~First And Final Line Of Defense V2.0~

i think is still better, like Priwen shield skill + allow you to block more often than Aegis ^^

If you already have Ochain/Aegis I wouldn't bother with the Skirmish shield hell Priwen should be better if you can keep reprisal up.

Max tanking augments on Svalinn doesn't measure up with what Priwen offers.

Priwen:
DEF:65
HP+30
Shield skill +112
Enhances "Reprisal" effect (3x block rate, +50% spike damage)
"Phalanx" damage reduction +2
Damage taken -6%

Svalinn:
DEF:65
Shield Skill +112
Enmity +7
PDT *or* MDT *or* BDT -5%
Chance of Successful Block +? (unknown value)
w/e Duskdim augment you want, lots to offer per your style.

Priwen is the pretty clear winner here, since it's incredibly easy to keep up Reprisal (unless the mob is Dispelling constantly), Phalanx damage reduction adds up over time, and overall DT-6% is just plain better. Chance of successful block is pretty bad, comparing it to the old skirmish shield.

If you're comparing it to Ochain, I still think Priwen is the superior shield, given that you generally only "need" Ochain when you're super-tank and don't need the MP return. You can still hit recast time on Reprisal with only Haste 1, easily with Haste 2. Again, this is provided the mob(s) aren't frequently dispelling Reprisal.

tl;dr Priwen > Ochain > Svalinn

Priwen isn't better than Ocahin, the reprisal augment lets it compete with Ochain for sure but it's definitely inferior.

Svalinn is close to ochain with +10 to block rate(also has higher def which means more damage absorbed, and the shield skill lets it have a pretty high block rate on harder targets, probably 70-85% but i haven't parsed) but probably still inferior, it's definitely better than Priwen.

Assuming "hitting recast time" means pushing the recast below the duration to fulltime reprisal...

25% gear haste, +33% fastcast, and haste I, reprisal recast is 1:31. With Shabti Cuirass+1 for a 1:06 duration, that's 25 seconds of downtime per cast.

With same gear and Haste II, recast is 1:08. So a 2 second gap. Which while small, is still not full time, much less easily. Unless you're using /RDM or /SCH for some bizarre reason.
Svalinn, even with perfect augs, isn't even in the running.

There are two scenarios here. Reprisal up, and Reprisal down.

Reprisal down, Ochain wins. Period.

Reprisal up, Priwen wins. Although, there's still something to be said the sheer reliability of Ochain's 100% block rate with reprisal up. Even though it averages less total dmg reduction that Reprisal up Priwen.

The only conditions under which Svalinn could match Ochain, are the same conditions in which Priwen would kick the crap outta it. Specifically, Reprisal up on low enough level mobs.

Svalinn is a place holder for, or lazy PLD's alternative to, Ochain. And considering the potential cost of getting good augments, and the ease of acquiring a Priwen, it's really not a worthwhile one.

I have upgraded my phalanx equipset
ItemSet 335002
Phalanx skill 370/370 = 35/35 + phalanx+ 11/17
Total 46/52 with Shab. Cuirass +1.
so we can improve the phalanx capacity by using Yorium Cuirass to reach 55 phalanx max.

Your numbers are... really weird.

370 skill is a 30 dmg phalanx. The 30 tier being at 358 skill, so you've actually got excess skill+ in that set.

Max phalanx + gear is +22. 5 yorium with +3 each for 15, + the 5 on Weard mantle, and then +2 on Priwen. But you don't usually want to swap in priwen. So normally +20.

Max possible PLD phalanx without light arts is 52. With light arts is 52. With lightarts, +20 enhancing skill and lightsday latent on neck it's 55.

i have used FFXI calculator 4.26 to get the +35 value
so i need to make some change on it ;_;

Hey I'm back! So I tanked a 128 UNM (vdflonsalkfn- ilvlRok >.>) and I came across another Blu taking hate! Blu's man, they're scary.

We popped a bunch of times so i was able to test some stuff out. Here's a quick synopsis(bare with me);

1st pop:
Not really trying too hard to tank and started with Chev body. After a while I notice Im taking some dmg.So i decided to swap in cab body. As i go into my equipment set menu (no GS?! noob!!) I miss a flash/voke/reprisal and bam!- the blu takes hate. He turns i get my taunts and JAs/spells going again and we're good.

2nd pop: I try harder and he doesn't take hate till late in the game. I told 'em to go all out so I hope he was actually pushing it for these tests.

