~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

-50 for -enmity gears, +200 for +enmity gears

I'm beginning to gear pld.

I have been reading a lot.

QUOTE: Sakpata is Great for tanking
You can't beat the Big increases in Def/MDB
Plus has more Acc now my PLD might actually hit the NM 5% more
Just Macro in AF/Relic/Enmity Gear for actions QUOTE:

What's the tldr for farming out pld gear? I was thinking relic gear for invincible duration sentinel etc, then Priwen for reprisal effect x3(got regal gauntlets from AMAN), then head to Escha - Ru'an and get the Sovereign gear for the emnity? Is that still bis for when you take actions that produce emnity ? Is the BGwiki page up to date with current bis? After that I was going to make Aegis and the Aeonic shield. No plans to make Ochain. I can super pull Seg c runs without Ochain I saw this firsthand and actually inspired me to make a pld in the first place. I rank 25'd Sakpata's Body and thats it for now.

I'd probably get a spell interruption down set sorted first, then Sover set + cure potency sird set (mostly sov gear). then relic feet ideally to +3 for the Sentinel bonus (you generally pop this for Agons). A Phalanx set next.

The bottom of the BG wiki has good sets. Pld uses lots of UNM gear which can end up costing more than the rema.

I don't use reprisal because i'm lazy and don't feel I need it. I do use Ochain though. or sometimes Srivatsa.

If you just intend on tanking Sheol C then Aegis is good for nukers like worms or psychflayers - other than that not really needed.

There is a bit to unpack here for a TLDR, but will answer to the best of my ability:

- PLD while in some ways simple, has multiple sets to build. I'd break it down in terms of tasks/abilities/utility. Congrats on getting Regal Gauntlets btw!

- Souveran/+1 set is still a great Enmity+ set and you should collect the full set for various reasons other than just Enmity+.

- The BG Community Guide is up to date for the most part. I try to avoid the term BiS like the plague... Is a comparison tool and plenty have used it to make tweaks that work for them based off the choices given.

All the shields (including Priwen) are viable. Comes down to personal choice and knowing when/how to use them.

While Priwen is comparable to ochain with reprisal up just remember that reprisal can be dispelled which will lower Priwens block rate by quite a bit. With ochain and reprisal gets dispelled you won't see a massive drop in block rate so its really the safer option.

Thanks guys, ya dispel is a concern but in the grand scheme of the pve scene It's not that worrysome. A sird set sounds like something I had forgotten about. Also leveling up blue to learn spells..... any suggestions there?

Capping SIRD for the moments when you need it is critically important. SIRD is doubly important for you as a Reprisal/Priwen PLD (and with a BLU sub) because you can find yourself taking hits if Reprisal ends before you're able to recast it. If you are taking hits without capped SIRD, you won't be able to get cures/spells off, and you can sometimes struggle to get Reprisal back up.

Generally, you can follow the SIRD sets on the BG Wiki PLD guide to cap SIRD. Mix and match pieces from the different example sets that you can afford until you get up to 102% SIRD (remember that you can get 10% SIRD from merit points, so you only need 92% from gear).

Audumbla Sash (waist) and Odyssean Greaves (feet) are obtainable with domain points. Pick those up. The fact that you have Regal Gauntlets is huge because those have 10% SIRD, so you can throw the Regal Gauntlets in your SIRD set instead of needing Yorium Gauntlets. You'll want a Souveran Schaller +1 (head), so get that for the 20% SIRD. You should be able to buy a Staunch Tathlum (ammo) and Moonbeam Necklace (neck) pretty easily. Both have 10% SIRD.

One SIRD piece I use that isn't on the BG guide is Carmine Cuisses (legs). Just the regular version. It is cheap to obtain, gives you 15% SIRD, and has 12% movement speed as a bonus. You can use it for the move speed as well as adding to your SIRD set. It also has bonus enhancing and healing skill.
Founders Hose is the stronger SIRD leg choice because it has a whopping 30% SIRD, but Carmine Cuisses are more accessible if you haven't finished Seekers of Adoulin or don't want to do Sinister Reign.

If you still need more SIRD after that, you can make an ambuscade cape with 10% SIRD. You can also sometimes find a Knightly Earring on the auction house for 9% SIRD. It is certainly possible to make a full SIRD set without any Yorium armor pieces if you don't want to play the augment slot machine.

