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The basics:
What should I sub?
99.999% of the time, Warrior. There will rarely be a need for any other sub until end-game (unless you like to solo or play ballista, but if you're doing that, you don't need this FAQ).
What's the best race for PLD?
Elvaan Male in Subligar. But no, seriously, there is no best race. Each race has their own strengths to add to the job, and we can equip a multitude of gear to balance out our weaknesses or enhance those strengths.
What food should I be eating?
For defense, Fish. For general hate-holding, Sushi tends to work better. Check out somepage for the defense caps on other foods, but from my research, Boiled Crabs will last you until around level 40, Steamed Crabs to about 45, Fish Mith/Chiefkabobs from then to the mid 50s. From mid-50s to the mid-60s, Shallops Tropicale will be your best bet, and after that, Seafood Stew. Tavnazian Tacos are the endgame food of choice for PLD, with a nod to Carbonara whenever HP is more important than defense. Also look into Black Curry, as something triggers it to give more VIT and Def than Tacos (supposedly it's PLD AF boots, which you should be wearing at all times anyway). As for Sushi, Dorado is the way to go. Can never go wrong with extra Enmity.
What do my stats do?
VIT: Lowers the "damage curve". What this means to you is that both your maximum damage taken and your minimum damage taken are affected by VIT. It will also shrink the range of damage you will normally take. Think of a normal curve in statistics, with VIT defining the median and standard deviation (sorry).
Def: Lowers the damage taken within this curve. What that means to you is that if your VIT says you will get hit between 50 and 100, the higher your Def is, the more likely you are to be hit closer to 50. Paladin has very high defense as compared to mob attack however, and you will reach a point at higher levels where more defense will not significantly affect your damage taken.
AGI: Affects Shield, Parry, and Evasion proc rates.
CHR: Affects monster intimidation rates. Does NOT affect Provoke or hate levels, or any of our abilities.
MND: Affects Cure potency.
Any other stats I should be looking at?
Shield Skill, -% Damage Taken, and +Enmity are probably the three most important stats you can equip to your PLD at any level, more important than any of the other stats. MP has a very obvious effect in XP, and at HNM, you want to stack as much HP as possible.
Gear:
What should I wear?
The best armor you can find! Generally you want the armor with the highest defense rating, and any +VIT accessories. This changes a bit as you get to AF, but until then, the higher the Def or VIT, the better the armor. As you progress along, Accuracy gear will begin to come into play. Equip them when you can get a significant bonus from them, as they will help you hold hate. Remember though, Enmity > Shield > Accuracy > VIT.
How do I gear myself for merit parties?
The same as a WAR would, to be honest. Basically, Balance +Haste and +Accuracy in any slot that you can get them, +Attack in slots you can’t, and +STR when there’s no room for anything else. Through the 70s, start gearing yourself for Haste. Some key pieces for merit parties are Haubergeon, Suppanomimi, Brutal Earring, Walahra Turban or Optical Hat, Joyeuse, Justice Sword, Company Sword, or Hrotti, Homam Manopolas, Cosciales, and Gamberias or Dusk Gloves, Trousers, and Ledelsens, and the entire Ares set. A handful of Askar and Amir pieces are nice as well. The list really goes on and on. I suggest taking a look at the WAR forums, finding out what they’re wearing, and adjust it based on what PLD can and cannot equip, adding more Acc, since we don’t have Aggressor.
Can I DD in XP parties pre-70?
Yes, you can, but typically you’re better off going as a hybrid. PLDs are invited to non-merit parties to tank, so usually you’re still going to need the gear with good Defense, Vitality, and Enmity. What I would do is substitute some tanking gear that’s only giving you a small marginal boost in effectiveness with something that would give you a larger marginal boost in DD effectiveness. Some suggestions are switching VIT rings for Accuracy rings, AF Body for Haubergeon, Gluttony Sword for T.M.Espadon and Bastard Sword, etc. Also, in this hybrid situation, you’re often better off switching food and tanking strategies to a Bream (VIT) or Dorado (+Enmity) Sushi setup, from a Fish setup. You will hold much stronger hate with Sushi than you will with Fish, even if you’re using Defender.
What rings should I wear?