3rd pop:
This time, ready for the monster, I switch in my creed collar (today i noticed i actually swapped in my agitators) and adjust other pieces to keep pdt cap (ended up over cap) before pop. Using atonement to see if enmity was capped or not i thought of switching in chev but decided against it. Very smooth pop did not loose hate.

4th pop:
This time i get brave and decide to wait till enmity is capped (full atonement dmg) and swap in chev. I miss a voke/flash but i did sentinel as i switched so i was good. We continue *but as soon as crusade wore off the monster turned to the blu.* I usually never let crusade wear off so this was new to me. I noted that he did a CDC and vdfolner had hit me with a physical attack at around the same time that crusade wore off.

5th and onward:
Without letting crusade drop and keeping hate capped i was able to swap in chev body without a problem.

Two things to note: I think with creed collar i would've been gravy from the start (minus laziness
Blu did not have full buffs for last few

What to take away:

-Chevalier isn't too hard to cap but I do need to take back what i said about full timing.

-+Enmity's effect on enmity loss is now extremely potent as it was almost instant that i lost hate when crusade (enmity +30) wore off. I also suggest when tanking with crazy dps to swap in your creed collar, even if you're already wearing chev pants as chev pants is sometimes not enough.

-It seems Blu's either have hate generating spells or the dmg enmity nerf doesn't phase their raw damage. Ive yet to loose hate to anything else but i wonder if I'm just not running into that many people of these Blu's calibre.

I noticed it took about 3 rounds of flash and voke (with initial JAs ofc) to cap enmity with dps on mob. I imagine its faster if you're by yourself.
I also notice that having agitators on with chev might've been saving my *** but i was using atonement every so often to make sure i was capped and doubt this was ever the case.

Hope this was useful information

BLU has access to the most potent enmity generation in the game. The list is way too long to even go into detail here, but suffice to say that they have a myriad of tools for hate. That being said, they really shouldn't be using them when in a party with a PLD. Unless they were intentionally using fantod, wind breath, exuviation or any of the other powerful enmity tools, it would seem that their damage alone was enough to take hate. And yes, BLU is arguably the strongest DD in the game at the moment, so when playing with a good one, you will need to be on top of your game to take and keep hate.

For the record capped Atonement damage does not require capped enmity. It didn't take anywhere near 10K ce/ve pre-update to cap atonement damage. It may take x3 as much now, but capped atonement still doesn't mean capped CE/VE.

Also, it has nothing to do with who else is there. Atonement is based off of a percentage of your CE/VE compared to the cap. The presence or absence of other players on the hate list is irrelevant.

BLUs have one of the largest selection of enmity generating spells in the game. Particularly those high in CE. Thing is, you're almost never going to see a BLU use any of them. The majority of them aren't common use, or even commonly set.

But all in all, your post tells us very little. There's a notable lack of any kind of quantification. This is far less a test of any kind than a "Here's how my NM fights" went account. And if that's all you intended then that's fine. But there's insufficient hard data there to support any of your conclusions.

An NM fight makes a terrible test environment. Enmity is enough of a pain to test in the first place. Add in all the random factors of a combat situation and you're not gonna pull any kinda verifiable data outta that mess.
FFXIcalc's enhancing formulas are painfully outdated. values above 300 skill will be off.

So, I obtained a Mercurial sword from the NNI today. Tell me more about PLD completing the Vagary boss skillchain prerequisites... What kinds of gear sets are you using? Which skillchains follow into each other like Jinpu x4-5?

It's about SC properties, you need two WS's that are on opposite sides of a two way relationship like scission <-> liquefaction, scission <-> detonation or transfixion <-> compression. Look up Aden's Renkei chart to get an idea of the relationships.

For Sword you can use

Seraph Blade (Scission) <-> Red Lotus Blade (Liquefaction)

And infinitely skillchain from it.

For Great Sword you have

Sickle Moon (Scission) <-> Freeze Bite (Detonation)

For Polearm you have

Raiden Thrust (Transfixion) <-> Penta Thrust (Compression)

Other weapons require someone to be a bit more creative in chaining different properties together. The whole "Jinpu!" thing is because SAM gets a sh!t ton of TP and Jinpu is on both Scission and Detonation properties so it requires no thinking to do.

Our group use's two BLU's and a tank to do both T4 and T5 so we typically pop using the Seraph Blade <-> Red Lotus Blade method (a single BLU at max haste can do it by themselves). Skillchains are very important for killing both of those MB's and they change their weakness's so it's useful to have a set of melees that can generate multiple types of SC's on demand.

