PLD Idle Body Piece.

Was wondering what the best option for a body piece would be to Idle in other than ares because that is unrealistic atm for me. any and all suggestions with reasons welcome. :)

*Edit* Currently using I.R. body

Depends on the situation. Do you have hate, what are you fighting are you meleeing etc.

Anything with accuracy for atonement tp gain. Haubergeon +1, Homam body, Haubergeon to name a few. Haubergeon cost like 200k yet is a better body piece than Ares for paladin. I could be wrong, but I can't think of any use or space for ares body in my pld item sets.

Enmity crap for job abilities and spells. ( don't be afraid to blink like a christmas tree)

Assuming you're meleeing;
Idle: Hauby +1
If you have hate : Hauby +1
If you dont have Hate: Hauby +1
When you're Casting Shadows: ACP Body
When your Performing Enmity Actions: I.R. (ACP if flash)
Atonement: I.R. (No the enmity wont make it do more damage, but you will get more hate for the DMG you do)

Not Meleeing;
I.R. or ACP

To elaborate Equivator's post more about having or not having hate body piece - it doesn't matter what you wear, because your shadows are up you better just keep the accuracy.

now most of this advice is based around /nin, but it works out for other subs as well.


if you're able to TP on the enemy and make use of that TP nothing beats haubergone+1, N-O-T-H-I-N-G (ok, almost nothing, if you have excalibur, then homam is the better TP piece to use). NQ haubergone is a decent alternative.

another alternative TP piece is homam corrazza, most ppl tend to overlook that it will help with CE loss if you take a hit. it also has a decent amount of acc, but no atk set it slightly behind haubergone+1 mostly because pld's low attack value.


I.R. hauberk is decent starter piece to idle in if you plan on taking damage and aren't relying on dealing damage for hate, mostly because the increased HP value helps to reduce CE loss when you do take damage and it's a relatively easy piece to get.

most likely the best body piece to idle if you're planning on taking damage and/or can't deal damage to for hate, would be the valhalla breastplate. DO NOT cast Uts.-Ni, Flash or any other spells which having a low recast matters while wearing this, best to swap to I.R. hauberk for any actions. (the same rules apply to valhalla helm, idle piece only.)

after valhalla, darksteel harness +1 is a piece too often overlooked for similar situations where you plan on taking a lot of physical damage. likewise avalon breastplate or coral scale mail +1 would be a good piece to idle in for enemies that use a lot of magic damage. nothing beats straight damage reduction gear in the situations noted, though it may be somewhat wierd to look at yourself idle in it, lol.


ares's cuirass is a decent piece to idle in if you need the refresh effect, nothing really beyond that.


after these pieces, nothing really matters too much (I don't think I've missed any of the important pieces any way). these pieces are relatively easy to obtain aside from valhalla and ares's, you'll probably have to camp the AH for a while for darksteel and coral scale, avalon isn't as tough to find but it's pricy.

edit: just incase I wasn't clear, this is IDLE ONLY, for any action you take you'll want to swap to the appropriate piece.

If you can TP on it then never swap the Haub out. But as for idle otherwise, if you don't have Ares's then there's very little really out there. Could consider some pieces for +HP in case you get hit by a sudden tp move, more HP = less enmity loss. Or buy a darksteel harness (+1), with -3-4% PDT. Only other option I could think of would be Hydra haubert for the refresh effect.
When you get the bigger items, use Ares for low mp, and valhalla otherwise.

/nod !

Depends sub anyway and assuming your healing support like blinking Tank ! And what you can obtain with spending time on Event.

/war sub old school >> easy to have ( AF+1 / ACP bdy )
/nin sub with Atonement i said Hauby , ACP for Flash and Recast Shadow, I.R for Enmity action.

Btw FFXI is so situational and depending on Stuff ... is the difference with a Pld Relic Shield/Sword D.Ring who can spam Ato and Tanking with a DD Stuff, and a classic Pld who need lot of set and maccroing for a good issue.

But ! Pld is a play Style Job if you doing a good job on your ls with xyz Stuff and enjoy it, your are on the good way !

PS: Sry for fault ^^;

its called refresh. thats the sole reason ares is the best idle body piece for pld.

Only if the Refresh is better than the extra damage/hate from Atonement.

Ares vs Hauby is basically like Parade Gorget vs PCC. Which is better depends on your support and the situation.

Yeah, 1mp/tick vs something like 15 accuracy. Silly me, how I've been so blind...

Idle when you're not meleeing yes, it's situational. Also kite idle maybe coupled with parade gorget, but it's not what the topic was about.

I have all 3 body pieces: Ares's, Homam, and Haub+. From experience I never find myself using Haub anymore (i even removed from macros due to space concerns) and only use homam sparsly.
I totally agree with Rusko on this and I don't understand the problem. If I cannot hit the mob enough that the acc would make a difference then i just spell up hate. Flash is 25 mp or 75 seconds worth of Ares's. I don't know HOW you're hitting 17 extra times in 75 seconds to accumulate the tp for an additional atonement but i would love to know. Actually, I am willing to bet i can get 2-3 additional flashes or ever a Cure IV kit spam in the time you would benefit one additional atonement from my misses.
I also have homam and sword merits to bolster my acc which the OP may not but I will never understand the obtuse way some people villify others for having a relevant point. There isn't ALWAYS only ONE way to do things regardless of what certain forums might spout. In this case I think you both make good points but points that pertain to how you play and gear. I just don't think that you should be smearing mud on his POV and tainting the OP from being open minded about it.

