential moves (even longer if you get a good stun on him), meaning WHM's don't have to waste MP to help heal and can help nuke to speed up the kill, close-ranged DD's can freely go all out w/o taking a risk, and you have a short breathing period to heal, buff, or DD yourself especially if your defensive abilities are on cooldown, it's also the perfect opportunity to throw out a Riot Blade combo to land Defense Down and help your DD's floor him faster.

I just overall don't see the benefit of trying to take it head on when you make it that much easier on yourself and your party to NOT get hit by it.

The hazards are easly overcome with saving your instant vokes for primal and using your tp moves to maintain hate. everything else he dose is realy weak. but I will acknowledge the fact that when the boss is not doing anything its a good thing, however the advantage of strait tanking comes from removing the effort of dodging 100tonze as well as the risk of the outcome if your manuver dose not succeed. I do agree dosent take much to run outa the way, but it dose take some cordinational skill to maintain timing your enmity abilites as well as timing manuvers with CC's 100 tonze as well as self buffs. The whole time keeping an eye on your battle log to make sure you get outa range and all that hinges on the off chance he dosent proc 100 tonze in the middle of an anmiation in wich case , unlike spells, you can not interupt when doing tp moves. When you strait tank you allow the tank to focus on the main two things it needs to focus on , staying alive and keeping hate. I do a much better job when I cut out all bs and just rely on my abilties and knowledge of the job. Not sure how kiting makes killing CC faster, either way, your main healer is likely not to nuke as it is a waste of mp if they are not in clerics stance and as far as the hazards go, Im sure you have seen the situation in wich the tank , returning from runing from 100 tonze, is not in postion nor ready for stealing hate back when CC procs primal imediatly after 100 tonze then soon after dose a swing that wipes the pt. Risks run with either set up, Strait tanking simply alows your more certainty in controlling the pace of the fight because you are able to time your abilties more easly then compaired to adding the added duty of timing manuvers with CC's 100 tonze.

[Molly_Millions]

Nevermind the fact that it's just much more fun to run around while fighting than to stand in one spot spamming actions.

[Skies]

Nevermind the fact that it's just much more fun to run around while fighting than to stand in one spot spamming actions.

Some people do hate kiting (which isn't what THIS is about, I know, but)
Hell, last time I got to actually tank was because my group's official secondary tank went "Argh, [censored] kiting" and then it was up to me.

I do have to admit I personally favor straight-tanking and, short of it being a literal impossibility, will always do that instead of kiting or moving around more than nescessary for combos. Of course, taking advange of this game's emphasis on mobility to assist your straight tanking is okay.

[GreyJorildyn]

Well we're not really debating the merits of straight tanking versus kiting. This became an awful discussion about a single mob, that takes a minute to kill, and has an intended mechanic in place for avoiding a single ability it uses. It is, in my opinion, impossible to argue that staying in place and taking said ability to the face is more efficient than taking a few steps back to avoid it. This causes the mob to self-incapacitate. If someone cannot see that then that's pretty hopeless, again, in my opinion (not sure why I feel the need to emphasize this so much seeing as how this is a forum and those are designed for the sharing of ideas [opinions] to begin with).

Anyhow, my deepest apologies if I've contributed to the shitting up of this thread. All I can say past that is ignore what Ace says. He is quite wrong the vast majority of times he posts and I hate nothing more than people getting incorrect information and wasting their time.

[Aceofspades]

Well we're not really debating the merits of straight tanking versus kiting. This became an awful discussion about a single mob, that takes a minute to kill, and has an intended mechanic in place for avoiding a single ability it uses. It is, in my opinion, impossible to argue that staying in place and taking said ability to the face is more efficient than taking a few steps back to avoid it. This causes the mob to self-incapacitate. If someone cannot see that then that's pretty hopeless, again, in my opinion (not sure why I feel the need to emphasize this so much seeing as how this is a forum and those are designed for the sharing of ideas [opinions] to begin with).

Anyhow, my deepest apologies if I've contributed to the shitting up of this thread. All I can say past that is ignore what Ace says. He is quite wrong the vast majority of times he posts and I hate nothing more than people getting incorrect information and wasting their time.

Sorry I gota LOL at this, only thing I have ever advocated in these forums is that def/vit set up works and that strait tanking is more often a better option when tanking boss mobs. Soo you are on the record saying that, that is incorect. then you want to try to discredit me as far as having a working knowledge of how to tank, lmfao. Ok buddy, stack that enmity and hp all you want brother, just gives me somthing to LOL at when I see you running around in tank gear. Even before 2.2b keeping hate pld was childs play, sorry if you couldnt figure it out.