Always: VIT rings are the standard default. There's never anything wrong with wearing VIT rings in xp, but if you have access to these other options, they're better in the situations described.
Astral Rings: If you can afford them, go for it. The MP is always nice. Just make sure you sub them out for VIT rings once you've used the extra MP they afford you, because if you're wearing 2 Astrals and you're 100 MP below max, they're not doing a thing for you.
Jaeger Ring: If you have it, wear it. 4 Accuracy will help you hold hate, simple as that.
Woodsman Ring: The logical upgrade from Jaeger. I'd advise using these over Sniper's Rings because of Sniper's -DEF.
Mermaid's Ring: Enmity is always appreciated, especially at L43, when there isn't much else you could be wearing for enmity without hurting your tanking.
Jelly Ring: Jelly Ring is pretty good in xp, but it falls off in use afterwards. General reason: there's no reason to worry about magic from XP mobs, but HNM's magic can kill you pretty swiftly, so more damage from that is a bad idea. Besides that, it's also generally a better idea to wear an Accuracy ring in XP instead of Jelly, since it will likely help you a lot more than -5% damage will.
Hercules' Ring: 3 Enmity, 'nuff said. The latent Regen/Refresh activates when you're under 50% HP, so it also comes in very handy when soloing.
Bomb Queen Ring: Completely and utterly useless for XP, one of the best for HNM. Usually you'll get this soon after joining an HNMLS, and since you don't need it for anything but HNM, that works out great!
Bloodbead Ring: Same as BQ Ring, though you're probably on your own camping it.
Defending Ring: The end-all-be-all ring.
Sattva Ring: All-around great ring, though others excel in certain areas. Easily replaces Hercules' Ring, but cases can be made against using it instead of other rings. If you already have one, wear it once you ding 30.
What about Phalanx Rings?
No. VIT will serve you better than DEF, in any situation where you'd be using purely defensive rings.
Is Gluttony Sword worth the money?
Not really. It's slow, and the VIT really doesn't help too much. Keep it around if you need something against IT++, but otherwise pick a sword with better DPS and DD stats. Tactician Magician's Espadon, Wize Wizard's Anelace, and Bastard Sword all come to mind.
What should I wear on my waist?
At level 15, Warrior's Belt +1 is available for PLD. This is the best defensive belt you can wear from 15 to 71.
At level 48, you can equip Life Belt. Mostly a matter of preference, many PLD opt for this belt instead of Warrior's Belt. Life Belt will allow you to connect more hits, and in turn, hold better hate. You will take slightly more damage because of the loss of the VIT and Defense from Warrior's Belt, but the benefit from hate gain far outweighs this consequence.
At level 50, you can equip Royal Knight's Belt. DO NOT WEAR THIS BELT, EVER
Also at level 50, you can equip Swift Belt. If you have it, I'd wear it, but don't sweat too much over it.
At level 71, Warwolf Belt becomes an option.
At level 72, Trance Belt becomes a better option.
At endgame, you've got a combination of belts to choose from. Gold Moogle Belt, RSE Sashes, Trance Belt, Swift Belt, and Speed Belt (Velocious Belt) are all viable options for certain situations. Pick and choose based on what you need for the situation.
20% damage reduction from Earth Staff is sexy, why should I wear a shield instead?
With the most recent Shield patch, the new proc rates on size 3 and 4 shields, coupled with the damage reduction on them, gives you much higher overall damage reduction than Earth Staff does. With high enough Shield skill, it can reduce 30-40% of damage taken.
How long will my AF last?
Forever. Don't laugh, I'm serious. Paladin AF is probably the only set that can last you from the time you equip it until 75. The feet are the best straight-tanking option available, and the head, hands, and legs don't have any real replacements until 70+. Amusingly, the only piece that isn't the best available at its level is the Surcoat, which is trumped in XP by Haubergeon. However, the Surcoat is always good to have, as it is the next-best XP piece, and will also be extremely useful if you start HNM, where it's the entry-level body piece, pre-Valor and Koenig.
What are my choices for Cursed, God, Limbus, or Salvage gear?
At end-game, Paladin gets a few good choices. We can't wear any god armor, but we get three very good sets of cursed gear.
