~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

Has nothing to do what I'm fighting if my constraints are set to "maintain x amount of HP and maximize Fast Cast" or "maintain capped FC and maximize HP" or I could even do "Maintain x hp, y pdt, z mdt and maximize magic evasion" for idling. I can optimize any non-DPS related set this way.

For example, just using the gear bald posted plus what I have laying around, so probably any PLD already has laying around, I can get the same FC without the gold belt and an additional 2 4 Quick Cast.

ItemSet 383018


But I can just keep my results to myself

He's saying that the x, y, and z constraints can all be different for diffefent fights (mostly when you add in PDT/MDT, not just HP/FC). Sure, you can determine each situation individually using your method, but that's cumbersome to do like you're offering (where someone else supplies the gear and required stats for esch situation and you report it back).

far less cumbersome than manually doing it. and I'm only asking for gear to add to the file so I can run it. once the gear is already added, I don't need people to supply anything anymore unless they want a set with specifics. if someone asks about capping PDT or MDT in their FC set, it only takes a minute to re-run under different rules.

This all depends on play style, but once you build to avoid swapping main/sub cause Burtgang and keep 3k HP then 60~68% seems to be the limit. 60 for Normal spells, 64/68 for Enhanching/Curing.

This is what I use for none cures/Enhancing spells.
For cures 68%.

You asked for a list of gear so you could optimize. Both resources I gave you give you plenty of options from the minimalist to the best of the best. You can also filter every piece of gear by stats if you really feel the need to dig deep into something already probed.


We thank you.

Right? It's like Austar posted a question just to ***on whoever replies? Like those people who just take out a life-time of grievances against their waiter. :/

Or people misunderstood. I'm not looking for a collection of sets to copy and paste. I made a program to optimize any non-DPS set I want. It'll find sets people won't and already has with just crap I had laying around that are already better than anything posted.

I didn't ask to ***on people, I asked to get a collection of pieces to find optimum gear so everyone can improve their sets. With how much "what's BIS" you see everywhere, I'd have thought people would want to have actual "BIS"

This seems like it. I took your question not as a personal one, but more of a community one. I just assumed you were going to plug all said gear into your program since that’s what you do with most ***anyway.

I'm trying to understand the impact of this:

Shield Skill has to be equal to or greater than Mob Combat Skill for Block Rate + items to work for example (Thureus Earring +2 chance of successful block).

At mlevel 17 I have 586 shield skill and use +5 chance of successful block gear. Where does this work or I suppose where do we find the combat skill of mobs?

Apex
Omen
Dynamis
Ambuscade
Odyssey
Unity
Bosses etc

Ya I was quite confused myself what was going on exactly, (still am kinda lol). However, I've taken a thing or two from the FC set Austar posted, the kishar ring swapped in instead of prolix, and the QC ammo slot, also, could probably pump +40HP more by excluding QC ammo slot, keep sapience orb, and add the HP earring in place of enchanted earring +1.

I am but I just want to add gear that isn't also in "BIS" sets since those might end up optimal with other combos of available gear, which is why I was asking about a list of gear. Once I have it all it will print out sets that match the conditions I entered. Can do any combination not just fast cast, that was just an example I used since bald just recently posted and with what crap I had laying around was able to find a set with another useful stat in quick cast. It also doesn't use a belt that isn't reliably obtainable.


I wrote a program that will find sets of gear under any constraint. I added items from your set and what I have sitting in my inventories and set it to find any combination of gear that has 1202 HP(puts me at 3K on taru) and has 80 FC, from there I have it print the combination that has the highest Quick Cast stat. If you're not as geared, I can keep the HP requirement and print the highest Fast Cast. Or I can cap fast cast and print the set with highest HP. I can cap PDT/MDT/3K HP and print the set with highest magic evasion for idling, SID/HP and print highest FC for interrupts sets, or really any combination.

Play style has nothing to do with generating sets. It's more about the situation. Do I need to keep my weapon and shield on for Chivalry? Then exclude those items and find my best result from there.

I was able to improve your non-cure/enhancing set as well. I was able to find an additional 2% 7% FC while excluding weapon/shield and maintain 3K HP. I don't have every piece of gear I need to add yet either, so there may be more to gain.

ItemSet 383019

Your cure pre-cast set can gain at least 1% 6% more as well.

ItemSet 383021

And if you only have 64% for Enhancing, you can get that up to at least 68% 73%.