Geist wall, blank gaze and jettatura are useful for enmity.

Cocoon is the most useful self buff.

Healing Breeze is a nice Aoe wake up for your party if your healer gets caught sleeping.

Look for any other traits that you can build (8 points per trait to gain, does not stack with native traits) or stats you want to equip from the rest of your spell slots, I rarely if ever use most of /BLU spells. Frightful Roar was a nice addition but not nice enough to be used regularly.

Never set Healing Breeze on PLD we get AoE cures with majesty.

Majesty is dispellable, healing breeze is available at all times.

question about equipsets since I don't use Lua.

What is the proper approach to fast cast and emnity and equipsets? I am going to provide some examples of what I think is correct.

Emnity example

/equipset 1 (emnity set)
/wait .1 ? or 1
/ma "blank gaze" <t>
/wait .1 or 1?
/equipset 2 (-dt and high HP set)

fast cast example

/equipset 1 ( fast cast set)
/wait .1
/equipset 2 (cure potency set)
/ma "cure" <me>
/wait 1
/equipset 3 (-dt / hp set)

Are these correct examples of emnity and fast cast sets and macros?


Also another question has come up. If I am warrior sj. I do a large pull in Odyssey. I then use a cure set with 60-70? emnity built into it. Will cures be enough volatile emnity to hold the group on me if I toss out 600-1000 hp worth of cures? Without testing it yet on paper it seems like curing myself would be enough to hold some emnity before the bard sleeps. Ideally I would like to just be a tank when its important in Seg c like for Angon packs. But beyond that its just about pulling then switching to a Savage blade set while everything is slept. I do plan to level up Blu and understand its just an easier way to aoe tag but in theory can cure be a reliable way to hold threat? *If the rest of the group doesn't take actions ofc.

Decimal waits are not valid in FFXI's native macro system. Whole numbers only.

Short answer, no.

Long answer. First you'd need to be tagging the mobs with some sort of action to get on their hate list before curing would generate any enmity at all. Although curing the bard would also work to get on the hatelist if the bard had already acted on the pull. Like sleeping them, for example.

But then there's still the issue of how cure enmity behaves around multiple mobs. The enmity from cures is divided by the number of mobs on your hatelist. So if you've pulled a set of ten mobs, then enmity from that cure will be divided by 10 then applied to each mob's CE/VE values. This makes cure enmity godawful on large groups of mobs.

Example. A cure for 1,000 with +70 enmity+ would normally generate 399 CE and 2394 VE. But if you had 10 mobs on your hatelist it would only generate 39 CE 239 VE. Which is absolutely pathetic and isn't going to be keeping hate off of anything but other cures.

So lua is extremely important for pld or not so much?

On drg or any dps class for that matter equipsets work fine and I am generally at the top of the scoreboard. With pld though it seems a bit more complicated. What equipset macro would give problems where having it on lua would be no issue? I am guessing a fast cast set?

I wouldn't say extremely important, I'd say just like pretty much every job it makes life easier.

If you're doing Equipsets, you'll want it to look like this
/equipset 1
/ma "Geist Wall" <t>
/wait 1
/equipset 2

That equips your precast before starting your cast and then swaps to midcast after starting. The problem with this and the reason lua makes life easier, is if you lag and it doesn't equip that second set, or your cast time is less than 1s, then you're not swapping in time and you're essentially casting Enmity spells in your fast cast set. Some people try to get around this by putting fast cast in their enmity set and just not using a precast, but then you're losing out on Enmity+ gear in a midcast, or losing out on capped FC. It's kind of a lose lose situation using equipsets.

That being said, it's still completely possible to play using equipsets, there are still plenty of people using them that don't want to use gearswap.

A lua is important for anything that casts spells and ranged attacks. The in game macros are just too slow to do what is needed for spells and ranged attacks where as meleeing and weaponskilling its completely fine.

PLD also has the problem that Majesty speeds up your cure casts so more often than not you would be curing in your fast cast gear.

For Windower users, there's also a non-lua/non-Gearswap workaround for precast/preshot issues where using fully in-game macros and equipsets are too slow. You have to use one in-game equipset, and one standard Windower macro - no /wait required. It's not 100% foolproof in situations with very high lag, or if you're mashing a macro like crazy - but it's quite reliable and a huge improvement over 100% ingame macros/equipsets.

