~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

Respectfully disagree with you here, I wrote this big long post about why and ended up deleting it. More than anything, it comes down to the fact that Rune is just far more fun to play. I think rune also contributes a lot more than you infer.

Rune is definitely more active than paladin, which is either something you enjoy or not. But RDM is probably far more valuable than an idris geo or a decked out BRD atm on its own, IF you have someone who can play RDM to its fullest; keeping all mobs slept/enfeebled, all party members buffed and topped off, AND supplying damage themselves. Not to mention just being able to drag mobs away from the group and kite them out when things go south, leaving you a massive window margin of error when needed.

Being able to safely swap out a whm for a rdm in with the pld just does far more for your overall damage and success rate than sticking in a rune and expecting the extra damage to carry you.

And if SE ever just allows us to get our afterglows on aegis/ochain without spending obscene amounts of gil, its not even really going to be a contest. 100%-near 100% uptime on afterglow depending on merits is insane.

what?
Afterglows on those shields are useless. 7%pdt or 5%mdt is totally insignificant for most content. Whenever there is a treat people will use hybrid build already capping DT on their own. None will build a hybrid set around having afterglow from PLD.

5% and 7% are not insignificant; thats at least 1 more accessory you can swap out of your hybrid set, given only war and drg have "hybrid" sets that are capped or near capped DT. Even without swapping out hybrid set items, youre still making use of those DT bonuses for most jobs regardless.

100% uptime on free DT for a full party is 100% uptime on free DT no matter how you look at it.

Afterglows are pretty useless in general I'd rather say, not just the shield ones.
In an era where like >90% of people are using a REMA weapon main hand, their Aftermath won't allow for any type of Afterglow to stick anyway, regardless of the afterglow being a potentially useful one or not.


People in the past made Afterglow because of the "look I'm special" aspect, or as a form of personal achievement. Not really because of the utility.
These days we get afterglow as a side-effect of unifying the two previously separated paths, not really because we "want" afterglows.

While PLDs support healing has become impressive I’m not sure your description of RUN is accurate. RUNs DPS contribution is quite noticeable and they do not require short burst of abilities to stay alive.

Valiance is a huge party buff with a 70% up time.

Foil is fantastic for crowd control without gimping their SJ to BLU.

I’m not knocking RDM over a WHM it’s a great point but RUN is incredibly versatile while PLD is not. PLD really needs a DPS buff to compete with RUN.

None will balance their hybrid set around having that afterglow from PLD (unless maybe if you do everything with some PLD friend).

Only war and drg? what?
5/5 Malignance + 10%pdt cape is 41%pdt and capped MDT with shell.
Last 9% pdt is achievable on many different ways using:
1. D ring
2. combination of items from: Gelatinous Ring +1, Moonlight Ring, Odnowa Earring +1 R15, Staunch Tathlum +1 etc.
3. Rostam

That and you don’t need 50% PDT in your hybrid with a tank in your party. MEVA and mdt are much more important. If you pull hate just toggle in more PDT.

5/5 malig is a massive loss in DPS unless youre using a mythic main hand. Even then, its still extremely suboptimal unless youre dancer. Thats not a "hybrid" set. If you need 5/5 malig, things went *** up.

Cor and ranger are ranged jobs for the most part, their DT doesnt matter unless theyre meleeing, which is limited content anyway.

It can be a loss, most likely it will be, not sure I would define it "massive" though.
Some things to consider

1) If you're fighting stuff that can Stun or debuff you, Malignance (thanks to resist procs) can actually come out ahead of other options. This is a practical/realistical thing that isn't measured by spreadsheets. To give a similar example: it's arguably one of the main reasons why ddRUN was so often winning parses on WoC zergs, long time ago, the innate Meva of RUN was clearly a winning card against those stuns/debuffs.

2) If you're att capped, Malignance increases your overall damage output, at least in the TP phase, thanks to PDL. This might not enough to bring Malignance ahead of other options, but it surely helps closing the gap.

3) Malignance has a shitton of Acc, arguably more than any other option for the majority of jobs who can equip Malignance. This makes it actually a DPS improvement if your acc isn't capped.

? Cor literally is a ranged job. Very few fights is it really worth it for you to stand anywhere near melee range. Anything that has actual threat of being damaged youre going to be shooting from range anyway.

Even with all of these, youre still losing a *ton* of DPS due to lack of multihit, crit and crit damage for most jobs that wear it in a full 5/5. Its great defensively, which has merit to it, but losing out on feet/body/head for thf, body, head, hands for monk, etc is not recoverable DPS from malig. Not being dead is more DPS than being dead, but 50% DT isnt a hybrid set for a reason, outside of war and drg who casually stroll up with like 40% DT in their primary TP sets.

