PLD Idle Body Piece.

http://www.ffxiah.com/item_sets.php?q=idle

Mage Idle: Refresh, MP+, Physical Damage Down
Melee Idle: Seems mostly TP sets.

You could argue that. But the point I'm trying to make is to TP a mob efficiently you need to be wearing a TP set. By that I mean, acc rings, body, Homam, Haste, PCC etc. With my TP set, assuming I had capped sword merits, I attain 86.3% accuracy on birds. That's way way lower on HNM. Even with food. so if you're not TP in a TP set then you won't hit at all.

An Idle set is when your main purpose is not to accumulate TP. For example, I'd engage Khimaira, but it takes 50% atonement damage and likes to wipe TP a lot.

The purpose of an Idle set is to either mitigate damage or regain MP/HP. I have 3 Idle sets, since I don't own Valhalla gear. Ares's cuirass/Gorget/Herc ring for my refresh idle, IR stuff for my MDT idle. And darksteel for my PDT idle. The last two aren't important unless you fight something that wipes shadows a lot. The refresh idle is important since ***happens and you will run out of mp.

Also, since the OP used IR body as an example, I'm assuming he means an Idle body, not a TP body.

ergh, I wouldn't really suggest idling in mp gear unless it had other valuable stats. it just becomes useless after the first few casts. but, that's pretty much a given, lol.

to clarify things.


offensive set:

food: accuracy
idle: acc = haste > atk > refresh
ichi cast: shield gear > damage reduction gear > hp
ni cast: haste > shield = hp
flash: haste >= enmity
cures: enmity
atonement/spirits: enmity
job abilities: enmity
taking magic damage: elemental resist kit if viable > -magic damage% > magic defence bonus > hp
stand-by: refresh >= regen


defensive set:

food: +hp or defensive
idle: damage reduction > hp > refresh
ichi: same as offensive
ni: same as offensive
flash: same as offensive
cures: same as offensive
atonement/spirits: same as offensive
job abilities: same as offensive
taking magic damage: same as offensive
stand-by: same as offensive


party buffs are going to be more or less the same in either situation.

of course there are also other sets, but they'll more or less be based on the defensive set with alterations for the task at hand.

It seems that most of this debate is based on what the word "Idle" means and because Lessil has not just cleared this up my idea is that it comes from the 3rd party tool Spellcast. The Idle set is what your job will use while not engaged. Some lower end spellcasts my use the idle set to TP in as well but with experience you are able to set up another set based on when you are engaged on a mob. If this is the case I agree with others that claim it is mainly based on situation. I also agree with Abriel because this has turned into a battle of experience and not about the idle sets. I personally Idle in Damage taken - gear and I have never had a problem controlling hate enough to rely on dmg to hold it. This may be different for many other people based on the crew they play with and their play style. IMO Abriel has answered this question perfectly. The only thing I would add to his sets is Valor Surcoat. If you are low on MB and fighting Tia I use Valor Surcoat to macro in while he is in flight. I then cover my other Paladin and get the MP conversion from taking dmg. Again, that is my play style and it may differ from others but this wasn't a question of who has the bigger penis but a question of different bodies Lessil could use.

ah, yeah, I always forget about valor surcoat (I hadn't worked on making my pld serious 'till I.R. hauberk came out, lol).

but yeah, a defensive build is normally more than enough for almost any situation. offensive builds are mainly there to help counter melee hate gain (although it's not fool proof and good melee will always catch up given enough time), giving you the ability to reliably cap CE quickly and keep it up while allowing you to better conserve mp should the 'oops' situation arise, lol (it will also allow you to more significantly contribute to damage, but that's a given). the main down side to the offensive build is that you become a paper tank, shield blocks can't always save your ***, lol.

An idle set does the same thing engaged or not. This doesn't need to be more complicated than it is. The question was answered long ago, IR Body, Darksteel harness are the readily available bodies for the OP.

As of the moment i do not have Atonement, and have fairly easy access to M.body and Valhalla gear. I have heard that ACC. gear is amazing for when i get atonement and will drastically change the playstyle of PLD. As for "Idle" i mean when im not doing anything to the mob, and all shadows, etc... are already up. Sorry for the confusion of the meaning of "Idle."

Then since you said you can't get Ares, consider Darksteel harness for phys mobs, IR for khim etc. valhalla trumps both though.
And yeah, use haub when you get atonement (but not fulltime).

clearly needs more hydra halberk =P.

I use an accuracy setup when I melee some HNMs and tbh, considering I use lolcrab sushi, have sword skill of 297 and have lots of accuracy in my gear, thanks to homam & acc rings.. I am able to idle in Parade Gorget and (once i get my Ares 25 from the stupid boss) Ares Body.

Right now I rarely miss a swing but I hit for a lot of 0s. I usually melee wearing Haubergeon, but I removed it recently to test if I can still land shots on HNMs consistently with sword to build TP for either Chivalry or Atonement as needed. For me, I can get away with it, which means I would likely idle in Ares Body once I complete it. The STR+ and attk+ boost allow opportunities to hit for less 0s as well.

