~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

I prefer Brilliance from Sinister Reign as a non-RMEA option, as it offers a lot of tank-y benefits depending on Augments. for a lot of the tanking that I do in those rare moments I am not on Geomancer, I wear the following:

ItemSet 342219

Phalanx + 4 using "Techniques" dial on my Valorous Mask.

Didn't math this out, but I can't see a situation where you'd ever use Souv feet if you can use Amm Greaves from SR. -5 dt vs -4pdt/3mdt(best tank augment mdt). Also, Amm greaves have 15 accuracy.. which.. PLD needs tons of. Souv feet are cure feet onry.

It's the block chance that's the main appeal. Not saying it's superior, but I understand the desire to use them.

ItemSet 342241
Just what I use as a miscellaneous set. Saw that I could get suucessful block on chironic this morning so I'm aiming for that on Odyssean pieces.

Phalanx set updated

updated my pdt set forgot about thureous earring, swapped in new mantle(mantle lost 30hp but gained that back with earring, and gained more def since can use brig pebble instead of angha)
ItemSet 332660

seems pretty good pdt- set

wouldn't a defending ring and a warden ring be better?
you can still cap PDT with the warden ring but you're gaining -crit % from enemy atks.

Also Diemer neck I would think would be better due to the shield skill you get and same amount of -pdt%


edit: Need someone to help with updated sets for the following:

1. KoR
2. Reso
3. CDC

Not to sidetrack too much but has anyone seen a "Chance of successful block" augment on Odyssean gear? I keep getting those augments on Chironic when I'm looking for DD augments.

I'll post a KoR set as soon as I log in.

Yes, I got a +1 on legs yesterday.

Fern Stone?

ItemSet 342352

Miscellaneous gear that I've cobbled together. Each piece of Reisenjima gear has WSD+4% on it as well as decent ATT augments. I'm still working on better accessories for my set. 1000 ACC and 1200 ATT without buffs. Guess I'll need to farm another set of odyssean so I can keep my DD augments.

Dark Matter campaign.

The best I've gotten from Dark Matter campaign has been Magic Burst damage on Odyssean. Completely worthless for what I do. All I get is mage buffs on DD gear and DD buffs on mage gear.

Continuing the theme of block+ augments on mage gear:

You have no idea how angry I am with you.

I am now angry with myself, something tells me this is karma.

A slightly edited repost of my post over on BG...

LS member of mine got this. All my envy.
+10 block chance...

Did SE really think about this one? That Augment is equivalent to about +47 shield skill...

This has some fairly major implications for PLD and the current Shield Hierarchy.
Mind you, it's limited by actually having to get a full set of that augment via wtf random darkmatter augs.

Depending on the answers to a few questions that is.

1: how does Block+ interact with Reprisal?
Possibilities,
formula 1: (Base+BlockPlus)*Reprisal mod(1.5)
formula 2: (Base*Reprisal)+BlockPlus

Obviously, we'd prefer #1, as it yields greater gains.

2: Can Shields aside from Ochain actually hit 100% block rate?
Personally, I've been dismissing the existence of a block rate cap due to both Ochain, and the rates I've observed that were far higher than the old supposed 65% cap.

However, I have not actually seen capped block rate on anything but Ochain. In the few Priwen reprisal tests I've done, Priwen did Not cap block rate, even when the reprisal formula and Priwen bonus given by SE indicated it should be.

So, needs verification.

3: Is there a Block damage reduction cap?
The Block damage reduction on many newer shields has only been calculated, and never to my knowledge, actually tested.

And Srivatsa kind off begs the question of if there's a cap.
*BTW, there was an error in my Srivatsa evaluation post I made on AH awhile back. I had the block damage- a 92. Based on the factors is should actually be 98.
If there's not a cap, then wearing either of the +3 shield def bonus pieces with Srivatsa would push you to 100% block dmg-.

So, a bit of speculation.

IF we assume optimal answers to these questions... those being
1:Formula one
2: Yes
3: no cap
Then there are some interesting possibilities.

So.
+10 block rate 0n 5 pieces. Toss in Thureous earring for +52 block.
Let's say lvl 126 mobs.

Ridiculous.

Priwen(and Ochain for that matter) loses it's advantage since Srivatsa would also be capping.

Further, since Srivatsa should be well over capped with Reprisal up, you can drop piece of block+ and wear +3 shield def bonus for -100% block damage.

At this point we'd be looking at literally, Directional physical invincibility. To anything that's blockable that is. If this actually works, it'd make PDT(and Burtgang's PDT II) pointless. <,<;

Even moving up to 133 mobs, it's more of the same.
*note. Base rates are calculated based on my 133 sample for Aegis.
So not hard data, but a good start

Still enough leeway with reprisal up to drop 1 piece of block+ for SDB...

SE, did you think this through?

Still this thought does depend on a lot of factors.
Have to get optimal answers to the 3 questions, and then some crazy, or just crazy rich, *** has to actually make a set of this stuff on random as hell DM augs...

That aside, here's a look at the general shield Hierarchy when you have +52 in block+ gear.

There are probably other shields that are in the running now that just didn't have the block rate for it before, but I don't really care to go through them atm.

I'd say that for most of us, this doesn't change much. At most you might get 1 piece with decent block+. and if you do, it's probably best in slot, defensively, depending on what shield you're using.

But getting good enough augments to really change things would be a nightmare. Interesting possibility though.