Get that no D Haren outta here, a disgrace to pld.

Only time I range on Cor is Fu and some specific Ambu's and if Im in Rng pt for w3. the rest which is 99% of the content I Melee.

Please define "a ton", I think this is gonna be the main point where you'll find people disagreeing.

If you're noticeably below the acc cap and the surplus of acc of Malignance will instead get you pretty close (or above) the acc cap, all your multihit and Crit chance/damage will be pretty meaningless when you're under 70% hit rate.

If you're att capped, Crit Hits alone won't produce a very noticeable increase of DPS in white damage. Different story if very large values of Crit hit are paired with large values of Crit damage.
But even in that scenario at att capped full malignance is like 23% more attack than an option that doesn't use Malignance because of the 23% PDL.
So even then I'm confident there will be a damage difference, but no way it's gonna be "massive" or "a ton".

Also let's not forget that for the majority of jobs the white damage is pretty insignificant and constitutes a very minimal part of the overall damage, the majority of which comes from WS damage and white damage is just an icing on the cake while you're waiting to get 1000+ TP.

For this end, Crit and Crit damage means very little. Multiattack matters a lot instead, but if you're not acc capped... whereas the huge accuracy and STP on Malignance greatly help with reaching 1000 TP faster.


I'm generalizing of course, but I was just trying to say that even if Malignance is behind, I'm skeptic there's gonna be such a "massive" amount of difference.
In a couple of situations, as we mentioned before, Malignance might actually come ahead of other "regular" options.

Its really hard to be below acc cap with support jobs in party. Even then, your TP gear has a ton of acc anyway, so you shouldnt be gaining massive amounts just swapping to malig 5/5.

MNK and THF rely HEAVILY on crits and white damage. Most light DDs are white damage heavy and crit based. Not to mention, again, 5/5 malig is nuking key pieces of rema out of your kit, like empy body on monk for impetus, and relic feet/body for thief in general.

Malignance is light DD, which are more heavily white damage jobs than heavy DD. Even blue mage gets a lot of its DPS from white damage when meleeing.

Hybrid sets are Hybrids....you don't need to 5/5 Malig or any other Hybrid pieces.

Nobody is going to swap out Emp body unless the result is certain death. Gearswap makes all your what ifs a breeze to toggle. (auto to manually)

If you have a PLD/RUN in the party your light DDs shouldn't be pulling hate, so their focus is MDT from AoE and MEVA and as already pointed out some fights MEVA stacking is a huge DPS increase over being stunned,stoned,slowed whatever.

That was literally my point from the beginning.

The argument was 5/5 malig isnt a massive loss in DPS and all jobs have easy access to perma 50% DT with little loss in DPS, making afterglow superfluous. Which is just not true.

Man you are so wrong on so many levels. I dont even know where to start.

1. COR melee in almost every group scenario. It may use ranged WSs, but it will get TP with daggers/swords. It may shoot from time to time during pull for some extra TP before engage, but that's extra on top of melee. Also COR and RNG will use a lot of Malignance pieces even if they are shooting, because many of those pieces are bis for racc set. COR in Savage Blade set will use OAT weapon in sub hand, so equipping Malignance wont lower its dps by much. COR doing Leaden will use Rostam in MH, which gives 12%DT, so it wont need all Malignance pieces to cap mdt and push PDT very high, so again it wont lose many dps. RNG melee will use Malignance anyway, because its bis TP set anyway for Kraken club or Mercurial Dagger offhand.

2. MNK doesnt need full Malignance too, because you have 6%DT on belt. MNK also generally has so much HP that its not that important to push PDT that high. Switching from Max DPS set on MNK to 4/5 Malignance (with Bhikku +1 body) dropped dps on MNK from 10900 to 10380. That is what? 6%? That's for sure a "ton" lol That was with Chaos/Sam roll. With Fighter/Sam it drops from 11832 to 11484, WHOLE 3%!!

3. Twashtar/Cento AM3 THF switching from max DPS set (Adhemar HQB head/hands, Af+3 body/legs, Relic+3 feet) to 5/5 Malignance loses 7% dps with UNCAPPED attack. With capped only 3%. Thats with Chaos and Sam roll. Again "a ton" lol. The biggest drop with uncapped attack and with Taming offhand and holding tp to 1750 for regular Rudra and 2000 to Sa and TA Rudra, full Malignance losing 16%dps, but thats like the worst scenario. All of that also assume you have SAM roll. If you are in some low man group without COR, then switching to Malignance will have even less loss or maybe even gain in some scenarios.