Example macro:

Line 1: /equipset xx [directing to an ingame /equipset for your precast/preshot gear set]
Line 2: /ma "Spell" <t> (or /ra <t>)
Line 3: /console exec filename.txt [directing to a standard Windower script file with all of your midcast/midshot gear]

The above will NOT work if you do an /equipset in both lines 1 and 3, or a Windower macro in both lines 1 and 3. Has to be one of each. Could also flip the above example and do the precast set as a Windower script and the midcast gear as an ingame /equipset.

Majesty reduces Cure recast times, not the spell casting time. So your cures won't be casting any faster, you can just cast them more often. Not that cure recasts was much of an issue anyway.

Ah thought it was cast time not recast off the top of my head. Should probably look it up next time.

I mean, I kinda wish it was cast time, I could drop some FC in my cure precast. <,<

It has been awhile since I messed with it but, if you have windower you can input a .txt with all the steps you had there but I’m 99% sure it registers fractions of a second, IIRC my drg jump macro is setup this way with equip>wait .5 > jump> wait .5 > equip.

Sorry for the noob question, few friends convinced me to make srivatsa and as I understand at MLVL 20++ with some block chance gear, srivatsa becomes quite a beast compared to ochain for high ilvl targets (think you need the block chance on ambu cape and zwazo earring aug iirc), was wondering if anyone's got the precise breakpoint and/or maybe a gear set example? Just literally finished srivatsa so trying to figure out what to aim for :)

Mlvl hasnt changed much in the shield hierarchy, just raised the minimum ilvl where block rate will start dropping, aeonics still the 3rd best block rate shield, if anything mlvl has made ochain better since you can shed what block+ you did need before to free up armor for sakpata or an earring for something with more hp and the like.

This was the chart martel put together as far as block rates went and the ilvl the content was, not much has changed fir blocks beyond mlvl so far as i know

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/46016/first-and-final-line-of-defense-v20/96/#3538417

Hey question has arisen!

I do not have Ochain.

I have begun making ambuscade capes for the pld.

If my -dt is fine should I be doing shield block + 5 on my cape?

It seems like a good play because I read reprisal and priwen are only giving me a total of 90% block.

Also another question.

Without Aegis, can tarutaru platemail and the absorb neck be fit into a magic protect set? For example this months ambuscade, would I as a pld without ochain be able to survive nukes with gear like this?

Can already 5/5 Sakpata and cap with aeonic.

Also is there an earring that has more then 150HP195HP?

Aeonic has much higher defense and reduces much more damage then ochain.

Edit: Forgot Zwazo has 45HP

Edit2: To be clear ochain still has a use, but its not to get higher HP

It's an "interesting" scenario. PLD can virtually autocap DT... so you generally don't need more DT in that cape augment... And aside from SIR for FC/SIR sets... Sure.

It's "interesting" because block rate+ is a terrible stat, almost doing nothing.
They really need to fix it so it's the equivalent and equal to parry/inquartatta+: a hard % bonus added on at the end... rather than the soft multiplier to your current block rate...
Though it is better than nothing. Mostly.

You only get one absorb effect that matches.
So only 1 absorbs magic damage, only 1 absorbs physical damage taken... only 1 absorbs (all) damage taken, though that one is a little wonky in where and when it overlaps with the specific damage abosrbs.
But since you want to stack two "occ absorb magic damage taken", that won't work. You'll only get the highest % value... which is still just something like 5% iirc.
So don't rely on your absorb effects to mitigate damage.

What?

Block+ is literally identical in function to Inquartara(Increases rate by 1% per +1) except in one way. And that's in how it interacts with the block rate floor. Block+ is added before the floor is applied, while Inquartata is applied after. So block+ doesn't get to ignore how strong the mobs are.

And the only time this matters, is when you're using Aegis. Cause that's the only time you're going to have a floored blockrate.

So it's by no means a useless or bad stat. It has uses in the appropriate places like nearly any stat. It just doesn't get to *** cheat player/monster level differences like Inquartata.

Checking on how much enhancing skill Paladin needs since master levels.

My old understanding was +9 skill to get 1 more damage reduction.

Would depend on what ML you are and of course more will be added.

To give some examples
386: -31
415: -32
443: -33
472: -34
500: (cap) -35

Edit: This was assuming you are talking about Phalanx

Thanks Bippin,

This is exactly what I was looking for and now can refer back to. Thought I could get rid of my Olympus Sash but I guess not.