Remember, not every PLD has the same merits and gear as others in this forum. So a one-size fits all build won't work for every PLD.

That got my attention.

At any rate, for Idle, not doing anything to the mob, just standing there (disregarding Ares), those are the two best pieces in the game, with V Plate > M. Body.

Unless I'm forgetting something, which is entirely possible.

there's no point to ever using M.body outside of macroing it for rampart or charm.

there's no way pld is hitting capped hit rate in nearly any situation. using the best acc gear, pld can hit ~380 total acc, assuming dorado sushi doesn't cap before +60 acc (there's a high chance it may) that will bring overall acc to ~435. now 435 acc is a very decent number, but it's not going to get you capped hit rate in nearly any situation that you'll really want a tank job for, and remember that's using all the best acc gear that pld has access to.

every miss and 0 adds appx. 0.4 sec. to your auto-attack time in reaching 100% with joyeuse. with no multi-hit proc.s or store tp that's ~1740 delay or 29 sec. joyeuse's proc. rate is an estimated 45%, now taking appx. 12 rounds to reach 17 attacks for ~1230 delay or 21 sec.
now let's start factoring in hit rate, at 95% it's going to take an estimated 13 attack rounds to hit 100% for ~1330 delay, 23 sec. at 91% it will take an estimated 14 rounds at ~1430 or 24 sec. at 85% estimated 15 rounds for ~1530 or 26 sec. at 79% estimated 16 rounds at ~1630 or 28 sec.
going from 95% to 91% is ~10 acc, 95% to 85% ~20 acc, 95% to 79% ~30.

unfortunately it's not as easy to calculate the rate of which you'll land 0s because pDif range hasn't been fully explored since the last time SqEx screwed with it.


you're probably thinking, "that's not that much.", but if you pull it apart, that's nearly an 8% increase in delay at each of those hit rates.

also note that this is only counting auto-attack time, every action taken is going to increase this time.

an increase is an increase and a decrease is a decrease, don't try to mix them up because it took forever and a day for you to get a piece of R/E gear that looks nice.

note: these numbers clearly aren't exacts, I rounded every thing to give the lowest benefit for obvious reasons.

God this thing has degenerated.

yeah, sadly people get confused when they start taking advice without doing any research =/

Besides if you can't tp off the mob you should probably have a nin/drk tank anyways

I'm not going to touch that discussion for obvious reasons, hahaha.

Also if your gunna have a melee tank relic sam/war with constant seigan third eye ftw! Wut want to make something of it?

nope, let me just pull a relic sam outta my butt first, lol =P

Is that where they are kept? No wonder there are so few can't hold too many in there

yup! and I have no *** to begin with <.>

No ***? Did you have *** cancer and they had to remove it!?!

nope, it's more like it never grew in to begin with, it gets really annoying 'cause ya end up sliding off most chairs. the up side is that noone can say that they kicked your *** \o/ ::flexes and a few baloons under his shirt pop:: ...

Idle = not doing anything

Vermillion Cloak
Dark Staff
Parade Gorget

..and /heal

BTW: I R Back!

@ Chaosx That's downtime gear, Idle is another word for TP gear however theyre not the same. It's basically what your wearing when your not doing anything that requires macros, which is why it and TPing are commonly lumped together because generally that means DD. Vermy isn't plausible because of Eva- on HNMs and Gods, thats just deadly but Ares' is good. IR is good, Hydra Haubert, Ares, Homam, theyre all good though I wouldnt use Hauby +1 if your tanking.

@_@

PLD doesn't evade... enemies miss. The mobs you quoted will have high or more likely capped hitrate on a PLD even if they tried wearing EVA gear, a little -eva wouldn't do ***. There are other reasons Vermy usually isn't idled in when engaged.

haha, that's been one of my slogans since 2003, "plds don't evade... the enemies miss...". but yeah, he's right, -eva on gear has no effect on pld in instances where you would need a dedicated tank job.

Learn something new every day, NQ haub is better than Ares for PLD idle, who knew!?

If you have Iron ram that is a pretty solid body piece in all fairness, especially if you don't have atonement unlocked.

Work on that grab a TP set Haub/Pcc etc and you are in business.

Ares is a brilliant idle piece when put together with Parade gorget though, 3 Tic refresh and then add refresh and ballad on top is pretty much unlimited mp on any mob. Anyone who says otherwise obviously doesn't have it or doesn't know how to use it.

People are so blinded by Atonement it is annoying, FFXI is situational, some mobs you TP on and are free to do so without them being much of a threat, others not so much and are much better tanked in idle/emnity gear with the occasional Atonement when chance arises.

and I'm guessing you haven't read through the whole thread yet.

Yeah if you had you'd realize relic sam is the best tank anyways. Followed by nin/drk