Koenig is the obvious set for all tanking purposes. It gives a ton of VIT and HP, and has the highest Defense rating in the game. Unfortunately, each piece of the set is situational at best, as there are other pieces from other gearsets that trump Koenig for all-around use.
Crimson has two pieces of note: Crimson Cuisses and Crimson Greaves. Crimson Cuisses are the equip-of-choice for any kited fight, because of the +12% movement speed. Both of these pieces combined will also give you +20 resist to every element, making them a necessity in any elemental-resist build.
Hecatomb is the DD set given to Paladin. Use at your own discretion. It's nice to sub in for WS, but for TP building, the +%Slow kinda sucks.
Homam is an extremely powerful set for PLD, giving Accuracy, HP, and MP on every piece. Four out of the five pieces also give Haste, and Homam Cosciales also give Fast Cast. Homam Manopolas are arguably the best Hands in the game for PLD, and the Cosciales and Gambieras are irreplaceable in a /NIN setup.
Gallant +1 is nice if you have no other options, but the Gallant Leggings +1 are an invaluable piece for any straight-tanking setup.
Ares' gear is flat-out insane for DD, and the body is extremely versatile, giving HP, MP, VIT, STR, Attack, and Refresh.
What earrings should I be wearing at X level?
1-75 straight-tank XP choices
In standard XP, you want to do the best to lower the damage you take as well as hold the best hate. Shield and Enmity are great, VIT and AGI are good, MP isn't bad, HP is a bad choice (though a taru friend of mine has been one-shotted by Bomb Toss a number of times, I suppose HP earrings wouldn't be too bad for tarus)
From 1-30, find something shiny and go with it. MP is great, Attack is nice, HP is ok, Evasion isn't bad, just have fun with it.
At 30, you can wear Mercenary's Earring for VIT+2, activated by having Warrior as a sub.
At 35, you should wear Buckler Earring for +3 Shield, and you can replace the Merc's earring with a Drone Earring for AGI+3 if you so please, the difference is negligible.
At 54, you can wear Hospitaler Earring. I don't like it, but some people swear by it. If you choose to pick one up, do not use it full-time. It's not a poor choice when macroed into your Cure spells, but besides that, it should not be on your ears.
At 67, you can wear Hades Earrings. Pick them up if you can afford them, use them situationally.
At 72, if you chose it, you can wear Knight's Earring, Suppanomimi, and Ethereal Earring. All three of these earrings are good choices. Ethereal is essentially perma-Refresh, Knight's Earring is the best defensive choice you can get, and Suppanomimi will give you a very nice attack and acc bonus, the best attack earring you can get.
Endgame earring choices
Against HNMs, your main focuses shift based on your style. /WAR you'll be worrying about Shield, HP, and Enmity. /NIN you want Haste/Fast Cast, Enmity, and Shield.
Ethereal Earring: HP +15, Converts 3% of damage taken into MP. This does not mean you take 3% less damage, and remember that the game rounds down. If you take less than 33 damage, you will not get MP. At end-game though, you happen to get hit for significantly more than 33 damage. This earring is godly.
Loquacious Earring: Enhances Fast Cast Effect. Wonderful earring for /NIN tanking, as the Fast Cast will let you cast more quickly, and also gives you somewhere in the neighborhood of 2% Haste for your spells. The 30 MP is nice, too.
Cassie Earring: 50 HP. Real nice for surviving those beatdowns HNMs tend to throw at you.
Bloodbead Earring & Pigeon Earring +1: 25 HP. See Cassie Earring.
Hades Earring (+1): +1 (+2) Enmity. When you've already gotten to a safe HP level for the mob you're tanking, these babies are invaluable.
Knight's Earring: +5 Shield skill. Deserves a nod, but I don't like it for HNM. Shield skill falls off in usefulness after around 305, and you can get to that point with merits and other pieces of gear. HP will help your survivability more in these situations, and Enmity will help your LS's survivability.
What Divine Might earring should I pick?
Honestly, it's up to you. The Knight's Earring is the best earring you can wear for xp-tanking, but it's replaced by several other earrings for HNM. Suppanomimi will help most other jobs, and will be a serious boost to any PLD DD build you come up with.
Merits:
What should I merit?
