How to Build a PLD, needing tips plz.

[syntaxlies]

Multi meld? meaning? sorry noob here....

applying more then one materia per item.

[Onidemon]

Another noob question. Some pple tell me i should stay GLD till 50 and only then change to PLD as GLD can use skills from other classes which makes them better than GLD for soloing till 50. Is that true?

PLD is better than GLD at tanking and since all end game content requires a group... where does GLD fit in? Classes seem useless to me...

[Seffy]

GLD can definitely make soloing a bit easier since you can pick a lot more abilities. I personally went like 35-50 on PLD but I was always in groups.

Classes are good for certain things I believe. I know, for example, apparently in the Ifrit fight classes are nice just so you have access to more abilities to help you survive.

[Onidemon]

GLD can definitely make soloing a bit easier since you can pick a lot more abilities. I personally went like 35-50 on PLD but I was always in groups.

Classes are good for certain things I believe. I know, for example, apparently in the Ifrit fight classes are nice just so you have access to more abilities to help you survive.

Doesn't sound like much......... i don't ever see them balancing classes well enough to stand on equal grounds with Jobs. They should cap classes to a certain level....30 maybe and then force you to take on a Job. Then add more jobs so it works like talent trees in wow.... chose PLD if you want to be a tank, dark knight if you wanna DPS or some healer melee job to heal. Class will serve to get you to 30 and then move to a job.

[SwordCoheir]

What % of your points do you allocate to each stat?

example, STR 50%, VIT 20%, DEX 15% MDN 15% etc...... Whats the best rule to follow for a Paladin?

One more question, the paladin quest.... in order to become one. It ask for a party which is stupid IMO but at what level can you solo it?

Personally I wen't all out VIT and DEX. If you can afford it later on I would recommend investing in a STR/MND/Atk Setup for those cases where it's easy to hit the diminishing point on defense to increase your offense.

So still no str? I know there's an item to reset stats but how many copy of this can we get? I want to experiment with stats so i can figure out the best combination.

they should have someone in each guild reseting your points for gil and make that amount double with every reset so pple dont abuse it too much.

The Item in question you are talking about is the Goddess Hymn Tablet which you get each time you unlock a job. To use it, take it to your classes respective guild as said class and talk to them. I can't give you the specifics beyond that because I myself have not used them before.

That's so pointless. I know they want us to figure it out but then someone will do the math and find out how it works and post it on some website. The only difference it will make is that you gonna have to refer to the website instead of your in-game screen.... really stupid and pointless. Hope they change it in 2.0

They mostly do that to try and de-emphasize focus on min/maxing stats and allow players to be more flexible with their gear setups. I'm not sure if you've ever had the pleasure (or displeasure depending on your point of view) of playing FFXI, but these past five years it's less about going with the best you got and more "you must be prioritizing, gear swapping, and outputting to your maximum potential or your not invited" mentality.

Another noob question. Some pple tell me i should stay GLD till 50 and only then change to PLD as GLD can use skills from other classes which makes them better than GLD for soloing till 50. Is that true?

PLD is better than GLD at tanking and since all end game content requires a group... where does GLD fit in? Classes seem useless to me...

It's not all that bad advice really and to be honest it's probably more beneficial for all jobs to heed that advice. It's not that it's impossible to do, but jobs receive little benefit without all their abilities and are even more hindered by being restricted to two sub-classes and a maximum of 1 subclass ability every 10 levels. At least being as GLA or another class you have the benefit of equipping more abilities earlier on and are given the benefit of flexibility with your choices. However, if you don't have any other classes really leveled to take advantage of this it doesn't really matter either way.

[Denmo]

To illustrate the GLA vs PLD thing from personal experience recently:

When I solo or Duo with my CON friend, I go GLA. It allows me to equip a wider range of abilities, I have more attack abilities and attack power at my disposal. I can still tank and keep hate off my CON friend, but it's more of a DPS tank than a heal tank.

Last night I formed a light party. It was me, an Archer, a Maurauder, and my friend Conjurer. Because of this set up, I decided it best to play as a PLD tank. I got more healing abilities, more MP, more defense, and more ways to keep hate. It was such that my Conjurer friend didn't have to switch to WHM to keep the party healed, I did all that. She could nuke instead, tossing a cure on me now and then when things got dicey and I used Divine Veil. Worked really well.

I could've gone as a GLA. But I probably wouldn't have been as effective as a tank.

PLD is limited on solo-ability. You can solo, but it's slower because your DPS output is less.

I'm not aware of how other jobs fair in this realm, but as far as GLA/PLD is concerned, GLA is for soloing, and PLD is for party play.

