[Nosdarb]

Okay, so I'm a paladin. A 48 PLD for what it's worth. My only other job of not is 35 BLM (as a galka, yeah I know). Let me also note that I'm not one of those people who can make money off of the AH. I understand the theory, but I can't quite get it to go my way.

So I'm looking into upgrading my gear. Especially after a couple good parties in colibri camps, my stuff is kind of out dated. I'm maintaining hate just fine, but I'm getting hit harder than I'd like. There are plenty of guides, and the general consensus seems to be that I want Vit, Def and Enm, and since Agi affects my shield usage it's not so bad either. If I actually start looking up the items listed though, they seem ... unhelpful.

At 42 I got a friend to help with the Honor Sword, so that was okay. If he hadn't been around though... no idea how I would have killed the NM. I hit it (on a crit) for single digit damage. The wiki says bring someone who can spirits-within and faceroll it. Okay, sure.

Level 43, Walkure Mask. Comes out of a series of level 60 BCNMs.

Level 43 Gothic Gauntlets. Kill things in Xarcabard until a locked box drops.

The list goes on. You get the point though. I know that the answer to a lot of these things is to get a party and go camp what you want, but it's tricky to get five other people together just because I want gloves. I'm not above just buying most of my pieces off of the AH, but (as noted before) gil is a fairly precious commodity for me. Money takes time, and lots of it.

What I'm really looking for here is advice (and if you've read this far, I already thank you). My gear is some slots is ten or twenty levels outdated. Obviously this is bad, but is it going to cost me invites (or worse, my life?). Are there specific slots I should concentrate on if I can't get others done? Should I just keep pushing on and hope I can get help with my AF as it becomes available?

I want to be a good PLD, but there are only so many hours in a day I can devote to FFXI. Any help or words of wisdom are appreciated.

-Zudz

[alaan]

It would really help if you listed exactly what gear you have here, so that people here can help critique it.

Focus on slots like, your earrings (I can't remember what I used here, but off the top of my head, at the very least some eva, or agi earrings are a decent spot, or those HP ones) Rings (Vit and emnity come to mind, you can get cheap vit ones and sit on them till you have the cash to get better ones), Belt (Anything with haste, or at the least theres some decent DEF and HP ones I think) and back (High Breath Mantle is your best bet for this slot till nearly 75, its a consumable, but not all too expensive, and should last you several levels per mantle). Once you hit 50 you can continue your AF quests, which will be an immediate upgrade to all your gear. PLD AF is one of the most useful in the game, and you can stick with it safely to 75, there isnt really much else out there that replaces it, until higher levels, and best of all, its completely free.

If what you say is true, and you are still managing to hold hate fine, then you're doing your job well. While damage mitigation helps with how much hate you shed, at the levels your at, I'd simply say let your mage worry about how much damage you actually take, and you just worry about making sure that mob is staring at you, and only you. That's the real reason anyone gets a PLD anyways, for hate management first, then damage mitigation second.

[Marco]

+Shield skill > +acc > +atk > +emn > +def. You're gimping yourself if fulltime AF in parties. Macro that in for Flash.

Gothic Gauntlets are okay, but Fourth Division Gauntlets at LVL55 are better. Get a Hauby ASAP and if you can't get it now farm for it. 80% of PLD's gear comes from crafting so you can't really avoid the AH unless you like being dead weight.

[Nosdarb]

@alaan

I'm not really worried about a specific gear critique. I've got a pretty solid handle on the fact that my gear is bad. And thanks to this forum and the wiki there are plenty of suggestions for upgrades. The real issue I have is that most of the suggestions seem to assume that I either have infinite gil or a job already at the cap that I can use to farm things up.

For example: I'm working on putting together the gil for a Brigandine body. It goes for about 20K on my server (last time I checked). I'm mostly in parties fighting colibri and ladybugs in the past, so I'm not getting high value drops and I'm not earning gil per kill. Sometime I can AH crystals or the odd valuable item that does drop (and sort to me). Assuming I stop getting XP and focus on the armor I can switch to a low level job and farm more crystals, go anywhere and do FoV (Which I have done a bit. Lovely system, very helpful.), or try to get some people together for some BCNM and burn beastman's seals while hoping for the best. I'm just returning so BCNM isn't an option at the moment (though as time goes on and I get back in touch with the player-base that will be less of an issue). Farming crystals and FoV are fine options, with which I'll have my Brigandine in a day or two.

But that's just one slot. Much of the same reasoning provided above continues to apply to almost everything I'm wearing. Some slots (like Gothic Gauntlets for my hands) don't have strong recommendations that I can get from the AH. Even assuming they did, not everything is as cheap as the Brigandine body. I want to keep pressing forward in terms of XP, but I feel like the fact that I'm in level-synching parties has been my saving grace to this point. In theory I could take a week to farm hard and eventually get back to leveling, but that almost seems counterproductive.

