How to Build a PLD, needing tips plz.

[Molly_Millions]

HP > Enmity (and or) MND > VIT in most situations, also I noticed very few mentioned that MND improves your auto attack damage, it also increases your healing potency, and therefore your enmity over all. Just remember that with stacking Enmity, you need such a large amount to make a visible difference, so in my opinion never stack above 50, or else your other stats start to hurt pretty badly, a 5% increase over a long fight is still worth it, but any more and you start to hurt yourself. The reason why MND is so good, is that if you have a bard, you essentially have unlimited mana and you should be Holy Succoring your retarded DDs who like to stand in things that hurt them.

Don't ever stack defense, it's a stupid stat that requires you to dump so much effort into it and you'll never see a visible return on an NM anyways.

You completely neglected STR. STR will benefit a PLD much more than VIT will given PLDs already higher damage mitigation and the extremely low damage mitigation from VIT at level 50.

the following hierarchy is better imo:

Enmity > MND > STR > HP (MND and STR are fairly even, and shouldn't be in contention with each other because the only thing they can both go on is your sword, which you should attach enmity to)

[Grimwald]

You completely neglected STR. STR will benefit a PLD much more than VIT will given PLDs already higher damage mitigation and the extremely low damage mitigation from VIT at level 50.

the following hierarchy is better imo:

Enmity > MND > STR > HP (MND and STR are fairly even, and shouldn't be in contention with each other because the only thing they can both go on is your sword, which you should attach enmity to)

Indeed I did, I don't actively stack STR, however many of my pieces of gear actually have STR on them.

[Judge_Xero]

Hey, am I late to the show!!!

Here's my PLD build Ifrit's Blade + Lomisan Lantern Shield + VIT>MND>DEX>ENMITY>STR

Just like the Turtle build, I use VIT + DEX for accuracy, HP, Block and Block Rate and Defense.

MND works better for my build for Enmity, MP, Damage.

[GreyJorildyn]

If you're tanking anything serious, with players who are decently geared and know their rotations (MNK, BLM, etc), you won't keep viable amounts of hate without good enmity gear.

[Chardrizard]

If you're tanking anything serious, with players who are decently geared and know their rotations (MNK, BLM, etc), you won't keep viable amounts of hate without good enmity gear.

Yea i agree here, i have DPS darklight (minus cuirass) + others double melded DPS gears vs my full HDL/enmity setup, the dps setup doesnt even come close in terms of holding hate, while the number may look impreesive like 800 spiris within/1k crit on misser lol, but my MNk reported they managed to pull hate in the last 30% for sometime before i can get it back.

Full enmitty is deinfitely way to go, right now i prbably have 200enmity+, idk how they are calculated but that is basically increasing your dps by 20% no? Or hate number whatever you call it across all your skills.

While dps setup will only increase ampunt of hate on WS.

[GreyJorildyn]

adding 20% enmity is not the same as the enmity you'd get by increasing dps by 20%, not even close. But yes, the hate generated is +20% or whatever your enmity values is at /10.

People don't get this because they spec for dps tank in XP parties, which is perfectly viable since it's just a spamfest. On end game mobs your damage is gonna suck. Spirits Within is based on current HP, and its enmity is based on damage dealt. DPS doesn't factor into that. Straight up buffing hate-generators is far superior to increasing damage on dungeon bosses.

[MoarLegion]

There's a simple way to end this Ace vs The World nonsense.

http://www.fraps.com/

All it takes is two videos to end the bullshit. Who mans up, and who stands down?

[Aceofspades]

There's a simple way to end this Ace vs The World nonsense.

http://www.fraps.com/

All it takes is two videos to end the bullshit. Who mans up, and who stands down?

you would think it was that easy... surely nothing I post , be it video, parse, or just pure facts about stats and the nature of the job's build, will satisfy these people. I will say that I do and have always agreed that HP adds a cushon for the WHMs charged with keeping the tank alive, but that cushon is only usefull on hits (mainly magical) that would near empty the tanks HP bar. That being said, most whms would have started casting a cure bomb on the tank as soon as the animation for the tp/magic ability began, this tatic makes the HP cushon even less of a concern, especially if that is the only time the whm/s are cure bombing the tank, assuming the tank dose not get hit like a truck off normal attacks, (in wich case def/vit is obviously the better build).