[Seffy]

On the topic of solo, what are some good solo abilities for a GLA? Right now I've been soloing to farm Inferno Tapers and Vortex Totems and such. I'm on PLD though just because I've yet to purchase some good GLA armor. PLD is just really slow at times. :< Though I guess that's why I'll be leveling Warrior soon. <_<

[Raymeo]

Block Rate, Debunking DEX and Accuracy

Unless things changed in 1.22, the supposed block rate boost from DEX had been found by most who tried it to be extremely difficult to notice, if it was even noticeable at all. Of course, I can only speak for myself and the people who have posted about their experiences, so it could be that some sort of reclusive sage PLD is hiding out there with different results that they just haven't shared. And again, people are still testing with the 1.22 changes, and 1.22b is supposed to bring even more changes to block, so it's difficult to say how block rate is affected now, and impossible to say what it will be like in a couple of weeks. That said, at this point in time, allocating points into DEX for an increased block rate is worthless at worst, and a gamble at best. If you really want to increase your block rate, you're probably better off gearing for the straight-forward stat Block Rate.

DEX does increases accuracy though. Even so, you're probably better off going for the Accuracy stat if that's what you're after. You may want to consider if this is even needed though. While it's always annoying to spoil a Flat Blade combo because of a miss, the majority of your enmity is actually being generated by abilities like Provoke, Flash, Rampart, Sentinel, and Holy Succor. As for your Spirits Within combo, it doesn't really matter if Phalanx misses because it's only 250 TP and it's incredibly easy to force another Phalanx opportunity with abilities like Aegis Boon Divine Veil, and to an extent Outmaneuver. Then once you stick that Phalanx, making it a combo with Spirits Within is nothing that you ever need to worry about, because Spirits Within is an insanely accurate ability and will rarely miss, if ever. Now consider how often you actually use Flat Blade combo, because even though it's only got a 10 second cooldown, it's pretty low on the priority list of abilities that you'll be rotating through, and is really only used in those moments when every other ability you have is on cooldown already. So really ask yourself if you want to be investing into Accuracy just for your Flat Blade combos, and how much of a difference you think it will really make in your enmity generation. You may decide that your gear is best built toward other things.

Defense

As I previously posted in this thread, testing shows that the Defense curve on boss fights is so crazy that you need to stack a nearly impossible, if not an actually impossible, amount of Defense before each additional point Defense gives you a noticeable return in damage reduction. I'll include a link to the most thorough testing again here though, so if you're curious then you won't have to page back to find it: http://kanican.livejournal.com/55915.html

Enmity

Enmity is always a good thing to have, however it takes a lot of enmity on gear for it to make a noticeable difference. Thankfully the dev team realized this, and their recent boost to Enmity given by Enmity materia has created some much needed balance here. Unfortunately the value of Enmity on gear's base stats, for whatever reason, was not given the same treatment. For this reason I'd strongly recommend melding Enmity materia wherever you can, however when it comes to the small amounts of Enmity on actual gear's base stats, those points are probably best viewed as a bonus rather than something that you should prioritize stacking.

MND

MND will help with almost everything that you do. It boosts the enmity that you gain from your combos, it boosts your damage done by auto attacks (and consequently enmity generated by them), and it boosts your healing potency (and consequently enmity generated by heals). If there is a stat to allocate your character's base points into, then this is it, hands down.

The STR/VIT Debate

STR and VIT is a much debated toss-up. STR is the other modifier that's used when calculating the damage of your auto attacks and TP abilities (every class/job has two modifier stats). Now, as a tank, your primary jobs are obviously (1) to hold an enemy's enmity and (2) to stay alive while doing it. The extra damage from STR can be argued to increase your enmity, helping with your job of holding enmity. However when it comes to your first job, holding an enemy's enmity, (and other PLDs, please correct me if I'm wrong about this) both MND and Enmity do a better job at this. Also, when it comes to your second, equally important job of staying alive, STR certainly won't do anything there. For this reason many PLDs have made a choice to focus on VIT instead of STR. While MND and Enmity fill that role of holding enmity, VIT is one of the stats that helps fill that survivability role. VIT gives you Defense, which as we've said is unfortunately lackluster at currently achievable amounts, but it also gives you HP, and supposedly it gives magic defense. Unlike Defense, HP increases linearly, meaning you don't need to stack 1500 points of it before each additional point starts to help. From the first point on, HP always helps, and each additional point of HP helps just as much as the last. Therefore, stacking HP is your primary means for survival, and some PLDs prefer VIT over STR for this edge alone. The effectiveness of the magic defense that is provided by VIT hasn't really been tested to my knowledge, but its effectiveness aside, it's supposedly able to reduce all types of magic damage, and would be the only stat in the game that can do so. (Each of the other magic resistance stats are specific to a single element, such as Wind Resistance or Fire Resistance.)