How is it your spou out with ignorant statements and feel satisfied that you are correct. I fully understand the mechanics of the CC fight, taking CC down in 50seconds is comendable but that only gives credit to your DDs and shines light on the reason why you stack enmity. It dose NOT, however, credit you with anything other then managing to stay alive for 50 seconds while CC face rapes you and your 4200 hp LOL,

This is in no way to discredit my fellow LS members, but we do not take CC down if 50 seconds, some of us just dont play often enough to build the gil or dol/doh job base to support epic gear builds. Dose that mean they are lesser players because it takes them twice the time in half the gear? I dont think soo. Your ego is unfounded. Weather or not you realize it , your party is carrying you. your simply the sacraficial lamb that apreantly takes pride in quick wins that had very little to do with your "tanking skills" Pending on the dificulty, gona love seeing your dead body pop outa Extreem Ifrit fight because your whole phylosiphy on tanking is built around speed kills. Truth be told , your whm could prolly do as well tanking CC with your tatics as you do.

This gives credit to the tatic, admitedly, but dose not give any credit to your tank. I take pride in being able to actually support my WHMs by not taking damage like a pus, while strait tanking mobs that most run from, for no other reason other then to stay alive.

Bah!, I have waisted enough time on you grey, even tho I belive your completely dilusional with your tanking phylosiphy, I can live with agreeing to disagree, besides, your gona prove my point for me on the new Ifrit fight anyways soo this whole discussion is needless. Enjoy your speed runs, till you change your veiw thats bout all you will be good for, wich btw, whm tanks work good for speed runs too lmfao.

[Aratharn]

1) considering the fact that server lag is still an issue , even if I see my chr standing next to the party (behind coin counter) long before 100 tonze , ocasionally it will still hit me, wich means coin counter will NOT fall on his ass , instead will begin to turn twards me and the rest of the party in wich case he can proc any of his aoes and wipe the rest of the party. Until latiency is fixed this will happen , soo IF you can get away with posting up with little dificulty , Personaly, I sugest doing so.

"But on my screen..."

Guarantee the server lag for you is no worse than the rest of us. All the server lag means is you have to react that much quicker.

[Molly_Millions]

Pro tip:

To avoid big hitting moves more easily, use a filter on your battle log to filter out everything but successful hostile actions against you. Then instead of watching for visual queues, watch for 100 Tonze (for example) in the battle log.

[Aceofspades]

Serious talk tho,

There are currently two types of tanks in the game and several ideas on how best to tank with those two types. Even tho I understand how best to tank with an offensive tank, I perfer turtle tank, soo that is what I will comment on for those looking for solid advice.

HP builds are easy, fairly inexpensive and because most who stack hp are not worried about deffensive stats they can afford to blow up sever NQ crafted items because they are cheep to attain. HP dose work well against magic damage where there is currently no good answer to magical damage. That being said, other then its realtvily inexpensive affordability, I find there to be little to no realy benifit to stacking HP. My resoning for this is:

1) HP stacks are only benficial untill you take the same amount of damage of that in wich you stacked HP, (stack 1500 hp / take 1500 damage) once you get past that point the other tank with less hp then you is now as well equiped as you are. Fact is, weather your HP cap is 4500 or 3500 if you never fall below yellow hp your just as well off.

2) because of number 1 above, stacking vit and def makes more sense. because tank 1 takes 30% less damage but has 25% less hp, he is actually making the WHMs job easier damage is going to reoccur in any fight the best way to stay alive is to take less damage not ABSORB more. For example, if you take the healer out of fight, the tank that take lesss damage will most certainly last longer, because no matter how much hp the other tank has, they are still taking reoccuring damage that is considerably higher the the tank with more def and the tank with more def will have a much easier time keeping HP then the one with less def.

3) Altho DEF/VIT dose not help magic attacks, there is currently no boss in the game that dose more or even equal magic damage to that of physical damage. All bosses do more physical damage then magical, its just that the magic damage is more noticable as it takes out larger chunks of hp, wich is where the HP craze stems from. This is unfounded, because, soo long as your WHM is not cure bombing you for normal attacks they should always be ready to fill that hp bar up after the less ocasional magic attack. Out side of boss mobs, vit and def is the obvious winner on usefull stats, this makes vit and def all around more usefull then HP.

could go on forever but will end this with one last tip,

mind is a very usefull stat for PLD. VIT, DEF, MND are the most benificial base stats for pld. PLD is obviously not an offensive tank, soo go ahead and throw DPS on the bottom of your list, hate managment and staying alive (taking less damage) is PLDs strong points. According to Yoshi, jobs were desinged to not be solo classes. Each has attributes that by itself , has a hard time but when combined in a group dose realy well. Soo if your gona tank on pld, its not a bad idea to increase pld's strengths and focus less on their weakness, thats how the jobs were intended to be used.

sorry if spelling or gramer is off a bit, was never a good writer.