I hope that this whole wall of text doesn't just come off as me whining. I'm genuinely concerned about balancing the needs of my gear (which supports my not dying, the core role of my job) against the benefits of being higher level. If the answer is that I'm just required to stop every five or ten levels to spend some time on gear, then that's what I'll do. If, on the other hand I really only need to worry about, for example, my body piece, shield and helmet (because the AF gloves and boots are right around the corner), then that's what I'll focus on.

I did take the time to talk to a friend of mine who left the game some time ago about this. His reaction was (quoted here from AIM) "So your gear sucks. /shrug". Given that, I'm inclined to just get the AF and improve on accessories where I can.



@Marco

+atk before +enm? I would have thought otherwise. I don't disbelieve you though, I can see how that makes sense. I simply assumed that with PLD damage (so far, anyway) being so low that until I unlocked something like Spirits Within my damage wasn't going to be significant enough to warrant attention, but that since +enm affects all of my hate tools... I think you see where I'm going with that. I'll look at my current gear priorities and reassess accordingly.

I agree that I'm probably gimping myself if I full time pretty much anything for anything. The game is designed with so many situationally useful pieces of gear that at some point you have to start macroing things in. I understand and agree. I'm level 48 (haven't been on in a few days), and don't have anything leveled higher to assist with gear acquisition. So really, what I'm looking for here is advice on getting the pieces I should be maining (or macroing, any advice is appreciated). I'm not worried about what to get so much as the best method to get ... well, gear in general (but, again, specific advice is appreciated always).

I'm not trying to avoid the auction house. I just wanted to point out that while I understand the theory of buy low, sell high, I'm not very good at the implementation. Really, my main issue is that I see things (like the Gothic Gauntlets) and think that they would be a good upgrade, but I can't get them myself. Especially being that I'm newly returned and I don't have a LS at the moment it can be hard to round up four or five people to walk to Xarcabard because I want rare drop gloves. I know that as time goes on and I find myself a LS and make friends this will become less of an issue, but if there were any advice for getting things done (solo, or methods of coercion that I wasn't aware of for groups) I was hoping that it could be found here.

For what it's worth, if the advice is "Suck it up and go farm" then that's what I'll do. I just figured it couldn't hurt to ask, nu?



To both of you, thank you for taking the time to reply. If you read through all of this (or even just the bit responding to you specifically) then I really (really) appreciate the effort.

-Zudz

[Marco]

Nosdarb, on 04 June 2010 - 08:45 AM, said:

+atk before +enm? I would have thought otherwise. I don't disbelieve you though, I can see how that makes sense. I simply assumed that with PLD damage (so far, anyway) being so low that until I unlocked something like Spirits Within my damage wasn't going to be significant enough to warrant attention, but that since +enm affects all of my hate tools... I think you see where I'm going with that. I'll look at my current gear priorities and reassess accordingly.

In XP parties, +Enmity isn't going to do much for two reasons:

A) If your DDs doesn't suck, mobs will be dying relatively fast. Enough that losing hate isn't going to be a problem.
B) A good party doesn't need a pure tank.

Reason B is pretty much the cold truth about PLD in alot of areas actually. In some ways, PLD has the role of a parent. It's a good role model, protects everyone, and makes everyone feels safe. However, when people "grow up" and begin to optimize themselves, PLD grows old and sits on a rocking chair on a porch mumbling about whippersnappers. While this does imply that I say the job is useless at top level of play: it isn't. But until PLD gets a damage-related ability or trait, which is something the job desperately needs, then it isn't an optimum job.

As far as damage goes, PLD does decent damage, but it'll never be on the level of what DD jobs can do. Nonetheless it's important to remember the more damage you deal, the more hate you sustain. Furthermore, the mob dies faster, which means you take less damage, thus saving MP since you don't have to cure yourself. All this combined means more EXP/hr. Lastly, Fast Blade is better than Spirits Within unless you're overcamping.

Quote

I'm not trying to avoid the auction house. I just wanted to point out that while I understand the theory of buy low, sell high, I'm not very good at the implementation. Really, my main issue is that I see things (like the Gothic Gauntlets) and think that they would be a good upgrade, but I can't get them myself. Especially being that I'm newly returned and I don't have a LS at the moment it can be hard to round up four or five people to walk to Xarcabard because I want rare drop gloves. I know that as time goes on and I find myself a LS and make friends this will become less of an issue, but if there were any advice for getting things done (solo, or methods of coercion that I wasn't aware of for groups) I was hoping that it could be found here.

For what it's worth, if the advice is "Suck it up and go farm" then that's what I'll do. I just figured it couldn't hurt to ask, nu?

There really isn't anything PLD can get that is better than what one can get on the AH outside of AF boots. Especially at your level.

To be completely honest, you can get away with full-timing AF and crap like VIT rings, simply because of Player-based stigma. Many people just doesn't know about PLD and only sees it as something to get beat up on. However, this is very bad practice, and will only solidify the false fact that PLD is just a meatshield.

Point is, if you're really looking to optimize your performance, then you'll be all right with spending a few days farming. But no one's gonna verbally rip your face off if you just wanna gun for 75. Except me, maybe.

This post has been edited by Marco: 05 June 2010 - 11:42 PM