Sorry if this sounded hostile I'm avoiding boss aggro at work and trying to get my point accross ><

You are basing your point assuming people run out of mp every fight?

Sorry if I misunderstood, my head is a bit borked today but it sounded like that. Hardly has happened ( also, I'm a tarutaru with 600+ mp pool), unless you keep spamming c4 cheat macro stupidly wasting your mp.

I out of curiousity checked your paladin idle item set on your profile, and you were trying to hit something like that or what is/was the setup for you like? Because the current one seems to lack a lot of accuracy.

How many mobs is it actually that you 'cannot hit enough' to make acc worth it? O.o I admit there's situations where idling in ares is more worthwhile probably, like when you're not engaged to monster. But I assumed OP is a fairly new paladin and looking for general advice and I gave him mine which has worked well and feel it works most situations.

You know he asked which Idle body pieces he should get? Not atonement.

What the hell? xD what is your definition of "idle" on this context?

To me it isn't something you wear when you stand idly doing nothing and gathering mp. To me on paladin it means the gear set I have on while shadows are up to accumulate tp as fast as possible ( when engaged to monster).

I dont consider my TP set an idle set. If you're making hybrid sets to do anything on PLD then you're doing it wrong. It's not /equip haub hey now I'm in atonement gear.
If it's an atonementable mob, you use some variant of acc food and a full tp set. This is mine TP. That's not even the best available and I have no problem hitting HNM.
So "idle" for me is either +refresh or -DT. If shadows are up and you're not performing a volatile action you should be in either one of those, which I believe is what the OP is asking. Ares's is great for low mp for getting a base of +3 refresh with gorget, otherwise if I'm not tping I'd be in some kind of -PDT like valhalla or even MDB if it's a magic spamming mob.

I never mentioned nor suggested anything about hybrid sets so please don't put words in my mouth.

I also have many item sets for different situations, you can check them as well and I dont view them as hybrid at all. tp is what I consider my "idle" set, not the best but the idea is right to me ( minus valor cape, I use amemet+1 as backpiece atm).

If that's what your definition of idle set is, then you're only giving idle set you're not meleeing which is just as wrong then. Your idle set is your tp set when you're meleeing then? My idle set above is for the situation when shadows are up and I am engaged to monster. I assumed he meant when you're engaged to monster, you apparently otherwise and it's silly because we're comparing idle set on different situations.


That's what he asked for.

I have a couple different acc setups depending on the situation (subjob etc). Most are roughly based on my pld dd setup but subbing in suppamouni, ares's mask, homam body (if ever) etc. I normally use pld almost exclusively for kiting and HNM (i didnt post HNM idle set sorry). Those item sets are all old and i change the .txts on the fly.

The real point i was trying to make is that there is no real concrete ONE PIECE for pld body and all situations require consideration. IR body i only use for Job Ability enmity+ macros and when im eating a spell or ultima's JA. He even said Ares's isnt for him i just wanted to point out that I didn't agree with your view on ares's AND that hauby is not always the best piece. It is rarely useful for "me" due to my playstyle and OP should take it into consideration.

Dont get me wrong I'm not trying to be rude, but the word Idle means not doing anything. To be Idle, not there etc etc. Same as a mage Idle. TPing is NOT idle.
And yes, regardless of whether you're engaged or not is irrelevant, some mobs do not take much if any atonement damage. If we go by that logic, do you mean you will engage to TP, then swap to refresh gear when MP is low and suddenly unengage? So yes if I'm engaged, and I wear my idle gear i am still meleeing.

TP set - for TPing
Enmity set - for whatever
flash set - for flash
Ichi/Ni set - for shadow casting
Idle set - none of the above

I've already answered this and everyone starts to blow up a ***storm based on 'experience' instead of doing the math? phailure

That's basically what I'm saying. I just dont consider TPing as idle.

Yeah, there I can agree. :) merely gave the idle body I'd suggest/use ( can't afford ahubergeon+1 atm) most of the time myself.

engaged with mob during fight while you're not taking any action = idle

not engaged in battle = standby

Thank you!

with a good TP build it's possible for pld to reach 100% tp in ~20 sec. of auto-attacking, of course that's not taking into account misses or 0s, haub./+1 helps to deal with both and is clearly the best piece in situations you can tp. the hate equivalent of atonement is roughly that of 3 cure3s, is ares's going to give you anywhere near 138 mp in 30 sec.? flash is going to help you keep/raise your VE, but the cost of shadows basically negates the CE gain, that's what makes cure cheats so valuable in situations you can not TP reliably or it being too dangerous.

hybird builds are completely unnecessary, you lose about 65% of your efficiency using them. either a defensive or offensive set will take care of all situations, macroing gear as needed.

using ares's over a truly defensive piece you end up losing more CE through the damage you take than you would gain from the mp replenished. if you need it that badly your bard can easily split march and ballad if you only have one, in a good casting build you should still be easily capping recast.

Thank you? lol he just basically said your idle is standby.

No he didn't. I said Idle is when you are not performing the following actions:

TPing
Utsusemi
Flash
Cure
JA

He said
YOU said Idle is what you wear when shadows are up. Haubergeon is not an Idle piece, it's a TP piece.

/facepalm

Yes, yes I do and as far as I am concerned, engaged to mob while not taking any other action = TP O.o


sidetracking badly now, needs a new topic for this silliness.

agreed, lol