HP

As explained in the previous paragraph, HP is king when it comes to surviving, and you'll be able to find even larger amounts of straight up HP on gear than you would gain by stacking VIT. If you're going STR instead of VIT, get HP on its own whenever you can. If you are going VIT over STR, still get it on its own whenever you can. You can never have too much HP.

Healing Potency VS MP

Last but not least, you've got Healing Potency and MP to consider. While you may throw the occasional Stoneskin on yourself in an emergency situation when a White Mage is too far away to do it for you, the vast majority of your MP will be spent healing. (I would not advise placing Stoneskin on your party, as opposed to the recommendations by other posters, because your Enhancement Magic potency is weaker than that of a White Mage, and you'll be doing your party a disservice by giving them a weaker Stoneskin than they could otherwise have.) So, if your MP is pretty much all being used for healing, then the two become almost synonymous in the sense that you'll be able to heal X amount of HP before you run out of MP. The way it's done will just be a little different: Do you want to do a handful of big heals, or do you want to do slightly more plentiful, but not-quite-as-big heals? If you value a bigger heal, then Healing Potency will be what you want to choose. If you value more plentiful heals, then MP will be what you want to choose. Simple as that.

However, don't think that you should be stacking either of these things. Neither one is a large enough contributor to make a major difference when it comes to fulfilling your roles of holding enmity or staying alive. Don't be fooled by the fact that all of your AF has MP on it. There are more important stats that you should be going out of your way to obtain. An understanding of these two stats is only important if you ever find yourself in a situation like, "This gear gives X HP and some MP, or this gear gives X HP and some Healing Potency." What's important is that you first compare the stats that have been proven to have major value, such as HP in this scenario. Knowing the difference between MP and Healing Potency is only going to be important in situations where you're comparing the two stats as an afterthought. As it turns out in the scenario presented here, since HP is equal to X on both of the items being considered, this is the type of scenario where an understanding of whether you prefer MP or Healing Potency will come into play. If the HP was unequal, then question of MP compared to Healing Potency would not even be something to consider.

Stats: Conclusion

Therefore I'd say when it comes to allocating stats, you're best off prioritizing MND, and then pumping the rest into either STR or VIT depending on your preference. When it comes to gear, I'd first recommend melding Enmity Materia wherever you can, but don't worry about stacking Enmity from actual gear base stats. Beyond Enmity Materia, prioritize HP in your gear/melds wherever you can. For any gaps that are left, I'd try filling them with MND until you cap it. If you still somehow have gaps in your melds/gear that these stats can't fill, then the choice is yours between Block Rate, capping STR/VIT, or grabbing some MP/Healing Potency depending on where you feel your character is having the most problems.

On Swords and Shields

One thing that I am curious about is what everyone's opinions are on Sword base damage compared to Sword delay, and a Shield's block rate stat compared to a Shield's block stat. Can some kindly, knowledgable PLDs please share their experiences in these areas?

Abilities from Other Classes

When it comes to abilities form other classes that may be important, you're allowed to equip five. As was mentioned in this post you'll be using (1) Provoke from MRD. This is a must have, and is probably the only must have when it comes to a typical battle that sees no complications. (2) Stoneskin from CNJ doesn't hurt to have for an emergency moment, which was also mentioned earlier in this post as well as by others in this thread. (3) Bloodbath from MRD is an option, as it can restore a good 600-700 HP when used immediately before Spirits Within, helping your healers to conserve their MP a little longer or allowing them a moment to cure someone else. (4) Raise from CNJ is also helpful. It will be extremely rare that you'll have an opportunity to Raise during combat, since deaths will only result from you losing enmity (meaning you should be focusing on getting enmity back and rebuilding it instead of raising the dead) or they'll result from AOE (meaning you still have enmity, so your raises will probably just get interrupted). Raise is mostly just to help your party recover faster after a messy wipe, but your mages will still appreciate your assistance, and your party will appreciate the reduced downtime. The only other option that you have left is (5) Cure from CNJ. However, if you're casting Holy Succor on your party members instead of yourself, then Holy Succor restores more HP per MP spent, so the only time you'll want to cast Cure is if you don't have enough MP for Holy Succor, which will typically only happen once per fight before you bottom out on MP, if it even works out that way at all.