Introducing a hypothesis based on the above: perhaps blocking feeds into the DT-87.5% cap? I'd be shocked if block reductions were calculated after that cap, but if so... that'd be broken as hell.

There's pretty much no way Blocking can be included in the 87.5 cap. It's a separate term.

I mean, Aegis blocking alone already puts you at -81% dmg. and we've long observed that PDT still helps after that.

Now, that doesn't mean that block dmg- doesn't have it's own cap, which is what I was wondering about. But it shouldn't have anything to do with the PDT/DT caps.

I just got +8 on the odyssean head with phalanx +2.
Didn't keep it. One of the most painful decisions ever.

One of the older and first block rate tests I did back in 2011 seemed to imply that Aegis capped off at around 75% block rate. Back then, I was under the impression of the 65% block rate cap as well, and assumed Lv90 Aegis was granted a +10% block rate boost that bypassed the 65% block rate cap; obviously we know today this isn't true and Aegis never received any hidden block rate boosts.

Assuming there really is a 75% block rate cap, another question could be if the utilization of Reprisal or Palisade would allow you to temporarily bypass the cap while under these effects.

Well, here's the thing.
Back when Ilevel shield skill+ was first being introduced, I did some tests on the test server. This being when Killedar had 215 skill+ for a brief time before SE realize what that would do...

You may refer to that test Here

Long story short, 84.23% block rate, on a size 3 shield. No reprisal or anything. Cap? What cap? 65%? 75%? Must be 85% then?

It seemed to me at the time, that as long as you could get enough shield skill block rate would just keep going up.

Perhaps the issue is with reprisal? Maybe there's some kinda limit on how much block rate it can yield. Or maybe I just need to do more tests and I'll start seeing 100% with priwen. Mind you, the pwriwen reprisal test I did wasn't capped, but it was very very high. 98.44% as it were. which... is still not capped.

Btw, the non-reprisal block rate for those mobs(wimpy little 109 CHigoes) was 54.37%.

54.37*3=163.11
Should be waaaay capped. But not. But... 98% makes for an awfully strange pseudo-cap. I say pseudo, cause Ochain can cap. so there shouldn't be a hardcap... what gives?

Interesting! I never came across that test, but it does seem to prove that there is indeed no block rate cap. And yeah, that is very strange that it would cap off like that around 98%. The maximum gain granted from reprisal sounds like a very plausible theory to start with, otherwise there must be some kind of funky hard-capping or diminishing returns going on internally in certain parts of the block rate calculation.

Oh, I had another test.
Priwen on 126 mobs,

Base:30.21
Rerpisal:85.25

A gain of 55.04 block rate. it almost matches the *3 value for Priwen, but not quite. It does at least show us that the gains from reprisal weren't capped on the last test. Prior test, 44.07 block rate gain, this time 55.04...

Yeah, I really don't see why the first test didn't cap.

Man, you suddenly have made me want to get an Aeonic, previously I didn't really care that I wasn't getting escha clears :/

By all means, go for it. But keep in mind, you'll have to get some reaaaally good augments to make the thing worth it.

Hmm. I checked, and you'd need +22 block to match reprisal Priwen on 126 mobs, or +31 on 133 mobs.

To Cap block rate on Srivatsa(assuming you can) you'd need +28 on 126 mobs, or +38 for 133 mobs.

Note, values are for reprisal up Srivatsa, assuming optimal answers to the reprisal formula, etc.

So at least you don't have to max it, but still you need pretty good augs.

Your data does show though that the predicted output is lower from what you'd expect, and since it isn't a constant cap between the two samples, it makes me wonder if reprisal has some sort of decay mechanism and SE only revealed the initial maximum value when you first cast it.

If it does decay, whether it's through time or based on a percent of the remaining spike damage it has left before wearing off, that means you would effectively never be able to parse a 100% block rate with reprisal (assuming you weren't already 100% before casting) due to decaying effects.

I'm just speculating at this point; it could very well just have a set maximum block rate gain and variance caused the samples to conflict, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

On another note, if one could actually achieve a full 5/5 set of successful block +50, and assuming there aren't any hard caps preventing you from utilizing the full +50, how do you think Aegis would fare?

I would assume it would become the most desirable shield for most content, as it would effectively let you mitigate the most overall damage through both PDT and MDT (in both TP and spells).

Of course for fights where magic damage isn't a factor or threat at all, Srivatsa would be your go-to shield.

Near the end of my post on the block+ augments there's an image showing a comparison between major shields with +52 block on 133 mobs. Refer to that for Aegis.

It's work I know, but since PLD is one of the two main jobs I play in game (BLU being the other), I wanted to offer some possible suggestions for the gear portion of this guide.

On the BLU guide, he lists "dream tier", "top tier", "high tier", "mid tier", and "low tier" equipment pieces for the main gear sets, like TP, WS, MAB, spells, etc.

It effectively turns into a "top 5" list for each equipment slot. They encourage you to use the best option that you have for each slot (although the dream tier is typically +1 abjuration gear and other difficult to obtain pieces).

Is it possible to slowly but surely work on this for this guide? I know some have "alternate" sets with gear that is easier to obtain but it would be nice to see some options one has if they don't have some of the pieces listed. I think for PLD useful tiers would be good for DD (I know, loldd), Tanking, DT, WS, and enmity would be most helpful.

Phalanx is a DM aug only on Odyssean gears or can get from stones.