BLU's are currently one of the highest DPS jobs, if they build themselves right. It's not a job that can be bandwagoned because of it's immense learning curve, lots of levers, switch's and dials that can dramatically swing performance in number of directions (physical DPS, magic DPS, SC focus, self healing, tanking, ect..) depending on the environment. Because of that you tend to see exactly two types of BLUs, horrible ones and raptor jesus ones, very little in-between.

That all being said, BLU's happen to have some self buffs like Cocoon and Natures meditation that's enmity wasn't reduced. Also enmity from healing is extremely potent right now, so much so that "cure cheat" kits seem effective again. I know a PLD that use's one of those extremely well.

Man i love this thread I keep learning stuff lol
Welp sucks i didn't bring much to the table but hopefully i inspired someone more qualified to take a shot because yeah I really just felt it was a valuable post enmity change experience I should share.


Yeah for real I only ever see beastly Blus, anything else i never notice lol.

I've yet to make a cure cheat myself. though i get how it works and think its useful i dont feel hard pressed to make one. If i feel i need one i might make one.

Reposting my test from BG

SE sure did a lot for Enlight this update. Enlight job points, a second Divine skill gift, and hands with +20 Divine skill.

New max Enlight II.

ItemSet 333814
Right at 500 skill in this set with merits, and both Divine gifts. Once I get Eschite Gauntlets, they'll replace hands along with 3 +5 pieces. My inv is quite pleased. I'll probably replace legs/feet first, so I don't lose Ilvl stats while casting Enlight

On a related note, and this might be old news, but it was a surprise to me: Kaiser diechlings can get up to +6 divine magic skill. Wikis all say up to +4, I know it has been posted on these forums that it can go up to +5. If necessary I can fiddle around and figure out how to post a pic, but I just got +6 this morning.

Why you make me do more synergy? ;-;

Well, 1 skill doesn't make or break any tiers for my sets, so I'll probably pass on getting +6 till it matters.

I would like to see a screen shot if you don't mind posting one at some point though.

sorry you just made me think of this with the title but i love it.

Thanks. I guess I'll go update some wiki's.

Just tried Borealis Shadow tonight and got pretty destroyed by the NMs. I'm trying to figure out what I could do better next time and one thing that I'm not sure about at all is if Reprisal's spike damage will ruin super tanking or not. I think I may have been too conservative with trying not to mess up super tanking and it got me killed on the attempts I tried so if anyone can give some general advice for this fight I'd greatly appreciate it.

Were you in full PDT? What shield were you using? I know the first time I did Borealis Shadow with friends I got destroyed too but that turned out to be the GEO taking an action on an unclaimed mob and it going a bit crazy.

From what I've seen, one starts off claimed so begin with that one, then make your own judgements on whichever is causing the most problems, potentially magic casting ones but the RNG seems to have a habit of shooting someone other than the PLD, including WS.

Not really sure why, all the others would just sit there and wail on the PLD if no action was taken at all, even one time I moved my WHM mule out of range, it ran over and WSed her.

Not sure if that was a bug or intended behaviour.

Use reprisal. Spikes won't put you on the enmity list, and they don't generate enmity. So they won't affect supertanking at all.

I was using Ochain as I had seen some discussion of Aegis vs Ochain on the NMs. I hadn't really thought of it at the time but my PDT set was around 40% when I was fighting the NMs last night as my Gearswap file was outdated so I'm working on correcting that so I'm at 50%. The group was killing the mage first but I hadn't really paid attention to the fact that one popped claimed so I'll need to do that next time.

I appreciate the help and confirmation on Reprisal. I had been told in the past that it wouldn't affect supertanking but I couldn't for the life of me remember since I play on and off so much.

Why not be the person to pop it? I found supertanking it much more manageable when popping it on pld. Didn't have any issues with one randomly pulling off when doing this except when players mis-targeted.

I've done this fight a few more times since I made my original post but my issue was never with keeping the shadows on me. I knew about supertanking them so I was always popping them so they'd all start on me.

Anyway, after I sat down to work out my PDT set (among other things) this fight went really smoothly the few times I did it again. The only remaining issue is that I did die once to the warrior shadow getting a 1k Rampage off on me that SC'd into a 500ish Distortion while I was below half my HP. In the other attempts, the warrior never did that much to me in a single weaponskill and I can't help but wonder if I had positioned myself wrong as the warrior was just off a little to my side and slightly angled while attacking me. Does anyone know how much to the front of you a monster has to be in order to be blocked?

a pld + ochain and you can't tell if you are blocking or not after few seconds engage with the mob, I guess all those third party tools need some improvement.