Some people might argue that Sacred Prism from CNJ is worth having in combination with Cure, perhaps replacing Raise or Bloodbath, but Sacred Prism comes with a drawback a prolonged cast time for the Cure that follows it, which makes your cast very likely to be interrupted, potentially wasting more time than it would otherwise take to boost your enmity an equal amount. Some people may also argue that you could use Protect from CNJ instead of one of the above abilities, but because of how long Protect lasts, you probably won't encounter an emergency moment where you need to cast it on yourself in a party. Protect will only be helpful if you want to cast it on yourself while you're soloing as PLD, but if that's what you're doing, then you should probably ask yourself why you're not just soloing as GLA instead, because PLD soloing has virtually no MP recovery capabilities and therefore has FAR less survivability.

"Rotation" Tips

Use the following abilities whenever they are available: Provoke, Flash, Sentinel, Rampart. (Important to note with Rampart, however, is that it won't give you enmity for party members who aren't on the mob's enmity list, so at the start of the fight, you might want to wait about ten seconds before using it in order to ensure that everybody else performed an ability first.)

Whenever the above four abilities are all on cooldown, force a block with Aegis Boon, then use your Phalanx >> Spirits Within combo. If Phalanx misses, use Divine Veil, or if Divine Veil is on cooldown, use Outmaneuver, until you can successfully land a Phalanx. If you prefer using Bloodbath before Spirits Within, make sure your Phalanx didn't miss before using Bloodbath, or you'll just end up wasting Bloodbath to restore a smaller amount of HP because it will be based on your next Phalanx.

Try to prioritize using Holy Succor on party members before using it on yourself, unless your healers are having a difficult time keeping you alive. Save enough MP to cast Holy Succor on yourself a couple of times, in case of an emergency when your healer has to run off for a moment.

After your first cast of Holy Succor, cast Cover on a party member to restore MP if you're wearing your AF chest piece. Continue casting Cover whenever it is off of cooldown, unless you've somehow recovered back to Max MP already. If you don't use the AF chest piece, then just save Cover for emergencies in case someone else starts taking a significant amount of damage.

Whenever the first four abilities are on cooldown, Spirits Within is on cooldown, and there's no need to cast Holy Succor or Cover, THEN go ahead and start using your Fast Blade >> Flat Blade combo while you're waiting for your other abilities to come back up.

About Re-Allocating Character Stats

I saw a question asked about this earlier in the thread, and to answer the question, there is an Untradable item in the game called The Keeper's Hymn. One of these can be traded to your class's guild master to reset your character's allocated stats, and it is only good for one use. The only way to obtain this item, unless it was changed in 1.22, is to do a quest to unlock a new job. That means that by unlocking all seven jobs, you can currently get seven of these items, and no more. While the game won't restrict which classes you use the items on, once all seven items have been used you're then stuck with what you've allocated. This means that while it may be tempting to test out different stat builds in order to find your preferred play style, for now you're best off letting others do the research and making your best guess at an informed decision, or else you can try doing your own testing on alternate characters.

Then again, Square Enix eventually patched things so the majority of your stat points are allocated automatically now, and only a small number of points are left to the player to allocate. Due to the smaller number of points that players can allocate now, it's pretty difficult to mess up your character to the point where it can't function well, so you shouldn't have to cry into your pancakes if you messed up your allotment with no way left to change it. You may not be maxed to your greatest potential, but you'll still be able to succeed at the game's content instead of simply being left to suffer for your mistakes.

Still, it's beyond me why Square Enix wants to give everyone the freedom to build their own preferred play styles, but they don't want to give you the opportunity to learn what your favorite play styles are first.

[carlosx]

just quit and change into WAR!!!

[SwordCoheir]

Yeah, I wouldn't recommend taking stats advice from a guy who's telling you to use Curega as a PLD. Go ahead and try that first if you'd like though, and let us know how it goes. Unfortunately if you take heed of this warning, ignoring people who don't know what they're talking about could end up rendering half of this thread useless, so rather than just pointing out mistakes, I'll do my best to make up for all of the misinformation that's being spread here by trying to help out.

I admit I should have clarified a bit more when I said that, much like Sacred Prism > Stoneskin it would be situational. One viable situation might be if you were fighting Ifrit and the DD's in your group were forced to move in to avoid his Plume attack but eat one or two sears in the process, or Garuda hits everyone near her with Wicked Wheel, throwing out a Sacred Prism > Cure could help top them back off giving you a little hate boost as well (depending on the number of DD's of course).

I would like to also add, Regen has cut down on the number of times such a strategy becomes viable, but is still an available tool in your arsenal to be considered.