Also side note, Spirits within dose not grant higher enmity for higher HP all together or the action dicription would say so. It says "current hp" wich, and this is simply how I understand it, the % of your HP bar in corralation with the amount of HP you currently have. soo , given that all other stats are the same (for producing damage) as long as subject a and b have full HP they will produce the same ammount of damage reguardless of actuall number value of HP either jubject has.

I will, however , accept that challange, but first, I require that somone in oposition post a video of a hp build or w/e including stats of gear worn and food used. Everytime I post somthing , their story changes or they pick apart my videos/parses without ever offering any actuall evidence to support their case. I have nothing further to prove to the oposition. Enless they put their chips on the table I have nothing to show them either. Hell I have somone who is normally against vit/def build making somewhat of a case for the build and that dose nothing for them, they pick appart the test totally disreguarding the facts the test was focused on, wich was damage taken , stress on the healers, and hate management. Soo as far as who is being "head strong about a build" you tell me, I open myself to be cunstructivly analized and instead the only analisis offerd is critical without any evidence to base there analysis off of, I realy want to get off this subject but anytime I offer advice to new tanks who seek some guidence , I am bombarded with "thats stupid" type comments. Here is a thought, there are currently two types of builds that are dominating the game, why dont we let the newcomers figure out for themselves wich build works best. No one gave me adivce when I built my tank set, I just went with what worked best, I simply promote using vit/def build over other builds other then that , to each their own.

[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

[GreyJorildyn]

I don't think you can make any decisions about what the best gear to have in all situations is by running a PUG. For the sake of discussion, CC/AV should be done in 25mins or less, and even then running 20mins is pretty average for groups that know what they're doing. When we discuss "how to build a PLD", we should not be setting low standards for players and making that acceptable. If everyone did "just enough" to run raids in PUGs, then speed runs would be non-existent and bodies would never drop for that reason. Why set the bar low for your MMO's community by touting VIT/DEF builds being the best for end game raids? It isn't, not even close, and no one should be teaching new players that it is. I am glad a player stating that way can "hold their own" in a PUG, but the question is comes down to is "how long did it take?" Princess can be killed in 90-120s depending on your setups.

I could take a gear set for PLD and build a crappy party to go "test" it in a dungeon run. If efficiency is low, then it's low, and a tank should not be contributing to that if they can help it. Gimping yourself on purpose because you're headstrong about a build is not the way MMOs ought to be played by people who have goals for themselves.

On the way up in leveling, VIT/DEF isn't useful either. People run DPS builds for GLA/PLD because hate doesn't matter. When you get to end game, Enmity is #1 for gear choices. If someone here has full HDL and full DPS DL for PLD and wants to compare, go for it. I guarantee that against players worth their salt, HDL wins every time. I personally look at what is possible in a MMO. The upper echelon of the class is what should be aimed for at all times. Yes, "sacrifices" get made along to way (such as taking a little bit more damage on PLD), but when the rest of your party is working towards their strengths as well, everything just works better. Healers can keep a PLD with 3k HP alive just the same as a WAR with 4k when they know how to play their class.

tl;dr don't make yourself a victim of bad advice and roll with it because it looks like it works. Just as there is always a bigger fish, there is always a better way to gear yourself if you're not wearing best in slot.

Lastly: what is your gear setup that you can consider "stressing" him? Also, stripping out common aspects of battle does not give you a good indication of anything. As a DPS, you should be using attack food, bringing that gap up, and the tank has to be able to accommodate for that in real time. In other words, your test is not really accurate off the bat.