I dont have time to list every other possible DD. Just shortly about RDM (since you listed it as an advantage for group composition when going with PLD tank), he will also use 5/5 Malignance, because its his best TP set anyway.

Most group activities cor isnt meleeing unless its primarily using savage blade, or the mob isnt going to spam amnesia. Or its a zerg, and run 2hr is going to be on 100%. You get more than enough TP shooting, and dont need to worry about losing WS windows.

MNK is losing a lot more DPS than just 6% with 4/5 malig. Youre not making up the loss of two crit damage and multistrike items with 2 pieces of malig. Its just not happening.

And again, ***. Youre losing a lot more from the lack of multistrike, crit, crit damage AND triple attack damage. Given thf white damage is quite a large portion of your overall damage output, losing out on what makes you actually deal white damage is going to cut out a large portion of said white damage.

5/5 Malignance was to prove a point that most light DD jobs has access to hybrid TP set that caps or almost caps PDT, easily caps MDT, so afterglow from shields is useless. You dont need to wear all 5/5 Malignance, I was only pointing out that EVEN 5/5 is not much dps loss, so just few Mali pieces swapped in is even less impactful.

What is your point, that afterglow will be useful for DD jobs in max TP sets or something?


No WAR or DRG has 40% DT in primary TP set. Using Hjarrandi or Volte or Moonlight rings or D ring or other DT pieces is also DPS loss for WAR and it's considered a hybrid set, not primary TP set.

This is the PLD thread

Do you have actual evidence that swapping out those pieces makes you lose more DPS than his claims (which are likely based on spreadsheeting the sets)?

Just calling a claim *** doesn't actually disprove it.

Please stop talking

You have a fundamental misunderstanding of how cor works.

Drg has 39% DT in standard TP sets just base line (depending on 5% DT back or wyvern DT)

I dont even go into hybrid, and im looking at near cap DT.

War is already similar to drg.

And yes, the point is if you arent 50% DT, guess what? The afterglow effects are by definition extremely powerful on paladin. Free DT is free DT, and unless you are war or drg, youre always going to be able to make use of that DT.

You are playing some different game. 95%+ COR activities involving DDing is made through melee TP and WSing with Savage, Ranged WSs or Aeolian. There are just few fights where you would mainly shot in group content.


You are talking based on what? Your imagination? Im talking about real sheet numbers and tons of experience playing both MNK and THF, probably my 2 most used jobs in past year. You are underestimate the value of Store TP and overestimate the value of multi attack and crit damage. Especially on MNK, where most of your crit rate/damage comes from Impetus and Empy body and multi attack doesnt affect TP gain from kick attack, while store TP do.

You are just wrong, but instead of actually going into details and trying to understand it, calculate it and parse it to get actual facts and real numbers, you prefer to talk what you FEEL should happen with DPS under different circumstances.

That's false. Not even MNK, the White Damage King --with respectful Nod to Ukonvasara WAR--, is "White Damage Heavy" It's Melee to WS ratios are definitely the closest of most all jobs but even MNK is looking at around 25-35% of it's DPS coming from Melee Damage and the rest being from WSs, not even counting Skillchains. Every other job is much more WS Damage dependent than that.

This isn't the 75 Era anymore, White Damage is much less important than it used to be. The game is VERY tilted towards WS Damage and has been so ever since the end of Delve Era.

BUT
So I digress!


Oh but it is true. Unless you're saying that all of the DPS jobs of Bismark or your particular LS or WHOEVER is completely unable to get a REMA for their respective jobs, then YES Afterglow Effects from most all sources are almost perfectly worthless.

Aftermath overwrites Afterglow, this defaults any and all DDs that are using their job's meta weapon. That's a very wide margin. It'd be *Possibly*? useful for Non-Combatants but only for 30 seconds and only if they are 10' from the PLD when he/she uses their Bash. Unless you're fighting something strange, that's too damn close for your WHM, or Non-Fighting BRD or RDM or SCH to be standing anyway.. I mean I guess it could be helpful for the DDs that don't have an REMA weapon? But they're either going to have very good Hybrid sets/React files that will cap their DTs anyway or they'll have literally nothing at all making the meager "Shield Glow" meaningless either way.

If you wanna Afterglow your shield, go for it but it really is pointless in relation to helping the party. And unless SE makes it so Aftermath and Afterglow can coexist, it will continue to be pointless no matter how many updates are thrown at it.

Who is this Nyaarun guy anyway? Is he coming back after takin a break in 2006 or something? I'm confused, not even sure if he's trolling or being real :x