The best stats for a PLD to have at end-game are HP, Enmity, and Shield Skill. As such, you should merit HP and Shield Skill. Enmity is a dangerous stat to merit, as it will hurt any DD or mage job you wish to level. Crit down is a good stat to merit when you're done with Shield and HP, Parry is always useful, Cover length can come in handy, VIT is *eh*, Sword skill is phenomenal for a DD build, and if you're planning on leveling Warrior after you're done with Paladin. To reduce spell interruption, you can look at meriting that, or Healing Magic, as both will do the job. Divine Magic skill will allow your Flashes to last longer, though not much. As for tier 2 merits, Chivalry is extremely useful, Fealty is nice to have unlocked, and Guardian is pretty good to have.
Shield:
My Shield is terribly below cap, how do I skill it up?
One of the best places in the game to skill defensive stats (Shield, Parry, Evasion) is the Den of Rancor, on Pucks. They are DC-T Black Mandragora, and their double attacks will get your Shield up really, really quickly. The stats you want to focus on when skilling Shield are Shield+, Evasion-, and AGI+ when you're capped out on both of those.
How do I bring my Shield skill above and beyond what I cap at?
There's a fairly small selection of Shield+ gear, but it's all worthwhile. The first choice is Buckler Earring, L35, Shield skill +3. This earring should be on your ear the moment you can equip it. The next choice is Gallant Leggings, L52, Shield skill +10. Arguably the best piece of gear a PLD can wear for any straight-tanking situation, +10 Shield is incredible. After that comes Shield Torque, L65, Shield skill +7. Again, one of the better pieces of gear for PLD. At 70 you can wear the Limbus piece, Boxer's Mantle, for +10 Shield (and Guard, Parry, and Evasion). Not much more to say about that except "I wish I had one." You get the Divine Might earring, Knight's Earring at 72 if you so choose, it gives +5 Shield skill. At 73, you can equip Koenig Schaller, which gives +5 Shield skill, a very nice bonus for this HNM piece, though I wouldn't advise wearing it outside of HNM. Besides these gear choices, you can merit Shield up to 4 times, for a total of +8 skill. Fully merited and in full (NQ) Shield gear, you can cap at 324. With HQ booties and Kaiser Schaller, you cap at 327. You don't really need that much Shield skill, but some people can't resist the e-peen factor.
What Shield is better? What is this talk of a Shield cap?
First off, by popular ignorance, the Shield tests I did in April:
Monastic Cavern, Coffer mobs (EP, L67 max), 302 Shield Skill, 75 PLD
Tatami Shield (size 4): blocked 129/332 attacks, 38.86%, estimated 80% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 30%
Koenig Shield (size 3): blocked 265/421 attacks, 62.95%, estimated 60% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 37.8%
Bulwark Shield (size 1): blocked 165/256 attacks, 64.45%, estimated 0% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 0%
Tatami Shield (size 4): blocked 129/332 attacks, 38.86%, estimated 80% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 30%
Koenig Shield (size 3): blocked 265/421 attacks, 62.95%, estimated 60% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 37.8%
Bulwark Shield (size 1): blocked 165/256 attacks, 64.45%, estimated 0% damage reduction. Overall damage reduced = 0%
Basically, what this means is that with enough Shield skill, your proc rate isn't going to go above 65%, no matter what kind of shield you're using. It also shows that size 3 shields give the best damage reduction out of all of them. Things to note are that proc rate is a lot more highly based on Shield skill than mob level, as people have reported similar rates on EPs as on HNMs.
It has recently been brought to light that the damage reduced by each shield is based both on Type and DEF rating. The current formula is suggested to be Reduction = Type + DEF/2, with preliminary numbers for the base looking like 22%, 40%, 50%, ???, and 55% for Buckler, Round, Kite, Tower, and Aegis, respectively. The numbers are currently in testing, but from my personal tests, it's looking to be about right.
It's a work in progress. Please keep any flames to yourself, and I'd be glad to take any suggestions or discussions over PM.
21 December 06: Added Homam and Ares's gear, as well as "New School" section.
26 June 07: Overhaul! Probably still adding more as the day/week goes on.
07 July 07: Extremely minor update, you probably won't even notice it.
22 August 07: Shield stuff.
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