ItemSet 383020

Edit: Updated for ML20 HP gain.

I'll see about getting some other Fast Cast/HP options together in a list after I get home from work. Will be interesting to see if this could yield some optimizations for my set.

It's not specific to FC, I can set it up for any set combo you'd need. I can add you on Discord if you'd like.

By all means.

Also.. huh. Yeah. That Non-weapon swap FC set has 2% more FC than mine. A bit more HP(Assuming I change belt to gold moogle, since I have that) but drops a hefty chunk of MP. I think I'll want to see what that looks like in game... The MP loss may be acceptable since other sets might be dropping below that bar anyway...

I'm always paranoid when using FC set that's not DT cap or at least close to it, what kind of situation/spell is the full FC set going to be used on you think?

This is not true. If your shield skill was equal to the monster's combat skill then your block rate would be the base block value for the shield. For example, 45% for a size 3 shield. In which case, block+5 would push you to 50%. When that bit you quoted mentions a skill requirement it was probably referring to having enough skill to be above the block floor. Not having equal skill.

Also, it's not like block+ does nothing when you're below the block floor. It puts you closer to being at or above the floor. So Block+ always does something. But the effects may not result in an visible increase in blockrate.

If you're at -10% block rate after the skill comparison, then adding Block +5 won't yield a visible result. You'd still parse at 5% block rate. The block rate floor. But it would mean that you now only need another block+10 to reach the floor. And after that point any additional block+ would start having a visible effect. Well, visible to highly controlled testing anyway. Good luck eyeballing it.

Short answer... you don't.

Finding out exact mob combat skill values is a major barrier in nailing down exact formulas and finally making an actual block rate calculator. And if there's a way to precisely verify those skill values... I haven't found it. I've seen some guesses based on player combat skills, but things just don't seem to work out and there's a lot of gaps up at the 99+ levels where players stop getting normal level based skill increases.

The context would have definitely helped.


I'm not a packet guru, but from what I understand; you're in and out of your precast sets so fast it's rare to impact your tanking capabilities.

I do have toggles set to cap FC with weapon/sub swaps(none with armor/accessories only). With that in mind, prebuff situations and times where I'm not worried about the constant TP loss are the only 2 that really stand out for me. Would probably look fancy in a PLD healer setup as well.

Thanks for the more complete answer there Martel.

I feel like the first post I made about the subject was contextual enough. I just wanted a list of gear worth consideration so I could find the actual "BIS" sets under any given constraints, not just follow a guide or someone else's sets when those can be improved upon. No offense to anyone who's sets people do prefer to copy, but a computer will generate sets faster and with how many ways to attempt it, good chance it will find improvements as well. That's my goal, using a program to improve the sets people do use, not to ***on anyone.

Monstrosity might be useful in finding 99 and lower values. We'd have ti verify thay they work the same first, of courss, but if it does, that's a huge amount of flexibility for testing.

I'll start this with the disclaimer that I am not a great PLD, nor is the job a huge interest for me. However... our Dyna group sometimes lacks a tank, and I'm flexible on job now that I have all the +2 necks and Su5 weapons I'm interested in. So, thinking of bringing my decent enough PLD sometimes to avoid sticking the same 1-2 players on tank every run. I have an Aegis (but not planning to get any other PLD RMEA any time soon), Priwen, 5/5 Souveran +1, 5/5 Sakpata, etc.

Questions:

1) Are Knight's Beads +2 (or +1) even worth bothering with? If I'm gonna be in Dyna anyway, I wouldn't mind getting points if I'll find legitimate use - but it seems like one of the more mediocre JSE necks. PLD is actually the ONLY one of the 15 jobs leveled on this character that don't have a maxed out +1/+2 neck (11 +2s, 3 +1s, and nothing for PLD lol). I currently use Moonlight for most purposes and have r15 Loricate +1 if ever needed.

2) For someone like me with Aegis/Priwen as my defensive shield options: Priwen when? Should I be swapping it in for Reprisal and otherwise go Aegis (unless doing something like a hybrid build with Naegling/Blurred+1), or something else?

3) With Sakpata around, is that what most people are using as a default tanking set these days? Currently I have the below as my standard tanking and enmity swap sets. I'm sure there's room for optimization (especially in balancing HP) - but any particularly glaring items I should be changing?

Tanking:
ItemSet 383005

Enmity:
ItemSet 383006

Priwen is for anytime you don't need the MDTII of aegis, as you will not be blocking anything with aegis a vast majority of the time, swapping to it for reprisal then swapping back doesnt do anything either as the reprisal boost only applies with priwen equipped.

Also consider getting ochain, isnt anything beyond a time investment and it basically does what priwen does, just better

The +2 has uses, but they tend to be minor, or niche. Atk capped or PDT savage blade, chivalry, etc.

For most enmity actions I end up either using moonlight for full enmity, or Unmoving+1 for the HP. And again with Unmoving+1 for tanking sets. The sheer HP+ on unmoving means I tend to use it over Knight's beads in all my high HP sets. And I can make up the DT elsewhere(hello Sakpata.)

Priwen's reprisal enhancement is lost if the shield is removed. So you can't swap it in for reprisal, you have to keep it equipped.

Regarding the enmity set, why the trance belt over creed belt?

The only time I used to swap to Aegis was for RNG and COR mobs and any mage mob till silence was landed. Most of the time even the w3 boss was spent in Ochain. The block rate for Priwen is pretty bad if reprisal is dispelled which is where Ochain comes in.

Can get a tad more enmity and HP with creed belt/unmoving collar/eschite greaves, I didn't set it to cap DT (PDT on cape) but it does that with souv. set bonuses factored in.

If you're using the Sakpata sword regardless and only want to maintain the typical 3K HP, can do something like:

Based on his tank set the HP gap between that and your enmity set is fairly large.

ItemSet 383009

Closer to his tank swap with 122~134 Enmity depending on his Unity Rank.

Brilliance and Ajax Shield +1 also offer a combined +24 Enmity and 70~120HP as a combo if he doesn't care to swap weapon slots depending on the situation. -DT could be made up in his accessories and still come out ahead.

His tank set doesn't hit the same HP requirement I set for the enmity result, it adds up to 197 HP less than my requirement. If I only wanted to add the same amount of HP as his tank set does, then I could get more enmity as well. I also worked under the assumption he didn't want to swap weapons or shield and I like to keep the unity bonuses at the minimum, since not everyone is in the same rank. There is also no disadvantage for having more HP than your idle set unless you don't want your bot curing you every JA.

With weapon and shield swaps, you don't need to swap accessories. Keeping his 1005 HP requirement from his tank set will cap.
ItemSet 383010

It all depends on how much HP you're going to need. My non-ML Taru needs 232 more HP to keep 3000 compared to a ML20 Elvaan, so Martel can get a good bit more FC and enmity than I can out of my sets.

First off, thanks everyone for the helpful responses! As the pros here can likely tell, I have some holes in my PLD knowledge as I get more comfortable using it. Was looking for tips on how to best use the stuff I have, or relatively easy upgrades/changes. I'm comfortable enough with tanking generally from RUN (and more niche stuff with PUP NIN), but just put a PLD together in 2021 in an effort to give it a try for fun so it's certainly not something where I have a feel for the job from playing it for years or anything.


PLD is one of my lowest priority jobs - it's seriously #14~15 of 15 on this character (plus I have an alt with a couple major projects in the works). There are several other Empy/Mythic I'd spend my time on first, so with that being the case I'm just not very interested in the plates/souls grind (again, after doing it once for BRD). I'm really just feeling like messing around with PLD as a change of pace. Aegis was cheap n' easy enough (and super fast), so that's why I made that one.


Just overlooked/never bothered to grab it lol, and had Trance Belt from enmity sets on other jobs like WAR NIN. But yeah that's a minor improvement and easy to get, noted - thanks!


So... for me with no real Ochain plans any time soon, is Priwen (and just keeping Reprisal up) a better call than Aegis for most of Dyna? I've defaulted to Aegis just due to stuff like a potential stray Mijin Gakure/Astral Flow, or like you said - particularly magic heavy NMs/wave 3 mobs that aren't silenced (or can't be, if they use JA/WS that are magical).

I don't have very strong opinions on sword, so totally open to advice on using something other than Sakpata if something like a Brilliance would serve me better. I have the most relevant non-RMEA options (Brilliance, Naegling for DDish times, Malignance, etc.), but thought Sakpata was a pretty nice mix of stats as my default. Same thing as Ochain, I'm just not dedicated enough to PLD to make a Burtgang.